Looking for a friend, any friend (Open to anyone willing to join)

[Unlucky]

Sylvia looked at Gabriel and smiled. It was the first smile that had met her face since... Actually, she couldn't remember when the last time she had smiled was. It was not a big smile, but it was a smile, nonetheless. She was happy because she found someone who wouldn't run away from her despite her curse.

Suddenly reality sunk in and the smile slipped from her face. If he came with, chances were good that the same thing that she wanted to happen to the guard would happen to her. Everyone she had ever liked had fallen victem to the curse. She had sworn to herself that she would never become even the slightest bit interested in anyone again to avoid losing a friend, after all, She couldn't lose what she didn't have.

Damn it, why did this man have to show up anyway? She knew she couldn't persuade him to change his mind, but she wanted to try one last time.

"You sure you want to come?" She asked, extremely confused about his valor.

At this moment, Sylvia's mind was swimming with every single emotion possible. She was angry at the guard who she had to escort, happy she had found a stubborn friend, depressed and somewhat scared about what she thought Gabriel's fate was...

Because of all the emotions flowing through her mind, Sylvia didn't realize until it was too late that the guard overheard her question. The guard turned to face her.

"And Jus' what you mean by that, Missy? You got something you want to tell me?"

Sylvia had to think for a bit before coming up with a decent enough lie.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure I can get him there on my own, so if you don't want to come you don't have to Gabriel." She said, turning her head to wink at him, so he knew she was only saying this to appease the guard's curiousity.

Suddenly a water main broke in the town and sprayed water at a man who seemed to have gone unconscious from having a wall fall on him.

Sorry, Dehkan. Couldn't think of a more creative way to wake you back up.

[Ladies' Man]

Gabriel smiled broadly at the elf’s subtle wink. It had been a long time since he’d been able to play schoolyard games with girls. Why was it that females had such a knack for drama? Boys were always just running around with sticks and punching each other in the face, but girls were devious and clever and seemed to only make friends so that they would later have someone to stab in the back. Gabriel wasn't ashamed to admit that he'd had his fair share of roles in such pieces. Who wouldn’t be honored to be involved in their deliciously catty intrigue? He had fond memories of necking with multiple girls in a single afternoon over the course of dissolving heated love triangles that usually left Gabriel with a new girlfriend and a bloody nose.

“Good sir,” Gabriel admonished, stepping past the elf to approach the guard with a wagging finger. “One of your obvious societal influence ought to have more respect for such a remarkable young woman. It’s not every day you find people kind enough to escort inebriated men like yourself around the barren countryside.”

The guard opened his mouth, looking like he was about to spit on the dark-haired noble in reply, but Gabriel’s precautionary step backwards turned into a clumsy stumble as his ankle caught against something soft and furry that yelped as it dodged his heavy fall to the muddy ground. A mangy black dog charged past him, accompanied by a small white canine whose angry glare marked him as Gabriel's stumbling block. A long hairy tail slapped against his face as another dog raced past him, saliva flying from its mouth to hit him in the eye.

If the day hadn’t already seemed like something out of a dream, Gabriel might have been bothered—or at least surprised— by the furry mutts that darted past him. So a pack of city curs was escaping the soon-to-be ruins of their hometown and just happened to come along when they would cause the most annoyance. Why not?

The guard aimed a vicious kick at one of the passing animals and was promptly swept off his feet when an apparently blind dog ran into his other leg. The guard took a moment to groan piteously before he even attempted to try to rise, but Gabriel’s attention was distracted when tiny jolts of sharp pain began to pop up in seemingly random spots about his person. He looked down and saw that the ground he was sitting on was alive and wriggling and was actually a writhing mass of half-inch long ants who weren’t very happy with the fact that his rear end had squashed their hill.

A short and frantic dance later, Gabriel went to the elf and spoke in a low voice, jumping occasionally as new companions sporadically made themselves known to him.

“Maybe we should get going.”

He wasn’t going to leave her before she’d accomplished her mission, but it wouldn’t hurt at all if the conclusion to this partnership- no matter how beautiful the partner- came sooner rather than later.

[Unlucky]

Sorry again, Dehkan. Couldn't wait any longer. Actually what probably happened is I didn't recognize the fact that you were writing yourself out, but, whatever.

