02-02-2017, 03:26 AM
Quote:Scar, apparently the leader of the ragtag group, eventually called off the search, though he insisted that each of the bandits should stick in pairs and keep an eye out for anyone in the bushes. This suited Carmelita just fine as she sat on the hostage's horse in the middle of the bunch invisible and, hopefully, undetectable.
Malon's surprise and shock was great when the horse and its rider suddenly started to scream with pain. She couldn't SEE any of the effects that the trap laid by Carmelita was having, which made it worse - for all she knew the bandits could be getting skewered by blades right now. To make matters yet worse the horse she was sat on reared its head and tried to break away from the one that had fallen into the trap, to escape what it percieved as a threat. The man that held the reins cursed loudly as he held on to his own horse and the reins and, somehow, was able to not be thrown off his own mount's back in the process. Malon reacted naturally in her shocked state, she pressed her legs against the ribs of the horse beneath her, strong enough to bend them inwards ever so slightly, which in turn pressed against the lungs and caused fear in the horse. As soon as it came back down she alleviated the pressure again and it didn't try a second time. Her heart raced nontheless as the screams rapidly ceased and she could hear Scar's voice as he snapped at the ones hit by the trap for causing a ruckus. In the moments of chaos Carmelita wouldn't be noticed by a single soul.
Malon nearly yelped in surprise and would've done so if the fox hadn't covered her mouth in time, and whispered into her ear. Still her heart raced but now that the imminent danger was over she calmed a little and took deep breaths to regain control of her body. She could feel the presence of an individual right behind her, but with the bag over her head she didn't quite realize that Carmelita was invisible, and wondered how nobody had noticed her. Her mind raced... she - it definitely was a woman, from the sound of her voice - had come to help, she said, and had told her to act naturally. It couldn't possibly be a trap from her captors, could it be? She decided to trust the individual behind her.
After organizing the group to continue the trek Scar approached Malon with the remains of Carmelita's STAPLER in his gloved hand, and jabbed at her chest with the index finger of his other hand. "Was this your doing, girl?!" he snarled. Malon nearly fell backwards but the person behind her had seen the jab coming and braced herself to stop Malon, without raising suspicion. She bent backwards a bit, was caught, then slid back into an upright position.
"I didn't do anything!" she replied honestly. The sack covering her eyes was tugged up, since they still were in the midst of the forest there was no risk of her finding anything out anyway, and Scar showed her the scrap.
"This doesn't look familiar to you, does it?" he asked. Of course, not Malon's answer mattered, but whether or not she recognized it. The glimmer in her eyes would tell him more than a hundred words. But she blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light and looked at the pieces of metal and wires, trying to make sense of it.
"No... I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. What is that?"
Scar huffed and stuffed the scrap into the hands of one of the men near him. "Pack it up. This doesn't look like Kingdom tech, we'll have Four-Eyes look at it later." Disregarding Malon's question he spoke: "I do hope that you're speaking the truth. See, we have other people at our lair... men, women and children much like you. Now you might be new around here so I'll tell you." Another jab at her chest, more like a poke this time. "The Silver Hands make this public to the Royal Guard and its citizens... if any of our expedition groups is late, for every day of delay my boys at home slit the throat of one of the hostages. For every one of us that gets killed, one of the hostages is starved to death. For every one of us that gets captured, an adult and a kid are tortured to death, nice and slow. And last but not least, if a hostage acts up, we punish another hostage for it. So if you try anything like this again, you'll get to watch one of 'em get twenty whippings. And if you make a run for it, you're gonna live knowing that one of the girls back at the lair gets to die a slow and painful death for you."
Malon bit her lip. "This... this weird thing you showed me, it wasn't me. And I won't try anything either, I promise."
Scar put on a friendly smile. "I knew that you had a smart head on those shoulders. And don't worry too much about what I said. Thanks to our solidary system both the Royal Guard and any nosey Primes out there leave us alone, and we don't have to cut anyone's fingers off, nor- hey, watch it!" Malon had "clumsily" moved her head in a way that had caused the sack to slide off her head and fall down, but she'd caught it with her boot before it could hit the ground. While Scar bent down to take it back she took a very quick glance over her shoulder, and despite knowing that there was someone down there - she could feel her holding on, and her breath brushing her neck every so often - she saw nothing. So they WERE invisible.
As Scar pulled the sack back over her head she wondered how and why this stranger was doing what they'd done. They probably were the ones who had caused that chaos, right? But how could they turn invisible? And why were they helping her? To find out where the bandits had their lair? She could only hope that she was right with that assumption. Then the group began to ride again, oblivious to the fact that they were carrying a new passenger.
Quote:~5 hours later
The journey had led the group through the forest all that time, hidden from prying eyes and from the Kingdom's forts and checkpoints. They took no breaks and the horses were going a little faster, happy to return home, so they arrived there rather swiftly. Their destination was a wooden wall disguised as a hill, with rocks, moss and dirt on its steep slope and a camouflaged gate that opened when one of the bandits spoke what Malon presumed to be a passphrase but she was too far away to hear it. The fortification formed a large half-circle around an open area that was built up against a high cliff with a bit of an overhang, under which several stone huts were built. The most notable feature though was a gaping hole in the wall, supported by beams, which led down into an old mine. The main portion of the lair of the Silver Hand was in there: well-hidden from sight in an expansive underground network that was a mixture of a manmade mine to carve out whatever precious metals had once been here, and natural caverns that the miners had broken passageways to. Malon wasn't certain if the invisible passenger was still with her when the sack was taken off and she was pushed into the cave while the horses were brought to the stables to eat and drink, and Scar vanished off to check back in with the ones he'd left behind.
They had arrived in the Silver Hand's lair. What was going to happen next, Malon could only speculate. And she didn't like what her mind came up with at all.