Trapped

I should have left a long time ago! The whole affair had been horrifying and I had never seen anything like this before. So it was too late when I realized my mistake.

I needed to leave right away but the bandit had already started moving away. If I tried to leave now, I would be seen quite easily. While there was darkness where I was hiding, I would be walking through the light if I tried to leave through the way I came. Bandits had already started moving back to their guard posts at the entrance. All I could do was stay where I was!

I tried to think about how long I had been here and how long had it been since I left the camp. I didn't think I had been here for more than 15 minutes. All of this had happened in a short amount of time. But I had no way to be sure. That means I had to be out for at least 40 minutes. It wasn't too bad and I knew I should be able to get back if I left now to make the 1 hour deadline. But that was if I left now. How was I going to leave though?

There were now 2 guards at the door. I had seen them pass by me. I also saw that most others were moving towards the left side of the hall. There seemed to be another chamber over there. It was probably where the bandits stayed since this hall didn't seem to have much of anything. It was more of an assembly area. The female guard was standing at the door through which the bandit queen went in.

Soon the hall was mostly empty and most of the bandits had gone to the left chamber. The only person in the hall was the female guard who was standing at the bandit queen's door. Still, there were 2 bandits at the entrance, so leaving from there without being seen was now out of the question. I couldn't go back, left and forward. The only way left for me was right, where the prison cells were. The possibility of having an escape route in a prison seemed rather low but that was the only direction I could go. If there was a guard there, then I would be completely stuck and would need to come back here to hide. If that happened, well…. I would deal with it if I am really stuck. It was possible that Cleo would be able to track me here. Worst case scenario was I would wait for my party to come and rescue me. Well there was an even worse scenario that I had just witnessed but I didn't want to consider it.

I got out of my hiding area in completely silence and silently started walking towards the right. As I walked, I kept an eye out to see if there was a guard in this area. To my surprise, I arrived at the prison cells without meeting anyone. While this was a good thing, I didn't need to rejoice yet. After all, who would leave an escape route in the prison area?

I saw that the prison was not that big and saw only one person in the cell. Nina was lying in a locked cell unconscious. I thought about freeing her for a moment but gave it up right away. If I couldn't even escape by myself, how was I supposed to rescue her? In addition, I was worried about what the bandit queen had done to her. What if she was still under a spell and turned me in? I would have to knock her out and carry her if I wanted to save her. There was no way for me to do any of this.

I looked around and saw that the cell keys were actually hanging nearby! They just leave the keys to the cell doors here? Just how confident are these bandits? I didn't want to spend too much time thinking about this so I started to look around for a way out.