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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 56107" data-attributes="member: 259">Securing the prisoner“Ozgun smiled wryly.  “I can help with that,” he said, and strode over to the nearest apartment.  “Open up!” he yelled, banging on the door.  “It’s the reds!”A moment later, a skinny young boy cracked open the door.  “What’s, what’s going on?” he asked in a cracking voice.“Never you mind.  We have a, uh, a wounded man we need to bring in.  Put a kettle on the fire.”The boy stepped back, and Ozgun pushed open the door.  “Come on,” he said, gesturing back to the companions.Heluk, meanwhile, had barely managed to hold on to his captive:  as he climbed down the wall, his prisoner’s shape had shifted and grown until it appeared again as the body of a human.  He brought it inside quickly and slung the prisoner down onto the brick floor with a grunt.Lum crouched over the body and laid a hand on it.  “Mithras, hold back death from this prisoner, that he may and his conspirators may be brought to justice.”  The body shuddered and lay still.  Lum looked up at the others.  “He’ll live, but I don’t want him to wake up until he’s bound.  Do any of you have any rope?”Heluk, Afet, and Korythis looked uncomfortably at each other.  Ozgun sighed and turned to the child.  “Kid,” he said.  “Get me some linens.”The kid, wide-eyed, raced into a back room and returned a moment later clutching a sheet.  Ozgun took the sheet and began to tear a strip off of it.  “Oh no,” the kid moaned, “my mother’s going to kill me if –”“Don’t worry, kid,” Ozgun growled.  “Here’s a dehra, that’ll buy a new sheet.”  He flipped a coin at the boy and continued tearing the sheet into strips.Within a minute, the captive’s hands and feet were bound, and Lum lay her hands once more on his wounds.  “Holy protector,” she said, “give life again to this prisoner.” The man’s eyes flew open, darting rapidly from one face to another.  With a cry he lurched himself to one side – and as he moved, he began to shrink once more, taking on a rat’s shape.  The once-tight bonds slipped from his smaller limbs.Lum swore and grabbed at their prisoner, but moved too slowly, and suffered a bite on her hand for her troubles.  She jerked her hands back.  Heluk snatched up the remains of the sheet and threw it over the rat and then leapt on top of it.  The rat struggled viciously, but Heluk was able to wrap the sheet around it and pick it up.  The rat quickly burrowed out of the sheet, until Heluk held it only by one leg.  “Somebody do something!” he shouted.And then Afet reached forward and touched the rat’s head, speaking a spell.  The rat screamed and went limp.  When Afet pulled her hand back, a patch of ice was left behind on the rat’s head.  [Note:  this was the coolest sneak-attack ray of frost I’ve ever seen.  I was a happy DM.]Afet grinned happily.  “He’s going to have the *worst* headache when he wakes up,” she said. “Have you ever eaten fruit ice too rapidly, and then your whole head starts to hurt, and you can’t get rid of it no matter what you do?” The others all looked at her blankly; though they’d heard of nobles having snow shipped in from the Kilgari mountains and flavored with fruit juices, they’d never had an opportunity to try the delicacy.  “Uh, nevermind,” she finished.  “What do we do now?”“Was that a demon?” the boy asked.“Never you mind,” Ozgun snapped back.“I think we need to get him somewhere that he can’t escape from. Maybe we can bind him in silver or something?” Lum suggested.  “Maybe if we get some silver necklaces or bracelets, we can fashion some sort of cuffs for him.”They agreed to try that.  Lum dipped a piece of the linen in the kettle, soaking it in hot water, and then applied the compress to the (again human’s) head.  They carried the body back to the barracks, Ozgun clearing the way with boisterous shouts and declarations of his authority.  The crowds stopped and stared fearfully at the bloodied adventurers carrying an unconscious body through their midst.At the barracks, Ozgun sent a few reds out to commandeer silver jewlerly, and the companions tied their prisoner as securely as they could with necklaces and bracelets.  For good measure, they nailed a bedsheet to the floor and tucked the body into the pouch it made.  Finally, with windows barred, prisoner chained, and silver dagger at the prisoner’s throat, Lum called on Mithras’ healing power once more.The rat-demon once again looked about him in panic – but feeling the silver blade pressed against his neck, he relaxed.  “Well, you got me,” he said.  “What’re you going to do with me?”</blockquote>

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