Author's Notes
We rejoin the action after the party have duffed-over a Carrion Crawler: Elantar got away with that one...
They had been talking quietly for a couple of minutes before Eldarion fled into their chamber.
"There's a couple of things in that room that I'd rather not try to fight off on my own," he said, panicked. With grins on their faces, Buttercup and Boshley hefted their weapons and approached the door opposite their chamber. Turning the handle this time, Buttercup opened the door and was immediately set upon by a giant wolf.
She sprawled backwards across the floor, twisting a knee in the process. Boshley screamed a battlecry, and leapt headlong at the wolf, brandishing his new sword.
"HAR, HAR, HAR!" a huge voice bellowed in the Giant tongue. "Look at the size of this morsel! This won't fill our cooking pots; take them all!" Boshley was momentarily distracted by the huge bellowing Ogre that stood behind the wolf, and he too was sent to the floor where he struggled to regain his feet under the weight of his armour.
"HAR, HAR, HAR!" the Ogre continued, "this will be easy pickings! Orc!" he gestured towards Gravak, "your mother was here yesterday. She was my breakfast!" Elantar was sure that in Ogre society this would be considered incredibly witty, but it was wasted on Gravak who had no idea what the Ogre was saying.
"Take the wolf!" was all that the Cleric responded with, as Buttercup and Boshley both regained their feet. Boshley charged it head on, swatting at its face with his shield. Buttercup dodged a swinging paw and moved to its right flank. Arden began to play Hares in the Meadow and the wolf was momentarily distracted. Elantar took the opportunity to move to its left, swinging her swords in a deadly arc to sever its hamstrings.
The wolf, breaking its fascination with Arden's tune, howled in pain and sank on its haunches. Boshley stabbed at its eyes before Buttercup decapitated it with a neat axe swing.
Elantar paused to take note of her surroundings. The wolf was pierced three times with arrows, and in the corridor Eldarion was reloading while Eldrann lowered his bow. This had quite clearly been a joint effort. Gravak had been holding the Ogre's attention while he had more abuse slung at him, and Taran was hiding behind the Elves in the corridor.
But now, with the death of what appeared to be his favourite pet, the Ogre's attention was broken. He raised a pair of giant axes and barrelled headlong towards Buttercup as Eldrann began to chant in a tongue that Elantar did not recognise. The threatened blow never landed, as the Ogre instead collapsed in fits of laughter.
Eldrann looked the very definition of smug.
Buttercup, Eldarion, Boshley and Elantar all made short work of the Ogre as he lay helpless under the power of Eldrann's curse.
"Search him," Eldrann commanded, "and search the room."
The Wizard himself joined them in the task. Boshley pulled a thick leather bound book from the Ogre's waist pouch.
"Is this one of those spellbooks that Wizards carry?" he asked. "Taran, it has your name on it, it must be yours!"
"Fool!" Eldrann shouted, snatching it from him. "We could have tested if it was really him!"
"Look," Arden joined in, "this is Taran Goldstar, alright? Who else is going to be here? If you still don't believe him, ask him what spells are in the book."
Eldrann nodded in agreement, and so began a lengthy discussion about spells, which Elantar had no interest in whatsoever.
"It's getting late," she finally interrupted. The fights they had just been in had taken their toll on all of them.
"Shall we stop here for the night?" Eldrann suggested.
"It's quite central here," Taran pointed out, "and Bonegnasher's death won't go unnoticed."
"Bonegnasher?" Elantar asked, prodding the Ogre corpse with her foot.
"He was in charge here," Taran answered.
"How about the room where we fought off the giant rats?" Arden suggested.
"Where some of us fought off the giant rats you mean…" Elantar wondered if Eldarion would ever just let it go. She made no response, but voiced her agreement with Arden's plan.
As soon as Taran Goldstar had fallen asleep, Arden filled them in on the flute she had found.
"He didn't get a chance to try it here," she said. "He found out that a keyhole that unlocks a secret chamber opens at the sound of Ode To Midnight played only on this flute. He wasn't really sure if he knew the tune though."
"Do you know it?" Eldrann asked.
"Of course I know it!" Arden snapped.
Eldrann readied a scathing retort, but another look at Arden made him think better, and he bit it back. He skulked away to his bedroll.
"Did he say where this chamber was supposed to be?" Eldarion asked.
"No," she answered, "I don't think he really has any idea. He thought this place was empty when he came though, he just wanted to look around for clues and see if he could maybe find it himself."
Elantar's watch passed without incident. She'd re-barred the door back into the entrance hall from the courtyard, just in case, but nobody approached the party's chosen resting spot. When her watch was up, and she woke Eldarion for his turn, he didn't say a word to her. She couldn't decide if she preferred him silent and bitter or cocky and loud-mouthed.
She struggled to sleep. There had been rats here.
Rats!
