I awoke to the biting cold and a piercing headache. The first few seconds of consciousness were a muddled daze, until the memory of what had happened came back to me. I surprised myself by not instantly panicking upon recalling the events leading up to my knockout, especially since I was lying flat on my back, staring up at a dark stone ceiling with a fair number of stalactites.

Ignoring the pounding in my skull, I forced myself into a sitting position, a decision that I instantly regretted due to a quadrupling of said pounding’s intensity in response. Placing a hand to my forehead, I warily surveyed my surroundings.

I was in a large room, easily forty paces across either direction. It appeared to be naturally formed from stone, which lead me to believe I must be inside some form of cave or cavern. There were five torches upon the walls, all lit with and eerie green flame that somehow did not mar the color pallette despite its otherworldy tint. The only obvious furniture in the room was a desk and chair in the center, and numerous large cages along the walls to my right and left. A single exit lay on the wall opposite me, an opening without a door that looked to branch left and right.

A trio of zombies stood outside that door.

Well. I guess that means I’ve been captured. Trying desperately to remain optimistic about my situation, I examined the details of my captivity. I was not chained to a wall, nor was I inside one of those cages. Instead, I was in the center of a circle of runes. About five feet in radius, the runes appeared to have been carved into the stone floor, and a telltale glint of magic was present in each. Surprisingly, I was able to read the runes, as if I was reading sentences in common. The ones around me appeared to be an intricate working of rules that ultimately culminated in a single thing.

“Is a storm sorcerer without his storm still a sorcerer?” A mellifluous voice asked from my left. I jerked my head up (which set the headache back to full force) and looked towards the cage the sound had originated from. A moment later, a man’s face pushed through the shadows and up to the bars. He was young, looking in his late teens, though the sharp tips of his ears lent doubt to any age-guessing I might do. Not full elven, his face was too square and cheekbones not pronounced enough for that. Fair hair cascaded down past his shoulders, and not a lick of hair adorned his face, though I’d place my bets on elven genetics over habitual shaving. His eyes were green, and had a playful mirth to them, and his lips were turned up in a teasing smirk.

The mixed-blood stared at me for a moment. I, still dealing with re-entering consciousness, was unable to form a witty comeback. Or any comeback, really, it seemed my body prioritized cold and calculating analysis over clever repartee when it came to waking up parts of my brain.

“Glad to see you on your feet, newbie,” the man finally said. “Name’s Garrick Slant, of the bardic profession, and it is my unfortunate honor to welcome you as the newest resident of the dungeon of the Carrion Lord. We’ve seen a lot of turnover of late, so it’s nice to have fresh blood in the neighborhood.”

“You're… rather glib for a prisoner,” I said.

The man shook his finger back and forth, clicking his tongue, “Ah, .y new friend, but that's where you're wrong! A prisoner I am not! Nay, the mighty Carrion Lord has employed my services as his personal historian. I chronicle his every triumph so that his fearsome legend might be accurately passed down to the masses. For centuries to come, my tales shall be sung across the land striking terror and-”

“He's the necromancer’s pet,” said deep voice from a cage to my right. My head snapped in that direction (gah, my head!), peering into the shadows. I saw what looked like a pike of metal contained within, flinging weakly in the unholy light. When there was no movement towards the bars, I glanced back towards Garrick, who was glaring towards the offending cell himself.

“Who’s our disapproving neighbor, neighbor?” I asked.

Garrick harrumphed, “That hunk of metal is the Carrion Lord’s most recent fascination. The man’s trapped in a cursed suit of armor, and the Carrion Lord is attempting to turn him into a living armor without removing the curse. Apparently it’s harder than it sounds.” Garrick shrugged and turned back to me. “All that magic stuff goes a bit over my head.”

“So I take it, then, that you’ve no knowledge of the nature of my trappings?” I asked.

“Ah, in fact, that is a subject I can expound upon in length, my good friend! The Carrion Lord has explained to me in much detail the effort he has gone to capture those who sought to vanquish him. Though, I must admit I am surprised to find the famed storm sorcerer Keidra Storcoil of the Tempest Guild is not of the fairer sex.”

“She’s not- I’m not- Call me Runes. Keidra is my… commanding officer in the guild. I’m… not sure what happened to her after Reginald attacked.”

“Reginald?” the bard asked.

“The Carrion Lord. His real name’s Reginald something-thatch. Amber? Umbra? Umber. Umberthatch.”

“Ah. Well, I think I’ll keep with ‘the Carrion Lord.’ No reason to the man dangling my life in his hands.

“Anyways, the runes trapping Runes, oh that name will be so much fun, were designed specifically for a storm sorcerer. The Carrion Lord already knew the identities of party pursuing him, so he took great pleasure in designing holding wards specifically to bind each member of the party. For Keidra, he designed a warded cell that would negate every aspect of her storm sorcery. That’s the cell you’re in now.

“The cell to your left was designed for Rendal Forst, with both physical-restraining binds and divine obstruction wards. The two to your right were created to house Daruin Stonejaw and Fel’an Ellandern. Daruin’s is an overly convoluted one - it basically takes his hands and feet and places them out of phase with our reality, on top of physcially restraining the rest of his body. Fel’an, on the other hand, is to suffer both a silence ward and a curse that somehow inhibits his spellcasting abilities. I’m not sure how that one works, when the Carrion Lord expounded on it he started using big magey words well outside my vocabulary.”

