Goldenhold
Chapter 42: Many Enemies
Stonehand jumped through the center of a spiral, landing fifteen stories below, passing up many residential homes. He landed in a large room, rivaling the size of the king’s hall in length and width, but not in height. Gardens pouring water out had finely trimmed bushes, statues gardens told tales of history. But he was here for the largest lane in the fortress that would eventually lead to the mines. Sprinting down it, he passed up many of the greens in Goldenhold, including the artificial sun farm, where several cows grazed on the grass of the surface.
He jumped over a staircase that had one hundred stairs, rolling once his feet touched the ground for safety. He ended up in one of the four miner’s halls in the fortress. Here, statues of legendary miners by the walls surrounded a central staircase going both up and down. Above, the miner’s guild had a hall of relaxation where dwarves could drink mead straight from the barrel after a hard day of work. One story down was where all the elevators and mine carts ended up at, the top level of their travels. Of course, in a fortress the size of Goldenhold there were tracks for official business elsewhere, but those ran too slowly for Stonehand.
He simply jumped down the miner’s staircase, going in the middle of the spiral once again as he fell down towards the magma sea. It took a full minute of falling for him to finally land on the bottom, the third level of caverns.
Looking around once the dust cleared, he took notice that two of the three elevators were torn to pieces, only one making it up. The champion also took notice that there was a demon doing it’s best to turn him into firewood. Stonehand gave it a full swing of his hammer, slamming it into a wall, shaking the area around them. He gave the demon a good glance, and it terrified him. Firstly, the demon was like a chicken, but without eyes, and tentacles growing out of it’s sides. It’s beak was on fire, and it’s feathers were tinted a sickly green. He swung the hammer again, delivering the death blow necessary to defeat it. As he began to turn around to face his next victim though, an explosion hurled him across the room, slamming him into a wall.
Coughing, he stood up, realizing that had not worked. Three demons stared at him hungrily, the others heading up the staircase by flying. A few arrows challenged them, but flames or vapors scared the archers away, leaving the fortress defenseless. It was pointless for them anyways, as it would easily take a thousand bolts to kill one of them.
A demon grabbed him with clawed hands, crushing his cape. Stonehand managed to barely struggle free, falling to the ground once more upon being released. Picking up his hammer, he slammed the demon twice across the head before jumping back to watch it set the room on fire.
The other demons ignored the explosion, barely moving them a step. They spilt, each heading for one of his flanks. He decided to jump between them, confusing them for a moment until they realized he had moved up to the staircase where they would have to run up it after him. This set them in a single file, which made it easier for him to defeat both terrors. That isn’t to say that his beard wasn’t singed a bit more in the process, steaming from the heat.
A tentacle demon jumped at him in the second level room, and he swung at it. When it didn’t die, he swung at it again. He continued to swing it until he couldn’t swing anymore, but the tentacle demon always bounced right back out because of it’s squishiness. If it hadn’t been trying to eat him, he would have thought it a wonderful stress reliever. After another minute of swinging, a steel pick clamored on the stairway, dropped from above. He picked it up, looking up to see who had dropped it. He didn’t see anyone to thank, and when he felt his hand being digested (An all too familiar feeling), he brought it to it’s end with a swing of the pick. He attached it to his belt in case he would have the same issue in a later scenario, jumped, and let the explosion send him back up to the miner’s hall like an expressway. He noticed gremlins and demons running free, and he wondered how he would clean this mess up, forgetting the invaders who were running out with loot.
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Topic: The Age of Myth: Goldenhold (A DF Novel Length Story) (Read 115908 times)