NOTE: This story includes someone being tied up in a difficult to maintain position and left alone. This is a fictional, fantasy story, but still, please never, ever do this in real life.
The setting for this is a little different and might not be for everyone, but I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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Fezar woke up, quickly getting his bearings. As he had learned to do every morning, he checked his equipment to see if anything had been stolen while he slept. Muttering to himself, he said, “Warhammer still here, shield still here, no pieces of armor missing, no...wait.” He rifled through everything, then sat back in frustration. “My ring.”
The paladin looked over at the string and bell he’d set up in front of his tent door. It appeared that it wasn’t disturbed. “I had hoped that would work,” he sighed, rubbing his greying beard.
Emerging from his tent, Fezar was instantly greeted with the face of his ring thief. “Morning, Fezar,” said Sonia, a 22-year-old that was one of his traveling companions. Sonia was indeed a highly skilled thief and, pound-for-pound, one of the most ferocious fighters he’d ever worked with. However, she was also incredibly annoying.
“Give it back,” Fezar demanded.
Sonia handed him his ring. “Nice try with the bell. Almost got me! But it was a little too low to the ground. I had plenty of time to open the tent flap a little more and step right over it.”
All Fezar gave her in return was a grunt. He was really tiring of this game of hers. Every night, she would slip into one of her companion’s tents and steal something. She said she wanted to prove to them she was such a good thief that she couldn’t be stopped, and challenged them to stop her. Every one of their efforts, however, had not been enough. For ten nights in a row, Sonia had stolen something and gleefully returned it the next morning.
The dwarf, Maddorlim, said, “Haven’t you proven your point, Sonia?” Like Fezar, he was middle-aged and running out of patience with the youthful elf’s antics. “You’re driving us all up a wall, and should really be focusing on the dangers around us instead of targeting us with your thievery.”
“You have to stop me, I can’t be satisfied until you figure that out!” said Sonia, her face a big grin. “Besides, what dangers? It’s been five days since we saw anything other than deer and rabbits! This forest seems safe to me.”
“That could end at any time,” said the final member of the group, Rhone. The half-orc was much closer to Sonia’s age, but much more mature like the others. As the group’s ranger, Rhone was adept at spotting dangers within the woods.
Sonia sat down at the campfire that Maddorlim started with his fire magic. “If it gets dangerous, I’ll stop,” she said.
Fezar could see the conversation was pointless. It was one they’d basically had daily for some time now, anyway. If she wasn’t so useful in a fight and had proven her loyalty to the group already, he would have told her to beat it and found someone else. Still, she could only push so far before someone snapped. Possibly Maddorlim, who had privately threatened that if he caught her in his tent, he might just ‘accidentally’ cast a fire spell on her. Fezar didn’t really want to see Sonia burned to a crisp, so he was hoping to find a different way to stop her.
It was Rhone who came up with the idea. “We’ve been so focused on stopping her once she gets inside one of our tents, right?” She asked Fezar, while Sonia and Maddorlim made breakfast.
“Well, yes,” said Fezar. “What else can we do?”
“We have to stop her from even entering the tents,” said Rhone, her voice taking on that sly tone that she used when she had a plan.
Fezar grunted. “I’m listening. I will not, however, condone a plan where we harm her.” Annoying though Sonia was, Fezar’s zeal would not allow him to take an act such as knocking her out and leaving her unconscious overnight to stop her.
“No harm, I assure you. If Sonia were, say, restrained, she couldn’t get into our tents, right? We don’t hurt her, but we also don’t let her move.”
“No magic paralysis, either,” Fezar said.
Rhone pointed to a bundle of rope in her bag. “Who said anything about magic?” Fezar did not reply, but Rhone could tell he was thinking about it. “Look, we bind her hands, tie them to a branch above her head. She isn’t harmed, but she also is stuck until morning, and we win.”
“What if something dangerous comes at night?”
“These woods are as safe as can be,” Rhone said.
Fezar considered for a minute, then nodded. “All right. If we can end this game of hers, it’s worth a try. But what if she escapes? She’s rather flexible, it seems like she’d figure out how to loose herself.”
Rhone chuckled. “With the knots I’m capable of making, there’s little chance of that. Sonia may be sneaky, but she can be captured as easily as any of us.”
It was easy to get Maddorlim on board, so Fezar decided to see if Sonia would allow it. To his surprise, she did not require any convincing. “Tie me up, huh? Well, you’re finally putting some real effort into this! Go ahead and do your worst.”
Fezar could tell that Sonia believed that without a doubt, she’d be able to escape the rope bonds and commit another theft overnight. He wished her luck.
Another day of travel through the forest passed without incident. As the group set up camp, Sonia bounced around excitedly. “How are you going to tie me up, huh? Like a spit roast over the campfire?”
“I’m just going to tie your hands,” said Rhone. “It will be enough.”
