Chapter 4:
Stonekeep
Before embarking to Stonekeep, Johlin had gone to the blacksmith in Rihad and purchased an iron sword along with a set of iron armor. After he was ready to go, Johlin hopped onto his horse and rode out the city gates. It was a long ride, lasting three hours through the blazing heat of the sandy desert. When he finally arrived at the entrance to the underground dungeon of Stonekeep, Johlin readied his sword for anything waiting for him inside. As he entered the dark, dank dungeon, he could feel that someone wasn't right about the place.
For starters, after walking down the stairs, he spotted a half-broken sign that stated, "welcome to Stonekeep. Please leave all weapons at the front gate." Water dripped in some other room. Each drip brought Johlin closer on edge. He could hear the rats scurrying around him. There was a stench of dead flesh hanging in the air. But worst of all: Johlin felt like he was being watched. It made him uneasy.
Taking a step forward, Johlin slowly walked further into Stonekeep. The faded velvet carpeting on the floor and the dark, decrepit decorum of the dungeon made him even more uncomfortable. He held his sword in his sweating palm and moved into another room. This one was even creepier than the entrance. Cracks and holes in the walls indicated tunneling of some sort. Johlin's heart skipped when he heard the sound of a wolf howl. Turning around, he found himself face-to-face with three hungry, red-eyed wolves.
Johlin, used his Imperial Guard training and battle instincts to tell when the savage wolves would attack. His assumptions were correct when one of the dogs leaped towards him. Johlin stepped to the side and ran his blade through it. The next one quickly pounced and met the same fate as the first. The last wolf quickly cowered away after seeing its fellow wolves on the floor covered in blood. Continuing into the next room, Johlin found himself in a large underground chamber covered with waterways spanned by small stone bridges. "Keep on your guard, Johlin. There's bound to be something bad waiting to happen" he said in his head.
Treading carefully as he moved, Johlin walked over one of the bridges spanning a waterway and found himself on a small island in the middle of the chamber. After more cautious movements, he navigated through the room in the island. It was the bed chamber for whoever once ruled this keep. To his amazement, at the side of the torn, dusty bed was the parchment! Picking it up, Johlin prepared anxiously to get out of this place. But as the knight left the room, he felt the stone floor beneath him begin to sink. "Agh!" he yelped as the ground suddenly collapsed under his feet.
Johlin found himself tumbling down rockslides until he landed with a hard thud on the cold stone floor. "Where am I?" he muttered to himself. It was very dark and difficult to see. But his other senses quickly heightened, and he could hear the sounds of footsteps around him. His armor clanked and rattled on his body as he walked in slow circles with his sword raised. "Who's there?" he shouted into the void. The only response was the sound of his voice echoing through the room. Fwoom. Torches all around Johlin lit up and temporarily blinded him as the room became visible to his eyes. He was in a large decrepit throne room. As he regained his vision and looked around, he noticed something very bad: he was surrounded by hordes of goblins. On the surrounding walls hung chained skeletal remains of the former inhabitants of Stonekeep. Sitting on the throne itself was none other than Golthag the Dark himself.
"Well, what do we have here?" he said in his high-pitched, gruffy goblin voice. "An intruder in our home! The one we worked so hard to build!" "Golthag the Dark I presume?" Johlin asked, his grip on the handle of his sword getting tighter. "I'm going to have fun ripping your bones apart, surface dweller!" Golthag stood up from the throne and sparked magic from his hands. Suddenly, the chains holding the skeletons up released their prisoners, and the skeletons slowly rose from the ground.
The skeletons were armed with rusted blades and rushed towards the knight. Johlin readied his sword and swung it through one of the skeletons, slicing it in half before swinging again to the right, taking out the second skeleton. Another undead guard attacked. Swish. The skeleton was torn to pieces. Johlin cut through the undead like paper, enraging Golthag. "Goblins! Attack!" he screamed as the other goblins rushed towards Johlin. He cut down several before being overwhelmed and forced to retreat further into the dungeon. "Rarrgh!" shouted one of the goblins as it tried to attack him. It quickly met the end of Johlin's blade. Goblin blood covered his iron sword as he fought them off one by one.
"Just die already!" shouted Golthag as he sicked his goblins at Johlin. Swish, swish, swish. His blade was swinging left, right, up, down. Every direction it went, another goblin. He ran the sword through the final goblin's belly before looking up at the horrified expression on Golthag's ugly face. "I'll deal with you myself!" he grunted as he rushed Johlin. He raised his sword and swung it into Golthag's chest. "Ah!" Johlin felt a massive surge of pain pierced through his body. Looking down, he noticed that Golthag had managed to plunge a dagger into his chest as well.
Golthag chuckled to himself before sliding off the sword and collapsing dead. Johlin grunted as he grasped his wound, which was bleeding through the hole in his armor. He noticed a stairway leading out of the dungeon and limped up the stairs until he was out of Stonekeep. Johlin struggled to mount his horse. Riding through the desert en route to Rihad, Johlin felt woozy. Looking down again at his wound, he saw it was turning green. "Damn that goblin. The dagger was poisoned. Have...to get to..." Johlin's train of thought was cut off as he fell off his horse into the sand. "Ugh..." The fallen knight rolled over onto his back and looked up into the sky as his eyes shut.