image [https://i.imgur.com/lczF1YD.png]

I watched Renna’s door creak open slowly and saw her ghostly self exit the cell. It was so dark I couldn’t see her face, but I’ll bet she looked as shocked as I felt. At that point, I had no idea how she had gotten out of there, but the time for questions would come later.

Right in the centre of the main jailhouse room was a large table. The guards were resting on either side of her. The orc to her left and the dwarf to her right and down a ways, near the entrance to the building.

Having spent so long sitting in that hole, I learnt a thing or two about the habits of the guards. For instance, I knew that each of the guards carried different keys. I also knew that the orc was the one with the one for my door. The dwarf held the other two. Although we didn’t have much use for Renna’s key, Mr. Underbrook’s would still need to be acquired if we had any hope of getting out of there.

Through the bars of my cell, I waved to Renna to get her attention. When I could see she was looking over to me, I first pointed her in the direction of the orc and then towards the lock on my door. She got the message quick enough, being the smart one that she is.

The thing is, in a situation like that, you don’t have the mental resources to focus on the danger you’re in. All you can afford to do is worry about getting out, and that’s exactly what we did.

Renna crept slowly over to his sleeping body and carefully located the dangling key in the dim light of the dying fire. She very slowly reached out, got a gold hold of the key, and very gently raised it up and towards her, getting clear of the hook of the belt, and making sure to not even breathe while she did it. That was a tense second, for sure. Had she been anyone else, I think we would have been dead right then and there. She wasn’t just anybody though.

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She had to step over his legs to make her way over to me. I was also holding my breath at that point. Thankfully, she was nimble, and so no alarm bells got raised.

Once she got to my door, she took extra care to unlock it, making sure to keep the tumble and clinks of the lock to a minimum. I damned near cried when she finally got it open, but still, we couldn’t even afford the sound of tears hitting the floor.

Just then, I became aware of Mr. Underbrook, who was now standing flat against his cell door and staring out at us intently. Those old bones didn’t stop him from moving fast and quiet. He was pointing into the corner at an old chest. In the dark, we could vaguely see him frantically mouthing the word "weapons.”

Both Renna and I snuck up to the chest and opened it. Inside was not as bountiful as we had hoped, but of note was an ornate rifle with gold trim and an elegant patterning on it that I couldn’t quite make out. I remember thinking about how much I could get for something like that on the market, but when Renna grabbed it, I knew it was something precious to her by the natural way she held it.

I would later find out it was a rifle especially made for her in a past life. It couldn’t shoot far, but it was almost dead silent. Up until that point, I just thought priests were supposed to make you tea when you got sick, but nope. They’ve got some tricks up their sleeves.

I, on the other hand, had nothing quite so luxurious. All I got for my troubles was a rusty old dagger. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do in the case of a scuffle.

Now that we were both armed, our attention returned to getting Mr. Underbrook out of his cell. We knew we had to get the remaining key off the dwarf, and Renna took it upon herself to go get it.

I took up position against the wall of my cell in case either one of them woke up and things went south.

Renna approached the desk where the dwarf was sleeping, nice and slow. She got up nice and close next to him, just as she had with the orc. She got forward, leaned in close, and reached out her hand. Unfortunately, unlike before, her hand slipped at the wrong moment, causing the keys at the dwarf’s belt to jingle.

It's a pity. She had been doing so well, too.