RP:Breaking Out
Part of the Thy Kingdom Come Arc
Summary: Kovl and Josleen hide in the bathroom plotting their escape. Kovl, high on sap (a pixie drug) is slowly losing his grip on reality. His plan is to float Josleen out the bathroom window and down onto the ground below, outside the city walls, however, when Trajek bangs on the door, Kovl panics and shoves Josleen out the window and forgets to sprinkle his levitating pixie dust on her. She plummets 70 feet to a snowdrift, screaming all the way, and attracts the attention of Frostmaw’s soldiers. Kovl, thinking Josleen is dead, flees.
Josleen is not dead, and she is taken prisoner by Balgruuf, who, shortly after discovering her true identity, plans on using her to get back at Hildegarde for the death of his son, Balder.
Frostmaw Fort
Josleen looks like a frost giantess thanks to Kovl’s masterful illusion. The illusionist copied low-ranking soldier’s attire, and the bard mimicked their gait and stare. However, as good an actress as the bard may be, she could not act her way out of basic training. A few days ago she was forced to spar with a real giant soldier, and despite Kovl’s attempts to give her an easy win, the non-combat bard took a single punch to the solar plex and was down for the count (and then some). Thankfully, disguised as an ally, she was taken to the medical ward and treated promptly. The fractured ribs have been mending quickly thanks to a healthy stock of magical bone-setting dust, though that stock has been dwindling quickly over the course of four days and three nights as Kovl secretly has stolen over half of it. The pixie has been stashing the medical supplies in a bottomless bag of holding. The giant shamans by now have noticed the theft, but thankfully the bed-ridden Josleen evades suspicion--but for how long? Staying any longer tempts discovery. Since Kovl (who has been invisible throughout her stay) announced they need to go, she has been on the alert for an opportunity to slip away. After dinner she feigns nausea and disappears into the restroom to ostensibly vomit. The bard even goes so far as to produce fake giant retching noises like those she’s heard many times outside Frostmaw Tavern during more peaceful, and drunken, days. Having performed the sickness she whispers to Kovl, “Do you have rope in that bag of yours? We can climb down from the parapet. Invisibly.”
Trajek made his way through Frostmaw, through the city to which he had pledged his service; through the streets, through the snow, over drunk giant bodies he had shed his and others blood in service; and through massive defeats that had been wrung from carefully calculated plans by the impaled giant who now lead an innumerable number of Frostmaw defenders into battle beyond the grave. The streets were only streets, the walls only walls, and the city was undefendable. Doomed. There was little else on the old man's mind but that, and it took nearly toppling multiple times before he touched his side and the wound that bled out his strength. Few if any had survived the debacle, and the wounded man found himself among emptiness or corpses in the shaman's compound. "Tend to the side. Leave everything else." He said to the healer who came the closest first as he slipped free of his chainmail and tossed it at a wall.
Kovl sits atop Josleen's shoulder, still invisible, as the woman fakes her retching in an attempt to plot their escape. The pixie's eyes are wide and his body is trembling. Trembles are far from Kovl's normative behavior; often others would wonder if he ever thinks about the severity of his actions at all. However, today, Kovl knows he's made a huge mistake. The 'sap', a rare hallucinogenic drug he's used as a crutch for the past couple of months, has immobilized him momentarily. He is paralyzed in a hallucinogenic fugue which is punctuated by the retching sounds from the bard's mouth. He is paralyzed by sudden disorientation and his wondering where he is. After a moment of collecting his thoughts, he is, again, paralyzed in the realization that by taking the sap, he may have killed Josleen and himself. A whisper floats to his ears out of the corner of Josleen's mouth. Paralysis is broken and he jumps at the subtlety of the sound in the midst of 'retching'. "Huh?" Another moment. "No." A pause. "We can float out." Every pause seems as eternity to the tiny pixie.
Balgruuf steps out from a curtained corner, pale and clearly griefstricken. Just before the curtain slips shut, one might catch a glimpse of a body, freshly wrapped and annointed. Hildegarde, ever honorable, had been true to her word and returned Balder undesecrated to his father. The holy men have administered all the final rites, and only the cremation ceremony itself remains. Balgruuf knows this, and he knows, too, that he is stalling. Spotting Trajek prompts a sigh that the giant must quickly stifle, lest the wounded paladin hear. Instead, moving amid the dead and wounded, he speaks out to him. "Trajek," his voice is hoarse. It takes him a moment, as he is careful not to disrupt the somber, gloomy atmosphere. "I've heard everything. You needn't give a report, not here, not until we've had time... time to..." The giant's throat pinches off, and he looks away, throwing an annoyed glance toward the noisy retching sounds, looking for something, anything to blame.
