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Story I've been working on for a while now. Life got in the way of me getting it online since my pre readers got it back to me. I'll have a list of those pre readers once I get my Pc back together in a few days and edit this post with there names. Thanks crew for the time and effort.

New chapters will be updated as life allows.

Note This is a work of fanfiction, I don't own anything related to rifts.

Let's get this party started.

Teaser

Deep in the hold of a Splugorth slave ship three lost souls languish: A burned-out Cosmic Knight full of secrets. A Sidekick that failed to be a superhero. A Thief hardwired for self destruction. This is their story.

Rifts:”Freedom Run”

Chapter One: “A gathering of Failures ”

The last of them was dragged into darkness. The warrior had struggled and spat his forehead a sea of parasite born scars. The thief had begged and schemed. This last one lay limp, broken before she arrived.

The Jailor lumbered up the hallway that ran between the cells with her limp form over his shoulder. His hulking form was twisted by the dark arts of Splygorthain bio-wizardry.

As he passed he turned his unearthly yellow eyes on the two other cells. The dwarf was still hanging by his arms, a foot off the ground covered in blood from the last round of beatings.

“Squid lapdog!" He definitely snarled as the Jailor passed. When I get out of here I’ll have your head.”

The Jailor bared his blackened teeth sharp as serrated knives. He raised his staff, an unearthly thing of dark magic with an oversized worm floating in a clear sphere on top. The worm flickered just a moment and the dwarf recoiled in agony, his throat raw with thirst.

The Jailor half snarled, like a beast not naturally given to speech. “The Forge isn’t with you any longer, Shatter-Shield. High-value cargo gets where it’s going. You wont get free. You won’t die under my care. Accept it, or live in agony.”

The scream died after a long moment, and a soft feminine voice spoke from the other cell.

“Fool always causes trouble. Some of us know when we are beaten. Some of us know when to be more ... compliant.”

The Jailor looked at her. She stood nearly as tall as he was, her pride evident in her baring despite her circumstances . She had delicate elvin features, long hair the color of spun gold, pale skin naked despite the cold. The display was wasted on the Jailor. He leaned in close without crossing the invisible line into her cell. To her credit she didn’t blink or recoil when he did so. Not even when he spoke and his breath hit her.

“ Not another word from you, or I’ll have one of my mind slugs on you and you can wait out the time till I hand you over to the Masters in your own filth.”

She lowered her head, bowing meekly, and stood back. The Jailor walked on to the next cell vacant and dark. He placed the newcomer inside and left. The cell sprang to life as he did. Wards in a thousand languages from almost as many worlds crackled with power preventing escape.

The dwarf's voices whispered across the void some odd mix of magic and psionic telepathy somehow defying the magics that normally prevented such things.

“Did you need to lower yourself like that Ellowyn?”

Her reply was indignant as it was silent.

“ Uther for a chance to get out of here--or at least give that beast a burn in an interesting place--I’d do it twice. Also, I get a gold star for not being hung from a wall for a third straight day. ”

The voice that wasn’t a voice turned to a growl.

"Elven *****. "

"No need to be rude. " Her voice was still pleasant despite the circumstances. “I was just looking for my opening, the same as you Uther. Different weapons that’s all. Since I’m officially out of ideas, maybe you have a new one?”

The dwarf sounded tired.

“No, Ellowyn. No I do not.”

The last to arrive opened her eyes. Just the one eye actually; the other was swollen shut. Her head was swimming with the memories of battle lost, and a world on fire. Most of all she remembered who fell with her. Hot tears rolled down her face. She didn’t utter a word, she just lay there for a long minute, and then remembered the strong clear voice of a man now gone.

“ Well Gwendolyn, you're going to need to ask yourself, am I going to let this lay, or am I going to get back on the horse? ”

The sick snapping sound of her father's neck breaking under a traitor's boot heel would never leave her, she knew that. She hoped what he taught her would last as long.

She reached up with her off hand and pulled a gaudie gold cat mask away to brush away her tears. Looking around she was in darkness. It was cold, and her body hurt all over. There were sounds around her like distant machines. The place smelled sterile like a hospital. She spoke to the empty room, just to hear a voice, even if it was her own. The Jailor was of course listening, but didn't care.

