Chapter 8 - The Goblin Deeps

            The party returned to the goblin chief's throne room, past furiously busy kobolds doing the gods knew what to the stonework and goblin town, and stowed their weapons in preparation to climbing down the thick, pale vines that lined the violet-lit chute that filled the center of the room. The air grew even chillier, redolent with loam and decay, and softly glowing fungus began to clothe the walls.
            At first the climb went well, but as they neared the bottom eighty feet below, they saw two goblins snoozing back-to-back below them. They appeared scrawny and small, even for goblins.
            After a moment, the half-elf's ears seemed to twitch and he held up a hand of warning to the band of adventurers. "Hup-hup!" he whispered harshly, trying to stop all sound and movement, "Listen! Below!"
            He paused and let the sound filter upwards. The scrape of metal through soft earth, the soft thump of it being moved and dropped elsewhere.
            "Digging," he explained for any whose ears were not sharp enough, "There's somebody below. More than somebody - sounds like multiple shovels."
            He gripped his glaive tightly. So far, the inhabitants of the Citadel were suspect at best, outright violent and hostile at worst.
            "I say we drop heavy upon them," the skald suggested, "Either they'll cower and flee or we cut them down swiftly. If they be in a bargaining mood, that'd suit me just fine. But fast, and hard, is our best bet if we've the element of surprise."
            Nominis whispers to others "Lets drop my net over them and you can shoot them. Or we can just kill them from here. We have something to hit them with. And then drop quietly and surprise the diggers"
            Nala looked down the rope at the goblins sleeping below. It was still a long way down. “I could drop some javelins,” she whispered to the others.
            Brick gritted his teeth as he eyed the sleeping goblins. If they did this right, they'd take them out before rousing the entire den. Holding one axe in one hand and the other in his teeth, he slipped down the vine as quietly as he could. When he got to the right height, he dropped from the vine towards one of the goblins, his axe leading the way.
            Once again, voice of caution ignored, Nominis slides down the vines and attacks the goblin that survived Brick. In his case, he just puts blade to wretches throat pricking it enough to wake it and orders in goblin : "Quiet!"
            Sleeping back-to-back, the other goblin was woken with a startled squall when Brick dispatched the goblin it was leaning against with a crash, and the other one toppled over. Neither goblin was armed, nor armored; it would be little trouble to simply kill it. The scrawny surviving goblin gulped and quieted as Nominis leveled his rapier - but the digging noises continued.
            Looking up, Brick and Nominis could see that the large room they were in wasn't dark - like the shaft leading down to it, it was suffused with eerie, violet light from the luminescent fungus clinging to the walls and ceiling. The air down here was damp, chilly, and redolent with the odors of loam and decay. Earth, rotting vegetation, and the remains of cave animals was mixed together to cover the floor of the wide cavern. Different kinds of mushrooms and fungus grew on the piles, as well as a few papaya saplings. Three gaunt, cloaked figures were busily shoveling well-turned earth into a wheelbarrow, ignoring the sudden arrival of the dwarf and shadow warrior.
            On the piles of compost, the saplings began to buckle and wrench themselves free of the earth.
            Nala dropped to the ground beside the others as they dispatched the goblins. She looked up the shaft at the others remaining up there. Not wanting to yell and attract more trouble, she held up fingers, indicating how many enemies, and motioned for the others to hurry down. Then she charged forward and swung her axe at the twig blights.
            With one mighty blow, she split the creature lengthwise before it could pull itself fully free. But then the others converged on her. One she kicked away, but the other flung itself right at her and managed to scratch her, leaving that burning tree sap in her cuts.
            When Vol dropped to the floor, he paused for a split second - he could have sworn he was too tall. Were his hands green? On a second look, they were only violet from the eerie light of the fungus.
            Shaking off the strange vertigo, Vol conjured a seething orb of acid and flung it into the twig blight's body. Wood crackled and burned away as the silent sapling come alive juddered and twisted.
            Brick narrowed his eyes as he scanned the room. The cloaked figures weren't doing anything against them, but the twig things were actively attacking Nala. Decision made, he gripped both axes and took off in the little gnome's direction.
            Brick lopped apart the acid-coated sapling, his bloody axe painted with its sap as well as the chunks of wood fell to join the rest of the compost in the room.
            As the blighted plants fell beneath the party's blades, the gaunt figures stopped shoveling. Dropping their shovels, they too began to converge on where Nala and Brick were contending with the last cursed sapling-creature. As they came closer, the faces within their hoods were revealed to the party: no living men and women these, naught more than skeletons with scraps of skin and hair still clinging to them. The fate of those adventurers who had come before became horribly clear.
            They came at the closest of those fighting the unnatural plants, unarmed but armored, and mindlessly reaching with their bare, bony fingers. They ignored the rest of the party entirely. Brick fought off all three of them, none able to land a blow between his armor and his battle prowess.
            Then Erky screamed and came tumbling out of the shaft - the vine he was climbing falling with him. The living goblin cowered as Erky landed badly, and groaned as he picked himself up, pulling a javelin from his quiver, and favoring one foot and arm. "What... what happened?"
            The others standing with him could see that the vine hadn't broken - it had been cut. The length lying on the floor with them wasn't long enough to reach the top of the shaft - whatever had cut it had been in the shaft with them.
            When Erky fell, Nominis stood back from the goblin. "Stay down, no move!" He looks up expecting to see a foe climbing down. If it is a goblin, darkness wouldn't hinder it. But other things might be discomfitted. His shadowy wisps race from the ceiling where they waited so not to blind his companions into the hole, deepening meager light from the vines into total darkness.
            Readying his net he waits for whatever is coming, his eyes piercing the gloom above. "Did you see anyone or anything, elder?"
            "I thought I heard a bat, but I didn't think anything of it... I thought maybe one had flown up from down here. Ohhhh, Gaerdal is punishing me for my lack of diligence," Erky groaned, rubbing his bruised rear. "Maybe I am getting a bit old..."
            A tiny shape appeared to be clambering up the vines... a familiar shape. The quasit paused to look down and laugh, then took off and flew up, circling as it flew back up the shaft and disappeared into the goblin throne room.
            In the background, the last sapling-monster tussled with Nala, but came nowhere near hurting the canny gnome. The frightened civilian goblin Nominis had shouted at cringed, slowly trying to creep away.
            "Well that's going to be a problem later..." but for now, they had more pressing issues. Vol sighted, aimed, and shot another pair of missiles at the closest skeleton- one acid, one physical.
            Again, Vol felt the vertiginous feeling of being... too tall. Or was it too short? Vol's first arrow punched through the skeleton's ragged clothing - and out the other side, passing through its ribs harmlessly. The flying arrow of acid, on the other hand, followed it precisely, burning a hole through the clothing and bone equally, and loose bits of bone fell to the ground, melting.
            Brick sneered at the walking bags of bones that reached for him. He was in the center of their attention, just where he liked to be. "Ye brainless dolts made a mistake, aye." He ducked under the bony arms and lashed out with his axes in quick succession.
            Two quick smashes and his axes had reduced the dead adventurers to ossuary piles, chips of bone flying. They collapsed, the magic animating them releasing their bodies to rest. The remaining skeleton clawed at him, but its fingerbones only screeched against the dwarf's armor.
            Erky scowled at the goblin trying to scuttle away, and limped over to threaten it, trapping it under his javelin. "Where do you think you're going, scum?" he growled at the juvenile. It whimpered and curled into a ball fearfully.
            Brandishing his poleblade, Draugrim looked first to Brick and then to Nala, quickly deciding on where his particular skills would be used best. He thought be remembered a fragment from his mother's notes that heavy though his glaive was, cutting arisen bone was not nearly as effective as smashing it to bits. However, Nala seemed to have the twig blights in hand and Draugrim did not want to give the skeletons easy access to the injured Erky or those of the party that fought from range.
            With that, he stepped swiftly towards the east, brandishing his elven glaive high and delivering a heavy chop onto the skeleton below Brick, trusting on sheer momentum and force to overcome its resiliency.
            Whatever gave the dead thing life, it wasn't completely foolish. The skeleton stepped away from Draugrim's attack, bones clicking and clacking as it moved.
            Nala hissed as she was scratched. Yelled and swung her axe at the twig blights that were converged on her.
            The furious little gnome lopped the thing apart bit by bit, until it collapsed over the mulch, raw splinters sticking out of it every which way.
            Seeing his companions have everything well in hand, Nominis turns back toward the goblin. "Tell me how many of you are down here? How many big-ones, these trees, undead and whoever else is with you. Or I let the dwarf kill you."
            The goblin youth cringed, piggy little red eyes staring at Nominis uncomprehendingly until he repeated himself in Ghukliak. It raised its four-fingered hands in front of it in a warding gesture, trying to hide behind them.
            <"I don't know! Lots! Lots! Don't kill me!"> it whined.
            Making a disgruntled noise as his arrow failed to damage the skeleton, Vol loosed another acid-arrow combination at it. His arrow bounced harmlessly off the thing's skull, but the acid he shot at it struck its torso, and began the work of dissolving it into nothing.
            With the other enemies dropping rapidly, Brick turned to the one remaining skeleton with a predatory grin. "Roll dem bones," he commented before hacking at the thing with his axes.
