The cart bounced along the bumpy road that led out of town, Alistaira still relaxing despite the bindings on her wrists, the gag in her mouth and the canvas sack over her head. This took her abductors by surprise. They expected that she would have at the very least attempted to get away by now at least once, yet their quarry was doing no such thing. This job had become unnervingly easy, and this started to spread the corruption that is doubt amongst the ne’er do wells.

Alistaira, for her part, was simply running experiments in her head, an action that she took whenever she had to endure any number of things that kept her from her research. Despite what some may say about her, her mind was so completely ordered, regulated and filled with cold, hard, unfeeling logic that she could effectively run limited simulations in her head with a minimal margin of error.

She knew the properties of certain variables to such a degree that even when not in her lab she could conduct experiments and research with nearly identical results that she would have achieved while in her preferred place of residence. Of course, she could really only have one experiment at a time in her head, which was one of the reasons why she preferred to stay at home and lock herself in her lab. But the time for her to test things in her mental space was soon to be over as the cart stopped and she was essentially carried like luggage into some kind of large building and down into the structure’s basement.

She heard the sound of metal scraping against metal and then felt the cold hard stone that was the floor as she was unceremoniously dropped to the ground and had the bag on her head ripped off. With her eyes now free to see where she was, she quickly realized that this was no mere basement, although even an idiot could have come to that conclusion when they saw that they were effectively trapped between five flat surfaces made of stone and one made of wrought iron bars.

“Look at me, sow.”

A young teenager’s voice came from beyond the iron bars, but Alistaira decided not to pay attention to it.

“I said, Look At Me.”

Once again, Alistaira could not be bothered to show anything other than indifference to whomever it was that was talking. She did not negotiate or conduct business with enemies.

“Heavens damn it, you stupid, fucking, backwards bitch-flavored c***-waffle, LOOK AT ME!”

Okay, now that the wording was getting rather creative, Alistaira was slightly tempted to look. But why bother, really? It wasn’t like paying attention to the whining little shit was going to get her out of here, so she would just let the teen increase his blood pressure a bit more. Maybe his biology would save her the trouble and he’d keel over from a burst vessel. One could hope, of course.

“I am going to- (Author’s Note: The insufferably nasty racist, misogynistic, and bigoted rant not included due to how horrible it would be and because I both don’t feel like typing it and don’t want the mods breathing down my neck.) Then, after doing all of that, I’m going to have those pieces stuffed into a sack, put a stone in it, and toss it into the sewage system so you rot with the rest of the filth!”

Alistaira was a bit impressed by the five and a half minute-long tirade, but also a bit entertained. In fact, hearing this teen who sounded like he was in the throes of puberty, complete with a randomly cracking voice, trying to sound tough and threatening was kind of funny. So funny in fact that she let out a small snort before catching herself.

“Don’t you dare mock me! I’m going to be the Sultan soon, you insufferable pile of living septic waste!” the teen yelled before coughing. Apparently, his tirades had started to do some damage to his vocal cords. This just caused Alistaira to laugh a bit more through her gag, but the teen seemed to have had enough and walked off in a huff.

The door to her cage was still open, and now that the entitled brat was gone there was no reason not to look towards the entrance/ exit to her cell. There was a large, burly man who looked to be 90% solid muscle looking down at her with koala ears sticking out where a human’s ears should be, making him look both intimidating and somewhat adorable depending on which part of the body you were looking at. He was holding a bucket in one of his oversized hands, and he tossed it into the cell before closing the door.

Alistaira didn’t know what to do with the bucket, but a voice from the other side, that of the big burly man, answered her with a voice fit more for a four-year-old child than an adult with the body type he possessed.

“This is your cell, this is your home, this is your prison, this is your tomb. And that is your bucket. You will shit in it and sustain yourself off of that, because we are never going to bother feeding or watering you. You will be left here to rot, alone, forgotten and never to be seen again. Enjoy the last few days of your life, savage.”

If Alistaira had a nickel for every time someone in the Sultanate with any degree of power had disrespected her or her nation, she would at the very least have a dollar, if not one and a half…

Still, the fact that she was being left to her own devices was good news! It meant that she would not need to worry about people checking up on her status and making sure she had not escaped, which was certainly a better outcome than she had expected. Sighing through her gag, she opened up her item box and her sword flew out, hovered in midair for a while before severing the rope around her wrists. With those gone, she pulled the cloth from her mouth and replaced the nasty taste in it via a few rinses with mouthwash.

With no eyes on her, Alistaira reestablished a connection with the Black Ship and learned, much to her amusement and satisfaction, what had transpired mere moments before her abduction.