If you think the quality has slipped on this one, it's probably because it's 11:38. Goodnight.
‘Hidden’ safehouse“Oh, at last he wakes up.”
“Why did it take so long? Teleportation is not easy, human.”
“After we got him we knocked him out with magic.”
“Why? We needed to speak to him as soon as possible. You know that. You
know that.”
“I… uh… well,”
There was a nasty, organic sound, a scream and then silence. But that wasn’t what worried Walter. What worried him was the accent of the second speaker.
“Good morning Walter. Your father sends his regards. As do my Lords.”
Goblin.
“Wake. Up.”
Goblin.
“I said: Wake up.”
Goblin.Walter sat bolt upright. In front of him, the last thing he had ever expected to see sprang into focus. A goblin, clad in the red and purple of a priest, who doubled as goblin mages. It grinned at him. Its teeth were filled to a point.
“Go to see there wasn’t any side effects from the kidnapping. Now, you’ll notice your hands and legs are bound. This is for your own safety.”
It wasn’t all that Walter noticed. At his feet, a man with a fatal knife wound in his back was lying face down in a growing pool of blood. The entire room was made of stone and seemed to be some sort of storage area. He was sitting on a chair, with his hands and legs bound behind his back. It was obvious he wasn’t getting out of them.
“Comfortable? No? Good. Now, you see, your father was a smuggler, correct?”
Still slightly disorientated, Walter nodded. It was one of the reasons he’d left home so young.
“Yes, you didn’t like that, did you? Well here’s something else you won’t like. Your father helped provide our race provisions and weapons in the Glorious Conquest.”
At that, Walter nearly knocked the chair onto its side. His father did
that? Sure, he wasn’t the nicest of men, but he betrayed his
own race?“Clever man. Knew which way the wind was blowing. Loved you, very much. I don’t want to waste time here, so I’ll get right down to it. Your father has several smuggling routes into this pitiful excuse for a land, and details on how to get into almost every city here, unseen, through smuggling tunnels. He was willing to give this information to us,
if we got you back. Well, we’re not an unkind race, no indeed!” the goblin paused to chuckle. “So we agreed. Won’t he be pleased to see
you. Especially since he knew we could have just tortured the information out of him, if not for those bloody supply warehouses he’s willing to put to the torch via supporters if we do.”
The goblin paused to stare at Walter.
“Ha! You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this. Well, you see, word has reached our ears, of this group, this mercenary group, comprised almost entirely of dwarves. And we got,
naturally, a bit suspicious. Get your fathers men to do some snooping and lo and behold,
what do we find? Eli Eremo! A band of survivors. Well, Walter, what we want is information, and I’m sure your farther won’t mind if we have a little chat. Especially if I don’t leave any scars…”
Walter spat in his face. It was a horribly stupid thing to do, he knew, but it made him feel a bit better and by the Gods he needed that right now. The goblin wiped it off and his grin widened.
Then, there was an explosion.
Ground level“Shit!” exclaimed a guard, falling off his chair, as the dwarves streamed down from above, the chemicals they had used to silently burn their way in melting the hatch into the floor. There were only two of them there, and one went down in mere seconds, disorientated and dead in quick succession. The second managed to draw his sword and blocked a slashing strike from Quote. The reverberation sent him stumbling and, dropping his guard, he was impaled.
(Magic! Store bought magic! Oldbeard picked it up at the alchemists, basically)Running into the next room, wary of resistance, they found none. An empty space greeted them, with stairs in the corner. The group paused for a moment and a man came charging up the stairs, sword in hand. He opened his mouth to ask what the noise was, and squeaked as he saw who he was facing. Several crossbows pointed at him.
Later, Barbarossa claimed it was the caffeine that had made the decision.
“Stand down.” he said. The others looked at him, and lowered their weapons, confused. “Okay. Human, if you beat one of us in single combat, we’ll let you go.”
The human, sweating most visibly, nodded his head eagerly. Barbarossa looked over at Galdon.
“You think you can handle being a part of our company? Prove it.”
Galdon looked at him for a moment, then hefted his mace and peered at his opponent.
“Sure.”
The dwarves formed a semi-circle around them. Barbarossa took Galdon aside before the fight began and whispered into his ear.
“Don’t be too brutal. Kill him cleanly.”Galdon nodded.
Turning back, he eyed his opponent who, unnerved and desperate, charged.
A high, slashing blow was dodged by Galdon, who moved aside and swung, hoping to knock the man over. His opponent wasn’t so foolish as to allow himself to be struck in such a manner and counter-struck, nearly killing Galdon there and then. Okay. Obviously, his opponent knew his stuff. Very well.
Dashing forward and back, hoping to use the man’s terror to his advantage, he swung out, intentionally missing the man’s face. The ploy worked, as the man jumped forward and tried to skewer him. Thundering down with his mace, he managed a glancing blow on the mans arm that caused him shudder. It was all the opening he needed. Right foot forward, pivot, and the man’s head was now so much blood and grey matter.
“Right!” said Barbarossa, clapping his hands once. “Shall we?”
(Barbarossa's kind of an asshole)After moving downstairs, it became apparent that the place was a bolt hole, not designed for long stays. The stairs changed to a ramp that descended several levels into rock made soundproof by sheer depth. Upon reaching the bottom, crossbows made short work of the final three men, taking care of the dozing drunkards before they even noticed there were invaders. At the end of the stone room, covered in leftover food and books, was a wooden door. Barbarossa pointed at it and a few seconds later, Oldbeard blew it inwards. Inside, the goblin turned round and screamed. A ball of purple light flew from his hand and struck the ramp at the back of the large room, melting the stone. Crossbow bolts whizzed through the door way and one punctured his arm. Howling, he screamed several arcane words at the top of his lungs before disappearing in a flash of light.
Barbarossa looked at Walter, trying to get his breath back.
“So?” he asked. “Anything interesting happen while we were away?”
“By the Gods, time and a place Barbarossa.”
“C’mon, we’ll get you down.”
“That’d be nice, yes.”
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Topic: To venture north, into Hell: Othtar Noloc, world at war (Read 106537 times)