            Brick stepped up ready to swing, but by the time he got there, the skeleton was already collapsing into itself. One smash of his axes was enough to disintegrate it completely.
            He was so preoccupied with the skeleton that he didn't hear what the others did - a soft scuttling noise coming from the tunnel ahead. It was dark there, the gentle, eerie violet light of the fungus not reaching within.
            Brick spat onto the pile of bones and nodded to the destroyed corpse. "An' stay down, aye," he said to it. Narrowing his eyes at the scuttling down the passage, he stomped over to where the skeletons had been digging in the detritus. He peered at the area, looking for what they were so interested in.
            They appeared to have been turning over the mulch, and adding a pile of it to a barrow. As he searched the piles of rotting garbage, Vol summoned magic to his command.
            Vol gestured a quartet of floating lights into existence and sent them down the hall.
            Draugrim nodded at Vol as light was added in the direction of the sound, grasping his glaive and approaching slowly, cautiously behind the illuminating spell. The hefty weapon had its blade raised high, prepared to chop down with furious force on whatever made its way from the tunnel.
            "The goblin," he called quietly over his shoulder, eyes ahead towards the sounds of scuttling, "Ask if it saw my cousin. A human woman, about this tall." He desperately wanted good news for once on the horrid descent, even as he gave a small whistle to Nala.
            "I don't think whatever is down this tunnel bodes well," he told her, brows narrowing at the darkness. "We should be ready."
            Nala caught her breath and stamped on the twig blights a bit more before joining Draugrim at the front. “So what is it?” she asked, peering into the tunnel ahead to see what was making the noise.
            Erky huffed, and with a final dire look up the fungus-lit shaft, followed Nala.
            As they approached, the hovering lights revealed that the floor of the rough cavern beyond was stained, as if regularly drenched in blood. There was a faint, yellow glow deeper in the cave to the right, but he couldn't see its origin. Closer, he spotted a large nest made of fur and refuse - and a huge rat scuttling over to it. It turned and hissed at their approach.
            Before they could react, a large figure with the horns of a wildebeest jumped out into the open, brandishing a morningstar in one hand and a javelin in the other, screaming, "Grip! Fang! Snapper! SIC!" Draugrim, Nala and Erky belatedly realized they were dealing with a bugbear of some kind. Two other gigantic rats hurtled from around the corner, scrabbling over to face Draugrim and Nala with piercing squeaks.
            Nominis reacts to the disturbance in his own way. He runs forward to see what is going on and the shadows around the rats and the bugbear deepen, liquefy and start hampering their movements.
            The horned bugbear and oversized rats seemed startled by the clutching shadows, and the bugbear's javelin flew wide past Draugrim.
            At seeing the bugbear, Nala screamed in defiance and rage at the goblinoid and his pet rats. She shifted her stance and swung wildly as the rat as it charged at her.
            Her furious axework destroyed the rat in moments, and the bugbear seemed taken aback by her ferocity. <"Grip!"> he howled in Ghukliak, <"Get up, you rotten bastard!"> He turned his horned head toward Nala, scowling.
            Brick made a face at the garbage and refuse the skeletons were digging in. Nothing of interest seemed to be mixed in the mulchy detritus. Seemed they were just collecting it... for some reason. He couldn't fathom why. He dug a steel-encased toe into it absently.
            With the commotion at the cavern, the dwarf turned his head to regard the new threat. "Bottleneck 'em!" Brick yelled as soon as it was evident enemies were coming. He gripped his axes and stomped towards the cavern entrance. "Lemme tru, lad," he said to Draugrim. "Me'n Nala be yer front line, aye. Ye an' Erky git tha flanks. Ye finger wigglers pop 'em from afar."
            Erky lobbed a javelin at the bugbear, but it batted his weapon from the air at the last moment, sneering. <"Snapper! Fang! Get 'em!"> The rats, however, were far too occupied with the unnatural shadows grasping at them to make any real offensive.
            The bugbear spat on the ground, sneering, and launched another javelin at Draugrim, piercing his shoulder. "You don't belong down here, elfling," he jeered. "This is my domain." His glinting red eyes darkened further as Brick came up behind Draugrim. "Go back where you came from, topcrawling scum!"
            With the rat dead at her feet, Nala turned to hack at the next rat. But she eyed the bugbear almost hungrily, hissing at him to let him know he would be next as soon as she was done with the appetizers.
            In her speechless fury, she swung too wildly, and the rat dodged out of her way as she buried her axe in the rotting loam. But as she did, Erky lobbed a javelin back at the bugbear, crying, "We know what to do with goblins in the Rathgaunt Hills!" The bugbear was a bit too slow in trying to knock the weapon aside, and it punched into his arm. He snarled and ripped it free.
            "There's a meathook waiting for you too, gnomes," he growled, then snapped at his rats, "Gnomes! Sic!"
            The rats obediently rushed Nala, and while she fought off one with frothing rage, the other sank its filthy teeth into her leg despite the shadows that continued to drag at it. It released her sooner than it would otherwise have done when its shadow got in its mouth, but the bite still stung.
            Safe behind the front line, Vol calmly moved to get the line on the bugbear, willed arcane energy into his bow, aimed and fired. A bolt of acid and an arrow lanced out at the monster behind the giant rats while the elf looked on with his calm archer's eyes.
            It was an impossible shot - there was a crowd in the tunnel opening, constantly shifting as they tried to deal with the giant rats, and the bugbear was a touch far away.
            None of that mattered to an elf of the Misty Vale. Vol's arrow punched into the bugbear's shoulder, and the monster snarled in pain as he ripped it free. The jet of acid, however, struck the stone wall and sizzled in front of Nala.
            Draugrim swore and unearthed a feral growl as his shoulder was punctured by the Bugbear's Javelin, the half-elf snarling as he ripped the small spear out of his flesh and spit on the ground. A frontline had developed, but Draugrim knew his own weapon was too long, too unwieldy for the current engagement.
            "BRICK!" he hollered over the din, "Switch!"
            As Draugrim quickly retreated to allow the Dwarf space to move forwards and bring his weapons to bear, the son of the Tiri Kitor began to chant, calling forth strength and vigor to himself and his comrades.

            "The earth shook with the roaring of gods,
            Spears splintered and cast asunder,
            The Requiem surged forth against all odds,
            The enemy unaware their blunder,
            Ten score they slew upon that dreadful day
            Ten score who mistook which was the prey."

            The half-elf felt the well of energy spring up in him, staunching bleeding and preparing him for bloody battle. Those that heard the tale would surely find themselves emboldened and ready for battle.
            As he pushed back past Brick and to the side, he felt a sharp pain in his leg. One of the rats dangled from it, chewing voraciously. Draugrim cast it off, and his chant was already calling to the latent magic of the world, drawing it into him to heal the wound.
            "Aye lad!" Brick agreed to Draugrim's suggestion to switch positions. He grinned widely, clinking his axes together as he stepped forward into the fray. As he brought his weapons to bear, an old Dwarven ditty came to his lips, his strikes hitting in unison to the beat.

            "A-choppin' we will go,
            A-choppin' we will go
            Heigh-ho, the derry-o,
            A-choppin' we will go."

            The rat was as damnably agile as an elf, and it managed to avoid his powerful blows despite his best efforts, striking sparks against the stone of the floor.
            Moving up to the combatants Nominis calls out "Elder, move back! Let me closer!" but he stands behind...vertically challenged...members of the party and glares at the hobgoblin with his one black eye.
            He snarls in goblin "We killed the whole tribe upstairs. You will end up one more corpse in the pile, eaten by your rats! Stand down!"
            The sneer slipped from the bugbear's face then, replaced by grudging respect. <"That was you?"> he replied in Ghukliak. <"A fair trick. Maybe I'll have mercy... as soon as this gnome vermin is put down."> He stepped closer, lobbing a javelin at Nala. But it was clear that Nominis' words had made an impact on the bugbear's confidence; even at such close range, he couldn't hit the angry gnome.
            “I’ll grill you with lemon and garlic!” Nala snarled at the giant rat gnawing on her leg, viciously swinging her axe at the rodent.
            The horrible giant rat managed to escape her assault without losing more than a few hairs off its back, and it squeaked at her with more menace than a rodent had any right to.
            Erky, retaining his faculties despite the pull of Draugrim's song, squinted at the bugbear and threw another goblin javelin his way, but the stupid goblin weapon wasn't well-balanced, and flew astray. "Blast it!"
            Meanwhile, the rats continued to swarm around Nala. She suffered another few bites, the rats infuriatingly slithering away from her retribution repeatedly.
            Cool as ever, Vol took a few steps toward the melee, calmly sighting and firing at the bugbear again. "If that's the best you can do you should just give us your gear now."
            Again, a strange vertigo struck Vol. Was he too tall? The sizzling bolt of acid spattered the wall beyond the horned bugbear, sputtering into nothing after a moment.
            Draugrim laughed wild and sanguine even as he felt the blood run down his leg, his mother's song and father's fury emboldening him in equal measure. He continued his story, a tale of cocky foes that thought they'd the advantage and found the tables turned not once but thrice before the last of them was beheaded.
            Clearly, the half-elf was trying to make a point.
            Sliding to the right, he raised his crescent-bladed glaive, twirling the weapon expertly in his hands.
