"Down here go!" a goblins spat, "Down! Down go!"

Assallya's blue eyes widened at the sight of a nocked short bow being pointed at her. The goblin was scared, his long triangular ears folded back almost flush with the burgundy conical cap that folded back towards the base of his skull. His spiny teeth were displayed in his slit of a mouth, a mouth that was far too large for the tiny body. Raising her hands slowly up adjacent to her tapered elven ears the courtesan swallowed. The goblin looked like he might loose at any provocation and kept peering over his tiny shoulder towards the dark elf in the distance cutting a swathe through his allies.

"Don't," Assallya replied, "I'm worth lots of coin at the slave market."

That much was true. It was how she'd started her life after all, sold into slavery at a young age and moved half way across known creation. It had also been reason why she had been taken alive in the past when all the rest of her adventuring comrades had been slain, thus allowing her chance to escape. She considered reaching down for the crossbow at her feet but immediately discounted it. She suspected any quick darting moment would prove ruinous and moving slowly and furtively would take far too long and thus be far too obvious. No, it would have to be a spell, a spell of the lower circles for speed and subtlety.

She waited and then when next the goblin turned to peer over his shoulder she cast. It was a single syllable of high power and her most basic tool. Her invisible magic darted forwards, ensnaring the moss green skinned goblin in its clutches and then began to sink in towards his skin. Then, surprisingly, the rarest of things happened. Sorcery could be a fickle ally at times and her magic was repulsed. The invisible bindings shattered and fell away into tatters. The goblin felt something amiss but could not place that he had nearly been enspelled. 

The goblin's face turned back to her, drawn by her arcane word and he loosed.

Assallya wailed in agony as the goblin's arrow flew true. It slammed into her sternum, a mere two finger's width from her navel. Fire lanced through her and she fell back against the backrest of the bench, clutching at the wound. Her teeth ground against the pain and blood seeped through her fingers. Pushing with her legs against the footboard she slid into the corner of the bench furthest from her assailant. Dimly, through a haze of pain, she saw the goblin knocking another arrow...