Rogue Dungeon: Troll Nation (Chapters 16 - 18)

Chapter 16

The Floating Isle

Roark spent the remaining few hours to dawn pointedly ignoring the way Zyra was pointedly ignoring him. Using Danella to take a jab at his eventual return to Hearthworld was a low blow, whether she understood what Danella had meant to him or not. Worse—or equally as bad, he couldn’t decide which—was Zyra’s recklessness with her own life. They were walking willingly into a prison where death was forever, and she refused to take it seriously. 

If the Reaver Champion wanted a reason he couldn’t take her back to Traisbin with him, it was that. In a land like Korvo, with a man like Marek at the helm, she wouldn’t make it a month.She would say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong set of ears, and then she would be snatched away, her feet dangling as Danella’s had—and that was the best-case scenario. The Tyrant King and his ilk had worse torture’s than that for those who truly earned the ire of the Empire. No, better for her to hate him and stay. 

Kaz tried to draw Roark and Zyra both into conversation several times, but received only minimal, monosyllabic answers that led nowhere. Eventually, the happy-go-lucky Behemoth gave up and settled in to the tense silence. The three of them spent the rest of the night brooding alone together.

Just as the sky outside the portholes began to lighten enough to see the underside of the dock they were moored to, a cry went up on deck.

“Prepare for launch!”

Moments later, there was a great wooden scraping. The gangplank being pulled up. 

“Casters at the ready!” The voice paused. “Depart!”

Multicolored lights flashed, the spells momentarily shifting the glow coming through the portholes into the hold from gray to flares of pink, purple, blue, orange, and red. The hull gave a great lurch, Roark rocking with the movement, and began its journey.

Though the ferry was a great, lumbering beast of a ship, whatever magic powered it kept it moving through the waves at a fast clip. Roark pressed his face up to the porthole, watching as the vessel sailed out of the harbor and into the open ocean. Sprays of salty water splashed up into his face, matting his shaggy hair to his skin, but the novelty of traveling by sea was too delightful to be angry. Though it was hard to forget that he was in a prison transport, on his way to incarceration, this was a dream. In no time at all, his black mood had washed away. 

The farther from land they got, the higher and harsher the waves grew, until the ocean spray was a near constant thing.

A small claw-tipped hand grabbed Roark’s shoulder and jerked him away from the porthole. A moment later, Zyra was emptying her stomach out into the waves. Roark cringed as at least half of it came splashing back in to soak her.

“Shut up,” she snapped at Roark and Kaz when she dropped back into a sitting position. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach and her face was ashen beneath its deep midnight color. She dripped, shivered, and dripped some more. Even her horns seemed wilted and sick. “Don’t say a word or I’ll Death Scratch your tongues out. If you think I can’t like this, just try me.”

Kaz turned bewildered eyes at Roark and opened his mouth. Roark was certain the Mighty Gourmet was going to say that he hadn’t said anything, but instead Kaz sat down beside Zyra and began to gently pet her dripping hair like someone trying to soothe a feral cat.

Roark got out a Sufficient Healing potion for Kaz. He wanted to be ready for when Zyra made good on her threat.

But little by little, the Reaver Champion relaxed into the Behemoth’s side. Until eventually she put her head down on his tree-trunk sized thigh and closed her eyes. If he hadn’t been certain by now that Trolls couldn’t sleep, Roark would have wondered if she had drifted off.

Seeing Zyra sick and vulnerable did strange things to Roark’s insides. She looked tiny just then, fragile. Some of it could have been juxtaposition with the enormous brute petting her with a hand big enough to crush her head and most of her shoulders in one squeeze, but most of it was her defenselessness. Roark stifled a smirk. Zyra hated even the appearance of weakness; if she knew seeing her like this made his urge to protect her almost overwhelming, she really would kill him.

And yet, as thorny as she could be, Kaz’s simple kindness had calmed her enough that she’d stopped being sick and threatening to poison them. Roark would have given a lot to have the Behemoth’s instincts when dealing with Zyra. Maybe then he wouldn’t end up fuming every time he spoke to her.

“That’s it!” a shout arose on the opposite side of the ship. “I see it!”