            "Nala! Down!" he cried out in warning, before dropping the heavy polearm hard onto the rat in front of the fearsome gnome. This time, the rat did not escape. Draugrim severed one of its legs, and it curled into a squeaking ball on the ground.
            Brick didn't seem to be worried about his misses - the rats were skittery little things. He simply continued his axe dance, chopping away at them.
            He made short work of the last rat, and the bugbear didn't like what he saw. Already dragged by shadows and shaken by Nominis' threat, he growled, <"You haven't seen the last of me,"> then fled toward the tunnel in the far end of the cave.
            With the rats dead, Nala growled and charged after the bugbear.
            Nala sprinted as fast as she could, but loaded down as she was, she couldn't quite catch up to the bugbear. As she sped by, she noticed two large rat nests, made of fur and refuse, and then a niche below the luminescent fungus, with a matted hair-and-fur pallet, a wide wooden board on which a variety of crude but deadly weapons were affixed, and a greatcoat of patchy black fur hung on a slender pole.
            Brick saw the gnome take off towards their next foe and shook his head. Just like last time. He bowed his head and loped after the barbarian, knowing where she was headed. "Oi girl, it be a trap!" he yelled, knowing it wouldn't really do much to stop her.
            The bugbear raced ahead of him, not as fast as the running dwarf as it ducked into the tunnel at the end of the cavern, but fast enough to withdraw from his deadly axes. Brick peered down the tunnel; the monster wasn't in view, but he couldn't have gone far.
            Erky trotted after them, slower but more wary. "Look at this place," he tsked in disgust at the bloodstained floor and ratty bed niches. "That monster's been here a while. Who knows how many souls he's destroyed?" He pulled out his goblin sword and set about making sure the rats were dead. "Pity that orc fellow isn't here, he'd love the meat," he joked. "There was a time I'd turn my nose up at meat from a rat... but starving among the goblins changed my mind."
            "Bah," Brick harrumphed towards the empty cavern. He turned towards the others, "'E be leadin' us ta a trap, dat be sure, aye." He steeled himself in the passage, waiting for Nala to try to run past. "Lettim go. We'll git 'im soon nuff."
            "Oi!" he shouted to the rest, "Wot bout dem other doors in tha rubbish room?"
            "Still closed," Erky reported after a glance back. "I don't think we alerted anything else, at least down that way."
            Nala ran into Brick and pulled up short, now that the bugbear was out of sight. She panted heavily and sank to the floor, sitting there listlessly as the adrenaline ran out. “They’ll be expecting us now,” she murmured.
            "Aye lass," Brick replied, his weapons returning to their slings on his back. "But we know dat an can prepare fer it. Plus, mebbe dere be a back door," he added with a nod towards the rubbish room.
            His attention split between big warrior and the goblin behind them, Nominis is too slow to join the chase. It is over anyhow, for once not everyone charged blindly inside. And this time, quite a big hunter behaved lika a prey. Cowardly. Craven. But alive for the moment.
            Nominis could understand that thinking ; in The Great Shadow he was the weakest, he didn't belong. Now, in this lighted place he seems to have found, at least temporarily, a place among other beings. And they are all stronger for it. Bugbear will die at some other time. Maybe not here and not by them. He starts kicking around the piles of junak before remembering the captive again
            "Where his shinies?" He asks in goblin.
            The trembling goblin youth raised a finger to point at the cave where the others were gathered. <"He big hero Balsag the Hunter!"> it squeaked fearfully. <"Keeps loot in there, no goblins steal from him! ...You really kill all his hounds? Take their shinies too?"> The goblin stared, amazed.
            As was his way, Vol followed along behind without much in the way of haste. He nodded at Brick. "That looked like a camp back there, or a bedroom. We should go see what was left behind."
            A quick check of the weapons hanging on the wooden board revealed spears, javelins, and swords. At Nominis' report of what the little goblin had said, they also checked the rat nests; sure enough, within there were a handful of shiny coins.
            Brick grunted at the finds. He didn't need them, but he could see their gold value. The others were sifting through the rat nests, and he was still curious about that first room. He couldn't lose the feeling they were missing something. He grunted again and trotted to the first room, making a slow, methodical circuit of the walls. He stopped at each door, testing whether they were locked before moving on.
            Nala grinned at the loot they had gotten from the rats nests, and the fact that they had taken them from some great hunter. She ignored the weapons. They weren’t sized for her anyway. “Do we need to rest and heal?” she asked. She knew she was feeling a little slow and had taken a few cuts, but she would survive. Erky wasn’t looking so great though.
            While Brick went searching the other room, Nala positioned herself beside the tunnel the bugbear had disappeared down, just in case he decided to come back with friends. She kept her eyes peeled down the tunnel.
            The lanky archer shook his head. The loot was mostly of no value to him, and the money wasn't going to help anyone down here. So they had to keep going, but time was not really a concern. "We might as well." Vol nodded in the direction of the bugbear. "If this is his camp, he might decide to come back if we stay long enough and don't make too much noise. I'd much rather kill it than leave it out here behind us and mad."
            "You got that right, my friend," Erky agreed, leaning against the wall. "Only good goblin's a dead one."
            Nala peered down the tunnel, but nothing stirred that she could see.

            Apparently the goblins hadn't expected anyone unwelcome to make it this far into their lair - the doors Brick tried were not locked. He didn't find any secret passages, despite his search, but the first door he tried opened onto a tunnel thick with glowing fungus, which opened onto what looked like a natural rift beyond. There was no fungus in the rift, but a whiff of sulphur met his nose. To Brick's practiced eye, it looked as though the earth had rent the tunnel apart, resulting in the rift.
            The second door opened onto a short corridor leading to a hall. Two rows of dragon-carved marble columns marched the length of the hall, though most were completely smothered in luminescent fungus. The cobbled floor was cracked and stained with much use, and held many small wooden tables, covered with what looked like a cross between a dwarf's garden's produce and an apothecary's lab. To the left, a number of doorways stood open, and goblin noises could be heard from beyond. They didn't sound excited enough to be aware of the intrusion yet.
            That got the laconic elf's attention. He gestured at the others to be quiet and that they should proceed down the corridor to ambush these goblins before they were noticed.
            Brick nodded at Vol's idea, "Jus' wot I be thinkin lad," he said softly. He hefted his axes and stood to the side of the door, waiting for the others to arrive.
            "You join this great tribe. Get shinies! Kill powerful things. But you need to help!" Nominis offers. "I lead"
            Almost unable to believe its luck, the little goblin agreed eagerly, throwing its fellows to the wolves without a second thought, in typical goblin manner. <"I join you!"> it shrieked excitedly.
            Erky spun around at hearing that. "What are you saying?" he asked, appalled. "We can't trust them! They're goblins!" Pure loathing filled his face as he looked upon the goblin youth.
            “More goblins to kill?” Nala asked. The tunnel seemed clear, so she walked over to join the others, looking into the fungus-filled hallway with its dragon columns. “How many, you think?”
            "Too many," Erky growled shortly, stomping after them... but he kept one eye on Nominis' pet goblin. The goblin, in turn, stayed behind Nominis, peering around the man's legs. <"Durbuluk tribe there,"> he whispered in Ghukliak, pointing where the party was going.
            Brick moved down the short hall and peeked into the first door on his left, from which snores emerged. He spotted a number of goblins sleeping on disgusting pallets, with a humongous rat curled up snoozing nearby. Only one of the goblins he saw was armed and armored, however.
            Brick frowned at the sleeping goblins. He was loath to kill them in their sleep; they were goblins, but he wasn't a straight-up murderer. They couldn't well leave them at their back while they explored further, however. He motioned to the others that the goblins were unconscious and helpless. He eyed the doors to see if they could be barred in any way. Maybe they could get away with just locking them in.
            Nala peered at the sleeping goblins. “Well, that’s a lot of goblins,” she whispered, so as not to wake them “Don’t see many armed, though. Can we toss in a fireball and be done?” she wondered. She looked at their pet goblin. “How many tribes are down here?” she asked, since he’d mentioned them as a tribe.
            The goblin stared at her uncomprehendingly, shrinking behind Nominis' legs.
            Not being too squimish in a situation 'us or them' Nominis readies his blade and prepares to how in. "I think I can do it quietly. Be prepared to jump in if things go south." "I'd rather disable them, but the hits might wake others, while the blade is silent. But I could try and tie them up while they sleep. If we cannot close the room."
            Vol smiled at Nala. "If you have a fireball handy, be my guest." He held out a hand, concerned as Nominis seemed ready to go in alone. "Just wait a moment. There's no need to hurry here."
            Another quick peek into the room showed that there were over a dozen non-combatant goblins (mostly the very young, pregnant, or ones missing limbs - for some reason, there didn't appear to be many old goblins) along with the one visibly armed goblin they could see, all of them asleep. The door opened inward, but they could easily tie the handle to a chair laid lengthwise in front of it to hold the door closed, if they were willing to sacrifice a few feet of rope to the task.
            Goblin noises continued to emerge from the other open doors lining the hall, despite the party discussing their plans in the corridor.
            “Well, if we’re not killin’ them, then let’s block this off,” Nala said. She went back to look for anything that would work to secure the door. She had rope. She just needed something to use as the block to tie it off.
            It was a simple matter to take the chair from the table beside her, tie it with the rope, then close the door to the sleeping goblins and lay the chair across the doorway, tying it to the door handle. The goblins were locked in... but what about the ones that were clearly awake?
