I linger on the edge of a large forest which had apeared from seemingly nowhere in my path. I wander momentarily about the tree at the edge of the woods and plunge into the brush of the forest when a loud whack sends me falling facefirst into the dirt.

I awake in shackles standing on the edge of a large, round room, lit solely by torches. I large gruff man stands across from me, searching my pack for anything valuable. Without thinking, I kick him square in the face as he leans down to open my pack. He wails in pain, and stands tall again a few moments later.

"Feisty little rascal, eh?" He says, keeping the anger out of his voice. He hits me in the stomach and I black out again.

Kari saw them get him in, chaining him to the wall and sighed. Another prisoner. How much more did they want? They seemed to capture anyone who dared to enter their precious forest.
She sat on a chair herself, her hands tied behind her back with strong ropes. She had burned them before, and was sure she could do it again, but this time it was different. If she intended to escape, she had to take the other man, the new prisoner, with her.
She noticed that one of the guards was staring at her and gritted her teeth at him, hissing: 'What do you want?'
He probably knew of her magical powers, because he quickly looked away again. She knew that he was one of the weaklings. Most guards would have hit her for being that 'rude', but she could easily offend that guy over there. He was just a chicken.
She grinned and tried to shove her chair closer to the window without drawing the guard's attention. In the meantime, she studied the prisoner to see if he had awoken yet. Perhaps he had an idea about escaping this place.

I awake again, this time at night, and all the torches are alight, and brighter than before. There's noone to be seen until I hear a chair scrape across the floor.

"Who's there?" I ask, foolishly beleiving it could be someone other than a bandit, but still hoping. When noone answers, I figure it was only a rat and lean my head against the wall behind me. A hollow thump tells me the cell is made of not stone as I had beleived before, but wood instead. I smile slightly at the oddity of a wooden cell, before pulling my shackles out of the wall, which were only held by a single rusty screw and my own misconception of the wall's material.

My hands still cuffed together, I find my Claymore and draw it, still being able to hold it with both hands, and walk into the firelight, noticing a young lady tied to a chair. I walk over and cut her bonds. I take her chair and wedge it against the door.

"So," I say conversationally, "Any ideas?"

Kari looked gratefully at the other prisoner and rubbed her sore wrists. The ropes had made deep cuts but she would be able to heal them again.
'Thanks,' she said.
She stood up laboriously and straightened her back. There weren't any windows in the prison and it was alit by several torches.
'It is strange that this prison is made of wood, did you notice?' she asked, while taking a torch. 'They didn't expect us to escape, I guess. Or there is something else we don't know about, which makes it impossible to escape.'
She held the torch close to the wooden wall, but instead of being set to fire, a purple glow appeared until she removed the torch again.
'Aha. The whole place is sealed by magic...'
She paced around and then stopped walking again, studying the man once more. 'How did you get here, by the way?'

"I happened on it on my travels." He said, bluntly. Isaac then walked to the wall and inspected the magic for himself. "How can we get past this? An interesting trap, indeed." He trails off, studying the wall with interest.

"I think I have an idea. We'll use their own gullibility against them." He said after a while. Isaac steps around Kari and to a torch. He then picks it up and lights a table in the middle of the room afire. Hoping there's a guard on the other side of the door, he runs to the door and stands beside it, motioning for Kari to do the same.

"Help, fire!" He yelled to the door. Luckily, not soon after, a bandit ran into the room, and Isaac knocked him out as he entered. Peering around the open door for any more guards, and seeing none, he quickly robbed the bandit of his keys and freed himself of his shackles. He then lowered his hand toward the now roaring fire, the fire lowering and dissapearing with it. He then motioned Kari out before him and silently locked the door and pocketed the keys, for later.

"Let's go" He whistpered to Kari.

Kari grinned when he knocked the bandit out with no difficulty at all. Well, he's almost as intelligent as me, I think.
She followed him outside, pressing her hand to her mouth not to breathe any smoke. They were in a long corridor now; most walls were made of wood but some appeared to be cut out in the ground, which showed they had to be underground.
The corridors got darker and darker and also more quiet, for Kari could now easily hear the tapping of her running footsteps on the floor. It echoed in the distance, and she quickly decreased her speed.
'Have we gone in the right direction?' she asked, somewhat anxious. The corridor was bending downwards, if she was right. That meant they were going deeper underground. There were no torches here, nor guards.