Bilgewater splashed as most of the prisoners on Roark’s side of the ship leapt down into the muck and sloshed across to jostle for space at a porthole. Exclamations of shock filled the hold, and the sound of pouring water roared through the space as if they were trapped inside a waterfall. There were authoritative shouts up on deck, but the words were lost in the noise below.

Though he was fairly certain no one was paying attention to them, Roark leaned toward Kaz and lowered his voice until just the two of them—and Zyra, if she was awake—would be able to hear it over the din.

“I’m going to go scout for possible escape routes. I’ll be right back.”

Kaz’s eyes went wide, not with fear, but admonition. He put a huge finger to his lips, then pointed down at Zyra. Roark raised his hands in surrender and nodded.

As Roark slipped down the curve of the wooden hill they’d climbed up to their dry spot, the forward momentum of the ship changed. The horizontal axis tilted without warning, and he fell over backward into the stinking sludge. He scrabbled for purchase on the steep sides of the hull, but a strange weight seemed to be pressing him back into the water. It was as if he’d suddenly gained a hundred pounds.

With some effort, Roark managed to jam his fingers into a crack between planks and claw his way to his feet. The climb up the opposite side of the hull wasn’t much easier, but finally he made it to a crowded porthole. With his Jotnar size, shoving his way to the circle of daylight was less of a chore. He elbowed one persistent opponent aside, then looked out.

At first, Roark couldn’t understand what he was seeing. White water churned on the surface of the ocean, and foam capped the waves. Then he spotted a dark shape covering much of the water. A shadow. But the shadow was growing smaller, and the waves getting farther and farther below.

The ship was lifting off. The churning water was being shed by its enormous frame as it pulled itself up out of the ocean. And that diminishing shadow must be…

Roark followed the shadow’s trajectory upward, and his jaw dropped.

The island glistened and sparkled like a pale gray-green ice gem in the early morning sunlight, a shockingly beautiful form in spite of its grim function. The entire structure was shaped like a bottom-heavy diamond, its lower point much wider and longer than its upper. The ferry was still at least a half-mile away, cutting a diagonal from the ocean to the island, but Roark could see tiny figures moving around inside the sea ice, distorted by the glassy exterior. The figures stayed on an invisible horizontal plane, and after a few seconds’ study, Roark realized none of them strayed outside of a small area to either side. He saw a few leaning against invisible walls.

That fit with the layout Mai had given Kaz—heavily occupied cells on multiple floors. Roark scanned the shiny gray-green exterior of the prison for openings. Sewage or trash dumps, hidden exits, anything that would get them from locked up inside to free and clear outside once they had Variok. 

To the naked eye, the external, icy walls of the prison were smooth and featureless. Though he was forced to admit that could just be a trick of the ice.

The ferry closed in on a jetty poking out into the open air, where a multitude of olms in Legion of Order plate mail and pristine tabards stood waiting, their weapons at the ready. The guards. One of obviously lower rank, heaved a great rope at the ferry. Roark watched it sail high above the portholes. Someone on deck must have caught it, because a few moments later, they were being reeled in toward this strange sky dock.

Roark searched the crown of the floating island for potential escape routes, but didn’t even see a single hiding place if they did manage to make it out of the prison. It was nothing but more gray-green ice, though this in a much smaller, more jagged cone than the bottom half of the diamond. The same thin, white sea-foam snow that had been covering every structure in Frostrime was dusted across the top of the island, a sharp contrast to the the guards swarming toward the dock.

“’Ere now, give us a look,” growled some impatient bellend behind Roark, trying to shove him aside.

“Pick another window, mate,” Roark said, dropping his Illusion Cloak. It was going to expire soon anyway, and if Mai was right, Chillend had anti-glamour spells that would disrupt it. He whirled on the pushy rog, serrated teeth bared, twisted, leathery wings opening instinctively for maximum intimidation.

The rog stumbled backward and landed on his ass in the putrid bilgewater.

[Congratulations, you have unlocked Intimidation Level 1. With Intimidation, beings with an Intelligence of less than .25 x your Intelligence suffer Fright for 30 seconds. Sometimes a big enough bark is all you need …]

Roark blinked away the notice, realizing as he did that across the ship, Zyra was sitting up. Seeing she had his attention, the hoodless Reaver made weak applauding motions cheering on his outburst.

