Escaping the Pit

This morning I had what was obviously supposed to be a World Of Warcraft dream. But it was warped to include a crashlanding in a big multi-engined steel skinned aircraft and decidedly non-WoW magical powers.

After the crash I was captured by Orcs and thrown into a pit with a sword and shield to fight other prisoners to the death. I refused, driving the sword deep into the ground and leaning the crappy shield up over the pommel.

They tosses a dirty and beat up looking Gnome woman in with me. We looked at each other across the pit. She sqeaked out an apology and charged at me. Her sword and shield wobbling all over the place. It was obvious that she'd never used either one.

I stepped out of her way and gave her a gentle push as she whirled past, causing her to tumble ass over teacups on the sandy pit floor. She landed, sobbing on the arena floor. I went to her, kneeled across the sword, pinning it to the ground, eased off her helmet and there was the sweetest face I think I have ever seen, bright large blue eyes, filled with tears and fear, green hair and full pouty lips that quivered in terror. I couldn't help myself, I bent down and kissed her full on the lips. “I am not going to hurt you.”

I picked her up and she clung to me, one arm around my shoulder, the one with the shield, and the other clutching my shirt. There was a murmering from the the crown, I am sure that it looked like a man holding a child to most of the gathered Orcs, and that had to be uncomfortable.

Next in the pit was an obviously undead woman. She had no shield, just a pair of wicked looking knives. She turned and spat something fetid at the feet of the Orc who had pushed her into the pit. He jumped back, causing a ripple of laughter from the crowd. She stepped into the ring, walked over to where my sword and shield were stuck in the ground, looked up at the jeering crowd. Then turned to face us, I was holding the Gnome far back, shielding her with my body.

“They are quite angry that you won't fight, aren't they?”

I looked up at the jeering crowd for the first time. They did indeed look angry, angry enough to charge the rim of the pit. “Yes, yes they are.”

“I, for one, take great delight in seeing them angry.” With that, the undead woman spun around with unhuman speed and thrust both of her daggers into the ground next to my sword and shield. “I don't suppose you have a hug for me?” She held out her skeletal arms.

Although she was certainly repulsive, I didn't hesitate but for a split second, shifting the Gnome to a more balanced position, I opened up my other arm and gathered the slender woman to my chest. He cheek barely rested on my shoulder. “Don't expect me to get all teary eyed. They'll send someone in to finish us off soon enough.”

“I wouldn't bet on that.”

A large red drake swooped up out of the canyon and over the rim of the fighting pit. The crowd of orcs scattered. It took some time for the commotion to die down, and eventually a pair of Orcs with long spears came and herded us out of the pit and into a room overlooking the canyon. The only thing in the room was a chamber pot and a sleeping pallet with a thin sheet. It filled the entire floor which is to say the room was small, about the size of a single bed. In highly accented tones one of the guards made a joke about us being lovers so having to share the one bed and pot.

The last two feet of the bed stretched out of the short room onto a ledge overlooking the canyon. The Gnome an the undead woman stepped out to the edge and looked up and then down. “We won't be escaping this way, unless you can fly.”

“Funny thing about that...” I stepped to the edge and dove off, looping through the air and then back to them.

The undead woman looked at me. “Why don't you just go, then, take the Gnome and go?”

“Yes, let's get out of here.” The Gnome pleaded.

“No, we're all getting out, in the morning.”

I managed to fly down and collect a large number of metal pipes and funnels, which I then assembled into a pair of horns, much to the confusion of my cell mates. Finally we laid down to rest, the Gnome tucked under my left arm and curled in tight for warmth, and the undead woman stretched out on my right side, she on top of the covers.

“I don't feel the cold, you use the sheet.” She laid flat on her back, staring up at the sky. It was her who woke us up in the morning. A bunch of Orcs had hung the nose cone of my aircraft over the edge of the cliff above us, and were taking tours, looking down through the windows to see the three of us sleeping together. One of them had dropped a large wooden dildo onto the undead woman's chest. "That way you have one for each. Give us a show!"

