#yakiv

Alice fell to her knees as her castle burned around her. Everything was gone, she’d lost everything. Centuries of her family, gone up in flames. There was nothing she could do. When the flames first started, she tried to put them out, but they were enchanted. She never learned the spell to counter enchanted flames. She had only been a child when her father was killed, she had barely learned how to control her magic the proper way.

“I guess this is it…”

Alice let out a small broken laugh, after all the war, all the battles, this was how she’d die. She wouldn’t fight it this time. She could finally rest. Standing to brush off the ash collecting on her gown, Alice walked over to the portrait on the wall before her. She sighed longingly, it had been the last portrait her father had painted of them before the war began. She missed them so much. Her pale hand reached out to touch them, if only she had studied more back then, she wondered if it would have made a difference that day.

“Queen Alice! Are you in here?”

Alice jumped at the sound, the voice was vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She turned to look around her, everyone else had escaped, she made sure of it.

“There you are! Come on, let’s get you out of here!”

Alice blinked at her savior, “Friedrich?! What are you doing here?!”

“As much as he’d love to answer your questions your majesty, this castle isn’t going to remain standing for much longer.”

“Yakiv? Wait, what’s going on? Where did you two come from?”

Friedrich quickly began to toss books from the shelves around them into his satchel, “Queen Enna and Prince Erik got your message.”

Alice sighed, of course her cousins would send help, “Look, I appreciate the help, but this is for the better. If I die here, the war is over. That’s what she wants.”

Yakiv rolled his tired eyes, “We don’t have time for you to have this death wish of yours.”

Alice glared up at him, “Leave me here. That’s an order. Get yourselves to safety.”

Yakiv roughly handed Friedrich his bag, “Sorry Queen Alice, but the Sweeney crown has no power over me. I serve the Ayers crown.”

He roughly picked up Alice, tossing her over his shoulder, “And my orders are to bring you to safety.”

Friedrich fumbled with the bags as he rushed behind Yakiv, “I don’t think Queen Enna meant like this Yakiv…”

Yakiv walked down the burning halls towards a mirror with a faint lavender glow around it, “Shut up and get through the mirror.”

Alice’s eyes widened as she looked at the mirror, “No! Yakiv, Enna isn’t strong enough for crossings!”

Gunshots rang out down the halls of the Morozov mansion.

Kaspers sat on his cot, it wasn’t his job to get involved in gunfights. A hiss left his lips as he glanced down at his finger, he managed to prick it while finishing up his needle work. Maybe he’d take Mr. Morel up on his offer for a set of thimbles. His thoughts were interrupted when his door slammed open, causing him to jump and drop his piece.

“Kas, get your things, we’re breaking you out!”

Kaspers paled, “Charles?! What are you doing here?! Is that what all this noise has been?!”

Charles rolled his eyes, “We don’t have time for stupid questions, come on, Logan is waiting outside the gate for us. Hurry up before Yakiv finds us!”

Kaspers began to panic, if Yakiv caught them, they’d be done for. He was already in trouble for dropping a set of china earlier this week, this stunt would see him killed for sure.

“Ugh, whatever, you don’t need anything from here anyway! Let’s go!”

Charles lost patients, they didn’t have time for Kaspers to freak out. He grabbed his friend’s wrist before tugging him along down the hall.

“Logan said he’d only wait for 30 minutes, it took me 20 to find you. We have 10 minutes to get out of here and to the street!”

Kaspers could hear Yakiv’s booming voice barking orders close by, it was only a matter of time before they were found.

“Kas?! Are you even listening?! I need direction! You know this place better than I do!”

Kasper blinked, glancing around them, “Dead end!”

The panic built up further as he realized Charles had led them down one of the halls that lead to nowhere, Yakiv designed his mansion to be a fortress. There was only one exit he was allowed to know, and that was the front door.

Charles huffed, stopping at the end of the hall, they couldn’t go back. He needed to find a way out now.

“How high up are we, Kas?”

Kaspers raised a brow at his question, “Well I live on the third floor of the mansion, so about 35 feet. Why?”

Charles glanced at the open window in front of them, “Don’t break your legs, we still need to run and jump the gate!”

Kaspers opened his mouth to question his friend, but yelped as he found himself pushed out the window by Charles. His instincts kicked in as he quickly braced himself for his landing, trying his best to roll into the landing. He knew he hurt his back, but the adrenaline would keep him going for now, and he could chew out Charles after Yakiv wasn’t on their tale. Charles jumped down after him, landing on his back laughing,

Kaspers rushed to him, “Are you alright?!”

Charles rolled over before standing and dusting himself off, “Yeah, let’s get to Vic before he drives off.”

It didn’t take them long to scale the gate and rush into Logan’s beat up pickup truck.

“Whooo! You got out of there alive! Did you grab me what I wanted?”

Kaspers stared at the two brothers with wide eyes at how calm they were.

Charles smirked, handing Logan a piece of paper, “Of course I did. Nadja said only call between 11 am and 3 pm or else Yakiv will answer.”

