*****

Bonus Episode!

*****

I was glad to be returning to the familiar Control Room. This Ark was huge and labyrinthine and it made my head spin just thinking about it!

I held my arms out to halt as I heard a gruff voice up ahead. Eshami heard it too, because she immediately reached for her hand crossbow.

There was a male with a deep voice arguing with Olear, I could tell. I looked to the priestess to glean more, but she shook her head. Her expression told me the situation was dire, and so we pressed on.

We entered the Control Room and were immediately accosted by an ebony-skinned dwarf clad in some kind of ornate battle plate, armed with an ugly, barbed sword. 

He spoke to me in a deep, guttural language that I didn’t understand, but Eshami must have understood part of it because she cried out in disgust and opened fire.

“I guess we’re fighting!” I said as I stepped into the doorway. I could make out Olear lying flat on his back. “Why are we fighting?”

Eshami swapped her hand crossbow out for her fine elven longsword, joining me in beating back the angry dwarf. “He is a deep dwarf,” she reasoned between a parry and thrust, “and he called Olear a useless traitor!”

The fight continued for several minutes, with nobody able to land more than a glancing blow upon their target. The dwarf screamed with a blood-curdling battle cry, and his rage could no longer be contained!

“Look out!” I ducked and yelled to Eshami as the dwarf’s barbed sword came at me like a guillotine blade. Eshami stepped back and pulled out her spell book. After flipping to the appropriate page, she began to cast.

I knew that whatever she was planning would take a few seconds, so I did my best to keep the dwarf from cutting me to ribbons!

I danced defensively around the dwarf with my icy blade until I was confident the spell had been fired off.

The surly dwarf’s sword clattered to the ground, his form held by some magical field that I won’t even pretend to comprehend. That it worked was enough for me!

“Eshami!” I pointed to Olear who was on the ground by a control console ahead, as unmoving as the dwarf.

My elven comrade stretched her arm out frantically and fired a blue ray of magical healing at the downed man. She moved carefully past me and the dwarf to crouch down beside the Ark Attendant.

“Ketal,” I yelled. “Who is this dwarf, a friend of yours?”

Ketal spun up from the floor and fired off his sensor beams from his eyes, sizing the surly assailant up and down. “He is a prisoner from the Hold that has been released.”

“Released?! How?”