She hadn’t meant to sleep. She’d only wanted to rest her eyes and her mind before she went back to wrestling with the illusion again. Silently, she berated herself for her stupidity. With a jolt, she remembered the paperclip. Where was it? She must have dropped it in her sleep. She scrambled to her knees and patted around on the rough wooden boards of the floor. It wasn’t there. It was gone.
“No. No, the floor is an illusion,” she reminded herself. “It might be there and I just can’t see it.” With a deep breath to steel herself, she felt for the pressure against her mind and pressed against it. She braced herself for the dull throbbing pain to return, and sighed with relief when it didn’t. It would return if she pushed herself too far again, she was sure, but she would just have to deal with it. The wooden floor wavered and became translucent, and the stone floor of the basement was visible through it. And so was the paperclip that she’d dropped.
With a quick look around to make sure there was no one in the basement to see her, she snatched up her wire lifeline and crossed the room to the door. Working mostly with her eyes closed so that she could concentrate on what her fingers were telling her, she put just a little pressure on the shank of the lock and used the wire to carefully lift each lever until she felt it slip free. It took her several tries. So focused on her fingers that she didn’t even realize that she’d been biting her lip, she almost bit through it when one of the levers slipped and her twitch of surprise reset the whole lock. She tried again, and again, and the throbbing pain was starting to build behind her eyes, when, with a suddenness that caught her off guard, the shank clicked free of the body of the lock, letting it swing open.
She froze in place, holding back her momentary desire to cheer in celebration. Carefully, she lifted the lock free of the hasp. The cage door swung open, the pressure against her mind popped and vanished like a soap bubble, and the illusion on the cage vanished. The mental pressure of the illusion against her mind had been such a constant and pervasive thing that she nearly staggered with relief when it vanished. She grabbed the edge of the doorway to steady herself as she regained her equilibrium and read the new message that appeared.
Your Skill: Mental Resistance has improved from Novice to Apprentice.
You gain +2 Wisdom and +2 Willpower.
Mental intrusions will be easier to detect and resist.
She smiled as she read. So, she could improve her skills through use and improve her stats by improving her skills. That was good to know. Dismissing the screen, she turned her attention outward. Now that the illusion was gone, she could get a better look at the basement room.
She’d been able to make out the big details through the illusion, but she hadn’t been able to see the dust and cobwebs, the sheen of moisture on the stone of the walls, nor smell the moldy sourness of the air. The mold smell was strong, but it didn’t hide the scents of sweat, fear, and more unpleasant things that seemed to have seeped into the very walls and floor.
There was a shimmer in the air around the three other occupied cages. It was subtle, like the faint distortions of heated air rising from hot pavement. Lanie guessed they must be glamours showing the inmates something more benign than the reality. The bull-man was still sitting on his cot, seemingly deep in meditation. The three girls in the cage across from hers were still huddled together. Two of them appeared to be asleep, while the third watched the door. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen, and she was the oldest of the trio. She might not have been able to see or hear Lanie, but Lanie could hear her as she sang softly. The language wasn’t one Lanie recognized, but the song was slow and soft. A lullaby, perhaps. Lanie wondered what they were seeing. Was it another cozy bedroom like the one she’d been in, or something else entirely?
On the table under the window, Nips paced in a circle in his cage. The cage was a small dog crate, held closed by what looked like a luggage lock. Lanie crossed the room to him, alert for any sound from above. When she was next to the little prison, she hissed Nips’ name, trying to get his attention. “Pssst. Hey, Nips, can you hear me?”
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The Brownie stopped pacing and tilted his head, as though trying to catch a distant sound. Lanie tried again, and Nips moved to the side of the cage, his hand out as if he was pressing it to a solid wall. He pressed an ear against the invisible wall.
“Alright, let’s get you out of there,” Lanie said, already checking out the tiny padlock. It was a cheap lock, and it was the work of less than a minute to pop it open. The glamor around her cage had made opening that lock a challenge, but now, without that interference, Lanie marveled at how much her improved perception and dexterity helped with the delicate task. Her fingers were steadier, and she could feel the slightest movement of the tiny pins within.
As the door swung open, Lanie crouched to put her face at eye level with Nips. “Hey,” she said, affecting a casual tone, “What do you say we blow this pop stand?”