Pleased in spite of himself, Roark dipped his head in a fractional bow, then turned back to the porthole. One last glance outside to make sure he hadn’t missed anything obvious that they could use during their getaway, then he left the circle of light behind. He splashed down into the filth, the cowed rog scrambling out of his way, then returned to Kaz and Zyra.

“We’ll have to find the way out once we’re inside. If there are any tunnels, hatches, or exits, they’re as clear as the walls and damn near invisible from out here.” He nodded at Zyra. “How are you feeling?”

“Like used ale,” she said, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands. “But not quite as likely to vomit on myself as before.”

A boom echoed through the hold, startling them all, and the ferry lurched to a stop. A moment later, the grate opened in the deck and a thick barred ladder dropped down, a set of iron hooks at the top holding it in place.

“Any prisoner who doesn’t come willingly will have his or her fine doubled,” a bored voice shouted down matter of factly.

Slowly and with no small amount of grumbling, the other prisoners drifted toward the exit. The first to arrive, a pale elf missing the pointed half of his left ear, begrudgingly stepped up and began to climb.

Roark looked from Kaz to Zyra. In both faces, he saw a reflection of his own grim determination. In a few short minutes, they would be under lock and key in the one place in Hearthworld where mobs died forever death. If something happened and Roark couldn’t get them free again, failing the jailbreak quest and not founding a settlement would be the least of their worries.

Roark set his shoulders and hoped he looked more confident than he felt.

“Let’s go to prison,” he said.

Chapter 17

Blankets, Blankets, Blankets

Roark climbed out onto the deck of the prison ferry, the bright sunlight that glinted off the ice island piercing his eyes after so many hours in the near lightless dark below. Wind howled in his ears and tugged at his wings, bringing with it the hissing, scratching sound of tiny ice crystals blowing across the wooden deck.

Kaz stumbled and would have fallen if Roark hadn’t grabbed him under one massive arm and righted him. As it was, they nearly both went down under the Behemoth’s weight.

“It is so bright out here,” Kaz said, rubbing his onyx eyes with his enormous fists. The Mighty Gourmet tried squinting, then closing one eye while looking around with the other. “Kaz can hardly see anything.”

“Tell me about it, big guy.” They turned to find Zyra standing behind them, both arms thrown over her face to shade her mismatched eyes. “Is this what you hoodless Trolls have to deal with all the time?”

“You get used to it,” Roark said.

The hoodless Reaver didn’t look convinced.

“Prisoners disembark first,” a Legionnaire shouted above the wind. “Move to the immediate right at the bottom of the gangplank and form two orderly lines before the Intake Curator. Visitors, wait until the prisoners have been received before disembarking and seeing the Visitation Curator.”

Falling silent, they joined the slow shuffle of prisoners toward the gangplank. Several were already shivering in their threadbare rags, Kaz and Zyra included. Even Roark was forced to admit to a slight chill. They would be out of the wind once they made it inside, but he imagined the cold of the Permanent Hoarfrost would slowly seep in to even the hardiest of bodies. It was no wonder Mai’s husband had succumbed.

The gangplank squealed and shifted treacherously beneath their feet. Far, far below, Roark could see the choppy waves of the ocean foaming like tiny snowcaps on distant mountains. Would it be possible to make a run for the edge of the island and leap off if they managed to escape the prison with Variok? That brought up another question they would need answered before making their jailbreak: Could Variok swim?

Moreover, if they jumped and perished in the choppy frozen waters below, would they die forever death, or did that restriction apply only to the interior prion grounds proper? Roark had no answers, but he would before long. If his time in the Resistance had taught him anything it was how to discreetly gather information.

“I see what you’re thinking,” Zyra said from the side of her mouth as they stepped down onto the surprisingly solid ice. Her voice came muffled through her face-shielding arms. “Did the Legionnaires who arrested you use a Paralyzation Spell? The ones who arrested me did. I’d wager our jailors learn it their first day on the job.”

Roark nodded. “Just exploring every possibility to make certain we don’t miss an opportunity.” He glanced around at the other prisoners and the Legionnaires watching their progress. Several were taking note of Zyra’s strange posture. “Take your arms down. You’re drawing too much attention to us.”

