It didn’t start any differently from other nights. She’d gone to the Lodge, spent some time with Theo. A couple of glasses of wine. Said goodbye with a kiss before walking to her own apartment. It was almost dawn.
Then it all changed.
Just before starting to undress to go to bed, Eluned noticed her door handle turn. On its own. A couple of seconds later, five men barged in, immediately attacking her. Her staff was upstairs, near her bed. Unreachable. She dodged one vial thrown at her, but she couldn’t dodge the second one… the content splashed on her chest, and she recognized the scent when it hit her nose: a sleeping potion. Not enough drops, she knew, to knock her out immediately… but enough to slow her down. Certainly enough to cloud her mind, making it extremely hard for her to cast any spell, even if she had her weapon. They had come prepared, she realized. They knew what they would be facing.
The fight was short, but brutal. Through incredible effort, she managed to concentrate enough to summon a swirling tornado that threw all kinds of objects at her assailants. One died, a heavy paperweight flying straight to his head. The embers in the fireplace burned more than one of them, the tornado throwing them in their faces.
But the potion was working and the constant attacks prevented Eluned to try and cleanse it from her system. Then he came. The most enormous Roe she had ever met. He towered over her, grabbing her by the throat in a moment where she had to blink hard to try and stay awake, pouring some more potion directly on her face, in her mouth too.
And she knew it was over. Kicking and screaming until the drug inevitably took her under, the last thing she knew was something metallic locking on her throat and the Roe’s laugh as he threw her on his shoulder. “You’re in for some fun, girl… the boss will be so happy to see you again.”
Then, there was nothing.
Pain!
A blinding, scorching explosion of pain, centered around her neck.
Eluned raised her hands on the collar that circled her throat, uselessly trying to dislodge it. Her thoughts were fragmented, her body shaking in aftershocks. The sparks were designed to keep the captive conscious, but stunned, unable to move or think coherently.
And the rocks she’d summoned, ready to shoot like bullets on her captors, fell uselessly on the ground, just like her.
She’d woken up, after what felt like days, and found herself in a cage in a moving cart. She’d tried to escape, but even though she’d managed to break the lock, she’d soon found that her four remaining abductors were ready for her. The collar’s remote had been activated as soon as she’d managed to channel enough aether to be a threat. And even if that wasn’t an aether suppressant collar, it was useful all the same to prevent her from casting any spells.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. Theo was there. Theo had been captured too, using her as leverage against him. And now it was the other way around because she knew he would be the one to pay for any rebellion on her part. And she couldn’t allow it. Not her sweet, harmless friend.
Thrown together in a cage, they could only wait, wait to know their destiny. But even then, they didn’t give up. Little by little, Theo’s flower crown lost its flowers, as they were scattered along the road. And Eluned left pieces of her shirt too, a soft trail to mark the passage. She knew someone would look for them. Theo had a lover, a Knight from Ishgard, who would stop at nothing to find him. And Myr was a hunter, a tracker. He would start searching as soon as he realized she was missing. He wouldn’t stop until he found her. They just had to survive until then.
When the cart finally stopped, it was in front of a dark cave in what she knew was somewhere in Thanalan, with an ominous path leading inside. Poles were inserted into places in their cage and they were lifted up, and carried inside, leaving the cart free to be hidden somewhere else. The inside was cool, deep enough into the earth that nobody from the outside would hear anything about what was going on inside.
Other cages were inside, but they were empty. The space was split by tents and drapes, dividing it into several little “rooms”.
At the center, a table, chairs and, ominously, several poles sinking deep into the ground, with manacles on top.
A couple of men were sitting at the table, giving them their back.
“Boss!” The Roe called, as soon as they entered, dropping their cage with a grin. “We come bringing gifts!”
The blond man at the table, turned around.
And Eluned screamed.
Misty 