12Chapter 2 - An Opportunity
Hello!, I'm back, and more for this story, and an idea I wanted to try out, in some places you see a skill and the number I rolled, if you like it, plz comment, if not, tell me why it is you didn't enjoy it, and now for, Action!
P.S. also, a oversight that I had, that Buppido can only speak in Undercommon, so I'm just gonna make him another person who can speak Common
For that second, it felt like it had lasted for hours, there was this drow, out of nowhere, just...giving him a chance to escape?, as far as he can see, this doesn't seem like a trick, but he was not sure of his intentions, though he would guess that the mystery drow isn't doing this for him specifically, but more that his escape attempt will benefit him somehow.
"...when, how, and for how long," he didn't know his reasons, but if he was offering a way out of here, he wants as much information as possible, time will be the key here, as well as what opportunity he would give.
The drow quickly looks over, probably to check over any potential eavesdroppers nearby, and quietly speaks, "at lights out, I will be back once more to feed you and the other slaves, I will leave the cage unlocked and I will proceed to go back and give you time by stalling the guards that will be up next on the shift,".
So he plans to leave the doors open at what is their form of...midnight, yes that's the word, well as close as it can get to midnight with them just putting out numerous torches, with only a few mushrooms illuminated slightly.
Though he couldn't help but feel a bit hesitant, he had the joy to see some of the slaves here being tortured, and quite recently, a slave was thrown off a cliff to a monster spider that was probably enormous, as it was big enough to kill and eat an entire orc.
"...how do I know what you say is the truth and not some trickery that will lend me into trouble," the pale protagonist narrowed his eyes. He probably won't give me a satisfying answer, but it doesn't hurt at all to ask.
Looking over once more to his surroundings, he answers, "this is all I can do, I will give you the opportunity, it is up to you to take it," and seems to be getting increasingly more impatient as well as paranoid.
Hmm, probably not the best time to question my currently only ticket out, when feeding time came, most tend to go to the back of the cave, not wanting the dark elves to take back the only edible food they have, no matter the bad taste it has, so when they all went to sleep will probably be a perfect time.
A thought of the stump shaped creature, along with twins, fishman, and Buppido, and the rest of his fellow slaves he has come to know to some degree,... he will be taking them along with him.
The White Haired boy nodded, indicating he is listening, "Do you see that stalactite that is being used as a building connected to a rope bridge? That is the Guard Tower and on the inside if you make your way up you will find the armory,".
Hmm that could be useful, not much he can do without weapons and armor, so that will definitely be something to remember, and while he does have the feat Tavern Brawler, that is only going to take me so far, so going over to the Guard Tower will be important.
The drow took another look, and pointed to my right towards a path down the stairs "if you head down the stairs and jump off you will go past the edge of the web, which then you'll land into the large pool of water formed from the waterfall,".
Hmm, to be honest, while there is a definite chance for man eating spiders to show up,...this might actually be the only option for him since the only three exits he knows about are only accessible at the bottom.
I nodded at him once more to indicate that I have understood the information that he has given to me, seeing my nod he straightened up and started to walk away, not before he finished the conversation, "good, the next time I come to feed you all will be around five hours, you better be ready".
Didn't really need a reminder, but thanks anyway, from the moment he first woke up 'food' was always delivered at the same time every day.
Anyways, several hours to waste, a few newly made friends to collect, as well as decide where the hell to go, he has no clue where does the north, the south, or the west passage lead to, so it will be a good idea to discuss this instead of in the middle of battle.
Speaking of battle, he had a bit of a headache, the day after he selected his class and a whole bunch of other things like languages and statistics, he woke up with apparently years upon years worth of knowledge and experience of weapons of all kinds.
Walking back into the cave from the entrance, he tried reaching out to the spores that linked him to Stool, the guy that looked like a two legged rock, and several others "guys, I think I have an escape plan set up, gather at the back of the room,".
The interesting thing about myconid sprouts, which is what stool is according to it, is that they have spores that allow them to communicate telepathically with other creatures and could also act as a bridge between two creatures without a common language.
" ̴̖̻͊́͑̂͘&̸̼̭͉͇̉ ̵͇̟̱͙́Ȓ̴͈̒͝ ̸̢͓͖̺̲̈́̈ ̸̤̫͇͉͑̈́̓͘͝$̷̢̨̺̙̂ͅ&̶̧̞͗͂̐͝*̷̦̺̥̥͋#̴̪̙̞̘͆̔̔̚ ̷̢͚̩̖̣̂̅͗̄̎ ̸̢̡̢͂#̶̝͚̤̋̏́ ̸̧̹̝͇͌̇̀̋ ̵̲̦͎̝̏̏ ̴̳͆̽̅͑$̶̡͎̝͔̙̌̿̈́̃̑&̵̝̝́̒̃͐Ȳ̵͎̰̥̘̀̀̍̐ͅ ̶͖́̇̐͠Ụ̵͙͔͉̳̓͒̎̇̽%̵̮͉̟̗̎͘͘Ò̴̡̺͕̣͂̚ ̷̇ͅ*̷͈͉̻͍͘&̷͎̈ ̷̟̱̭̀ ̷̪̬̈́͌̋̾́ ̵͚̗̚!̵͕̗̗͍̱̄̋̿̓̀!̸̦͚̻̘̞̔̌̍͂" but apparently Turvy, is a special exception as even still I have zero idea what the actual hell, or nine according to Buppido apparently, he is talking about, or in this case thinking, about.