“They were carrying people off. I’m on that ship the one that appeared at the nexus on the mesa. Ok Gwen, you have a little energy, make it work for you.”

She wasn’t restrained, but she was hardly a threat in her condition. Slipping into an old familiar trance she reached out with her power, feelling the world around her with arcane eyes. There was magic here more than she’d ever known to exist in anyone place before. As the cold chill worked its way up her spine, she knew that she was in darkness in more ways than one. Gwen spoke coldly, her voice echoing off metal walls.

“In the belly of the beast. Tara, if I ever see you again I swear you are dead!”

She called the power to her, and sent it out to her broken body. As long minutes passed, and the power began its work. The bones in her right wrist popped back into place. The swelling in her knee slowly started going down. Her eye was still swollen shut, the power spent. She barked out in anger.

“Dammit!”

She tried to sit up but her head started spinning and she lay there for a long minute. Once the spinning had slowed and her anger dimmed for the moment she got to work. Her belt was intact and the pouches on it were still tied shut. Reaching for one the fingers on her right hand was swollen and numb didn’t cooperate. Her left worked well enough and she pulled a cell terminal in a large heavy plastic case. Finally there was light.

Using the light to look around the room she saw it’s dull grey walls. There were chains on the walls runic script on every surface and oddly enough no door.

“Oh yea this place is magiced to hell and back. No need for a door with this stuff. You could hold a Fomorian, or a demon with runes like this.”

Working slowly she moved to a sitting position. She didn’t dare stand the pain in her left leg made that clear. Working her way to the wall she put her back to it facing the door and removed more from her belt pouch. She tapped her terminal. The default background image maked her heart break. Her father was the last man on Novus you’d expect to deal with the supernatural things most people just ignore. Her cousin Kirby and that magic sword he found that changed both their lives. She spoke into the terminal, knowing deep down no one but her would ever hear it.

“Kirby if you ever find this it was Altara. I know you like her but she betrayed us. She had to know I’d dream about the invasion and was waiting for me. ***** killed my dad.”

Her voice shook and her one good hand slammed the floor beside her. A sharp bang echoed outward. The dent shed made went unnoticed by her at least.

“That blind ***** just stomped on his neck and he ******* died. Everything we’ve been through and that’s how it ended. Gods, Kirby I swear I’m going to kill your girlfriend. If I ever see her again . . . I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again or Eitan. Why am I even recording this?”

She turned the terminal off and tried to meditate in darkness.

No, like the other one, she had no idea I was listening. The one that did, did not care to mention it.

The jailer thumped up the hallway. The sound of his monstrous voice echoed through the walls.

“None for you till you behave. Maybe you pray to the Forge and you get to eat maybe?”

Someone roared and then screamed in pain. When the screaming died down a soft female voice spoke loud and clearly.

“Thank you great one.”

Gwendolyn pulled herself to her feet only to have pain shot up her right leg as she fell over. The floor vibrated as her face slammed into the cold metal. Without thinking she raised her one good hand and tried to call a spell but nothing happened. Gwen muttered.

“I’m still spent.”

She lowered her hand. The Jailor came into view nearly seven feet of uneven muscle hunched over. It paused at the door and Gwen felt a spike in magic as the wards at the doorway lowered. The beast growled as much as spoke.

“Listen girl and listen well. It’s my job to get you where we are going alive. My masters don’t care about how many pieces you get there in as long as you're alive. Cause no problems you’ll get fead. Cause problems and you won’t be. Cause problems after that you get pain. Understand girl?”

Gwen lowered her head. The jailer placed a medium sized bronze bowel on the floor and backed out of the room. The wards snapped into place like iron around her soul and Gwen rolled into a ball on the floor.

Next “Bad Dreams”

Rifts:”Freedom Run”

Chapter Two “Bad Dreams.”

The Splugorthian wards holding back magics from countless worlds hum ever so slightly as the faintest mist rolls across the floor. The Jailor who gave his dreams to his masters 27 years earlier never noticed.

The eldest of the prisoners dreamed the saddest.

Uther Shatter-Shield hung from the wall by his arms. The faded ember of the power that was once within him kept the pain to a dull throb. He dreamed of oaths betrayed, and a fall from grace.