Sonia smirked. “No it won’t. Listen, you think that as a thief I haven’t spent at least a little time figuring out how to escape being captured? I’m not an idiot, or an easy little damsel in distress.”
“Are you asking me to tie you in a more uncomfortable position?” asked Rhone.
“I’m not asking you to do anything! I’m simply just saying, if you want to actually keep me tied up all night you’re going to have to put a little more effort in. I’m exceptionally good at undoing knots.” Sonia was brimming with overconfidence, which was to be her downfall.
Rhone stalked over. “Fine. You want to be absolutely sure you’ll be tied up all night? I’m happy to oblige.” She ordered Sonia to lie down on the ground. “Hands behind your back.”
“Now this is more like it,” grinned Sonia. Fezar couldn’t help but almost admire the confidence radiating from her. He would not have consented to allowing himself to be tied like this, and here she was practically begging for it. Fezar was pretty sure she was going to regret making the normally calm Rhone angry, though.
Maddorlim saw the expression on the paladin’s face. “Sonia is crazier than we thought, Fezar,” he said. Fezar did not reply, only smiled.
Rhone roughly bound Sonia’s crossed wrists behind her back, and then tied her bare feet together. Bringing Sonia’s feet over her butt, she tied them to the hands. It was an easy hogtie for the flexible Sonia, but one that still left her completely helpless. Rhone’s ropework was immaculate, and her knots tight, complex and purposefully out of the reach of questing fingers. She smiled to herself, knowing that no matter what claims Sonia made, she was going to be stuck.
She let Sonia have a moment to figure out how stuck she was. Sonia struggled for a bit, and said only, “Not bad, Rhone. Might take me a bit to get out of this.”
Rhone knew that Sonia was already figuring out how difficult the tie was, but she said, “Well, I’m not done.”
“Oh, well, of course not. Please, continue.” Irritatingly, Sonia refused to acknowledge she was worried. Rhone thought that Sonia must know it was already over, but was refusing to give Rhone the satisfaction of admitting it.
Watching the display, Maddorlim said, “Now that I have to look at your dirty feet, Gods woman, they’re awful. If you aren’t going to grow up and wear boots like a normal person, wash those things some time, at least, would you?”
Sonia stuck out her tongue, one of her annoying habits. “Stop looking at my feet, you weird old man.”
Rhone hadn’t thought about gagging Sonia until then. Enough of her cocky comments and boasts, she decided. All Sonia could say was “Hey!” before the strip of fabric was wrapped twice around her mouth as a tight cleave gag and tied off in the back of her head. For the first time, she seemed upset, which made Rhone and Maddorlim both smile.
While Sonia whined incoherently into her new gag, Fezar said, “Was that absolutely necessary?” Gods help him, he was starting to feel a little bad for Sonia.
“No,” said Rhone. “If she wants to take the gag off, all she has to do is get free. Which will be easy. Right, Sonia?” Sonia said some words through her gag that were clearly curses, but Rhone pretended not to hear. “Right.”
“Her, I like,” said Maddorlim, looking at Rhone.
Rhone dragged Sonia by the knees under a strong tree branch. To make sure Sonia couldn’t even roll away, she tied a rope from the rope that connected Sonia’s wrists and ankles. This she threw over the top of the branch and pulled down, forcing Sonia’s hands and feet to lift away from her body. It looked, to Fezar, incredibly uncomfortable, but when he asked her if this was too much, she stubbornly refused to say it was.
Finally, like putting a cherry on top of an intricate sundae, Rhone tied Sonia’s big toes together with a bit of string. She wasn’t even sure why, it was completely pointless, but she was enjoying restraining Sonia and was caught up in limiting Sonia’s movement as completely as possible.
“I think that’s enough,” said Fezar, before Rhone could think of something else to tie. This was, he thought, far more overboard than Rhone had promised and maybe even a bit cruel. Sonia was already straining against the way her arms and legs were pulled behind her and up in the air. She dealt with strands of her hair tickling her nose and blocking her vision. “Do you really think you’ll get out of this?” He asked her. He didn’t want to make her stay like this all night. “You know, you could just admit you’ll be stuck here all night and that you’re beaten, and I’ll untie you. That would be the mature thing…”
Sonia shook her head and said, “Ah hamm ooo ieee,” which Fezar took to mean “I can do it”.
Fezar threw up his hands. “You’re impossible. Fine. Stay there all night. I suppose I’ll have to heal your back problems that you’ll surely develop from being like this. Whatever.” He looked at the others. “Well, we had better get to bed and get our sleep.”
“She isn’t stealing anything tonight, are you, Sonia?” taunted Rhone. She was quite pleased with her work.
“She certainly is not,” said Maddorlim, who was also quite pleased with Rhone’s work.
