EliteCommander

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

I'm going to need to go to bed soon. Goodnight.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Lorag cast his gaze over to Irenya, and the Bosmer in her arms, Ciinriel. He agreed with Gallus in that it was not a good idea to remain in the outpost for long, he just wanted to make sure that everyone was ready to move first. "Irenya, the girl. You can carry her back to camp, right?"

Irenya responded with a nod, prompting Lorag to look to the rest of the pride. "Is everyone else able to move? It will be about an hour's walk, probably."

Jo'rashaad gave a look of frustration to Gallus, but with a sigh of resignation, he knew he would have to agree. "Fine." He said to Gallus before turning his attention to Lorag. "Most of us can move, but I think my wife has a broken paw. It may need to be healed first." He explained, pointing to the Pahmar, S'ajira.

"Alright, Irenya, take a look at S'ajira as soon as you can. Everyone else, search this place for anything useful, and stay on guard." Lorag ordered.

After Lorag's order was given, Ra'katesh approached Colors with a curious expression. "Colors, did he mention something about the Champion?"

Colors nodded. "Yes, Hircine's Champion herself has come to aid us." He explained.

Ra'katesh looked out of the hole in the wall, into the forest beyond. "Well, it seems the Great Hunter has not abandoned us after all. Perhaps we do have some hope yet."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

In his weakened state, Jo'rashaad could be easily contained. His fury was obvious, but he stopped resisting once he knew it was pointless. "That monster doesn't deserve to live, for what he did to Ciinriel." He shouted, but nevertheless, he let out a sigh and dropped the plank. Turning his head to Gallus, he spoke quietly. "Jo'rashaad will not leave here until he is dead."

Once Jo'rashaad was released, he kicked the prisoner in the side, which caused him to curl up and groan, then returned to one of the chairs in the room. Colors looked around awkwardly, wondering if he should start with the introductions. However, the black-furred Khajiit male started before he could speak.

"This one is Ra'katesh, the leader of this pride. He is Jo'rashaad, and has a...very good reason to be enraged with that monster." Ra'katesh explained before moving on, motioning to the spotted Khajiit woman. "She is Do'ajee, and Jo'rashaad's sister." He then pointed to the tan, black striped woman. "Her name is La'khay, and the Pahmar is S'ajira. This one supposes we should hurry in interrogating our...prisoner." He recommended.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

The pride was not quick to move anywhere, but they all agreed that they wanted to get out of this dungeon. Slowly, everyone started to file upstairs with varying degrees of aches and pain in their muscles. The Pahmar walked with a limp on her front right leg, which would likely need to be looked at before they left.

Once upstairs, everyone started to gather up chairs for the pride, though Colors decided to stay standing. He was about to start giving introductions when the spotted Khajiit male, Jo'rashaad, noticed the prisoner they had tied up against a wall. He locked eyes with the prisoner as expression became furious.

"YOU!" Jo'rashaad shouted, his voice booming with unbelievable rage. He snarled and clenched his fists together until eventually, he rushed forward. His weakened muscles did not seem to stop him from pushing past anyone in his way, grabbing up one of the broken planks from the wall as he ran past, and smashing it into the prisoner's head. As the prisoner was knocked to the floor, he started to take another swing, evidently intent on beating him to death.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Colors headed downstairs just as Kaleeth was finishing up freeing the rest of his pride. They walked, slowly and weakly out of their cells over to the other side of the room, to give Irenya and Janius the space they needed to tend to the Bosmer. All of them would need healing eventually, but they were not in the same kind of agony as her. As Colors looked at all of them, particularly the Bosmer, his eyes lowered, and his heart sank. "By Hircine..." He mumbled.

The dark-furred Khajiit was the first to speak up. "Colors, it is...good to see you survived, and that you are not still in the enemy's hands. Khajiit feared for your life if we were ever rescued."

Another of the pride, a spotted Khajiit woman with a similar fur color as Ahnasha, glared at him more with anger. "Yes, it is good the cowardly lizard returned nice and safe, while we were being tortured here."

The other Suthay-raht male, who had light fur and similar spots to the angry Khajiit, stepped forward between the two. "Be calm, sister. Colors did not choose to put himself in that position. He is a coward, but he is our coward." He commented as he put his arm over Colors' shoulders.

"T-thank you, Jo'rashaad." Colors responded weakly. Regardless of what any of them said, he still felt guilty about the pain they had all endured.

Eventually, Janius managed to remove the last of the hooks, so they were able to untie her from the rack. She nearly collapsed to the ground, only to be caught by Irenya. By this point, she had numbed the girl's body entirely, so her cries of pain had stopped. Her muscles were too weakened by the rack to stand, so Irenya scooped her up in her arms and walked back towards the group. "She needs healing, but I have no doubt she will be fine, physically at least. There are no silver wounds across her body that I can sense. I think we should head upstairs and get out of this...room. You can all have a seat and rest."

