[ID: A digital illustration of Ashton Greymoore and Orym from Critical Role. Ashton is carrying Orym, who is tired and brusied. They say “You did good, you did good” to Orym, looking down at him. Orym says “oof” in small text. Behind them is a rectangular pale blue and pink gradient background. End description.]
You flew!
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Summary: The news came at noon. A explosion had torn through Lord Eshteross's airship over the Ozmit Sea. There were no survivors.
(Just to be safe, TW for cutting someone's hair without their consent.)
The news came at noon. A explosion had torn through Lord Eshteross's airship a few miles out over the Ozmit Sea. The hull had been rent from stem to stern, the cargo consumed in either the blaze or the ocean. There were no survivors.
Eshteross had sequestered them in a large, though dusty, sitting room while he met with some of his other business partners. He hadn't said whether it was for their safety or for his other compatriots' anonymity, but no one had really protested.
They had a lot to deal with right now.
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Summary: Bronte Wyvernwind is being held against his will by strangers who seem intent on slowly draining his blood. But he gradually learns that all is not as it seems. (TW for blood loss/bleeding)
They had the knives again.
Bronte thrashed against the restraints on the table as his captors drew closer. He was still so weak, and they'd been ruthlessly bleeding him for hours now, possibly days.
“Please,” he whispered. “Please don't do this.”
One of them hesitated. A tall woman with a kind of wild smell to her, and features that didn't seem quite humanoid. The other, a spindly woman with dark hair and pale skin and eyes that promised death, seized her wrist and pulled her forward.
“We can't,” she said. The taller woman nodded, though there were tears in her eyes.
“No, wait,” Bronte pleaded. “You don't have to do this. Please don't.”
Read here on AO3 Summary: Back at the Krook house, the whole team plus Milo band together to treat Ashton's injuries. No Nobodies here, the Bell's Hells don't leave anyone behind. (Sequel to chapter 17: Shrapnel) “Lay him down here, on the work table, on his side,” Milo instructed. They'd managed to haul Ashton back to the Krook House, not wanting to waste time arguing to get a room at a tavern or try to pull the shrapnel from their body in the street. Milo's place seemed like the best best, and since they'd patched up Ashton before they seemed like the best person for the job. “We didn't know where else to go,” Imogen tried to explain, but Milo was busy pulling a worklight close and grabbing a box of tools. “Thanks for sticking with them,” they replied, rolling up their sleeves and adjusting the magnifying lens on the leather strap they wore around their head. “Shit, this looks bad...help me get their jacket off?”
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Summary: Their trio's down to two...but not for long.
Serious spoilers for episode 14 of campaign 3
“Should we still be getting a room just for us?” Fearne asked. They'd all retired for bed for the evening, but since Dorian had left both Fearne and Orym had been having trouble falling asleep.
“What do you mean?” he asked, trying to twist so he could face her, with no luck. She'd scooped him up so they could huddle together in the middle of the bed, and there was no getting away from her. The first few nights they'd tried leaving the empty space between them, but it hadn't felt right. Some habits were just too hard to break.
“Well, we could divide the rooms up between boys and girls,” Fearne reasoned. “Then we'd only need two rooms.”
Orym craned his neck back to try to see her face, but the angle was too awkward. “We could try it, if you want to. I don't think anyone minds the extra cost at an inn.”
Fearne sniffled, and Orym patted the top of her hand. “I guess I just miss him. I didn't think it would be so hard.”
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Summary: Orym is kidnapped by men who want information about the Ashari. It's a good thing he has family watching out for him.
“Get in there,” the thug gave Orym a hard shove, sending him sprawling into the dingy rented tavern room. “Remy?”
The second thug, the one that had wrestled his sword away and nearly broken his nose, slammed the door shut behind them and dragged the room's only chair in front of it. “Don't know where his friends are.”
“Don't matter,” the first thug turned back toward Orym and flexed his knuckles with a crack. “Told you we only needed the little one.”
Remy sat down in the chair in front of the door and leaned Orym's sword and shield against the wall next to him. “Well?”
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Summary: Ashton and Dorian are being held captive by a madman trying to tailor-make a drug to incapacitate the genasi. It's not going well.
They were learning.
Ashton had tried to ambush them at the door too many times, and now the guards just swung the door open and stood there, knife to Dorian's throat, until Ashton backed off. He waited, arms folded, while the biggest of the guards just glared at him. At least this time they were just escorting Dorian back, though the air genasi looked a little unsteady. Glassy-eyed, shaken, with the same mottled bruising up and down his arms that Ashton carried. Still better than the times they'd slung his unconscious body back into the cell.
The big guard showed his teeth with a feral smile, but Ashton just rolled his eyes. Guys like this could posture all they wanted, but he already knew their captor didn't want a scratch on them beyond what he himself inflicted. So the stare-down continued, with Ashton refusing to sit on the ground with his back to the wall while the guards approached, and the big guard refusing to shove Dorian into the cell until Ashton complied.
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Summary: Never split the party. They always said that, didn't they? Never split the party. Now Ashton was stuck at the ass-end of the Core Spire, trying to keep Orym from bleeding out while they waited for help.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Ashton hurried around the corner of the warehouse, staggering almost blindly into an alleyway crowded with half-broken crates and other refuse. “Never split the group,” they hissed at Orym, limp in their arms, who'd passed out before they even got out of the warehouse. “What do I always say? Never split the group.”
The job had been a crap shoot from the start. Some rumor from a friend of a friend of a friend of Milo's, claiming one of these warehouses was another stop on the broomstone smuggling trail. They'd all split off into pairs to check these places out, despite only having three members of their little team that could communicate from a distance.
But Ashton and Orym could go together, they'd said. They'd be able to handle anything, they'd said.
