Ashtonās chamber, in the northwest, was not so dark as Sophiaās, but it was quiet. Eerily quiet, as though a wool blanket was pressed over his ears and mouth, settled heavily about his shoulders. The room itself was dome-shaped, with a high ceiling and low lighting that seemed to flicker not at all, giving everything a stark, flat appearance and reemphasizing one painfully obvious point: he was alone. The walls were bare, the ground cleared of even the simplest of grasses, as though he stood in a tomb. His feet would make no sound on the ground, his voice would issue nothing into the air. It was as though everything but stone simply didnāt exist, even him. And it seemed so timeless, eternal and unchanging, as though, perhaps, nothing else ever had existed, and nothing else ever would.
What? Well, that's what he thought he said, and he could feel the vibrations in his throat to make the noise, but his ears heard nothing. In fact, they heard nothing at all. Not a whisper, not his feet scuffling against the ground, not even his hitched breath. It was completely, utterly, and totally silent. If that wasn't the worst of it, the fact that he was alone didn't help the fact. His next reaction was to look at his side for the people he entered the cave with, but likewise they were gone. There was only silence and himself under the dome. He spun around wildly trying to find anything, anyone, fast enough that the force threw himself into the ground.
Stones rose up to meet his knees as he silently bashed them against the ground. It made nothing of a sound, even the shouts of pain died in his throat. He shouted Rilien's name in an effort to pierce the quiet veil, but nothing. He acutely aware that he was alone. Wherever Rilien, Lucien, and Sophia were, they were not here. He needed to find them, to cast off the silence. He pounded the ground with his fist, and when no thump was forthcoming only the pain in his hand he stopped. That was something, at least. He pinched the side of his cheek, confirming that he could, indeed, still feel. Good, that was good. It wasn't perfect, but it was progress. He couldn't hear, but he could feel. Collecting the rest of his senses, he inhaled deeply, noting the scent of moist stones, dust, and other smells of the wild.
Right. He could feel and smell, he was not completely without his senses. But the silence and loneliness was so overpowering, he could feel himself losing his mind. He tried to make a quip to himself, but likewise his voice fell on deaf ears and his face darkened. He needed to find someone-- anyone. To that end, Ashton threw himself to his feet and took out his bow and an arrow. He nocked it in one fluid movement, sourly missing the twang of the string. He inhaled deeply one last time, closing his eyes as he did. As he exhaled, any evidence of the everpresent smile on his face died, leaving only the skeletal remains of the hunter. The spark in his eyes died, and his brows furrowed, his shoulders hitched.
This soundless environment made hunting ten-times more difficult. He relied on his ears as much as his eyes, but now he couldn't hear his quarry sneak up behind him, he couldn't determine the direction of anything. He was, effectively, running off of instinct. He had hoped to never be put in this position again, thrust into the wilderness with no one at his side. Except this time it was worse. He had no idea where his friends were nor even if they still lived-- he forced that thought out of his mind. Thought like that would throw him into the pits of insanity faster than any silence would. So he did just that, he forced everything out of his mind but his sight. He looked forward, darting toward the exit. He kept his bow half-taut part for the sense of resistance it provided, and part for defense.
He needed to find someone.
With Ashtonās tread, the stone gradually grew less perfect around him, and in places, sand could be seen seeping in from the long seam between wall and ceiling, suggesting that wherever he was, the ground above his head was sandy in texture. It covered over the grey stone in apparently random piles, though it also made no noise. It was hard to tell if he was deafened, or if everything in his proximity was muted. Either way, the sand grew thicker as he walked, until he was forced to tread over it as he made his way further into the corridor. With time, the tunnel grew wider as it merged with another, but the way forward seemed to be more or less the same, unless he happened to want to double back and see what had been in the southwest.
Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be an option, anyway. What had appeared at first as an innocent patch of sand like any of the others proved to be anything but, and before heād had time to properly react, the hunter was sunk up to his knees in the stuff, and would only sink further still as time elapsed.
