Jailbreak; The Legend of Relga, part... something.
More from the chronologically challenged Relgin adventures, possibly anticlimactic considering current events. But here you are.
SYNOPSIS: Fiamme and Bianca play dress up while Hraf and Krieger strip!
Jailbreak - Shadow involving the letter RELG.
Night has fallen on the city in Relgin. Street lights of glowing heatless orbs bathe the misty, dew moistened cobblestone streets and half timbered buildings in a dimly even unwavering glow, as the curfew bathes them in silence. In a shadowed alley, the team meets. Hrafnkel checks his blades beneath the concealment of his voluminous cloak, as he passes the forged documents back to Fiamme for her scrutiny. "Alright. How did you ladies want to figure our cover story? And who does the talking?" he asks, eyeing the dungeon entrance from their concealed vantage.
Aside from the headscarf swathing her head, Fiamme's clothes are far more in keeping with the locals. The cloak of quiet created by her Whispers on the Wind talent keeps their voices inaudible to the casual listener. She flicks through the documents, more counting than checking in this light. "Bianca, do you think you can disguise Hrafnkel enough to pass casual muster, assuming we're unlucky enough to be seen by one of his actual former jailors?"
Hrafnkel frowns a little at that. "Some might've spotted us the other day, as well," he adds, helpfully, if grimly.
“I still do not understand why we are nod dressed in the robes of the Magi and using the tokens I brought back from our former venture. Seems it would be simpler to get Hrafnkel and Krieger in as prisoners and far more convincing at that, but, yes, I suppose I can manage something.” Bianca’s alto lilts weary as she lifts one of the bulb shaped flask from her multi-pocketed belt and lending it a zealous shake brings what appears as a dimly incandescent light bulb up to the Commander’s face.
Krieger snorts, "Because no magi is built as a warrior and I am not fond of the idea of being bound. Especially by a woman." he declares while peering at Bianca. He's fairly certain this is her sort of plot, to tie men up and have them at her whim. Has her stink all over her. Naughty girl.
Fiamme says, in a soft voice, "I still think it's safer to don them closer to the jail. For now, we've only curfew-breaking to count against us."
Fiamme nods to something nobody says, eyes a little distant.
Hrafnkel nods his head from near the alley's mouth. "Don't know how many more places we'll have to don them out of sight. Looks like here, or never." The dungeon entrance is off in the distance, across a cleared lot no doubt placed for security.
“They will be looking for a woman, a giant and a man - not two women and an old man...” Bianca muses, casting a glance at Krieger wanly before her cerulean blues surmise Hrafnkel’s features, “And height is circumspect so long as we have the tokens and the prize.” By ‘prize’ it is clear she means the /men/.
Fiamme nods. "We obviously immobilized you through our feats of magic. Here, what do you think of this, Bianca?" She pulls out the shirt Hrafnkel was wearing the previous day; not a light fingered laundry maid after all. A few extra scorch marks have been added for verisimilitude. Looks like whoever wore this went a few rounds with a fireball tossing mage, and came out far worse.
Krieger sighs, "Fine. But tell anyone of this and I will feed you to our wolves. They are very big where I come from." He eyes the charred shirt suspiciously. Where'd she /get/ that thing?
Hrafnkel eyes Bianca dubiously over her light bulb. "Well, whatever the plan, let's be about it." After a moment, of letting Bianca fuss with disguises, if she wishes, he adds. "When we're inside, if we run into trouble, we kill everything in line of sight fast as we can. The longer we can go without the whole alarm being raised, the better." He looks to Fiamme, then slightly mournfully to his shirt.
Bianca nods her blond head approvingly, lengthy wreath of a pony tail swaying with hypnotic rhythm "I say we don the robes and show the tokens. That ought to get us in. I can faux bind the Commander's and Krieger’s hands and once inside, the trick is not to tarry and kill them quickly. Preferably before they realize what happened."
Bianca utters the magic word, "Strip."
Bianca says, "Fiamme, take their weapons."
Krieger glares at Bianca, "You should be so lucky." He growls before begrudgingly giving up his clothing. He's scarred in the way that road maps are inked. They are EVERYWHERE. Frankly, it's a little disgusting, also more than a little impressive. Two centuries of war have not been kind to him.
Fiamme puts her disguise on, such as it is. The mask helps, and her sword is well hidden by the way the robes fall, then holds out her hands for Hrafnkel's obvious weapons. "Alright. The plan is, fake it as far in as we can. When it goes pear shaped, we start killing."
Hrafnkel rolls his eyes and unclasps his cloak, unbuckling his weapons to hand them to Fiamme, and stripping quickly out of his jack and shirt. "Control yourselves now ladies," he murmurs, wryly.
Fiamme snorts slightly, but averts her eyes just enough to seem incurious.
