Chapter 42: Alone and abandoned
Night had fallen over Sexton, accompanied by the faint rumble of thunder whispering of an approaching storm. Inside one of the abandoned classrooms, an unconscious Ruelle lay on the cold, dusty floor.
"Why isn’t she awake yet?" demanded an impatient Alanna, her eyes narrowed at Ruelle, who continued to lie motionless. An hour had passed, but the human beneath them had not woken up.
"Maybe she’s pretending to be unconscious," one of her Halfling lackeys suggested, tossing water on Ruelle’s face—but she remained unresponsive.
Alanna wanted to inflict pain and humiliation to this stupid human immediately, not expecting she’d have to wait. She hissed, "This was supposed to be a little punishment, not a coma. I even went through the trouble of stealing the Dreamweaver. How much did you use?"
There were three Halflings in total; one crouched next to Ruelle, another standing nearby, and the third stationed outside the door as a guard. The standing Halfling vampiress held up the empty vial. The Dreamweaver potion, used to render a person unconscious, now lingered heavily around Ruelle’s face in a faint, silvery mist—a clear sign of the vial’s hasty overuse.
"You used the entire vial..." Alanna whispered in shock.
"I—I thought it was better to use enough to keep her down so that she wouldn’t cause trouble, milady," the Halfling stammered.
"You fool!" Alanna snapped at her. "This is why you’ll never be an Elite. You don’t even know how much you were supposed to use!" The Halfling shrank at her words.
She had eagerly anticipated returning to Sexton after the weekend, ready to see this Groundling grovel. But for some reason, this one stopped working for Gwendolyn. "I wanted to show what terror is. Now what am I supposed to do when she can’t even hear or see?!" she fumed.