To say this is a shitty way to wake up is something of an understatement.

The half-elf hisses a snarl through clenched teeth and takes several moments indulging in fathomless rage. Maybe if she were in a bit less agony she could come up with some kind of clever argument as to why this is unfair and dumb and should not happen and was monumentally stupid for anyone to do, but actually, she's kind of past that. Instead, the entirety of her mind is swallowed by something along the lines of I will find whomever did this to me and I will cut out their heart and feed it to them as they die, without quite so much specificity. She has no idea who did this, or why, or how, but she will find them and they will regret it.

Okay, okay. Anger's all well and good, but it's pointless if it's not directed. First order of business: cracking open her eyes to get an idea of where she is. Second order of business: try to reach a hand up to grasp at the hole in her chest and judge the damage.

She can't move.

Well, that's not entirely true. She can move her eyes, and she can breathe, but she's otherwise completely paralyzed.

This is potentially problematic.

Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhh!!

Breathe. Breathe. Fathomless rage when it has an outlet. What are her surroundings like? Can she move her tongue and mouth to talk? Wiggle her fingers, maybe?

Her surroundings: stone, unworked granite to be more precise. She's surrounded by rune-inscribed pillars.

There's someone approaching her. A woman, bald, with tattoos on her pate and simple red robes.

Red robes, bald head, tattoos; hello, Red Wizard of Thay. What, is she being studied by amoral wizards? Great. That's great. She has no idea how that could possibly happen, but that makes... some degree of sense, she supposes.

She watches the woman and lets her opinion of her situation be known with a little snarl. This half-elf: unhappy.

The Red Wizard casts Dispel Magic.

Nothing happens.

"Well, I was prepared for that," she mutters.

Greater Dispel goes to the same result.

"...hoped I wouldn't have to do this," she mutters.

Mordenkainen's Disjunction goes through. Ciaveth can move again... technically. Any attempt to actually do so will be met with agonizing pain.

She recognizes the spell. She'd be excited about getting to see it cast by someone besides Sand the grumpy elven wizard, and want to ask for a copy of it, except for how everything is horrible, this person is probably not her friend, and she is filled with fathomless rage. Mordenkainen's Disjunction is some serious spellcasting. That... does not bode well for her, actually.

Her fingers scrape across the stone floor into fists and she sucks in a larger (agonizing) breath. She is not, actually, dumb enough to try to attempt to get up. She curls inward, clutching towards the hole in her chest. Not mortal? Yep, not mortal. Probably would be if she ripped the stitches or sneezed too hard, but the hole isn't gushing blood, so. That's good. As long as she doesn't sneeze. Talking is probably fine, though. She can put words together.

"Do you, so happen, to know," she growls methodically, breaking up the words to make them more manageable through the pain, "who, put me here."

The Red Wizard furrows her brow, leaning down to administer a healing potion. "I don't understand. If someone did this, cut you open and trapped you here, surely you would remember? But you don't know, do you. I can understand your confusion... I- it must be very disorienting."

"Disorienting... is a word for it, sure," she grumbles. Infuriating is the word she'd use, but disorienting is accurate enough. The healing potion helps, maybe she can actually move now.

"Thank you," she adds, carefully beginning the painful task of picking herself off of the floor. She doesn't have to get all the way to standing just yet, but she would rather not be face down in the dirt anymore, thanks.

Okay, so, logic. She can pay attention to logic, right? Right. There's a hole in her chest; this is less illogical and insane than it first appears, because she had actually been carrying something notable within her chest. The broken shard of a magic sword. Not an efficient place for it, but she was a child when she acquired it, and seeing as how the thing was lodged in her chest, not very smart to just rip out willy nilly. Apparently someone decided to do that without asking her. Hooray.

Now how did they get her? The last thing she remembers, she'd just killed a big bad evil guy, and then the big bad evil guy's lair promptly started collapsing on her. Rocks fall, everybody panics and tries not to die. She... thinks she got hit in the head with something? Her hand checks her head for trauma, and finds a tender bump. Okay, so that is what made her unconscious. And then.... did someone fish her out of the rubble? Or something? In... the middle of the Shadow King's lair, in the Mere of Dead Men, which under his influence became even less friendly than the name implied. Lots of things aren't adding up. If she was fished out of the rubble, she's looking very good for it, and clearly she wasn't there for very long, because she doesn't have a Ring of Sustenance or anything, and while she feels hungry, she doesn't feel faint or starving. So that implies... someone was watching her and waiting for the perfect time to strike? For, by gaping hole in her chest, the shard of the magic sword that had once been buried therein? Again? Why do people keep wanting that very specific broken sword. Except, the last time someone wanted the sword shard, they'd been happy to kill her for it, and... she is not dead. Considering she woke up face down with a hole in her chest, in a magical prison, this does not seem like a mercy.

