A Second Chance

I chase after Zarek and after a while I realize carrying Lyra wasn't a good idea. I do not have the strength to carry her for this long, but I try anyways and we do make it to the water Zarek is already looking around.

"Zarek! Did you find anything yet?" I ask as I put Lyra down.

"No, they're probably not here anymore, maybe not here yet." Zarek responds.

"How are we gonna find them? We're not detectives" I say as Lyra starts to look around.

"Kael come here" Lyra orders.

I walk up to her, "what?"

"Look" she says as she points at a group of footprints.

"Ohh, they f*cked up, Zarek! Footprints leading this way! Good finding Lyra" I say

"You owe me food when we get back home"

Lyra adds

Zarek walks up to us and examines the footprints as well and we follow them eventually reaching a cave.

Lyra whispers "I don't like this place" to me as we walk in and I whisper back "Same, but we promised that lady we'd bring her daughter back"

"I know, I know" she murmurs and walks closer to me.

As we go deeper and the light starts to dim I cast a light spell. The cave is surprisingly deep the farther we go down the smaller it gets though, I hope it's not gonna become a crawl space. Not sure how kidnappers could get a struggling woman through a crawl space though. Unless she's already dead.

After a few moments of walking through the cave we notice a light farther down the cave. It doesn't seem like a spell, but more of an actual fire. I quickly cancel my light spell and whisper to the others: "stay quiet we'll hit them with a suprise attack after we confirm they're the culprits."

The two don't respond verbally but I assume they agree. We creep up closer and eventually we are just barely in the darkness around their fire. Their is 3 guys, they all seem like bigger men probably all fighters since mages tend to not be physically adept. Alongside the 3 men their is a woman who is either dead or unconscious on the ground tied up in rope not responding.

"She's young, pretty... someone out there will pay a fortune for her," the first one said with a grin that made Kael's blood boil.

Another one jumps in: "maybe we can have some fun before we sell her, eh?" This made Lyra almost puke, barely hiding her gag.

"Don't use the merchandise, if it's damaged by the time we sell her boss'll kill all three of us." Says the final kidnapper.

I tap Zarek's arm and Lyra's once, then twice, and then on the third time Zarek runs in and immediately slices off one of the kidnappers head with one swing. I start casting a ice barrage spell, as the other two's eyes widen and one charges at Zarek wildly and swings too early then Zarek swings at his legs cutting both off, bone and all removing his ability to run. At that moment I shoot off the ice barrage at the last one who is running towards me and Lyra impaling him all over his body causing him to fall over. The scene is graphic. Lyra falls onto her knees seeing so much blood for the first time. Zarek picks up the one second kidnapper who now has no legs and throws him against the wall causing him to cough up a large amount of blood, I get down next to Lyra and hug her. "It was needed, they were going to do very bad things to that girl. Death was the only option."

"I-i know, i-ts j-just so-o much bl-l-lood..." Lyra explains stuttering at every word.

"You don't have to do this! We were only following our bosses orders!" The alive kidnapper yells to Zarek

"Who is your boss! Where is he!" Zarek yells

"He-he'll kill me if I tell!" The kidnapper says

"I'll kill you if you don't tell me!"

The kidnapper stays quiet for a moment then Zarek stabs his arm causing him to scream in pain.

"Fine, fine! His name is Kygor! He's a-" the kidnapper answers before being cut off by Zarek stabbing his heart.

"He didn't finish answering! Why'd you kill him?" I ask

"That's all I needed to know" Zarek explains

"Do you know him?" I ask

Zarek chuckles before saying "Do I know him?"