Slowly, Eleanor"s consciousness returned, and with it, a searing headache. She slowly opened her eyes, and took in her immediate surroundings as she tried to get her bearings on where she was.The floor she was sitting on was damp dirt. The walls were smooth, natural looking stone, slick with moisture and reflecting the flicker of the torchlight coming from her left. From the looks of it, she was in a cave, or somewhere underground. Maybe both. Overhead, the room"s ceiling disappeared into shadow some distance above her, and it sounded like there was running water somewhere in the distance, but she couldn"t tell how far away it was, or how large the source was.
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As she took everything in, it took here a minute to put together how she had ended up here. The gnoll had gotten the jump on her, and removed her ability to counter his magic. That was her own fault. She"d trusted the dog to be, perhaps not trustworthy, but at least afraid enough of his compromised position to not try anything stupid. And as a result, she"d been caught completely off guard. Way to go, Ellie. You fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book. Stupid idiot.
Everything hurt. Her head, her back, her muscles, her b.u.t.t, it all felt like she"d taken a long tumble down a rock-covered hill. And in more than a couple places on her arms and face her skin felt raw and exposed, which were probably burns from the fireb.a.l.l.s she"d barely avoided being destroyed by.
Her staff was destroyed, though. That made her more upset than anything. She"d been given that by Mystera Runus before her graduation at the Coltriss Academy as a gift. Now, she"d have to make a new one, or take one from someone else. That was going to be a pain.
But that a.s.sumed she was ever going to see anything outside of this room again. Which she might not. She instinctively reached down to the place where her spell component pouch would be, but when she felt nothing but singed fabric and looked down, she remembered that it"s been destroyed. Without its contents, she wouldn"t be able to cast anything but the simplest cantrips, and that was if she was well-rested and had access to her spellbook, which was conveniently inside her backpack, wherever that was at this point. She was, for all intents and purposes, defenseless. The only spells she had memorized were Prestidigitation and Read Magic, and while they didn"t need any components to cast, they would help her a whole bunch of nothing for getting away.
And speaking of getting away, as if to make things worse, she was chained to a large wooden post buried into the ground behind her back. Her arms and legs were free, but they"d stuck a heavy leather and metal collar around her neck hooked to a length of chain wrapped around the post. While it gave her some room to change positions, it prevented her from either standing up or laying down, both facts that she"d discovered painfully when she"d first tried to move a little while prior.
After several more minutes of trying to discover anything in her surroundings that would help her, Eleanor slumped back against the chain post, defeated. Outside of matching posts to her left and right, the room was completely empty, save the dirt floor and the stone walls. Not so much as a piece of gra.s.s, pebble, or anything else was out of place. Whoever had chained her up had apparently been very careful to make sure nothing that could possible be used for spellcasting would be accessible to her. She had to give them credit. Whoever had made that decision was smart.
As she rested against the post, she wondered if Jack and her sisters were looking for her. She doubted they"d be able to find her, especially considered she"d been teleported away. But Rose and Maddy were smart. And Jack... he was supposed to be G.o.d"s chosen hero, right? Anything was possible... right?
As she reflected on this, she heard growling and barking in the guttural language of the gnolls. Then another voice responded. And then, approaching footsteps.