Aeshma and I didn’t even have time to share a quizzical look before the top of our tent was ripped away, exposing us to the cool night air – and to the gathered collection of perhaps a dozen bandits, each one burlier and meaner-looking than the last.

  Aeshma leapt out of her bedroll, a lilac mass of coiled muscle. “Who’re you callin’ a chump?” she screamed as she slugged one of the bandits in the face. I was sure that the punch was gonna break his jaw, or at least knock him out; but no, the bandit easily shrugged off the blow.

  Given how overleveled Aeshma claimed to be for Zone One, I found this a bit concerning.

  “Lock her down, Hank!” one of the assembled bandits shouted, a lean, sinewy woman with a harsh voice. Her clothes were as dirty and mismatched as the others’, but she was obviously their leader, decked out as she was in mismatched jewels and golden chains.

  Her face twisted into a confident grin. “I don’t want to deal with another runner.” One of the bandits nodded and pulled something out of his pocket.

  ZWEEP

  Aeshma’s head snapped in the direction of the sound, but it was too late. A bolt of crackling blue electricity took her in the chest, reducing her to a crumpled heap on the ground beside me. “Owww. What… what the fuck, guys?” she groaned. I had the same question. What could a gang of apparently high-level bandits want with some Zone One schmucks like us?

  The bandit leader approached us and knelt down next to the smouldering Aeshma. “You’re pretty tough, huh? I would’ve expected a Succubus to be paralyzed by a hit like that!”

  Aeshma groaned and struggled to turn over. She didn’t seem to be in fighting shape, but maybe she could recover if I bought us enough time.

  I cleared my throat. I was somewhat embarrassed to realize that I was still tucked into my bedroll, but I figured it would be nicer to die comfortable and warm. “Well, we’re both pretty overleveled, you know? Definitely not your normal Zone One… uh… people.”

  “Uh-huh, clearly not,” the bandit leader said, unimpressed. She grabbed my collar and tugged me up to my feet. The bedroll fell uselessly to the ground, leaving me with only my stupid clothes to keep me warm.

  “I always find it a little sad sacrificing Zone One-ers. You lot barely even try to fight back.” She nudged Aeshma with her heavy leather boot before turning back to her crew with a smirk. “Tonight’ll be interesting, we’ve never done a Succubus before. Another successful hunt, eh fellas? Sylvandroon hasn’t given us a bad lead yet!” The bandits all cheered.

  “You’ve never… sacrificed a Succubus before?” Aeshma groaned weakly. “Don’t you… know… Monsters… not worth anything to Sylvandroon.” Her voice was nearly drowned out by the bandit crew’s laughter. “Won’t get anything… from sacrificing… me.”

  The leader just smiled over her shoulder and said, “Nice try, but you know perfectly well that Sylvandroon accepts Monsters.” She crouched down and started sifting through Aeshma’s adventuring duffel. “Tie ‘em up, lads!” she yelled to her crew. “We’ll take the sacrifices back to our camp and set off for the grove at dawn.”

  Two of the bandits hauled up the still-smoldering Aeshma. She tried to shoulder out of their grasp, but it was no use.The bandits laughed at her attempt as they bound and fettered the both of us. To finish it off, they tied Aeshma and me together at the waist with a length of gently-humming rope. More electric magic, by the sound of it.

  Meanwhile, the bandit leader continued rifling through our belongings. One by one she tossed the busted Flare Disk, the dagger, and our map onto the ground. “What is this, your trash sack?” The contents of the starter kit were the next to get dumped out.

  A smile flitted across the bandit leader’s lips as she pulled out Aeshma’s coin purse. “A-ha, that’s more like it!”

  “Who are you, anyway?” I asked. “You seem way too strong for Zone One.”

  “Too strong for Zone One,” the leader echoed mockingly. “Not a very high bar, that.”

  “We got ‘em all tied up, boss,” one of the goons said, giving me a rough shove for emphasis.

  “Perfect.” The bandit leader stood up and walked in front of me, her face cloaked in darkness. She held my chin in her hand and forced me to look at her. She was at least a head shorter than me, and probably fifty pounds lighter, but even so I felt intimidated. “You asked who I am? I’ll tell you, so you can know the name of your killer. I am Camilla! Queen of Thieves, purloiner of purses, who stole the Secret Emerald of–”

  “Camilla!” Aeshma interrupted. “The Thief Queen Camilla?” Her ruby eyes had not only fluttered open, but had gone wide with wonder.