Fezar took one lingering glance at Sonia before heading to make up his tent. She was focused, her fingers looking for something, anything to grab onto. Her body was contorting as she tried to find a position that would allow the fingers to find something. He shook his head again, but he had to admit, he admired how she refused to give up. She would fight to the very end, no matter how foolhardy it was. That was the kind of attitude that made him want her to stick around with the group, annoying as she was. She was stupid, he decided, but in a good way.
Meanwhile, once Sonia was alone, she finally allowed herself a little bit of panic. She did not want to believe it, but Rhone’s bondage was indeed essentially impossible to get out of. She could barely move, and thanks to the fact that she was held in position by the tree branch, she couldn’t even get to the dagger she had laid on the ground and lightly hidden nearby as her failsafe. There was, probably, not going to be a way out of this. And she had a long night ahead of her. She hated the gag, and found the toe tie really awful, as she couldn’t even kick her feet back and forth for something to do. This was going to be a boring night, she thought.
It was only an hour into Sonia’s struggle (which had mostly ceased by then as Sonia resigned herself to her obvious fate) when she suddenly heard the snap of a branch on the ground nearby. She tamped down the fear that gripped her. She told herself it was just an animal, but quickly learned how wrong she was. A few moments later, she was surrounded by four goblins brandishing spears. As they moved in on her, chattering and threatening with their weapons, the helpless Sonia realized she was in fact quite stupid to not protest being inescapably bound and gagged...
TO BE CONTINUED
How Sonia Learned to Stop Stealing From Her Teammates (MMF/F) Part 2 Posted, Completed
How Sonia Learned to Stop Stealing From Her Teammates (MMF/F) Part 2 Posted, Completed
Last edited by puddy300 2 years ago, edited 2 times in total.
A fine story - with a good cliffhanger!
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Ducttapelover93
- Centennial Club
- Posts: 235
- Joined: 6 years ago
This was very well written! Great description, dialogue, and the characters are amazing. Way to leave us wanting more!
PART 2 (Completion):
The goblins were talking to each other in their choppy, guttural tongue. Sonia didn’t understand a single word of Goblish, but she could at least tell from their confused expressions and hesitation that finding someone already completely bound and ready for capture, torture, or worse was not something they expected. They seemed to be discussing something amongst themselves. Finally, one turned to her. “Are you a slave?” The goblin asked, in surprisingly decent Common.
“I am no one’s slave!” she said, but the gag in her mouth made it incomprehensible. The goblin made a motion with its spear, and another goblin undid the headband. Sonia felt a small amount of relief to have the gag out of her mouth, and, after working her jaw to try to get some movement back, repeated her declaration.
The goblin grinned, full of teeth. “Inspect her.” This was an order to the other goblins. They quickly descended on her, touching her, trying to see if she had any injuries or other issues. She tried to ask them to stop, but the goblin who spoke Common put his spear right up against her neck, and she had to let them do as they pleased.
One poked her with his spear up and down her back, and finally on each buttock, causing her to flinch each time. Another peered into her eyes, her nostrils, her ears, and mouth, looking for signs of disease, she guessed. The last was stretching her out, at least as far as her considerable bindings would allow, grabbing her elbows and knees and trying to pull them apart. During this, she gritted her teeth but refused to cry out in pain for. Finally, the goblin grabbed her toes and pulled them down, then used a clawed finger to prod the stretched out soles of her feet. Sonia was always barefoot, and as a result had tough feet, but they had never lost their sensitivity. She felt everything she walked on and everything that touched her feet. And right now, she distinctly felt the ticklish graze of the goblin’s finger and couldn’t help but let out a giggle.
The goblin in charge said, “Why are you laughing?” Sonia did not reply. The goblin got reports from the other goblins in their language. He made a few more commands. The goblins scurried off.
“Hey, hopefully you all got your rocks off or whatever doing that,” said Sonia. “But maybe it’s time to help me out and untie me? I’ve heard the goblins around here are friendly, although in my opinion maybe you’re a little too friendly.”
The toothy grin returned as the goblin leader fixed his gaze on Sonia. “You heard wrong, little elf girl. We’ve been following your group for the past few days, invaders of our territory. Imagine our luck to have your friends leave you here for us!”
Sonia’s mind reeled. How could they have been following the party for days without being noticed. Wasn’t Rhone supposed to be aware of what was going on? Unless...no. She knew she’d been a pain to them, but still, they wouldn’t have tied her up here to be captured by goblins on purpose. Would they?
“I guess they thought you’d rescue me,” she said, hopefully.
“I sincerely doubt that was on their minds.” The other goblins returned and said some things in their own language. “It seems your friends are still sound asleep. They aren’t worried about you at all!” The goblin leader laughed an ugly, humorless laugh.
Sonia frowned. They were, indeed, very sound sleepers. It was one of the things that had helped her successfully steal from them each night. No one was very concerned about anything in the forest, and so everyone was sleeping very peacefully. She wasn’t too surprised to find that they weren’t awake. She struggled in her bonds again, not expecting to get far, but suddenly with a desperation she was unused to feeling. She stopped, however, when she felt the cool steel of the spear back on her neck.