“I thought the line was popsicle stand,” Nips replied, trying to keep his own tone casual as well, but unable to suppress a wide grin.
“Nah, it was a line from an old Bogart movie, and everybody gets it wrong. Hell, you were around when that movie came out. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
“I was never much for movies, I’m afraid. Books were more my passion,” he said as he scrambled out of the cage onto the table. “It’s good to see you up and about. You gave me quite the scare when you keeled over in the market. And, I can’t say I’m sorry to get out of that box.” He looked around the basement as he spoke, “Where are we?”
“Zoren Dalgo’s basement, apparently. The bastard has a sideline in people trafficking.”
“Bastard. I knew there would be a catch when he offered to help after you collapsed, but I didn’t expect this sort of betrayal. I’m sorry I let this happen.”
“What did happen? The last thing I remember was the stall in the market. I… well, this will sound pretty weird, but… I kind of had a vision of a past life. Well, more than a vision, really. It was like I was her, back then, living her life,” she spoke haltingly and paused as she swallowed down a lump in her throat. The memories of Kyma’s life were still raw, and her eyes burned with the threat of tears. She blinked hard and looked away.
Her gaze fell on a detail that she’d missed earlier. Her bag had been tossed carelessly under the table, and her shoes were next to it. Seizing on the excuse to hide her distress from Nips, she bent down and snagged it. Nips’ little bowler hat lay in the dust nearby, and she picked it up as well. As she carefully dusted off the hat, she changed the subject. “So, ah, you know how I said I’d think about it when you asked to travel with me? Well, while I was trapped in there, I realized how much I like having you around, but I’m not really copacetic with the idea of you swearing to stay for a set amount of time… I mean, what if things change and you decide you’d rather not live such a dangerous life, or if I decide… or, well… anyway, how about this: I’d like you to travel with me, for as long as you want to, and if we decide to go separate ways, we can. Just like any two friends would.” She glanced up then, handing him his hat and watching his face as he answered.
With a smile, he took the hat from her and plonked it onto his head at a jaunty angle. “I’d like that. And, to that end, I suggest that the first place we travel to should be out of here.” He tilted his head toward the other cages and asked, “What about them?”
Lanie sighed. “I don’t know. I hate to leave them here, but we’re being hunted. I can’t shepherd a bunch of scared girls to safety if I’m not sure where safety is or how to get there. I’m not a hero, Nips. I’d only end up making things worse.”
“Worse than being trapped in a cage waiting for some awful fate?”
“I… OK, no, maybe not.” Lanie considered the bull-man in the last cage by the door. “You said everything is about debts and balances here, right?”
“Yes,” Nips’ eyes narrowed as he watched her face, “You’ve thought of something?”
“Well, you know what they say. If you have one problem, you have a problem, but if you have two problems, you might have a solution.”
“Um, no… I’ve not heard that,” Nips said, his brows drawing down in confusion as Lanie hurried away towards the cage of the bull man.
“Is this guy a Minotaur?” She asked as she knelt down to get a look at the lock holding his cage closed.
“No, he’s an Enkidean. They are, supposedly, the descendants of Enkidu, from the Gilgamesh stories. Apparently, he and Gilgamesh weren’t an exclusive item—Enkidu spread plenty of wild oats. The Minotaur was one individual of their race, captured by the Minoans. They made up some story about a horny god to explain him and used him to execute prisoners. I don’t know much about them, except that they are rumored to be fierce warriors.”
“Are they honorable? I mean, if I let him out of here, will he acknowledge that he owes me and follow through with paying the debt?”
Nips thought the question over, then shrugged. “He’s a creature of magic, but he’s also the scion of a demigod. I’m not sure if they follow the same rules. He likely will, but there are no guarantees.”
Lanie bit her lip. The padlock was the same as the one that had held her cage closed. It would be easy enough to open, but she was taking a hell of a gamble. She didn’t want to leave those girls to be sold. Taking them with her would only slow her down and get them tangled up in her mess. The men hunting her were unlikely to leave witnesses if they caught up to her. She couldn’t just turn them loose and leave them to be caught again or eaten by some monster. Her conscience wouldn’t let her just walk away from them, though.
It was a gamble, but if it paid off, she could take care of two problems at once. She slipped her paperclip wire into the lock and started to work.