“It’s a spell matrix encryption ward. It basically takes a spell formula and mixes it up.”

“You… you can read that?” Garrick was surprised. “I thought you were a sorcerer, not a wizard.”

“I am, and don’t ask.” I bent down to look at the runes currently confining me. After a moment, I stood back up.

A sigh escaped my lips. As I thought. The ward would prevent me from manifesting any storm magic. That means I had a decision to make. I looked at Garrick. “Are there any other occupants of this dungeon?”

He shook his head. “You’ve got a look in your eye, newbie. Found a flaw? A loophole to get you out of that cage?”

“Nope. The spellwork here is flawless. I doubt even the strongest storm sorcerer could conjure a spark inside this array.”

I looked over to the other occupant in the dungeon. “Armor-man. You got a name?”

A brief moment of silence, then, “Jaric.”

“You up for an escape?”

Another moment of silence, then I heard his armor scraping against the ground as he rose to his feet, coming forwards into the light at the bars of his cage. The man inside the cage was encased in a suit of pitch black metal plate armor. And he was massive, easily over seven feet tall. The armor itself was of exquisite craftmanship, looking as clean and pristine as the day it was forged. Magic items always looked brand-new. Something about the magic just froze them in time the instant they were created. They could be damaged or marred, sure, but they would always revert back to the beginning, given time.

A pair of glowing red eyes peered through the eyeslits on Jaric’s helmet. There was no opening for his mouth other than some vertical slits meant for breathing. It brought to mind a question of how he ate and drank, but I filed that curiosity away for a more appropriate time.

I took a deep breath. This, what I was about to do, was stupid. Incredibly stupid. But desperate times…

It was this or hope to be rescued. And given that I had been captured by a necromancer, I knew that the duration of my stay was not planned to be as the living. In fact, I was surprised I hadn’t just been killed and turned back in the forest. Maybe Keidra had hurt him enough he wasn’t able to perform before she got away.

If she got away.

I took another deep breath, then let it out slowly. I looked both of the other occupants in the dungeon. “I need to know two things going forwards from both of you. First, are either of you tied to a religion?”

Garrick shook his head. “No more than any other mortal. I pray when I need to but I don’t hang around temples much”

I looked Jaric’s direction. “Once, but no longer. The gods failed me.”

That was… ominous. But good for me, in this current situation.

“Secondly, I need an oath from both of you. An oath on whatever you hold sacred, that you will never, ever, in your life, death, or undeath, reveal what I am about to show you.”

I couldn’t escape here alone. I knew that. There was a reason adventurer parties were more common than solo adventurers. Survival rates of groups were much better than soloists. And breaking out of this necromancer’s lair was going to be a harsh challenge.

So I had two options, wait and hope for rescue, or find a way to trust these two people and attempt to make it out of here alive. While not impossible, something in my gut was telling me rescue wouldn’t make it in time. I was deliberately ignoring the root of that feeling. But I heeded its warning.

What I was asking for wasn’t some magical contract. I couldn’t write one of those even hadn’t I been locked up in an anti-magic cage. This was just me, a mortal, asking for another mortal’s oath.

Yeah, I hear you. Where’d the cynic go? Why are you suddenly so willing to trust?

I… don’t know. I’ll be honest, Keidra changed something in me. I was with her for a matter of days and yet I feel a different person than I was before. I opened up to her, I trusted her and let her in. And she rewarded me for it.

So call me a fool, call me an idiot, call me naive. For all intents and purposes, I was in my formative years. I was rediscovering both the world around me, and myself.

“I swear upon my voice that whatever you reveal in aiding us in our escape, I’ll take to my grave,” Garrick was the first to speak. I somehow knew he would. Despite his surface cheeriness, the man obviously hated it here, hated being under Reginald’s thumb, hated watching people enter the dungeon and then disappear. It was in his tone when he joked about ‘new blood.’ It was in his eyes when he spoke about chronicling ‘the Carrion Lord’s’ escapades.

Garrick wanted free.

I looked over to Jaric. He had a gauntlet on his chin, looking pensive. A moment later, he returned his gaze to me, speaking, “Should you release me from this cage, I will do everything in my power to aid you in escaping here, and shall not speak of any secrets revealed in the process until my soul is unmade. I swear this upon my brother’s grave.” I met his eyes through the slits of his helmet, glowing with an intensity that had not been there before.

Jaric, too, wanted free.

I took one more deep breath. That was it, then. I closed my eyes, reaching inside. “Garrick, I’m afraid I’m not able to answer your original question.” Deep, past the stagnating storm power inside my font, to the glowing core in its depths. “If one takes away the storm from a storm sorcerer, I would assume they wouldn’t be able to do much of anything.” I grasped the power at the center of my power, dredging it to the surface, spreading it through my body. “Without the storm, they’d be powerless. No more than an ordinary mortal.” A rush of vigorous energy spread through my very being. I felt, in that very second, more alive, more aware, more complete than ever in my brief, amnesiatic existence. “But you see…” The power, the divinity rushed to my fingertips, and I willed it forwards. It broke through the ward, shattering it into pieces, a beam of pure radiance that flashed instantly across the room, smashing into the trio of skeletons in the hallway, vaporizing them instantly.

I stepped through the hole in the now-crumbling ward, looking at the awestruck expression upon my new companion’s face. “...I’m not really a storm sorcerer.”