The sand dripping from the ceiling worried him. It told him that the foundations around him were not as stable as they could be. Add into the mix the silence, and the entire roof could cave away and crush him before he knew what happened. Therefore it was the ceiling and walls that drew most of his attention. He felt the floor beneath his feet slowly shift into more of a sandy texture. Still, he was more worried about the ceiling breaking and crushing him then the floor giving out from under him. He could feel the floor, he couldn't feel the ceiling.
His ears had long since turned red from him rubbing them on his shoulders, in an effort to force them to work. It was an unconscious habit, anything to bring about his hearing once again. However, his hearing wasn't something that would be brought back by sheer force. That revealed a nagging worry somewhere in the recesses of his mind. What if he doesn't get his hearing back? What if he would be totally deaf for the rest of his life? He had sat about his task with a certain zeal to force past these thoughts. What if that was it? What if he couldn't hear Nostariel's laugh again? Snuffy's bark? How would he carry on a loud conversation with Sparrow in the Hanged Man? What if every night was silent for the rest of his life?
He was panicking. Ashton could feel his heartbeat strumming in his chest, threatening to burst out. His feet had quickened, forcing him down the cave faster than he would have normally. He needed to find someone, Rilien, Lucien, Sophia, anyone. Even an enemy to fight in the dead of his silence would have been kinder than to be left to his own mind. The last person he wanted to be alone with was himself. His erratic pace sent him right over a patch of soft sand. He stopped immediately, the sand sucking his boots into their depths. The stop was abrupt enough to topple him over, but he managed to catch himself with a hand before the sand sunk his entire person in seconds rather than minutes. He ripped his hand out of the sand's maw and forced himself upright, but the damage was done. Sand was up to his knees.
A steady stream of curses fell from Ashton's lips but fell on deaf ears. He began to tug at his feet to rip them free, but for all his resistance, he just sank deeper and deeper into the sand. The panic from later only intensified as he was slowly being engulfed not by the roof, as he initially feared, but the floor. Well, if the sand kept eating him like it was, he wouldn't have to worry about his nights being a silent affair. A grim thought that managed to chill Ashton right to the spine. This was what he was afraid of, this was his fear. He was not some great knight, he couldn't brush off the mantle of death so easily as Lucien could.
It wasn't even the death that frightened him the most. It was the silence afterward. To be totally, utterly alone in death. He'd never be able to set one last eye on any of his friends. Hell, he wouldn't even go out in a glorious bang, but a mewling whimper. It was no enemy, no animal, nor heroic action that did Ashton in, but Andraste bleeding sand. Rage backed with fear set Ashton back to thrashing, trying to force his way out of the sand with brute force. He knew better, he knew a calmer head would prevail in this situation, but in this situation, he just didn't care. He was afraid, he was angry, and he wanted out. He wanted to hear, he wanted to survive dammit.
Rilien knew he had to find them. Honestly, though, he knew he would, and he wasnāt all that worried about it. He hadnāt felt this good sinceā¦ well, he didnāt really remember. The last time heād had his magic, heād been barely a teenager, and heād already been damn good. He was beyond ecstatic to realize that this hadnāt changed since heād lost it, and already, his dimly-lit path was illuminated by the cavorting shapes of bright orange-yellow flames, orbiting around his head in the form of sun-bright sparrows, becauseā¦ well, he felt like it. Heād never had a particular fondness for birds before, he didnāt think, but he looked at these ones and could only smile.
Light steps carried him along his path, and though he was alone, any anxiety this may have produced was nothing next to his present state of euphoria, and lacked the force to cut through that set of sensations. He was even humming to himself, some ditty or another heād picked up during bard training, a cheerful one about a gentleman pirate and a stolen flagship. It was tied to an actual historical incident, but if there was anyone Orlesians liked laughing at more than Fereldans, it was the Orlesians of the distant past.
There was a noise ahead, and Rilien tensed a moment, stilling in his motions and peering through the gloom. Oh, look, a rage demon! How fun! Nothing else was quite that loud and obnoxious, and he grinned broadly as it approached, halfway to a grip on his knives before he snorted at his own folly. Why bother, when the answer was right at his fingertips? Calling the magic to himself, he watched with delight as the arcing electricity travelled over the surface of his skin without harming him, blue-white ripples of unadulterated power. It stirred something, settled somewhere between his sinew and bone, like there was a song alive inside his body, and he could have laughed with the thrill of it, so he did, whipping forward and shooting the electricity off on a direct line for the rage demon.