Josleen blinks slowly at Kovl’s lethargic voice. Is he sick? Pixie deliria? She rubs at her collarbone in a nervous tic that Kovl has seen countless times before. Her fingers briefly snag on the gem-encrusted necklace that Kovl gave her to power the illusion for extended periods of time. She had forgotten it was even there, hidden from the naked eye. He is a skilled mage, she reminds herself as a form of prayer. Faith, she needs to have faith, in him; she has no other choice. Reluctantly she nods.”Yes, alright…” She starts towards the window but her feet snag on fear and intuition. This doesn’t feel right. “Are you sure you’re able to do this? You seem...different.” She listens to his voice to gauge whether or not he is stable, but without visual cues it’s hard to appraise him properly. She opens the shutters, grips the windowsill tightly, and peers over the edge into the blue-black snow, barely discernible 70 feet below just within the reach of the cloudy starlight. “Ok,” she whispers. “Ok I’m ready.” But her fingers refuse to release the sill, her knuckles blanching under the pressure of her grip.
Trajek kept his eyes on the room as the shaman weaved both magic and flesh into the gash on his side. He counted the dead: too many. He counted those who were alive: far, far too few. And then there was mumbling, retching, and mumbling again. Was there mumbling and retching at the same time? His day had been spent preparing for battle, his evening fighting that battle, and the night thus far bleeding. His mind was foggy, but the there was only one father who lost his son who looked like Balgruuf. "He died honorably," The old man said as he slipped from the table. "He brought honor to your house...and his death will be mourned." He bowed as low as the freshly mended side would allow. "Tend to your son. I will see to the defenses, and I hear the first giant who will spent the rest of his days on the wall." He, too, was angered by the one who, in his mind, hid away from battle by feigning some sickness. With narrowed eyes and gritted teeth, he passed the mourning King and towards the faux-sick giant. "On your feet, coward," Trajek roared near the entrance to the restroom. "Get out here."
Kovl takes a breath and nods to himself in an act of reassurance. Yes, they can get out. Frost Giant defenses have already proven to be unready for magic from a strange creature born in Enchantment. Still atop Josleen's shoulder, the pixie now can see the ground as her frame hangs out of the window, and for a moment, he can swear the ground drops farther and farther from the window until it's many kilometers below them. Kovl closes his eyes, opens them and concludes it was only an hallucination. A sudden wave of panic overcomes Kovl. Will they ever make it out alive? Is that someone at the door? The booming and authoritative voice of Trajek only adds to his panic. Oh no! They are on to us! We have to go now! But Josleen, stupid Josleen is taking so long. "Go, go, go, go!" The pixie's voice cries aloud. Kovl takes flight and pushes at Josleen's shoulder, but the illusionist knows he's not strong enough to force her out the window. The panic takes over, and Kovl attends to Josleen's fingers, working to rip each one sequentially out of their grip onto the window sill. "Jump!" Any hesitation shown by Josleen is responded to by Kovl's prompt reentry into the restroom and a full force ramming of his body weight onto her back to force her out of the window. Not even a full two seconds later, the mage realizes he forgot to apply the pixie dust which was to ensure a safe, descent through floating and levitation. Instead, Josleen will be experiencing a terror-inducing, full-speed, descent toward the quickly-approaching ground below them.
Balgruff looks back to the human, and he nods with Trajek's words. The others had said as much and Bagruff had known that, should the tragedly ever come, his boy would go with honor. "Yes, yes," he runs his hand over his face, "there's little tending left." The angry outburst is a surprise and a disruption, and though Balgruuf had been annoyed earlier, he knows this is a place of the sick and dead and dying. He's about to say something to the paladin when, aha, two and two click together. A malingerer. Trusting his master strategist to take care of the matter, Balgruuf lingers, watching the scene unfold with something a little too distant to be called curiosity.
