Explorer of Edregon

"Now see, this is how you lock up a petian," Scule called down at them, his cage swinging slightly as he rattled the bars. "Those stone villagers could learn a thing or two from these guys."

Rolling his eyes, Vin looked around the small clearing Trod had left them in. Shia and he were each bound to separate wooden posts shoved into the ground, their arms painfully manacled behind their backs. Scule on the other hand, had been locked up in what looked like an iron birdcage, and was currently hanging about seven feet off the ground. They didn't exactly have anyone assigned to watch them, but seeing as they were outside, there was no end to the number of eyes that occasionally swept over them.

Vin feared that one of the curious marauders would wander over to them and try something, but it seemed the fear of going against Curash kept the unsavory crew members at bay for the moment.

Speaking of Curash…

After telling the big orc where to put them, the Hunter had wandered off to do who knows what. No doubt leading a group as volatile as the Red Dawn came with its own neverending slew of problems to solve. Vin had no idea if he was off eating a puppy or stabbing a nun somewhere, but he figured it was something along those lines.

"Can you get out of there, Scule?" Vin finally muttered, focusing on his Polyglot passive and ensuring he was speaking Scule's native language. No sense making it any easier for anyone listening in on them.

"Without my cape, I'm a little light on what I can do," Scule shrugged, sticking his head through the cage and squinting at the lock. "I think I can still pick this lock using just my bare hands, but it might take me a hot minute, and it won't exactly be subtle."

"Okay, that's a start at least. Shia, what about you? Any chance you've got any distractions ready to go?"

"Nothing major," she frowned, straining to try and reach the bag of seeds on her hip. Unfortunately, with her arms bound behind her back, she couldn't quite get her fingers on it. "Hold on, I should be able to grow something to reach into my bag."

Just as Shia went to cast her spell, Vin spotted something strange, and he quickly hissed at her. "Stop!"

Thankfully, Shia stopped before using any of her magic, giving him a confused look. Vin merely shook his head, squinting as he tried to peer more closely at the wooden stakes they were bound to. "The wooden stakes… It's faint, but it looks like someone's enchanted them. I can just barely make out the runic formations engraved upon their surface."

"Good eye!" Shia said, her face paling as she realized she'd nearly made a terrible mistake. "Can you tell what they do?"

"Hold on…" It took him a few minutes, and the seemingly constant jeers and taunts from the nearby wandering Red Dawn members didn't exactly help his concentration, but he finally worked it out in the end. "I'm not a hundred percent sure of the full enchantment… But I definitely recognize the runic formation for Sense Magic. If you cast any spells, something is going to happen."

"Well that's just great. No tools, and no magic. We might be demon chow," Scule sighed, leaning back against the bars of cage.

"Not exactly 'no magic,' but yeah, we need to be careful," Vin nodded, craning his neck and confirming his own stake shared an identical enchantment. "Best case, it might just set off an alarm or something. Worst case, these things could be rigged to explode for all we know. I guess nobody knows how to secure prisoners like a fragment of former prisoners, huh?"

"It has to be the work of that Artificer," Scule spat, carefully scanning over his own cage for runes just to be safe. "None of the rest of these idiots strike me as the mage type. And before he volunteers to do anything stupid, don't let Reginald so much as peek out of your pocket, Vin. It's bad enough this place is crawling with murderers, but who knows what sort of traps that Artificer might have left lying around."

"We might not be mages, but we're not all idiots." Before Vin could figure out where the voice came from, a rock came flying from somewhere behind him, crashing into Scule's cage and causing the petian to slam into the bars as the cage swung around.

"Scule!" Vin shouted, gritting his teeth as he struggled to look over his shoulder. Just barely, he could make out a grinning dwarf with a bloodstained hammer strapped to his back, tossing another rock up and down in his hand with his head cocked to the side. He had a human and an orc on either side of him, giggling to themselves like they were sharing some inside joke.

"Bold of you to assume nobody in this entire camp has a translation ability," the dwarf chuckled, shaking his head. "You see, what's the fun in killing people if you can't understand their cries for help?"

"Leave him alone!" Shia called out, staring unflinchingly at the dwarf as he caught his rock, his eyes zeroing in on her.

"My my, the savage can speak," he grinned, pointing at her with his rock. "The one downside to our fragment, as you can probably tell just by looking around, is that we don't have a ton of lumber. I was part of the group that headed over to try grabbing some wood from the weird forest nearby. The others laughed at my short stature, mocking me as they ran ahead to get started while I struggled to catch up. Sure was funny getting to see them choke on their own blood when your kind executed them without warning, though."

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Shia's mouth formed a shocked 'o' as the dwarf chuckled. "Honestly, I'd contemplate setting you free and giving you a fighting chance just to show my appreciation for getting those bastards killed, but the boss gave us strict orders not to touch you. Nothing wrong with messing with your cage though!"

Pulling his arm back, the dwarf pitched a second rock at Scule's cage, barely missing it this time around. Vin sensed Reginald preparing to spring out of his pocket and attack, but before the rat could do anything, the dwarf's two tagalongs began laughing at his horrible aim.