The creature took the hit full-on, momentarily stunned, but then roared its defiance and continued forward. But he was made for this, and no simple demon was going to deter him. It couldnāt even speak, not properly, and he disdained it as heād always disdained them. Oh, his pride had been great, but it had also beenā¦ something else. Something that meant he could look at a demon of the same nature and mock it mercilessly. This one, so much baser and dumber than that, lunged for him, and he sidestepped, sweeping a hand out and catching it in the radius of a cone of cold. The arc of ice immobilized it, and then Rilien called up the concussive force of his own school of specialization, and slammed a wall of invisible energy into the thing. Ice cracked and spiderwebbed, but it was the demon that shattered, bursting into little pieces and disappearing from this plane.
Straightening, Rilien dusted his hands off, still on the battle-high and entirely satisfied with the way things were going right now. All he had to do was find the other three, his two friends and the friend of a friend, and then they could deal with this so-called horror and go save Sparrow from that nasty bitch, Rapture. He rather liked the idea of thatāit had a nice heroic ring to it, didnāt it? This time, heād succeed. The last time, heād been a stupid boy in an oppressive Circle that tried to tell him what to do and who to be, and heād been too late. But not anymoreāheād made a respectable sort of living for himself, and heād done it all with little help and a lot of hindrance. Even as a Tranquil, he didnāt care what anyone thought he was supposed to be. Wellā¦ maybe it was impossible to care, if you were Tranquil. Had he cared? He thought he had, about some things, but it was hard to remember, exactly. All he could remember was how much he didnāt want to go back.
Shaking his head to himself, he kept on, eventually reaching what looked like a central chamber of some sort. Three passages branched off: one left, one right, and one straight ahead. He was tempted to the one dead in front, but that one was practically demanding that he take it, and he was far too contrary to answer a demand just because it was made. Noā¦ heād goā¦left. Left sounded good.
The leftward tunnel was a bit odd, actuallyāRilien couldnāt seem to hear anything, or make any noise. He found this to be relatively unimportant, all things considered. Probably just a magical effect of this particular part of the tunnel system. If the being had been here for as long as he hypothesized, it had likely worked tis magic into the very stone and soil of the place. It would have had enough time, and perhaps enough boredom as well. He had a feeling that he was going the wrong way, but stubborn as he was, he felt somewhat validated by this. It was hard to trust such gut-level reactions in a place full of magic. He could very well be under some kind of sensory influence right now. Demons were certainly strong enough for that, and they tended to possess mages so as to become stronger still, to gain that mastery that they envied most.
Alas, Astonās thrashing did not catch his ears, but eventually it did catch his eye, and Rilienās brows shot up, clearly surprised at his friendās predicament. He actually wasnāt sure if he was more surprised that there was quicksand down here or that Ashton, usually relatively sure on his feet, had managed somehow to walk right into it. Still, that was quite enough thinking for the moment, and Rilien acted quickly, reaching back for a dagger and using it to slice off first one silk sleeve, then the other. He tied them together in a firm sailorās knot, then added the belt-sash around his waist as well.
This gave him a fairly serviceable length of silk, and a strong material it was. Waving to catch Ashtonās attention, Ril hurled one end of the makeshift rope out into the sand-pit, getting it as close to the archer as he could.
Ashton was sunken down to his waist by the time Rilien arrived, and still so focused on escaping that the man hardly noticed the... Tranquil? That spark in his eye before they lost contact was certainly not Tranquil like, even for Rilien. It was only when a length of silk fell in front of his face. He paused his struggling for a moment to look at the silk confusedly. He followed the silk up until it reached the owner. If either of them could hear, they'd hear Ashton yell praise to the Maker, as well as a peppering of obscenities. He shouldered his bow and lunged for the silk.
Once in his hands, he wrapped it a number of times around his arms and used the other to idicate that he should begin pulling. The exact wording in his mouth was something along the lines of pull like hell. At least he wasn't alone any more. That managed to allievate a great deal of his worries. Now that dying alone weren't in the cards, he calmed down enough to think things through. The best thing for him to do would be to stay still, and let Ril slip him from the sand, instead of trying to brute force his way out. He could still feel the suction in his feet, and straightened his toes in order to facilitate the slipping.
