[OP: "Cold"--The Oh Hellos]
Rumi woke up to her head throbbing. For a second she was afraid she was blindfolded, because when she opened her eyes, she saw nothing.
Then she realized she was cuffed to the wall, hand and foot. The reason it was so dark was that there was no light in this room, but she could see the empty space somehow.
It came back to her... The Convocation of the Cursed had gotten the better of her in their little tiff. How could she have been so sloppy? Perhaps that news about Keigo had distracted her.
Where was she now...?
Then she heard the sound that had probably woken her up to begin with--a scraping sound.
Then a piercing shriek that was probably from pain.
Her ears picked up more sound than other people's, so she judged that scream came from several rooms away, but it was definitely in the same building, whatever that was.
She wondered if the truth potion had worn off yet. She wasn't sure how long she'd have been out from the crack on the head.
Then the door to the room, which was out of her line of sight, opened, and someone came in.
"Of course we can always use more subjects," a weasley voice said, down from below her, so a short man, likely. "But why did you have to bring this one? Already cursed. What more can we do to it? And, not to mention, it's a d----d nuisance."
"I'm telling you, she had information on where to find the new Holder." That was the voice of Tomura for sure.
Rumi's skin crawled. That son of a reptile!... This had to be one of the Dark Lord's mad dungeons...
Which was not good...
Did that mean she was in the Dark Lands? Or just one of the territories of the Dark Lord?
Perhaps the smoke wizard had brought them here, no other explanation. She'd really thought she'd keep him out of the fight for longer.
A torch was lit, making her blink.
The small man, who looked like a fat troll to her, held it up to peer at her.
He seemed harmless enough, except that there was a greedy look in his eye that she didn't like.
"Oh, it's awake," he said. "How troublesome. But, if the truth potion is still in effect, perhaps we can get some answers. Listen, rodent--" Meaning Rumi. "--can you tell us how many people the king has looking for the Holder that we don't know about?"
Rumi bit her lip to try to keep from speaking, but the compulsion was beating in her chest... The potion had not worn off.
It clearly hadn't been that long then.
Of course the forced answer was: "I don't know," she said aloud, against her will. "I always work alone."
"You look familiar." The little man peered at her. "Why do you look familiar? Something about rabbit curses... Yes, a whole village of rabbit cursed... Oh, I remember: It was the well water, wasn't it?"
Rumi tensed. Did this snake know about that?
"A good joke, you might say," the little man said, chuckling in a nasty way. "Those were the days of experimenting with transmogrification spells. Didn't quite have the knack of making them reversible at will, so everyone ended up stuck that way, but, no matter. All in the pursuit of the arts. I didn't think one of them would still be out in the world after that. You must be quite impetuous."
"There's no need to lose your shirt, doctor," Tomura insisted, impatiently.
"Well, if she really works alone," the doctor said, adjusting a monocle in his eye, "then she really is not much use for information. She must already have told you everything there was to know about the Holder. We still don't even know which of those little nuisances has his power."
