Chapter 3 – A New Perspective
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As the elf sat in the dark mage's dungeon, she once again lamented her position. It had been two... three months since she was brought here, had anyone even noticed she was gone? There... weren't many that would care, but her brother should be looking for her. By now he would have left Sylva, maybe hired a few mercenaries to look for her. He would look for her, wouldn't he? Would he even bother, she wondered for the thousandth time.

 

She was drawn from her thoughts as a patch of pale yellow caught her attention, a brighter colour than anything else within the dungeon. An old piece of parchment, placed on her lap. When? By who? She glanced furtively throughout the dungeon, seeing only the other two captives. The cell hadn't been opened, there was no way someone could have delivered the note without her noticing... yet here it is. With no answers about its origin forthcoming, the only thing left to do was read it.

 

The first half was written in what might be the local human tongue, something she could barely recognize let alone read. The second half, luckily, was written in her native tongue, but clearly not by someone familiar with it. It took her a few minutes of work to understand the meaning of the note, but eventually she figured it out.

 

When you have read this note, eat it. Do not allow Farkas to find it. I want to kill Farkas, but I need your help. Will you give it? Write your response in the dirt while Farkas is asleep, I will see it.

 

The elf read through the short note again and again, stopped only by the sight of the human slaves rousing. She glanced at them, back down at the note, then shoved it in her mouth before they could see it. The other two couldn't be trusted with this.

 

Another long day simply sitting in in the prison, exchanging what little conversation she could with her fellows. She knew only a few words in their tongue, and them even less in hers. Even if she could speak to them she doubted she would do it much, they had long since been broken. From what she could gather they both had been born as slaves, trained from birth to never question their master or go against orders. As sad as it was, they couldn't be trusted. If they learned that she was attempting to escape they wouldn't hesitate to sell her out to the dark mage in hopes of gaining a few extra bites of stale bread or the chance to have their chains loosened slightly.

 

When the dark mage came to fed them, he once again brought the creature with him. The thing was growing at an alarming rate, easily as tall as the man's hip now, a mass of tendrils and teeth that had clearly been touched by the Void's darkness. The thing gazed around the cell with its blank white eye, studying each of the slaves in turn, seemingly searching for something. The elf recoiled from its gaze and the cold, calculating thoughts almost visible swirling through whatever passed for the thing's brain. The dark mage, for his part, simply placed the usual hard bread and bucket of water within reach of the chains attaching the elf and the two humans to the wall and walked away, calling something to the creature as he left. After another moment of study the thing followed him, and the elf was glad to be free from its presence.

 

Before long the human slaves once again hunkered down to sleep. For the hundredth the elf was amazed by their ability to tell night from day in a cell so far from the sun's light. Perhaps they didn't know and simply slept whenever it felt right regardless of the actual time, but she preferred to think they somehow knew. If they knew then she could keep track of the passage of time based on their schedule, and knowing how long she had been there offered her some slight comfort. That night, however, she had something to accomplish beyond simply watching the humans sleep. She dragged her finger through the dirt on the cell's floor, leaving a few worlds letting whoever had left the note know she was willing to help them and not to trust the humans, then settled down to rest and wait for a response.

 

The elf waited through the night, half watching where she had written out her note and waiting to see if the mysterious person it was addressed to would appear, but there was no sign of them. When it was nearing time for the humans to awake she sighed, preparing to wipe away her note in the dirt- and paused. Smiling, she read the two words that had replaced her message.

 

Be prepared.

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