'I'll be fine.'
Karishk braced herself for the next blow. She knew it was coming, and sure a enough, a second later she was gasping for breath as the man withdrew his fist from her stomach.
"If you don't let me go you will severely regret it," she glowered at the man. He was large and burly, but Karishk knew he was stupid. The young woman was chained in a dungeon, her arms pulled up above her head, just letting her feet touch the ground. She had been on a job to steal a very valuable artifact from some rich person and had been caught while sneaking in. Usually Karishk was good at sneaking around, though it wasn't her specialty. She knew nothing of the person she was stealing from, if they were good or evil, and if they would approve of the way she was being treated. She had just been hired by a little man who had offered her money. He had paid half up front, so she had taken the job. Karishk wasn't perhaps the most honest citizen, but she would do her best to get the artifact for the man who had hired her. She was not one to run off with the half-payment she had. She had some pride left.
"Get your master down here, I want to talk with them," Karishk said.
"I'm not doing anythin' you say, girlie!" the large man growled.
"I'm sure that your master will be happy to find you've killed me, especially since I have something of the utmost importance to tell them." A lie, and not a very good one, but the brute bought it. He backhanded Karishk across the face and then turned and left the cell, locking it tightly behind him.
Karishk didn't think lying any more was going to get her out of here, what could she say? She accidentally was climbing through one of the windows? Even the dumb guard wouldn't believe that.
Karishk sighed, and leaned her head back against the cold stone wall, her two curving horns clacking against the stone. Her long tail twitched in anger, she would get out eventually, but how? Or she would be killed.
'Not me. I've lived this long,' she thought savagly. 'What am I anyway?' she asked herself. 'I have never seen anyone who looks quite like me, am I a mutant? I have no magic I know of, but I have rams horns and a donkeys tail!'
She shook he thoughts from her mind. It was rare that she felt so insecure as she did now, she was a strong woman, and usually was firm with her life.
'Now, I have to devise a way to escape,' she told herself, but her thoughts were cut short as she heard someone approaching the cell.