"Really? That is great, I'll be right there along with Turvy, which by the way he is saying he'll come over, see ya there," at this point topsy is either guessing, or it's something only she and/or perhaps her people can translate.
"Bet you were thinking about playing dead, am I right?" says a cocky voice said directly to his right.
The boy jumped back startled, not expecting this guy to be close, taking a good look he recognized him as Jimjar, other than Buppido, this guy was teaching him a few things that was considered common knowledge.
"Don't sneak up on me like that, I already have plenty of things to worry about,…and no I wasn't thinking of playing dead," I said, irritation bleeding into my tone.
Jimjar frowned, "ah, you weren't? It seems I will have to work on my guessing game,".
From the time I have been here, Jimjar from what I immediately got had a…gambling? Problem, or at least an obsession since most of the times he spoke he began with "I bet" or "1 mush plate says that" and so on.
Shaking my head, I proceeded to collect everyone to the back, with there being Turvey, Topsy, Stool, Jimjar and Buppido.
The rest were there as well, one person was actually from the surface, a female…Dwarf, right?, well from what I learned she was from a proud dwarven lineage that manage to find the Dwarven city…yeah, I'm not saying it, I can't remember how exactly it is said.
She was well spoken, and as was stated before quite proud of the fact of where she was from.
Continuing on, was Sarith Kzekarit,…a drow, and that was not the only reason I was wary of him, according to the others, he was here because he killed a fellow guardsman,…he is also the reason Stool was captured so there was already another reason I don't like him, besides the min slayer thing.
He was an incredibly cautious person, and I can tell from my insight that he is humiliated by being here, although my dislike of him hasn't really gotten that big, why? Apparently he is Stool's friend despite the fact he is the reason he was captured, and if they somehow escape they wish to go back to Neverlight Grove.
Shuushar the Awakened, a pleasant fish man,…apparently that is Incredibly strange and not at all common,…even Shuushar admitted, and said he wishes to share his enlightenment with his fellow Kuo-Toas, apparently his people aren't sane, seems to be an exception.
Another one was a furry Quaggoth, who claims to be an elven prince, cursed to be a quaggoth…not sure if that's true or not, the others however believe that the Quaggoth is just insane.
Ront WAS in on this,…before he picked a fight with Sarith for bumping into him, which earlier today was thrown to the spider…or spiders.
"So,…I was told today by someone that they will give us a chance to escape, as well as where we can get some of our stuff back, which then we can go to the most north side of the base and jump into the river" I started out, and from what I expected I saw some faces full of skepticism.
Well not all of them, some like, Topsy, Shuushar, and the Quaggoth looked excited and happy, and Stool was giving off happy hums in my head.
Though like I guessed the others looked very skeptical, Sarith was looking at me as if I was a complete idiot.
"And…you believed him? I can only assume the person who told you this was a drow, why in the infinite levels of the Abyss do you think he would help us?" Sarith voiced his question.
Shrugging, "well for one thing, I can tell it has nothing to do with helping us, I can tell he had a ulterior motive,…and looked too cautious of our surrounding for this to be something that our kidnappers have planned, it could be a trick yes, but from what I am seeing and from what I was told, in a few days we are going to be taken from here and into a big city of sorts full of drows and slaves, so when they come it will pretty much be over, so from the 2 choices, I would rather choose something that has a chance to succeed than just doing nothing and then living the rest of lives just doing whatever our "master's" desires," I countered back.
Sarith frowned at my logic, I can see that he understood that while this could very well be a trap…
….
….
…Insight: 23
…he also looked very worried about something else, something other than the current topic,…we aren't exactly on good terms, so I was just keeping it on the back burner for now.
"It's a risk, that much is obvious," spoke the warrior dwarf, looking down onto the floor, "…but I would much rather die fighting for my freedom, then to live out the rest of my life as some slave,".
The others looked conflicted, looking at each of them I said, "look,…at lights out, after we are fed our daily mush, I'm gonna see if the door is open, and if it is I'm gonna break out of chains, and get materials I will need to escape, so either you go with me or not, that is your choice, now, I need your help, what is it that you know about this place that will help me, and information you think that I will find useful,".
