Jahrod led them to a small ladder up through a tight vertical tunnel that was little more than a pipe.
“Up there,” Jahrod said, pointing.
Max pressed in close with Anita, Elderon, and Jahrod, and they looked up the dark pipe. It would be a tight squeeze for Jahrod, but Max would have no problem. Iron rungs set in the side of the tunnel would let them climb. The only problem seemed to be the iron grill over the top of the channel. Max could see shadows and lights flickering above.
At that moment, the top of the pipe darkened. A sudden rush of water, warm and soapy, came down the chute. Max was drenched. He could smell the soap in the water. He let it wash all over him, flushing away the filth. Though thoroughly soaked through, at least he did not stink.
“It’s the laundry,” Max said, smiling as the last of the water trickled away. “But how to get the grill open?”
“Leave it to me,” Elderon said. He started up the iron rungs, as spry as a man half his age. In fact, Max realized he didn’t know how old Elderon was. He’d said he’d known Gorgoron for an age, but was that a figure of speech, or was it as long as it sounded?
Elderon reached the top. There was a brief pause, and then he was up and through the top of the pipe. Max went next, swiftly up the rungs that were slippery with soap and water. He came out in the laundry room of the castle.
Huge wooden tubs filled with hot water sat in line in the large stone-clad room. Mechanical devices for pounding and washing the clothes and linen for the entire castle were at work. Steam drove the wooden shafts. A pair of rollers squeezed water out of a stack of linen. The water running along channels in the floor drained it away down the main chute. Then a large wooden tub made from slatted timbers tipped over and the used water, still warm and soapy, cascaded along the laundry floor toward the open drainage chute Max had just emerged from. The wall of waste water hit Jahrod as he came up, the last of the party to emerge.
Max could hear laundry workers in the shadows beyond the wooden washtubs.
“I’ll find us a way out,” Max said. He activated his Sneak ability and vanished from sight, hidden in the steam and the shadows.
Max moved silently. He passed a laundry worker entering the laundry and slipped out of the steam-filled room. Outside the laundry was a corridor, long and dark, stone walls with an arch overhead and only six feet high. Elderon would have to duck, but Max could just about move along without fear of hitting his head.
He moved along the corridor, looking for the way out, a stairway up into the palace. He passed a door on his right. There . . . a heavy timber door with an opening at eye level, an opening with three vertical metal bars. He looked inside and saw a bare room with flagstone floor, stone walls, and a heap of straw in one corner. There was no window, but in the dark, he saw a figure of a young woman. She was huddled in the straw, drawing a thin shawl over her bare shoulders.
Max tried the door. The handle turned, but the door stayed locked. The young woman inside looked up at the door.
Max checked her stats.
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> The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
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> Name: Princess Shree Ralynn
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> Status: Captive
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> Attack: None
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> Threat level: Low
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“Who’s there?” Princess Shree said. “Someone come to help a poor princess?”
A princess of Ralynn city! Max guessed she was the daughter of the king. What was she doing here in a dungeon? She was no threat to anyone.
“Maybe I can help,” Max said. “I’ll get this door open.” Max tried to force his sword into the gap between door and frame. Shree came gingerly to the door, nervous, excited, and afraid. Max looked at her wide eyes. It was clear she was pretty even under the layer of grime on her face. A gentle word of concern would calm her. “How did you end up in there?”
“I would not let my father slip into the darkness.” She came close to the bars in the door. “I held his hand, I told him I was with him, and I saved him from the dark even as it began to take him. Then the advisor had me taken away. He could see that not only did I resist the darkness, but I saved my father from it. They put me here, and it has been weeks. The laundry workers drop bread through the grill when they can, but the advisor means to starve me to death. How did you get here? The guards don’t let anyone down here.”
“I came through the sewers,” Max said.
Shree wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t sound very nice.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t.” Max tried to lever the door open with his sword. “I am here to save a young dwarf from the dark king. I can free you too.”
“My father is changed,” Shree said. Her head dropped. “Changed by the darkness, but he is not evil. It is not I or the young dwarf you need to free, it is the king that needs help. If we free him, bring him back from the darkness, the whole castle will be free again. He needs your help, not me.”
“Sit tight,” Max said and slipped away. He found the stairway up and saw a guard sitting on a stool at the top of the stairs. He was slumped forward and leaning on a spear, a ring of keys hanging from his belt.
Now Max wished he was a better Pick Pocket. He had taken a coin purse from a sleeping guard, but these keys looked heavy and would no doubt rattle. He touched the pommel of his sword, but even though the thought crossed his mind he knew he could not murder this guard while asleep. Max knelt and lifted the keys carefully.
The guard stirred as the keys jingled slightly, then he grunted, shifted position, and was snoring again. Max slipped back down the stairs and back to the princess. He slid a key into the door. Then he saw Elderon in the shadows.
“What are you doing, Max? You are supposed to be finding the way out of here.”
“The princess is being held prisoner here.” Max turned the key. “She says the king has been taken by the darkness. If we can save him from the dark evil, we will free the castle.”
The princess stepped out, and Elderon gasped and gave a light bow.
“Princess! I had no idea you had survived. We will help you save your father.”
Max took the princess by the arm and let her lead him.
“This way,” she said and took them to the stairs up.
Max halted at the bottom of the stairs and pointed up. “There is a guard asleep on a stool.”
Elderon nodded.
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> Elderon casts Sleep.
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The spell drifted up the stairs, followed by the sound of the guard falling off his stool.
Max stepped over the guard and followed the princess to a narrow, hidden set of stairs.
“You learn all the hidden passages when you’re trying to avoid the governess,” Shree said with a cheeky smile and then led the way.
The stairs ended at a wooden panel. Shree pressed a corner and then slid the panel aside. Max looked out onto a wider corridor, tall with a narrow carpet running its length and wall hangings decorating the walls.
Max stepped out into the wide corridor. He could hear the sound of approaching footsteps, a rhythmic pounding of marching feet. Around the far corner came a group of four soldiers, all dressed in black armor.
Max checked their stats, but he knew this was trouble.
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> Name: Blackguards
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> Status: Hostile
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> Attack: Longswords
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> Threat level: Deadly
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Dark, lifeless eyes stared out from under black helmets. Fine dark lines flickered across their faces, pooling in deep dark shadows at the eye sockets. The lips were black and the cheeks pale. They advanced toward the party.