Sylvia nodded, the whole town was falling apart little by little. It wasn't due to anything big, really. It was actually all the small things piling up. Imagine you are having to gather a bunch of papers from everyone at a theater. All those papers are so lightweight, they are easy to carry. Problem is, eventually even a stack of papers starts becoming heavy if there are enough in that stack. That is what was happening to this town, all the bad luck was not really enough to wreck this town, but they were beginning to stack up. This had to be the longest amount of time she had ever spent in a town. she was surprised nothing too bad had happened yet. At least nothing too bad other than the elephants which she thought was a bit over the top, even for her curse.

"Yeah, don't want to stay too long or the guard might miss his deadline." Sylvia said. The group hadn't walked far before arrows started raining down on them.

"Archers. huh? These bandits sure do know how to show a man a bad time." The guard said, running towards them.

"Fuck. I have no clue what he's doing, but athis range, he's working off his own luck, and seeing how he is a guard, I'm pretty sure that means we'll have to continue escorting him." Sylvia said to Gabriel.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, the man came back with a smile on his face.

"Well, I don't think they'll be bothering us anymore."

[Ladies' Man]

“His deadline?” Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. The city behind them was falling apart and she was worried about the man’s deadline? He held his tongue and followed in the short female’s wake, trying to focus on staying upright when every bump in the road, flying insect seemed intent on putting him down. He didn’t even know her name, but his wariness of her curse held him back from asking. He wasn’t scared of her, per se, but with misfortune’s girlfriend as a companion it seemed wiser to remain as distant from the misfortune as possible.

His head was throbbing worse than it had in a very long time, but then again it’d been a very long since he’d been completely sober. The pain wasn’t all bad; it was certainly helping him to reconsider the wisdom of his ale-soaked lifestyle. He still only had two of his father’s daggers after months of being away from home. At this rate, he’d be old enough to give them to his grandchildren by the time he found them, assuming he found the time to have kids somewhere along this pathetic journey.

Gabriel’s next step landed above a gopher tunnel that decided to cave in seconds before his boot hit the ground and Gabriel went down, his ankle twisting with a gentle popping noise that went unheard beneath the twang of the simultaneous release of several longbows. The dark-haired man sucked air between his teeth, trying to ignore the pain in his ankle as his head swiveled in search of the assailants. They hadn’t bothered to hide very well. There were about four men crouching behind a single stack of bales of hay, the two closest to the road staring down with undisguised dismay at the snapped strings of their bows.

“Get down!” he ordered as the other two shot again, their arrows arching into the sky and heading with uncanny precision towards the trio on the road. The semi-drunk guard turned towards the archers with glassy-eyed enthusiasm, garbling some kind of challenge before he drew his broken dagger and sword and raced towards the hiding men.

“Wait!” Gabriel hesitantly tried to stand, grimacing in pain when putting weight on his twisted ankle resulted in a paralyzing burst of agony. He watched the guard zigzag towards the shabbily-dressed attackers, screaming with rage and bloodlust as he made his way across the cut field. The silver-eyed man gritted his teeth in frustration and embarrassment. Here he was, sitting on his butt and watching the action like a frightened child while a drunken idiot did the man’s work. Of course he’d mess up his leg right when it was most needed . . .

His eyes narrowed as he looked accusingly at the elf, remembering with chagrin that he had agreed to help her escort the man. Not that he seemed to need much escorting. Gabriel rubbed at his swelling ankle, watching sullenly as the four would-be criminals dropped their weapons and fled at the guard’s crazy approach. The blond moron raced after them, swinging his dagger at the backs of their heads as they bolted across the field, finally splitting up and heading off in different directions to leave the old dummy alone and confused, head swinging from side to side as he took too long to decide which one to chase. He came swaggering back more slowly, moving with almost leisurely ease as he rejoined them.
By the time he returned, grinning self-importantly and cracking his scabbard as he tried to sheathe his weapon, Gabriel had managed to push himself to his feet, putting all his weight on his good side and tried to maintain his dignity as he hopped after the other two like a really stupid crane. The ankle wasn’t broken, at least, and usually he was able to recover from slight injuries fairly quickly. On the bright side, they hadn’t gotten hit by any arrows, and at least no mythological monsters had risen from the ground to eat them alive yet. The guard’s destination couldn’t be too far away, and when they got to the next town he could find a doctor or a healer or a barmaid with a friendly bosom. All he could do now was to stay alert, keep hopping, and pray that his good luck held out against her bad.

"So, uh, this town . . ." he began casually. "It's not far, right?"

[Unlucky]

Sylvia was afraid to answer the question. She didn't want to tell him the truth, but she didn't want to lie to him either. No matter what she said, it didn't change the fact that her comrade was likely going to be injured even more. She was promptly saved from having to answer the question when the guard grabbed her forcibly by the arm, as if she did something wrrong.