She couldn't tell the others. Admitting to any weakness would do nothing to improve her standing with them. Admitting to a fear as irrational as rats would make her a laughing stock, and she was quite happy with Boshley Bentock holding that honour. The Gnome was doing nothing to help matters there; he'd fought skilfully and courageously when he wasn't getting eaten by giant frogs, drawing attention to the party or falling into holes.
It quite clearly wasn't rats she should be scared of. She felt no fear as she tried to fight off the Carrion Crawler that almost killed her. Would have killed her if it hadn't been for Gravak. She had no idea what motivated the Orc to save her, and she'd been wondering what to do about it ever since. Clearly, she owed him. In the past, that usually meant death to the person she was indebted to. It was just easier that way… not to mention cheaper.
The Crawler had caused other problems as well. Every few minutes her hands would turn numb and she'd worry that her body would stop responding again. The wound in her shoulder where it had infected her burned intermittently hot and cold. All in all, it was a fitful night's sleep for Elantar.
Eldarion woke them all at dawn. "Someone's come back," he stated in hushed tones, "a few seconds ago, through the main gate."
They were all roused and prepared in a few moments. Elantar waited by the door for Eldarion and Gravak to join her. Eldrann, who it turned out had already been awake for some time, was slower to react as he carefully packed away his spellbook.
Gravak put his ear to the door. "More Orcs," he whispered. "They're preparing the corpses for burial. They seem relieved to not see any Ogres... Something about... wait..." he paused as if considering his next words. "They're talking about being free from the Ogres. I don't think they were working together."
"No matter," said Eldarion, "they're in our way." He signalled for the others to join them. Boshley once again made far too much noise. The voices in the entrance hall stopped, and the unmistakable sounds of weapons being drawn could be heard.
Eldarion counted off three on his fingers and opened the door. Buttercup, as was becoming usual, was first through the door, followed by the Gnome. They both looked for Orcs to face off against and shouted challenges. Elantar paused to take in the scene as Gravak, Eldarion, Arden and Eldrann followed the others through the door. Taran was leafing through his own spellbook.
Five Orcs awaited the charge. The pits were clearly visible this time, and there were no Orcs in the rafters to ambush them. Boshley quickly skewered one on his sword, and Buttercup counted for another. Eldarion drew two arrows and put them both into the neck of a third. Elantar and Gravak engaged a forth, and soon over-powered it.
"Take the last one alive!" Eldrann suddenly shouted. Elantar was impressed at his quick thinking and was grateful that he'd finally had a decent idea. Buttercup bellowed at it in Orcish, and he sunk to his knees whimpering.
Arden stepped forwards to interrogate him. He either didn't understand her questions, or was pretending not to. Either way, he looked disdainfully at the Bard and spat at her feet.
"Err... Gravak?" she said reluctantly, "maybe you should take this one."
Gravak spoke calmly to the Orc, and filled the rest in on details as they came up.
"Five Ogres altogether... no more Orcs."
"Ask him what they're doing here," Eldrann chipped in. Gravak relayed the question.
"He says this is their home... The Ogres turned up a few days ago, just before the Elf. They must mean Taran," he said, turning back to them.
"What have the Ogres been doing here?" it was Arden with a question this time.
"They... hmm... they've been making the Orcs dig." Gravak said something in Orcish, then "under the mountain. The fortress was built into the side of the mountain, and the Ogres made the Orcs dig in a large room after Taran gave up something about treasure hidden here."
"They tortured me! Cut off my hand!" Taran began to weep.
"Nobody blames you, Elf," Gravak consoled him.
Elantar had a question too: "Can you find out something about the layout of the place?"
"There's... the storage hall... that's where they've been digging... through the door on the far side of the temple," Gravak said slowly as he translated. "The last Ogres are probably in the kitchens... there are other slaves there... and a well."
"What will he do if we let him go?" Eldrann asked.
"Leave for north of the mountains... find another tribe to join up with." Gravak translated again.
"Or come back with help... I say we kill him. He can't tell us anything else useful," Eldarion announced. The Orc looked both concerned and angry. Elantar suspected he could understand the Common Tongue after all. Eldrann and Boshley looked like they agreed with the Ranger's suggestion, the others weren't so sure. Elantar could see the logic in that, but tried to look like she wasn't really concerned.
"How about we secure him?" Arden suggested. The party agreed to this as a reluctant compromise. One prisoner was all it had taken: everybody had seemed to stop trusting one another. "Elantar? You're probably best at this."
Elantar took a short length of rope from her pack and began to manipulate it into loops. They wouldn't quite form right, and she realised that her hands had begun to turn numb again. It was too late to stop though, and she was making a hash of it. The prisoner began to laugh. He said something to Gravak that she didn't understand. The Cleric looked on with a steely gaze, but Buttercup began to join in the laughter, poking fun at Elantar's poor rope work.
She lowered the rope, flexed her hands, closed her eyes and drew a few deep breaths. She began to regain feeling in her hands again and restarted, much better this time. The Orc's laughter soon stopped, and she pulled hard to make sure that the bonds were especially uncomfortable.
