A familiar smell crept into Benold's nostrils as they passed one door. A woman with freshly whitened linens draped over her arm peered out, but upon being given a stern look from the older Caelian, she popped back in until they passed. Benold glanced back and then saw her scurry in the opposite direction with an arm full of sheets. The unmistakable odor of laundry wafted in the air. One of Caorain's blunders stirred in his memory.

"Volente." It was rare for Benold to call the other man by name, but he staggered close to the reedy gentleman as they walked through the corridors. As the complex was not very large, Benold knew they wouldn't have much time.

Volente sniffed and lifted his chin, staring straight ahead as he kept walking. "I'm not listening to you anymore. We're in enough trouble as it is."

"Fine. Snub me. I do not require your cooperation. Just one of those foul smelling phials of yours."

Alas, Benold never found the need to master the art of sleight of hand, which would have served him well at that moment. Instead, he rather brashly plunged his hand into Volente's bag. "What are you doing!?" Benold ignored the protest and even the cautions swiping at his arm that hardly even constituted as a slap until his finger clasped around something smooth and cool. Glass.

Clink.

Two vials were brought out between his fingers, and Volente stared at him with a cant to his head. "Oh... are you feeling faint? You could have asked - ah - er - except you probably wouldn't know what to call these, would you?"

Benold felt a point prodding in his back. He looked over his shoulder at the Caelian woman who was eyeing him guardedly, her dagger out. "Put that away if you please! See? It's not a weapon. Nothing to fear." Benold held up the small vessels so she could see them. The poking in his back did not subside. In full display, he unfastened the top and then waved it under his nose before replacing the topper.

Eyes watering, his breath quickened and he felt a rush to his head. This smelled exactly like the strange medicine Caorain would make from antlers. He coughed lightly and glanced at the woman.

"It's just smelling salts, nothing harmful, I assure you," Volente piped up.

"Alright. Do not think I will let my guard down."

"Stop dawdling." The older woman in the lead picked up the pace and Benold was given a firm shove from the rear.

There wasn't time to wait for an opening, being watched vigilantly. He had to make it. Letting out an undignified yelp, he stumbled to the ground, clutching his leg wound. He needed to make it look good. Unfortunately, that did not necessitate making it feel good. In fact, his second noise of discomfort spewed out quite unrehearsed.

"Now what!?"

"Oh dear, oh dear!"

"Get him up!"

Both of them women drew their daggers, the older pointing it at Volente, and the younger held it ready as she stared down at Benold. Benold rolled around on the ground, writhing in what he hoped was convincing throes of agony.

"You. Help your friend up." Benold peeked an eye open, seeing the senior of the two ladies gesturing to Volente.

"He's not actually my - eek!" A jab was all it took for Volente to abandon his pedantry. On demand, Volente knelt down, placing a hand on Benold's shoulder and offering the other. Benold clasped the offered hand, eyed Volente, and then gave a forceful tug while using his dead weight to pull the other man down instead of help himself up. Volente let out a startled gasp and tumbled down onto the ground beside Benold. His spectacles fell off his face and he scrambled to the side, feeling around blindly for them. "Oh no... oh no... please don't be broken."

After an exasperated noise, the younger woman stowed her dagger aside, while the older remained on guard, and stooped down to help Volente up. He didn't appear to see her offered hand as he continued to grope the stone floor. With a sigh, the women knelt down and picked up the cracked lenses. This was the opportunity Benold was hoping for.

Jaw tense and pain anticipated, Benold tucked his good leg under him and sprang up from the ground, launching into a mad dash for the laundry. As much as possible he tried to distance himself from the pain, taking deep breaths as his vision tunnelled on the doorway he was aiming for. There were shouts behind him and a clatter of steps.

Leather heel squeaking on the smooth stone, Benold pivoted and barreled into the laundry. He gave a frantic look around. Large vats, buckets, sheets, a burning fireplace. He could already feel the muggy heat against his skin, oppressing him. But the footsteps closing in on him spurred him forward. He slammed the door and clumsily pulled a nearby shelf down as a ramshackle barricade. Trouble was, the door swung out into the hall, not into the room.

Benold approached several buckets as he heard the door swing open.

"Stop!"

The women worked on pushing the shelf out of their way. Benold sniffed one of the buckets. It smelled like the foul, burning concoction the maids used for whitening. He grabbed a nearby cloth and tied it around his head to cover his nose and mouth, then dumped Volente's smelling salts in.

