Militia Dungeon Escape?

Continues from the Militia Dungeon Part 3. Far from the troubles that Luco and Raziel are facing Rorgan awakes to an even less encouraging situation after a tumble through an underground river.

All things have a beginning and all things end. This is neither but still far away from the confines of the Militia base and the river that brought him here. The sound of feet scrapping across dirt can be heard as the two lanky red scaled lizards drag their quarry across the bridge, beneath them there is a large open abyss with no bottom, ahead of them there is a large underground stone made room lit by many torches. The room and bridge are both off center, tilted to the side, and in the center of what was once a great hall is a large pit lined with spikes.

Rorgan's head hangs as he is literally dragged along the ground, though he hasn't regained consciousness yet. Somehow, his twin daggers managed to make it due to the way the daggers lock into place along with his bow because of the shape of the sheath. His poisoned dagger and his arrows, however, weren't as lucky, which leaves him only armed with two daggers, unless the lizards had already taken them.

The lizards deposit their find very roughly at the feet of their leader. The red lizard is small for his species, obviously no older than his early twenties, with red scales a pudgy black scaled underbelly. He sits on top of a thrown sitting on top of a large pile of gold, jewels, and trinkets. Around him there are twenty, possibly thirty lizards siting or standing in a circle. At the base of the pile a more muscular red scaled lizard sits semi cross legged, the 'king' shouts something in pure gibberish to woodlander ears and the lizard at the bottom of the pile replies, "Time to wake up little otter."

Rorgan groans, stirring on the ground. His entire body is in pain, and he struggles to get up to his paws and knees. "I'll show you how much of a little otter I am," He mumbles angrily, looking around at the familiar looking lizards.

The larger lizard at the base of the pile grins, showing off rows of yellow teeth, "There will be time for that later." The smaller, pudgier lizard on the thrown waves a gold scepter about in the air as he hisses in a strangely high pitched and obnoxious tone. The lizard at the bottom of the gold pile is sitting cross legged as he replies, "High king Trsk greets you warmly...more or less. I'm Hrsk by the way," the larger lizard sighs, "His translator."

Rorgan finally gives up the struggle of standing and simply resigns himself to just sitting on his knees, glaring hot daggers at the small lizard on the throne. "High king Trsk can boil his tail," He snaps, his face contorted in a snarl.

Hrsk has to suppress his chuckle. The smaller lizard asks him something in his own language with a raised eyebrow. Hrsk replies back in the same almost guttural language and his king leans back in his chair with smug sense of self importance on his snout. He hisses pleasantly to the otter and Hrsk explains, "The king thanks you for the compliment about his stature and tail and says the great river has given the tribe a great blessing by delivering one of their greatest enemies into his claws."

Rorgan frowns slightly. He was irritated that he was captured, sure, but greatest enemy? "Greatest enemy?" He asks. "Wot did I do t' be yer greatest enemy?" He is actually genuinely confused by this, though he is ready to use this status, whatever it entailed, to any advantage it could offer.

Hrsk tilts his head to the side, "Really? You don't remember? Or is it perhaps that you are so used to killing that a few dozen of my tribe members means nothing to you?" The lizard smirks, "Or maybe the river robbed you of your memories. You and three others came, a fox, a wildcat, and another otter. You slaughtered through waves and waves of my tribe kin for a simple gold ring." The lizard laughs again.

Rorgan's eyes alight in recognition. "Right...I do remember that. 'Twas a job given t' us by a beast whom the ring belonged to. We weren't prepared fer the amount of yer kin we saw, but we were fightin' fer our lives by the end."

Without knowing the nature of the conversation below the tiny lizard on the thrown stands up, shaking his claws in the air. He struggles to make his shrill hisses heard across the room. The Lizards around them begin to beat their spears and their fists to their chests and a great cry is heard through out the room. "Well...that is problematic..." Hrsk begins before he starts conversing with the king. After a short conversation the king nods then makes another proclamation followed by another cry for joy among the lizard people. A pair of burly lizard guards carry an iron shackle between them and move toward the otter.

Rorgan's eyes widen and he forces himself to stand, his fists tightened. "Wot are they doin' Hrsk?" He asks cautiously as he eyes the guards with narrowed eyes. This was likely going to turn violent, and there was no way he could get out of this alive if he tried fighting his way out.

The shackle makes a CLICK noise as it comes together about Rorgan's right ankle. The chain of the shackle leads to a wooden shaft put into the stone floor about ten feet away near the bottom of the gold pile. As the lizards take a step back Hrsk explains, "Funny thing really, our leader here decreed that his warriors would gain your strength by eating you in a big feast. I politely told them that you are too much of a runt to feed all of our warriors." The lizards around them hoot and holler. Gradually they begin to move off to their daily camp business. The king lizard himself steps down from the thrown and begins to walk away.

Rorgan looks almost confused. "You..why are you helping me? You could easily just let me die, but why save me?" There is always that small bit of hope that this lizard would help him, but he'd been through too many experiences to settle on that conclusion, even if he would keep it as a possibility.

