The carriage rattles loudly as Hineni drifts in and out of wakefulness. The spell keeps him in an odd state of half-dazed awareness. It’s as if he’s on the edge of arising from a long dream, but the sensation just seems to stretch on and on for a while, until eventually, the movement of the carriage stops. There is some noise as people and things move.

“Is this him?” asks a man's voice from next to him, waiting for some response from someone who he doesn’t hear. A nod or a gesture was given in return to the question, perhaps. “Good. Okay, let’s go,” says the man’s voice and Hineni feels himself being carried away. A cool wind blows past him, pushing through his coat, pushing through his yellow scarf as it runs over his skin, causing the hairs on his neck to stand on end. It's a familiar breeze.

“Let me go,” mutters Hineni, trying to pull his arms away.

“Fuck’s sake. Do it again!” barks the man’s voice at someone.

(???) casts [Dream-Whisper] on (Hineni)

Applied Status: [Sleep]

[HP: 39/39]

Hineni falls back into total darkness.

It is an indiscernible amount of time later. Hineni slowly awakens from his sleep, opening his blurry eyes. He finds himself laying on his back in a room.

Well, no. Judging by the bars that make up one wall, it’s a cell. Cells are rooms, right?

Hineni blinks, trying to get his odd thoughts in check as he sits upright, looking around his prison. He’s never been kidnapped before. Maybe this new life is really turning into something after all!

The man sighs. That was a dumb joke and he isn’t laughing. He always does this.

Getting up, he looks down at himself. He still has everything on, thankfully. The cell itself is exactly that, a cell. There’s a bed, there are four walls with enough room to pace in between them for exactly three steps in either direction. There are two openings, the window behind him that is small and out of reach and the bars of the cage and finally, there is one him, stuck between all of these things.

The man rubs his head, walking to the bars. “Hello?” he calls out. “Is anyone there?”

No response. His voice echoes down a hall of some kind. From what he can see, the entire place is made up out of the same lightless, drab gray stone as his cell. It carries with it a blue tinge, from the cold moonlight that shines in through the window.

What is this? Is this retribution from some god or cult he had provoked by slamming his door in their face? By rejecting their ‘offers’?

Didn’t one of them threaten him? The man in the off-white robe?

Hineni’s eyes dart around the cell. He touches the bars. They’re sleek. This isn’t iron. Despite the drabness of the interior of this place, the metal used for the bars is very expensive. He flicks it, closing his eyes to listen to the ringing that comes from them. It’s high-pitched, almost whiny. The man takes a step back, looking at them from different angles, seeing how they glitter in the rays of dewy moonlight.

“Orihalcum,” he says, sounding more than surprised. This is a high-level material. Very, very expensive. These bars themselves must have cost a fortune. Lifting a finger, he points it at one of them.

(Hineni) uses [Ash: Smolder]

The tuft of ash begins to smolder and burn around the base of one of the bars. But the glowing embers quickly die out, leaving nothing behind as the wind, coming in through his window, blows it away. Not even a scorch mark remains. Orihalcum is resistant to all types of magic. It’s the perfect material to keep a caster imprisoned.

He narrows his eyes. He’s alright. But if these people had come to his house and taken him, then what about Obscura? He has to get home and see if she’s alright. Sure, she’s a god. But it was still the middle of the night. Though... she is an owl. So, maybe that last part isn’t really a problem? Still.

The man lets out a deep breath, watching the vapors float away from his mouth.

(Hineni) uses [Ash: Antichrysalis]

The world all around him explodes into a flurry of smoldering ash. Orange lights fly through the gloom, illuminating the night as if he were suspended in a swarm of raging fireflies. Ash swirls through the bars, swirls over him, swirls through the fabric of his coat, through the strands of his hair, burning everything all at once.

The wind blows.

The ash falls to the ground, leaving no trace of its presence behind in the cell. The walls, the bars and himself are all still intact, untouched, except for a few new burns.

Something smells like smoke.

Hineni turns around, letting out an annoyed yell. His bed is on fire.

It’s been a day.

Hineni sits on the floor, his back against the wall, playing with a feather that he had pulled out of his pocket. He doesn’t know how it got there, but holding it gives him a sense of comfort. Smelling it gives him a sense of comfort.

Is that weird?

Maybe. But it’s not like anyone can see him. Nobody has come yet. The man digs into his pocket, pulling out a piece of dried meat. He’s glad that he had bought some new ones from the guild.