"C'mon l'il girly. Let's go. There is no time to loiter around. Let's make tracks. Now lead!" The guard yelled pushing Sylvia forward.

Sylvia couldn't believe how rude this guy was. It was as if he was was made a guard because nobody else wanted the job.

"My name is Sylvia, not Girly, and I would prefer if you called me by my name. Also, I even if we ran, it would still take at least seven minutes to get there. I doubt we will reach your destination in time anyway!" Sylvia yelled in frustration, soon realizing she just answered Gabriel's question, she became a bit angry with herself as well.

Directing all this excess anger at the guard, she kicked him in the kneecap.

"You have done nothing but bully me every single step of the way. Why should I help you! You are a bad man!"

As if to agree with Sylvia, a nearby tree fell on the guard's head.

Getting really angry himself, the guard recovered from the dizziness of being hit on the head. (His helmet protected him from most of the damage the tree caused)

"If you don't, I'll have you arrested for attacking me, and if I get fired for being late, Your friend, there, dies." The guard yelled back after a bit.

[Ladies' Man]

((Please forgive the extended delay.))

“Hey, now, come on,” Gabriel cooed, letting out a small laugh and holding his hands up defensively as if he took the cross-eyed guard’s threat seriously, even though his sword—scabbard and all—had just managed to snap a few inches above the hilt sometime during the course of his fall. His weapon wasn’t a worry, but Gabriel didn’t trust the man’s volatile temper. He had just been hit in the head with a tree; there was no need to add insult to injury.

Seven minutes. Could they make it if they ran? It would be easier to just drop the man off where he wanted to go rather than having to fight him, especially with Sylvia’s gift making his fighting skills practically worthless. His arm was still bleeding, anyway, and who knew what the girl’s bad luck would do if he was already injured.

The blond man looked blearily down and saw the sad state of his weapon, growling aloud before he tossed it to the side of a road. "Let’s go!"

Gabriel ducked when the hilt of the guard’s sword knocked off the stump of the recently fallen tree and flew back at his head. His dodge made the rainwater that had collected in his backpack slosh voraciously, reminding him of the slopping pails of cheap ale that he’d so enjoyed in Knife’s Edge. He hadn’t even known they’d serve liquor in that big of containers. His throat felt even drier than it had before and he longed for a cold drink, a cup of dark brew that not even the elf’s bad magic could taint. The situation would have been so much more tolerable if he were inebriated.

“Let’s not be hyperbolic,” Gabriel said, setting a good example for the guard by setting off briskly down the road. "We'll get there soon and all of this will just be a bad memory." He hoped. He was careful not to turn his back on the guard as he went and managed to trip on only one of the wild hares that darted across the road in front of them as they went on. He flashed a reassuring smile at Sylvia, firmly pushing away the urge to break into a run.

[Unlucky]

Sylvia nervously continued to lead the guard toward his destination, there was no backing down now. It decided start hailing, but Sylvia was used to getting hurt do to her curse, and the guard's armor protected him from it. She worried about her new friend, since he looked to be in bad shape, but thought it best that she not slow down for his sake. It would likely be better for his health if he didn't keep up anyway.

Next came probably the weirdest case of luck ever. It had absolutely no logical explanation whatsoever. Random heavy objects began to rain down from the sky, , and among them was a house, which nearly landed on the guard's head. Sylvia heard the guard mutter something about how a tornado must have caused it before continuing onward and getting hit in the head as a ladder fell on him.

Finally, the town was in sight, but only for a split second. A gigantic sandworm popped out of the ground and started towards the group at a high speed. This could be a problem, and sylvia began to run away crying. She didn't care about the guard, but Gabrial was in bad shape, and she doubted he'd be able to combat the worm. She was going to lose another person she cared for.

A loud crash came from behind her as she ran. looking back only out of morbid curiousity, she saw that fate had dealt Gabriel a good hand, because the sandworm, which was now just feet from Gabriel was thwarted by a house that fell directly on top of it. The guard wasn't in her line of sight, but Sylvia soon found out he was still alive as he grabbed her by the wrist and started to drag her back to the path.

"You trying to ditch me?"

