Minutes, hours, days.. damn, how long had he been out? Felt like it had been a long time, but then, a poison would do that to you. Lucky guess that it wasnt a very strong one, at best a stunning poison, the kind that dropped you instantly in battle. Yes, he had resisted it, but the fact that it had affected him at all, or that he had felt more than minor pain all this time bothered him. His seals probably were fading, a bad sign. At best he wouldn't be able to retrace them for a week, not at the rate his life had turned lately. These women were more trouble than they were worth, but gold was gold. Still, he stood a better chance making earnings playing a harp back at Dragon Way, if things kept up like this. First chance he got, Lucius intended to collect his pay and leave this city; quite an invitation to it, shot full of arrows, nearly killed, all on the first day none the less.
At this point, all of that hardly mattered. First things first, figuring out just exactly where he had gone off to die. Vaguely framiliar, but his eyes were still a bit blurred. It took a few minutes before he could adjust to the light, which he found odd in a cellar. Hmph, the light.. the blasted door was broken open. Something about that seemed odd, but it didnt quite click in, so he moved on. What a dusty floor.. it appeared as if no one had been down here for years, save what he took for his companions foot prints. Strange that one set should come from deeper into the cellar, but it didnt matter much - probably safer refuge back there. Thinking of his companions made him realize he hadnt seen anyone, safe the women, before he blacked out. Waylander had shouted something towards him, but he shrugged it off and took it for nothing. He could deal with it, whatever it was. He wondered where they had all run off to; there was hardly enough room down in this cellar, as he later realized, for them to be hiding in the shadows. It was hard to adjust his eyes, but he thought he saw another door, bolted, near the back, where a trail of foot prints had led. How would any of them have gotten through that, though.. strangely, he noticed, there were two large lumps of cleared floor, like something had hit them. And one set of foot prints leading to the.. broken doors.. Lucius let his head fall onto the wall behind him; his pay was stolen from him. It would happen like that, just to inconvience him more, that was the sort of luck he had. Unarmed he would do no good chasing after them, and he had no idea where the others had gone off to in the first place. But if he at least located them, he could go back.. life could be rediciously annoying, at times.
He rose, walked out of the cellar, and forgetting himself, took the noon sun full blown after just rising out of a cellar. Merely stunned him, but his eyes now burned again, but quickly subsided. Thankfully, whoever had taken the women had made no attempt to cover his tracks; there were obvious markings everywhere that someone was moving at a rapid speed away from this point, and it didnt seem that these alleys were frequented often. He could be wrong, but he didn't exactly have a better lead. Lucius decided to follow his instinct and just go, before matters got worse.
Not long after he had begun tracing the tracks, he realized there would be no returning the way he came; the tracks zigzagged around the city so much that he doubted he would have any coherence of his direction at all by the time he caught up. After what Lucius estimated to be a half an hour, based on the suns position in the sky, he noticed a pair of boots to the side of the alley. Coicedently, they appeared to be the same ones Rilina had worn earlier. Well, assuming he saw her again, she might want them; he took them and placed them inside his cloak somewhere so as to avoid strange looks should anyone pass him.(No, I dont know either. Imaginations, people.)
Laughter filled the air here, so he doubted he was very far. He hadn't noticed it at first, probably thinking too deeply. Good thing he stopped that; if someone came up behind him and he wasn't paying attention.. bad results. The laughter though struck him as odd; it wasn't exactly human, and the screechs he occasionaly heard were far from it. Worth investigation, but at a later date. The tracks he followed seemed to slow down ahead, so he must have been close. A few alleys down, still in a zig zagging pattern, and he felt closer to the laughter he had heard earlier. The tracks led to a door, which stood ajar and let no light out into the street; probably where he would find the two women. Still a little dazed from the poison, possibly now from the lack of good food and drink, he very nearly walked straight into the room. Luckily he managed to catch this action, and stand aside the door. It seemed a converstaion was going on; toys, payment, a cure.. nothing important. Except the ever so framiliar shriek, which he connected to Rilina. Tracked them down, anyway. And from the sounds of things, only two other people aside were inside. Judgement could wait later; he walked in, already a plan in mind.
Very plainly, very calmly, he stepped into the room, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about it. Of course it attracted stares from the two men, one of which seemed mildly dangerous, but definately not a body guard. Good guess; he would be fine. "After noon." He spoke. Lucius wondered a second before he spoke again, then decided on the plan he would follow. "I see you have a few things that belong to me. I don't particularly like having things stolen from me, you know. These two owe quite a debt to me, and I'd hate to lose that money to something like you. Besides, we wouldn't want the guards to know about your theft, would we?"
The way Lucius walked implied he had means of countering any attempt the fool made at an assault. Fear cracked him instantly, and a few apologies later he was offering hospitality to his new friend and guest at the 'estate'. Such a crummy place could hardly be called an estate, and Lucius intended to stay here no longer than necessary. To seal the sucess for himself, he stepped aside as the fool kidnapper dry washed his hands and spoke to the other man.
"No idea why you're here, or what relation you have to this man, but he's using you. From what I can assess, he lied to you about the knowledge he gave. I'll help you out later if you make sure this one doesn't do anything rash."
Too easily had he put fear into the heart of this kidnapper, and hopefully this other man would realize he was being cheated and assist Lucius. All that could be hoped for, anyway.
The two women lay very still on the bed. Both lay on their stomachs, and Rilina's bare soles were closest to him. Something about her seemed to give away that she was awake, but the other, Rachel he thought her name was, made no movements. He was still angry that his coin was missing, and here before him lay the thief. It was tempting, but he assumed that she had gone through too much already. Lucius moved across the room and undid the restraints around her, reached for her boots in his cloak, and thrust them to her. As for the other one, he still wondered if she was ticklish or not, so rather than untie her, he waited for her to wake.
(Yea, I fell asleep in the middle of this.. got long, etc. etc. Sorry for ruining your fun tukano, but yea.)