Benold wasn't entirely sure what he was expecting to happen. Stinging watering eyes wasn't it. He closed his eyes and turned away, stumbling, injured, chest burning, through a back door, unsure where it would lead him. When Mrs. Grey briefly described the mishap to him, he perhaps should have asked for more details.

A chorus of coughing and groaning erupted behind him. Benld forced the door shut and leaned against it, preventing those on the other side from getting in. Breathing heavily, overwhelmed by the agony all over his body, he slid down to the ground and tried to clear his burning eyes.

"What has happened?" a hoarse voice inquired.

Pangs of alarm caused Benold to hold his labouring breath and look around the dimly lit room warily. He appeared to be in a room with about six beds lining the walls. Partially sitting up in one of them was a young man with a bandage over one eye.

Benold shook his head and struggled back to his feet. The pain in his chest was getting worse, and his good leg was tiring out from over compensating for the injured one. He shook his head at the invalid. "I can't... do you know Trosyn? I need to find Trosyn."

The one-eyed man stared at him blankly.

"No help... of course not. By the Spirits, why can't everyone speak just one language!" Benold felt the door banging behind him suddenly stop, and the coughing growing fainter. It seemed they gave up trying to get through. Only then did he wonder about the fate of Volente. But it mattered little to him. Trosyn was his singular focus. He'd given up too much already in his search for her.

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Dragging himself to his feet, the battered and bedraggled Governor limped across the aisle between the beds. He glanced briefly at the man in the bed who watched him with one wide eye. The fear was telling, and reassuring. At least someone knew to be wary of him. At least, fear was the closest he had received to respect, which had been largely lacking in this foreign place.

Benold leaned heavily on the door opposite the one he entered through, hand on the knob. He closed his eyes, weary, and beginning to feel faint. With his eyes closer, he saw the vision of a gossamer thread, not unlike that which appeared in his dreams, or briefly while he had been spirited away by that tricky horse spirit. He opened his eyes, as if expecting to see it overlayed with his reality, but it faded quickly from his sight. Again he closed his eyes and concentrated on it. There it was, leading away from him, and curving as if around some unseen barrier. He wanted to reach out to it, to touch it, to follow it. HIs heart fluttered at the thought.

With a heavy sigh and using the last vestiges of his willpower, he opened the door and stumbled into the adjoining room. There was a desk and some benches lining the walls, and a few shelves. A glass display case with a padlock was behind the desk. Within it were various colourful glass jars and bottles, and some other delicate instruments. On the desk he saw a roll of bandages and small scissors, both of which he swiped. They'd be needed later, he was sure.

There were two more doors. Benold stared hard at the room, trying to record its layout in his memory, then closed his eyes. The thread, indeed, seemed to lead to one of the doors. Without any better guidance than this, he shuffled onward.

Distant sounds of alarmed voices and shodden feet on stone could be heard sometimes, but other times the thick stone walls muffled most of the noise. They were looking for him. But he just kept following the strange thread. In the past he would have dismissed and scoffed at the idea of blindly following a hallucination, but desperation had him in its clammy clutches.

He finally was confronted with a door that had been barred with a sturdy piece of wood. With a grunt, he removed it and swung the door open. The world was spinning and he barely managed to clamour into the room. When the world stopped, his eyes focused on a sight he nearly thought was an apparition.

Sitting up in a shoddy cot in a tiny cell, face framed with tumbling red hair, was Trosyn. At long last. He'd found her. Her eyes went wide, her pink lips parted, but no sound came from her. She looked gaunt and sickly. A rush of relief pushed out all other feeling. Moments later his body hit the cold, stone floor.

"Benold!?"

That voice was bliss. It was the only thing keeping him from completely succumbing to exhaustion. He wanted to loon on her face, but his eyelids were so heavy. The thread was bright now, and at the very end he saw a glowing orb which grew brighter. Or was it closer? But soon it all faded from the stage the backs of his eyelids had provided, and insead all that was left was a kaleidoscope of shadows and colours.

A cool hand on his cheek elicited a smile. "I found you..."

"How!? How have you- oh Benold!" He would have preferred if her voice had a tone of relief and longing, even joy. But to him, it sounded oddly exasperated. He didn't want to open his eyes and confirm it by seeing her thin lipped expression of consternation. "What have you done?"

Benold finally opened his eyes to stare up at her. She was wearing a loose gown of sorts, with some slight stains, likely from sweat and other unpleasant bodily fluids. He just realised how badly the room smelled as well. He tried to ignore what the bucket in the corner of the room was used for.

"I've come... to rescue you."

