Damsel against distress

[diceroller4]

Princess Abigail sat pouting in her small cell. The petite princess could hardly believe how foul the last few days had been. First the stable boy had apparently gotten in some kind of trouble for helping her the last time she wanted to sneak out for a ride and so she had to actually bribe him to have her horse ready and waiting for her. Them the guards had actually been somewhat attentive and so it had taken considerable effort to slip out for her little ride in the forest.

She really hadn’t understood why everyone was so against her wanting to go out and have a bit of fun from time to time instead of sitting through boring lessons on how to be a properly lady and how to behave when she someday inherited the throne. Well she was starting to figure it out now. She had been accosted in the woods by some mysterious cloaked figure who had refused to identify themself. Instead whoever they were had simply snapped their fingers and conjured up ropes that had bound the poor girl and yanked her from her horse. She had barely had time to process what was going on before she was gagged, blindfolded, and spirited away.

After a while of struggling as much as she could, which wasn’t much honestly, she had apparently annoyed ther captor enough for to warrant another use of magic because she had suddenly found herself falling asleep despite not being tired before that moment. When she had awoke she was in a small dank cell, thankfully no longer bound though it did her little good as she knew of no way to force her way free of the metal bars before her.

While at first she had been scared and worried a whole day had past without sign of her captor. Really the only interactions she had had was the food that magically appeared in her cell, not up to her standards of a proper meal by far, and talking to the mice she occasionally spotted scurrying around. At this point fear had given in to boredom and if there was one thing Abigail hated most in the world it was to be bored.

“I don’t suppose you know a way to get me out of her my little Valiant,” the girl joked to the white mouse that had seemed to frequent her cell most often. She knew it wasn’t a good sign that she was holding conversations with vermin but what else could she do to pass the time. “If you could steal a key or wiggle the lock a bit I would be eternally great. I’d even settle for getting something I could use as a lockpick.” While she was no master thief she had managed to finagle a few locks when needed to slip out of the castle before but sadly whoever had kidnapped her had stolen away everything she had on her except for the gown that she wore.

[Dungeon]

The dungeons of the Wizard's Tower were unkept, dank, and humid. The air was pouted with the stench of mildew, and the stones were often slick with a mixture of dew and dust. It hand't seen much use since the wizard had made this abandoned watchtower his base of operations, and in fact it only held one actual prisoner: the Princess of the Ovierane Empire. It was a spontaneous capture, really. While having heard of the princess' behavior, he hadn't expected her to be foolish enough actually go out into a dense forest with only a decently-trained mare as a companion. As opposed to weeks of planning on how to capture her, fate delivered the princess to him in a single day. His envoys were already preparing a letter of ransom to be sent to that fool of a king, so all the mysterious mystic had to do was wait patiently...

It was an utterly unremarkable being, a white mouse close to the size of the princess' palm. There was nothing clearly unique about it in the slightest. It simply scampered about the chains and crevices of the dungeon, gathering any available source of food just like the tens of other rodents. However, there was an intelligence about it. While the other mice and rats would glance at Abigail anytime she banged the bars of her cell in frustration, the white mouse seemed to observe her. As if it was taking note of her actions, and comparing them to something else. When she spoke to the other creatures, they looked at her in some kind of confusion, but they would then go back to scavenging. However, the white mouse seemed attentive, and Abigail occasionally noticed it subtly nodding along with her words.

The mouse and Abigail seemed to get along well enough, with the mouse occasionally taking a crumb or so of her dinner. So, when Abigail asked the mouse for help, it vanished into the shadows. After a minute or two the mouse returned with a twisted, rusted shard of iron that must've fallen off on an old nail. The mouse walked between the bars and dropped the piece of metal, looking up at the princess with what seemed to be a smile.