Penelope was back on the streets. The alleyways were blissfully free of flying elbows, sweeping kicks, and passive aggressive shoulders, but they were more difficult to navigate. In her search for a friend, or at least a character reference, she had unwittingly bore witness to three disturbances of the peace, five assaults with a deadly weapon, a potential couple of domestic disputes, and at least one rukus. Most of them, she noticed, began with exclamations following the template, “Hey! You [insert derogatory adjective here] [insert name of orc tribe here] !” before the one doing the calling out engaged the one being called out. She remembered a general background hostility from her time growing up, but this was more than she remembered there being.

“It’s like those battles we would hold with whatever neighbor Justafar would say is overstepping their territory,” she recalled to herself. “It’s just happening constantly now. And we never fought this close to home before. Come to think of it, there were never that many casualties in those battles.” She recalled the ritual preparation of the fighters who were designated to go off to fight. There was careful preparation of dyes to decorate skin and weapons. Special piercings were crafted from rare bones and feathers. Rings for fingers and toes and tusks were pulled from their soft, protective bags to be worn again. Hair was firmly but purposefully braided. ‘Dressed to kill’ was not a phrase known by the orcs, but one that would be readily understood.

She ducked a casually thrown fist, the stranger not seeking to follow through with further violence. She found herself missing Very Small Numbers. The aggression she felt there was more passive, and it was more localized. Chicken, for one, she had never felt uncomfortable around.

Penelope stopped in her tracks.

She had been so distracted with the emergence of her father and the potential to clear her name, she had forgotten all about the kobolds. What were they doing now? Perhaps she did have a friend in the city.

A foot impacted with her shin, but she recovered quickly, cursing under her breath to the sounds of a diminishing chuckle behind her.

Where had they been sent, again?

****

“We have to stay sharp. You’ve seen that instructor of ours. These guards are bound to be a crack team,” Chicken whispered to Amerigo as the pair stalked the corridor outside their cell block.

Amerigo nodded, his face a stern mask. He had left the key in the lock, fearing the telltale clink of metal that would give the two escapees away. He still carried the desert lizard in his hand. It didn’t struggle, opting instead to lick its eyes and fix a lazy glare on the middle distance.

“We’re coming up on a room. I can see some light spilling into the hallway and the door is open,” Chicken said. He was walking with exaggerated care in a half-crouch, taking long, slow strides with his arms splayed. “Let me scope it out. I’ll creep up to the corner and peek around.”

He took two rapid steps to the doorway and carefully glanced around the edge of the open door, and then rewound the movements back to Amerigo.

“There’s four of them,” he said, holding up three fingers for emphasis. “They’re scattered strategically around the room, conserving energy.” He folded his hands and laid his head against them like a pillow. “They have their ears to the ground, obviously alert to escaping prisoners. The ones I’ve seen have their eyes closed. They must be concentrating really hard.”

He drummed his fingertips against his snout in thought.

“There’s a door on the far wall, and there are windows to the outside alongside it. I think it would be worth investigating.”

Amerigo gulped. It felt like he was swallowing his heart, which had been pounding in his throat.

“I’ll go first. I’ll hug this wall. We can sneak under the shelf with those pots on top, and creep past the weapon rack in the corner and the armor stand right next to it.”

Amerigo, in an imitation of Chicken, crept up for a look for himself.

There was, in fact, a wooden shelf anchored near the top of the wall next to the door he was peeking through, laden with clay pots. A clear path did travel under it and around a weapon stand, storing what looked to Amerigo old swords and long spears, and an armor stand, laden with a set of metal armor.

The path went around what was taking up the middle of the room, which was a table with orcs sitting around it in various stages of repose. One had his head on the table, his ear pressed against the surface, and another lay full back in his chair, his slack mouth open.

Chicken came up behind Amerigo and the two shared two very different looks, Chicken with a bright grin and Amerigo with a dark grimace.

****

Penelope had discerned the location of the prison, which she was mostly certain contained her friend. All that lay between her and them now was an ever shifting ocean of hostile orcs.

“I’ve made it this far,” she told herself. “It’s the least I can do for him.” She suppressed the realization that she longed for a friendly face. For one, it made her feel even less like an orc, and for two, it felt too selfish a thought to think.

