After his defeat

Jami had drawn the hero king to him, in a place of his power HIS tower HIS monsters and..... had failed. The only reason he still drew breath was due to his boss, Ladja, dragging him out of fire. Flinging the horse to safety with his magic to be dealt with later, Ladja left the hero king and his bride Bianca as stone statues. While the threat was finally dealt with, Jami had been a cocky head strong pawn in the game for a tad too long.

“Please sir give me another chance!” the horse monster pleaded as he bent down and bowed to the mage monster before him. The two were in a stone built dungeon some distance away from the scene of a battle against a well know. Jami hand been pleading his case since the bishop arrived while Ladja tried to figure out his next step. However, this didn’t need to take into account Jami. He had failed enough to make an example of, to better show the rest of the order what failure could cost them.

“Jami the Knight; twice you have failed and twice you have **** me to take action to fix your mistakes.” Ladja simply told his underling while he began charging a high-level spell to turn the horse to ash. Jami himself started to sweat with fear while other monsters quickly got out of the line of fire. The air started to waver from the building heat and crackle from the energy forming.

“Wait please don’t….” Jami begged before the fireball came flying and slammed into him. The horse barely had time to put up his arms to guard, but the heat burned into and around his body. He couldn't hold his ground against the attack and buckled, the **** sending him slamming through a thick dungeon wall. Pain of the flames on top of the damage from the fight against the hero burned through his body. Jami felt on ****’s door as he fought to stay awake. Only at the door though. For everything that he had suffered, Jami was still alive. The horse started to lift his head and blink the world back into existence. In his blurred vision, he could see the mage looking at him through the hole with a sly smile.

“While you have failed, you have been loyal and dutiful. Most of the time. You got cocky when give your own ‘castle’ to rule. However, you could still be useful.” Ladja said as he tapped his staff into his hand in thought, “Thus, I give you one last chance. You have three months. Three months to supply a reason as to why our Dark Master should spare you. However, you’ll have no aid from the Order save for your own men. That is if any survived. Now, get to work.” Ladja waited a beat for the horse to groan out a reply of understanding. With that he turned to the other monsters that stood in fear nearby. With a roll of his eyes and a sigh, Ladja wove a spell with a gesture and dragged one of the smaller monsters towards him, bringing the creature up to eye level. “Allow him some healing, if you would minion. I would hate for him to die before our Lord wished.” With that the mage made another gesture which dropped the small monster. With a spin of his staff Ladja hit the end of it against the floor and vanished in a cloud of smoke.

Out of fear of their master, and a fear of what Jami might do to them should he awaken, the lesser monsters looked at each other and shrugged. They dragged the horse out of the dungeon and into some nearby woods. The only aid they provided was a small sack of healing herbs before retreating as Jami woke up. He was aware enough just to catch the dungeon door closing behind them, and the illusionary boulder appearing.

Later after using the supplied herbs and getting some distance between himself and anything else, the horse monster sat under a tree and thought. Back in fighting shape, or enough that he wasn’t in danger of dying, Jami needed to come up with a way out of this mess. Simply killing off a village or two wouldn’t get himself out of this. Even taking a kingdom out wouldn’t save his hide from Ladja or the others. No, he had to go big, he had to do something unexpected. Something no monster had done. “No monster had done…” he muttered as his mind drifted.

His men had been working on some lost artifacts and spells before the hero came through..., or maybe he could try to go find some older powerful items for the Order. Perhaps continue the goal, find the Zenithian blood, the maidens that could give birth to the destined hero to destroy the Dark Lord. Maybe some combination of them. Or just run... flee. It'd be risky though and humiliating but the hero King had lasted years under their noses, perhaps he could too?