            Nominis nods at the door blocking and moves silently toward the other room to check if there is a way to block the other one. Just before he goes he whispers to the others
            "I may have a way to frighten those inside into a wild rush toward us. If you can position yourselves to receive them with arrows and whatever...well, it may be better than trying to enter their room. What do you say?"
            Next to him, his dark wisps coalesce into a shadow-like vaguely humanoid being. It sways in place for a moment as its owner drones a short melody and then suddenly it sprouts hands and reaches for him!
            Nala readied her axe for anything that might come out of the room. She was happy to slaughter goblins, but it would be safer just to lock everyone in, she knew. There might be something bigger to fight down here later that they would want to be fresh for.
            Brick readied his axes and planted his feet to meet anything that might come out.
            As Nominis crept forward to one of the great dragon-carved pillars that held up the ceiling, to look into the room across the hall, the dark was no barrier to his eyes; he saw that there were two armed goblins within, standing barefoot in a mashing-tun, squashing potatolike roots into pulp. There was a dirty straining bin nearby, as well as ten 2-gallon casks of whatever they were making. Whatever it was, it smelled strongly of alcohol.
            Nominis summoned the shadows to obey him... but even he couldn't see if they answered. How to see if the darkness had shadows?
            Occupied with their jabber and root-mashing, the goblins hadn't spotted Nominis yet.
            Nala wrinkled up her nose. [b]“What is that smell?”[/b] she whispered. [b]“You could get drunk off that from the smell alone! And I bet it tastes gods-awful!”[/b] She readied herself beside the door to deal with the goblins, if necessary.
            "We could burn them, any flame there and they'll attract all the argentini. We could then attack suddenly and most probably unready goblins as they rush to save their drink. Any fire cantrips?" Nominis said.
            Vol shook his head. "No, I don't use fire spells. I have a few torches, though. We could light them and throw them."
            Nominis shakes his head. "They are in complete darkness. The torch would be too obvious. Maybe tinderstick? On an arrow. Or just shoot the arrow at some metal?"
            While the half-open door provided a blind spot for the interlopers to hide in, it didn't provide as much of a deaf spot. Hearing the low conversation outside, one of the goblins came to investigate, sword held casually in one hand.
            <"Yikes!"> the goblin squeaked on finding Nominis just outside. The other goblin started, then fumbled for its weapon as well.
            Thinking quickly, Nominis waves his hands in a friendly manner. "We're friends of The Hunter and the tribes. See, we have local guide. We're friends. Come out, no need for alarm."
            Astonishingly, the spell took hold despite the unfavorable circumstances. The goblin before him lowered its sword, and turned to wave off the other one - who was under no such delusions.
            <"What you do?! They right behind you!"> it hissed, hopping out of the mashing pot and rushing to the door.
            <"It okay, they with Great Hunter Balsag,"> the first goblin protested, waving his arms to stop the other goblin, foiling its planned attack.
            <"No not! They kill Chief Durnn!"> the other goblin snarled, trying to get past.
            <"Yes is!"> the first goblin insisted, getting angry.
            The tall archer stood near the back, trying not to do anything that might be taken as aggressive that might wreck Nominis's impressive spell. "Let's see if we can just move on, shall we? Nominis, see if they will just let us pass without a fight."
            Brick held his axes at his sides, watching the proceedings. He was becoming impatient with the goblins, and was about ready to attack. But he'd wait and see still. "Hurry it up, lad," he grunted.
            Nominis frowns as the not-charmed guard balked at letting them through. "We're here to collect drink for the hunter! Move aside or I'll feed you to his dogs."
            He strides purposefully I side, intentionally turning his back to the goblins, but forcing them to face either him or the party. "You!" he points to the goblin he cowed earlier "Get something to carry the poison in!"
            The cowed goblin youth, scampered into the room to do Nominis' bidding. This, along with Nominis' forceful manner and the fact that the rest of the adventurers hadn't attacked, gave the attacking goblin pause; easily confused, it blinked at the young goblin and back at Nominis. <"Ungol? They with Balsag?"> it asked the young goblin, who was feverishly tugging at a heavy keg.
            Ungol nodded rapidly, not meeting the other goblins' eyes.
            <"Told you,"> the first goblin said, smug. This earned it a dirty look from the armed goblin, but both of them helped Ungol carry a keg of goblin spirits into the hall. Erky wisely slipped to the back of the group, so as not to be seen - expecting his ancestral enemies to let him pass was a bit much to ask. The armed goblin was extra smarmy, worried about having offended friends of Balsag.
            <"You need more? How thirsty Balsag?"> the friendly goblin asked, earning it yet another scowl from the other goblin, who didn't want to give away all their alcohol - but it quickly turned into an obsequious smile at the party.
            Nominis speaks softly, not quite threatening, but not benign either <"Good work guards, you survive another day. And don't bother the great hunter"> He walks out with 'his' goblin rolling the barrel into the hall and closes the door behind the group.
            Returning to common speech he quietly says "We can go on. And we have some explosive distraction right here. We should keep the chatter quiet and try to set up the barrel so we can spill it into a room we decide we're going next. But let me sneak a bit and check what's where."
            "Right," Brick said as Nominis seemed to get the two goblins under control. "Next room," he grunted.
            Vol nodded at Brick. "Let's move."
            "That was very impressive, Nominis," he said as they left the goblins behind.
            Nala watched the goblins trudge off and shook her head. “Okay. Will that work twice?” she wondered. She followed the group further down the corridor to another door again. “These things breed like kobolds,” she muttered, readying a javelin in case there were more goblins behind this door.

            Nominis was quiet as a mouse as he crept down the hallway and peeked cautiously into the room, which looked like some kind of workshop, packed with murmuing goblins attending to some tasks there... but behind him, Brick had clomped to the room on the right of the hall, and Nala had lit a torch and followed, flooding the room with light. Looking inside, Brick saw that past his cracked open door, another pack of goblins were gathered around a dire rat strapped spread-eagle on a low table.
            There were sounds of goblin consternation and weapons being drawn from the room, though most of the goblins there were civilians who immediately tried to hide, sometimes under each other. The rat on the table squealed weakly, unable to free itself.
            The party's goblin, Ungol, began to cry where it stood near the keg it had carried out, ears quivering.
            Brick narrowed his eyes at the sight before him. While he was loathe to murder goblins just cooking a dinner, these ones were, from all appearances, torturing a live rat. It was splayed on the table and as helpless as a stuck pig. Who knew if the goblins were planning to eat it, or just hurt it. Either way, Brick couldn't abide.
            He stepped into the room, axes swinging. He set upon the closest goblin, his vicious blades descending on it.
            Goblins were a jumpy lot, and this one nearly leapt out of its own skin in reaction to Brick's appearance. That nervous nature saved it, as Brick's axes only scraped against its leather armor harmlessly.
            On hearing the sounds of consternation from the room, Erky gave Draugrim a fierce grin and hurried over to join Brick, heaving a javelin at the goblin behind the one that had dodged the dwarf's twin-axed attack - but the horrible little monster ducked behind Brick's bulk, and the weapon flew into the room, making the civilian goblins scream.
            Nala grinned. No more trickery. This was straight up goblin smashing. With a torch in one hand, she let loose the javelin from the other at one of the goblins. Then she drew her warhammer and charged into the fray, raging.
            The last goblin also hopped away from her thrown javelin, scrambling to grab its shield, which was propped against the table. The other goblins also hurriedly donned their shields, while the first hurried around to meet Nala as she pushed past Brick, foolishly thinking its odds better against the gnome than the dwarf - or maybe not so foolish, as in her rage she left herself open to its and its comrades' attack, and they stabbed her. The one being menaced by Brick was far too frightened to make a successful attack, though, and Brick batted away its sword contemptuously.
            The civilian goblins kept trying to hide, some of them under the rat's table. Brick now saw that the rat was covered in tumors, a large one on its belly exposed by the straps that held it down.
            Seeing how his comrades already engaged the goblins in the room across the hall and not knowing how many there are in his room, Nominis recasts his shadows in a form of a humanoid shadow and sends it into 'his' room trying to delay the goblins inside from joining the fray.
            There were sounds of consternation from inside the room, and the scrape of swords being drawn. <"What that?!"> several of the goblins inside yelled in Ghukliak.
            Vol took a few steps, drawing an arrow as he went. Barely stopping to set his feet, he drew, sighted, whispered a spell, and fired over Brick's head. Unfortunately, trying to hit the goblin with Brick in the way and both the dwarf and Nala fighting with the armed monsters proved a tricky proposition, and he wasn't able to strike it.
            Brick sneered at the goblin that he had attacked, though he had missed. The deadly dance had begun, and he'd be the one to end it. He stepped to the left, while keeping his axes moving, looking for those openings in the goblin's defense to strike.
            Brick cut down the goblin he had flanked like hewing down a sapling for firewood - one cut, and it was over. However, the table between him and the other goblins stymied his second swing. The rat on it squealed weakly, twisting so that its tumors bulged horribly.
            Erky howled with fierce joy as he stepped inside and hurled another javelin at one of the goblins by Nala. The goblin caught the missile on its shield with an alarmed yelp, but Erky wasn't deterred. "Get it, Nala!" he screamed.