“I hope I can make it in time.”

****

Amerigo was fervently indicating for Chicken to stop. Unfortunately, the kobold could not see him. This was because he was balancing on top of the armor stand, next to the door on the other side of the room. It was tilted forward to a dangerous degree as the kobold reached to grip the handle.

The armor straps, which had not been fastened, leaving the breastplate only holding loosely to the mannequin, was much more tightly bound around the hilt of one of the swords on the rack. One tug, Amerigo could see, would pull the whole rack over. If a breastplate and several swords hitting the stone floor was not enough, those spears looked just long enough to reach the shelf laden with clay pots next to the door in which Amerigo stood waving his arms and clenching his teeth.

The orcs were still asleep. Chicken teetered ever forward reaching for the door.

****

Penelope, only slightly bruised and having had her reflexes fully tested, finally reached the prison. She prepared herself for confrontation, rehearsing the story she would tell the guards to allow her admittance to the prisoners.

She pulled the door open.

****

“Some crack team those guards were,” Chicken said. “That was heck of a clever alarm trap. Once that stand fell over, and those swords fell over, and that pole hit the shelf and knocked it and those jugs down, I thought for sure we were done for.”

Amerigo walked stiffly beside Chicken through a dark alleyway, white as a ghost.

“I’m beginning to suspect they were actually sleeping.”

Chicken stopped at the edge of the alley, entering onto the road. Amerigo recovered a little from his shock and looked to Chicken for guidance.

“I’ll be honest. I didn’t think we’d get this far,” he said plaintively. “Getting out of the prison was kind of a fluke.”

Amerigo didn’t bother to hide his growing worry.

“But we can make it out of this, I know it.” He patted the gnome on the back, which was less a pat pat and more of a splat splat. He was somehow still wet.

Chicken turned his attention to the streets. He looked at the situation with the trained eye of a scout. There was always something useful to learn if you watched your quarry. Small animals needed the same things as bigger animals, after all. Shelter, food, and water. Everyone just had their own way of getting it, and so a keen observer can find what’s good to eat, where to hide, and where there may be hidden water by observing those who lived there.

“Look at that,” Chicken said, pointing. “The orcs never carry anything. Do you see it?”

Amerigo nodded, but guardedly.

“The goblins and lizardfolk, they do all the carrying. Jars, envelopes, sacks. You see?”

Amerigo did see.

“They’re following their masters.” He pointed out a lizardfolk laden with a box full of sacks struggling to keep pace with an orc in front of him.

“But there are some who aren’t following any orcs.”

After a moment, Amerigo did find a few examples of this. There were lizardfolk going about on their own, seemingly following no orc. He noted that there were no goblins left similarly unsupervised.

“That must mean that some people who aren’t orcs can walk around freely. They’re not getting second glances from the orcs.”

Amerigo saw that they got kicks and cuffs, though.

“Maybe we can use this,” Chicken speculated.

Amerigo made some complicated gestures.

“They thought you were a goblin?”

Amerigo nodded. Chicken sized up his companion with an analytical eye.

“That shaggy fur on your face doesn’t look right for a goblin,” he said slowly, “but what you’re wearing is about the right color of green-brown.”

He tugged at Amerigo’s sleeve, testing the material. Amerigo tucked his beard into his robe and pulled the neck up to his chin. He pulled his cap down over his ears. Only his nose, eyes, and little tuft of white beard could be seen with his shoulders hunched.

“You might could pass for one at a glance?” he said with a curious inflection. “Ok, it’s my turn.”

Chicken strained a bit, and his triceratops frill lowered. Amerigo turned pale watching this. Something so horned and bony had no business collapsing around Chicken’s head as it did.

“I’m not the right height for a lizardfolk but we’ll have to take our chances. Why are you looking at me like that?”

Amerigo shook himself. He saw strange biology all the time, after all. It was just that none of those things with collapsible appendages had ever talked to him before.

“I'll get too hot if I leave my frill down, but that shouldn't be a problem with all the water they've got here.” He started rummaging in the alley.

“Here,” he said, indicating a couple jars left against the wall, “if we carry these it might complete the illusion.”

They looked like heavy jars to Amerigo.