12 Chirreb 4385: (6 Chirreb) Still Trying to Escape!

[delight-in.livejournal.com]

Escape From the Water-Khtsoyis of Drowning: Third Attempt

We untied the prisoners so they could fly (the mewellicap and the Khtsoyis) or walk (the Cani) while they cursed and swore at us for trying to get them killed after we'd already accepted their surrender. Mirhandrax told them, "Stop whining. We're not asking you to do anything that we're not doing ourselves," which only made them whine about how crazy adventurers are.

"Do you have a better idea?" Purrzhon snapped at the prisoners. "Other than the staying trapped in this room for eternity?"

They didn't so we secured rope (this is why you always bring LOTS OF ROPE when you're adventuring) around each person's waist (or nearest equivalent thereof for the mewellicap and Khtsoyis) so that we were all hooked together with ample slack between each person. We secured all the loot in the strongroom in sacks or chests and tied them to separate extra-long ropes. Nightbloom and Mirhandrax stood by the door, where Nightbloom crouched to peer through the doorknob. After maybe a ninth of an hour or possibly eternity, Nightbloom called out, "Now! Brace yourselves!" Mirhandrax gripped two wallsconces beside the door and the rest of us held onto whatever we could as Nightbloom grabbed the doorknob with both hands and yanked it open.

Water flooded into the strongroom and struck us like an avalanche. Mirhandrax, Nightbloom, Purrzhon and the Khtsoyis prisoner held on with grips of steel as everyone else was lifted and tossed to the limits of their section of rope. In moments, the flood was over and Nightbloom took off on four legs through the door. She was half-running and half-swimming, with most everyone running/swimming/stumbling along behind her.

Except for me and Outcast.

We'd turned to full-size waterform when the flood struck. As soon as the waters calmed, we squirmed out of our rope loops. The stairwell is a big open shaft, maybe twenty feet wide, with the steps and rail running along the walls of the shaft and only five feet wide. So there's a big empty space running the center of the shaft. The two waterKhtsoyis elementals were grappling and snapping at one another viciously in that open space: they're so big that their outstretched tentacles could touch opposite sides of the shaft. They ignored Nightbloom even as she plastered herself to the wall to get past their giant forms as they filled the stairwell, and they ignored everyone else too. Summoned elementals usually hate other summoned elementals more than anything, even if they're the same sort of elemental and summoned by the same caster. Or enchantment. There are more sophisticated ones that are exceptions but Mirhandrax was right: if the waterKhtsoyis hadn't hated each other then the trap would have summoned multiples at a time.

Outcast and I weren't paying attention to them either. But instead of swimming for the surface, we swam along the line to help anyone who was having trouble. All three of the Cani -- what is it with Cani and rope? -- had gotten tangled up in their sections of rope and needed to be cut free. The mewellicap had wriggled out of her rope when it fouled her wings and she ended up breaking the surface of the water first. Nightbloom was right behind her and the mewellicap didn't try to do anything stupid like escape. Possibly because Windchime and Chain Lightning were waiting with Faefen at the top of the stairwell.

Purrzhon and Squidge were next out of the water, then Trust and the Khtsoyis prisoner, and then Branner and Outcast came up gasping. Mirhandrax and I were still underwater trying to get the Cani prisoner cut loose -- I don't know how the flood managed to get his legs and arms tangled up so much with that rope. He was wrapped up tighter than he had been when we'd secured him after surrendering! Finally we got him free and Mirhandrax heaved him upwards with a big shove because he was so panicked he'd almost drowned already.

I darted upwards after the prisoner, shoving him from beneath while Mirhandrax moved as fast as he could up the stairs. Mirhandrax was carrying his weapons and shield and so was too weighted down to swim even if he had been much of a swimmer. After I'd gotten the prisoner to the first step above water and took a breath, I jackknifed around to see how Mirhandrax was doing.

The Gormorror was forty feet below water, with the tentacles of the wounded green waterKhtsoyis wrapped around him.

The remains of the blue elemental were dissolving into the water: the green one had destroyed it. Mirhandrax was punching and kicking at the elemental but the waterKhtsoyis was so gigantic it made even the Gormorror's huge, heavily-muscled form look like a child wrapped in its seven tentacles. As it squeezed, Mirhandrax's last breath bubbled out of his nose and mouth.

I hammercast Change Places and took Mirhandrax's.

Before I could swim loose the waterKhtsoyis's tentacles had already tightened around me as it tried to crush me in place of Mirhandrax. It bruised my legs and ribs and half-crushed my larynx. I tried to concentrate on Changing Places again and getting out of there but the spell fizzled in my head, drowned like the water elemental was trying to drown me. Although it was unlikely that it would succeed in drowning me because Orren can hold their breath a very long time.

I mean, it would definitely crush me to paste long before I'd drown.

Desperately I tried again but every part of me hurt and I could barely even perceive the cley I was grasping for much less manipulate it. A haze of red fogged over my vision and I heard a series of popping-crackling noises as my ribs snapped under the inexorable pressure of the elemental.

Please get me out of "Here", I prayed, and tried Changing Places one last time.

I had this terror-borne delusion that "Here" was filling me up inside -- mind, body, and magerium -- with his black spikes shoving back the pain to make it a far distant thing, his voice crackling and distorted and amused and cruel as he spoke:

*You*cannot* have*her*Merklundum*Harnipsundum*the*Dog*Who*Killed*A*Fish*She*is*MINE*.

Then I completed the spell and was on the dry steps above the flood. Trust rushed over to help me as I lay in a crumpled heap and tried to breathe. Breathing hurt. Not breathing also hurt. Mirhandrax and Nightbloom were crouched at the water's edge, hauling mightily at a rope to pull Outcast out. I learned later that Outcast had seized a rope and dived in after me when I didn't teleport out again immediately. He'd turned about when he saw me vanish from the monster's tentacles, but the water-elemental was fast enough to grab him by one ankle. Mirhandrax had to chop him free with his great axe.

"Are we safe yet?" I wheezed pitifully to Trust. "Because I think I've had enough adventuring for now."