            Nala shifted into a stance that would lit her strike harder and swung at the goblin in front of her, snarling in her rage at the creature.
            Nala brought her warhammer down again and again in her fury, smashing chairs and rickety tables, even taking a chunk off the rat table and the goblin's shield, but it managed to keep her from bashing in its head.
            Normally, goblins were a cowardly lot, and they probably would have surrendered at this point... but now they apparently had nowhere to go, and got mean as cornered rats. The two facing Nala ganged up on her in desperation, poking with their nicked and blunted swords. One was able to get a few cuts in while the other distracted her.
            Draugrim moved up beside Vol, ready to put down any goblin that got past Brick or Nominis. Nominis closed the door to the goblin room, muffling shouts of confusion. Ungol hid under one of the long tables in the hall, peering out from under with wet eyes.
            Brick grinned at the other goblins and stalked around the table, keeping his twirling axes between himself and the goblins. He moved to flank again, and struck at the closest enemy.
            The closest goblin managed to nick him as he approached, but he left it reeling with a series of swift cuts with his heavy-bladed dwarven axe. Then Erky hurled a javelin through its side, and it collapsed, leaving just the one armed goblin left. The civilian goblins wailed and rushed the door.
            Mean and desperate, the last armed goblin was able to stab Brick, but caught between Nala and Brick, its future was not bright.
            Seeing that others have the goblins in hand, Nominis closes the door next to him and looks how to best keep it closed. He readies his spiked net preparing to ensnare the first goblin that comes in range.
            The sound of goblin consternation got louder from inside the room. They'd probably be spilling out any moment now...
            Unable to see the last goblin past the door, Vol turned his eyes to the many other doors, ready to shoot if anything poked its misshapen little head out. While the other doors farther down the big hall were also ajar, there were no goblin noises coming from them.
            Brick cringed with the goblin's rusty blade's bite. His axe dance shifted slightly to compensate for the opening he had left open. He sidled into the corner of the room, partially to give himself a better defensive position, but also to ensure the goblin between himself and Nala didn't survive long.
            The goblin sank into a gurgling pile on the floor, its chest cloven deeply. It would take a miracle for it to survive that. The rat on the table squealed again, a bit louder this time as the smell of blood frightened it.
            Erky nodded, grim satisfaction on his face. "Good job, Brick. C'mon, girl! There's more goblins out there," he growled, stalking back into the hall as he drew another javelin. Nala followed, circling around to Nominis' flank.
            The door Nominis had just closed flew open again, with a wide-eyed (for a goblin) guard on the other side. Nominis immediately flung his spiked net, capturing the goblin before it could stab him. Vol tried to fire past the shadow-warrior, but his vision swooped and grew strange - what was happening? Was he really that much shorter than Nominis? Why was everything black and white? When had that happened? Then, his vision re-stabilized - but his spell and arrow went wide, missing the bard narrowly, and the goblin he had meant to shoot entirely.
            Similarly, Erky had no luck in pitching his javelin, though likely it was due to the melee rather than weird vision problems. The goblin in the net thrashed, trying to get away, but Nominis held it in place with the trailing rope. The other two armed goblins in the room weren't able to get past the captured goblin, and were forced to attack around it - but Nominis used the doorway to good effect, keeping their rusty swords at bay. Behind the armed goblins, a crowd of civilian goblins wailed and screamed, terrified.
            Brick trundled up from the rat-poking room, axes ready to deal out more mayhem.
            Nala smirked. More goblins. Wonderful. Her warhammer came down through the door at the goblin blocking it, intent on crushing its head into paste.
            Unfortunately, the scrum in the doorway was too crowded, and she only managed to chip a chunk of stone off the doorframe in her fury.
            Vol and Erky took another shot at the goblin in the door, but the melee foiled their attacks - but not Draugrim's. He stabbed the goblin in the net with his crescent-moon glaive from the back ranks, punching through its chest like its armor was paper. "For my family," he growled, face flushed with anger.
            The two remaining goblins, terrified and mean, kept back behind the corners of the wall, but one of them managed to stab Nominis all the same, giving the shadow warrior a nasty gash. The civilian goblins kept up their racket, thundering with screams and wails and antics in the background. The Durbuluks just wanted to flee. Behind the party, the doors they had fastened shut rattled as the goblins within tried to get out.
            "Right lads, die be 'ow it be done," Brick intoned as he stalked towards the remaining goblins. Squeezing past Nominis, he trundled through the door, rolling under the swings of each of the other goblins. He sprung to his feet just behind the pair, and swung his axes at one of them. He over-compensated for his acrobatics, and his axes fell short of the mark. "Mebbe not dat part," he added.
            Brick moved into the room, and Nala moved into his place in the door, taking another swing at the goblins trying to hold it, feeling her rage beginning to ebb.
            Even as the powerful rage left her mind, she clubbed down the goblin on her side of the room, leaving only one armed goblin left. The unarmed goblins began to flood out the door, risking being cut down just to escape.
            Nominis takes the strike stoically and falls forward. For a moment it seemed his clawed net will catch him in the roll and pull him back, but with heroic effort he rolls back to his feet. He slashes viciously toward the goblin that hit him. Unfortunately, his turn went a bit fast and as he slashed with the weapon, his elbow caught the wall on his right stopping the blade inches from its target.
            <"Surrender and we leave you locked and alive!"> he snarls in goblins own tongue
            Vol took a step back from the press of bodies and readied another arrow for a live goblin.
            "Listen to him," Draugrim advised the last armed goblin standing, ready to stab it with his glaive.
            "We can't let them live!" Erky shouted, drawing his sword and stepping forward to stab at the goblin with surprising vigor for a starved gnome - but it ducked behind the doorway, beady eyes darting about at its foes.
            <"You lie!"> it growled in the Ghukliak tongue. To a goblin, anyone offering mercy was probably lying. It rose up to attack Brick - Draugrim stabbed at it, but missed - and the dwarf batted away its frantic blade with ease.
            "I told you!" Erky insisted, almost as enraged as Nala had been. "You can't trust them!"
            Then the goblin lost what little nerve it had, and made a run for it, surprising everyone. It almost made it out the door, but Erky managed to shove it back, slashing it with his shortsword for good measure. "You're not getting away!"
            To emphasize that, Brick clipped it with one of his axes, and the goblin, now badly wounded, snarled as it realized it had placed itself in a very bad position indeed.
            Then Nala put it out of its misery, smashing her warhammer down on it despite her fatigue.
            "Well done, lass!" Erky exclaimed, looking with distaste at the fleeing unarmed goblins down the hall.
            Taking a look around, it appeared that the room had been used to repair goblin armor. Dirty bits of boiled leather and tailoring items were scattered where the goblins had left them.
            Nala slumped in exhaustion as she looked around at the dead and fleeing goblins. She cleaned her weapons and retrieved her javelin before looking to the others. “I’m spent,” she panted, bleeding from cuts from rusty goblin swords.
            "Aye lass," Brick nodded to Nala. He was also fatigued, but apparently not nearly as much as she. "As much as I ain't likin it, mebbe we can rest 'ere a bit. Close tha door an' lick our wounds, as it was." He examined his axes, wiping the green ichor on a partially completed set of goblin armor.
            "I agree," Erky said reluctantly, coming over to examine Nala's wounds. "You've been in better shape, lass. Even our mighty dwarf friend could probably use a breather and a spot of healing... even if it means letting the rest of that trapped scum go." He glowered at the doors they had blocked shut, which were still rattling a bit as goblins pounded on them from the other side.
            "We don't know how many there are here and we don't know the areas. Maybe it would be better to fall back to that hunter place?" Nominis said.
            But once they had retreated to Balsag's cavern, Erky seemed uncertain. "I know you'd like to push on, Draugrim, but you can see we need to rest," he told them. "But I feel like we're too exposed down here. What if they rush us again? We don't know where that tunnel goes," he gestured to where Balsag had escaped. "Maybe we should head back up to the kobolds, just for a rest. I doubt the goblins would dare mount another attack there."
            "Goblins aren't a problem," Draugrim said grimly, hefting his goblin sword. "We'll deal with them." But he relented when he took another look at the wounded members of the party. "But I suppose we could use some healing. What do you think?"
            Nala followed them back to the hunter’s lair and seemed to have perked up a bit by the time they arrived, but she was still wounded. She didn’t want to show weakness, though.
            “I can keep going if we need to,” the gnome asserted.
            Brick sat on one of the ratty mats in the cavern, spending some time to tend to one of the wounds the goblins had given him. He was no healer, but he could at least rub in a poultice and cover it with cloth. Basic soldier's field medicine. Wasn't much, but it would keep it from getting worse for the few minutes to reach a proper healer.
            "'Ow bout we take a poll like. All in favor o' goin' ta tha Kobolds fer healin, say aye. All in favor o' stayin 'ere an' killin more gobbies say nay." He eyed them and nodded once. "Aye."
            "Oh, I didn't mean we ask the kobolds. Those little monsters are almost as bad as the goblins. I just meant that they aren't as likely to attack us as goblins are. I can ask Gaerdal's favor again in the morning," Erky clarified.
            Nominis doesn't like the idea of climbing back up and risking kobolds taking advantage. And besides, he didn't use his powers much. "Nay, I'm cut but my power is fine. I coulde keep the goblins away while you rest. "
            The tall elf looked around at the rest of the group, gauging how beat up they all looked. "Aye."