“We’ll take you back to the chief, little elf girl. He’ll decide what to do with you.”
“I hope he’s open to actual negotiations,” said Sonia, who was trying to stay calm by making sarcastic comments, trying to hide the real fear she felt.
The goblin leader shrugged. “He will negotiate with traders, sure. But you’re now our captive. It’s up to him to decide your fate, and I doubt he’ll have much reason to consider your thoughts on the matter. What happens to you is out of your control.” He patted the tight ropes keeping Sonia hopelessly bound. “These see to that, don’t they?”
Sonia was not the type to cry, her life hadn’t been easy and she’d never found it to be useful. So she didn’t cry now, as the goblins cut the rope that connected her to the tree branch and picked her hogtied body up. But she was absolutely afraid.
*********
Fezar woke with a start. He didn’t know what time it was, but it was dark. Contrary to what the goblins thought, he wasn’t asleep when they skulked around the campsite. He was just very good at lying still. When the goblins left, seemingly without actually taking anything, his mind instantly went to Sonia.
He got up and, not even taking the time to put his armor on, crept out into the night. It was dark, but enough moonlight reached through the forest canopy so he wasn’t completely blind. He went straight to where they had left Sonia tied up, and found that she was gone.
Panic welled up in him, especially as he quickly investigated the scene. The rope hanging from the tree branch was frayed as if it had been cut, but there were no other ropes, as you would expect if Sonia had freed herself. The fact that there had been goblins, too, made him fear the worst.
He immediately beelined back to camp and roughly woke up Rhone and Maddorlim. “Wake up, wake up. They’ve taken Sonia!”
Rhone was easy to convince, as she was able to find the goblin tracks where Sonia had been. “They go deeper into the forest.” She appeared shaken. “This is my fault. I really did make it impossible for Sonia to escape. She couldn’t have defended herself.”
“She told us she could escape, it’s not really your fault,” said Maddorlim.
“It’s all our faults for allowing this to happen, and thinking this forest was safe enough to do this,” snapped Fezar, looking at each of them. “But we can discuss fault later. Right now, we need to make this right. We need to rescue Sonia.”
Maddorlim looked unsure. “You want us to run into a big goblin encampment for this woman? Let’s be honest, we don’t really know her that well. She wouldn’t do that for us, do you think?”
Fezar gave Maddorlim a look of such contempt that the dwarf was shocked. “It’s true she has not traveled with us long. Yet there is no doubt in my mind that if any of us were in her current position, she’d come for us. She’s stupid, but the good kind of stupid. The brave kind.” He turned away from Maddorlim. “Unlike you. You’re the bad kind of stupid.”
“What?” sputtered Maddorlim.
Fezar pulled on his armor. “She’d even come for you, Maddorlim, despite the fact that you’ve been nothing but an ass to her. And she wouldn’t care how many goblins were in the way.”
Rhone shrugged. “Okay, she’s stupid. And so are we. What are we going to do?”
“We are going to slay some goblins until they give us back Sonia,” said Fezar, his voice steel. “Follow the tracks, please, Rhone.”
“Right.”
There was a pause. “...I’ll provide some light,” said Maddorlim.
“Thank you, Maddorlim,” said Fezar, but he wasn’t referring to just the light.
**********
In the dead of night, it was impossible for Sonia to tell how long she was carried to the goblin camp. She was distracted by her increasingly sore muscles, unused to being restrained in the same position for such a long period of time. She was also being jostled by the goblins that carried her, putting her on a mini-roller coaster ride that was starting to make her a bit ill.
Sonia tried to remember what goblins did to people. Mostly kill them, she thought. Maybe some really enterprising ones collected ransoms. Though there wasn’t a chance in hell of anyone paying a ransom for her, she knew.
Her thoughts turned to the adventuring party she was now separated from. How could she not have realized how annoying it was to them for her to steal from them each night? She had certainly underestimated how far they’d go for revenge. Did they really sell her out to the goblins? Or did they just decide that this would be a perfect opportunity to rid themselves of an irritant? Whatever the reason, she felt sadness at this betrayal. She thought Fezar to be above such low actions, but then wondered if this was a Rhone and Maddorlim only deal and the paladin was unaware. Either way, unless the goblins screwed up, it was only a matter of time before she was dead.
Finally, the goblin camp came into view. There were at least 20 goblins here, tending to various sites. When the goblins carrying her yelled something out, many of them turned, and focused on her. She felt the humiliation of them cheering at her bound form, and heard some yell what she knew was the Goblish word for ‘elf’ along with some other terms she was probably better off not knowing.
