did leave their homelands travelled widely throughout the northern kingdoms of Ixlan and the Badlands. This fact meant that no one looked twice at the shabbily dressed minotaur and his two female companions.
“Absolutely,” answered the smaller of the two women. A dainty halfling, with an impish face, wide, mischievous green eyes and a long, thick ponytail of honey blonde hair she seemed little more than a child.
“Don’t forget I used to be very good at this sort of thing. The festival will help us,” she said. At this comment, the minotaur made a growling noise deep in his throat.
“Hey bully, never mind the impiety, today it’s going to play into our hands,” the little halfling continued.
“Do not call me bully, Lara, I dislike that intensely.” The minotaur said resignedly.
“Sorry Tares, anyway, like I said if Darzan here,” Lara continued pointing towards the second woman, “can get us the cart I can get us in. The laundry normally goes in tomorrow, but I'm willing to bet with the festival on no-one’s going to notice or ask questions if it’s come a day early.”
“Well Darzan?” Tares looked to the other woman.
Standing about five and a half feet tall, with a curvaceous yet lean figure the dark-skinned human woman was incredibly beautiful. Dressed in brightly colored silk pants and a matching shirt with a circlet of pure gold holding her curly black hair in place, gold hoop earrings and a long saber at her side Darzan was outlandish, exotic, and also one of the best pirates in Ixlan.
“Hey, as I said from the very beginning, I'm as good as your gold. I know someone who can procure the cart for us and he should be here any minute now,” Darzan answered.
“I dislike this stealing, it is not right,” Tares said in his low rumbling voice.
“It’s not really stealing, Tares, we’re just, um,” Lara paused, trying to think of something to say, “borrowing, yeah just borrowing the cart. Soon as we’re finished with it we can take it right back.”
Lara smiled brightly at Tares, pleased with her quick thinking. As she knew better than most, once the minotaur got started instructing people about right and wrong he could go on forever; or at least so long it felt like forever. Tares snorted in profound disbelief at Lara's qualification and shook his massive bovine head.
“Anyway, once my friend gets here,” Darzan cut in, “I’ll get changed and off to prison we go.”
“And you are certain he is in there?” Tares asked Lara.
“Yes, yes, yes. I’m starting to think you doubt me bull…I mean Tares. I told Michael I'd play straight from now on and I meant it.”
“That is Lord Michael to you Lara,” Tares began in utter exasperation. Although he quite liked the young halfling he was finding, after only a short acquaintanceship that she took absolutely nothing seriously. It was a trait that the big minotaur found wearing on his nerves and his patience.
“Our friend is here,” Darzan said, pointing to a shabbily dressed human man leading a cart into a nearby alleyway.
“Come on,” Darzan said, getting up and walking towards her contact, with Lara and Tares following her closely.
A short time later an apparent old woman appeared from the alleyway pushing a large, cloth covered cart. It would have taken a particularly shrewd observer to identify Darzan under the shapeless brown woolen dress, large headscarf and bent-backed, shuffling walk.
Pushing the cart across the cobbled plaza towards the prison Darzan was wondering why she had ever gotten involved in this harebrained scheme. The coin, of course; Darzan had been offered so much gold that she had simply been unable to refuse. Now, there was a part of her wishing that she had not gotten involved. Still, her part in their plan was small; take them into the complex in the cart and then take the cart back and wait. Darzan doubted very much that the two of them would ever come out.
As she drew up to the complex proper Darzan saw that there were no guards in the watchtowers. Normally there would have been at least four, two in each tower. Today there were only the standard two guards at the large portcullis gate that led into the outer grounds of the prison. The reduced number was likely due to the Festival and was not unexpected. As she came closer the guard hailed her.
“You there, what’s your business?” The guard was a typical Diablis prison guard. Tall, well built, probably at least half an orc and ugly as sin, The Dark One seemed to have a never-ending supply of guards such as these.
“Laundry,” Darzan made her voice quiver like the elderly woman she was supposed to be, “just deliverin’ the sheets ‘n clothes fer th’ prisners’”
“Laundry’s not till tomorrow,” the guard answered suspiciously.