She gave a grunt of disgust, then unfolded her arms and squinted at the island around them. Slowly, the watchful stares turned to other more interesting sights.

“Better?” she snapped, eyes nearly closed against the blinding light.

Roark blinked, realizing he’d been staring at the way Zyra’s skin glittered under the sun like velvety ink mixed with crushed sapphires. 

“Much.” He turned his attention to Kaz.

The Behemoth had his enormous arms wrapped over his face in a musclebound caricature of Zyra’s pose.

“Perhaps you weren’t the one drawing attention,” Roark said to Zyra. “Kaz…”

Kaz’s shoulders slumped. “All right. But Zyra’s shading tactic was working.”

The three of them fell in with the second row of prisoners, facing a red-orange olm in plate armor so shiny that it glinted fire in the harsh sunlight. The Intake Curator.

“Prisoners, welcome to Chillend. In a moment, you will be sorted into groups of four and installed in your cells. Your cell is your home until your fine has been paid. To pay your fine, see myself or any other Legionnaire. Any misconduct will result in an immediate doubling of said fine. Mobs and NPCs, be forewarned, you will not respawn if you die in Chillend. Heroes, if you die in Chillend, you will respawn in Chillend until such a time as your fine has been paid. See that you act accordingly.”

The Intake Curator turned to a yellow olm. “Intake address completed. You may begin the sorting when ready, Cellmaster.”

“Thank you, Intake Curator,” the yellow olm said dipping his head respectfully. He stalked down the line, counting off four prisoners at a time and assigning the groups a number. 

Roark hurried to count the prisoners remaining. There weren’t enough ahead of them. If he didn’t do something, Kaz would be sorted into a different cell from him and Zyra, which could spell disaster for the party and the mission.

He leaned around Zyra’s back and tapped the shoulder of a dark elf in threadbare rags that matched his own.

“Switch places with me.”

The elf wouldn’t look at him, just stared straight ahead and mumbled, “Shove off.”

Roark pushed Zyra out of his way and took a menacing step toward the elf, spreading his twisted, leathery wings and hissing.

[Congratulations, you have successfully Intimidated a level 7 Vennexim, or dark elf. All victims of Intimidation with less than .25 x your Intelligence suffer from Fright for 30 seconds. Sometimes a big enough bark is all you need …]

The elf scurried into the spot on the opposite side of Roark.

“You there,” snapped the Cellmaster. He had stopped dividing up groups halfway down the second row. Now he stalked toward Roark. “Troll? We haven’t had a Troll in ages. Name?”

“Rebel_of_Korvo,” Roark answered.

“Rebel_of_Korvo, your fine has been doubled for stepping out of line. You will not be released until you have paid the full amount.”

A scrap of paper with a corresponding notice announcing that Roark’s fine was now sixteen thousand gold appeared in his vision, but he dismissed it. He didn’t intend to be around long enough to pay a fine of any size.

By the time the notice was gone, the Cellmaster had already returned to his task as if nothing had happened. Eventually the Cellmaster made it to the Trolls, assigning them and a burly rog to a cell before passing on to the next group.

When he finished, he nodded to another olm Legionnaire with purple skin. “Cell assignments given. You may begin ingress when ready, Entry Supervisor.”

There was no doubt a pattern was emerging. Roark couldn’t fault their love of orderliness, but the efficiency cost of their execution was too severe to stand for.

Put me at the head of this prison and it would be running like a top in a week, he thought.

The Entry Supervisor explained in exhaustive detail how to follow him double-file through a door, then warned them once more that their fines would be doubled if they stepped out of line. Literally and figuratively, Roark gathered.

When finally the lecture ended, they followed the purple olm to a low, peaked rise of gray-green ice and down a set of stairs cut into the island. From there it was through a door made of the same glassy Permanent Hoarfrost.

Roark heard gasps coming from the front of the line as they stepped inside, but he didn’t see what the uproar was about until the pale elf in the line beside him passed through the doorway. Instantly, her shining beauty melted away, revealing a squat, green, wart-covered creature with massive forearms, tiny legs, and an arrowheaded tail. The nameplate over her head now read [Imp Enchantress]. 

