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Date Posted: 10:50:07 01/21/02 Mon
Author: Baeraad
Subject: Ritros
In reply to: Baeraad 's message, "The bottom of the well" on 10:46:32 01/21/02 Mon

Ritros was only half-awake when he started healing himself. The power came easily to him, like a faithful dog, and it repaired his damaged head quickly before moving on to the various bruises he had gotten himself. The white glow created by the healing gave him a view of the place he was in.

He was in a circular room with stone walls. They were smooth and unbroken; there were no ways to leave that he could detect, except upwards, where the walls climbed further than his light could reach. He could see no light that didn't derive from his own holy power. The women were nearby, lying unmoving on the cold stone floor.

Ritros got to his feet. They seemed to be holding his weight. Now, for the other two members of the Triangle�

He reached Tianna first. He placed one hand on her neck, the other on her stomach, and called upon the power again. She wasn't too badly hurt; her eyelids started to tremble before he was even done, and once he had restored her body to normal health, she was awake.

'- Damn!' she said, more amazed than anything else. 'That beats the hell out of wolves, don't you think?'

'- Indeed,' he said dryly and moved on the Sira.

Now, Sira was always a problem when it came to healing. Partly, it was because she never, ever, did anything by half; it was all or nothing, when it came to the Warrior. So also with injuries; Sira tended to be either disgustingly healthy or on the verge of dying. That, however, he could handle. The harder part was that, well, you couldn't really touch her. At least he couldn't. Every part of her, including the soles of her feet, seemed to be out of bounds � something you shouldn't be involving yourself with unless you were married to her.

It did not matter that her face was bruised and that her hair was a tangle of twigs, leaves and stone dust. It did not matter that she wore man's clothing, and that it right now could use a good washing. Sira radiated a sort of intensive attraction (there was a better word to describe it, one beginning with an S, but he was not going to use it, even to himself) that seemed to exist independent of physical attributes.

And Sira had plenty of those, too.

He settled for putting his fingers on her forehead, which was bad enough. Every time her hair touched him he felt things that were very unpriestly. He heard Tianna � who was very much aware of his troubles with the magician � giggle behind him. He ignored her as best he could.

'- Aoch,' Sira said drowsily. 'Did someone hit me from behind? Please tell me you got his name so that I can kick his ass later�'

'- You fell down a hole,' Tianna informed her. 'Remember? We're in a vampire's lair� In a very deep hole� without knowing what time of day it is�' A sense of doom appeared and deepened in her voice as she made herself aware of the circumstances. 'Crap,' she finished with feeling.

'- Bloody useless, kicking a vampire's ass�' Sira mumbled as she got to her feet. 'It's not like they feel pain, anyway� Where's my spear?'

Ritros looked around. Tianna still had her bow, but Sira's spear, like his quarterstaff, was nowhere to be seen.

'- Someone's taken all my arrows, too,' Tianna said, showing her empty quiver. 'And my knife.'

Sira and Ritros checked their own belts. No knives.

'- This is ridiculous,' Sira said. 'If it's night already, why would Ceridan just get our weapons and not do anything else? And if it's not night and he's still sleeping like a baby, who got them?' She took off her backpack, opened it and looked in. Apparently satisfied with what she found there, she patted her belt. 'I've still got all the stuff that's not weapons. Even potions and things like that.'

'- Birds,' Ritros suggested. 'Bats. Vampires control the Lesser Beings of the world. Ceridan might have made them fly down and get the weapons. I'd say a few ravens working together could lift a spear or a staff. But straps and strings are a bit harder, so he had to settle for the things that we carried outside of our packs.'

'- Which also explains what sprung the trap,' Tianna said. 'Ceridan made some Lesser Being watch us enter, and then he made them drop a stone on Ritros and do something that made the floor collapse.'

A Triangle, an elite team of evil-fighters, defeated by a bunch of vermin� The irony was not lost on Ritros. Tianna had always had a fear of rats, but who would have guessed that it would prove to be justified.

'- Is it just me, or is this going from bad to worse really fast?' Sira asked the world in general.

'- You're not helping,' Tianna snapped. 'Okay. Let's think for a moment. There are no doors or anything here. So it's logical to assume we're still in the hole we fell into, and that someone or something has just taken our weapons. Ritros, fly up and look. Maybe it's as easy as letting you lift us both up?'

Ritros summoned yet another power, and allowed himself to be lifted by the holy force of the God. He floated up as gracefully as a soap bubble�

� until he banged his head into a the ceiling. He gave off a groan.

'- What are you doing up there?' Sira asked. 'Is the way clear?'