            “If we stop, we should probably go up, just to be safe,” Nala said with a sigh. “Nay.”
            Brick nodded to the others, showing no judgement for their choices. Both options had merit, and he would go with whichever was chosen. When they had spoke, his gaze turned to Erky and Draugrim, "'Ow bout ye lads? Ye wanna heal, or ye wanna stab more gobbies?"
            "Stab goblins," Draugrim proclaimed immediately. "Nay."
            "Heal up," Erky said at the same time. "Aye."
            Giving Draugrim a fatherly pat on the arm, Erky explained to him, "I know you're worried about your cousins. But look around - we're beat. Take it from an old gnome who you know hates the gobbos as much as you. We're better off coming down fresh."
            But Draugrim would not be swayed, insisting that momentum was on their side and giving the goblins a chance to dig in was foolish, and the vote was in favor of staying. The party set their camp in the bloodstained and softly glowing cave that had once belonged to Balsag.

            In the middle of Nala's watch (or so she thought - it was hard for everyone but Brick to gauge time down under the earth), she was startled to feel rough hands suddenly grip her neck from behind. Hoisted into the air, she heard the bugbear whisper in her ear, "Welcome back."
            Then her windpipe was crushed shut as he began to strangle her in midair, chuckling low and gleefully.
            All around, the rest of the party slept peacefully.
            "Once you're dead, I have just the knife for each of your friends," Balsag crooned into Nala's ear.
            Nala gagged as the bugbear choked her. She couldn’t call out to the others. Her little feet kicked as she struggled. She got her hand down to her belt and unhooked her warhammer, swinging it back at the bugbear. She had to grin as the head of the hammer found the bugbear’s soft, dangly bits.
            The air left Balsag's lungs in a whistling, spittle-flecked rush, and he dropped Nala to clutch at himself, eyes tearing. While she was sucking in air to clear the black spots dancing in her vision, the bugbear backed away, then began hobbling off toward the tunnel where he'd escaped before, whimpering. He didn't seem so confident now!
            “Bastard!” Nala rasped as she caught her breath as the bugbear hobbled off. She went over to Vol and kicked them awake as she drew a javelin and threw it at the retreating bugbear, though she missed.
            The tall elf jerked out of his reverie and stared at Nala for a second, quickly figuring out that she'd roused him because something bad was in the dark. Even as he grabbed his bow and nocked an arrow he shouted "Everyone up! Danger!"
            Brick rolled over and grunted at the commotion. Seeing Balsag retreating, he quickly loaded his crossbow, rolled to his belly, and fired. "Ye ever heard ne'er innerupt a Dwarf's beauty sleep?" he complained to the bugbear.
            Though Vol's arrow missed, Brick clipped Balsag with a bolt, and the bugbear was so cowed that he only whimpered a bit louder as he half-shuffled, half-ran off.
            Waking at the sudden noise, the bard looks into the darkness trying to see and maybe stop the retreating goblinoid
            Nominis rolls his blankets aside and quickly takes aim and pulls the trigger, but shooting right after waking, the target moving and he lying down...the bolt flies wildly. He immediately reloads hoping for another shot.
            Brick grumbled as he continued to work with his crossbow from his bedroll. Reloading the weapon, he eyed down the sights at the bugbear that had so rudely interrupted their sleep. He lined up the weapon on the bugbear's center mass and fired, reaching around for another bolt.
            "Hurk!" The bolt caught Balsag square in the back, and the unfortunate bugbear fell to the ground in a clatter of armor and weapons.
            Noticing the bugbear falling, Brick lowered his weapon and sighed deeply. "Serves ye right," he said before rolling over and returning to sleep.
            Draugrim and Erky, belatedly struggling out of their bedrolls, rushed over to make sure the fallen bugbear was dead.
            "Like I said," Erky grunted. "The only good goblin is a dead goblin."

            When they rose, a bit later than usual to accomodate Vol's need for uninterrupted sleep, those on watch had heard the gibbering of goblins being let loose in the hall they had abandoned - but none dared come to bother them. Fresh and rested, the party was ready for another foray. For his part, Vol no longer wheezed so much with every breath from his bout with the poison gas, though he looked a bit green - and for a moment when he woke, he thought the cave was his home. What were these people doing there? The confusion passed quickly, and he rose ready to move on.
            "Let me ask Gaerdal to bless you and close those wounds, Nala," Erky offered after his morning prayers. "No reason to bear them, and you'll need your strength if we meet more of those rotten goblins." There was real venom in his tone when he mentioned the goblins.
            [b]“Thank you, Erky,”[/b] Nala told the older gnome. She still felt very beat up, and not as limber as she should be. [b]“If you’ve got the spells to spare.”[/b] She checked the bugbears javelins and armor, but they were, of course, too big for her. [b]“Can anyone check these potions? Anything else magical about this stuff? That morningstar seems like it might be.”[/b] She grinned as she counted out the gold and silver. That was nice.
            Erky intoned a prayer over Nala, and while divine healing rushed over her, it still left her badly wounded. "Sorry, lass," Erky sighed. "I'm sure Gaerdal heard me, but the gods work in mysterious ways. Let me explain the situation. I'm sure the Ironhand will hear my plea."
            The gnome went over to kneel with his holy steel armband raised. As he prayed, the evidence of his faith became clear; all of the party felt their hurts ease, washed away by divine providence. Only Nala's horrible wounds were not completely cured.
            “Thank you,” Nala told Erky, even though she was still very wounded. She ignored the pains and aches as she stood and stretched, careful not to reopen any of the newly closed injuries.
            Nala dug around in her pack and pulled out a potion vial. She tossed it back and felt the small amount of healing magic it contained heal over some more of her smaller wounds. It wasn’t nearly enough, though.
            “Well, let’s get to this,” the little gnome said, hefting her large axe.
            "I don't need money," Draugrim scoffed as Nala counted out coins. "What I need is to save my cousins."
            Erky patted his knee sympathetically. "We'll get there, Draugrim." Turning to the others, he added, "The Shield of the Golden Hills knows I owe you all more than money can repay. Take my share, with my blessing. I wouldn't want goblin coin in my pocket, anyway."
            Brick's preparations consisted of a bit of maintenance on his axes. Ensuring they were clean and sharp before slinging them on his back. "Aye, we'll get there lad," he said to Draugrim's complaints. He readily accepted his share of coin, though he wasn't greedy. Being part of a unit meant sharing spoils and the like, so he'd take his share, but no more than that.
            "Right," he said as his preparations finished and he stood, cracking his stiff neck from sleeping on stone overnight, "Lets knock moar gobby 'eads in."
            Nominis gets up and checks over the body of the hunter once more and while Vol rests re-checks the surrounding area. He goes in full darkness, of course.
            The goblins seemed busy, scurrying back and forth - bigger goblins too. Nominis didn't risk going into the hall while they were there, but it seemed clear that they were planning something.
            Losing himself in the dark, silent and careful, Nominis returns to the party as they're getting ready to go. "If we're ready, we should go, don't let the creatures organize more than needed. I believe we showed enough strength so they don't bother us, but we should still be wary of ambushes."

            Nominis took the point, and went looking first in the room the goblins had vanished into. It was empty, but weapon racks suggested it had been an armory of sorts. There was a door there, leading deeper into the complex.
            Before checking it, Nominis went to look in the last room. That room was even more empty than the last, and the back wall was caved in, opening to a natural rift in the earth. Where it led was unclear, standing at the end of it; the end was nowhere in sight, even for Nominis' superior vision in the dark.
            The shadow warrior returned to the others to report what he had seen.
            Nala considered their options. “So the door, or the dark, mysterious tunnel?” she asked the others. She went over to the door to see if it was unlocked, but was careful not to open it yet. She kept her axe ready, just in case.
            The door wasn't locked, but opening it just a crack let her hear excited goblin whispering, and the pitter patter of goblin feet running away.
            Nominis considers the potions "Goblins are preparing for us. Maybe it is good idea to disappear from the place they expect us to be?"
            Looking back toward goblin tunnels "They are not patient, if they storm through here and don't find us maybe they settle down. And we might bypass them altogether. On the other hand, maybe we lock ourselves in the tunnels without another exit. I doubt there is anything too dangerous there or they would block it somehow."
            Not happy with either option he shakes his head. "I'd go into new tunnels, try to obscure signs of our passage and keep an eye out for good choke-points to fall back to."
            With Dwarven eyes, Brick grunted at the tunnel, "Dat goes back and beyond tha hall from tha garbage room, aye," he commented. "Looks ta be passable, but away from tha gobbies. I'm all fer knockin' gobby 'eads in, but Nom 'as a point. Gobbies will still be there, let's see where dis goes."
            "The goblins are the ones holding my cousins!" Draugrim protested, but he reluctantly fell in line when the others made their way down the tunnel the fissure presented, Erky murmuring words of reassurance to him.
            As they ventured through the rift, they came upon another carved hall - or was it another? Brick thought that maybe it had been connected to the one they had looked down from the "rotting piles of vegetable matter" room, but some ancient calamity had shifted half the tunnel to the west.
            Nominis ventured ahead, and found that the hall ended in a stone door around a dogleg bend.