Bianca casts a slim-lidded look at Krieger, though she busies herself with slipping into the robe somewhat oversized for her miniscule frame, the light bulb flask dimmed beneath languid pleats. The pint sized woman takes charge of the massive ‘doll’ disguising Krieger’s axe. She is perhaps prudent to keep quiet as far as stripping is concerned - with the recent track record she very well might be called upon to do so next!
***
The jail structure is deceptively small. It seems almost temple-like, in its Grecian-Roman architecture. Beyond the marble pillars, local justice deities are depicted in bronze. Decidedly un-jail-like, this is because it only caps the entrance to the vast subterranean complex below. Several robed mages linger about, some posted regularly, others milling, their rank indicated by the amount of gold in their robes and masks.
Fiamme walks, straight backed, certain, behind her captive. She walks with exactly the unhurried calm of someone a little bored, thinking about her next break, and ready to offload her charge as soon as possible. She murmurs something to Bianca about getting a drink. "... parched. Aren't you?"
Fiamme's voice sounds lower than usual. The advantage of good instruction in voice.
Hrafnkel moves as prodded in his semi-bound, burnt-shirted apparent misery. A few times he resists or slows to make the ladies prod him on towards their destination. They've gathered enough information on the local procedures to know vaguely the salutes and things to say, and Hraf has, for now, roughly the easiest role.
"I could use a strong cup of mulled red from the Flying Boar! Some renegade bastard defiled the wall last night with all sorts of revolutionary claptrap." Bianca shares a bit of lore she gathered from her scavenging the city as she shoves Hrafnkel unkindly between the shoulder blades. There is an art to seeming taller and with her proud carriage and somber demeanor; the pint-sized woman offsets her slight stature admirably well.
Fiamme shoves Hrafnkel a little, and murmurs, for his ears, "Hunch more. Look scared." She laughs, with a cruel edge to it, as if she's been whispering idle threats, then nods to Bianca. "Let's get them under lock and key."
Hraf hunches and looks... well, more miserable. Ego gets in the way of fear.
"Don't know why bother. The fiends will fry before the sun rises." Bianca hoists her shoulders in a malcontent shrug, this time nudging the prisoner along with the cap of a bent and nimble knee, "I'd say we do it ourselves, but I want the promotion. Got passed up for reassignment again last month!"
Krieger growls and shambles along like some barely restrained beast, mindlessly starting to wander off so the two have to push him back into line. He grunts when this happens, feigning confusion. Occasionally he shoots a look of promised vengeance through his mane of hair at them. So cranky.
The most gold clad of the magi approaches them as they pass within the pillars, the light here strangely orangey in its eerie hue. From within his mask, he speaks, "What is this, my sorors?"
Fiamme strolls, and says something noncommittal, as one does to such complaints. She turns her head carefully, checking whether they are attracting attention. "Run along, maggot." She lowers her voice again. "So far so good."
Hrafnkel grumbles spitefully at the shoves. "I'll get loose, again, you know, and when I do, I will find both of you..."
The mage before them prompts, once again, assuming the two hadn't heard. "What is this? We were given no notice that a prisoner would be arriving."
Bianca moves to intercept between Fiamme and the mage, saluting him as custom bids, “Grand Soros, our pardons. Our eyes yet reel from the flares it took to overcome them.” She proudly tilts the petite curb of her chin at Hrafnkel’s charred shirt, trusting Fiamme to follow her lead, “This time they were alone. They say arrogance breeds contempt, but I am pleased at their foolhardy daring, for it made it all the easier to overpower them!” There is not a little pride in Bianca’s theatrical treble.
A metallic snort ripples towards Hraf and Krieger from behind the mask. His strong desire to kill can be seen in his posture's ready tension, but thus far he restrains it, as the mage asks the disguised Bianca, "You know how to treat this rabble. Let me see the papers. Maybe I can give them some... special...accommodations..."
Bianca allows Fiamme to hand the forged document to the murderous mage, intoning raggedly, "Do not think we were not tempted to finish the haughty wretch off when we had the chance, but the Collegiate will wish to be informed. And with the uprisings in the city making the man into a martyr might just feed the plebes blood frenzy!"
The mage croons a sound of sardonic disappointment to Bianca. "And here, I thought you had potential! When they see how this one suffers, /no/ one will have the stomach to oppose us." He hands the papers back. "Alright. Take him below."
“Grand Soros!” Bianca forges a convincing salute executed according to the customs the proprietress has spent so much time observing. It is only when a roughly nudged and bound Hrafnkel guided by Fiamme with Bianca at their heels descend into the dungeon that she allows her voice to carry, “There went my reassignment! Bruskah!”
