A Friend in Need
By Annabelle Sampson
Jenny caught her breath and pressed firmly against the cave wall. The sound of people moving echoed gently around the walls as she tried to conquer her fear. There was no way of knowing where the searchers were, except that they were not immediately on her trail.
Listening for a moment, she took a slow, deep breath, while she mentally tried to slow her pulse rate. In the comparative silence her heart sounded excessively loud, as did her breathing. Briefly, she closed her eyes and then took another deep breath.
Craning her neck, she looked back along the corridor. The spluttering torch thirty feet down the corridor gave very little light, but it did give a silhouette to a group of shuffling figures, some fifty feet away. Despite the movement and the flickering of the light, Jenny figured that she counted six or seven. Two down for certain, six or seven there, that meant that there were three unaccounted for.
She ducked back into the cornice and relaxed her grip on the hilt of her sword. She could feel the sweat on her hands, but daren’t wipe them on her breeches. Closing her eyes again, she relaxed a little, as her breathing came under control. She leant her head back to relax the muscles of her neck, keeping alert to the noise...
She snapped her head up, for the shuffling had also stopped. A blood-curdling scream echoed round the cavern, making her spine go cold and her cropped hair to stand on end. Her hands tightened around the hilt, waiting for the approach of the monsters. The echoes faded, to be replaced by the sound of shuffling again, but that too was fading. Risking a glance, she was surprised to see the group shuffling off into the distant darkness.
"Jen!"
She whirled, to see the bedraggled blonde hair, then the face, of her friend Sarah, who appeared from even deeper in the cave system. Like Jenny, Sarah was wearing a leather jerkin covered with large metal rings, riding breeches, boots and a scabbard, her sword also in her hand. Even in the dim half-light, she looked paler than usual, not quite herself.
"Who screamed?" Jenny asked.
"Sounded like Jo. You know we shouldn’t have dragged her down here."
"Where were you?"
"There’s a lit cavern about a hundred feet this way. Come on. I need you to help me." Sarah started off into the gloom.
"Wait for me." Jenny called, chasing after her.
Jenny caught up to her friend and they made their way to the cavern. As Sarah had said, the cavern was well lit. It was about sixty feet across, with three entrances and a huge wooden table in the centre. The table was covered in plate, gold plate, plate mail and even dinner plates. In the improved light Jenny could see Sarah’s wounds as she followed her friend into cavern. She caught her friend by the shoulder. She noticed that Sarah’s blue eyes also had a glassy, pained look.
"You’re hurt. I’d better treat it."
"I hope you’ve got some bandages. I’ve run out."
"I think so." Jenny sheathed her sword and started sliding her backpack off. As she leant forward to settle the pack on the floor, Sarah stepped forward; and smashed the pommel of her sword into Jenny’s temple.
Dazed, Jenny fell to the ground and moaned. A trickle of blood oozed down her forehead from the impact point. Sarah pulled a length of rope from her belt and began to tie Jenny’s hands behind her back. Through the pain and confusion, Jenny tensed her wrist muscles and clenched her fists as she felt Sarah pull her arms behind her, tie them and then looped the end of the rope around her ankles. Sarah then picked up Jenny’s sword and pack and carried them off to a pile under the table in the centre of the room.
Jenny blinked back the tears of pain, fear and frustration and took another look at her surroundings. There were a couple of bundled up adventurers to her left, apparently unconscious, to her right were three barrels and the tunnel she had entered through.
Sarah moved around the table, her motion was jerky, more mechanical than flowing. Jenny watched her, realising that her friend was under external control. While she watched, she relaxed her wrists and unclenched her fists. Sarah’s knots hadn’t been very tight, but now the ropes were a few millimetres looser. Jenny twisted her hands to get at the knots…
She had been working away for about two minutes when someone else entered the far side of the cavern. Jenny’s initial view, obscured by the table, was of a man in black priestly robes, rather like those of an archbishop. He walked up to the table, carrying a black sheet of some sort.
"I have the girl you wanted Master." Sarah said in a flat monotone. Jerkily, her arm indicated Jenny, who had stopped struggling against her ropes and was now feigning unconsciousness.