In his mind’s eye Uther flew naked between the stars. The armor granted to him by the Cosmic Forge a second skin after so many decades. His great Axe cleaving the antimatter cannon on the pirate raider in two. In the distance his eyes scanned the length and birth of the electromagnetic spectrum spotting a star system, the likeliest destination of the raider. Deep inside a nickel iron asteroid orbiting a nameless blue star on the border of the Trans-galactic Empire. A star fell to the surface of that silent little world. Uther Shatter-Shield, Cosmic Knight, looked out on the pockmarked surface of the asteroid and he grimaced under his gleaming armor.

“ Slavers, scum. ”

He raised his strong right hand and in a flash of light his axe appeared in a flash of light. He brought the axe down on the surface with the force of a crashing spacecraft! The asteroid cracked under blow after blow from the Knight and his axe. Until finally a chunk of the space rock the size of a building ripped free and floated off into the void. With it a torrent of escaping air water and flash frozen bodies.
The Knight floated down slowly down through the gap into a hallway of smooth featureless silver metal. A collection of armored corps drifted by. The mark of a Splygorthian Lord on its breastplates. Uther’s eyes filled with cosmic fire as he muttered to himself in the airless void.

“ Squid lap dogs. ”

Floating into a landing bay his eyes fell on a ignored cargo container with a small viewport. Inside a hand full of forlorn souls languis in chains.

Emergency force fields comeone line and the room fills with the hiss of a thin remaining atmosphere. A psionic voice called out across the void.

“ Here we are again Uther! Me fulfilling the will of my god, and you standing in my way. ”

The giant Briareus Aegaeon, greatest of the hundred handed, loomed over him even from the far side of the landing bay. Uther’s dream turned into a red haze. The sound barrier shattered as the knight propelled himself forward on a wave of cosmic power! He brought his axe down on the monster's chest.

Briareus laughed.

“ Forty xanthite crystals Uther, that is the offering the Spugorthian lords made to gods of Olympus to end you. I wanted you to know the value of your life before it ends! ”

The beasts fists came down on him with a furry that had waylaid titans, and raised up young defiant gods. Uther slammed into the floor like a beercan under the drunk's boot. In his mind's eye the knight saw half a hundred battles with this monster, this legend, the left hand of thunder. It was a fight for all his strength he knew he would lose.

He reached deep inside himself for the fire granted to him by a power older than any empire he could name. The Cosmic Forge grants the worthy power to rival anything in creation. Rival, but in this case, against this legend it had never been enough. For hate's sake, Uther struck out with all the power inside him and for a half a heartbeat there was another star in the sky. The wave of cosmic energy ripped out of him and tore the asteroid apart from the inside.

The giant Briareus Aegaeon floated beside him in the void, untouched. Uther roared in frustration.

“ How? Not even you could withstand that?! ”

Or he should have, if the cold emptiness of the void handed began choking the life from him. His armor was gone, and he really was naked umog the stars. A telepathic voice that wasn’t Briareus Aegaeon whispered in his mind.

“ You killed them, Uther, those poor sad sentients, praying to the Forge for salvation. A century of slipping closer to the edge of what the Forge will permit of you, and it ends here and now. Four centuries of meddling in the affairs of my masters have led you to this. A cold death, alone in the void. As your life fades, never question one thing. I showed you an image of a man you hate, I never made you Forget about the innocents you just killed. ”

The voice was gone, and he never learned the name of the entity the Splygothian lords sent to see to his fall. All that was left to him was a faint ember of the power he one held, and the axe in his hand. A fragment of his own soul reformed in the fire of the Cosmic Forge, not even his former master could take it from him. He clutched it for a heartbeat considering simply allowing himself to fade away.

“ Fook that. ”

He thought.

In his mind's eye he drifted back in time centuries to a lifetime spent on the mining ships of his clan. He knew how to make the most of time in little or no air, even if it had been centuries since he needed breath in his lungs. Even a fallen cosmic knight, was a thing of power. Between the two he had time enough perhaps. Time for what? Revenge? On who? The Forge? The splugoth? No, whoever it was that pushed him over the edge. He would learn their name, and then he would bring them his vengeance.

His faded vision spotted more armored minions dead in the void, but their armor was all of the same type, and if they could be gathered perhaps a functioning suit of armor could be gathered to give him breath in the void for a time at least.