- [Cured Meat Strip] - - Quality -Normal - Composition - 'Meat': 98% Salt Pepper Red Spice Water: 0.9% - Quality Effects -None A heavily salted and mostly dried strip of meat of indistinct origin. It has an extremely long shelf life and mildly spicy flavor. Restores {10} STAMINA Weight: 0.01kg Value: 04 Obols

RESTORED

+ {10} STAMINA

Are they just going to leave him here to rot? Is that it? Is this some kind of slow murder? Or are they waiting on something? On someone?

Hineni lays on his back. Obviously, he’s bored as sin. It’s been another day. Nothing has changed. He’s hungry. He still hasn’t seen a single soul.

As for bathroom related issues, he’s simply opted to do his business out through his cell bars. Nothing that the remnants of his blanket and some ash magic couldn’t take care of.

He sighs.

He hopes Obscura is okay. He hasn’t even thought about Rhine. Hineni sits upright, realizing. He hopes that the boy didn’t come to his house and stand there in front of a locked door. If that’s the case, he probably thinks that Hineni had changed his mind and was now choosing to ignore him.

“Shit,” mutters the man, resting back down against the ground. He stares idly for a while, realizing that this is a real problem he's having. Has he really changed so much in such a short time?

Still. He hopes that the boy isn’t devastated.

He turns his head, looking at the bars of his window. There are four of them and something about that… something about that makes him nervous. Four. Four is bad.

Hineni turns his gaze back towards the ceiling. Are they going to keep him here for four days? They smelled like them. Like frogs. Is that what this is? Is that when it’s going to get here? The big-frog? The thing that Obscura is after? Was this some kind of preemptive attack? Maybe this has nothing to do with the others gods of the city and his rejection of them after all?

He’s really hungry, really thirsty.

Hineni has been doing his best to not burn too much energy. But it’s cold and apart from the few pieces of jerky he had, the man has had nothing to eat, let alone drink.

Has another day passed yet?

He thinks for a moment, feeling the unnaturally strong wind blow over him. No. Maybe another hour.

The third day comes. Hineni, hating himself in a very intense way, sits upright, aiming at the iron-bars that make up the window of his cell.

(Hineni) uses [Ash: Smolder]

An orange glow begins to smolder and eat away at the bars, as if worms were digging through them. A minute later, they fall apart.

The man stands there, with his hands on his hips, looking up at the window that he had written off from the start, right after seeing the orihalcum bars of his cell. He had just assumed that they were orihalcum too. Turns out they’re iron. Looks like ‘they’, whoever his captors are, skimped on the little details. Typical frogs.

The man blinks, realizing that he has no idea what he’s deliriously rambling about in his own mind. Frogs?

The window is high up. If only he hadn’t destroyed his bed, he could have used it to climb up.

Sighing, he walks back towards the bars of his cell and then runs as fast as he can, jumping with a boot against the wall to try and push himself up to the window. He’s not exactly an athletic type in this regard and honestly, he wasn’t expecting to make it. But somehow, he feels as if the gentle push of the wind, which has seemingly shifted directions, has helped him. His hand grips the ledge and then so does his other one, before his own weight overwhelms him. With extreme exertion, given his weakened state, Hineni only just barely manages to wrap his arms around the window and to pull himself up.

Looking out, he sees some courtyard that he isn’t familiar with. It isn’t particularly well kept. It’s just kind of a grass square. There’s a fountain, some stone benches. It’s nice enough, but not exquisite or up to the standards of any real god, at least in the measures of wealth that he would expect. It kind of just looks forgotten, actually. The fountain isn’t even working. It’s like an abandoned park in a back corner of the city.

“Where am I?” mutters Hineni, looking around the area.

He looks down. The drop isn’t that bad. Squeezing himself out of the window, he falls down to the ground, adjusting his hat and standing back upright.

It’s good to be free. Even if he is still technically trapped somewhere, at least he has room to stretch now, room to move, room to breathe. Sneaking along the wall, Hineni makes his way to a small archway and peeks through it, before making a dash to the other side. Honestly, it kind of looks like an old monastery of some kind. But all of the doors that he sees are closed and their handles covered in thick layers of dust. There aren’t any voices or any sounds of steps or anything else. There is simply… no-one. His captors seem to have simply vanished. It's like they dropped him off in his cell and then just disappeared.

Crickets chirp, their voices singing from the overgrown grasses that line the stonework, their candor carrying through the night as the last choir to ever sing in a forgotten place like this. Slowly, carefully, Hineni creeps his way through, trying to find a way out.

But even if he does, then what?