"Well, there is yet no other direction in which we could go. Sometimes you have to get closer to danger in order to put distance between you later." Issac replied calmly, examining the passage ahead for any more magic tricks. He then ran up the tunnel, making no noise, and stopped at the next corner. He could hear men talking. He turned back to Kari and motioned her forward. At his count, he sprung around the corner, pinning one man to the wall with his swords and knocking him out with his other fist put to his stomach, hoping Kari had followed his lead.

Kari jumped after Isaac, and drew her Elvish Dagger. She hit it in one of the bandit's chest and pulled it upwards to his heart, after which he made some choking noises and then fell on the floor.
She heard footsteps behind her, and quickly turned around to see that another bandit was attacking her. She rapidly raised her hands to cast a spell, and shot a fireball at the attacker. She was now surrounded by bandits, and had some difficulty with fighting them off all at once.

Isaac swung his sword up over his head, building momentum, then down and around, swinging with high force, smashing down 4 more bantdits. He then turned to Kari to see how she was faring, and saw her start to by overrun. It's then that Isaac formed a fireball in his and threw it at one of the bandits, knocking him down and setting him on fire, while swinging his sword with his other hand, knocking down another.

"We gotta get outta here!" Isaac yelled to his friend.

Kari dodged another attack and nodded. 'Yes, but where's the exit?'
It was quite dark in here, during the fight, some torches had fallen and were knocked over, and she didn't see a door anywhere.
Let's hope we don't have to return through that long corridor... We could have some trouble escaping in that case...

After downing the last bandit, Isaac picked up a fallen torch and walked down the hall ahead. He spotted a door with light surrounding the edges and stopped. He bent down and looked under the crack. There appeared to be only a couple men.

Isaac then bashed down the door, and killed one bandit with the stap of his sword. The other cowered in the corner.

"Please, don't kill me." He whined.

"Then you will lead us out." Isaac replied.

Kari calmly followed Isaac and placed the point of her dagger to the man's throat.
'Lead us to the exit and we might let you live,' she said in a threatening tone.
She removed the dagger an inch so that the bandit was able to move. He walked towards a wall and gave them suspicious looks.
'Come on, hurry or else your body will have to say goodbye to your head,' Kari said mockingly.
He quickly started to study the wall as if to find a secret spot.

The man found a spot and pressed. A door opened up, leading further into the ground. He waved his arm forward and Both Isaac and Kari stepped in, the door closing behind them. The bandit had locked them in, and ran.

"Well, I had a feeling that might happen..." Isaac said calmly. "We may as well press onward...."

Kari growled and started banging on the door, until she realised it was of no use and stopped again, sighing deeply.
'We'll have to walk on, then?' she said desperately, gazing into the darkness of the new corridor. There were no torches in here, and it was terribly dark. Kari could see Isaac's silhouette, but that was all.
'Will you lead?' she asked.

"I will." Isaac said, grabbing a torch from the wall, and walking onward, sword in hand.

After descending for what seemed like miles, they came upon a....treasury? The room was filled to the brim with gold and treasures galore. As the two stepped into the room, a stone door shut behind them and the gold dissapeared.

"Another trap! Be on guard!" Isaac yelled as his torch was blown out by an unseen force....

Kari felt her heart sinking to her feet again. Oh, not again... I just want to go home...
She grabbed her dagger and held it in front of her, as if to protect herself. But she wasn't sure if the weapon would be effective this time...
A cold breeze blew past her, stroking her cheek and lifting a few locks of her hair. She swallowed, and felt a bit afraid. She couldn't see a thing, if someone - or something would attack her, she wouldn't be able to see or defend herself.

It was then that the ground rumbled loudly and the "roof" opened up to reveal the sky hundreds of meters above. It was then that Isaac realized that it was a lift which they were standing on. As lucky as Isaac felt about finally seeing the light again, he had a bad feeling that this wasn't over...