Turning the Tables (Danck)

[Ink]

Timestamp: 16th of Winter, 511 AV The first few pounds of flesh were taken in silence. But stealth was not the way of these brutish men, these men who combed the slums in gangs snatching up women and children. Anyone that could fetch a price was potential victim but the perceptively weak were the most common choice. The thugs took no special note of Danck in their marauding, no he had simply appeared a good target. Small and young were excellent characteristics for a pleasure slave. The young thief was unceremonious clubbed over the back and a head, tossed over a tough’s shoulder and hauled off towards the eastern side of the down. The young man would awake some undeterminable number of bells later in an as of yet undefined room heavily blanketed in nefarious shadows and suffocating stillness. The room permeated with pungent cologne devised from unwashed bodies and human waste left to stew. If one were to listen closely they would hear the gentle mewling of some creature near losing its humanity that hid in a dark corner beyond Danck’s sight. As the subhuman creature in the corner became aware of his consciousness the keening abruptly ceased. Breaking the terrible peace that had fallen about the chamber rang a voice only a shadow of the clarity it once possessed, each word seemed to tremble with the effort it required. “Are you real?”

[Danck]

Danck let out a low and pained growl as he slowly openend his eyes, the combination of an aweful smell hanging around wherever he was, the pounding headache and a silent but annoying mewling sound assaulting all of his senses and making him almost wish he could have stayed knocked out for a bit longer. Shaking his head to get rid of the misty feeling in his head he tried to push himself back on his feet, and nearly fell back to the ground as he slipped on something he didn't even want to speculate about what it could be, so he wisely decided to ignore it for now and carefully began feeling his pained head for any head wounds, winching as his hand brushed a giant bump on the back of his head. As he began reaching for the pack on his back, really beginning to doubt the competence of whoever had captured him if they hadn't even grabbed his stuff, to find his medical supplies and fix his own wound up before he tried finding a way to escape he was suddenly surprised as the mewling sound he had thought had belonged to some dying animal nearby suddenly stopped and a voice suddenly broke through the silence, asking if he was real. “Yeah, of course I am.” Danck responded, his hand almost instinctively sliding towards the dagger on his hip. If somebody had to ask if you where real, something had to be wrong with that persons mind. “Who are you?”

[Ink]

The high-pitched voice didn’t ring again for many chimes. Instead a struggled sniffling followed, the sound a child made trying to hold in sobs. Eventually, discernable only through close attention the voice replied. “You’re not real; they always say they’re real!” With one final choked back snivel as punctuation. Followed by the sloshing sound of something wading through the filthy puddles oozing across the ground. Slowly with all the caution of a flame trying to live through a rain storm the creature appeared on all four before Danck. It was small in size, emphasized by its posture, but the true telling characteristic were the eyes. Agate in shade that seemed to seek out and absorb the light, reflecting it back, with slit pupils. Covered from head to toe in caked on filth, long tendrils of hair matted with debris obscuring any discernable hue. Peering up at Danck the person began to speak again in with startling confidence, certainly at odds with their current situation. “But I saw them throw you in. You’re a boy. They never touch the fake ones.” It chortled, her tone finally indicating a gender; female. “I could see you from the corner!” Sitting back on her haunches like a beast the little female stared up at the man, some insane hopeful dream of escape dancing through her eyes. But as the moment passed she slumped forward, defeated all over again by her own imagination. “Not that is matters, you’re stuck too. Like me. You won’t escape.”

[Danck]

Danck waited for the voice to speak up again, cautiously keeping his hand close to his dagger just in the case who- or whatever was with him in the room decided to do something rash and attack him. When the strangled sniffling sound followed danck felt his hardened features soften a bit, he remembered that sound all too well from the time he was still living in the orphanage and regularly had to fix up some of the kids. A little kid trying not to cry and failing at it. Still he was locked up and that little kid might just be somebody tricked into keeping eye on the prisoners and aler those dumb thugs if they where escaping. Though he really doubted it if those numbskull's weren't smart enough to disarm him then how in xyna's name would they have come up with that plan. As the sound of the little child slowly scuffling towards him through the filth the floor of their cell was covered with danck just waited ,slowly tensing up again, just because somebody was a child didn't mean they where harmless. When the child came close enough so that he could more or less make out how she looked danck felt a bit of anger boil up from deep inside of him at the way the little girl looked, covered in shit, urine and other filth. Still something in the back of his mind warned him that something was off about that girl, those eyes, those weren't human eyes he had ever seen. “Like I said, I'm real and not just a figment of your imagination, if those petching moron's can touch me then I gotta be real.” Danck tried to convince the girl “And look, those people that caught us here? They are a bunch of moron's that probably never caught a competent person in their entire life, so I doubt this dump will be able to hold me. Especially since I still have my lockpicks and all that with me.” He took one slow and carefull step closer towards the girl and knelt down in front of her, trying to give her an reassuring smile and a small pat on her filthy head. He really hoped that the burns on his face and body didn't freak her out, she really looked as if she could be frightened by a mouse right now. “Now you have been longer then me in here, any places in here that you might think could get us out? If anything springs to mind just tell me, I'm gonna find for anything else you might have missed.” He slowly began searching the room as best as he could, being hindered by the dark.