He just really hoped Rilien was strong enough to yank his lanky ass out of the sand.
Rilien produced a grin from somewhere at Ashtonās obliviousness. Granted, the situation itself wasnāt all that funny, exactly, but there was a certain kind of gallows humor to it, maybe. Nowā¦ the only question was whether or not heād be strong enough to manage this. He rather wished Lucien were here, as he did not doubt his friendās ability to haul Ashton out of the sand, only his own. Setting his feet as firmly against the stone as he could, Rilien pulled, setting his teeth and backing up slowly, inch by hard-won inch. The progress was slow, but he could feel a little bit of give, and he hoped it was the sand rather than the archerās joint-sockets. Hard to tell, with no sound.
All at once though, something gave, and he had to assume that was definitely the sand. The change was abrupt enough that Rilien fell backwards, righting himself almost immediately with a look of irritation, which swiftly morphed back into a wry smile when he noted that Ashton no longer stood half-submerged in quicksand. Tugging on the makeshift rope to indicate the other man should let go of it, he looped it twice around his waist and tied it off. Might as well keep it for nowāwho knew what they would run into later?
Ah, so he wouldn't die. That was splendid. Whatever panic was left quickly morphed into elation. While Ashton's voice was useless, body language wasn't. As soon as he popped up to his feet he began a jig of sorts. Of course, the jig made him accutely aware of how much sand had gotten, well, everywhere. Sand on his legs, sand in his boots, and sand in his ass. Every step, every movement, it just ground deeper and deeper until there'd be nothing left. Of course, at least he was alive to feel the grinding.
The jig quickly ended and he enveloped new-Ril into a mighty hug and lifted him off of the ground. Once he hug was done, Ashton settled down to brass tacks. He was still deaf, and from Rilien's reactions gathered he was much in the same position. That means it wasn't just him, but whether or not they'd both be permanently disabled remained to be seen. But Rilien seemed calm enough, and that calmness helped calm Ashton. He looked down the tunnel from whence he came, and in the direction Rilien came before he shrugged. Catching Rilien's attention, Ashton pointed down the path he had just come and shook his head no. He then raised two fingers-- two choices. With that, he pointed down the southwest passage and the passage Rilien came from.
He could decide their direction, and Ash would let Rilien lead off this time.
What? Well, that's what he thought he said, and he could feel the vibrations in his throat to make the noise, but his ears heard nothing. In fact, they heard nothing at all. Not a whisper, not his feet scuffling against the ground, not even his hitched breath. It was completely, utterly, and totally silent. If that wasn't the worst of it, the fact that he was alone didn't help the fact. His next reaction was to look at his side for the people he entered the cave with, but likewise they were gone. There was only silence and himself under the dome. He spun around wildly trying to find anything, anyone, fast enough that the force threw himself into the ground.
Stones rose up to meet his knees as he silently bashed them against the ground. It made nothing of a sound, even the shouts of pain died in his throat. He shouted Rilien's name in an effort to pierce the quiet veil, but nothing. He acutely aware that he was alone. Wherever Rilien, Lucien, and Sophia were, they were not here. He needed to find them, to cast off the silence. He pounded the ground with his fist, and when no thump was forthcoming only the pain in his hand he stopped. That was something, at least. He pinched the side of his cheek, confirming that he could, indeed, still feel. Good, that was good. It wasn't perfect, but it was progress. He couldn't hear, but he could feel. Collecting the rest of his senses, he inhaled deeply, noting the scent of moist stones, dust, and other smells of the wild.
Right. He could feel and smell, he was not completely without his senses. But the silence and loneliness was so overpowering, he could feel himself losing his mind. He tried to make a quip to himself, but likewise his voice fell on deaf ears and his face darkened. He needed to find someone-- anyone. To that end, Ashton threw himself to his feet and took out his bow and an arrow. He nocked it in one fluid movement, sourly missing the twang of the string. He inhaled deeply one last time, closing his eyes as he did. As he exhaled, any evidence of the everpresent smile on his face died, leaving only the skeletal remains of the hunter. The spark in his eyes died, and his brows furrowed, his shoulders hitched.