He tossed his axe carefully to hit the closest one with the blunt end, and then called the axe back to him via their faded but very much intact bond.

Before his breath ran out he would have armor again. A poor replacement, but it would do till a ship arrives to investigate the blast, and scavenge the wreckage. There were always scavengers.

He woke to the cold of his cell, and the sound of distant words in the ancient language of dragons and elves. Some fool is speaking without knowing or caring if the Jailor had to be listening. This could only end one way, but it might be enough of a distraction. He knew however this was a risk he could take exactly once.

He then thought silent thoughts.

@@

The fairest of them fought the need for sleep bitterly. She’d spent considerably to minimize the need for it. Her perfectly healthy heart had been removed and replaced with a superior model. The enchanted symbiotic organism that now pumped blood through her body was larger, more robust and thumped in her chest like something meant for a great ape. When she had at last reluctantly slipped into an uneasy sleep. Her dreams were bitter things full of nightmares and “heros”

It had been beautiful when it started, or ended rather. The cheering in the streets, smiled on the faces of free slaves.

The world of New Rynncrth was the final fallback position of Lord Rynncrth, a splugorth intelligence pushed out of the Anvil galaxy after the empire’s throne world “Old Rynncrth” was lost to the hated Mechanoids. As one group of monsters consumed another he and a small core of loyalists fled to a new world in secret. From the shadows Lord Rynncrth plotted to reclaim a new empire. Until one day.

The city burned, the ONE nameless city in this remote world. Ellowyn was carried through the streets by her mother as the booming telepathic message echoed through the minds of all.

“HEAR ME GOOD PEOPLE AND KNOW THAT YOU ARE FREE! YOUR OPPRESSOR IS DEAD! CAST OFF YOUR CHAINS AND BE FREE! KNOW THAT MY ALLIES AND I WISH NOT TO RULE TO TRADE ONE DESPOT FOR ANOTHER ONLY THAT YOU CHOOSE YOUR OWN DESTINY!”

She opened one eye despite her fear and saw a great hulking brodkil ripping a man in half. She hid her eyes again tightly.

Her mother's voice filled her ears, she would never Forget the sound of her begging.
“Tam open the door Tam PLEASE! Tam, my husband and I belonged to the Lord! We carried his messages and kept his secrets. As far as anyone else is concerned we were on his side! My husband is already dead, so please if you bear kindness for us hide our daughter!”

Then her mother was gone, and she was left with a guardian. Her young mind just barely remembered him from when they were both small together until he began to grow, and she didn’t.

“Human’s” her father had told her. “Are not like us Ellowyn. Their lives are short, best not to get attached.”

As she grew her guardian grew older and older still until she was finally old enough to understand. Then she was alone in a world without heroes or villains, only monsters, and desperate men.

A filthy young Ellowyn, too old to be called a girl, too young to be called a woman ran through the streets of the shattered wreck of what was once a city. Clutched in her hand was a shiny silver coin. Enough to eat a real meal. In her haste she made a wrong turn down a dead end ally. When the red skinned man followed her into dark her heart was thumping in her chest. Her grip on the coin, turned white knuckled as he spoke.

" Filthy little thief. "

The pair of gleaming blades in his hands triggered something deep inside. That force within her, gave form to her fear, and her anger until in a single heartbeat, the red skinned man erupted in flames.

Ellowyn, did not blink, did not look away. She in fact walked closer to the burning man, and allowed the heat to warm her. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

Sitting up on the cold metal flooring she shivered. Taking a moment to stroke the smooth carapace of the scarab-like creature bonded to the back of her left hand. It hated the cold as much as she did, or at least she told herself that at least.

At times when she would have otherwise been sleeping she wondered what had become of her original heart. Resold? Discarded? Eaten? Well worth the price for how little she needed to sleep since getting it installed. Ellowyn opened her eyes unable to do nothing any longer.

Standing she dressed in the rags she had left after her capture. Then the elf closed the eyes she was born with and opened the one she’d acquired for herself.

In the center of her forehead rested an eye of elylore. Another mythic symbiote and one of the keys to the power her captors had over the large areas of space they controlled.

The implant flooded her brain with images sharper than her own ever could. She could feel the iris get wider or narrower with a faint humm as she focused. It’s vision extended beyond the mortal plane and even let her look at the other worldly.

