The first thing Jace noticed when he woke up was that he was an orc again. With his settings turned high, his orcish snout and ears picked up things his human senses didn’t. The creaks of the ship were much louder now, the smell of sweat and rust filling his nose.
Next, he noticed that he wasn’t lying in his bed anymore. Jace wondered if the flimsy cots lashed to the ship's hull were strong enough to support an orc, and he might have crashed to the floor when his illusion spell ran out. A few moments’ evaluation showed that wasn’t the case. He wasn’t lying on the floor. He was sitting on it, and his back was pressed against cold metal bars. Also, his hands were secured behind him.
Jace dreaded what he would see but finally opened his eyes. He was in a dungeon.
{My bad,} Gracie said. {You should have gone to dinner.}
An ache in Jace’s gut told him she was right, and he tried to go into his settings and turn his environmental sensitivity down, but he couldn’t. Right, Jace thought. I’m Securely Grappled. He could only do things that took a single action, and going into his inventory took a full round.
“Can you check my inventory?” he asked out loud.
{Sorry, Jace, you’re empty.}
He looked down and saw he wore the starting gray tunic. Only the cursed ring Gromphy had made for him remained. His kidnappers wouldn’t have been able to remove that without a high-level priest. It protected him from the Hold spell since it did five damage every time he failed a save. Receiving damage canceled a Hold spell. Jace checked his health in his Head-Up-Display and saw his 680 HP was down to 50. He had to be careful. He assumed he had several banes running right now from the aches and pains he felt, and if he failed too many saves, the ring would kill him.
Jace tried to sit up straighter and made sure the game didn’t interpret it as an attempt to free himself from his shackles. Not only would he definitely fail that attempt, but it would leave him Helpless for a few rounds, and he wouldn’t be able to talk.
“Jace?”
The orc heard the familiar voice and looked up to see Psycho’s concerned expression. The ranger sat up straight with his hands behind him, presumably shackled. The stately elf showed no signs of Jace's fatigue and anguish. He had declined to wear the ring Gromphy had fashioned and was at full health. Jace wondered if the game had simulated his character trying 126 escape attempts over the past couple of days, and he had taken five points of damage each time.
“Jace?” he asked again. “Is it you?”
“It is me,” Jace said. “Who else would it be? Was I someone else for a while?”
Psycho shrugged. “Something like that. We couldn’t put our finger on it. Draya said it was still you, and you insisted it was still you, but I didn’t see it. It started two days ago when we met for dinner in the captain’s quarters. You weren’t yourself. I wouldn’t have expected you to give that temptress the time of day, but you and the first mate talked almost all dinner. Draya said it was to keep Esther from sleeping with her, but I wasn’t convinced.”
Jace nodded, figuring it out. While he and Rock skipped ahead, Gandhi had simulated their interactions. The game’s AI was advanced, and Jace had logged enough play time to give a template for how he would act in virtually all situations, but Psycho was clever enough to assume something was up. Draya had probably tried to perceive a spell or some magical charm. There hadn’t been one, so she was confident it was still him. “What happened after dinner?” Jace asked.
“We had a lot of wine,” Psycho replied. “I don’t think Draya ever had alcohol before.”
Jace grinned despite the situation. He had taken her to a tavern before the Torrintank Keep module, where they had acquired Gromphy and before they had picked up Psycho. It had only taken a few drinks to incapacitate her.
“She was puking over the railing of the ship in no time. Leah didn’t fare much better, but I think they were both seasick too. We all went to bed, and we woke up here. I am convinced the wine was drugged. Draya must have been too intoxicated to notice.”
Or it hadn’t been magic, Jace thought. They were headed to an island with exotic spices and herbs. Who knew what types of concoctions they could produce. Not everything in the realms ran off mana.
Jace looked around. He saw Rock lying on the floor beside him. He would have woken at the same time Jace did, but the dwarf remained motionless on his side. He must have tried to wrench his wrists free from the shackles and was now Helpless for a few rounds. Since they weren’t in combat mode, he might remain immobile for a while.
In the cell next to them, Leah and Draya lay still. They appeared to be sleeping.
“Where is Esther?” Jace asked.
Psycho shrugged. “I don’t know. She freed herself rather quickly once we were down here. When I woke the first morning, she was up and about in her cell and was working on Draya’s shackles when the guards noticed her. They blasted her with their tridents and then redid her restraints, yelling at each other for not doing them properly the first time.”
