Why the<i>hell </i>was he doing this?  Getting involved?  Because Teldir was demanding it?  Because the witch - the maybe witch - was hot?  Or because he was plain stupid?<br/><br/>Stupid, he decided as he glanced around and then examined the lock on the cell.  “Right. This won’t be too hard,” he decided, sneering at the mechanism. “We’ll need to move quickly, though.”  Nimble fingers withdrew a leather-wrapped packet from his pouch, one that opened to reveal a number of curiously-designed small bars and levers. “One I open this, I mean.”<br/><br/>And then a woman entered, causing him to quickly tuck the packet away. Great. Witnesses. Compounding jailbreak with murder would be messy and dangerous, and inelegant as well. But even as he weighed his options and let his hand drift towards the stiletto in his boot, the redhead let a doll drop to the ground.<br/><br/>Then the hairs in his neck stood on end as the rag doll climbed to its feet and scurried into the cell.<i>All right,</i>he decided as the rag hominculus ungagged the prisoner.<i>A real witch</i>,  “So,” he murmured to the redhead, trying to ignore the uncanny piping voice of the doll and the witch’s unsettling remarks about<i>souls</i>. “Friend of yours?”<br/><br/>Suddenly, the witch was talking to him. “Hello, Champion.  What a silly name. What would I call him that?"<br/><br/>“Name’s Tom,” he replied, maintaining the facade of being a blind peddler and trying to ignore the idea that she knew the title Teldir had foisted on him.  “Dunno what you mean by ‘Champion’.”<br/><br/>She looked around the cell, and then her fevered, eagle-sharp gaze was back on him.  "May I help you?" she asked, before laughing wildly. "Oh, and the voices ask if you could help me. They seem to think that I need help.  I don't bite... unless you ask me to.”<br/><br/>“We can figure the biting part out later,” Rob decided, then shifted back from the door as the redhead reached through the bars and made a request for help. “For now, come to an agreement with milady here,” he offered a small salute with one finger as he rose, “and I’ll open the door.”<i>Or put four inches of steel in her brain, as needed, </i>he decided, eying the gentle curve of the redhead’s neck. Be a shame to kill her, mind. But you never knew.