Emmaline lay in a heap, attempting to curl up into a ball that her restraints made impossible. The beating she had received for biting the Dark Elf Captain had been severe. Fortunately he had been to angry to do a more thorough job of it and in any case after the first dozen kicks and blows it had all kind of flowed together. In the aftermath the pain and humiliation of it kept her conscious even though her body yearned for rest and oblivion. She had almost managed to pass out when a familiar hiss and a clatter of metal roused her. The cobra deposited the chainmail proudly before her and then slithered up over her arm and down her back, sinking into her skin to become the serpent tattoo once again.

"Thank you," she whispered and shifted her rump around so that her bound hands could take hold of the patch of chainmail. Slowly and painfully she pushed down into her cuffs, forcing the flanged metal to slid up her arm, scraping the skin raw. With slow awkwardness, she fed the edge of the chainmail into the small space between the rim of the cuff, wrapping it around her wrist so that the links foiled the sharpened points within the cuffs. The process took nearly an hour, but eventually she was certain that every point had slipped within a link. The process made the cuffs almost unbearably tight and blood ran from several gashes but she grit her teeth and continued. With the tips of the spikes wrapped she hooked the bottom edge of the chainmail to the stud to which she was chained.

"Ooooookay," she whispered to herself and before she could talk herself out of it she tried to leap to her feet, kicking of the deck with considerable force. Pain exploded from her wrist as one spike, less securely wrapped than the others tore into her arm but the remaining ones were yanked flush by the force of the links. She bit her tongue to avoid from crying out in pain, though tears started from her eyes. Glancing over her shoulder she saw that her efforts had not been in vain. The right cuff had slid down to where her hand flared out from her wrist. Carefully she pushed her hand down and slid the cuff a distance back up her wrist before pulling the chainmail free to give herself a few extra fractions of an inch, then pushed the cuff down again as far as it would go, rubbing her arm against her bleeding wrist to lubricate the process.

"Alright Apsath, a little help," she muttered and then yanked her left hand as hard as she could, skin scraped and she felt her thumb dislocate as the cuff slid over her hand and for a moment her vision wavered like a desert mirage, then, to her shock and surprise, her hand slipped free, minus a layer of skin in long reddish strips where the spikes had increased the pressure. Gasping in a combination of pain and relief she reached out for the winds of magic and found Charmon flickering weakly around her. Whispering a spell the touched the remaining cuff and the strange elven metal began to blacken and tarnish, a moment later it fell away into powder, centuries of decay exacted over a few seconds. Blood welled up from a long gash and dripped from her fingers as she shakily got to her feet. The first part of the plan was accomplished, but she still had to find some way to deal with a ship load of merciless dark elves. As though summoned by the mere thought she heard sudden footfalls outside the door and quickly flattened herself against a wall. The hatch opened and an elf, not the captain, stepped into the room carrying a bowl of gruel. His eyes widened in the brief moment it took Emmaline to place a palm against the side of his head and snap a word. The tip of a short lance of golden light erupted from the elf's opposite temple and he pitched forward. Emmaline caught the corpse and pulled it the rest of the way through the door, pulling the hatch closed as she did so, ear alert for an outcry. Fortunately a ship was a noisy place and even the sharp eared elven folk couldn't pick up every sound over the growns of timbers and the snap of sails.

"Ok, don't panic," she told herself. Methodically she stripped off the Elf's cloak and tunic, slipping them on. His trousers and boots she left as too ill fitting and it was obvious that any attempt to pose as an elf was doomed to failure. There was a hooked sword and a curved dagger as well maybe she could... Emmaline froze frowning. She was no fighter, and there was no way she was going to sneak past the crew to wherever Amal was being held. This battle could not be won by brawn. It needed to be won by wits.

"Alright," she said to herself and took hold of the elf, heaving him over to the single opening that gave vent to the hold in which she was confined. Glancing outside she could see it was dark, and that the sea was rising. Maybe it was luck or maybe Mannan was talking pity on her after so many nautical misadventures. Artlessly she stuffed the dead elf out the porthole, the splash of his body hitting the waves lost in the roar of the sea. She pitched his clothing after him, all save for the dagger and the sword. Crossing back to where she had been confined she scooped up the remnants of the magical chain and scattered them into the ocean as well. Then she returned to where she had been chained and whispered another incantation, drawing the blood by its core of iron up from the deck and into a ball that floated before her like an apple, with a wave of her hand she sent it flying out into the ocean.

"Asp," she called giving the cobra a name for the first time. The creature slithered up over her back with a questioning look.

"I need you to heal my wounds," she said, holding forth her torn hands. The snake gave her a reproachful look. 

"I promise I'll learn the spell when I have a chance," she said defensively. The snake gave what looked like a long suffering sigh.

"Ok here we go," she told it and reached out, not for Charmon as she had been taught, but for the flickering ember of jade magic which had danced on the edges of her vision since she had adsorbed the Opal in the forbidden city. It was slick and difficult to grasp but she managed it, feeding the thin flow into the serpent as she normally would feed Charmon into an incantation. A cool feeling settled over her hands and she glanced down to find them restored, though the bruises and contusions elsewhere remained unaffected.

"Perfect," she beamed at Asp and then sat down where she had been chained. Once more she began to chant under her breath and the Elven sword dissolved and flowed into the shape of the cuffs sliding up over her wrists and locking them back into place. Asp gave an alarmed hiss.

"I know what I am doing," she said defensively. The snake did not look convinced.

"Just you wait and see!"

The storm was well and truly rising and the ship slid up and plunged down the waves as the storm wind drove it north at half the speed of a galloping horse, the masterful artisanry of the elves allowing the vessel to slice keenly through the waters like a black arrow. The night had grown very black as the dark storm clouds obscured the stars. Around Amal many of the other prisoners, unable to take the rough seas, bent forward to vomit into the sea water, doing nothing to improve their wretched conditions. A sudden brush against the thief's leg caused him to look down as the head of Emmaline's cobra appeared from the six inches of water which sloshed around the slave deck. It blinked its eyes closed and when they opened the serpentine pupils were gone, replaced with orbs of gold.

"sssAmal..." the snake hissed in the best rendition of Emmaline's voice its serpentine mouth parts could produce.

"ssssIam freeeess, when sss ssstorm, ssat sits sieght, toucchhhhs thisss to the sssteel," the serpent hissed, it blinked its eyes back to reptilian slits, looked irritated, then blinked them back to gold once more. It's tail lifted from the water to reveal an elven knife that had been rather crudely marked with Reikish runes. It slipped the knife back under the water and pressed it into Amal's hand before dissappearing into the murk of the bilge. 

"What," Sir Brenly asked staring at the thief in shock, "in the name of Breton's Balls was that?"


[hider=The Master Key]
A useful device among unsavory wizards, The Master Key is a binding of the essence of destruction and decay into a physical object, usually a knife or blade of gold or other noble metal. Touching a Master Key to another metal surface will empty the entropic energies into that object, causing it to rust away to ruin in a matter of moments. Unfortunately the Key itself will also be destroyed in this process, a rather useful side effect when explaining to the city guardsmen that it was like that when you found it...

~Bradigeer's Compendia of Magical Tricker, Vol II, Altdorf Press
[/hider]