His captors will know that he’s escaped and they’ll know exactly where to look. On one hand, he wants to go home, he wants to go home more than any time he has ever wanted to go home before, to see if this new life he had managed to get going is still there, waiting on him. But he knows that if he does, he’ll just bring renewed danger to his doorstep.

But if there is anyone here, he certainly can’t find them now.

Hineni looks around himself. Lost. There are doors everywhere. Corridors everywhere. Courtyards everywhere. This is some kind of cloister, it’s clearly outside of the city for there to be this much space. What should he do?

The wind blows over him and Hineni shivers. It feels cold, lonely, but it feels that way in the sense that it is simply a current and he is simply a thing that floats upon it. They aren’t really interacting with each other, but the forces of one move the other.

Hineni exhales, letting out a long breath as his shoulders fall slack. He walks straight ahead. Past the first door. Then the second. Then, he grabs the third, pulling it open.

Another courtyard is on the other side.

He walks through it, repeating the ritual. From it, he takes the third door, walking through that and then taking the third corridor to another courtyard. Number three.

Bodies lay everywhere, they’re on the grass, slumped over the benches and the dry fountain. Hineni pulls up his scarf, taking a step back at the sight. There isn’t any blood. There isn’t a single sword drawn or an arrow or a knife to be seen. All of them simply lay strewn about. The memory is only vague, but these look like the people who kidnapped him. The robes are the same. They’re a drab tone and of simple fabric, with long, sagging hoods.

Bending down, he lifts the hood off of one.

The man, who he doesn’t recognize, is still alive. He’s still breathing. He simply lays there on the grass and sleeps.

Someone screams from behind him. Hineni spins around, seeing another man with crazed, hungry eyes lunge his way. The two of them fall to the ground, rolling over each other, the man claws at him as Hineni, tired and weak, but full of adrenaline, somehow fights his way to the top and pins his arms down.

“EYES! EYES!” screams the almost rabid cultist, flailing around, froth dripping from his mouth as he fights, trying to get Hineni off of him. “IT’S EVIL! DON’T LOOK INTO ITS EYES! DON’T COUNT THEM! DON’T LIS-!”

(???) casts [Dream-Whisper] on (???)

Applied Status: [Sleep]

The man beneath him falls to sleep, his hands releasing from him, his arms falling limp to the grass. Catching his breath, feeling his heart racing, Hineni sits upright and looks around. “Who’s there?!” he shouts.

“Who~” coos a familiar voice. Hineni looks up at the source. In the courtyard he is in, is a tree and on one of its branches sits Obscura in her half-human form, her hood up.

“Who~…” replies Hineni in relief. He gets up and runs to the tree. “Are you okay?” he calls up to her. Obscura drops down to him and Hineni grabs her in a hug. He isn’t sure if it’s a weird thing for him to be doing or not. Is their relationship at an acceptable place to be hugging? He doesn’t know. They’ve never really hugged before, despite everything. It’s probably fine, right? He hopes that she doesn’t think him hugging her is weird.

“Three,” says Obscura, pressing her face against his shoulder. “Obscura waited three days. Three!”

“I was on my way out,” replies Hineni, pulling back and looking at her. “You’re fine, right?” he asks again.

The owl-goddess tilts her head. “There is no danger for Obscura. To them, Hineni is the frog,” she explains, pointing at the heaps of sleeping bodies.

He blinks. He supposes that’s just her way of saying that he is the vulnerable one here. It looks like she has things handled, honestly. He looks around at the bodies. “How did you…” he starts, looking around. Then, at the base of the tree, he sees one more man. A shivering mess of a man with a tattered robe and many cuts, who is pale-faced and desperately trying to breathe. He looks absolutely devastated, as if he had been having a non-stop panic attack for the last three days without a wink of sleep.

Obscura tilts her head at an unnatural angle, her yellow eyes going round and wide, looking at the stranger who, with a shaking hand, presses it against his own head.

(???) casts [Dream-Whisper] on (???)

Applied Status: [Sleep]

The man by the tree falls over and for the first time in three days, is allowed to sleep.

“Oh…” says Hineni. He looks around the area. It really does look like they’re all just sleeping. That’s… pretty moral of her, right? He had assumed that she would just gut them like frogs. Looks like he has the wrong idea. He turns back to look at her and she looks at him, the two of them staring for a time. Lifting his hands, he grabs the sides of her hood and pulls it down.

And as he presses his face closer to hers in a moment of sudden relief and bravery and maybe even delirium, he can’t help but count her eyes.

There are only two.