Serphia readied herself, unsheathing the dagger in one hand and guard’s sword in the other. The guards had caught sight of them and were demanding for them to halt their activity. The drow whirled around, a snarl leaving her throat. Six, eight, no ten men. Her heart fluttered for a moment. They were dead. After all the hard work to get out of the damn prison in the first place, they were going to meet their end right there in that grassy knoll. She couldn’t fight off ten men while trying to keep the mage alive. 

She slowly lowered Arloke to the ground from her back, her purple eyes flashing in the dim light of the moon as she prepared herself for her final battle. She would go down swinging. None would say she died a coward. 

However, before she could barrel forward and meet the offense with her own, she felt a swelling of magic just behind her. Suddenly, her wrist was snatched and she found herself spinning into the chest of the mage as he wrapped his arms around her quickly. She let out a hastened whistle, Arloke grabbing a hold of the mage’s leg as the smoke enveloped them. The guards crashed through the smoke of the spell, finding the area empty and their prisoner’s gone. 

Serphia learned that night that she was not built for teleportation magic. As they were thrust through another dimension, their bodies feeling as if they didn’t weigh anything, Serphia felt her stomach rise up in her chest and when their weight was returned, she felt that same stomach come crashing down. Nausea overtook her and she snapped her eyes closed, trying to settle her distraught stomach. 

As they came crashing down into reality again, Serphia let out a groan as her body slammed into the mage, Arloke falling into the grass just next to Malcador. She lingered there on top of the mage for a moment, her eyes still closed tight as she tried to overcome the nausea. Her mouth began to water and her eyes snapped open. She covered her mouth and frantically scrambled off the man. She managed a few feet before retching and spewing into the grass just under one of the nearby trees. She braced herself against the trunk, resting her sweaty forehead against the back of her hand before she felt another bout of nausea and lost the will to live with another violent spew of her stomach. 

As the mage gave a weak cheer, Serphia held her hand up in a half-hearted victory gesture. “Cheers and celebration,” she murmured quietly. She spat into the grass before she rolled along the tree, coming to settle on the other side of her mess, her back braced against its trunk and head leaning back. 

Slowly, the adrenaline from the battle faded and left Serphia shaking and aching in a few new places. Her stomach was empty and her blood sugar was quite low. She could feel it as trembles travelled through her. 

As sensations returned to her, most specifically pain, she hissed lightly as her side finally demanded the attention it needed. That guard had cut her when he stabbed under the table and now it burned like fire. 

Slowly she reached out and gently groped along the gash, her fingers sliding through the slice in her tunic and feeling the blood that had soaked through her clothes and dried along her skin. She groaned lightly, unwilling to move just yet else she would have to deal with another bout of nausea. 

This was her only article of clothing and now it was ruined. Those bastards took everything from her. Her weapons and armor were still somewhere within those prison walls, most likely already stolen by some guard. It’s going to cost her an arm and a leg to get armor even remotely as nice as the set she had. Not to mention her swords were adamantine. If she found even one person wearing her weapons or armor, she was going to slay them and take it back. Wait. Her eyes snapped open. Was that why they had stripped her? They wanted her items?

“Phraktos tlu xsa'us,” she cursed through clenched teeth as she drove her fist into the ground. “Those fuckers stripped me to steal my items. I should have murdered every last one of them.” The sudden movement sent a sharp pain through her side and she ground her teeth as her hand shot to the gash. She gave a low whistle and Arloke scurried from the mage to her side, her pack bouncing lightly along his abdomen. 

She pulled the pack off him before giving Arloke a gentle stroke to his back. “Thank you, ussta abbil,” she muttered quietly to the arachnid before she began to dig through her bag one handed, her other hand still pressed firmly against the gash on her side. They were lucky that the cut was the only thing she had acquired during that brawl. It could have been far worse. A meager wound on the side that had pretty much already stopped bleeding and wasn’t deep enough to be deadly was nothing compared to losing their lives. She may need some stitches to close it up properly but they were alive.