[Ink]

Animalistic pupils dilated wide into almost normal human spheres as they adjusted to see through the darkness. The child’s eyes locked upon the hatch, she knew exactly where the exit was but said nothing to Danck allowing him to find it by his own means. If the young man should approach the hatch he would hear the faint hum of voices beyond the wall. Choice pieces of the conversation being held were audible even inside their make-shift jail cell. “… With her?” “I ... save it ... mizas.” “What if she’s ...” “... Pawn ... blame it on ...” “…Runt… ?” “Quick coin.” “... hear something?” The conversation abruptly ended with the easily identified noise of chairs scrapping against a wood floor. Back in the dank chamber the child had crawled up behind Danck and stayed near his heels still content to wallow in the filth beneath them. All the while the little girl whispered over her shoulder at some unseen or imaginary entity. “Don’t worry Marley. At least he’ll try." The hatch was sealed shut fromm the outside by a long metal latch which was faintly visible through the crack between the door and the wall. After long moments of silence from beyond the hatch, it seemed as though the thugs weren’t headed towards their prisoners.

[Danck]

After some searching around in the dark and damp chamber danck found the hatch that he assumed was the exit, it wasn't really hard to find since some light was trickling through the crack between the hatch and the wall, as he heard the snippets of conversation coming from the thug's who had caught him he raised an eyebrow in curiosity as he heard a few snippets of sentences that had to be about the little girl in here with him. She being a pawn? His suspicion began to grow once again as he heard that, but he still gave her the benefit of the doubt, as far as he could see she looked as if she had been locked up here fore quite a while and he really wasn't going to suspect her just because he heard a snippet of a conversation, it was quite possible they could have been talking about anybody else. When the words, “... hear something?” Fell Danck mentally cursed, so they either knew that he was awake, which now that he thought about it, really wasn't much of a deal, even the most moronic thug had to know their victim's had to wake up sometime. Or one of them was just asking if the other guy heard something on the streets about something. When the conversation abruptly ended and the sound of chairs scraping over the floor signaled that they had stood up coren drew his dagger just to be sure and tried to look through the crack hoping to see at least a bit of what was going on on the outside of the room, ignoring the little girl for now. He had other more pressing things to do right now. Danck didn't really see all that much through the crack, but the fairly long silence that followed made it clear that they where checking up on something different then their prisoners. Not sure about how long the moron's would stay away from here so he had to work fast, after giving the crack a quick look to see if he could use it to lift the latch on the door, but quickly judging that his dagger was just to large to get a decent way of moving it, shoving it back into his belt, he wouldn't need it if the thug's wheren't t coming to pay them a visit.He just dug into the small pouch of thieves tools hanging from his belt and picked out the largest type of pick he had and tried to lift the latch. Which didn't even budge. It seemed it wasn't the type of latch you had to lift, but rather the one you had to push to the side to be able to open the hatch. Sticking out his lockpick a little bit more and leaning closer to the crack. Trying to feel with the lockpick for the handle and push it in the right position the bolt needed to be able to slide and then hook around it and pull or push it to open it. If he didn't find the latch he would just have to try and push the bolt in the right position from the position he had, which was going to take longer and was a bit harder, but not impossible.

[Ink]

The little girl watched wide-eyed for at least half Danck’s work, but the child’s attention was quickly spent. Should Danck look back he would see her staring off into the darkness, except that her eyes held focus as though something had her attention. One curt nod came from the girl before she crawled up and hugged the backside of Danck’s leg. Finally the bolt Danck had been working slid home with clatter. The little girl let out a high-pitched giggle common to children playing, “He did it Marley, you see?” The girl paused as would be appropriate in a conversation, “Uh huh, I’ll tell him!” The child tugged against his pants leg, “Mister, Marley says the coast is clear.” Without waiting for his reply the little girl hopped up; standing straight for the first time. Shoving with all of her inconsiderable weight against the door the child forced the portal to swing open. She rushed out into the fire lit room; it was still dark outside. But the night was not the most remarkable feature of the room, no instead the pallid translucent figure standing in the threshold between the cellar and the door was. Focusing on the creature seemed to make it blur and even harder to see. The specter wielded naught but a swinging lantern fueled by some unknown phosphorescent liquid. The child dodged around the ghost, clearly aware of its presence but unalarmed, and headed straight for the table where several scraps of an unfinished meal sat. The phantasmal silhouette, certainly masculine in nature, nodded at Danck and dissipated. The child who had been sitting crouched upon the table shoving her face full of the tid-bits, stopped and turned around to Danck. “If you can see Marley, you must be nutty too. Don’t worry he can’t touch you.” The child shrugged and returned to the scrounged offerings. Leaving Danck to do as he pleased in the seemingly empty home. While the home wasn’t exceptionally well kept there were some odd and ends that might interest an enterprising young mind.