            While he was gone (taking his cloak of shadows with him), the others realized that there was a dull, reddish light in the darkness ahead, and to the left. It seemed to be coming from another tunnel.
            Nala quietly closed the door again at the sound of the goblins and then rejoined the others as they headed down into the fissure.
            “Light up ahead,” Nala whispered to the others. “I’ll sneak up and take a look around that corner.” Nominis was checking the other hallway. Nala crept quietly ahead.
            Brick grunted, looking at either side of the rift and noting the movement in the earth. "Prolly a earthquake or wot," he commented. "Sommit shifted tha rock round dese parts long time back." He continued to trundle along, glancing back down the way Nominis had gone before venturing towards the reddish light. Being careful not to poke his head into danger, he peered quickly around the corner to see what might be causing the glow.
            Brick stomped along after Nala, and as they walked, they realized that the rift was lined with enigmatic holes, reaching as far back as they could see. They were small, no more than a foot in diameter.
            They both peered into the cave the light was coming from. The smell of sulphur in the rift mingled with a smell like hot rocks. There were holes in the walls here, too, but one of them was glowing with a fiery light. Even as they watched, what looked like an orange-white glowing worm began to wriggle out of the hole. The rock glowed an angry red where it touched, some of it slowly melting.
            Brick gripped his axes as he saw the... worm.. thing in the cavern. "Oi lads," he shouted behind his shoulder, "We got a worm thing innere!" He turned to Nala then, "Lass, wait 'ere an let it come tae us. Tha lads are too far back at tha moment. Plenny o' time ta chop up a worm, aye?"
            Nala gripped her axe and looked at the glowing worm and the bright red rock. “What is it?” the gnome asked. Hailing from the plains, she’d never seen anything like this. “You think it’s dangerous?”
            The worm dropped to the ground with a clank - now that they could see it fully, it appeared to be made of metal plates, and smoke puffed from its joints as it moved. It moved far faster than a worm had any right to, sidewinding itself toward them, its white-hot hornlike beak swinging toward Brick. He brought down his axe one it as it charged, but the weapon rebounded from its armorlike plating. However, the blow did throw off the worm's attack as well, and it looped on the ground, heat radiating off of it and warming the stone under their feet.
            Vol rushed forward to join Brick and Nala, Draugrim only a few steps behind.
            Nominis hears the commotion and calls back the way he came. He rushes back toward the fighting. Unfortunately, he is too far away from the fighting to be able to immediately come to fighters aid. Coming into the rift he notes that once again dwarf and gnome are alone fighting something
            And once again, he thinks how easily these two are to separate from the rest of the group. If there is something to whack, they always rush out. No line holding, no waiting for archers to soften the targets...he wonders if there will be a time he manages to set a trap and they forget about it an rush in front of it.
            "Sigh, once again into the deaths maw." he thinks as he loads the crossbow and prepares to shoot.
            Brick grunted as his axe deflected the heat-producing worm's attack. "Aye, I tink so, lass." He recovered and shifted his weight, spinning his second axe in his off-hand. He then swung at the thing twice in quick succession, hoping to cut into the space between the plates.
            The monster's whipping body threw his axes aside, and it managed to slam into his arms as well, leaving painful burned welts - but worse, it brushed his flowing beard - and his beard went up in flames!
            Erky belatedly joined the others in their rush toward the commotion; Nominis could see them run past the passage he was in as he loaded his crossbow.
            Vol rushed forward to engage the fiery worm but in his haste, only barely connected with his ray of frost. A hiss of steam gusted from the thing's hide where his frost touched it, though the frost evaporated almost instantly on its body.
            “Stupid worm!” Nala growled. She swung her greataxe at the fiery annelid, attempting to cleave it in two as she saw Brick’s beard light on fire.
            Her swing missed the twisting thing, but it shot straight at her before she could get her axe back in position to block it. It slammed into her arm, and her warrior's garb ignited just as Brick's beard had!
            "Gah! Me beard!" Brick exclaimed as he jumped back, his hands immediately patting at his now enflamed beard. He did his best to put the fire out, going so far as to fall prone and rolling on the ground whilst still patting his whiskers.
            Brick rolled about the rocky rift floor trying to put out the fire, but it refused to go out! Instead it spread to his clothing, leaving his beard badly singed.
            Erky ran up behind the taller folk, trying to glimpse what was happening. When he saw his flaming friends, he reflexively turned to his god's power. "Gaerdal save and guard you!" A pulse of well-being surged away from him as he clasped the metal band on his arm, easing Brick and Nala's pain - but only momentarily.
            "What is that thing?!" Draugrim yelled as he pushed past Vol and Nala, doing his best to put out Brick's flames with his cloak, but he wasn't able to properly help the thrashing dwarf.
            Nominis raises the crossbow but notices how usually stoic warriors prance around thinks about using his shadow powers to hinder the creature. But shooting it might bring a faster end to the combat. Then again, the whole group is there, too close together and he cannot move fast enough to get a clear shot. His spell covers an area so he cannot use it...
            Finally, he decides. He moves as far toward the creature as he can. If he can shoot, great! if not, well, at least he will prevent some damage.
            Rushing forward Nominis had almost reached a spot where he could see what the others were fighting when Nala yelled.
            “I don’t know what it is!” Nala cried out. “But it burns!” She tried to put out her burning clothes. “Hit it with arrows!” With a mighty effort, Nala managed to put out the flames.
            Vol was already doing so. "It is a thoqqua, an angry semi-intelligent monster from another plane." His tone was almost annoyingly calm, probably because he wasn't the one on fire. He drew another arrow, nocked, aimed, and breathed out another spell in the space of a few seconds. This time, his breath crystallized into a ball of snow and ice that rocketed out at the thoqqua with his arrow a fraction of a second behind.
            The ball of snow splattered against the thoqqua's metallic shell - blackening it with a sharp crackle even as the water evaporated with a hiss. The creature left off its attack to thrash on the ground like an injured snake - but Vol's arrow still caught it right between its weakened plates. The wooden arrow was burned away almost immediately, but it still left an oozing hole in the thing's body. The monster curled into a ball, then began to slowly worm away again, the rock turning yellow-hot under its body where it touched. It was headed for the hole it had come from, which was slowly cooling and was now only dully glowing with heat.
            Brick prided himself on his coolness in combat. Weapons and battle were second nature to the former guard. But this was something else. Dwarves weren't supposed to catch fire! He continued to roll, his panic beginning to rise. "Dammit ta tha nine hells!" he managed to yell, his voice rising an octave.
            "Water - give him your water!" Erky yelled, running over to wrench off Brick's waterskin. Draugrim yanked the skin from his hands and upended it over the dwarf, finally putting out the fire.
            Nominis stepped around the corner of the tunnel and fired his crossbow. The bolt struck exactly where Vol's arrow had made a puncture in its plating, and the worm curled up and stopped moving as the bolt caught fire and began to burn away. The stone slowly grew brighter under its glowing body.
            "Brick! Talk to me, lad!" Erky shouted, as though Brick might have gone deaf from being burned.
            Draugrim went over to Nala to make sure her fire was out, too. "You okay, Nala?"
            “Yes, I’m fine. Just a little singed,” Nala told Draugrim. “Brick got it worse. Is he okay?” She pulled out her own waterskin and brought it over to the dwarf, cringing at the sight of his beard.
            "He will be," Draugrim said, relieved. Likewise, once he was sure the flaming dwarf had been fully put out, Erky turned to Nala to make sure she was all right as well, relief on his weathered face.
            "Gaerdal knows we gnomes are tough folk!" he beamed at her. "Now come, the both of you, step away from that thing. Come back down the rift, here." Then he clasped his armband and raised his voice in prayer to his god. Gaerdal answered, sweeping Brick and Nala with a sense of vigor and hearts thundering for battle.
            It took a minute for Brick to stop thrashing about, once the fire was extinguished. He looked to Draugrim and his emptied waterskin with gratitude in his eyes. "Thank ye lad," he said as he stood. "An' ye lass," he added with a nod to Nala while she held out her own waterskin. As he brushed himself down both to wipe the soot away and to take stock of the damage, he lamented his badly singed beard, now several inches shorter than it was before. "Oi, gonna take ano'er two o' three decades ta git it back." He frowned deeply, staring at the singed ends held in his hand, as if mourning a dear friend's passing.
            After a moment of silence, Brick dropped his beard and narrowed his eyes at the dead beast. He gave it a couple choice vulgar gestures before stomping back to where he dropped his axes and picked them up. "Anytin in it's nest o'er dere?" he queried, though he was hesitant to actually walk over to it.
            “I’ll check,” Nala said, walking over to the hole in the wall. She very carefully checked if the stone was too hot before she got closer and peered inside for any treasure or anything.
            The rock was a dull red going on gray now, but it was still hot as an oven in the hole, and Nala didn't see anything valuable, but only melted slag there - in fact, it looked like the holes that lined the rift - so she didn't bother sticking an arm into it to feel around. She did notice what looked like the crumbs of a chunk of ore, but only bits too small to be anything but worthless, now melting to boot.
            "Now that I think about it, I've heard of these," Draugrim mused as he crouched by the still-weakly-wiggling worm. He edged back as the stone continued to heat underfoot. "They eat ore. Don't ask me how. Must be why this place looks like cheese."