  It seemed our soon-to-be murderer was a celebrity. Hooray!

  “The one and the only,” Camilla said, releasing my face to throw my starstruck companion a wink.

  “But… yeah, actually, why are you here in Zone One?” asked Aeshma. “Last I heard you were hitting caravans in the Whispering Cliffs way, way out in Zone Three.” She winced with every word, but Aeshma already seemed to be recovering from the electric bolt.

  Camilla laughed and gestured for her cronies to start walking into the woods. “Any thief worth her salt knows not to stay in one place for long. Zone Three was getting hot. It was time to move on.”

  It seemed odd that an allegedly high-profile thief was reduced to random kidnapping and murder, though – and it was especially odd that she was going for such low-level prey. Just how much gold was this God of hers handing out for sacrifices? A wave of anger coursed through me. I had just got here, and now I was gonna die as a forest sacrifice?

  “Zone Three was too hot, so you came to Zone One?” I spat. “Was the legendary thief afraid she couldn’t cut it in Zone Four?”

  Aeshma jabbed me hard in the ribs with an elbow. “Knock it off, Roland! Don’t embarrass me in front of Camilla.” She looked at Camilla dreamily.

  “She’s gonna kill us, Aeshma! That doesn’t sound very cool to me! Or very… thief-y!” I knew I was tempting fate by insulting the bandits’ leader, but at this point I was too pissed off to care. The rope binding my ankles had me practically hobbled; with every other step I was stumbling over another tree root. Worst of all, every time I tripped, the rope around my and Aeshma’s waists went taut and delivered a painful shock to my midsection. “She seems more– ah, ow! She seems more like a bandit queen to me.”

  “Shut up, Roland, she can hear you!”

  Camilla shot us an amused glance over her shoulder. “Through perfectly legitimate means, mind you, I was able to acquire a pass through the Ingot Guild Dungeons. Once it takes effect, my territory will expand beyond what I once thought possible. To Zone Four, yes, but even beyond. Zone Five, Zone Six… the sky’s the limit. But for now…” She shrugged. “For now, I’m running an easy little side gig. It’s hardly glorious work, but it pays the bills. Right, fellas?” Her crew let out an assenting cheer.

  The bandits drove us hard through the forest, picking up their pace as they got closer to their camp. Camilla was at the lead, talking and joking with her men. I had a hard time keeping up, bound as I was, but the bandits pushed and prodded us onward.

  “Ow, ow! Okay, I’m done with this,” Aeshma muttered. Grabbing me, she jogged all the way up to the head of the pack. “Hey, uh, Camilla. I know we’re about to die and everything, but… do you think I could get an autograph?”

  “What are you–” I started to hiss, but Aeshma silenced me with a wink. I was being roped along, quite literally, into her scheme.

  Camilla chuckled. “I suppose I can’t say no to a fan, especially one who’s about to be torn to shreds before the altar of Sylvandroon! Let’s see, I think I’ve got a pen right here…” she said, pulling one out of a leather satchel at her waist. “I know you don’t have any, like, memorabilia for me to sign, because we took all your stuff! I could sign, like, your cheek or something, though. Does that work, or–?”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Just as she leaned in with her pen, Aeshma flexed hard, straining against the electrified rope at her wrists and ankles. It almost seemed like she was going to bust free of our bonds. But then a dense hum rattled the air around us, and Aeshma froze stock-still. There was a smell like burning skin and hair, which reminded me sickeningly of the deer we’d cooked over the fire.

  Aeshma collapsed, dragging me to the ground along with her.

  Smiling, Camilla held up a palm to halt her approaching goons. She squatted beside us, pen in hand, and scribbled her autograph on Aeshma’s cheek, moving carefully so as not to make skin-to-skin contact with Aeshma’s still-electrified body. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t know what a Thunder Cord is. It’s a fairly high-level item.” She clicked her pen closed on one of Aeshma’s horns and stood up. “I am a little insulted that you thought you’d be able to break free so easily, however.”

  “I, urgh… thought I’d at least give it a try,” Aeshma groaned into the dirt.

