John growls low agreement that he won't make the same mistake twice. He has yet to fully decide which mistake that was: facing the King, or trusting Kayne, or losing Arthur in the first place. He does not plan to repeat any of those. He certainly does not plan to wait patiently in this pit.

From above and distantly comes the shuffle of a jailer, a damp and dragging bulk. If the timing is strangely convenient, John gives no notice of this: he does not react with anything but steely determination. He rises opposite Daemon, steps back to press his shoulders to the dirt wall of the pit, jaw set.

"We can drink once we've won." There is a grim certainty to his tone, as the plodding steps draw closer. "Fuck the odds. Good luck."

In the mist above, something moves. It appears first as a rounded, hulking shape, thick-set arms and shoulders in the fog. The proportions are wrong: the movements are inhuman. A long pole of some unearthly metal, dark and iridescent, descends in a blind and prodding path down into the pit. At its tip is a hook for the bucket.

On the other end is the jailer. If Daemon heaves it down, only then will he have a clear view of their enemy: broad and toadlike, faceless but for the wet churning of tentacles.