Logan began to speed down the road as gunshots began to ring out near the car, “Score! Let’s get home before dad finds out you’re out of bed.”

Kaspers covered his face in frustration, “You did all of this to get Nadja’s phone number?!”

Caitriona Dunbar was alive and found. She refused to let her brother go as the group started discussing what to do next. Bree, Rurik and Eddie seemed to want to eave the prisoners behind, still locked up in the cells where they believed they’d be more safe, seeing as they wanted to go back out into the mine itself to find more information. Overhearing this conversation, Aynswyth protested. It seemed she was determined not to be left behind. After a short while, Bree decided to sneak ahead and check the exit, to see if they might be able to send the prisoners out by themselves as the group continued. Bran said that no matter what, he wouldn’t leave Caitriona like that, but the group still wanted to check if this was an option. Bree did find out that the way out wasn’t in any way blocked, but right by the last stretch of hallway, she found two dead guards, shot by arrows through their necks. Confused and slightly creeped out by this, she returned to her friends in the dungeons. They heard, once more, about Bran’s contact, the friend who was helping him find his sister, that they used a bow and might be in the mine somewhere.

After discussing some more, they at least decide to let the prisoners out and help them get out of the mine, to then return inside and look for more information, with or without Bran who was still uncertain of leaving the prisoners alone in the wild. Caitriona convinced them to also bring the half orc, as he had been experimented on by the Black Spider himself and had also protected the other prisoners at the cost of his own health since he’d been put in that cell next to her’s. As they made it toward the way out, though, they were suddenly stopped at the waters edge, by The Black Spider himself.

Now, the Black Spider seemed almost amused at your presence in his mine, but suggested that they return his property, otherwise he couldn’t let them go. When the group refused, the Black Spider had them attacked by some goons. The long battle that ensued was tiering and seemingly hopeless at times. The water was magical and rejuvenating, but there were many enemies. After Rurik sent a whole bunch of undead running away from the group, the Black Spider, declared that he could let them have Bran’s sister, if they left the rest of the prisoners behind. Eddie thought this sounded like an alright idea, Bran refused. 

As more bugbears, orcs and an undead ogre entered into the room, the prisoner Aynswyth had had enough of the Black Spider trying to barter with them as bargaining chips so she grabbed Caitriona, who was still not letting Bran out of her sight, and said they were going to leave no matter if the Black Spider tried to stop them or not. The spider didn’t seem very enthusiastic about this but joked that no one seemed to care what he wanted in all of this, before having his goons engage again. Before the ogre could attack them though, Bran’s friend, a half elf druid named Rosemary, showed up and made sure to get some good shots into the ogre before joining the fight on the floor of the cave with the group.

Eventually, after giving her brother a final hug, Caitriona left the chamber with the other prisoners, closely followed by Rosemary, who promised to see them out safely. By now, the ogre was dead and the Black Spider seemed less calm about this than he’d been before. He joined the fight, asking if Eddie was truly forgettable or just tried hard to be, making Bran call out in reply: “Don’t speak about my friend that way”. The Black Spider answered this by paralyzing Bran with fear and visions of his sister’s dead body and sending giant spiders raining from the ceiling of the cave.

It didn’t look good. The spiders kept coming, their powers were running out, stamina on an all time low and as one of them falls to the ground, near death, time is running out. It was the Black Spider that stopped the fight, sending a wave of necrotic energy coursing through the room, effectively killing most of his own spiders but also severely damaging the friends in the process.

He posed an ultimatum. If Bran stayed behind, the Black Spider would let everyone else go, including all prisoners. If he didn’t stay, the Black Spider promised he’d hunt every last one of them down and rip Caitriona’s heart out of her chest with his bare hands. At this, Bran turned to his friends one last time, a smile on his face as he slowly dropped his pack to the ground, handed his shield to Rurik, his dagger with the Dunbar family crest to Bree, his pouch with money to Eddie and promised he’d follow them when he could, saying they had to trust him, before he turned back to the Black Spider, accepting his offer.

The friends were in shock. Had it not been for Rosemary returning, maybe they would have protested this decision, but Rosemary made them follow Bran’s instruction to get out, keep his sister safe, survive.

The last thing they saw of their friend, before they ran for their lives, was Bran’s strong back, hiding three fire flasks, which he ignited with a flick of his fingers. As the group passed over the bridge, which would take them out of the mine itself, they saw the opening in the wall leading back into the cave, saw a fiery explosion sending bodies of spiders and orcs into the water, as Bran finalized the plan which allowed them all to escape, except him.

He sacrificed himself so that they could live.

Both Bree and Eddie were stoic and realistic about Bran’s prospects. He might have made it, but it was foolish to cling to that hope. Rurik was in denial, insisting they wait by the exit for Bran, Caitriona was beyond grief.

By the time the group, friends and freed prisoners alike, made it back to Phandalin, they were exhausted and hungry. Sildar was devastated by the news of Bran’s death, admitting that he was actually Bran and Caitriona’s uncle, which of course meant he felt the death of his nephew deeply. He promised the group that they still had a safe haven in his home, and that they could always stay in his home. After this, he left them by the table.