This soundless environment made hunting ten-times more difficult. He relied on his ears as much as his eyes, but now he couldn't hear his quarry sneak up behind him, he couldn't determine the direction of anything. He was, effectively, running off of instinct. He had hoped to never be put in this position again, thrust into the wilderness with no one at his side. Except this time it was worse. He had no idea where his friends were nor even if they still lived-- he forced that thought out of his mind. Thought like that would throw him into the pits of insanity faster than any silence would. So he did just that, he forced everything out of his mind but his sight. He looked forward, darting toward the exit. He kept his bow half-taut part for the sense of resistance it provided, and part for defense.
He needed to find someone.
With Ashtonās tread, the stone gradually grew less perfect around him, and in places, sand could be seen seeping in from the long seam between wall and ceiling, suggesting that wherever he was, the ground above his head was sandy in texture. It covered over the grey stone in apparently random piles, though it also made no noise. It was hard to tell if he was deafened, or if everything in his proximity was muted. Either way, the sand grew thicker as he walked, until he was forced to tread over it as he made his way further into the corridor. With time, the tunnel grew wider as it merged with another, but the way forward seemed to be more or less the same, unless he happened to want to double back and see what had been in the southwest.
Unfortunately, that no longer seems to be an option, anyway. What had appeared at first as an innocent patch of sand like any of the others proved to be anything but, and before heād had time to properly react, the hunter was sunk up to his knees in the stuff, and would only sink further still as time elapsed.
The sand dripping from the ceiling worried him. It told him that the foundations around him were not as stable as they could be. Add into the mix the silence, and the entire roof could cave away and crush him before he knew what happened. Therefore it was the ceiling and walls that drew most of his attention. He felt the floor beneath his feet slowly shift into more of a sandy texture. Still, he was more worried about the ceiling breaking and crushing him then the floor giving out from under him. He could feel the floor, he couldn't feel the ceiling.
His ears had long since turned red from him rubbing them on his shoulders, in an effort to force them to work. It was an unconscious habit, anything to bring about his hearing once again. However, his hearing wasn't something that would be brought back by sheer force. That revealed a nagging worry somewhere in the recesses of his mind. What if he doesn't get his hearing back? What if he would be totally deaf for the rest of his life? He had sat about his task with a certain zeal to force past these thoughts. What if that was it? What if he couldn't hear Nostariel's laugh again? Snuffy's bark? How would he carry on a loud conversation with Sparrow in the Hanged Man? What if every night was silent for the rest of his life?
He was panicking. Ashton could feel his heartbeat strumming in his chest, threatening to burst out. His feet had quickened, forcing him down the cave faster than he would have normally. He needed to find someone, Rilien, Lucien, Sophia, anyone. Even an enemy to fight in the dead of his silence would have been kinder than to be left to his own mind. The last person he wanted to be alone with was himself. His erratic pace sent him right over a patch of soft sand. He stopped immediately, the sand sucking his boots into their depths. The stop was abrupt enough to topple him over, but he managed to catch himself with a hand before the sand sunk his entire person in seconds rather than minutes. He ripped his hand out of the sand's maw and forced himself upright, but the damage was done. Sand was up to his knees.
A steady stream of curses fell from Ashton's lips but fell on deaf ears. He began to tug at his feet to rip them free, but for all his resistance, he just sank deeper and deeper into the sand. The panic from later only intensified as he was slowly being engulfed not by the roof, as he initially feared, but the floor. Well, if the sand kept eating him like it was, he wouldn't have to worry about his nights being a silent affair. A grim thought that managed to chill Ashton right to the spine. This was what he was afraid of, this was his fear. He was not some great knight, he couldn't brush off the mantle of death so easily as Lucien could.
It wasn't even the death that frightened him the most. It was the silence afterward. To be totally, utterly alone in death. He'd never be able to set one last eye on any of his friends. Hell, he wouldn't even go out in a glorious bang, but a mewling whimper. It was no enemy, no animal, nor heroic action that did Ashton in, but Andraste bleeding sand. Rage backed with fear set Ashton back to thrashing, trying to force his way out of the sand with brute force. He knew better, he knew a calmer head would prevail in this situation, but in this situation, he just didn't care. He was afraid, he was angry, and he wanted out. He wanted to hear, he wanted to survive dammit.