"Something's not adding up," she mutters, mostly to herself. Her eyes search her surroundings, and she adds, "... Are we underground?"

"We're in a barrow deep beneath the soil of Rashemen. The locals say that powerful spirits dwell here, hostile to those who enter... and those who try to leave."

Okay, that just makes no sense at all.

"... Wonderful. Okay. And... how did you know I was here to come scrape me off of the ground and feed me a healing potion?"

"I was told to come here by a woman named Lienna, a friend of my mother's. Before you ask, I don't know how she knew, but I intend to take you to her and make certain she gives both of us some answers." Her voice has an edge of frustration to it.

"But that's after we get out of here," she adds. "For the moment, haste is what matters."

"Prudence has always served me better," she says absently, but haste does matter at least a little bit. For some reason, the person who put her here didn't loot her body before dumping her here. Her Bag of Holding is missing, but her spellbook is fine, as is anything that she was physically wearing, including spell components. Even the cloak with the giant stupid star that she hates. Since she's not anywhere near Neverwinter anymore, and doesn't need to play the 'I'm very loyal, no really, please let me keep this keep so I can kill your big bad evil guy for you,' game anymore, it's going in the nearest ditch the minute she has a suitable replacement. It's very recognizable, though, so: Prestidigitation, now the cloak is covered in dried dirt that is still somehow less ugly than the big dumb stupid star that marked her as Knight-Captain of Neverwinter.

Then she retrieves her spellbook, checks it briefly for missing pages (there are none), and then starts preparing spells. Her head and chest hurts, and she's hungry, sore, and hates everything, but she's honestly kind of used to that by now, so it's not getting in her way.

“Both are admirable virtues,” the wizard nods.

”Patience is a virtue,” chirps a voice from inside Safiya’s robe. “I learned that from Mistress!”

”Not now, Kaji,” the wizard says, embarrassed.

... Okay, maybe she doesn't hate the little familiar that just embarrassed the Red Wizard, that was admittedly pretty cute.

"I suppose just teleporting out now that you've found me isn't an option for some reason, is it," she observes, between spell preparations.

“No, the barrow is warded against teleportation,” she says. “That’s why I had to walk in. I’ve prepared a teleport for when we get out, though, so we won’t have to trek all the way from here to Mulsantir.”

Ciaveth nods. "Pity. Do you have a light weapon of some kind on you, shortsword or something?"

"As it happens I do," she says, pulling a sheathed rapier from her bag. It's well-made and enchanted, and it shines with a cold blue light, but it's not a patch on the Sword of Gith.

It's really, really not. She will find her weird broken sword that was partially embedded in her chest, and she will get it back. It is her sword, it exploded and nearly killed her and she painstakingly put it sort of back together with magic, anyone that disagrees can go get bent.

"You or Lienna have very good information," she says, taking it.

"Lienna certainly does. I'm nearly as much in the dark about this situation as you are, in case that makes you feel any better... which I can't imagine it does."

"Nope! But I appreciate the disjunction, the healing potion, and the rapier anyway," she says, in a bright tone of voice that might give someone pause, considering the circumstances and how she's kind of clearly still furious. "I'm Ciaveth, by the way."

“And I’m Safiya, and in turn I appreciate the trust you’re putting in me. I’m sure you aren’t thrilled to be putting so much faith in a strange red-robed wizardess, but I promise - for what it’s worth - that I won’t make you regret it.”

She has a snappy retort along the lines of, 'Oh, I wouldn't be the one that regrets it,' that she swallows instead of says. That would be petty and unfriendly, and if there's anything she's learned from being the only adult surrounded by bickering children shaped like adults, it's that sometimes, you do not say the snappy retort just because you want to. Sometimes you shut your mouth and nod and act like you were taught literally any manners.

"If you mean that, thank you," she says, instead. "It's appreciated." Her spell preparation completed in the margins of all of the talking, she shuts her spellbook and pockets it.

"So, I'm in front because, uh." She motions to Safiya. "Wizard." It's meant to be phrased like a confirmation, but really, it's just kind of obvious that she's going in front, because really. Wizard. Ciaveth's a wizard too, but she's other things besides, including in (light, enchanted) armor, and as such she's significantly less delicate than Safiya presumably is.

"I certainly won't argue with that," Safiya says. "Here, let me-"

She casts Persistent Haste on both of them.

She smiles, just a little, at that. Haste is, and has always been, one of her very best friends.

Then she casts one of her other friends on herself, Extended Stoneskin. Also Extended Protection From Arrows. Oh, and Extended Greater Magic Weapon on the rapier. There, those are the ones that will last all day.

"Thanks. Let's hope we can just quietly sneak out of here." Somehow, she doubts it. Thus, the protection spells.