The b.u.t.ton in her hand flashed in a burst of white light, and there in its place, hovering in the palm of her hand, was a small tongue of blue flame, dancing and guttering like torchlight. Then, with a flick of her wrist, the small blue dart of fire flew from her hand and struck the far wall with a faint thump, leaving a scorched hole where it impacted.G.o.d did it feel good to have her spells back.
She"d practiced as long as she could the day before, until the pain in her leg got too unbearable to focus. She tried a few spells to see if she could numb the pain, but nothing worked, leaving her gasping and gritting her teeth. Finally, after several hours of being in misery, she concealed all of her remaining components and used the one of formulae Marg"faz had written for her to cast Sleep on herself. Allowing herself to succ.u.mb to it without resistance, she finally escaped the pain by drifting off into a long and dreamless sleep.
When she finally awoke an undeterminable amount of time later, the pain had mostly subsided. She gingerly tried to move her leg. Her thigh was still sore, and ached a bit, but it was obvious the potion she"d taken had worked its magic properly. As she shifted positions, she felt a lumpy something stuck between her legs. Curious, she reached under the skirt of her dress to find another bundle. When she opened it up, she found another collection of odds and ends, causing her to smile to herself. Then, realizing someone had had to put it where she"d found it, she got fl.u.s.tered, and bundled everything back up.
With her leg no longer an issue, she resumed her study and practice in earnest. Being careful to keep her noise to a minimum, and a sharp ear out for approaching footsteps, she worked through the different spells she"d been provided until he had the general gist of each memorized. She then set about experimenting with the tools she now had to come up with other means of aiding her in the coming events.
On several occasions, guards interrupted her, forcing her to scramble to hide everything and make herself appear as she had been before they made it to her. On two of the occasions, it was to bring food, and give her vile, suspicious looks as they watched her eat. On several others, they seemed to make a point of trying to avoid her detection, moving quickly and quietly as if trying to catch her in the act. If her hearing wasn"t preternaturally good thanks to her race, she"d have been caught by these attempts. When they arrived, they seemed almost disappointed to not find her practicing, and during one of these surprise inspections, the lead gnoll saw fit to strike her across the face when she asked why they kept coming back to her.
But by the third meal, after what had to have been 12 consecutive hours of practice, maybe even more, she was ready. As ready as she could hope to be. She a.s.sembled all of the remaining supplies she hadn"t used and gathered them in one of the bundles, before tying this bundle to her dress waist where her components pouch had once sat. A quick flourish of Prestidigitation and some clever rearrangement of the fabric, and no one but the sharpest eyed would notice the difference.
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a.s.suming she hadn"t been asleep longer than she expected, there would only be one more meal to go before it would be her time to act. As she closed her eyes and laid back against the pole for what she hoped would be the last time, she hoped her fear and excitement wouldn"t keep her awake for too long.
It didn"t.