  “And it was a wonderful try!” Camilla waved over one of the burlier bandits and handed him the loose end of the rope tied around our waists. “Keep these two moving, Thalzar. And remember, we only need them alive, not alive-and-well.” She looked down at us and winked. “Walk or not, friends, it’s your choice. But if you let that rope go taut for too long, it’s really gonna cook your eggs.”

  I hadn’t been electrified by Aeshma’s escape attempt, but as the burly bandit, Thalzar, gave us a few tugs, I could feel the static charge building.

  “I know tha’ boss said you don’t gotta walk, but you do gotta walk,” Thalzar said. His face was big and broad and emotionless, and he had the biggest hands of any man I’d ever seen. Another hearty tug on the rope was all it took for him to get both Aeshma and I scrambling to our feet.

  “Man, I thought that was gonna work,” Aeshma whispered.

  “Yeah, it, uh, really seemed like a good idea,” I whispered back. “I’m not sure what the plan was for after you broke free, though. Were you gonna take Camilla hostage?”

  “Exactly! Right when she was distracted from trying to sign her autograph. It would’ve been perfect!”

  I thought back to when she’d slugged the bandit in the face and how little of an effect that’d had. And presumably the leader was even tougher. “What makes you think you could’ve held the Thief Queen Camilla hostage?”

  “I dunno. I played it out in my head first and it worked out fine,” she mused, gently dabbing at her autographed cheek. “So how does it look, Roland?”

  “What?”

  “Camilla’s signature! She didn’t write anything mean, did she?”

  I squinted up through the darkness at her. “It just says ‘The Thief Queen, Camilla’. Nothing bad.”

  “Oh, that’s so cool,” Aeshma gushed. “Camilla’s real signature! I’m gonna have to take a paper-pressing of it as soon as we get outta this mess.”

  I sighed and walked on.

  –

  Once we arrived at their camp, the bandits trussed us up properly – back-to-back, bound tightly at our hands and feet, with the Thunder Cord tying us together at the torso – and laid us out on our sides on the cold, hard ground. They really took their time with it, triple-checking every knot and squeezing out every last inch of wiggle-room. Once Camilla gave their handiwork the thumbs-up, the bandits dumped us on the outskirts of their campsite and basically ignored us while they ate, drank, and relaxed.

  It was nice being left alone for a while. It wasn’t so nice knowing it was because we posed basically zero threat. We’d been tied up for hours, and had made no progress on our escape.

  I felt a vague static sensation around my chest as Aeshma strained against our bonds. “Hey! I can feel you flexing, quit it!” I whispered. The Thunder Cord’s jolt hadn’t hit me last time, but I wasn’t about to let Aeshma cook me alive while she threw herself repeatedly at the problem. The cord around my chest slackened.

  “This is some high-level stuff,” Aeshma sighed. “Even without the electricity to deal with I don’t know if I… wait, do you feel that?”

  All I felt was the persistent buzz of the Thunder Cord around my chest and the packed earth pressing into my already bruised ribs. Along, of course, with the sensation of impending doom that had hung over me basically since I first saw the bandits. But that probably wasn’t worth bringing up. “I don’t think so,” I said.

  “No? Like, don’t you have the feeling you’re being watched?”

  I guess I did, now that she mentioned it. But I was on my side with my back towards the bandits’ camp; I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them all behind me, laughing and drinking and probably counting out all their stolen dubloons. In the woods ahead of me, I could hear a small animal, probably a rat or squirrel, scurrying about in the leaf litter. So odds were good that something was watching us.

  Behind us, the bandits erupted in yells and cheers. It sounded like they had started playing a dice game, and one among their number had just won big. Only once they quieted down could we continue our whispering.

  “What about that ‘Sylvandroon’ character they said they were gonna sacrifice us to?” I asked. “Is there anything we could do to… I dunno, convince it not to accept us? And is Sylvandroon a god?” I should have insisted we pick up a history book, or even an encyclopedia, on our way out of town. Maybe then I’d have some idea of how to get us out of this mess.

  “Well, not exactly a god, more like a mega-powerful spirit. Kind of a… hippie-granola-god, I think?” Aeshma said, straining against her bindings to scratch her chin before abandoning the effort with a quiet yeowch. “His domains are like… nature, farming… uh, plants… oh, and wild animals too. Hates technology and cities and stuff like that. He’s an old-school spirit, loves being offered sacrifices.”

