Chapter 5a - Dealing with Dragons

[kwll]

"Kweiraye, what is the shortest way you know going to the mines?" whispers Owynn, anxiously looking around to see if enemies are coming his way. "We need to reach the others as fast and and as quietly as possible!"

[monstermike]

"This way," Kweiraye responds, pointing east from the dragon's door. "The next room is where the trolls nest, and the one after that is quarters for the goblin guards. You already know that the last door is Hrruuukkk Ptui's chambers. Usually all the doors are closed and the trolls tend to be heavy sleepers. I think if we are reasonably quiet, we can sneak by without too much trouble."

Kweiraye sets off down the hallway, with Father Grizzle and the other miners tiptoeing ridiculously behind. Pan, Herman, and Owynn follow. Passing the first door, they can hear the rumbling snores of trolls. The second door is closed and they hear no sound from it. Hrruuukkk Ptui's door is opened, but the room is still empty.

The group nips around the corner past the unguarded gong and begins to walk down the decline shaft. Once they have gone a hundred meters or so, they hear the sound of marching boots from further up the shaft. "Hsst!! Pan warns. "Get out of sight!"

Everyone spreads out to the shadows along the south edge of the tunnel and crouches behind the slow-moving carts. To their east, they see large party of guards led by Seagal, Hrruuukkk Ptui, and an enormous orc captain march to the well-lit intersection they just vacated. The orc captain barks out a command to halt. Seagal and Hrruuukkk Ptui break away from the group to run into the quarters level.

"They're going after reinforcements, I fear" Pan whispers to Owynn. "And then I think they're coming after us. We need to stick to the side of the tunnel and stay low. With any luck, they won't see us and we can meet up with Tenkar and the others before they catch up."

Owynn nods his understanding and gives a hand signal to Father Grizzle. Everyone moves forward in a low, quiet crouch along the south wall of the decline shaft, shielded from sight by the long row of wagons.

After another hundred meters of painful creeping, Pan looks back. The squad is still standing in the brightly lit intersection, though distance has made them tiny. "I think we're deep enough in the shaft they won't see us now if we stand up." With sighs of relief, Herman, Kweiraye, Owynn, and the rest stand up from their crouches and begin to dog-trot down towards the gold-mining level.

In a few minutes, they reach the brightly lit intersection. "Just a quick peek to see if the coast is clear," Pan says. He runs and looks down the south hall, then back across for a peek down the north hall. "There's just a handful of goblins watching the miners and one orc guard patrolling around the loop," he whispers to Owynn. "He just turned the corner into the back end of the loop. If we move quickly, we can be across long before he gets here."

He signals for Father Grizzle and all the miners to run across the intersection toward the coal-pits. Herman, Owynn, and Kweiraye follow close behind and they continue their descent.

After another several hundred meters at a lope, they begin to see bodies lying everywhere in the decline shaft in pools of black blood. Clearly, the remnants of a great battle just recently ended. Worried, Pan and Herman eyeball each one. Orc... Orc... Goblin... Orc... Goblin... Goblin... Orc... "Thank Dionysus," Pan whispers to Herman. "It looks like Tenkar and his Titans did themselves proud. I don't see a single dwarf among the dead."

Approaching the lit intersection, Owynn's squad sees Tenkar and his Titans walking out of the coal-pits with Bitsa and Ozenda.

Game time 4/4 20:10

[Forgive the GM fiat, but I wanted to get these two groups reunited in time and space without taking a lot of turns going back and forth in detail. This ends Chapter 5a. Owynn and his group can just continue in the Chapter 5b thread - Fight for Freedom.]