***
The 'bound', miserable prisoners, Hraf and Krieger, are lead from the stark clean lines of the Romanesque structure atop the dungeons by their cruel, merciless, robe and mask clad captors; Bianca and Fiamme. Having talked their way past the guards above, with the assistance of Fiamme's forged documents, they reach the rough hewn spiral stair, that leads down into the torch lit gloom.
"Duck down you rancid dog," Bianca's alto carries cruelly for the Grand Soros to hear as she nudges the giant gruffly amid his mountainous back, her palm carrying with it a startling measure of strength doubtless tempered.
Fiamme prods Hrafnkel somewhere in the vicinity of the back of his knee, with one foot, and says, sotto voce, "Move it. Sooner or later we're going to blow our cover. I vote later."
Startling strength or not, it's like pushing a mountain, and about as mobile. Kri glances over his shoulder and growls through his blond/gray hair at her, appearing every bit the savage he... well, appears to be! He moves where he's guided however, muttering something under his breath in his native tongue.
Hrafnkel is prodded down the stairs, and mutters quietly, when out of earshot, "When I get free from these chains, I'll... okay, there's a guard post down here." The stairs continue an impossible seeming distance, and the collection of a half dozen robed mages have plenty of time to not their approach, no doubt by design of the architecture.
Fiamme murmurs what sounds like a reply to something nobody asks her, "We're not so far from it as that." Then she pauses to put her hand to her masked face, shakes her head once, and waits for the two human roadblocks ahead of her to clear the stair well.
"We can get passed them." Bianca intones in an all-too-soft and barely audible whisper, Krieger's massive 'doll' strapped to her tiny back and encumbering her movement ever so slightly, "We can fight them on our way out." Her voice takes advantage of the acoustics as she calls out a native greeting, "Soot and Skies, brethren! We bring a prize for the Collegiate!"
One of the magi says, as they near, "Look at that one." Another murmurs, looking, "It can't be... human, can it?" Four of them move to gather in a kind of awe at the sight of Krieger at the base, as they speak to Bianca and Fiamme in wonder. "How did you get that thing? And where did you find it?" Another adds, "I know the smaller one. He’s the one who escaped."
Fiamme says - a touch of a sneer in her voice, "The big one relied on his strength. Foolishly. I think he's learned that against true power, and intelligence, his stature works against him. He's hard to miss."
Krieger rolls his eyes to fix the guards with a stare that suggests he knows the taste of human flesh and while they may not be yummy he's feeling a bit on the peckish side.
Bianca adds - tone sheepish from behind the shelter of her mask, "He was sleeping. This one was taking a piss." The crook of her skinny elbow points in Hrafnkel's direction.
"We should drape silks and bells on him and parade him as a prize!" one murmurs, in a malevolent giggle. Another quips, "The other is the prize. He's killed many of our siblings. I enjoyed watching him lashed." Hraf bristles, his posture taking on the subtle tension that bespeaks a growing intent for violence, as the third speaks. "Enough banter. We were not informed of these prisoners. Where is their documentation?" Four stand at the stair's foot, and another two linger in the distance.
Fiamme pushes past the two 'prisoners' to say, "They were an opportunistic capture, as the Soros says. Hard to fill out the forms when we don't expect to stumble on them at all. We were expecting to run down a simple snitch, not the little killer and his big friend."
It's as well the mask hides Fiamme's face, when she calls Hrafnkel little.
Bianca ought to say something, yet does not - remaining solemnly silent behind the gilded beak of the mask.
Hrafnkel murmurs, venomously behind Fiamme, "I'll show you little..." But her stepping before him does, for the moment, dissuade his mounting urge to outright violence. But the voice of the mage with the most gold in mask and robe sounds chiding. "You ought to /know/ better, sister. Our society is founded on method and reason. I fear your prisoner's ramblings have disordered your mind!"
Fiamme freezes, and says in a voice not /quite/ her own, "I'm perfectly sane."
Krieger just continues to stare angrily at people... also known as biding his time.
Bianca reaches out with a palm that splays all-too-gentle upon the massively muscled groove of Krieger's back. She turns in a pivot that casts the immense doll strapped to her back within the giant's reach as with a fleet maneuver of her nimble fingers Krieger's bindings are undone.
The masked mage humphs with disapproval, only vaguely paused by her odd reaction. "I'm afraid this simply won't do, Soros. Though we applaud your captures, we cannot tolerate your disdain for procedure. Now go off and get the appropriate paperwork."
Fiamme is still teetering on the edge of a recovery of her poise, and considering her next words, when Bianca's quick reactions render them moot. "I have your paperwork right here," she says, calmly, returning Hrafnkel's sword with a quick toss, trusting to the clever way Bianca had tied him earlier -- more the appearance than the actuality of restraint.