Jace’s eyes focused more acutely in the dim light, and he saw several lizardmen pacing about between the cages. They each held three-pronged spears. He hadn’t seen a troglodyte before, but they looked like he expected: six-foot-tall geckos walking upright with long tails and sharp teeth. They wore minimal clothing fashioned out of thin leather. Some had vests and a loin cloth. Others, just the cloth. Their thick tails didn’t accommodate pants. Jace wondered if any of them sold insurance or spoke with a British accent.
He also realized he should have paid attention to Snowy’s observation that snakes were on board. They had been told the cargo area below decks was off-limits and had respected their hosts by not exploring. Had Jace not skipped ahead, he might have suggested Esther do some sneaking around.
“She was free again in an hour,” Psycho continued, “so they shocked her into submission again and hauled her upstairs. I haven’t seen her in a day and a half.”
{It still shows you have five active party members in this module,} Gracie said. {If she had been killed, she would have woken up in her bed . . . or somewhere, and you would have been forced to finish this module without her. It looks like she is still alive.}
“And Snowy?” Jace asked.
“Behind you,” Psycho nodded, indicating a different cell.
Jace turned carefully and saw the large wolf lying by herself in a cage, each leg shackled to each other and a collar around her neck secured to several of the bars enclosing her. The shaman also saw half a dozen other cages with a small collection of prisoners. The maximum hit points he saw over their heads was 50, meaning none of them were advanced levels and were all weak.
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Leaning against the hull of this lower level were thin wooden panels roughly the length of the cells. Jace understood the massive crates he had seen loaded onto this ship had been these cages disguised with wood to make them look like crates. Captain Potiphar was going to the island to trade slaves for goods.
Jace turned back to Psycho. “What have I been like since we’ve been down here? Did I say anything useful?”
The elf shook his head. “You mostly lay still. Two or three times an hour, you would stir, struggle against your shackles, and then freeze up. A few moments ago, I heard you talking to Gracie. That’s how I knew you were back.”
Jace nodded, understanding that his earlier guess was correct and his ring had almost killed him. Had he not skipped ahead and gone to dinner to drink the poisoned wine, he would have still woken up here; only it would have been almost two days ago. Jace would have been smart enough not to struggle against his shackles repeatedly, but he would have had to sit through 12 hours of imprisonment before nighttime and a chance to skip ahead again. Despite the situation he now found himself in, shortening the voyage was probably the right decision.
That thought made him realize the game should have woken him at the end of their trip. They must be getting close to the island. “I think we will arrive soon.”
“Do you know what will happen?” the elf asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jace said. “No one has ever done this mission before. I assume we will find Josephus in a position of power on this island. In the story from my world, Joe starts as a slave but proves he is competent and is eventually given authority. His family, who sold him into slavery, eventually shows up, and he tests them to see if they have reformed since mistreating him. I imagine it will play out the same way now.”
Jace looked at the cell beside him where the two women lay resting. “Leah must prove to Joe that she isn’t evil and doesn’t want him dead. After that, I don’t know. I’ll have to play it by ear.”
“Do we tell her?” Psycho asked.
Jace thought about it. In most of the other modules he had played, he knew the outcomes and had answers for all the puzzles he would face. Sometimes, he spoiled it for his party members, and sometimes, he held them in suspense. For something like this, if he told Leah she would be tested, the game might not feel her eventual confession was genuine, and Gandhi might change the rules at the last minute.
“I don’t think we should,” Jace said. “I heard her lament over sending her relatives to this island, and it sounded legitimate. I feel confident she will pass any test presented to her.” Jace chuckled. “And, since it is all up to her, the real test of this mission might be on the player to decide how much should be revealed to Leah.”
Psycho nodded and then sat suddenly still, cocking his head. Jace didn’t hear or feel anything, but his body ached, and his ears rang, so he didn’t expect to compete with the ranger’s tuned hunting senses. “We are turning,” Psycho said. “The ship is coming about to port. We must be approaching the shore and navigating to a dock.”
They both waited as Jace soon also felt the precise maneuvering of the ship. Eventually, they heard it knock against something hard, after which the only motion they felt was the gentle rocking of the waves. Both women stirred in the next cell and carefully lifted themselves into sitting positions. Jace hated seeing Draya like this. Bruised and dirty, she looked even younger than her 18 years. She and Leah both wore the same starting tunic. Draya’s mage dress was also cursed, but Jace knew she disabled that spell in order to sleep at night since the constant pulsing of fire damage kept her awake. That meant their captures would have had no issue removing it from her.
Jace’s blood boiled at the thought of these slave traders stripping his female companions and tying them up in their drug-induced sleep. He had to consciously restrain himself from trying to rip his hands free from his shackles lest he fail, take more damage, and become Helpless.
Voices from his right turned his head away from the women’s cage, and he saw Potiphar and Lilith descending a staircase to these lower levels, broad grins on their faces. He had to fight against his urges again.