Glancing across the hall revealed just enough of Uther to reveal his aura. The dwarf was covered in a remnant of something wondrous. He was a faded ember of something that once blazed like a star. To see that aura now faded, and dying was a sad thing. Not that Elle cared much for those things. There was more about him but she didn't care to ponder it.

Turning from the dwarf across the hall she looked up at the grate that separated her cell from the newcomer. A minor leap let her grasp the bars and look down at the frail human. Her otherworldly vision plunged into the depths of the newcomer.

Young for a human and battered. Red hair matted with mud and her own blood. One handed was a mass of bruises and one of her knees was swollen. Power clung to the girl like a cloak. It was bright shining and ready to grow. Her mind and soul potent with power while still having the eager flickering one only saw in the truly young. This girl was many things, a gifted magi, one whose mind was potent with power all its own. Yet this was not uncommon in creation, and better than here had been undone by the splugorthian legions.

She whispered in the dark thoughtlessly Forgetting for a moment the jailer was always listening.

“ What are you child? One of the squids experiments that bore fruit? Something new or someone’s lost sion? ”

Her great eye focused in and she saw the girl as if she was standing over her. The newcomers wounds were healing even with all the ward magic in place to prevent active use of power for such things. Her knee was shrinking to normal size bit by bit and Ellowyn wondered if she would even keep sight in her badly swollen eye. As the girl began waking from a fitful sleep Ellowyn was reminded of the countless times she herself had woken battered and afraid in the darkness.

“Why do they want you girl? Time will tell.” She told herself. If nothing else Ellowyn understood the value of time.

She landed soundlessly on her bare feet and she lay down on the ground, and waited in meditation.

@@

The last coming of the sleepers, dreamed of the setting sun over Hadrian’s Hold were the children of the Tuatha de Dananna made peace with men of the 9th Hibernian Legion. There Gwendolyn McDonagh saw a dark haired woman, pale and beautiful, kneeling in the water of the new danube, washing her father's battered armor. Beside her a severed left hand clutched Retaliator, the sword of legend. Forged by gods in a time before time, and found by her cousin on a summer of adventure that felt so long ago now. The woman was the Morrigan, the phantom queen, goddess of war, fate and death. The queen of the other world turned from her task and looked up at Gwen. No word was spoken, but the message was clear. No one was coming, to save her.

For a heartbeat she was there again, on her final battlefield with people she was closest with. Her cousin Kirby with his magic sword, beside her lover, the half fomorian giant Eitan. Both broken under the traitors boot heel. Then the ravens cried as her vision turned blurry. Birds that were not there that day her world ended, but they were in her dream. Their screams kept her awake just a heartbeat longer. The traitor Altara, love of Kirby's young life spoke in the ancient tongue of the elves.

“ Infiltrator six to command ship. The druid is dead, and his acolytes with him. The weapon is a holy sword, unfit for retrieval. The secondary asset is a potentially viable first generation scion. Dropping a locator before moving on to the next target. ”

She awoke with a shutter, to the cold and the dark of the cell. For three beats of her thundering heart she almost sees me. Then she remembered her dream, and the nightmare she’d woken into. Her one good eye welled up with tears.

“ Goodbye Father, goodbye Kirby, goodbye Eitan my love. May we meet again in the next life, or that queir heaven my love used to speak of. For this world, for this life, it’s at an end. ”

Gwen then pulled herself to her feet, her knee throbbed with pain, but it was possible to stand if she favored her other leg. She then moved to the door with a limp, and picked up what remained of the bronze bowel the Jailor had left. It had been full of a cold watery gruel she’d drank most of through silent sobs in the darkness. Carrying it to the far corner of the cell she placed down the bowel, and through great pain knelt before it. From her belt pouch no one had cared to take from her, she removed a small knife. More a tool than a thing meant for battle it was however sharp. Running the blade along the underside of her swollen eye the way she’d been shown by a good man long ago, she felt a parting of her flesh, and flow of warm dark blood running down her cheek. The swelling went down with the release of the pressure her eye at long last opened.

Maybe it was just in her mind, but with both eyes now open the darkness of the room seemed less deep. The blood dribbled down into the bowel making for a meager offering to the phantom queen, but it was an offering nonetheless. Gwen prayed in the darkness.