If he hadn’t dismissed his Glamour Cloak, the same thing would have happened to him. Roark wondered idly whether the illusion dismissal was part of a Curse Chain ability similar to his, but he didn’t see any telltale runes scratched into the ice.

Beside him, the Imp Enchantress suddenly doubled over and retched brown muck onto the icy floor.

“Can’t cast anything in here,” the rog behind Roark told her. “Smack your Magick down midstream, and that”—he pointed at the muck she’d thrown up—“is your reward for trying.”

The Imp Enchantress looked at him through bleary eyes and wiped her chin before shuffling around the quickly freezing brown pool.

Roark twisted to look over his shoulder at the rog who’d been assigned to his, Zyra, and Kaz’s cell.

“Been in Chillend before, mate?”

“Just once.” The rog chuckled. “But spellcasters learn their lesson pretty fast here.”

Roark grinned. “I’m happy enough to learn from others’ example.” He extended his hand. “Rebel_of_Korvo.”

“Yevin.” The rog grabbed his hand and shook. “Wait’ll you see this, Rebel.”

Roark was about to ask what he meant when their section of the line came to a curving balustrade, and he got his first look at the interior of Chillend Prison.

Mai had described the place as tiered, and she’d been mostly right—looking down, Roark could see floor after floor of cells circling the central empty space—except the floors weren’t separate. They were all connected, a part of a slow spiral curling down to a point at the bottom of the flying ice island.

The double lines of prisoners followed the Entry Supervisor down the spiral path, icy balustrade on their left and cell after cell on their right. Perfectly square cubes of gray-green ice with no obvious entry or exit. Careful not to seem as if he were looking for anyone or anything in particular, Roark glanced through each cell for Variok. Inmates paced the interiors, huddled shivering in corners, exercised, or passed the time playing cards with one another using scraps of parchment.

As they rounded the corner down to the third loop of the spiral, an elbow dug into Roark’s gut.

“Down there,” Zyra hissed, flicking a hand out as if she were throwing a knife.

Roark followed the trajectory of her gesture. Another hundred yards ahead, down on the fourth loop of the spiral, near the inner wall of a cell, sat a pale elf in threadbare rags. At first, Roark didn’t recognize him. Then another inmate crossed the cell and said something to the elf.

The elf’s face split in a too-wide, toothy grin. Variok and the other inmate began to haggle.

Roark felt his own face mirror the merchant’s. Even in prison Variok was trader to his core.

He nodded at Zyra to let her know he’d seen their target, then slipped a little closer to the cell side of the sloped walkway. As they passed Variok’s cell, Roark rapped a knuckle on the ice wall.

Variok and the other inmate looked up at him, and for a moment, the elf’s face showed nothing but confusion.

Then recognition lit his features, and he threw his arms open wide. 

“My friend!” Variok’s voice was muffled through the ice. “You clean me out in Averi City, then you come to icy hell to steal my woolen blankets!” He shook his finger. “For anyone else, I charge one ration a day for three weeks, but for you, I charge only two weeks! What is wrong with me? The cold must be going to my mind, I cannot afford to take such losses on such quality blankets!”

“I don’t need a holey, motheaten blanket that badly,” Roark said, falling easily into the merchant’s expected back and forth. “Two weeks without one less meal a day will see my skin gnawing on my bones.”

Variok boomed laughter. “You come see Variok in the cafeteria later to take advantage of this blanket madness before he gets his mind back!”

“Prisoner!” The Entry Supervisor snapped, stabbing a finger at Roark. “Get back in line. Your fine has been doubled.”

Grinning to himself, Roark dismissed the accompanying notification and rejoined the line between Zyra and their rog cellmate.

For all his bluster, Variok was a genius. The merchant had just given Roark a time, place, and the perfect cover to meet and discuss escape at length right beneath the guard’s noses.