They were laughing at us, until the undead woman and I both grinned at them, tossed the wooden object over the side, stage kissed and moved back into the room out of sight. Inside I showed the Gnome how to blow on the makeshift trumpet. We parted it out and they eventually came to poke us back up into the pit. The guards who'd come for us looked around quite a bit trying to figure out where the “Ba ba ba-da, baadum,” sounds had come from. The women actually giggled at them until I shushed them. I didn't want to give the guards any reason to search us.

Once the guards left us I collected the parts of the trumpet and assembled both of them. The gathering crown murmuring over this odd display. I noticed they had gathered all our weapons and shields from the previous day in the center of the ring. and my sword was still stuck halfway into the ground. No one had succeeded in pulling it out. (I had used magic to bury it that deep.)

A fully armored and apparently high ranking Orc stepped to the edge of the fighting pit, looking down on us. “You will pick up your weapons and fight until only one can leave the ring, or none of you will leave the ring!”

“Are you going to come down here and kill us yourself, or are you to much of a coward to face three unarmed captives.”

“There is no honor in killing you.”

“So you plan on starving us to death?”

“No, he'll just send in honorless captives who don't mind killing to execute us.” The Gnomish woman stated.

“Really?” I finished placing the makeshift mouthpiece on my trumpet. “And what if they won't kill us, nor the one after, nor the one after that?”

“Oh, they'll kill us,” the undead woman shifted to watch our backs, and I let the Gnome down to the ground.

The Gnome moved into a defensive crouch, still struggling to assemble her horn. “I sure hope you know what you're doing.” We all shifted into a triangle backs together.

“I knew you would defend yourselves, eventually, you all do.”

“Naturally, but we will not be killing fellow captives today.” I placed the mouthpiece to my lips and started to play. “Ba ba ba-da, baaadump.” The Gnome clapped twice at the end of my call. I played it again, this time, the undead woman joined in. The Gnome finished putting together her small and much higher pitched horn. We played the tune together, and the undead woman clapped, while we both stamped at the end of the tune. I heard the echoes of stamping from the hallways leading into the pit on either side. We played again, and the hallways reverberated with the sound of swords on shields, spear butts on floors and shouts of the final “Baaadum!” The Orc Guards in the pit looked at the doors, then at one another.

The Orc started to look worried under his helmet. After the doors to the pit burst open, and his guards tumbled backwards, pushed down by their charges, he looked positively panicked. But that was nothing compared to the look on his face when he flew down off the edge of the pit to land a few feet in front of me. I climbed out of my makeshift instrument, letting it take the first blow of his mace.

With an odd little twist of my mind, I disarmed the large Orc, stepped up to him, and flat handed him in the center of his breastplate, knocking him onto his back, sand flew from the force of his landing.

“Hold!” I held up my empty hands to stop the advancing gladiators. “We are leaving, and any prisoners who wish may come with me.”

The Orc officer was preparing to make some sort of remark when his eyes widened. He'd seen our rides out of here arrive from the canyon. The orcs in the stands panicked and scrambled over one another to get out. Red Dragons engaged mounted patrols in the sky.

Behind me, dragons landed one by one, then lifted off again with half a dozen prisoners or so on their backs.

I kicked the Pit Master's mace over to him and prepared to defend myself.

I felt a dragon's large toe fall gently, for a dragon, on my right shoulder. “Come, brother, we can leave this place with no bloodshed this day.”

The Pit Master made no move to pick up his mace. I nodded at him, turned, picked up the battered remains of my makeshift trumpet, then shot into the air next to the last drake out. I flew over and landed behind the undead woman and the Gnome.

We wheeled away across the canyon, the air mounted guards giving up chase after only a short distance. I was amazed that there had been no deaths on either side.

In a raspy voice “This doesn't mean I'll sleep with you, you know,” the undead woman quipped with a dry rattling laugh at the end. I noticed that she'd picked up the sinister looking daggers and had them thrust through her sash.

“I will,” the Gnome quietly stated, then played “Ba ba ba-da, baaadump” on her little coronet. Her laughter was like tinkling bells, and I found myself hoping that she wasn't joking.