Rilien knew he had to find them. Honestly, though, he knew he would, and he wasnāt all that worried about it. He hadnāt felt this good sinceā¦ well, he didnāt really remember. The last time heād had his magic, heād been barely a teenager, and heād already been damn good. He was beyond ecstatic to realize that this hadnāt changed since heād lost it, and already, his dimly-lit path was illuminated by the cavorting shapes of bright orange-yellow flames, orbiting around his head in the form of sun-bright sparrows, becauseā¦ well, he felt like it. Heād never had a particular fondness for birds before, he didnāt think, but he looked at these ones and could only smile.
Light steps carried him along his path, and though he was alone, any anxiety this may have produced was nothing next to his present state of euphoria, and lacked the force to cut through that set of sensations. He was even humming to himself, some ditty or another heād picked up during bard training, a cheerful one about a gentleman pirate and a stolen flagship. It was tied to an actual historical incident, but if there was anyone Orlesians liked laughing at more than Fereldans, it was the Orlesians of the distant past.
There was a noise ahead, and Rilien tensed a moment, stilling in his motions and peering through the gloom. Oh, look, a rage demon! How fun! Nothing else was quite that loud and obnoxious, and he grinned broadly as it approached, halfway to a grip on his knives before he snorted at his own folly. Why bother, when the answer was right at his fingertips? Calling the magic to himself, he watched with delight as the arcing electricity travelled over the surface of his skin without harming him, blue-white ripples of unadulterated power. It stirred something, settled somewhere between his sinew and bone, like there was a song alive inside his body, and he could have laughed with the thrill of it, so he did, whipping forward and shooting the electricity off on a direct line for the rage demon.
The creature took the hit full-on, momentarily stunned, but then roared its defiance and continued forward. But he was made for this, and no simple demon was going to deter him. It couldnāt even speak, not properly, and he disdained it as heād always disdained them. Oh, his pride had been great, but it had also beenā¦ something else. Something that meant he could look at a demon of the same nature and mock it mercilessly. This one, so much baser and dumber than that, lunged for him, and he sidestepped, sweeping a hand out and catching it in the radius of a cone of cold. The arc of ice immobilized it, and then Rilien called up the concussive force of his own school of specialization, and slammed a wall of invisible energy into the thing. Ice cracked and spiderwebbed, but it was the demon that shattered, bursting into little pieces and disappearing from this plane.
Straightening, Rilien dusted his hands off, still on the battle-high and entirely satisfied with the way things were going right now. All he had to do was find the other three, his two friends and the friend of a friend, and then they could deal with this so-called horror and go save Sparrow from that nasty bitch, Rapture. He rather liked the idea of thatāit had a nice heroic ring to it, didnāt it? This time, heād succeed. The last time, heād been a stupid boy in an oppressive Circle that tried to tell him what to do and who to be, and heād been too late. But not anymoreāheād made a respectable sort of living for himself, and heād done it all with little help and a lot of hindrance. Even as a Tranquil, he didnāt care what anyone thought he was supposed to be. Wellā¦ maybe it was impossible to care, if you were Tranquil. Had he cared? He thought he had, about some things, but it was hard to remember, exactly. All he could remember was how much he didnāt want to go back.
Shaking his head to himself, he kept on, eventually reaching what looked like a central chamber of some sort. Three passages branched off: one left, one right, and one straight ahead. He was tempted to the one dead in front, but that one was practically demanding that he take it, and he was far too contrary to answer a demand just because it was made. Noā¦ heād goā¦left. Left sounded good.
The leftward tunnel was a bit odd, actuallyāRilien couldnāt seem to hear anything, or make any noise. He found this to be relatively unimportant, all things considered. Probably just a magical effect of this particular part of the tunnel system. If the being had been here for as long as he hypothesized, it had likely worked tis magic into the very stone and soil of the place. It would have had enough time, and perhaps enough boredom as well. He had a feeling that he was going the wrong way, but stubborn as he was, he felt somewhat validated by this. It was hard to trust such gut-level reactions in a place full of magic. He could very well be under some kind of sensory influence right now. Demons were certainly strong enough for that, and they tended to possess mages so as to become stronger still, to gain that mastery that they envied most.
