DeadApe: Try to grab whatserface and run out of cave. If I cant manage to take her with me, i leave her and run. After all I am a coward. But i most definitely cant fight the knight
II
Brandon grabbed onto her arm hard and she twisted violently, resisting against him. He pulled her as best as he could towards the exit to the cave but soon she broke loose of his hold and was on the ground again. He had enough time to register the fireball coming from out of his peripheral to realize what was going to happen to the girl half a moment before it did. He turned away, protecting himself from the vision of Tam being hit by a fireball directly, being consumed in flame. Brandon started to run and her screams soon died as he felt her presence leave.
The lordling ran as fast as he ever had before, his chest pounding with pain, his legs numb from overuse. The flame knight had thrown another fireball at him, though it had missed by a wide margin, and since he had not had any trouble. Still, he felt the heat of the cave now doused in fire at his back and some other level of his mind was telling him to run. When he did finally break free of the cave, he collapsed onto the ground, heaving. I’m going to die here. Tam is dead, Tam is dead. His vision fogged over and soon turned to black as he fell unconscious.
–
Lord Beaumont’s men found Brandon there, unconscious in the mud. A healer with the group treated the boy while the search party began to split into smaller groups. One group headed in the direction of the continuing path that Tam and Brandon had been following, searching for the peasant girl that wasn’t around. Another group went into the cave. A third, smaller group of two cavalrymen known to all as the rallymen stayed at the campsite, ready to alert either of the search parties of any information that comes from the boy.
The first search party followed a path that rode deeper into the woods. The party consisted of four men, who were following the path at a leisure pace. They had decided early after the split that this had been the group with the smallest chance of actually doing anything important, and so had decided to continue going slow until the rallymen gave them further orders. And after a few hours of not hearing anything, the men had grown more tired, and were practically walking their horses. They had not yet seen any sign that anyone had traveled down the road in the last day or so, and had no reason to believe the girl would be around. One of them wondered aloud if the two would have made it if they had stayed on this path. The men argued back and forth on this matter for a long while, before deciding that it depended on how clever the two had been. Lord Beaumont had sent out a decently sized search party, but it wasn’t by any means impossible to fool.
The second search party also consisted of four men who left their mounts at the entrance to the cave before proceeding in on foot. Before they had traveled far enough to need torches to see a bright orange glow had become visible in the distant depths of the cave. For a long time, as they delved deeper into the cave, they had seen the glow becoming brighter and brighter as they got closer. But now the glow seemed to grow no brighter and no closer. The men had felt like they had been walking hours. Daylight wasn’t quite visible behind them, but despite all the progress their aching legs had swore, they felt as if they hadn’t traveled at all. All the men had been wondering quietly for awhile whether something… strange was going on. Strange things didn’t really seem to happen too much in real life, mostly in stories, but it was possible. When one of the men finally voiced the concern, so did the others, and the group felt much more insecure in the cave. When they felt certain that something strange was going on, they turned and began walking to the entrance to the cave, expecting a trek equally as long as theirs. But, as they had all feared, they had been at the entrance within minutes.
The rallymen hadn’t had much to do. They had mostly been waiting for the healer, who for a long time had been waiting on the boy. Soon, it would be time to give up on the peasant and take the Beaumont back to the castle.
Brandon woke some time later, briefly. When his eyes fluttered open, the healer smiled and asked, “Where is the peasant girl?”
Her name is Tam. “She’s dead.” The healer just kept smiling. Soon, though, two of the men from the failed second search party had come to the healer’s side, oddly tense around the Beaumont. “She’s dead?” One of them asked, “Where is her body, son?”
“In the cave.” Brandon could feel his mind slipping out of consciousness, his chest was hurting so bad. He felt something else, too, a sort of dull pain deep in his chest that confused him. What is it that hurts so badly? Everything seemed to fog and black out again for him for a few minutes before he opened his eyes and saw all the men except the first search party looking at him.
“How far into the cave?”
Brandon struggled to think, “Not… far. Half hour’s walk.” The men looked certifiably fearful then. Before he fell asleep again, he felt the chains wrap around his wrists, and he felt several men hoist him and throw him onto the back of someone’s horse. He passed out again.
–
Three days passed.
Brandon had spent the entire time locked in his room. His father had forbade any from telling his son of his circumstances, but one of the men more loyal to Brandon let slip that they suspected magic was involved. He had known, then, that there was to be a trial. He was suspected as using magic, and his father had no choice but to send for an Arcane Justiciar. In the meantime, many had come asking Brandon questions.
The most common question was, “Brandon, how did the peasant girl die?”
Bold text like the above is usually meant to be meta-instructions. Italics after each post will be my notes. In this case, DeadApe will answer the question and the story will proceed based on his answer. If anyone is confused by this sort of formatting, let me know.
Knights and Justice 