[Danck]

Danck had been way to caught up in trying to get the darned bolt to be a little bit more cooperative and slide in the right direction to pay any attention to the young child for now. Getting them both out of here was ranking somewhat higher then paying attention to the girl right now. Though he didn't really mind when the girl suddenly hugged the back of his leg, it didn't interrupt his work and she really looked as if she could use something that could comfort her a bit. When the bolt finally slid where he wanted danck let a triumphant smile cross on his face. “I told ya those good for nothing bastards wouldn't be able to hold me in there didn't I?” Danck said as he gave her an awkward pat on her back. When the child suddenly began talking to thin air and said that somebody or something called Marley said the coast was clear and before he had the time to ask if Marley was her invisible friend she shoved herself through the portal. Revealing a rather normal room with a burning fireplace lighting up the room and a translucent figure standing in front of the portal a lantern clutched into one of its ghostly hands. Danck didn't need too see anything else to know what was right in front of him. “Ghost!” Danck yelled out in a surprised tone as he threw himself backwards out of instinct. He had heard enough stories about them that the majority of ghost you find in sunberth where bad news. So when the ghost suddenly gave him a nod and dissipated he couldn't help but feel a wave of relief wash over him as he scrambled back on his feet and left the filthy cellar behind him. Giving the little child who was helping herself to a meal a strange look. “Wait, so that was Marley? You know that ghost?” Danck gave the room a quick glance, making sure that ghost wasn't just hiding somewhere else. “And I'm not nutty, everybody can see ghosts when the ghosts want to be seen as far as I know.” He said a bit unconvinced as he began to search through the room. Looking at the odd's and ends scattered around the room to see if anything around here was worth stealing from those numbskulls. “Anyway, you are sure that marley person isn't going to pop out of nowhere and try to posses me right?” Danck suddenly piped up as he was digging through the room in search of usefull stuff. “Also I can't keep calling you kid forever. What's your name?”

[Ink]

As Danck rummaged through the room he would come across several mundane items such as a pair of pants, several inches too large for the thief, and a stout pair of boots. Less ordinary although was a small chest shoved in a corner nearly hidden in a shadow cast from the fireplace. The small wooden foot locker boasted a sturdy lock and little weight but it did rattle if shaken. At the discovery of the chest the child’s head jerked unnaturally towards Danck; as though some unspoken queue had been sounded. “No-name for you, don’t know you.” She scampered down from the table and ambled over to him the chest, “Marley’s not real, not a ghost. Don’t tell people you see him; they’ll send you to the Doc.” She spoke the grave allusion; everyone knew who the ‘Doc’ was in Sunberth. The little girl looked at Danck like this was common knowledge and he must be an idiot not to know. The girl bent down to the chest and examined it with her inhumanly slit eyes. And then, almost as if on purpose to further her alienation, the girl sniffed the chest’s opening. “My whistle! My pouch is in there isn’t it?” she exclaimed. “Look for it Marley, look for it!” The girl danced with agitation as she waited, presumably for Marley to inspect the chest's contents. “Who cares about that stuff?... It is there? I knew it!” Wiping her filthy hands upon her equally soiled clothes the child began to pull on the lock, “Open it” She demanded of Danck. As they stood over the chest there came a gentle scuffling outside as if something was shuffling towards the door. The little girl’s eyes expanded; the whites clearly visible. “Quick!” She bolted and wriggled behind the open trap door, hiding in it’s shadow.

[Danck]

Danck shoved the rather meager spoils he had found in his backpack, he could use the rope he was using as belt to keep on the pants and the shoe's looked more or less the same size as his feet. Rolling his eyes when the little kid refused to tell her name to him. “Well I'll continue to call you kid then. And don't worry I won't tell people I saw marley. I had the doc work on me once already and that is one time too many.” Danck just decided to go along with the little girl. He probably wasn't going to change the little girl's mind and he didn't really care if she thought she was insane. Still, he found it rather unnerving how the kid had immediately looked right at him as soon as he had found that chest... and did she sniff at the chest right now? Danck just let out a sigh as the strange one sided conversation with the Ghost once again started up, though he perked his ears up at the mention of other stuff also being in there aside from whatever trivial stuff the little girl wanted to have back. So when the little girl demanded from him to open up the chest danck just rolled his eyes. “Why don't you reel that commanding tone in a little bit, or I'll just take everything what's in the chest.” Danck said in a blunt tone as he began fishing for his lock picks. Only to stop it and glance towards the door as he heard a shuffling sound coming from behind it, quickly taking the example form the little girl danck darted towards the door and stood besides it. If the braindead thug'sopened it he would be hidden from their view thanks to the open door and he could either wait a while, guess his chances and escape or take advantage of the element of surprise and try to take them out. He had a grim look on his scarred face as he pulled out his dagger and waited for whoever was on the other side of the door too step through it. Really hoping that those thug's where as bad with their weapons as they where dumb.since other then those two ideas he really was drawing a blank on how to make sure he wasn't seen. besides, they would be more concerned about the open trapdoor to bother check behind the door. At least he hoped so.