[Ladies' Man]

There was a thin line between the unusual and the impossible, and Gabriel was starting to get the idea that this elf’s bad luck had crossed it. Giant sandworms popping out of the ground with malevolent plans for approaching travelers was odd but certainly not unfeasible, but full-sized houses falling out of a cloudy sky—complete with shocked housecats that darted out of the door with earsplitting shrieks as their abode crashed into the head of such a behemoth-- bordered on the drug-induced hallucination side. He hadn’t even had time to recover from the shock of the slimy monster before it’d been squashed like a snail between boulders, splattering all manner of pink goop over the unfortunate trio on the road.

Gabriel wiped something sticky off his cheek and turned after Sylvia in time to see the blond guard roughly dragging her towards him, his jaw clenched in stubborn anger even though his eyes were wide with fear. His grip on her wrist was tight, but at the same time Gabriel could tell that he would rather have been hanging onto the tail of an angry dragon.

“Sir, the lady has said on multiple occasions that she would accompany you to the town,” Gabriel said in exasperation. He looked pointedly behind him, then did a theatrical double-take and whirled to point at the walls of the city as if it were the shrine of a hallowed saint. “Hey, now, would you look at that? Remember that city you wanted her to take you to? There it is!”

“Shut up,” the guard snarled at Gabriel as he brushed past him with the diminutive elf in tow. He had several unsightly lumps growing in various locations across the surface of his head, but he moved determinedly enough to dissuade Gabriel from trying to reason with him. He instead pushed his way between Sylvia and the guard and pried the man’s fingers off her wrist as they went forward, meeting his glare with a stern look of his own when the guard turned to glower at his efforts. Seeing that Gabriel wasn’t breaking her free to make a run for it, the man allowed himself to be elbowed aside and devoted his full attention to walking safely towards the town.

“Don’t worry,” Gabriel said, stepping quickly out of the way as the wind threw shingles from the roof of the incongruous house in the middle of the street. “We’ll be there soon.”

He kept his gaze on the growing walls of the city, watching out for potential hazards out of the corners of his eyes as they gradually reached the town.

[Unlucky]

Surprisingly, the rest of the walk to the town went without any problems, whatsoever. It almost seemed like Sylvia's luck had changed, but she knew better than to believe she would be that fortunate.

Sadly, when the group arrived at the town, It was easy to tell how wrong she was. As soon as they arrived she noticed that the far end of the town was in shambles. It also appeared that everyone in the town was either staring at her or hiding.

"You are late, Gunther! Hurry up and get in here!" A guard yelled at the Guard Sylvia escorted. As he started to turn around this new guard suddenly noticed Sylvia and spoke up again.

"Gunther, let me fill you in on what you missed. A while back that witch you came here with destroyed part of this town last time she was here. It seems she enjoys killing others and destroying towns to no end, because we have heard from other towns about the wench too." The guard explained.

The guard sylvia had escorted thought this through a bit, then finally pointed straight at Sylvia. "KILL HER!!! i want that witch and her friend dead! They both tried to kill me with thier magic on the way here!" The escorted guard yelled out.

Within seconds Sylvia and Gabrial were surrounded by 10 guards.

"Gabriel has nothing to do with this. Let him go free. I'll take whatever punishment is coming my way, but let him go free, please." Sylvia asked of the guards. Unfortunately for everyone, the guards decided not to listen to her. Sylvia found herself being attacked eing attacked by the guards in an attempt to end her life. Sadly, sylvia wasn't to be so lucky today. The huge stones of the city gate fell on four of the guards, killing them This also gave Sylvia an escape route from the guards. This was not good luck, of course, because it made her a murderer and a wanted criminal in the town's eyes. No, this was far from good luck. It was her curse refusing her death, the easy way out of her constant bad luck.

With four more guards, Sylvia ran as fast as she could and as far away from the town as she could. She had no place in particular she was going, She just needed to get away. Besides, Gabriel had a better chance of surviving the two that stayed behind without her bad luck around.

As she continued to run away, she heard the guards behind her stop dead. Looking behind herself, she saw that the armor they wore was forcing them to give up the chase. Quickly, Sylvia ran into a forest hoping to escape humanity for good. She knew now that while she really wanted a friend, she would be better off without one. With any luck her only friend, Gabriel would survive and manage to live a long life. With any luck, she would never see him again, for if she did see him again, her bad luck would once again threaten his life. It was a sad state of affairs, but the best thing sylvia could do for Gabrial was never go anywhere near him again.

'Please live, Gabriel' were her final thought as she cried herself to sleep, lost in a forest because of her unlucky life.

This is my final post in this thread. So as soon as you post, please turn in this quest.