Chapter 18

A Handsome Profit

Here and there throughout the spiraling walkway, cells stood empty. Whenever they reached one, the Entry Supervisor halted the dual lines, called out four of the prisoners, then pressed his hands to the flat, glassy ice wall. Sparks popped, and a line of glowing steel-gray light etched itself into the Permanent Hoarfrost from the floor up, taking a hard right turn just before it hit the ceiling, then when it reached the width of a human’s shoulders, it took another turn and plummeted toward the floor. When the sparking, popping light sizzled itself out, a door of ice as thick as Roark’s hand swung open to admit its new inmates. The Entry Supervisor would then remove his hands and the door would swing shut, disappearing immediately, and returning the gray-green ice wall to a solid sheet.

Roark, Kaz, Zyra, and the rog Yevin were placed in a cell near the bottom of the island’s inverted tower. Below them was a view of the drop to a watery death, and in front of them, at the center of the spiral, lay an open area divided by long tables. Two wide ice shelves jutted out of the walls, one on either side of their cell, clearly meant for sleeping, and a thinner shelf ran along the exterior wall, just the right width for a bench. That was it. Nothing else though. No books or tables. Not even blankets. Which explained Variok’s bustling trade, since it was cold in here, not to mention a touch damp. Now that Roark was in a cell, it wasn’t at all hard to see how prolonged time spent in this hellhole could result in a premature death. 

Maybe Marek could learn a thing or two about tyranny from this world after all.

As the door slammed shut behind them, Roark studied the Entry Supervisor’s wrists and fingers. One of the purple olm’s rings or perhaps his bracers must control the magic that manipulated the unbreakable, unmeltable ice, but Roark didn’t find runes or precious stones affixed to his jewelry. Nor any set into the walls themselves. Perhaps they were etched on the inside, hidden from prying eyes who might want to duplicate the enchantment—or alter it from inside a cell.

“So, Yevin, was it?” Zyra asked, plopping on an ice shelf bed protruding from one of the see-through walls. “What are you in for?”

The rog took a seat on the bench and leaned back against the icy exterior wall, outlining himself with the sunlight glinting through the ice.

“I turned one of my apprentices into a frog and refused to turn him back,” he said, shrugging. “He did deserve it, though. That idiot could’ve taught dunce caps how to stupid.”

Roark’s ears pricked up. “You’re a trainer?”

“For magic, sure,” Yevin said. “I’m an Arcane Paragon—I specialize in alteration magic. Fancied myself an adventurer once, until some soft-brained hero shot me in the knee with an arrow. Damn thing still swells up before it rains. Training is the only real way for us lazier magic types to make a decent living. Helping heroes clear dungeons with a trick knee is a fool’s game, and I don’t have the right mentality for the service industry, so owning my own shop was out.”

“Gry Feliri says that when in doubt, kickin’ service with a smile covers a multitude of culinary sins,” Kaz offered.

Yevin nodded. “I like to think he meant the ‘kicking’ literally. I mean, seriously. The customer is always right? What if they’re a moron?”

“So you train people to use magic?” Roark steered the conversation back on course. “Do you have a base of operations? A city or settlement you work out of?”

“Used to.” Yevin snorted. “That was what landed me in here the first time.” Yevin paused, eyes narrowing in suspicion as he regarded Roark. “Why? Are you hoping to hire a magician?”

“Might be. I’m working on founding a settlement for my kind,” Roark said. “Mobs, that is. It’s a bold move, I’ll admit, and risky, but we’re closing in on success, and it will give us all an even footing with the heroes. We already have the master artisans and a few of the skill trainers required, and we’re about to get a merchant, but we could use a magic trainer.”

Yevin tugged at his chin. “What’s the pay?”

“Whatever you make training, you keep,” Roark said. “Plus a share of the money we make from griefing.”

“Aha,” the rog said, a grin stretching across his green features. “You’re not the Rebel_of_Korvo, you’re that Troll what everyone’s been talking about.” He snapped his fingers. “The one from that Citadel, what’s his name? Richard? Raden? R-something.”

“Roark,” Kaz offered with a toothy grin. “Roark the Griefer, the greatest Dungeon Lord in all of Hearthworld.” 

“Yep, that’s the one,” Yevin said eyeing Roark anew, a glint of approval in his gaze. “Got to admit, I’ve been admiring your style, friend. The heroes are the dimmest embers in the fire, always trying to buy levels in idiotic magicks they’re not equipped to use and asking me if I enchant things.” Yevin rolled his eyes. “Do I look like an enchanter?”