The goblins brought Sonia into an empty tent. The goblin that spoke in Common said to her, “Stay here. It should be easy for you!” He laughed at his own joke, then the goblins all left. It wasn’t long before she heard celebrations and laughing outside of the tent, along with what sounded like goblin drinking songs. She shuddered when she realized they must be drinking to her impending death.
Alone, she decided that it was now or never. Over the course of the journey to the camp, her ropes hadn’t loosened even a bit. In fact, if anything, they seemed even tighter. Rhone was way too good at this. She was at her bursting point, and wanted out more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. She thrashed about for a moment, losing herself to the desperation.
Finally, she forced herself to calm down. “Come on, girl, keep it together,” she whispered to herself, through her gag. She laid still for a moment, catching her breath through her nose. Then she wiggled her way into a stationary circle, scanning the tent for something, anything that might be useful.
Then she saw it. A small rock, blessedly pointed. It looked like something that could be easily turned into a spearhead. If it was even a little sharp, she could cut herself free. The rock was at the other end of the tent, so Sonia was forced to squirm on her side, a little bit at a time, to maneuver herself there. She’d never been hogtied before and hadn’t ever realized how difficult it might be to move about 40 feet. It was one of the more exhausting events of her life, as the incredibly strict ropes were designed to keep her from moving at all. She could only muster small bits of back and forth momentum.
The singing outside was still going strong when Sonia finally reached the rock, but Sonia wasn’t. The excruciating trip across the floor of the tent had left her even dirtier than before and almost completely exhausted. But she couldn’t quit now. She wiggled herself into position to grab the rock with tired fingers. It wasn’t exactly knife sharp, she realized, but it did have a decent point. It would have to do.
Without being able to see what she was doing and what progress, if any, she was making, Sonia quickly found herself frustrated. She was tired, sore, hungry, scared and now she hadn’t cut any ropes but she had managed to cut her own arm with the rock. “Dammit,” she muttered into the gag, trying to quell a rising tide of anger that threatened to derail her chance to escape. If one of these ropes didn’t break soon, she’d get so mad she’d probably throw the rock away and just give up and wait to…
A rope snapped off! It was one of the wrist ropes, and while she wasn’t quite free, the pressure on her wrists lessened just a bit. It was the tangible progress she needed to refocus. Soon two, then three loops of rope were cut, and with a little bit of flexibility and wiggling, her hands were free.
It must have taken a hour for Sonia to use the rock to cut through enough ropes that she could squirm out of the rest. She was now the happiest she’d ever been. Freedom! She tried to stretch the aches out of her body, crying out in pain at how long she’d been kept in that horrible hogtie position.
This cry was a little too loud, though, and Sonia heard footsteps approaching from the still ongoing goblin party. There was no point in trying to pretend she wasn’t free, the ropes lay in tatters on the ground. She hid by the tent entrance, and when the goblin poked its head in, she sprung into action, grabbing the head and ramming her knee into its temple before it had a chance to even squeal.
Then she heard the goblins outside start to yell frantically. Crap, she thought, did they still manage to hear me kill that one? But none of them were coming for her tent. She dared to poke her own head out of the tent flap, and saw that they were reacting to a large, armor-clad man tearing into them with his sword. The sword could only have belonged to Fezar, Sonia knew. Arrows rained down around him, courtesy of Rhone’s bow, hitting goblins that ran around in a drunken stupor. And when some of the goblins went for a different tent to hide, the tent suddenly exploded in a swirl of fireballs that could only have been the work of Maddorlim.
Sonia couldn’t help but smile as pieces of charred goblin fell around her. The rest of the party came for her! She almost felt bad that she’d managed to free herself after all.
A goblin jumped on Fezar’s back and tried to stab a dagger through his armor. He couldn’t quite seem to hit it, his armor preventing dexterous movement. Sonia decided to make her presence known and ran out, elbowing the creature in the neck. It made a choking sound and let go, but Sonia didn’t let it hit the ground, punting it with a well-timed kick. The cracking of bones was audible as the goblin finally hit the ground.
“You’re all right,” said Fezar, seeing Sonia. There was no more movement from the goblins. Either they were all dead, or the remaining ones were smart enough to pull the ‘play dead’ move Fezar had earlier.
“Well, actually I’m rather tired. And hungry. Can you make some food?” said Sonia. When Fezar frowned, she said, “I know, I’m sorry. I’m glad you came for me.”
On the way back to their own camp, Sonia waved off the party’s apologies with her typical arrogance. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I got out on my own anyway, didn’t I?”
Maddorlim muttered something under his breath. Fezar said, “So we didn’t need to come then?”
“Well,” Sonia thought for a moment. Maybe just once she could drop the act, she decided. But it was hard for her to actually say the words. “Umm, thank you for coming to get me back. There aren’t...I don’t have many people who would do that for me. So...what I am saying is…”
Rhone put her hand on Sonia’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I understand what you mean. But that’s what we do. We look out for each other, even when no one else will.”