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Note to the judge:
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I have a weird spoils request, but hear me out. I want you to subtract 200 gold from the amount I'd earn for this quest, even if it means I get negative gold. the reason is simple. I wanted Sylvia to start with 0 gold, but the person who approved her told me to just treat it as if she had 0 gold. The gold piece situation might get confusing in the long run, so I am asking we fix it right here by taking my earnings for this quest and subtracting the starting gold from that. So please grant me my oddball request. thank you.

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one last note
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If any of this stuff seemed like powergaming, I'm sorry about getting carried away, and although it doesn't excuse my getting carried away with Sylvia's bad luck, here is one way to think of it: I can guarantee some of the stuff would have happened whether Sylvia was around or not. The tornado tossing the house for example was NOT her curse's doing. If her curse was that strong, the house would have likely landed on the guard or on Gabrial

[Ladies' Man]

The iron gates of the city might have been the pearly gates of heaven, Gabriel was so joyfully relieved to be walking through them. He could feel tension draining out of his shoulders like hot oil. It was a beautiful town, complete with cobbled streets, a blissfully bubbling fountain, and a crowd of smiling townspeople to welcome them to their cozy settlement.

Don't you wish.

Gabriel rubbed his eyes and forced himself to look again. The smiling crowd, he saw with a sinking feeling, was actually an angry mob of dust-covered demolition survivors who were baring their teeth at the trio as they came in. He saw small children's eyes widen at the sight of the elf beside him before they ran away screaming in fear. Not one person spoke, and the only sound to accompany their less-than-joyous arrival was the gurgle of the blissfully uncaring fountain and the crunch of their boots on the ground. Gabriel's eyes slid to the guard at his side and saw the man's adam apple bob nervously.

An angry male voice suddenly broke the silence, high-pitched and whiny and coming so close to Gabriel's ear that he jumped away. Gunther? What kind of a name was Gunther? The lumpy-headed guard spoke from Gabriel's side, and the noble's son felt his blood heat with fury. It was an unfortunate name for an imminently even more unfortunate man, because Gabriel decided that he was going to personally end the life of the cowardly traitor. Had he forced Sylvia to guide him here as a guise to bring her to her doom? The lowlife!

The crowd was speaking now, murmuring amongst itself like an angry flock of crows. Arms flailed as people pointed, glares burned from the hundred-eyed monster that was the Angry Mob. Gabriel let Gunther step away, giving the man a dirty look as the tattered Judas stepped back to join the gaggle of guards who jogged up to surround them. Gabriel eyed the assailants with steely appraisal, noting the crusted food stains and the pooching paunches that decorated their tabards. Not a one looked as if he knew more about the sword in his hand than which end was sharp. Gabriel’s lip flickered in the hint of a smile as he reached for the daggers on his belt—

But Sylvia spoke up from beside him, her plaintive voice like the song of a nightingale on the eve of a coup d'état. Gabriel felt a stab of pity at the naivety of the elf’s request, but the sentiment did nothing to slow him down when the guards ignored her words and rushed forward. He threw his first dagger before he started moving, and the other followed soon after, one embedding itself in the shoulder of a guard in front of Sylvia and the other sinking deep into the thigh of one on his right who had been moving forward with enough eagerness to make up for the hesitance of the rest of his squad.

“Get behind me!” he barked at Sylvia, stepping in front of her as he reached over his shoulder to draw Grace from her sheath beneath his shirt. It was a stupid request, really, made more out of the gentlemanly principle of the matter than any real belief that being behind him was safer than being in front. They were surrounded, after all.

The two injured guards were slowed by the unenchanted blades, but eight more were coming. Apparently, they’d never been trained to attack as a team, for they seemed to be almost as afraid of each others’ flailing weapons as they were of Gabriel. He counted his blessings and spun around Sylvia like a whirlwind, grey eyes flitting constantly as he darted from opponent to opponent, throwing kicks and punches and swiping his daggers at anyone who got close enough to hit. At one point he realized that he’d dropped into a crouch to retrieve Truth from his ankle sheath, but he only noted this absently, as a bandit might (in different circumstances) observe that the wheels of the his getaway carriage had been oiled and were no longer squeaking. He wasn’t trying to kill anyone, though, and since a cut across the face or a stab to a limb really only helped keep them away from the elf for a moment, Gabriel knew he needed a more long-term plan. Could he try to distract them and give Sylvia a chance to run? What if he put down his weapons and attempted intelligent discussion with them?

