As Austin floated in the darkness of his subconsciousness, torn between awareness and unconsciousness, he became aware of someone suddenly moving his body sometime between the in and out of stupored consciousness.
The first time he had surfaced consciousness was a temporary one; he doesn't remember much — It was fragmented. What he does remember, however, was the extreme pain he felt in his gut. It was so great, Austin swore the blade Feari stabbed him with had to have been dabbed with some kind of acidic poison, because the pain he felt was just too extreme to be a normal dagger wound.
Through the throbbing pain, though, Austin did confirm that somebody - rather, more accurately, 'somebodies'; plural, there were two of them at least - was hauling him by his underarms across their necks as they dragged him through the tunnels. One of these haulers had a firm bird, Austi sensed through his sense of feeling, though mind foggy, burning with pain on his side, maybe a male? The other was definitely female — She had a feminine build, Austin felt as they dragged him wherever they were dragging him to.
Though Austin wasn't entirely sure if these people were trying to help him or were simply taking him somewhere to kill him, but, given the fact that he couldn't even muster enough strength or energy to open his eyes and the fact that he could sense 2 or three other pairs of footsteps aside from the ones carrying him and his own, he figured he was not just outnumbered but surrounded, escorted by most likely armed individuals, if the constant sound of clanks and chinks could be interpreted as weaponry. He'd be stupid to try to get a way; and again, he doesn't even have the energy.
As if reading his mind, the girl helping to haul him said "Try something dumb, and you will lose more than you're worth."
With that thrilling threat Austin slipped back into his subconsciousness once again.
The next time Austin slipped into temporary consciousness, the pain had more than doubled. It felt beyond awful. 'Definitely poisoned,' some part of his consciousness provided him with.
His body wasn't moving and no one had their neck and shoulders supporting his weight, so when he finally comprehended the feeling of the cold, hard wall of stone and steel, guessed that they were taking a break on whatever journey they were dragging Austin along with them on. After a few head throbbing moments, Austin's sears managed to pick up parts of a conversation between his….haulers?
"—blade must be laced with some kind of acidic poison," said a guy?'s voice. It sounded firm, direct, flowing with a rough sounding edge to it, as if he used it a lot. "Can't we just rip the blade out?"
"Not sure if that is the best idea," came the girl's familiar voice - the one from before. "Pull it out at the wrong angle and you can make it worse."
The girl had an absolute voice, almost commanding, and, aside from earlier, Austin could swear he heard it before, but couldn't remember where. He couldn't remember anything.
"What are we supposed to do then?" the boy asked. "We can't let him die, at least not right now; not when we're so close to completing our mission."
'Mission? Not letting me die?What is going on?!' Austin thought in frustration, ears trained to pick up anything else informal to him. He needed to figure out what the hell was going on.
"I sent Alyssa, Zether and Cleo to the outpost to get some supplies," the girl said. "I need to perform the operation myself, before we move again, otherwise, he'll die long before we reach the Meadows."
'The Meadows? Wasn't that in the letter? I-,' Austin began thinking, but a sudden, involuntary movement caused the pain to flare exponentially, making him gasp as he felt as if all his muscles were locked and in constant agony. His ability to breath became near impossible to achieve. Every nerve in his body was screaming at him.
"He's going into shock!" the girl screamed.
"Hurry!" the boy said. "They're back! You've gotta do the operation now!"
"I need to stabilize him!" the girl shouted. "Get that blade out of him!"
"Sorry, man, but this is gonna hurt like shit," Austin barely heard the voice of the guy said, the pain so great.
"On three guys, pull the blade out!" the girl shouted. "One–!"
A flare of pain erupted within him as he felt someone grab the hilt of the dagger, still within his gut. "Two!" more pain. "Three!" A pause, and then a full on volcanic eruption of pain as they removed the poisoned dagger.
Through the pain, Austin managed to open his eyes, his sight blurrily seeing hazy, humanoid figures — four of them — the last sight he saw before passing out into total unconsciousness.