[Aylwen Dreamsong]

Jadae bit her lip and winced a little as Arethin pulled out the metal spearhead. Before she could open her mouth to say something, the man already applied some sort of mixture to the wound. After he finished wrapping the wound, Arethin turned to Jadae and asked if it was better. Jadae couldn’t help but grin at this, for Arethin’s voice had changed to a dull squeak as he regained his breath.

“More so than having it in. I never thought I’d actually have to tolerate metal being in my body, I always thought having my hand clumsily burned with silver would be the worst. Thank you, Arethin. Anyway, are you all right? You took quite a hit!” Jadae’s gaze flew from Arethin’s face to the lulling log above.

“I think I may have broken something, and I fear there shall be quite a bruise there soon. ‘Tis a bit hard to breathe, but it does not ache much,” Arethin informed her, and Jadae nodded, biting her lip again.

“It's like my father used to say, 'It's not how many breaths you take during life, it's how many times something takes your breath away. This is definitely one of those times. Let me see, there may be something I can do.” Jadae ordered gently. Arethin nodded, and pulled his tunic over his head and held it. Jadae flinched and looked away when she saw the wound the log had caused, but gritted her teeth and resolved to tell the man.

“It must look a lot worse than it feels, eh?” Jadae commented, though didn’t quite expect an answer. The man’s stomach was already turning a sickeningly yellow color, and red scrapes were surrounded by a purple-blue color. Arethin’s left side was horribly crooked, and Jadae was sure of a cracked rib or two. “I’m not sure if I can do much. Maybe put some of that…that stuff onto the cuts. We’ll see a doctor when we get back to Dale about those ribs.”

“That is, if we get out of here.” Arethin commented as he put his tunic back on. “We should go, and carefully. Wouldn’t want to set off anymore traps.”

“This place is absolutely rigged with traps, it’ll be impossible or nearly so to tell where any are. But we should still go. We can’t stay here forever, as much as I’d like to.” Jadae sighed and turned to one of the shelves. She’d already taken a few parchments of equations and writings and such from the smithy, but before she went to help Arethin find a way out, she grabbed a small dragon figurine and stuffed it into her messy pack.

The two searched every nook and cranny for a decent way out of the smithy, but could only identify two, and they weren’t exactly very dignified. One was the way they’d come in, through the ducts. Arethin was not very willing to leave that way, but the other exit was not much better. There was a small shaft leading both straight up and down through a tunnel. There was a cart with a rope wheeled through several pulleys that would serve to pull something up or down. It was that, or through the ducts. Jadae would’ve gone either way, but Arethin was a bit opposed to the stifling air ducts.

“So, which way do you want to go? We’d have more sense for direction going through the ducts, but the cart would send us to the ground levels, for we are surely below ground now. And the cart would make it easier for you to breathe, and easier than crawling for me.” Jadae was obviously leaning towards the cart, and assumed Arethin was too, but she would’ve gone either way for Arethin.

“Cart. Definitely.”

“Right. Lets go!” Jadae exclaimed as she leapt into the cart. Arethin was a tad slower in following, but the two were ready to go in no time. Looking up the shaft, Jadae mouthed a silent ‘Whoa’, and then grabbed the edge of the cart tightly with her right hand. She noticed Arethin’s look, and retracted the hand quickly. “No, I’m not afraid of heights!” she assured him without being asked.

“Going up, I assume?” Arethin wondered, and Jadae nodded.

“Let me pull us up. When I used to run with my friend, she’d tell me after we ran to put my hands up and behind my neck, so the air goes to the lungs more easily. Try, it might help. I’ll pull us first,” Jadae spoke, though she wasn’t quite entirely sure of her ability to pull both of the humans up. Grasping the thickly wound rope, Jadae began to pull it downwards to bring the cart upwards. Slowly, inch-by-inch, the cart made it’s way up the shaft. Jadae was tired before long, but Arethin, who was not satisfied just sitting and doing nothing, helped the girl pull the two up the shaft.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if the rope snapped?” Jadae wondered aloud, unintentionally doing so.

“Funny isn’t exactly the word I would use. It would be just our luck though.” Arethin replied. “Look! There’s an opening!”

In his excitement, Arethin let go of the rope. An unprepared Jadae accidentally let the rope slip through her fingers, and once they started falling, they didn’t stop until Arethin grasped the rope again. This time, Jadae let go of the rope for a moment, and Arethin let her. She shook her hands through the air, and then blew on them. Her hands were red, and she knew it was all her fault.

“Sorry, rope burn. We’re almost there.” Said Jadae after she had finished blowing on her burning hands. The two pulled themselves up, and set the rope into a hook when they reached an opening. Sending the candle out of the shaft door, the two human’s eyes widened. In front of them was the back of some unknown being, and in front of it, stood Jack and Anuion!

Jadae hastily jumped out of the cart, but had forgotten the sting her wound would bring and she stumbled, almost falling down through a space between the shaft and the wall. Arethin caught her though, and the two got out of the cart again.

“What is that?” Jadae couldn’t help but speak as the violet-eyed…elf…turned to face the newcomers. What in Middle-Earth was an elf doing in the cave? There were not supposed to be living things in the cave!

[ April 07, 2003: Message edited by: Aylwen Dreamsong ]