Krieger just grins at the lot of them, the look purely and utterly predatorily. "My people do not think much of Magi. Do you know why?" he lips part in a wider grin and his hand comes out from behind his back. His fingers curl around the head of the man with the fanciest mask and obviously greatest authority, "They are weak." The sinew of his arm draws taut and there's the squelching scream of bending metal mixed with the wet cracking sound of human destruction. Kri closes his fist and the man's head crushes like a rotten tomato, blood and bone spraying. His other hand yanks the blood colored axe of glass from Bi's back where it's hidden in the doll. "Let me show you power." he suggests amicably as he drops the corpse."
Hrafnkel yells, "Look out, he's loose!" as he slips his own bonds, admiring his large friend's work. He catches the sword, but figures the four within arm’s reach are as good as dead, between his companions. Instead, the blades that had been easier to conceal in his rags are flicked at the pair of robed figures further away, who are just now rising from their seats at the gurgled cry from the mage that Krieger is just dropping.
With dexterous movement most admirable Bianca strips the oversized robe and mask in a billow of brilliant silk that swells kindred to the sail of a fleet ship as it is cast from her adroit frame in a single swoop. Taking a step back - secure behind the mound of Krieger's back so as to be almost un-noticeable, she thumbs a pair of mismatched vials from her belt.
Fiamme takes a little while to get her sword out from under the robe, having tossed the major encumbrance back to Hrafnkel. Too late for a constructive addition to the dispatching of the guards, she approaches the clearly well-dead man with the crushed head, and aims a kick to his ribs. And then a second kick. In a very quiet, reasonable voice, she says to the corpse, "My wits are /not/ disordered. Yours are. You and your paperwork. Consider this..." (kick) "... part of" (kick) "... a sane response to an insane universe."
The mage crumples, dead, aside from the lingering twitching. The remaining three nearby, however, are not foolish, and begin backing the hell away from Krieger as their hands begin waving spells, and Fiamme further mutilates one. They seem understandably shaken.
Krieger's arm swings out and the long axe sliiiiiides through his fingers. Spells die and fizzle as blood splatters across the area and two heads roll freely across the floor. "Power." he explains to the still living magi, "Is not in the energy or forces outside of yourself that you can control." he grins, "It's how well you can control everything within yourself. And trust me ladies, you do not wish to see my power loosed." He keeps taking, threats, intimidation, distractions for his allies to do their work.
With a frenzied shake of a birch-boned wrist Bianca stirs one vial into a coalescent incandescence that glows vaguely luminescent. It is easily recognizable as the 'bulb' she employed earlier to light Hrafnkel's face. A mighty throw of delivers the container of dark-filled liquid shattering at the feet of the two guards running towards them, catching both men in a despicable acrid scented ooze that is soon joined by the thrown bulb. Cruising on a trajectory towards the pair the luminescent vial shatters, igniting the blackened ooze in plumes of rapidly expanding fire. "Oh look! I can make fire too!"
It is hard to say if Fiamme's fey mood continues: she is masked, after all, and no longer talking. She sprints over to one of the last remaining guards, when Bianca's vial has done its work, dodging to the side as the man's spell narrowly misses her, turning her sleeve into a smoldering ruin. Her sword-work is fast, accurate and graceful, and his second spell, quickly cast, does no more than scorch the bared arm. "I think," she says, pulling off her mask, "We've lost the element of surprise, Hraf."
Hrafnkel had been about to toss, but impressed by the magnitude of his companion's violence, he holds to watch it all appreciatively, almost wistfully. "I feel so close to all of you, right now," he sighs, looking up the stair to ensure that no one is approaching that way. It seems there's not. "Well, I thought it went brilliantly. We can try to continue on with the bluff past here? Just say the blood spatter was from catching us? But, you know, killing everything we see works for me, too." He watches the last part as he watches the smoldering corpses, grimacing slightly at the smell.
Krieger snorts as he flicks his wrist which cleans the axe in a single move and splatters blood at Bianca's feet. "Kill them all." he votes flatly. "But we best hurry. This will rouse an alarm quickly."
Bianca shrieks shrilly, backing away from Krieger before his ministrations towards his precious land splatter onto her boots, "That's disgusting!" She chides, delivering a thin-lipped, narrow-eyed glare brimming with a matte cobalt hue at the giant.
Hrafnkel nods grimly to Bianca. "It can be hard to wash out. Do you know how many uniforms I go through?"
"Thank the stars we will have servants for /that/" Bianca's indignant gaze swerves towards Hrafnkel, impaling him with a pair of cerulean blues aglow with wanton ire. She does /not/ do laundry.
Fiamme says, "I'm with Krieger on this. Kill now. Consider the laundry logistics later."
Hrafnkel nods and doesn't bother hiding his sword, then. "Right," he murmurs, helping heft Bianca's diminutive form past the greater pool of gore at the foot of the stair. There is only one way ahead; through an immense, twelve foot tall bronze double doors that appears to be without handles or obvious mechanism.