Hrsk doesn't imminently answer the first question. Instead he rubs the back of his neck and sheepishly, "Yeah...about saving you..." A trio of red scaled lizards approach the otter, each carrying a heavy bowl of some kind of gruel. They set it at Rorgan's feet and then walk away. The translator tentatively taps his claws together as he continues, "I'm afraid the King hasn't /exactly/ changed his degree..."

Rorgan sighs, rubbing the bridge of his nose in irritation. "Can you tell me wot exactly he said?" This is already turning into quite the situation, and his mind is already working to think of ways to escape.

Hrsk cringes a bit, "I told my idiot of a brother that you were too small to possibly feed all of our warriors," The tall lizard rubs the bridge of his snout, "And he said, 'that's easily correctable,' I'll let you, as you people say, put that two and two together."

Rorgan sits on the ground, groaning. Great, now he was going to be fattened up before being eaten. "So yore tellin' me I'm goin' t' be fattened up?!" He shakes his head stubbornly. "I'll starve 'afore I eat anythin' you give me."

The lizard chuckles. He picks himself up and moves closer to the otter. "I would recommend you save up your strength actually." He grins broadly, "You will need it to escape." Hrsk looks around to see if anyone cares if he is talking with the otter. "To answer your first question, I suppose you were too injured to remember me but I also saved your friends...and my people from further blood shed. I am Hrsk, brother of Brsk the chief you beasts killed a while back. Our rules of...accession I believe the word is? Meant that I was next in line to inherit the title of Chief."

Rorgan nods slowly. "And I'm assumin' you didn't inherit the throne then." His keen eyes wander around the area, mapping out different ways of escaping.

Hrsk wraps his tail around his legs, "That's when Trsk comes into play. Shortly after I rose to power my younger brother challenged me to a duel...his champion bested my own," Hrsk rubs his eyes again, "And now we have a miniature version of Brsk sitting on the thrown, an idiot dolt who only cares for himself and actually believes he can gain strength by having his warriors eat his enemies and blah blah blah." Hrsk shakes his head sadly, "I was cast into a lower cast...you would call it an, untouchable? Unclean? Outcast! yeah, that's it." He leans back, supporting himself on his claws behind him, "I counted it as a blessing myself when the great underground river brought you here. If anyone can escape from here...it would be one of those great warriors that bested my tribe in combat.

Rorgan raises an eyebrow. "I'm appreciative of the help, but I have an idea. Is it possible that, perhaps, you could challenge yer brother t' a duel with me as yer champion?"

The lizard shakes his head sadly, "Im afraid our laws are very...strict. Once you are cast out from power you can no longer attain it." Hrsk leans back farther, crossing his claws behind the back of his head as he lays down, "He would just have us both killed on the spot if we tried something like that. He's an idiot, not a fool."

Rorgan sighs, closing his eyes and laying back as well. "And my weapons? Where are they?" So far, everything he had been thinking of as hit a dead end, not to mention that he wouldn't be able to use his bow to help himself out of here since his arrows had been lost in the river. He groans at the thought of the work it would take to make them again.

The lizard's tail twitches back and forth as he replies, "I can get you your weapons...probably. It wouldn't be easy though. One of the benefits of keeping a prisoner here in the open is that they have no privacy to escape."

Rorgan nods, again looking around the area. "How long?" He asks simply. He knew it would take a while before he started fattening up from the food sitting in front of him, but his bond didn't prevent him from moving completely, so there were always exercises he could do to slow the process down.

Hrsk snorts, "I will have to get creative to keep the guards from seeing me smuggle weapons to you. Other wise I can bring them to you when ever you wish." The lizard leans back up and sits cross legged, "What do you plan to do with them if I DO get them too you if I may ask?"

Rorgan sits there thinking for a few moments. "If I can hide them, I can try t' find a way out of these cuffs. Past that, I can keep hidden until I put a dagger straight through the throat of that lizard king of yers." The last part he says with more of a dark tone, his anger from his capture aching to be released at some beast.

Hrsk visibly cringes at the otter. "Sure, I wouldn't mind wrapping my claws around the little monsters throat myself...I have no real freedom in the tribe. The only reason he didn't banish me was to keep me here, as a defeated trophy to show off to others...but I would rather not leave out tribe leaderless either." The lizard narrows his eyes, "Or watch you slaughter my people once more." Stretching in place the red scaled lizard stands up again, "I can get you one of your daggers, maybe hide the rest somewhere else for when we actually escape. But if our warriors catch you with a weapon, keep in mind my brother will not hesitate to toss you into the scorpion pit. I suggest you keep it well hidden."

Rorgan nods to the lizard, now feeling as though he has a real plan of escape here. The only thing he has left to do is to wait for the moment. Exercise to slow down the bloating that would come with eating the awful excuse for food that was sitting in front of him, since he knew it would come each day, and as much as he didn't want to, he knew it would be difficult to escape without keeping food in his body. He sighs, pulling the bowl closer to himself. It was going to be a long experience down here.

Will Rorgan escape the ruins of the lizards? Can he trust Hrsk? Will he meet up with Toran, Fargo, Raziel, Hershel and Derrin eventually? Find out next time in Rorgan's Escape...or...Otter stew...