“Doin’ it early on account o’ th’ festival,” Darzan sincerely hoped she would be believed; otherwise she would have a fight on her hands.
“Wait here,” the guard said and walked over to confer with his partner. Straining her ears Darzan tried to hear what they were saying but they were speaking too low for her to pick up anything. After a few minutes, which seemed like an eternity, the guard returned.
“All right, in you go. Straight to the laundry room and out again. There’s been a bit of trouble in there this morning, some of the prisoners started a riot, haven’t had a chance to clean everything up yet, good dame, so don’t be troubled by anything you might see.”
Darzan found the information extremely troubling. Not so much by the news of the so-called riot, she’d heard of riots before, but by the usually gruff guards attempt at courtesy. It was decidedly out of character for a Diablis prison guard. Something had gone wrong. When you had been a pirate for as long as Darzan had been you learned how to smell trouble coming; she could smell it now.
It was only twenty feet from the portcullis gate to the main, double wooden doors of the prison itself but to Darzan it seemed like the longest walk on the planet. Once she was out of earshot of the two portcullis guards she slowed and on the pretence of ridding her shoe of a stone bent down to loosen her saber from its hiding place under her dress in case she should need it quickly.
“I curse you two and the day I met you,” she whispered angrily, “I assume you heard all that? You know what this means?”
“It’s obviously a trap of some kind,” said Tares, his voice muffled slightly. “Let’s see how far they’re willing to let us get shall we?”
“I think I hate you both,” was Darzan’s only reply as she continued pushing the cart slowly towards the prison doors.
The lone guard on the door merely opened the doors, waved Darzan through and closed them again behind her. Pushing the cart before her, she entered a small room, roughly ten feet square. Directly opposite were two matching wooden doors, to the left and right were other, single wooden doors. Surprisingly, or perhaps not in view of her conviction that this was a trap, there were no guards in sight.
Inside the Prison
Darzan stood for a brief moment, and listened intently. Despite the early hour the pirate woman knew there should still have been sounds of activity, yet although she strained her ears she could detect nothing. The whole prison was deathly silent, something Darzan knew without needing to be told, was extremely unusual.
The pirate woman opened the door on the left. It led into a packed storage room. The long, rectangular room was lined along the back wall with shelves from floor to ceiling. Food, clothing, canvas sacks, and other assorted items filled the shelves. On one side of the room was a tall, thin set of free standing shelves. These shelves were filled, from top to bottom, with rolls and rolls of parchment. They were probably prison records but Darzan didn’t bother to look at any of them, there was no time and no need. Instead, she gave the all clear for Tares and Lara to get out of the cart. The big minotaur and the halfling climbed out of the cart awkwardly and quickly collected the assorted armor and weapons they had brought with them.
“There’s no point me going back out there, I'd stake my life that they know about you two,??
? Darzan said.
“I agree. You will have to come with us,” Tares replied then looked at Lara, “Do you know where we are?”
“I think so,” Lara answered, “just outside here should be a biggish room,” she looked at Darzan who nodded confirmation, “then we go through two big doors into the main room of the prison. They’ve got some kind of device, I don’t know exactly what it does but they tie the prisoners to it to power the thing. From that room there’s doors which lead to the guards quarters, we do not want to go there.”
“We will have to fight the guards eventually little one,” Tares said gently.
“I know, but let’s avoid them while we can. I know of a back way that leads to the lower level. He’s a spellcaster so that’s where he’ll be,” she paused chewing on her lower lip, looking more serious than Tares had ever seen her, “it’s not pretty what they do there.”
“I understand, Lara.” Unfortunately, Tares did understand, all too well. If you were going to capture a spellcaster, whether arcane or divine, the only way you could be certain of keeping them a prisoner was to keep them in near constant pain and sleep deprived. This combination would make it impossible to work magic of any kind.
“What sort of guards do they have on the lower level?” Darzan asked.
“I don’t know for sure, I’d imagine there would be quite a few. And there’s