Alas, Astonās thrashing did not catch his ears, but eventually it did catch his eye, and Rilienās brows shot up, clearly surprised at his friendās predicament. He actually wasnāt sure if he was more surprised that there was quicksand down here or that Ashton, usually relatively sure on his feet, had managed somehow to walk right into it. Still, that was quite enough thinking for the moment, and Rilien acted quickly, reaching back for a dagger and using it to slice off first one silk sleeve, then the other. He tied them together in a firm sailorās knot, then added the belt-sash around his waist as well.
This gave him a fairly serviceable length of silk, and a strong material it was. Waving to catch Ashtonās attention, Ril hurled one end of the makeshift rope out into the sand-pit, getting it as close to the archer as he could.
Ashton was sunken down to his waist by the time Rilien arrived, and still so focused on escaping that the man hardly noticed the... Tranquil? That spark in his eye before they lost contact was certainly not Tranquil like, even for Rilien. It was only when a length of silk fell in front of his face. He paused his struggling for a moment to look at the silk confusedly. He followed the silk up until it reached the owner. If either of them could hear, they'd hear Ashton yell praise to the Maker, as well as a peppering of obscenities. He shouldered his bow and lunged for the silk.
Once in his hands, he wrapped it a number of times around his arms and used the other to idicate that he should begin pulling. The exact wording in his mouth was something along the lines of pull like hell. At least he wasn't alone any more. That managed to allievate a great deal of his worries. Now that dying alone weren't in the cards, he calmed down enough to think things through. The best thing for him to do would be to stay still, and let Ril slip him from the sand, instead of trying to brute force his way out. He could still feel the suction in his feet, and straightened his toes in order to facilitate the slipping.
He just really hoped Rilien was strong enough to yank his lanky ass out of the sand.
Rilien produced a grin from somewhere at Ashtonās obliviousness. Granted, the situation itself wasnāt all that funny, exactly, but there was a certain kind of gallows humor to it, maybe. Nowā¦ the only question was whether or not heād be strong enough to manage this. He rather wished Lucien were here, as he did not doubt his friendās ability to haul Ashton out of the sand, only his own. Setting his feet as firmly against the stone as he could, Rilien pulled, setting his teeth and backing up slowly, inch by hard-won inch. The progress was slow, but he could feel a little bit of give, and he hoped it was the sand rather than the archerās joint-sockets. Hard to tell, with no sound.
All at once though, something gave, and he had to assume that was definitely the sand. The change was abrupt enough that Rilien fell backwards, righting himself almost immediately with a look of irritation, which swiftly morphed back into a wry smile when he noted that Ashton no longer stood half-submerged in quicksand. Tugging on the makeshift rope to indicate the other man should let go of it, he looped it twice around his waist and tied it off. Might as well keep it for nowāwho knew what they would run into later?
Ah, so he wouldn't die. That was splendid. Whatever panic was left quickly morphed into elation. While Ashton's voice was useless, body language wasn't. As soon as he popped up to his feet he began a jig of sorts. Of course, the jig made him accutely aware of how much sand had gotten, well, everywhere. Sand on his legs, sand in his boots, and sand in his ass. Every step, every movement, it just ground deeper and deeper until there'd be nothing left. Of course, at least he was alive to feel the grinding.
The jig quickly ended and he enveloped new-Ril into a mighty hug and lifted him off of the ground. Once he hug was done, Ashton settled down to brass tacks. He was still deaf, and from Rilien's reactions gathered he was much in the same position. That means it wasn't just him, but whether or not they'd both be permanently disabled remained to be seen. But Rilien seemed calm enough, and that calmness helped calm Ashton. He looked down the tunnel from whence he came, and in the direction Rilien came before he shrugged. Catching Rilien's attention, Ashton pointed down the path he had just come and shook his head no. He then raised two fingers-- two choices. With that, he pointed down the southwest passage and the passage Rilien came from.
He could decide their direction, and Ash would let Rilien lead off this time.