Josleen‘s giant eyes widen in panic as some grizzled soldier bangs on the restroom door. The weight of his knock reveals he isn’t a giant, but he’s the enemy all the same. She’s pinned between an army and a hallucinating pixie. Given the choice, Josleen would take her chances with the army, but Kovl robs her of choice when he sends her toppling heels over head out the window. She screams as she spins several more times, her shoulder then knee banging hard against the fort wall, palms peeling like potato skin as she fails to grip the rough stone. The few sentry soldiers along the walls and turrets look towards the tumbling ‘giant’, those closest running towards her. Is she a deserter? A suicide? Not that there’s a difference in this culture. Josleen lands in a deep snowdrift at the fort’s base. The powdery snow softens her fall, taking it from deadly to lung-emptying. She wheezes and gasps painfully. Above her she sees her own outline in the snow, too small to belong to that of a giant. In her panic she forgets the golden rule of surviving snowdrifts: don’t move. Scrambling to escape this dark, icey hole her flailing arms only provoke an avalanche in miniature, the snow falling over her head to suffocate her.
The banging on the restroom door was as fast as it was furious, and it only drew the older man's ire even more when he heard scuffling and shuffling but no attempts to turn the door knob. There were too many noises that sounded of escape: the window, the loud oomphs, and the demure ringing of air through a window. The door was thrown open; Trajek growled. "See to your son," He speaks as he passes Balgruff; a giant of his stature deserves recognition, even if it was half hearted and quick. He pulled free his sword as he tore through the compound, as he raced shirtless into the frigid winds that whipped around the building. He saw the giants on the walls damning Josleen with pointed weapons in her direction, and he had only to follow the few giants who ran towards the scene to catch her where she floundered. "Pull the coward out of the drift," As if Trajek needed to tell giants who looked for a fight wherever it could be had, even if that fight was beating a deserter.
Kovl watches as Josleen tumbles from the window and into the snow below them, slowly coming to the realization that his friend may be dead. And he killed her. Images dance before his eyes as he visualizes blood... fountains and fountains of blood... pouring from his friend's body. Kovl howls in fear as Trajek bursts into the restroom and zips out the window, hopefully with no inkling from the human paladin or the guards that he exists. He can see the sentry guards bearing down on Josleen's body to investigate, and only one thought shoots to the forefront of his mind. -Flee! Josleen is dead. Flee!- Kovl darts as fast as his wings will take him over the wall and toward Frostmaw's gate, resolved to go until he cannot go any farther. When he sobers, he may know to deliver the stolen supplies to the camp in Xalious. He may realize Josleen could be alive. He may relay that information to Hildegarde. He may not be able to live with himself.
Balgruuf watches Trajek speed past, and echoes back the halfhearted call. "And to your malingerer." If the coward hadn't survived the fall, Balgruuf is confident that Trajek will make the fellow wish he had. Knowing he's delayed as long as he respectably should, Balgruuf approaches one of the shamans to begin the final preparations for Balder's cremation. A pyre already awaits outside the fort, one of many, stacked and ready to receive Frostmaw's fallen. The young warrior's last remaining trek on this earth is to be a short one.
Josleen thrashes her chin to push snow out of the way around her mouth and nose so she can breathe a little. The panic has set in, she’s all animal trying to survive now, but thankfully for her she is rescued--some would call it seized. The giants who yank her up out of the snow immediately notice how lightweight she is. Fantasies of pulverizing a deserter are usurped by the giant’s superstitious fear of witches. Their priorities change. They drag her by the arms into the fort and bring her to Trajek and Balgruuf. They force the lightweight giant-apparent onto her knees and explain their suspicions to the leaders in hushed voices. A shaman overhears the conversation and chimes in that this particular giant was recently punched in training, before the battle, and fell too hard and bruised and broke too easily. Josleen steals glances at Balgruuf, Trajek, and every other soldier, quickly reading the room to try and figure out how to talk her way out of this one. Where is Kovl? She should be furious with him, but fury takes a backseat to survival and he’s her only ally here; she still believes he is here.
Trajek followed the giants and fake giantess back to the Fort to where Balgruuf was positioned. In this matter Balgruuf's word would be the final say. The wounded man paced behind the captive, listening, thinking, judging, and tapping his sword on his shoulder. "...and you say medical supplies have been seized?" The shaman nodded. Pieces were fitting into place, and all of them led to one conclusion. "This thing is either a traitor or an infiltrator. It should come clean and be judged, or it should have its head lopped off." His sword had already cut through one neck recently. What would be another one?"