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

So it seems I misread who was helping the prisoner. Ah, well, it does make sense to have multiple people helping her get off the thing as quickly as possible.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Irenya was already dropping down through the hole in the floor when Janius shouted for her. As a healer, she had seen much suffering during her long life, but even her eyes widened upon seeing the torture victim. She said nothing in response and instead just ran to Fendros' side to give what aid she could to the Bosmer girl. She was glowing with restoration energy by the time she reached the rack, and immediately poured it into the girl. First and foremost, Irenya concentrated on deadening the massive amount of pain she was feeling. Despite the horrific nature of the girl's injuries, her life was not actually in much danger. The sadistic nature of this torture was that it was efficiently designed not to kill its victim. "Release the tension on the rack slowly. After that, I need you to cut the ropes on those hooks, then pull them out slowly and carefully. After that, we can release her." Irenya said to Fendros.

Given that there was no longer a need for Kaleeth to remain in her beast form, she shifted herself back to normal once the last of the enemies had been killed. She saw the girl on the rack as she stood back up, but could not bear to look at her for more than a moment. The other five of Colors' pride were in the two iron-barred cells to the right of the rack. All were Khajiit, mostly Suthay-raht, but there was one of the tiger-like Pahmar. All of them bore the scars of the same kind of torture the Bosmer was enduring, though their fur made the marks more difficult to see, apart from the places where it had been burned off. One of them, a black-furred male, stood up and walked to the bars of his cell. His hands were bound, but he was able to point to the body of the Khajiit jailer. "Thank Hircine, this one had given up hope of rescue. He had the keys, I think."

Kaleeth nodded to the man, then approached the body. While Leaps tore off pieces of flesh to feast on, Kaleeth grabbed the keyring from his belt and ran over to the cells. She had to try a few different keys to get both of the cells open, then headed inside to start trying keys on the prisoners' bindings. A few of them were in tears by this point, though whether from relief or pain, Kaleeth did not know.

"How did you find us?" A tan-furred, black striped Khajiit woman asked.

Colors waited until the sounds of fighting had ceased before carefully stepping inside through the hole in the wall. He looked around nervously at the bodies, as well as the prisoner that a few of the others were currently securing. What concerned him the most, however, was the screaming he could hear coming from downstairs.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

The Khajiit jailer, after the initial shock of having the werecrocodile fall in front of him, had drawn the axe from his belt and started to rush forward towards the disoriented werebeast, intent on finishing her while she was down. However, just as he was about to make his swing, Leaps jumped down and landed on the floor right in front of him. He jumped back to keep his distance from the beast, but it was at that point that he saw the lightning pulsing across the wamasu's body.

"What in Oblivi-" The Khajiit began before he was cut off by an intense surge of electrical energy pulsing through his body. Had he expected it, he might have been able to evade, or otherwise prepare, but instead, he dropped his axe and fell to his knees. From there, it was Leaps' instinct to pounce upon his weakened prey, just as he had done upstairs.

The locked cells contained most of Colors' pride, apart from one. Now that he was downstairs, Fendros could see clearly the horror that these prisoners had been subject to. All of them had been stripped bare and tortured, but there was one who was currently enduring it. Within clear view of the two iron cells was a torture rack, upon which one of Colors' pride was currently tied. She was a Bosmer girl, no older than Tzirret, whose body bore horrific scars, fresh and old. The sounds of the fighting had obscured her cries of pain as her muscles were being stretched out to the point of tearing by the foul device. If the stretching wasn't enough, she had fresh burns across many sensitive areas of her body. She bore at least a dozen cuts and gashes all placed perfectly to avoid her vital organs, and she was missing all of her fingernails and toenails. Currently, there were hooks stabbed through her flesh running up and down the length of her body that were tied to the rack, and pulled tight to stretch out her skin. It was this girl that the Bosmer jailer was running to. She did manage to reach her, but she had to stop for a moment to pull her knife from her belt. If Fendros was quick enough, he could yet stop her.

---

Peiter was quite speechless when Sabine leaned up against him. Although, he certainly was not going to say anything against it. Regardless of whether or not he had offended Sabine by the stream, he still felt nervous of doing anything wrong now. Instead of speaking, he tilted his head to rest on hers and simply closed his eyes to relax. The nervousness he had felt had caused him to almost forget about his fatigue, but he too was rather exhausted.

Meesei, who had been observing the entire exchange between the pair, could not help but to give a faint chuckle. She was laying on her bedroll and about to get to sleep herself. Currently, her body was swimming with the energies of potions that were holding off the pain, and keeping her stomach from bursting open. She would need to take a few more during the night, so she and Uthri were going to sleep in shifts to ensure she did not miss a dose. By morning, however, the effects of the silver would likely have weakened enough that her body could hold itself together on its own.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

Well, they are in an awkward teenager phase.

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

I'm working on a project between posts, so I may be a bit delayed on some.