Of Love and Magic – A Gentleman Escapes

The Order hated mages.  Specifically mages they couldn’t control.  Mod ruminated on this fact inside a small cell, his hands and feet bound in chains attached to one of the four walls, and a gag in his mouth.  No doubt the worst of it all was the fact that the obstruction keeping him from speaking had probably not been cleaned since the establishment of this current institution.   

The extreme measures were taken in order to insure that the spell slinger could not cast anything.  This of course, did not stop any enchantments already cast.  Not being the first time Mod had been incarcerated for what the Order referred to as “rampant use of unauthorized magic”, which is code for not being a member of the Order and using magic.   

He however had a plan to escape.  The only problem is that in order to initiate his plan, he needed the damn guard to walk the fuck away.  So he sat there and waited, and waited, and waited.  No shift change, no tired looking guard nodding off, no nothing.  He was beginning to become discouraged but as he noticed the sun begin to go down, the guard starting to walk away.   

Now was his chance, he bites a small capsule he had hidden underneath his tongue.  The capsule contained a enhanced version of sandworm slime.  Tasting the sweet chemical on his mouth he leaned forward and began to allow his drool to be absorbed into the gag.  In a few minutes the gag had completely been dissolved.  Working his jaw to get the sensation of the gag out of his mouth and spit the last of the goop onto the floor, he began to move to the next part of his plan.   

Many of the Order’s prisons had specific measures to deal with casters.  The first and foremost being a massive gem that blocked the flow of the aether unless you had become attuned to them.  These resonance stones as they were called allowed the Order’s mages to cast their spells while denying regular mages access to their mana pool.  Of course there were a few ways around this, none of them however were pleasant.   

Taking his right hand and placing his index finger down his throat as far as he could Mod began gaging.  He hated the sensation of throwing up but this was a necessity for the next part of his plan.  He felt the bile rise up from his stomach as its contents were emptied on the stone floor of the prison.   

Amidst the bile and carrots he didn’t even remember eating, there was a small gem that glowed with a purple light.  Salvation always seem to come at the hands of some mamano bi-product.  Squeezing the gem some dark liquid began to fall from it.  Being careful not to let the ichor touch his skin he poured it onto the chains that held his hands and feet securely to the wall.  The acid from a black dragon was incredibly potent and burned through the steel chain in seconds.  Now that he was no longer attached to the wall he moved toward the bars of his cage.   

Requiring a extreme level of precision, he squeezed the gem above the pins holding the door to the rest of the cage.  Having eroded the pins, he leaned the door far enough out so that he could squeeze by and returned it to its normal position looking no worse for wear.  With the easy part of his escape done, and the gel from the gem all but spent he now had to extract himself from the facility.

Unfortunately without his magic he is not the stealthiest of men, and had to make incredibly slow progress through the hallways and rooms of the prison.  As he was slinking his way toward what he believed was the entrance he heard the one sound he had hoped not to hear.  The blaring noise from the alarm alerted every single guard in the building that an escape had been made.   

Ducking behind some conveniently placed wooden barrels, he crouched low and listened for the sound of men in chainmail.  As he hid he saw a small group of soldiers go running past his hiding spot.  This bothered him as the men seemed to be running away from his cell.   Meaning one of two things, these men assumed that he had gotten away much farther than he actually did, or that someone else had escaped.   

Moving again he began to run using the sound of the alarm to help him cover his footsteps.  Up ahead he saw an exit, moving quickly he hoped to get out of the range of the resonance stone before he himself could be discovered.  

As he ducked through the slightly low porticulous he noticed the reason the guards had ran away from his cell.  Surrounded by the heavily armored soldiers was what appeared to be a young woman.  The first thing he noticed was her blonde hair the color of grain in the rising sun.  Atop her head sat two wolf like ears, he immediately assumed she was a werewolf that had somehow escaped her confinement by the Order however she lacked the traditional fur that werewolves possessed.  The next thing he noticed was her striking blue eyes, not because he could actually see her eyes but because they radiated a brilliant cerulean.   

He could not tell if this was a natural trait or a side effect of a spell she was casting.  The guards began to encircle the woman, she struck with a speed and swiftness that they could simply not match.  Her graceful movements disoriented the guards clearly unprepared for her attack.  Mod watched as she tore into the guardsmen like a mad woman, he could visibly see there armor give where her fists connected.   

However, it was apparent that she had been fighting since the alarm had gone of, her chest was heaving and she glistened slightly in the moon light showing her fatigue.  As he was watching the display before him he noticed that the only bits of clothing she wore was a collection of pelts, a similar color to her hair, and a black string bikini.  He also noticed a tail that bristled behind her that appeared to be connected to the base of her spine.  With the guards distracted he decided that this would be the best time to escape.  

Making for the wall, he could feel the power of the resonance stone starting to fade.  Feeling his connection to the aether begin to flow again, his hands began to tingle as he began channeling a small amount wind into his body.  As the energy began to condense into his palms he uttered a simple chant which would allow him to jump of the ground  and land gracefully on a shed near the wall.  Questioning the logic behind a prison placing a elevated surface near the outer wall he began to hoist himself over the last barricade to freedom, that is until he heard a yelp from behind him.   

Looking back he saw that the wolf women had been knocked clear across the field laying about fifteen feet from where he currently sat perched on the wall.  Mod also saw what had managed to send her spiraling into a crumpled mess on the ground.  About forty feet back stood a massive and imposing figure armed with what appeared to be a large piece of wood.  The weapon appeared to be a shaved tree, as if someone picked a tree clean of bark and branch and handed it to this giant of a man.   

It was at this moment Mod realized that if he abandoned this women he would never be able to tell the lovely ladies of the brothels and bars he frequented that he was a gentleman.  Cursing his good nature Mod turned around and leapt off the shed.  Running to the fallen women he attempted to pick her up only for her to try and push him away.  “You are hurt and I am trying to help get you out of here.”  Her eyes flared up slightly before she slumped against him.   

Looking back he noticed the large solider was making his way to him at an incredible speed, each stride bringing the behemoth closer to Mod and the weakened mamano.  Fortunately Mod was still just outside of the resonance stone’s area of effect.  Focusing more now on what he saw just outside the walled prison he no longer felt the earth under his feet for a fraction of a second before the hard soil returned again.   

Opening his eyes he found both him and the woman outside the wall.  Glancing over the girl he saw she was still breathing and that other than a few bruises from the fight and a bit of blood on her elongated and sharp looking nails she looked no worse for ware.  Now he had to figure out how to avoid the town guard while carrying a unconscious mamano.  Teleporting even such a small distance always left him feeling exhausted.   

He would not make it far before he would be too tired to carry her.  Mod however was very resourceful and knew that it would be easy to disappear if he could make it to the more derelict portion of the city.  He could hear the guardsman shouting and yelling from the other side of the wall and what sounded like the gargantuan man pounding on the stone barricade.  Picking the wolfkin up in a princess carry he quickly made tracks for the rough part of the city.

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