“Well, I see you survived your ordeal,” the captain said, his first mate leering over his shoulder. “Lilith begged me to let her in to tend to you, but I thought that would be a waste of her druid skills. If you want to wear a cursed ring, that is your business. I think she actually wanted to get at the elf while he was tied up.”
Lilith hummed appreciatively behind her captain, liking her thick red lips.
Jace ignored the antics. “Where is Esther?”
The captain grinned. “I assume you mean your slippery rogue. Yes, she was a bit of a handful. Lilith wanted a piece of her too, but I’m afraid that would have been the end of my second in command. She needed a private cell above. The rest of the crew prefer that anyway. These reptiles don’t appreciate her finer qualities.” The few troglodytes in range hissed at the human.
Normally, Jace would have grown livid at the idea that they would put the beautiful woman on display, but he knew that if anyone tried to touch her, they would be disabled within seconds. None of the crew had Hit Points, implying they harbored advanced combat classes.
“Once you let us out of these cages . . .” Jace started.
“Oh, but I’m not going to let you out. I only need to unload the cargo.”
On cue, light streamed into the lower deck as boards were removed from above them. Jace squinted his sensitive orc eyes into the sunlight and saw men peering down at the collection of cages. They would be unloaded vertically through the ceiling, never leaving their cells. One of the men jumped down from above onto the top of a cage that held three weak-looking men, none above level 4 or 40 Hit Points. The crewman glanced with disgust at the troglodytes that milled about the lower level, and they returned an equally disdainful look. Jace already assumed the two groups didn’t like each other.
The man hooked a cable to the top of the cage and gave the signal above to hoist. Once the cell rose a few feet in the air, he jumped back to the ship’s deck, and the prisoners were lifted through the hole and out of sight.
The troglodytes below deck maneuvered the next crate of slaves into position by sliding it into the gap left behind. Jace saw rollers on the floor that made shuffling the heavy cells easier. Three more were removed before Snowy’s cell was pushed into position. The winter wolf snarled at the lizard men, likely never to forget their smell. Her collar had four chains on it, equally restraining her from each sidewall and preventing her from biting the webbed hands that gripped the bars.
“Draya,” Jace said, seeing the women’s cage would be next. The troglodytes were distracted by maneuvering the wolf into position, not eager to lose a clawed finger. The mage stirred in her cage and slunk over toward her leader. The cells were three feet apart, and they could touch each other if they wanted. “Draya, I need you to . . .” he stopped when the light from above shone on her face. She looked terrible.
“What is it?” she croaked.
Jace felt hungry, but he understood Draya had been ill. If she had puked all the food she had eaten at dinner and, prior to that, the food she had consumed for breakfast before they had left the stronghold three days ago, she would be in much worse condition than him. Her face was drawn and shallow, bile staining the front of her gray tunic.
“What do you need me to do?” she asked.
Jace hesitated, not wanting to ask too much of her. “When we get on the island, I think one of the leaders will be Josephus in disguise. I need you to find him.” Her Perception skill was not a spell; however, all the banes assaulting her would reduce her ability.
She nodded and looked over at Leah. The witch was in worse shape than Draya. They were both losing health slowly, but the level 17 mage had more to start with, and her constitution was much higher. “I don’t think she will be able to help for a while,” Jace said. “Keep this between us for now.”
“I will do what I can,” Draya said.
“No talking!” one of the guards hissed once they saw the two characters conversing. Snowy’s cage was now safely in the air, and the troglodytes began positioning Draya and Leah next. They had their tridents poised just outside the bars, ready to zap either of the women if they tried anything, but neither had the strength to stand at the moment and didn’t resist as they were moved into position.
“Away from the walls!” one of the lizardmen said, jabbing his weapon toward Jace. The orc was still watching the women move away and didn’t react to the command fast enough. The guard activated his trident, enveloping Jace in a stream of lightning. The attack did no damage, but he had to save against the potential or be Stunned. He failed and was not only reduced to an immobile form on the floor of his cage, but his ring lowered his HP by five.
The attack put Jace in combat mode for the duration of his disabled condition, so it only lasted 24 seconds, and he righted himself before the women were hauled up and out of the hold. Beside him, Rock stirred. “I know, I know, I won’t struggle this time,” the dwarf said, obviously talking to his operator. He scooted toward the center of the cage to join Jace and Psycho as the troglodytes moved their cell into position. “Do we have an escape plan yet?” he asked in a low whisper.
Jace heard the deckhand from above leap to the top of their cage and attached the cable to haul the last of the ship’s “cargo” out of the hold. “I’m working on it,” Jace replied.