Eleanor's head was pounding as she blinked awake to inky darkness. What the hell happened? Last thing she remembered was channeling power with Shane as they faced down that gnarled hag and her freakish wraiths. Now she was...where exactly?
Squinting through the gloom, Eleanor made out rough stone walls glistening with moisture. The floor was damp packed earth that reeked of mold. So some kind of dungeon cell then. Awesome.
She spotted Shane sprawled unconscious nearby and crawled over to check his vitals. Thank God he still had a steady pulse. But what about Lucian and the rest of their team? Princess Octavia?
Eleanor shook Shane gently. "Hey, wake up. We're in deep crap here."
With a groan, Shane stirred and blinked at their surroundings. "Ugh...did we get knocked out somehow? My head is killing me."
"Looks like Her Wickedness threw us in her dungeons," Eleanor grumbled. "Probably pissed we crashed her creepy party."
Shane presently noticed the ghostly chains binding his wrists, their spectral links trailing off into darkness. His eyes widened in alarm. "Uh, El? You got a set too..."
As Eleanor looked down in shock, an ominous chuckle echoed. Emerging from the shadows was a towering demonic jailer holding their glowing chains. Its lifeless shark eyes and curved horns left no doubt - they were at the damned thing's mercy now.
Well ain't this just peachy, Eleanor fumed silently. No doubt Vincent would have plenty to say about her screwed up rescue op. If the freaking demon didn't rip out their souls.
"On your feet, measly worms!" the horned jailer growled, yanking the glowing chains and forcing Shane and Eleanor upright. "The Dread Queen requests your presence."
They struggled uselessly against their bonds as the demon dragged them down a hallway lined with rusted cells. Screams and raving echoed all around.
"Charming establishment you're running here," Shane muttered. "Ever considered a tourism expansion?"
The jailer backhanded Shane across the face, claws leaving deep gashes. "Silence, unless you wish to lose your tongue!"
It hauled them into a vast frozen chamber lined with veined marble. Dark magic throbbed from an obsidian well in its center.
There waited the Dread Queen on her tusked throne, skeletal hands knitted gleefully. "Ah, my intrepid guests awaken at last."
"What have you done with my people, witch?!" Eleanor demanded with icy fury.
The Queen waved a dismissive hand. "They remain my 'guests' for now. But I am more interested in you, my dear - a practitioner of the frozen arts worthy of my tutelage."
Eleanor spat contemptuously. "I would rather be buried alive than become your student!"
A slow smile spread across the Queen's corpse-pale lips. "Such courage. Yet you have merely glimpsed the wellspring of my true power."
She rose, darkness swirling as she extended a claw-tipped hand. "I can teach you arts that shake mountains...if only you will kneel and swear eternal loyalty."
Eleanor met her terrible gaze unflinchingly. "I pledge myself only to Eldoria's people."
The Dread Queen's eyes flared with cruel delight. "What devotion...but how long can it withstand my tender mercies here?" She nodded to the jailer who seized Shane in an iron grip. "Take this one back to the pits. We shall see if my new acolyte proves more pliant without her loyal dog."
"No!" Eleanor shouted as they dragged a struggling Shane away into the shadows. "You will regret this, witch...I swear it!"
The Dread Queen merely laughed.
"Get your filthy claws off me!" Shane hollered, straining against the hulking demonic jailer as it hauled him down into the subterranean pits. The faint echo of Eleanor's cries rang out before the iron-banded door slammed shut, enclosing him in absolute darkness.
"Crap...this is bad," Shane muttered, slumping against the clammy stone wall.
No doubt that gnarled ice hag planned to torment Shane as leverage for brainwashing his friend. But Eleanor was stubborn - she'd never break. Still, what other sadistic tricks might the old crone try?
Shane frantically scoured his cell, searching for anything to pick the spectral locks binding his wrists. But the void was unbroken, impermeable. His robotic eye flashed red as it analyzed the dense obsidian door barring escape. Perhaps if he could remove some gears from his monocle device he could -
"Well, well...the Queen's guests arrive in droves," a weakly sardonic voice suddenly drifted from the adjacent cell.
Shane rushed to the rust-flecked bars adjoining his darkened hovel to the next. "Hello?! Who's there? Are you Princess Octavia?"
A ragged cough preceded the reply. "Alas, no. Merely a disgraced court magician named Talis. And you seem an odd fellow to be rotting here..."
Shane blinked his cybernetic eye to illuminate the haggard face regarding him intently between the bars. "Name's Shane. I came with the Eldorian queen to rescue Vincent's sister. But we failed and got caught."
Talis nodded knowingly. "A noble effort, if doomed to futility. None who the Queen imprisons here leave again save as corpses." He hesitated, curiosity plain. "Yet tell me of this queen...does she wield the icefire arts?"
Shane frowned warily. "Queen Eleanor commands powerful magic, yes. Why do you ask?"
Leaning closer, the magician replied cryptically, "Because legend tells only one of her lineage might oppose our dark mistress and live..."
Shane felt an icy chill beyond the dungeon's clammy embrace. If Eleanor was their only hope against this dread tyrant...she had to survive at all costs.
After relentlessly grilling the half-starved mage Talis for any useful shreds about the labyrinthine prison layout, Shane slumped against the rough stone wall, exhausted. Escape seemed unlikely without assistance or tools.
But Shane knew Eleanor would never break. Like this entire cursed citadel, the wicked Dread Queen would fail to see through Eleonor's core of unbreakable ice. An ancient power of winter kings of old, or so the tales said...
Shane managed a few fitful hours rest on the frigid floor before images of Eleanor tormented by demons jarred him awake. Keep it together, man, he chided himself severely. Eleanor needs you sharp, focused.
From under the cell's metal cot, Shane extracted a short piece of stiff wire which Talis had earlier slipped him. Not much, but it was a start... Just as Shane was probing the cell's corroded lock, Talis himself appeared, squeezing a tiny vial through the adjacent bars.
"Apothecary's best acid," Talis whispered urgently. "It may serve dissolving the locks or chains. I offer my help freeing you however I can."
Shane's eyebrows shot up. "Seriously? I thought you said escape was impossible."
"Perhaps." The mage winked roguishly. "But a true disciple of magics never stops seeking that which seems unattainable. Now hurry, before the sentry returns!"
Palming the vial reverently, Shane replied solemnly, "I won't forget this, Talis. And I aim to come back to free you, Eleanor, and any other poor bastards trapped here."
He crouched before the lock, cable extended. Acid hissed as he worked. After agonizing minutes, tumblers clicked. Shane slipped into the corridor beyond, mapping rooms holding allies for future liberation.
Talis grinned fiercely watching his swirl away. "May fortune speed you, new friend...and may our Dread Queen rue this day our Fates crossed paths!"