“ I call to you,
Daughter of Ernmas,
Sister of battle and sovereignty,
I call to you
Goddess of war-craft,
victory, and death
I call to you Great Queen
Morrigan, Lady of Phantoms
Be with me now. ”

Gwen turned her mind inward her energy reserves replenished, and went to work on her battered form. Whatever magic held her power incheck didn’t work on anything she used within her own body. Her knee popped a few times and the wound under her eye closed into a thin scar. Lastly flexing her right hand there was only a tiny amount of pain.

“ Best we are going to get then. ”

Next: Chapter 3 “ The Run Begins. ”

Chapter 3 “ The run Begins ”

I felt it as Uther Shatter-Shield reached inside himself for the power he sought out to fill the void left by the cosmic Forge. Though he felt it a pale replacement, it is not without its advantages. Once again he spoke without speaking in an effect that was functionally identical to telepathy, but different enough to evade the Splugothian magic containing him.

“ Ellowyn, hear me. It has been long enough girl. The newcomer has had long enough for the horror of being taken, and guilt over not being one of the dead. Time enough for the rage to build, and not nearly long enough for her to ask the question “ How many champions have the squids broken before they came to my world? ” Time enough to do something foolish. ”

The Elven woman’s thoughts hardly turned to Uther at all.

“ And this is a concern of mine, how? ”

Uther’s frustration echoed across the distance between the two in a manner that had nothing to do with psionics power or magic knowledge.

“ Ellowyn, you KNOW how this will go, BECAUSE it happened to us. We both made our plays for freedom, and when we tried and failed they tightened our chains in JUST THE RIGHT WAY. If you want a hope at freedom, you will move when I do. If not enjoy your fate. What did you do to be here again? Trade a cursed dagger to a bio-wizard for that implant on your neck? The life node it’s called, correct? Bio-wizards are one of the cornerstones of Splogorthian power, so I am sure they will be both just and merciful. What did he do again? Carve out his own brain with it? ”

The wards in Ellowyn’s cell flickered for just a second as she brought her temper under control.

“ What could you possibly have up your sleeve after this long, sir dwarf? I feel for the girl truly, but I'm not throwing my life away. ”

He told her about me, ZAM Magius, our bond Forged in the heart of a dead planet killer, and her third eye snapped open scanning the room for me. She does not see me, I believe, but I feel that eye on me, and wonder if the Splygothian Lords have entirely mastered the secrets of lost Elyor. Her thoughts turned from indignante rage, to hopeful pleading. Perhaps she saw something, however faint after all.

“ Your word Uther, give me your word we all leave, or none of us do. ”

The fallen cosmic knight spoke out loud for the first time. His voice sounded raw.

“ I give you my word! ”

With that the wards turned red as the girl, Gwendolyn McDonagh vanished from every mystical form of direction in that cell. Her gift, as complex as it is, is defined at its simplest as an openness to the supernatural. Taken to its fullest extent, such a mystic may open themselves totally to the magical world around them. This has the effect of magical camouflage among other things. Enough to trigger the wards and alert the Jailor.

The Jailor lumbered up the hall roaring as he did.

“ BACKWATER FILTH, YOU WILL LEARN YOUR PLACE! ”

When he reached the doorless entryway to the girls cell. Gwen herself clung to the ceiling in the one area that was only partly visible. As the Jailor lowered the wards so he could lean into the room enough to see into that blind spot. Young Gwendolyn dove down on him, her knife in hand thrusting into his blotchy off colored flesh. She screamed in Caesar's tongue, the language her people reserve for wisemen, and warmakers.

“ Sic semper tyrannis! ”

The blade promptly broke on his skin and the girl flopped the floor indignantly.

The Jailor growled as he stomped forward.

“ GRRRRR! ”

Ellowyn again lept to the grate on the wall between her cell and Gwendolyn’s. She hissed into the Uther’s mind as she did so.

“ Do not Forget your word Uther. ”

As the Jailor grabbed Gwendolyn by her throat, his back was to the grate. Ellowyn commanded the symbiote that replaced her heart to flood her bloodstream with an alien form of adrenaline very nearly to the point of overdose. The elfs thin arms bulged with a strength not her own, and ripped the grate off the wall dropping it to the floor with a thudd.