"You have done well, join the others." The man said, placing the sheet on the table. At no time did he openly acknowledge her, except as a cipher.
"Yes Master." Sarah walked off towards the third entrance to the cavern, away over to the left, while the robed man walked over to Jenny. He was imposing, for all that he was only five foot six or so tall, and his voice held a confident timbre.
"So nice to meet you at last." He said as he approached Jenny. "Come now, I know you’re not unconscious."
Jenny opened her eyes and looked at the man’s feet. "What an honour for you." She sneered.
"Look at me my dear." His voice a silky smooth, inviting monotone. As he spoke he moved his hands in an arcane manner.
Jenny allowed her gaze to drift up to his waist so that she could watch the down strokes of his hands. When they both appeared at his waist she went to swing her body to knock him over, only to find that she couldn’t move. She knew that her bonds were loose, but she couldn’t move
Confidently, her captor began to chant an ancient incantation, while shaking some kind of dust over Jenny from an incense carrier taken from his belt. As he chanted so Jenny felt more and more light-headed. Panic rushed through her conscious mind as she realised he was taking control of her body away from her, but there was no backing rush of adrenaline to help her defeat him. This was one fight in which she appeared to have no weapons and no skills.
From somewhere deep in her memory, a snatch of conversation triggered a plan. Under her breath she began to count. "Two plus two are four, four add four are eight, the square root of twenty-five is five..."
Although the man’s voice droned on, she concentrated on the maths in her head, not on what he was saying. Slowly the numbness began to lessen. Knowing not to think of that, she concentrated instead on trying to work out the angles, between her legs and his, the distance to the table, how big the cavern was. How much power the jack-knife movement would have to have to topple him. Then she heard him say firmly. "Rise, kneel before your Master."
She stayed put, briefly. But when he gave the command again, she sat up on her heels. Once she was balanced, he stepped forward to undo her bonds. That was when she struck. Throwing her arms around his legs, she pushed herself upwards as she pulled his legs forward at the knees. He toppled backwards, hitting the ground with an explosive whumph.
While he was stunned, Jenny released her feet then ran over to the table and gathered her sword. Confused babbling that wafted down the left-hand corridor, followed by footfalls, told Jenny that she had to work fast, before she had company.
Dashing back to the robed figure, she grinned. "The spell ends with the caster I believe." She said as she plunged the sword into his heart.
The footfalls from the corridor stopped, to be replaced by exclamations of fear, relief and confusion, all intermingled. Jenny walked back to her backpack and took the bandages from the side pouch. A few moments later a dazed, but no longer enthralled Sarah entered the cavern. She looked so forlorn and spent.
"I’ll bandage you now." Jenny said, smiling at her friend. "After all, we’ve still those ghouls to get through to get these people and the treasure through, so I’ll need your help."
Sarah looked sheepishly at Jenny and nodded, offering her arm for the waiting bandage. Behind her, the groups of formerly spellbound adventurers were moving round the cavern, looking for friends, equipment or food.
Jenny busied herself bandaging her friend and listening to her explanation as to how she had succumbed to the Cleric’s spells. Once she was finished she announced to the milling crowd. "Right, if you want to get out of here alive, you’d better follow me. So get your gear together."
Adventurers moved about, picking up maces, swords, axes and bows, as their abilities dictated. Jenny watched them, judging when they were ready. Hefting her backpack across her shoulders, she drew, then waved her sword and cried: "Tally Ho!" A complementary cheer rang round the cavern as everybody fell in behind Jenny and Sarah and tramped their way from the caves.
The silence that followed was broken by the sound of dice across the table. "And you make it back without further incident. Which ends this adventure"
The Dungeon Master closed his encounter book, DM’s guide and Players handbook and looked across the sitting room at the young brunette who had been playing ‘Jenny’. "You know Claire you are one of the luckiest players I have ever had the misfortune to D.M. for. If I hadn’t seen the rolls myself I would never have believed them. So I suppose you want your experience points now…" He took a long drink from his beer. "…Two thousand for the Evil Cleric and one thousand for the role-playing of the encounter -" He grinned "- bitch!"
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Last revised: October 06, 2000.