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[Thraxas]

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He hated to admit it but his spirit was on the verge of breaking. The many months that had passed, the lack of light and decent food... the constant concern about his safety and what was transpiring in the world during his long absence... all these things had driven him to the brink of despair. By now, Thraxas didn't really care whether he lived or died.

He routinely cursed his captors, his tormentors. He received in return laughter, stern lashings from their whips and blows from their clubs, but that did not stop him. It crossed his mind to feign insanity, until he realized that soon he would not need to pretend.

Then, one day or night, he knew not which, a cloaked, hooded, captor approached him, not with food or water this time, nor the whip or club, but wielding a dagger whose point gleamed brightly in the firelight. Thraxas had been lying on his back, half asleep, but sat up as the elf neared him. "What now, swine? The end?"

"Silence, rothe! The day has come... and yes, it is the end!" came the whispered reply. The hand holding the dagger eased forward, until the tip of the blade lay just underneath Thraxas' chin. The point bit flesh, and blood coursed down the blade.

Speaking carefully so not to drive the point further into his throat, Thraxas made one last request, "Is it too much to ask to be quick about it?"

The hand and blade withdrew. "It is done," the drow stated, wiping off the blood on his cloak.

Thraxas felt a sudden chill descend upon him. He tried to raise his hand to choke the elf, but it would not respond. The cold intensified, spread from his fingers and toes up through his limbs and into his chest. "So this is... death," he mumbled. Darkness closed in quickly... his sight vanished.

As he fell backwards, he could hear echoes of laughter... and then a few words...

"Not this time, human... not this time!"
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"If a criminal has what you want, you do business with him."

[Thraxas]

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In the dim half-light of a lantern's glow, Thraxas awoke to find himself in a small square chamber of hewn stone. Stacked nearby were eight or so crates, and in one corner was a small table on which the lantern stood. The floor was framed in brown brick tiles. To the east was a wooden door.

Thraxas, who had been lying on the floor, got up slowly and went to the door to see if it were locked. Finding it so, he knocked on it lightly to gauge its density by sound. Easily convinced of its impenetrable thickness, he stepped back and looked around for an alternate means of escape.

There were two narrow stained glass windows, far too small for him to crawl through, on the western wall. After making several rounds about the room, tapping against the walls and floor, Thraxas gave up. He sat down and tried to remember events of late.

He vaguely recalled being stabbed by the elf, of being led away by some dark figure who questioned him from time to time. Whatever substance, a poison perhaps, which coated the dagger blade, had made him quite open to suggestion. He had followed the elf out of the cavern and into a portal.

While he was pleased to be free of his imprisonment in the cavern, this was no less a prison. All he could do was await the return of his captor, and hope that true freedom would come soon.
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"If a criminal has what you want, you do business with him."