As the hulking monster turned to her Gwendolyn raised her injured hand, and called her now unchained magic to her summoning an orb of the deepest cold. She then tossed it at the back of his head, splitting his flesh, and letting loose a line of off colored blood.

"ORB OF COLD, YOU DOG! "

The best roared.

“ NONE OF YOU WILL BE FREE! I WILL GIVE YOU ALL TO THE MASTERS IN PIECES! ”

Ellowyn smiled a rye smile. Then placed her hand through the hole into the now unwarded cell.

“ Cold magic, how quaint. ”

She then turned her thoughts into a flame so pure and intense as to rivil dragon's breath. Half the room erupted in fire, and the smell of the Jailors cooking flesh filled the cells. An alarm begins to sound and Uther still hanging from his chains speaks to me directly.

“ Well ZAM, are you going to just float there? Those women are going to die! I am going to die on some bio-wizards table. They will find you inside me while they hunt for whatever the Forge left behind, unless you finally DO SOMETHING YOU OLD GHOST! ”

I shutter to my core as he speaks, remembering the way of my people to remain a neutral force in this universe. Uther either hears my thoughts or knows me well enough to guess.

“ What did doing nothing get your kind ZAM? Your world ground to dust, the star that warmed it crystalized, segmented and used as fuel for more slaughter! You are the last of your kind! Will you let this be your end? Our end? ”

As Uther spoke to me, the Jailor raised some magic to guard himself against heat and flame, even those as intense as Ellowyn could produce, and grabbed her by the hand she extended into the cell. Before he could crush it the beetle-like symbiote on the back of her hand emitted an electrical shock enough to give the beast pause. She screamed.

“ Uther you old bastard! You will not leave me to this animal you oathbreaker! ”

The dwarf hung there from his wrists, looking at me in silence, and I did what is against the nature of my kind, I intervened. His chains unlock and he falls to the floor. His axe once again in his hand with a flash of faded cosmic power. What skill he has learned from our union in the art of magics of mind and energy he called to gird himself for battle.

He walks into Gwendolyn’s cell and Ellowyn’s renewed onslaught of psionic flame. He drank in the flame and funneled it into his axe making devastating blow after devastating blow all the worse for the added damage. Whatever magic that protected the Jailor for the moment from that fire lost or overwhelmed. When Uther joined the fray, the Jailor was quickly brought to his end, his head falling to the floor with a wet thudd.

The door to the cell block slid open as he died, and more guards summoned by the alarms began to flood into the cell block. With a flicker of Ellowyn’s will they all met with a wall of superheated flame. The burster spoke in a calm clear voice as if in casual conversation.

“ I am ready for the rest of your plan Uther. ”

He looked back at me, and I scowled at him as I spoke in a way the other two would never hear.

“ I am an unknown factor to the magics that contain us Uther, not a god. I can’t breach the walls of this place. ”

He turns to the others.

“ We need a hole in the outer hull, he can’t get out on his own! ”

That is not what I meant, but Uther begins hacking at the wall of the cell, and technically yes it was attached to the outer bulkhead of this vessel.

Ellowyn rolled her eyes.

“ You have got to be kidding me. ”

Something in the hall began to groan as it was forced by its masters to push it way past the elf’s psychokinetic flames. She then held up both her hands and sent a torrent of flame and electricity at the wall regardless of if it hit Uther or not. To the dwarfs credit he did manage to channel most of it. Poor Gwendolyn opened her mouth to speak in confusion at the actions of the two newcomers to her cell, but after looking down at the corps to the Jailor, then added her cold spell to the barrage aimed at the outer wall without a word.

When the bulkhead finally gave way wind and the naked sky began rushing in, along with it a power beyond any I have seen. I speak those words having seen worlds vanish from the heavens. The ship was in flight far above a bizarre world whose name I did not know. With the wall breached, the wards non-functional, Uther looked back at me. Without knowing exactly what was beneath them, I bent space and pulled us all away from the Splugorthian slave ship.

Next: “ Nowhere to go but down. ”

I believe your description in Chapter 1 of the Jailor's staff should read "oversized worm eye floating in a clear sphere on top" or "oversized worm floating in a clear sphere cylindrical housing on top"

It's a staff of pacification from the cover of Atlantis.