Rather than the dim or scattered lights of the rest of the cave network and the village they'd just left, this pa.s.sageway was brightly lit by standing braziers s.p.a.ced at equal intervals, each of which emitted no visible smoke or heat that she could feel. They were probably the result of an Everburning Torch enchantment or something similar, she figured.

s.p.a.ced evenly between each of the braziers stood another pair of abnormally large gnoll guards, one on each side of the corridor, wearing matching polished plate mail and carrying matching polearms.

As she followed her captors down the hall, she noticed for the first time that the walls at first appeared smooth when she initially entered, but as you walked, they actually revealed themselves to be covered with ornate carvings, all of which seemed to doc.u.ment some aspect of the gnoll tribe's history.

The first carving appeared to be some form of creation myth, showing a dog-faced ent.i.ty looking down over the world of living things, with wings that took up the entire sky. It depicted this deity hand-picking human beings and reshaping them instead into his own image, giving birth to the gnoll race, and the joy his new creations felt about their new forms.

This was the only carving that had a positive tone.

The rest, one ornate tragedy after another, depicted nothing but suffering, violence, destruction, and war. While she only had moments to take in each of the carvings before she was forcibly moved from its view, she began to get some idea of the overall narrative.

Their G.o.d had created them in their own image, but the other races, having been created from nothing, did not accept this new "perversion" of their creator G.o.d's intent. So they cast the gnoll race from acceptance into exile, leading to wars and famines and slavery, with the gnolls being shown both receiving violence and delivering violence in return.

Eleanor, in spite of her circ.u.mstances, couldn't help but feel pity for gnolls. The story they were telling mirrored the history she'd been told, except it depicted gnolls as corrupted monsters who existed solely to harm the other pure races, much in the same way that it was said that orcs, goblins, and kobolds did. This, however, showed a race that was created good, but through the prejudice of others became evil as a matter of self-preservation. If such a story were even partly true, then she almost couldn't blame them for being the way they were.

None of this, however, was going to alter her current circ.u.mstances, and no amount of empathy for her captors was going change the fact that she was still their prisoner and that if she failed to find a way out of this soon, she would stay their prisoner for however long she managed to endure their abuse, and no longer. Remembering this fact sobered her mind back up.

"Now is not the time to be a bleeding heart, Ells. You can care about them after they're not keeping you chained up like an animal." She thought to herself as they reached the end of the corridor.

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At the far end, two more large guards waited in front of a pair of matching stone doors set recessed into the end of the chamber that rose all the way to the carved ceiling. As they drew close, the two guards stepped to the side, one of them tapping one of the stone doors with the metal-capped b.u.t.t of his polearm.

In a moment, the door swung slowly outward with a low, grinding rumble, and the gnoll who'd been holding the chain attached to her collar walked over to her, and with a sharp tug snapped the collar free of her neck before unceremoniously pus.h.i.+ng her into the new room. Before she could say a word or get any idea of what was happening, the giant stone door boomed closed behind her.