When she finally forced the illusion to collapse, Eleanor expected to find herself either in the throne room or chained to the all too familiar post in her cell, but to her surprise, she wasn"t in either. Instead, she found herself in an opulently appointed bedchamber of some kind, wrapped in cotton sheets. The room was dimly lit, save by a pair of torches bruning in sconces on the opposite wall from the bed. On the floor, two furs that looked suspiciously like gnoll pelts served as carpets over the bare stone floor, and various trinkets and pieces of art hung on the bare stone walls. Some kind of incense hung in the air, perfuming it with a mixture of scents she didn"t recognize. She went to sit up, and as she did so, she noticed several things.
First, she was completely naked under the sheets. Second, her leg was mended, and while she bore a few new scars and plenty of fresh bruises, she was otherwise none the worse for wear. Third, the familiar collar was still around her neck, this time fastened by a much shorter length of chain to a large metal spike driven into the stone wall. Her arms were bound at the wrist by shackles that connected by chain to the collar around her neck, and her ankles were bound together by another set of shackles that bound to the foot of the bed. Looking around her as best as she could with the limited movement afforded to her, the color and texture of the stone walls and floor told her that she was still somewhere in the cave network. When she saw a familiar headdress sitting on a rack in the corner of the room, she realized she much be in the private quarters of the Shaman himself. Next to the headdress were rows of jar and bottles of all shapes and sizes filled with powders and liquids and herbs. Several more racks and shelves sat scattered around the wall s.p.a.ce of the rest of the room, similarly appointed with everything from books and scrolls to collections of animal remains like bones and antlers, claws, feathers, and skins. It was there, on one of the racks, she saw two familiar sights- a set of Marg"faz"s earrings, and the necklace she"d seen Jaang"faz wearing in this past illusion.
Which meant, as she had suspected and feared all along, that the two of them were probably dead. And that meant the versions of them she"d seen were either figments of his imagination he was using against her, or, as Jaang"faz had suggested, their actual spirits being controlled by him for his own purposes.
The thought, coupled with her bondage and her nakedness, made her want to vomit. She grit her teeth and set about controlling her breathing, subduing the rage she felt building in her chest. She would deal with him in time. For now, she needed to figure out whether this was another illusion. And then she needed to find a way out of her chains. Whoever had bound her had done a good job. Her arms and legs both had very little mobility, and while she could shift her body a little bit and turn her head, she couldn"t do much else. The one advantage was that they hadn"t bound her fingers or mouth, which meant she could still access some of her spells, including, most importantly, Mage Hand. How stupid of them.
Just to test if the formula in her head still worked, she made the gestures with her fingers and spoke the Infernal words. To her relief, the faint spectral hand flared to life a few feet in front of her, hovering expectantly for instructions. She dismissed it with a flourish. Now everything in this room would be accesible to her. All she needed now was to find a few components, and she could set herself free.