A grumbling from on high put the fight and his planning on hold. Gabriel paused, mid-punch, and turned his face upwards with the guards as the huge stones that comprised the wall around the gate came shuddering to life. Or rather, to death; for they fell with uncanny precision directly onto the unfriendly gathering of men below. The thundering of the stone was enough to make vibrations pound through Gabriel’s skull, but the man he’d aimed his last punch at had something less survivable pounding through his skull in the next moment, and Gabriel saw his unfortunate demise for the stroke of luck that it was.

“Run, Sylvia!” he shouted, pushing her towards the crumbling gate and taking off after her. He made it almost through the gates when his luck failed him. A fist-sized chunk of rock came down heavily onto his head, and he watched through fading eyes as the elf's lithe form darted out of his life.

__________

Consciousness came suddenly, and with it the sharp bite of the untended wound on the back of his head. He was lying face-down, his nose pressed against cloth that smelled of urine and ages of sweat. It was almost rank enough to make him pass out again, but with a sheer burst of will he forced himself to sit up, stifling a groan at the swinging sensation that accosted his head at the movement.

“Hey, ‘e’s awake!” somebody hollered in a voice that made him wince. Gabriel lifted a hand to tentatively touch the back of his head, grimacing at the congealed blood that was caked in his hair. He was lying on a nasty little blanket in the corner of a five-foot square of grey floorage that was surrounded on three sides by scuffed grey stone. The fourth side of the enclosure had rough iron bars stapled across it in four-inch intervals. Through the grille he could see another grille, and an identical room to his own behind it.

“Oi, did you hear me?” Somebody bawled again. “The magic boy’s awake! Get the wizards down ‘ere afore he turns me into a piece of pie or sommet!”

Gabriel rolled slowly into a seated position, checking his quartet of sheaths even though he knew they were empty. His head still felt as if it were punishing him for the worst (or best?) night of drinking of his life, but he was lucid enough to realize that he was in a boatload of trouble.

“Can I have some water?” he croaked loudly. Silence met his request, and then shuffling steps preceded the arrival of a hunch-backed man with stringy blonde hair and a mean grin.

“You want some water, magic boy? You gonna use it to cast a spell on me?” He was sneering, but his eyes were still tinged with fear.

“I’m not a magician,” Gabriel said peacably. “I was just traveling with . . . a very interesting young woman.”

“Ha, yeah, that’s right,” his jailkeeper agreed. “Your little witch-bitch. Well, she got away, so she did, but I do assure you mightily that you won’t be so lucky. We haven’t had a break-out in twenty years, no sir, not since old Jenkin came to work here. Not a one. So don’t you be trying your magic on me, y’hear?” He shook a dirty finger at Gabriel’s face and glared at him sternly. “You’ll be going on trial soon for witchcraft, yeah. No doubts there. Four days, you have. That’s all. So you better start praying to your dark heathen gods, yeah, ‘cos they’re the only ones who’re going to be able to help you now.”

Gabriel sighed. “If I were a magician,” he said patiently, “by telling me your name you’d have just given me power over your soul. But since I’m not—”

Jenkin seemed to miss the last part. His eyes widened and he stumbled back with a gasp. “You’ll not have my soul, magic boy! Oi! Kann! Get that damned wizard or it’ll be your ass!”

The man stumbled away and Gabriel sighed softly, leaning sideways to rest his head against the stone wall. Prison. Jail. The slammer. This was where trying to be nice had gotten him, into the poky with a superstitious old man as his warden. The idiot Gunther was still alive, unless the Lord had been good enough to send a toppling chunk of wall his way, and now he didn’t have his knives or his bag or a clue as to what he ought to do now. But Sylvia had escaped, the old jailer said. He smiled slightly at the thought. He’d saved a pretty girl’s life, so the day wasn’t a complete waste.

“Oi! Where’s my bloody wizard?”

He wanted a drink. He wanted to get away from this bogey little town, too, but he had the feeling that it wasn’t going to be half as easy as getting here had been. The situation was lean, but at least he was alive. That was always something to be grateful for, right? What was the punishment for black magic in backwards little towns like these anyway? Surely getting burned alive had been outlawed eons ago . . .

You just have to worry about staying alive, he told himself, pushing aside all the other unpleasant prospects for his future. His eyes drifted shut on a wave of blood loss-induced weakness, and his last thought as he bled himself to sleep in the dank and smelly corner of his jail cell was, Stay alive, Gabriel. Please just live.

((No spoils. Gabriel’s story to be continued in an upcoming thread.))