“You won’t have to deal with them in the Citadel, and you’ll have access to all the perks that come with settlements.”

“You’ve sold me,” Yevin said. “Get me out of here and I’ll do it.”

                                                                                       ╠═╦╬╧╪ 

Prison Break II: Double Down?

Yevin the Arcane Paragon has offered to join your Settlement as the local skill trainer if you can free him from Chillend Prison.

Objective: Free Yevin from Chillend Prison and return him alive to the mainland.

Reward: Yevin’s loyalty, 5,000 Experience, and Unlock a Special Magical Skill

Failure: Fail to free Yevin from Chillend

Or let Yevin die in the process of being freed

Penalty: Lose Yevin’s loyalty, Training with Yevin permanently locked

Restrictions: None

Accept quest? Yes / No

                                                                                       ╠═╦╬╧╪

With a thought, Roark selected Yes.

“Wait,” Zyra said, hopping up from her seat and grabbing Roark by the arm. “You’re not considering saying yes to that, are you? We don’t even know that he’s telling the truth.”

“I already accepted the quest,” he said. 

She threw up her hands. Roark was so used to reading her body language rather than her hidden face that he almost missed the faint expression of worry amid the anger in her frown.

“If five of us are going, you might as well invite the whole prison along,” she snapped, hands planted on her shapely hips. “While we’re at it, maybe the guards would like off the island as well. Have you asked them?”

From the bench, Yevin chuckled. “I like her. Fiery.”

Roark ignored the paragon.

“He’s a skill trainer,” Roark argued with Zyra, brow furrowed. “He’ll join us if we get him out of here. What possible down side can you see to that?”

Before the Reaver could answer, a trumpet blast like a warhorn rang through the prison, shaking the icy walls and the floor beneath their feet.

“Inmates will now proceed to the lower floor for breakfast.” At the highest level of the prison, a Legionnaire was shouting through a cone of ice, his voice amplified and bouncing off of the gray-green walls of the cells. A slight echo followed it, less than a heartbeat behind his voice. “Any misconduct, jostling, or line-jumping will be punished with an immediate doubling of all involved prisoners’ fines.”

As the last ringing words faded from the air, blinding steel gray light flashed and all the cell doors in Chillend swung open as one. The inmates who’d been around for more than an hour left their cells and began to descend the spiral toward the tables below.

Kaz stared at the open door as if it might be a trap, then turned to Roark.

“It’s like this every mealtime,” Yevin said, standing to his feet and heading out into the open prison. He stopped just outside the door in the flow of traffic and turned back, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the gray green ice long tables. “Food’s this way, cellies. Come fill those bellies.”

“Kaz is hungry, Roark,” the Mighty Gourmet said. “I cannot wait to see what food they are serving. Do you think it will be good? Hopefully they do not skimp on the salt.” Kaz’s face turned very serious. “Prison is one thing, but bland food is the greatest of all crimes.”

“Let’s go find out.” Roark nodded sharply. They had an appointment to keep with Variok.

The three Trolls followed the rog into the cafeteria. Plates had been arranged all down the long table with what looked like beans that had seen far too many reheatings and a pair of mealy potatoes the size of coins.

Inmates were already taking seats at the benches running down the length of the tables and digging into the food. Yevin gave them a wink and headed off to join up with someone he knew, presumably from his previous stay.

“My friends!” Variok shouted. They found him on the opposite side of the cafeteria waving them over. “I saved seats for you! Now we can discuss business while we eat, one of the most noble mealtime pleasures—and good for the digestion, too.”

“Not if you’re still trying to charge us twice what those threadbare blankets are worth,” Roark returned at a volume only slightly lower than Variok’s shouts.

He dropped into the seat next to the merchant and dug in to the food. It was cold, right on the verge of frozen.

Kaz, who’d taken the seat across from Roark, poked at his potatoes. “Jordan Bamsey says that if one cannot serve a meal at the correct temperature, one is not allowed to call oneself a chef.”

“No offense, Kaz, but I doubt whoever makes the food here is even a cook,” Roark said.

The Mighty Gourmet turned up his nose at the fare. “It is also bland.” 