  “Sure, that all tracks,” I said glumly. “Do you think we could-”

  Just then Aeshma shushed me. One of the bandits – Hank, the one who cast the electric bolt at Aeshma earlier – wandered drunkenly past us, stinking of B.O. and booze. He stumbled through the treeline, mumbling incoherently under his breath. There was the unmistakable sound of a man peeing; then after a few seconds there was a faint swoosh, followed by the sound of fabric ripping and a string of loud curses. Finally, Hank staggered past us back into the clearing, looking even more bedraggled than before, and called for another drink.

  “What do you think happened?” I whispered. “It sounded like he ripped his pants or something!”

  Before we could speculate further, a tiny shadow scurried out from the forest. Its form was all but inscrutable in the darkness, but whatever it was, was maybe the size of a large rat. The shadow froze as though it was surveying the clearing. Then it started skittering towards us.

  I hissed a warning to Aeshma, but she didn’t seem concerned. “Rats are friendly, Roland. Just be nice. Don’t say anything horrible to it, like you did to the deer.”

  As the shadow approached and made its way into the edge of the bandits’ torchlight, it stopped looking so much like a rat. It was perhaps a foot long and narrow, wider at one end then tapering to a point, kind of like… well, kind of like a dagger. A well-worn dagger with a leather-wrapped handle, and a pommel etched with meaningless spirographic runes. It skittered towards us on a mess of rusted, blade-like tendrils that extended from the hilt.

  “A-Aeshma, not a rat. It’s the dagger. The dagger you took from the cellar,” I whispered hoarsely.

  “What do you mean it’s the dagger? Does it have, like, a returning enchantment? But the Arcanist said it wasn’t magical…”

  “I don’t think it’s magical. I think it’s a Mimic.” The creature skittered right up to my face and started vibrating. I would’ve flinched away if I could, but my bonds held me fast in place, my poor, delicate nose inches away from the shaking blade.

  The vibrating grew more and more violent until a purplish maw opened up from the dagger’s handguard. The Mimic retched, then disgorged the Flare Disk, a few coins, and a shiny rock onto the ground in front of me. It shook off, in an almost dog-like, grotesque sort of way, and crawled hilt-first into my jeans’ pocket. At least, it tried to crawl in – half of the blade was still sticking out.

  I made a mental note not to roll onto my stomach. If I did, I’d probably be disemboweled. “Aeshma, I think it might be friendly!”

  “Oh no,” Aeshma groaned from behind me. “I must’ve grabbed a baby. I can’t see anything from here, Roland, tell me what it’s doing.”

  “It barfed up a bunch of coins, and the Flare Disk too. I think it robbed that drunk bandit. Now it’s kind of… snuggling up to me.”

  “Huh. I think it might have, like, imprinted on you.” Aeshma paused to consider this new development. “You know, this could be really good for us!”

  “Imprinted? Like a little baby bird?”

  “Exactly, dude. Can you get it to cut our ropes?”

  “I’ll try,” I said. My hands were bound near my waist, so I was able to ever-so carefully reach into my pocket. The creature inside was perfectly still; if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought it was a normal, if recklessly stored, dagger. Only when I gripped the hilt did the Mimic let out a small “Mweep!” and try to crawl forward out of my grasp.

  “Hey, hey! Woah there, uh, you little… fella,” I whispered, gently petting the leather wrap with my thumb. “I’m sorry if I grabbed you too hard! We uh, we just all gotta get out of here, you… you little cutie.”

  “Little cutie?” Aeshma repeated, mockingly.

  “I’m trying to be nice to it. Can it even understand me?” The Mimic had ceased its wriggling, so either my soothing words or the scritches I had given the hilt seemed to have calmed it down.

  “Yeah, and if it thinks you’re its parent it might even listen to you. Maybe ask it to bring you a more cooperative, non-Mimic knife?”

  I tried to put on a gentle yet stern, motherly kind of voice. “Can you do that for us? Can you go get us a knife, like the big mean lady said?”

  The Mimic let out another “mweep!” before wriggling out of my front pocket and scuttling off towards the bandits.

  Aeshma snorted and said, cryptically, “Just like at Succubus Camp.”

  Thunder Cord

  ---------------------

  Item Level 20

  Damage type: Electricity

  Applying strain to the rope releases the electrical energy stored