Balgruuf looks up at the commotion, and he frowns. While Josleen was being dragged up out of the snow and into the fort, Balgruuf has moved his son onto a stretcher. At the moment they enter, he, a shaman, and two orderlies conscripted as pallbearers were just beginning to make their way. It is easy to see their displeasure at being interrupted, and the brunt of the blame naturally falls on this infiltrator sorceror. "Tortured to death," is Balgruuf's simple, severe sentence. If ever a spy or saboteur should pick an evil day to be caught, it is today. Considering the matter finished, Balgruuf looks expectantly, impatiently to the captive, the guards, then Trajek, brows raising. "Get on with it." Looking back to the shaman and the orderlies, Balgruuf gives a nod, and the four begin moving once more.
Josleen debates revealing herself, but bides her time. Maybe Kovl has a plan. She trusts him completely, despite whatever accident happened at the window (she still wanting to believe it was an accident). She focuses on her breathing to steady her trembling body. Balgruuf she knows from her time as a Frostmaw resident, but his demeanor strikes her as peculiar. They were never friendly, but certainly ran into each other at market or tavern from time to time, enough for her to know he is upset about something profound, not petty. She had noticed the bodies come in last night, deduced from the corpses that a battle had taken place, but only now, looking at the stretcher from her position on the floor, only able to make out the corpse’s brow and the bulb of his noise, does she realize Balgruuf’s son is dead. The acute danger she is in dawns on her just as Balgruuf sentences her to torture. Where is Kovl?! Not here, clearly, maybe on his way, but not fast enough. She blurts out, “No! I’m Josleen!” Most of the healers recognize the name for in past wars they worked alongside the bard in this very same ward. Several soldiers have been treated by her for past injuries, or been entertained by her music at Drargon’s. “Please. Please. At my neck, there’s a necklace hidden. Take it. You’ll see.” The giant that holds Josleen’s right arm fumbles for the hidden necklace then rips it off. Instantly the illusion breaks, beneath it kneels a slender, human-looking woman, incongruous with the fort and soldiers in her softness. She’s dressed like a civilian, in a floral dress and pink scarf with a rose knitted at its end. Some dirt and sweat, scrapes and bruises bedraggle her overall appearance. Doe eyes seek out Trajek, the only human in the room, beseeching him to show some mercy. Submissive, demure, the woman knows not to be flip. She can only hope her gamble that she is worth something to Balgruuf pays off.
Trajek watched on as Balgruuf gave his judgement. It would be left to him to torture the traitor until her death, and he was already thinking of the slowest, most painful, most hideous way to teach her some loyalty before she croaked. But then, there was the commotion. There was the admission. There was the stripping of her glamour and the recognition from the shamans and giants of who she was. Though he was her kind, what those doe eyes looked upon was a haggard, wounded, defeated thing. He was a lost war in the flesh, and the realization that crimes would be made right. The older bent low when he stepped near the dead woman. "I will make it quick," he offers her that before turning his attention to the task at hand. "Take her to a cell. I will begin in the morning."
Balgruuf's eyes widen in disbelief, first when the infiltrator is not dragged away immediately, then again in deepening disbelief as the illusion breaks. "Josleen?" Balgruuf recognizes her instantly. "Don't kill this one," the battle-hardened merchant blurts, desperate to stop the guards before they should take her anywhere. "Josleen," he repeats the name, and his attention falls to the petite woman. He leans a bit, from one side to the other, making sure to catch her a couple angles. "You *are* Josleen, that bard." Balgruuf's demeanor darkens awfully. "Yes, one of Hildegarde's things. A favorite of hers. Trajek," the giant's heart races in his chest, and he must fight to subdue his tone, "lock her away, and send word to our enemy." Balgruuf is clearly concocting. "We need this one, and you," sly disapproval bends the giants lips in a mirthless grin, "you know we need you, Josleen. Tricky minstrel. See my son," stepping aside, he indicates the body, "Balder," he begins walking to push past all of them, delayed for the last time. He calls behind himself as the small funeral train files through, "and consider what all of this means for you."
Josleen clenches her jaw and swallows hard as Balgruuf inspects her. Her chin does not move but her eyes follow him as he leans this way and that. Obedience will bide her time. She looks to Balder with the fear and somberness expected of her, but his death evokes no sympathy, only fear. Balgruuf’s threat, well understood, plants a rotten seed. While she tries to think of possible escapes, that seed germinates, slowly taking root in her marrow so that she feels it in her bones: there’s no escape from this one. Kovl has still not returned to her shoulder. His absence weighs heavily.
Trajek went about tending his wounds, talking to survivors, and sitting by the fire pit in the tavern.