"Benold..." Trosyn sighed and scooted closer, lifting his head onto her lap. She ran her clammy fingers through his hair. "Look at you. You're a mess."

Benold looked up at her. Her round face was care worn, her freckles darker and skin pock marked. There were some visible sores and rashes marring her once lively features. Her eyes seemed to have lost their shine as well, dull and cold like the stone walls around them. "We both... need to clean up."

"You need to go before they find you."

"Who... who are these people?"

A grim expression came over Trosyn, as the lines in her forehead furrowed deep. Her eyes welled up with tears, and he reached up a hand as if to wipe them away, but saw how filthy his own fingers had become and withdrew. "Zealots."

"Why have they... done this to you?"

"They..." her voice caught and she swallowed hard. He stared at her once creamy neck, blotchy and red, as the muscles fought with the lump forming. She shook her head and cleared her throat. "They think I am some bad omen of a prophesy. And they took away my - they took something precious from me."

Benold knew from how her voice trembled that she was trying hard to conceal deeper emotions. Neither of them were fond of over-demonstrative displays. At the moment, though, it seemed unimportant to appear strong.

"We will get it back. I promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Benold!"

The words stung him, and he slowly sat up, turning to look at her. "And what promises have I ever broken?"

Trosyn frowned and looked away. "I just meant - but now isn't the time." Trosyn stood up, smoothing out her wrinkled and tattered attire. "All I want to hear is how you plan on getting out."

Benold brought up the knee of his good leg and rested his elbow on it. He took the bandages out and stared at them. "While I did have a plan, and it was a thorough one," he began lifting his chin haughtily, "...some unforeseen events have made it not longer feasible. And we need not waste time going over what won't work. Thus, we will make it up as we go. But I'm sure working together, we can triumph."

Trosyn peered down at him then went over to the door, pushing it open with a creak. She glanced out into the hallway, then back at Benold. "Ah, yes, I am sure your plan was very intricate and daring." It seemed to Benold as though she were speaking ironically, but he banished such thoughts. Instead, he chose to rally, finally having someone on his side. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying in place.

"There's a locked cabinet that looks like it may hold medicine. If there's anything for pain, that'd be the first step. After that, we'll have to just make a break for the exit."

Trosyn scrunched her face and shook her head at first, but then sighed and nodded. "Alright. Let's get what we need to patch you up."

Her bare feet pattered on the stone floor as she walked out into a narrow corridor. He followed, glancing every which way. Occasionally he heard a distant clang, unsure what it was.

"Ah, Trosyn, I suppose I ought to ask, do you know your way around here?"

"Not overly."

"Ah..." Benold frowned. He was so intent on following the strange apparition to get to her, he hadn't paid attention how he did. But, the door at the end of the hall did seem familiar, particularly a side table with a vase and flowers in it. "Well, this way, then."

As they came upon the door, there were voices and the other side. Benold grabbed Trosyn's hand and instead darted into one of the other unoccupied cells. As the voice grew louder, there was a scuffling sound and a cacophony of erratic footsteps.

Benold peered through the door which he left just ajar. The door to the dungeon, or whatever it was he was in, came open and two men in black walked in, dragging an unwilling Volente with them.

"Please, be merciful, just tell me where you are taking me!"

Benold could hear Trosyn gasp and she nudged him aside to have room to look as well. She whispered one syllable then stopped herself, as if afraid to make a sound. They carried him beyond their view. There was the sound of a door slamming, and the sliding noise of a bar slamming down into its brackets. The two men walked past where Benold and Trosyn were watching from without the researcher.

Once the sound of a door closing indicated they left the area, Trosyn placed her hands on his rather wide hips and arched an accusatory eyebrow at Benold.

"What?"

"Volente is a dear friend of mine. Did you know he was here, too?" she asked, tapping a finger.

"Ah... yes. We got separated. A friend, you say?"

"And... were you even going to try and find him?"

"Once you were safe."

Benold did not like the cross expression he was being treated to, especially considering everything he gave up to rescue her. Some frumpy old man being a casualty did not seem to be the salient point here.

"Benold. We're getting him out. Now."

"Of course we are. I... had just hoped he'd already made it out on his own."

"Ah. Of course. Pardon me," Trosyn relented, crossing her arms.

The rescue was not quite playing out as he had hoped. And her reactions to him were, it sufficed to say, underwhelming. Where was that tenderness and adoration he remembered? Perhaps she was just not herself after time spent in this stinking pit.

"Well, let's retrieve him, and figure a way out."