'- No.' A massive wooden lid had been placed over the uneven hole. Ritros knocked at it with his hand. It sounded very solid. He put his shoulder against it and pushed. No use. His power was of the God and could easily push through anything, but he was of human flesh. The only thing he had to press on the lid with was himself, and he would press his body flat against it before it gave in. He sank down to the floor again.

'- I used to catch bees in jars, for basic spells,' Sira remarked. 'Suddenly, I feel strangely ashamed of that�'

'- Ceridan fancies himself a hunter,' Tianna mused. 'This time, I guess he's caught himself some prime game.'

'- So now what?' Ritros asked. 'Does he plan to deliver us alive to Lord Lexius? But why? Doesn't the standing Clan orders say "Dead or alive"?'

'- Actually,' Sira said, 'these days, they say "Dead. Definitely dead. Preferably in pieces."'

'- Really?' said Ritros. 'That's actually kind of flattering� in a weird, vampiric sort of way�'

'- Could we please focus here?' Tianna said tiredly. 'We have established that he doesn't have to keep us alive to be rewarded for taking us. Quite the opposite, actually. So what's going on here? Why aren't we dead?'

'- You said it yourself,' Sira said with a shrug. 'He thinks of himself as a hunter. And a hunter wouldn't send a thousand rats to tear us to pieces while we're still unconscious, or something like that. So he's waiting for the sunset, and once he wakes up, he'll come down here and do some hunting. Possibly some skinning, too.'

Ritros wished she hadn't added that last part. Somehow, it made it all worse. It shouldn't, but it did.

'- So we have a little chance,' Tianna said thoughtfully. 'A very little chance, but better than nothing.'

'- Hey, what's the gloomy tone about?' Sira said. 'We've fought down vampires at night before. And Ceridan doesn't have any Black Hand bodyguards who can distract us.'

Tianna showed her empty hands.

'- Sure, but we've always been armed. And it's still been a close call on a few occasions. Vampires are dangerous, even to us. That's why we go through such trouble to get them while they're sleeping. Trapped like this, unarmed, not knowing when he will come for us�' She shook her head.

'- Ah. Good point.' Sira put a finger to her lips. 'We're screwed, aren't we?'

Tianna laughed nervously.

'- A little, yeah.'

'- There has to be some way out of this!' Ritros said stubbornly. 'We don't have weapons. Fine. What have we got?'

'- Muscles.' Sira leaned against the wall. 'Reflexes. Some basic training in unarmed combat.'

'- And six powers between us,' Tianna added. 'Flight, mind-reading, healing and elemental transformation, blessing, shielding.'

'- Well, there's nowhere to fly,' Ritros said. 'And vampires don't have souls, so you can't read their minds. Healing's useful, but hardly useful enough, not when you're fighting a creature that can break your neck with a single punch. We're surrounded by stone on the sides and wood above � no elements to transform. No weapons left to bless, either. Shielding�' He wrinkled his brow. 'Hmm. Maybe. That's a defensive weapon, if nothing else. We could try to keep him away until dawn.'

The shielding power was rather straightforward. The priest � in this case Tianna � created a field of holiness around herself, and any vampire or other undead that tried to step into it was burned. It was one of the few things that actually hurt the dread fiends.

'- But you can't activate it while a vampire is within its range,' Sira objected. 'So the best we can do is place ourselves within the field and stand still. Ceridan would just try again the night after that. Or give up and send in those rats. Anyway, all he really has to do is get some rocks to throw at us. Vampires throw hard.'

'- I suppose.' Ritros frowned. 'Then I'm out of options. Can the mighty forces of magic be of any assistance, then?'

'- Well, no one took my backpack.' Sira took it off and started rummaging through it. It was a common belief that while men just pushed anything they wanted to take with them on a journey into his bag, with little or no technique about it, women were neat and effective, making use of all the space in the bag. From how it looked from Ritros' point of view, Sira might be in serious jeopardy of losing the right to call herself "female".

She started pulling flasks, jars and pouches out of the pack and looking at them for a moment before putting them aside.

'- Useless� useless� why the hell do I carry love potions? Like I need any help with that� useless� useless� oh, so here's the grinded lizard's-teeth I've been looking for. Where were you last week, pal? Useless� useless� useless, and starting to smell bad, too�'

Ritros shuddered at what the magician was holding up. It was a graying, human hand, severed at the wrist.

'- A Hand of Glory?' Tianna asked.

'- Yeah. Well, I suppose I could make Ritros invisible so that he could fly out of here when Lord Ceridan removes the lid, but we'd still be dead.' She winced. 'Still� better than all three of us going, I suppose.' She held out the grisly talisman for Ritros to take. Touching that thing seemed to be only a little bit better than death.

'- Wait,' Tianna said. 'I've got an idea�'

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Replies:

Sira -- Baeraad, 10:52:08 01/21/02 Mon