He didn't seem to like that very much.

Without warning, he pulled free his hammer with a frown, and promptly smashed the laughing orc across the face with it. The orc was sent sprawling to the ground, and at least a few of his smaller teeth were sent flying from the heavy blow.

"Is something funny, tusky?" The dwarf asked, hefting his hammer and standing over the fallen man. "If you want to spend some quality time with my hammer, all you had to do was-"

Vin blinked as the orc roared, his muscles bulging as he somehow launched himself from his position on his back directly into the dwarf. The dwarf barely had time to let out a strained curse before he went down under the orc's larger frame and the two of them began grappling. It quickly became evident that the orc had the upper hand, and after pinning the dwarf in place, the orc sank his remaining teeth and tusks into the dwarf's meaty shoulder, leather armor and all.

"Get off me you bastard!" The dwarf roared, doing his best to slam his hammer into the back of the orc's head. The fight happened so fast Vin didn't even have time to contemplate if this was their opportunity to try and escape, and before he could hiss at Scule to get started on his lock, it came to an abrupt end.

The familiar, giant frame of Trod calmly ambled over to the two fighters, wrapping his hulkish fingers around each of their heads and yanking them apart none too gently. Vin was certain that if the two raiders hadn't boosted their respective vigor, that move alone would have snapped their necks and killed them both instantly.

"You know the boss' rules," Trod grunted, looking at the two struggling warriors like they were naughty schoolchildren. "No fighting."

"That bastard bit me!" The dwarf roared, trying and failing to hit the smaller orc with his hammer.

"You hit me, first!" The smaller orc argued, spitting a wad of blood in the dwarf's face and causing him to start screaming anew.

Sighing, Trod held the two of them apart for a moment, looking like he wished he were anywhere but there. Spotting the other maurader that had been giggling beside the orc before all this, he grunted, turning to face him. "Which of these two do you like better?"

"Uh… him, I guess," the human shrugged, pointing at his orc friend after a second.

Without a word, Trod let go of the orc's head, letting the man fall to the ground. Before the newly freed orc could rush the dwarf however, Trod wrapped his hand around the dwarf's neck.

And snapped it like a twig.

Vin's breath caught as the giant orc snuffed out the dwarf's life without so much as a hint of emotion on his face.

"There. Problem solved," he grunted, tossing the dwarf's lifeless body at the orc's feet. "Follow the boss' rules," he reminded them, before turning and walking off once more.

"Curash ain't gonna be happy about that," the human muttered after Trod had gone far enough that he wouldn't be heard. "There's few enough of us left as it is."

"That's Curash's problem," the orc grunted, grabbing the dwarf by the ankle and picking up his dropped hammer. "Come on, let's see what the dirt-dweller had on him."

The human nodded, and the two raiders made themselves scarce, leaving Vin's group alone once more. The entire exchange had barely taken a minute, and Vin could only stare at the bloodstained grass in shock as he tried to comprehend everything that had just happened.

"Gods above, these people are nuts!" Scule hissed, putting Vin's thoughts into words for him. Luckily, it looked as though he hadn't been injured from the initial rock throw, and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the bars of his cage. "We have to get out of here before one of them grows bored and decides to kill us just for fun!"

"Careful, we don't know how many others might have a translation ability," Shia whispered, lowering her voice even further. "At least that dwarf was good for something. Seeing Trod kill him like that gave me an idea. Vin, can you use your golem hand to snap the manacles binding you?"

"I don't know if I can reach…" Vin paused, realizing he was being an idiot. One of the weird things about his new left arm was the fact that his wrist was now a strange ball joint, meaning his hand was capable of twisting a full three hundred and sixty degrees and bending in ways his old human hand never could. Sure enough, a quick check was all it took to confirm he could bend his hand down enough to wrap his fingers around the manacles. "Yes, I should be able to break them no problem! But we still need a distraction."

"Oh, we'll have one," Shia grinned, showing off her jagged rows of teeth for the first time in what felt like forever. "Remember, that Artificer ran off with my staff. Do you recall what happens if someone I don't give permission to tries to activate it?"

Vin's face blanched as he realized that poor dwarf was about to have his face torn clean off by an angry Blossom as soon as he tried fiddling with Shia's staff, and he nodded. "The dwarf looked like it was Christmas morning. It can't be long before we hear screaming. I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened already."

"Then that will be our cue," Shia nodded, taking a deep breath. "Once we're free, we'll need to be ready for anything. Unfortunately, unless we want to leave Blossom and Scule's cape behind, we're going to have to fight toward the source of the screaming rather than away. We'll probably have to kill a few of these guys."

"I'm certainly not going to lose any sleep over it," Scule drawled, shooting a concerned glance at Vin. "How about you though?"

"These guys have made it pretty clear what they spend their free time doing," Vin said, shaking his head and getting relieved sighs from his friends. "Do what you guys have to do, I don't think my boon is going to be a problem this time around."

"Then we're in agreement," Shia said, cracking her neck and doing her best not to let her nervousness show.

"The Red Dawn's about to lose a few more members."