Skullduggery pleasant

German Sanctuary

Somewhere before TDOTL.
Probably.

She was sprinting through the empty floors, her footsteps echoing in these empty, clinical sanctuary hallways. Her heart was hammering against her ribcage and she was throwing each door open, took a glance and ran on.

"Damn it." She cursed, trying her best to ignore the shrill alarm that had went off about an hour ago, when she had fought her way through the mages who'd tried to stop her. Vex and Saracen were still keeping the cleavers occupied. It was up to her to break into the sanctuary prison and get him out of here. She didn't know where to go, or even where to start looking, but she knew sanctuary's made it a point to have their prisons in the basements. Well, at least she thought they did.

Maybe the german sanctuary followed different construction rules. She did not have the time to doubt herself, though.

Tik tak tik tak tik tak..
She rounded a corner, tripped over an unconscious mage, kept running.
Smooth.
She reached stairs, skipped two at a time as she ran down. Someone grabbed her arm, she turned, dodged a clumsy fist and aimed at the chin, shaking the young sorcerers brain. He stumbled backwards, she got him in the throat, he collapsed and didn't get up. She kept running down another set of stairs. And another.

You know that there's a good chance that this is not the right way, right?

She reached the bottom, saw a set of doors, nothing else. A set of doors with a slit for a card, of which she did not have one.

She muttered something under her breath, tried to blast it open through air manipulation but this door was magic resistant.

The guy you throat punched has a card.

She looked up, towards the floor where she left the mage.
"Are you sure?" She whispered.

Yes, you idiot.

She refrained from rolling her eyes and used the air, pushed against the ground and went flying upwards.

Weeeeeeeee

She reached the railing and swung herself over, rolled, saw the guy on the ground. She scanned him for a card, he didn't have one.

His butt pocket.

She checked his back pocket and found the card.
David O'Connell, it said.
Prison doctor.
"Bingo." she whispered.

God bless.

She jumped over the railing, focused on manipulating the air, slowing down her descent. She touched ground and it hurt a tad but she went straight for the door, sliding the card through the slit. There was a click and the doors opened.

She smiled.

                                       ***

Karl Uwe had been sick and tired of the lines on the wall. For years he'd been staring at them, always the same boring patterns. Not much else was there to stare at in that little cell he had, not much but the lines on the walls.

But then, a few days ago, they had brought in a brand new inmate. Slender, he was. A skeleton person, he had realized when they had shackled both his hands and feet against a wall. At first, he was bemused. A skeleton. That wasn't something you saw everyday. He had laughed, he remembered. Pointed at him, even. He had laughed so much tears had come to his eyes.

To him, you see, it had all seemed quite funny. He had been sitting in a cold cell for decades and all of a sudden they shackled a skeleton against the wall. It was a lot more entertaining than those stupid, boring lines.