            Vol looked over as he retrieved unbroken arrows. "At least there was only one. They're not friendly. Should we move on?"
            Nala walked over to the creature and used her axe to put it out of its misery, careful to stand back well away from the thing so as not to get burned again.
            “Let’s check this cavern. Nothing valuable in those holes,” the gnome said. “Where to next?”
            Her axe took on a cherry red glow just from those brief moments of contact - but she pulled it away before it took any real damage. However, in cutting the monster in half, she thought she saw something small and blue in its glowing hot innards...
            "After the goblins," Draugrim answered her immediately.
            Erky shot him a vaguely guilty look, but disagreed. "We shouldn't leave annathing behind us to surprise us. Nominis, what did ye see down that passage?"
            Nominis relaxes a bit after seeing that everyone is alright. Curious about the creature, he wraps his hand in leather and tries to pry one of its scales off while still hot. Using half-molten underside of the scale, he puts it as an epaulet on his armor. The leather sizzles and stinks for a bit before setting down.
            Looking at others "It is important to take trophies. Others are less likely to attack you if you carry powerful creature spirits upon yourself. And most of the really dangerous stuff has good scales, carapaces, skin or other coverings to enhance the protection of your armor."
            "It suits you," Draugrim said approvingly. He almost clapped his hand on the epaulet, but caught himself before he did anything stupid. Instead he nodded seriously to Nominis. "Are all those scales trophies?! Were you an adventurer long, before coming down here?"
            “Wait,” Nala said. She pulled out her water skin and poured a bit over the remains of the carcass. It steamed, and when Nala felt it was cool enough, she used her dagger and gloved hands to move and carve into the worm a bit more to retrieve the small blue object from its gizzard. “What is this?”
            "I agree wit Erky," Brick said with a nod. He was back in the rift itself now, his axes gripped tightly in his hands. He was about to head down towards the passage Nominis found, but Nala seemed to be interested in something with the creature. He paused, curious. "Wot cha find, lass?"
            The tall, lanky elf shrugged. "One way seems as good as another. We'll see everything in here eventually, I wager." He nodded at Brick. "I'll follow you."
            The small, hard object, once cleaned of innards, proved to be a sapphire. Squeezing the thing's guts like a sausage resulted in another of the blue stones falling out of the steaming corpse.
            Nala grinned as she cleaned off the blue stone. She squeezed a second out of the worm’s rapidly cooling gut and cleaned that, as well, holding them up to the light to see them shine.

            Making their way down the corridor Nominis had ventured down before (not without muttered grumbling from Draugrim), they came upon a closed door of stone. After Nominis had judged it free of traps, they tried to pull it open, but it seemed stuck.
            Brick nodded to Nominis, thanking the man for confirming the lack of traps. The Dwarf lined up to the door and, after shaking his arms a bit to loosen the muscles, he grasped the handle and pulled. Teeth gritted behind his singed beard as he pulled at the door with all of his strength. He could feel it ready to budge, but he couldn't quite do it on his own. "Oi," he grunted, "Need a 'and 'ere."
            The lanky elf stowed his bow and banged his shoulder into the door. Apparently he was more solid than he looked, because his impact was surprisingly strong.
            The door grated open, and they looked within. Faded mosaic tiles still covered parts of the wall, but most had fallen and shattered. Situated at the center of the chamber stood a slim pedestal of rusted iron, shaped like an upright dragon. In the dragon's mouth, an empty tray rested.
            "Dragons again. Who built this place?" Erky wondered.
            "There's no one here. Let's get after the goblins," Draugrim complained - and they could see he was right, the dust on the floor was undisturbed.
            Nominis looks at the statue, intrigued. He mutters something and his eyes glaze over as he perceives magical auras in the room. He looks at the empty tray and approaches it, carefully stepping to avoid potential traps. Finally, he puts in a neat line 1 silver, and 1 gold piece into the tray.
            They continued down the corridor and ran up against a stone wall that appeared stuck, which Brick and Vol managed to wrangle open, revealing a dragon statue with an empty tray in its mouth.
            Nominis moved into the room and put some coins on the tray. Nala watched curiously. The little gnome ran her eyes over the room and the statue for any traps or secret doors.
            Neither the statue nor the tray gleamed with the strands of the Weave, nor was Nominis struck down by any trap. He left a trail of footprints in the dust as he approached the statue. Placing his offering carefully, he waited a moment, but nothing happened.
            Nala, peering from behind a forest of legs in the doorway, wasn't able to spot any secret doors.
            "Oi, lad," Brick called from the door, "Wotcha find?" He peered around the door frame, frowning at the statue in the center of the room. He elbowed Nala, "Don'tcha got a statue o' sommit, lass?" he queried.
            “Oh, yeah,” Nala said. “You think they go here?” She dug out the two loxo statues from her bag. She approached the dragon statue and put the loxo statues on the tray.
            The elephantine loxo statues stood tall and proud on the tray, but the dragon didn't react in any way that Nala could tell.
            Erky harrumphed from the doorway. "Shrines to dragons. What nonsense will people think of next. I wouldn't offer it a single copper if I were you."
            Draugrim frowned, but remained quiet.
            The tall archer had been watching quietly but now he shrugged and shook his head. "Could be that key in the dragon's mouth the kobolds are guarding. Could be something else we haven't found yet. Either way, we'll have to come back."
            “Oh! I have that key!” Nala said. She took down the loxo statues and returned them to her bag, then pulled out the key. To make sure she wasn’t missing anything, she tossed up some dancing lights over the statue and looked for a keyhole, or put the key on the tray, if she couldn’t find one.
            There didn't appear to be any keyhole in the statue, nor did it react when she placed the key on the tray.
            Nominis waits for a breath or two then shrugs and follows others out
            "Just curious. Not important." Says Nominis as he leads the group back and scouts the darkness. "The tunnel could lead us somewhere useful. Or not. This citadel is half-broken, who knows where things lead. Lets try the goblins again. Please, dont just charge ahead and spread around."
            Brick grunted and followed Nom out of the passage. "Aye, tis a old place. Nae jus tha citadel be broken, but tha earth itself." He thought back to the layout, remembering what they had explored thus far. "I tink dere was a door back innae gobby country."

            Returning to the goblin commons, Nominis stopped when he heard noises in the dragon-column hall. Peering through the doorway, he saw a goblin struggling with a barrel, trying to drag it toward the room they had been heading for. Occupied with its task, it didn't spot the party in time...
            Nominis slips into the room with the goblin, just one shadow among many in the underground hall. He gathers the net to him and more or less wraps the goblin inside whispering fiercely in goblin. <"Quiet! Or you die!">
            The goblin yawped reflexively, then clapped its hands over its mouth and gazed up at Nominis, shaking from head to toe.
            Nala retrieved the key and replaced it in her bag. She was stymied on the statue. Then there was a commotion out in the corridor. Hefting her axe, Nala rushed out, ready to face whatever new threat challenged the party.
            In the back of the procession through the caverns, Brick heard the commotion before he saw anything. Immediately, he jostled for position, squeezing himself through. "Outta tha way lads," he grumped as he moved past. "Ye want tha dwarf wit axes inna front, aye."
            But Nominis had already neutralized the threat when Brick, Nala and Vol pushed forward.
            Poking his head out from the forest of legs, Erky looked around, then struggled through. "Good work, lad," he said quietly, with a scowl at the goblin. "I'll check if that door's open." He vanished into the last room in the goblin commons.
            Nominis pulls the creature slowly back toward the group. "What do we want with it? Just leave it wrapped up until we clear the area? I can try and coerce it like the last one."
            He asks couple of questions of the creature (again in goblin)<"How many of you goblins are here?">
            <"Lots,"> the goblin sniveled. By this Nominis gathered that there were more than ten - goblins weren't good with numbers.
            <" And how many twig blights?">
            <"What's a twig blight?"> it whined. After Nominis described the plant-monsters they'd seen, the goblin gulped. <"Chief Durnn had one! By the tree there's lots,"> it whimpered.
            <" And giant rats? ">
            <"All dead,"> the goblin said with a sigh.
            <" Do you have other protectors besides The Hunter?">
            <"Gogbul and Morka. They bosses."> The goblin seemed a bit hesitant to call them "protectors." <"Wanted fungus liquor. Dead humans, too. And hot monster. They not protect.">
            Draugrim paled when Nominis translated that little tidbit. "What humans? My cousins?!"
            After that is done he pulls the creature fully into the room the group exited from. <" As you can feel, this net can cut you. I will tie you, but leave you within the net. If you move too much, you die. Clear?"> and leaves the goblin there.
            The goblin nodded as much as it dared, and was quiet as Nominis left the old shrine.
            "Well, that's that." Nominis takes his time to equip seldom used klar on his left hand and takes the whip in hand. "Ready!"
            Erky nodded, ready to reopen the door for them all to file through. Draugrim grinned, but it wasn't a happy expression. "Finally. Let's get 'em."
            Brick didn't pay much mind to Nominis's interrogation of the goblin. He didn't expect to learn much from the thing. They weren't so smart, and anything you might learn would have to be interpreted. It's ravings didn't make much sense to Brick anyway, all he knew was there were further enemies to destroy.
            He nodded to Draugrim's remark. "Aye lad, bout time we got to it."
            Vol nodded. Like Brick, he hadn't paid much attention to the interrogation. "Let's go."