“You’d do the same for us, right?” said Fezar. “It’s our duty to each other.”
Maddorlim said, after a moment, “I’m glad you’re okay.” Lest Sonia think he’d gone completely soft, though, he said, “I hope you’re done stealing from us now.”
Sonia smiled. “I mean, the deal was that if I couldn’t free myself, I’d stop. And I freed myself…” she trailed off when she saw the expressions on the others’ faces and put her hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just joking, guys! I’ll stop, I promise. I should be a better teammate, too.”
“I’m sure you’ll find some other way to annoy us,” Maddorlim said.
“Somebody has to keep you guys focused!” said Sonia. “Just this evening, one of your party members was kidnapped right under your noses! I’ll be sure to bring it up often.”
The others groaned, but they could all feel that they’d become a little closer that evening. And Sonia kept her word, she did not steal from any of them again. Although she did often mention that they let her get kidnapped by goblins that one time.
The goblins were talking to each other in their choppy, guttural tongue. Sonia didn’t understand a single word of Goblish, but she could at least tell from their confused expressions and hesitation that finding someone already completely bound and ready for capture, torture, or worse was not something they expected. They seemed to be discussing something amongst themselves. Finally, one turned to her. “Are you a slave?” The goblin asked, in surprisingly decent Common.
“I am no one’s slave!” she said, but the gag in her mouth made it incomprehensible. The goblin made a motion with its spear, and another goblin undid the headband. Sonia felt a small amount of relief to have the gag out of her mouth, and, after working her jaw to try to get some movement back, repeated her declaration.
The goblin grinned, full of teeth. “Inspect her.” This was an order to the other goblins. They quickly descended on her, touching her, trying to see if she had any injuries or other issues. She tried to ask them to stop, but the goblin who spoke Common put his spear right up against her neck, and she had to let them do as they pleased.
One poked her with his spear up and down her back, and finally on each buttock, causing her to flinch each time. Another peered into her eyes, her nostrils, her ears, and mouth, looking for signs of disease, she guessed. The last was stretching her out, at least as far as her considerable bindings would allow, grabbing her elbows and knees and trying to pull them apart. During this, she gritted her teeth but refused to cry out in pain for. Finally, the goblin grabbed her toes and pulled them down, then used a clawed finger to prod the stretched out soles of her feet. Sonia was always barefoot, and as a result had tough feet, but they had never lost their sensitivity. She felt everything she walked on and everything that touched her feet. And right now, she distinctly felt the ticklish graze of the goblin’s finger and couldn’t help but let out a giggle.
The goblin in charge said, “Why are you laughing?” Sonia did not reply. The goblin got reports from the other goblins in their language. He made a few more commands. The goblins scurried off.
“Hey, hopefully you all got your rocks off or whatever doing that,” said Sonia. “But maybe it’s time to help me out and untie me? I’ve heard the goblins around here are friendly, although in my opinion maybe you’re a little too friendly.”
The toothy grin returned as the goblin leader fixed his gaze on Sonia. “You heard wrong, little elf girl. We’ve been following your group for the past few days, invaders of our territory. Imagine our luck to have your friends leave you here for us!”
Sonia’s mind reeled. How could they have been following the party for days without being noticed. Wasn’t Rhone supposed to be aware of what was going on? Unless...no. She knew she’d been a pain to them, but still, they wouldn’t have tied her up here to be captured by goblins on purpose. Would they?
“I guess they thought you’d rescue me,” she said, hopefully.
“I sincerely doubt that was on their minds.” The other goblins returned and said some things in their own language. “It seems your friends are still sound asleep. They aren’t worried about you at all!” The goblin leader laughed an ugly, humorless laugh.
Sonia frowned. They were, indeed, very sound sleepers. It was one of the things that had helped her successfully steal from them each night. No one was very concerned about anything in the forest, and so everyone was sleeping very peacefully. She wasn’t too surprised to find that they weren’t awake. She struggled in her bonds again, not expecting to get far, but suddenly with a desperation she was unused to feeling. She stopped, however, when she felt the cool steel of the spear back on her neck.
“We’ll take you back to the chief, little elf girl. He’ll decide what to do with you.”
“I hope he’s open to actual negotiations,” said Sonia, who was trying to stay calm by making sarcastic comments, trying to hide the real fear she felt.
The goblin leader shrugged. “He will negotiate with traders, sure. But you’re now our captive. It’s up to him to decide your fate, and I doubt he’ll have much reason to consider your thoughts on the matter. What happens to you is out of your control.” He patted the tight ropes keeping Sonia hopelessly bound. “These see to that, don’t they?”
Sonia was not the type to cry, her life hadn’t been easy and she’d never found it to be useful. So she didn’t cry now, as the goblins cut the rope that connected her to the tree branch and picked her hogtied body up. But she was absolutely afraid.
