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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8235219" data-attributes="member: 508">“Is she going to be all right?” asked Federico, looking down at the prone form of Shandrilla, laying sprawled out, face first, on the stone floor of the pit the destrachans had dug as their torture-practice area.  They'd just barely caught her as she collapsed and lowered her carefully to the stone floor of the pit; beside her lay the two destrachan young she'd managed to kill with her bare hands before passing out, each the size of a chicken but built more like a dinosaur – incongruously, one with complicated, external ears but no eyes.Javorik's bearded face carried a look of worry at the state of his unconscious companion, but he ignored the rips and rents in her leather armor where cruel talons had slashed away at her and willed himself to believe at least some of the dried blood covering her arms and face were those of the destrachan young.  “She'll be fine,” the little gnome illusionist reassured his cousin, hoping to reassure himself as well by the vocalization of his fervent wishes.  “Here, help me prop her up.”Shandrilla wasn't all that tall of a human but her lithe form was much bigger than either of her gnomish friends.  Together, they managed to roll her onto her back and tug on her arms until she was halfway sitting up.  Then Javorik left Federico supporting her while he dug around inside Little Biggie, the bag of holding he carried with him at all times.  Its extradimensional space was a good way to bring along a whole lot of things the little gnome would otherwise get much too tired lugging around.“Here we go,” he said, pulling out what he'd been looking for: a glass potion vial.  Uncorking the top, he lifted it to Shandrilla's lips and started slowly pouring the healing potion into her mouth.  She coughed once but never woke, worn out from hours of abuse at the hands of her reptilian tormentors.  Eventually, Javorik got the whole vial's contents down her throat and helped Javorik lower her back down to the stone floor of the pit again.  “That'll seal up the worst of her wounds,” he assessed.  “Right now, sleep's probably the best thing for her, after all she's been through.”“You about ready to get out of here?” Federico asked.  The two cousins had done the impossible: braved the racing torrents of an Underdark river to track down their human friend in the trackless wastes of the subterranean realm, slaying a full-grown destrachan in the process.  The gnome fighter had lost his helmet – blasted to metal dust by the reptile's sonic assault – but in the end they had prevailed and now the little gnome was ready to get back home, preferably to a warm fire and a tall stein of dwarven ale.“By all means,” Javorik replied, pulling a scroll case from the belt of his robe.  He popped the top off and pulled out the parchment he had stored inside: a scroll containing the teleport spell, their means of returning to the surface world once they'd located Shandrilla.  The scroll came out of the tube all wet and a dribble of water spilled from the scroll case as he tipped it over.  “Uh-oh,” he said.“Uh-oh?” repeated Federico, looking up at his cousin with a look of intense concern on his face.  “What do you mean, 'Uh-oh?'  I don't wanna hear 'uh-oh.'”Javorik looked at the smeared mess of ink that had once contained the words to the teleport spell, a spell he'd not yet mastered but was certain he'd be able to cast from a scroll.  “The scroll case...” he started, wincing as he looked over to his cousin, “...apparently wasn't as waterproof as I thought it was.”“We can't teleport back?  Seriously?”Javorik shook his head sadly.  “Nope,” he admitted.  “It looks like we're walking.”</blockquote>

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