Zyra, on the other hand, had already scarfed hers down. 

“What happened to service with a smile covering a multitude of sins?” she teased. She pointed to Kaz’s plate. “If you’re not going to eat that, I’ll just take it off your hands for you.” She scooped the bean goop onto her plate and popped the potatoes into her mouth. “It’s nothing like your feasts, Kaz, but it’s filling the hole that seasickness left in my middle.”

“My discerning friend,” Variok said, pointing his spoon at Kaz’s now-empty plate, “You seem like the type of Troll who recognizes quality food when he sees it. For a very small fee—so small that it is stealing food from the mouths of my yet to be born children—Variok can get you any spice you may need to turn this rubbish into a meal you can palate.”

“Can Variok get salt?” Kaz asked.

Roark leaned forward. “The two of you can haggle for overpriced spices later. For now, we’re on a mission.”

Variok boomed laughter and slapped Roark on the back. “I see what you are doing, my friend, pretending that you do not want the salt. Very clever! Fine, Variok will drop his price even further. I must be losing my mind to go so low! You will send me straight from Chillend to debtor’s prison!”

“I’m serious,” Roark told him. “We’re here to break you out.”

Roark expected the merchant to be surprised into at least momentary silence, but this revelation didn’t faze Variok one bit.

“Ah, I knew we would be wonderful friends from the day I first laid eyes on you,” he said. “Averi City has always been a place of luck for Variok. I was arrested there, yet it was also where we met, and now it has sent you to rescue me the one time I have no way to pay my fine. Blessings be forever upon the Averi City Market Place!”

Across the table, Kaz was nodding in agreement.

“Kaz understands,” the Behemoth said. “Averi City was where Kaz first met skewers, so he has similar feelings for its market.”

Variok turned to Roark. “So, my friend, how do we exit this frozen hell?”

“I haven’t quite worked that out yet,” he admitted. “We found a second skill trainer as well, something of a sorcerer who we’ll be bringing along as well. How many times a day are all the prisoners allowed out of their cells like this?”

“Twice,” Variok said. “In the morning to break the fast and again at sunset for the evening meal.”

Roark nodded. “And are there any sewer systems in this prison for the waste? Rubbish chutes? Anything large enough to crawl out through?”

Variok frowned, his pale brow furrowing with thought.

“There is the body hole, where the dead are tossed into the sea,” the merchant said, pointing to the far side of the room where a mound of ice rose from the floor. “But it is like the doors to our cells—only the Legionnaires are able to open it.”

“Is it their rings?” Roark asked. “I also considered their bracers. Some enchanted item of jewelry or armor that triggers a spell or hex with preset conditions, like the dimensions for a door or body-dumping hole. If we could get our hands on—”

“Oy, it’s the big-mouf critic!” The chef Roark had seen scowling on the prison hulk swaggered over, flanked on either side by cronies. “Wotcher, big-mouf?” He gave Kaz’s meaty shoulder a shove, then smacked aside the plate Zyra had emptied onto hers. “You can eat this slop, but my deliciously crafted entrees don’t quite measure up to your standards?”

Kaz didn’t turned around, just frowned down at the table silently, enormous hands flexing open and closed.

“Back off,” Roark growled.

“Wasn’t talking to you, was I. Can’t you hear me, big-mouf?” The chef flicked Kaz’s ear, despite the fact that the Behemoth was easily twice the Chef’s size if not more. “Your ears are massive enough you shouldn’t ’ave any trouble wif that.”

His cronies howled with laughter, but Kaz only leaned away from the chef.

Zyra was on her feet in a flash, poisoned claws extended and glimmering in the morning light. “I hear there’s no respawn here. Care to test that rumor out, or were you hoping we’d just beat you soundly again and send you to bed?”

The chef pulled out a rolling pin and slapped it against his palm. His cronies produced pans, skillets, and even a stove length of wood.

“Oh, I don’t fink you lot’ll be beating anybody this time, dearie. Not with the weapons our enterprising friend there sold us,” the chef said, nodding at Variok.

The elven merchant turned to Roark and raised one finger as if to forestall any accusations. 

“In my defense,” Variok said. “I turned a very handsome profit.”