*********
Fezar woke with a start. He didn’t know what time it was, but it was dark. Contrary to what the goblins thought, he wasn’t asleep when they skulked around the campsite. He was just very good at lying still. When the goblins left, seemingly without actually taking anything, his mind instantly went to Sonia.
He got up and, not even taking the time to put his armor on, crept out into the night. It was dark, but enough moonlight reached through the forest canopy so he wasn’t completely blind. He went straight to where they had left Sonia tied up, and found that she was gone.
Panic welled up in him, especially as he quickly investigated the scene. The rope hanging from the tree branch was frayed as if it had been cut, but there were no other ropes, as you would expect if Sonia had freed herself. The fact that there had been goblins, too, made him fear the worst.
He immediately beelined back to camp and roughly woke up Rhone and Maddorlim. “Wake up, wake up. They’ve taken Sonia!”
Rhone was easy to convince, as she was able to find the goblin tracks where Sonia had been. “They go deeper into the forest.” She appeared shaken. “This is my fault. I really did make it impossible for Sonia to escape. She couldn’t have defended herself.”
“She told us she could escape, it’s not really your fault,” said Maddorlim.
“It’s all our faults for allowing this to happen, and thinking this forest was safe enough to do this,” snapped Fezar, looking at each of them. “But we can discuss fault later. Right now, we need to make this right. We need to rescue Sonia.”
Maddorlim looked unsure. “You want us to run into a big goblin encampment for this woman? Let’s be honest, we don’t really know her that well. She wouldn’t do that for us, do you think?”
Fezar gave Maddorlim a look of such contempt that the dwarf was shocked. “It’s true she has not traveled with us long. Yet there is no doubt in my mind that if any of us were in her current position, she’d come for us. She’s stupid, but the good kind of stupid. The brave kind.” He turned away from Maddorlim. “Unlike you. You’re the bad kind of stupid.”
“What?” sputtered Maddorlim.
Fezar pulled on his armor. “She’d even come for you, Maddorlim, despite the fact that you’ve been nothing but an ass to her. And she wouldn’t care how many goblins were in the way.”
Rhone shrugged. “Okay, she’s stupid. And so are we. What are we going to do?”
“We are going to slay some goblins until they give us back Sonia,” said Fezar, his voice steel. “Follow the tracks, please, Rhone.”
“Right.”
There was a pause. “...I’ll provide some light,” said Maddorlim.
“Thank you, Maddorlim,” said Fezar, but he wasn’t referring to just the light.
**********
In the dead of night, it was impossible for Sonia to tell how long she was carried to the goblin camp. She was distracted by her increasingly sore muscles, unused to being restrained in the same position for such a long period of time. She was also being jostled by the goblins that carried her, putting her on a mini-roller coaster ride that was starting to make her a bit ill.
Sonia tried to remember what goblins did to people. Mostly kill them, she thought. Maybe some really enterprising ones collected ransoms. Though there wasn’t a chance in hell of anyone paying a ransom for her, she knew.
Her thoughts turned to the adventuring party she was now separated from. How could she not have realized how annoying it was to them for her to steal from them each night? She had certainly underestimated how far they’d go for revenge. Did they really sell her out to the goblins? Or did they just decide that this would be a perfect opportunity to rid themselves of an irritant? Whatever the reason, she felt sadness at this betrayal. She thought Fezar to be above such low actions, but then wondered if this was a Rhone and Maddorlim only deal and the paladin was unaware. Either way, unless the goblins screwed up, it was only a matter of time before she was dead.
Finally, the goblin camp came into view. There were at least 20 goblins here, tending to various sites. When the goblins carrying her yelled something out, many of them turned, and focused on her. She felt the humiliation of them cheering at her bound form, and heard some yell what she knew was the Goblish word for ‘elf’ along with some other terms she was probably better off not knowing.
The goblins brought Sonia into an empty tent. The goblin that spoke in Common said to her, “Stay here. It should be easy for you!” He laughed at his own joke, then the goblins all left. It wasn’t long before she heard celebrations and laughing outside of the tent, along with what sounded like goblin drinking songs. She shuddered when she realized they must be drinking to her impending death.
Alone, she decided that it was now or never. Over the course of the journey to the camp, her ropes hadn’t loosened even a bit. In fact, if anything, they seemed even tighter. Rhone was way too good at this. She was at her bursting point, and wanted out more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. She thrashed about for a moment, losing herself to the desperation.
Finally, she forced herself to calm down. “Come on, girl, keep it together,” she whispered to herself, through her gag. She laid still for a moment, catching her breath through her nose. Then she wiggled her way into a stationary circle, scanning the tent for something, anything that might be useful.