The Quaggoth, still looking a bit nervous, took a moment to breathe and spoke in an flamboyant accent, or at least is giving me an impression of flamboyant, "well, not sure about escaping, but what I know about the fact there are in total 19 drows on the outpost, including Ilvara, Shoor, and Jorlan, oh and let's not forget the Priestess Apprentice Asha, around a dozen of Quaggoths like my current dreadful cursed self, and a number of Giant Spiders," he helpfully supplied.
I should also mention, I'm only hearing most of these guys in my head, the only people who speak…Common?, is Jimjar, Eldeth Feldrun the Dwarf, and Buppido, the rest can speak in some words in it, and only really know Undercommon, so the conversation that I had going on was simply being translated by my friend Stool.
Going back to the discussion, that helped out massively, the only unknown is the amount of Giant Spiders, so I can range from 1 or more.
But going by what Prince Erindel the Quaggoth said, the confirmed enemies we could possibly face are 31+ foes…and if we didn't get any weapons we would be fighting enemies bare fisted against their poisoned bolts…I didn't like our odds.
Buppido, hummed for a second then added in, "well I know that there are usually three guards on the stalactite that we can see from the door," while rubbing his head.
Ok that's good, we would only have to deal with a few enemies if we do this right, here I am hoping for things to look better.
"…By the way, I should mention that at the bottom there is a Grey Ooze that feeds off the waste that you throw down, it's generally harmless, but if we were to go forth with your idea…," Sarith stated, deciding to add in his own information.
….ok that can be a problem, it's a monster, not sure what it can do, but from what I learned most monsters can easily kill a humanoid with as simple as smack to the face.
"…ok, is there something we can do about that?" I asked him, since he was likely the only one with information about this.
He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them back up, he said, on land their horrendously slow, especially on the water,…any running creature with plenty of running space that is caught by a ooze, be it from land or water deserves to die and feel ashamed at themselves, luckily since you have been throwing our shit at the river directly in front of us it should be far enough away for us to outrun it before it can ever dream of getting over there".
Looking at the others, I can see other than the Quaggoth, Fishman, and Stool all of them were in complete agreement.
Ok, the game plan, as far as I'm aware most of these people can't do much without their weapons, the most they can do is to attempt to punch people.
So as I'm seeing it, the only ones who will be of use, directly at least, will be me and Prince Erindel.
….Yeah, hating my odds
Stool is unfortunately not directly useful in a fight, it's his indirect ability to help us that is invaluable, the mental communication will help us greatly.
Technically Sarith can cast spells, though I sincerely doubt Dancing Lights, Darkness, and Faerie Light will be at use, though Dancing lights will be a God's blessing if they escape.
Well, at least for me, as I don't have dark vision, so the best I can hope for is for Dancing Lights or some other light source like a torch, but what I'm gonna do is grab one of the glowing mushrooms and use that as my light source.
Going through the plan, for me and Erindel to be at the guard building door in the stalactite, while the rest go to the other side, getting ready to jump down and get out as quickly as they can.
When the subject of where we should go came up, there were some choices on hand.
Stool and Sarith both seemed eager to go to Neverlight Grove, both seemed determined to go there, makes sense for Stool as it is it's home, though Sarith has stated that he wants to take advantage of the Grove's sanctuary.
Buppido on the other hand is strongly suggesting to go to Gracklstugh, where we can get better equipment if things go south.
The Prince as expected stated that he himself doesn't know any paths to any city, but will gladly follow them to find a way to the surface.
Eldeth is in the same situation, she herself has never been to the Underdark but can help find food while on the journey to any of the cities.
Jimjar knows the way to Blingdenstone from the North path, though he doesn't mind taking side trips to other places and helping Stool get home to Neverlight Grove.
The twins have been unhelpful in this regard, I was actually expecting them to jump on some of this stuff, but they were acting a bit distant at the moment, but they seem reluctant to say if they can guide them to a location or not.
Shuushar on the other hand says he wants to get back to his people, and from what he told, while the other locations were around a month's journey, his home? was simply 8 days away and we can get boats while there.
Going to negotiations, I have stated that since Sloobludop is the closest by a little of a week's time,…wait isn't a week 10 days? Or is that just tenday?
Probably the latter.
We waited until lights out, right after we were given the food, when we quickly finished, I went to the door, and looked to the Stalacite.
…no one was there, and when I attempted to open the door, excitement blossomed in me, as it opened.
I could feel a smirk come one my face as I went to grab the collar on the neck, while also having my cursed elf friend helping me.
…
…
…Athletics: 11/20
As the iron cranked and finally after a moment or so, it snapped loose, not losing my smile I thought to the others, 'it's time,'.