My Second Life Is A Heroic Power Fantasy - Chapter 170

No sooner had the guards left with the remains of her meal before Eleanor set about the excruciating process of mending her broken leg. The spell was simple enough to execute, but execution was never the difficult part of the spell. Enduring the physical results as it did its work, that was where things got challenging.

She had initially feared that the incantation and spell signs she remembered for it would be incorrect, but to her surprise, they were exactly the same as those she’d seen in the illusion. Best she could figure was that the illusion accessed parts of her own mind to make itself more real. How else would it have been able to show her Jack and Rose? As far as she knew, the Shaman had never even seen either of them, much less up close. Perhaps it had also found a way to inadvertently give her the means of escape by reminding her of the formulae she’d forgotten. She wasn’t one to complain about an unexpected bit of fortune. Especially not in this position.

The mending of her leg took what felt like hours, but was likely far less. Time seemed to slow to a crawl when one was in severe agony. Once she felt comfortable with the idea of testing out the mend, she undid the splint and set about moving the leg around, before sliding it under her and gently adding more and more weight to it. Once she was confident that she would be able to walk on it, she sat back and stretched it again. Retying the splint on a healed leg felt silly, but since she’d now been seen with it on, suddenly missing it when he next meal arrived would look suspicious. To make it easier to get out of when the time came, she used a couple of trick hitches instead of regular knots. To someone who didn’t know exactly what they were looking for, it would appear normal. But all she had to do was tug one end to get it to pop free. When she went to make her move to escape, every second would count. She couldn’t afford to disable one of the guards only to spend the next four minutes undoing a bunch of unnecessary work.

She knew what she would do. She would wait for the next time the guards visited her, and when he bent down to set her food down, she would put a magic missile through their throats. Once that was done, she’d tear the keys out of the jailor’s belt, free and heal herself, and disguise herself with polymorph. She’d probably also take the gnoll guard’s clothes as well. She was under the distinct impression that wandering around as a n.a.k.e.d gnoll would be counter productive. After thinking about it, she decided to go ahead and heal herself as well, and use Prestidigitation to simulate the appearance of injury instead. If time was really of the essence, the more she could preplan now, the better. The fake wounds wouldn’t show on her transformed body, so doing that was a lot easier than waiting after the fact.

The next meal cycle came a few hours later. To her relief, the guard was alone. He looked smaller and younger than the others, and seemed a bit apprehensive entering the room where she was kept. Gripping tight onto the button held in her hand, Ellie waited until he bent down to place the plate on the ground beside.

Then, with a snarl of Infernal, the button filled with raw power. The gnoll’s eyes widened when it saw the spell in her hands and stumbled backwards, but by then it was already too late. The bolt tore through its body with searing energy, leaving a smoking void where its throat had been only moments before.