Then she saw it. A small rock, blessedly pointed. It looked like something that could be easily turned into a spearhead. If it was even a little sharp, she could cut herself free. The rock was at the other end of the tent, so Sonia was forced to squirm on her side, a little bit at a time, to maneuver herself there. She’d never been hogtied before and hadn’t ever realized how difficult it might be to move about 40 feet. It was one of the more exhausting events of her life, as the incredibly strict ropes were designed to keep her from moving at all. She could only muster small bits of back and forth momentum.
The singing outside was still going strong when Sonia finally reached the rock, but Sonia wasn’t. The excruciating trip across the floor of the tent had left her even dirtier than before and almost completely exhausted. But she couldn’t quit now. She wiggled herself into position to grab the rock with tired fingers. It wasn’t exactly knife sharp, she realized, but it did have a decent point. It would have to do.
Without being able to see what she was doing and what progress, if any, she was making, Sonia quickly found herself frustrated. She was tired, sore, hungry, scared and now she hadn’t cut any ropes but she had managed to cut her own arm with the rock. “Dammit,” she muttered into the gag, trying to quell a rising tide of anger that threatened to derail her chance to escape. If one of these ropes didn’t break soon, she’d get so mad she’d probably throw the rock away and just give up and wait to…
A rope snapped off! It was one of the wrist ropes, and while she wasn’t quite free, the pressure on her wrists lessened just a bit. It was the tangible progress she needed to refocus. Soon two, then three loops of rope were cut, and with a little bit of flexibility and wiggling, her hands were free.
It must have taken a hour for Sonia to use the rock to cut through enough ropes that she could squirm out of the rest. She was now the happiest she’d ever been. Freedom! She tried to stretch the aches out of her body, crying out in pain at how long she’d been kept in that horrible hogtie position.
This cry was a little too loud, though, and Sonia heard footsteps approaching from the still ongoing goblin party. There was no point in trying to pretend she wasn’t free, the ropes lay in tatters on the ground. She hid by the tent entrance, and when the goblin poked its head in, she sprung into action, grabbing the head and ramming her knee into its temple before it had a chance to even squeal.
Then she heard the goblins outside start to yell frantically. Crap, she thought, did they still manage to hear me kill that one? But none of them were coming for her tent. She dared to poke her own head out of the tent flap, and saw that they were reacting to a large, armor-clad man tearing into them with his sword. The sword could only have belonged to Fezar, Sonia knew. Arrows rained down around him, courtesy of Rhone’s bow, hitting goblins that ran around in a drunken stupor. And when some of the goblins went for a different tent to hide, the tent suddenly exploded in a swirl of fireballs that could only have been the work of Maddorlim.
Sonia couldn’t help but smile as pieces of charred goblin fell around her. The rest of the party came for her! She almost felt bad that she’d managed to free herself after all.
A goblin jumped on Fezar’s back and tried to stab a dagger through his armor. He couldn’t quite seem to hit it, his armor preventing dexterous movement. Sonia decided to make her presence known and ran out, elbowing the creature in the neck. It made a choking sound and let go, but Sonia didn’t let it hit the ground, punting it with a well-timed kick. The cracking of bones was audible as the goblin finally hit the ground.
“You’re all right,” said Fezar, seeing Sonia. There was no more movement from the goblins. Either they were all dead, or the remaining ones were smart enough to pull the ‘play dead’ move Fezar had earlier.
“Well, actually I’m rather tired. And hungry. Can you make some food?” said Sonia. When Fezar frowned, she said, “I know, I’m sorry. I’m glad you came for me.”
On the way back to their own camp, Sonia waved off the party’s apologies with her typical arrogance. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I got out on my own anyway, didn’t I?”
Maddorlim muttered something under his breath. Fezar said, “So we didn’t need to come then?”
“Well,” Sonia thought for a moment. Maybe just once she could drop the act, she decided. But it was hard for her to actually say the words. “Umm, thank you for coming to get me back. There aren’t...I don’t have many people who would do that for me. So...what I am saying is…”
Rhone put her hand on Sonia’s shoulder. “It’s okay, I understand what you mean. But that’s what we do. We look out for each other, even when no one else will.”
“You’d do the same for us, right?” said Fezar. “It’s our duty to each other.”
Maddorlim said, after a moment, “I’m glad you’re okay.” Lest Sonia think he’d gone completely soft, though, he said, “I hope you’re done stealing from us now.”
Sonia smiled. “I mean, the deal was that if I couldn’t free myself, I’d stop. And I freed myself…” she trailed off when she saw the expressions on the others’ faces and put her hands up in mock surrender. “I’m just joking, guys! I’ll stop, I promise. I should be a better teammate, too.”
“I’m sure you’ll find some other way to annoy us,” Maddorlim said.
“Somebody has to keep you guys focused!” said Sonia. “Just this evening, one of your party members was kidnapped right under your noses! I’ll be sure to bring it up often.”
The others groaned, but they could all feel that they’d become a little closer that evening. And Sonia kept her word, she did not steal from any of them again. Although she did often mention that they let her get kidnapped by goblins that one time.