If I Had a Heart

They were so close to a less cryptic answer, and Mel wanted to push even more even though Morrick said he didn't want to talk about it. Just a little more...

"So the robed ones were the people who... enslaved you," she said, pausing to find a word softer than 'enslaved' but failing to find one in time, so she brushed it off. "Are they still here in the caves?"

The corners of Ainsley's mouth turned down as he walked. On one hand, it sounded like Morrick had gone through a lot during his time down here and he understood why he wouldn't want to talk about it. However, the group needed as much information as possible to succeed in their quest.

"When you're ready," he said to Morrick, matching his stride. "We need to hear more about the robed." Hopefully, he wasn't being too pushy.

Morrick seemed to draw in on himself, and he clutched the pickaxe close.
"They are Migh'nur's chosen," he said softly. "I can't say more. I'm sorry. I can't say more."
Elias glanced at him, brow furrowed. So this was a cult.

Aumrauth rolled his eyes.

"So it's a cult," he muttered. "Oh joy."

Mel probably should have been more concerned and worried that there were cult leaders who were (presumably) around these caves, but she was more curious than anything. What were they like? Why did Morrick and others follow them? Or was he truly enslaved and it was never a choice? When was this? Where were they now? She wanted to know, but she knew she was already pushing her luck with Morrick already.

Mel sighed then looked down at herself again, noting the robes. "Well, we're one step closer to looking like cult leaders," she said in an attempt to lighten the mood even though she had no idea what these Migh'nur people looked like.

The chest wasn't locked.

Raptor wasn't sure if he was supposed to take comfort in that or not. A locked chest implied that something important was inside, but an unlocked chest implied that either what was inside was worthless...

...or that there was some other kind of protection.

Please don't be cursed, Raptor thought. He leaned down and flipped open the chest's lid, trying not to think of all of the cursed magicians he had seen in his textbooks.

He waited a moment.

Nothing leaped out at him. Nothing felt off, either. Hesitant but a little less nervous, Raptor peeked into the chest to see what exactly was inside.

He put the axe down on the ground next to him, trying his best not to give a nervous, relieved laugh.

"It's safe," he said, turning back to the doorway. "I haven't gone through it yet, but we'll have something to sleep with if we're here for more than a day."

Nikolai looked over and visibly brightened when he saw the contents.

"Oh, how nice!"

The chest had several blankets and pillows, and a few candles as well. Nikolai wasn't sure when they'd be stopping, but when they did, they'd be as comfortable as they could get— considering they'd be camping in a cave full of monsters. Maybe that didn't sound so relaxing, but everything had to be better when they had some blankets to cuddle up with.

"Well, these could come in handy," he said hopefully as he took a blanket out and examined it.

Raptor nodded.

"It'll be better than sleeping on the cold, hard ground," he agreed. He thankfully hadn't had to do much of that yet, but he knew he would eventually get to a point where a hotel or inn wouldn't conveniently appear in the distance as night was falling.

He reached into the chest and grabbed the candles. They could be used if they reached a darker section of the tunnels, but Raptor had a suspicion that the ribbons around their wrists would be bright enough. Those candles were exactly what he would need to summon a demon.

...If he could even do that.

(Or if he even wanted to do that.)

As he put the last candle into his bag, a thought suddenly occurred to him.

He slowly turned to Nikolai.

"...How are we going to carry these?"

Elias smiled thinly, plucking at his own lake-stinking clothes. "Well, except for me. You lot will certainly get along better with these cult members. You don't much look like religious zealots, though." None of them did, really, but then he didn't really know what these zealots were meant to look like.

Nikolai paused, the blanket he’d pulled out still in his hands.

“Uhhhh... Good question.”

There were a lot of blankets, pillows and candles— the chest was just about full of them— and they couldn’t carry them all, even if Aeshan took some, and it felt wrong to make the elderly man carry anything. They most certainly weren’t the heaviest items, but they were bulky and took up a lot of space. It wouldn’t be good to run into a threat and have their hands full of these supplies, because if they had to fight a monster Nikolai was not going to do it with pillows.

“Well, I guess we don’t need more than a blanket, pillow and maybe a candle each, so we don’t have to take everything in this chest,” he said thoughtfully. “Actually, these bedrolls might be a little more convenient to carry around than the blankets, so maybe those instead... I don’t think they could fit in our bags, though, unless these magically shrink or something.”

Raptor nodded again.

"I probably won't get cold," he agreed. He glanced back at the doorway they had left Aeshan in. Raptor was sure he wouldn't get cold, but what about Aeshan? He didn't know how to take care of old people. Did they get cold easily? "Grabbing the bedrolls seems like the best option right now. I already put candles in my bag, so we won't have to worry about grabbing individual ones now."

"Bedrolls it is." Nikolai set the blanket back in the chest, and grabbed one of the bedrolls instead. Maybe he could hold it pinned between his left arm and his side, which should more or less leave his hands free. He tried carrying it that way, and it seemed like that would work. Adding a pillow to that would be a little difficult, though.

Since he wasn't sure if Aeshan had gotten the message, he turned back to Aeshan. "We," he started, pointing at the three of them in turn, "are all taking one of these each." He gestured towards the bedrolls on the floor, then the pillows in storage.

That was easy enough to communicate. Nikolai was a little more stumped about the second thing he wanted to ask. He took a pillow, performing the action of tossing it over his back, his hands holding a corner of it against his shoulder, hoping that would make it clear that he was talking about carrying those items.

"Do you want us to carry them for you," he said slowly, pointing at him and Raptor first, then Aeshan, "or are you alright with doing that?"

Aeshan had seated himself on the floor when they opened the chest, and he nodded slightly in response to Nikolai's first pantomime. The second seemed to puzzle him a bit, and he pointed to the pillows and bedrolls, then to himself.

Raptor glanced between Aeshan and Nikolai.

"I don't think he fully understood what you were asking," Raptor said. He glanced down at the ground in front of Aeshan. It wasn't the perfect space for drawing, but it'd have to do.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a tiny, unbroken piece of chalk.

Then he crouched down in front of Aeshan and drew an absolutely horrible pair of stick figure drawings: one where Aeshan was carrying his own supplies, and one where Raptor and Nikolai were doing it for him. The size difference between the stick figure representing Raptor hopefully gave away who was who, but he also drew arrows pointing towards the actual people in the room so Aeshan could tell who each figure was supposed to be.

Once the drawings were done, he repeated Nikolai's gesture.

"What, not interested in bandwagoning?" Aumrauth teased Elias with very obvious condescension. "If you wanted a robe, you could have one, you know. We still have more."