The Dwarven Mines - pt. 1

So, there we were, in a fiortress deep in the forest, without any trace of the battle we had just had with the incorporal thing. There was some minor damage, but nothing we hadn't been prepared for. What we didn't quite prepare for however, was the lack of treasure in the fortress. Not a single log of what had transpired, no scribbled note, and to the discomfort of our token thief, no gold. So we went around for a while, checking room after room only to find them empty, except for the usual ages old food and half-broken furniture. We did find some evidence however that the dwarves at the fortress had gone "home". It seemed only I was aware of what that could mean.

We looked around for a while until we found a blacksmiths armory. Aliela had found some text earlier that read in dwarven that when a certain hammer and ambolt clashed, a door would reveal itself, so naturally we were exited. There were two ambolts in the vicinity. One of which was suspicously placed. And with a simple thud from our strongman/monk Hamato. A trap-door opened.

It was a cave. or rather, a tunnel, that led us downwards in deep darkness. I had brought my everburning torch, so it wasn't too bad, but still... We found corpses of dwarves lying around. Recent corpses. Chances are the killer would be somewhere around. We lurked around, watching out for any potential danger, and when we found it, it came in the form of a little goblin. He was practically helpless and hiding under a table when we came inside the room. Although he was clearly evil, and a liar, and deceitful, I fealt somewhat sorry for him. Alone with no allies against the four of us. So I promised to let him go if he told us what was going on. After all, one little goblin could hardly do this much damage.

The goblin told, in his rough little voice and with the the language of my ancestors hated enemies, that some greater evil had made them come and pillage. The dwarves had apparently lived here ever since the old fort had been destroyed, and the force behind this attack had found that destroying them would be easy. So he had assembled a mighty crew og orcs, bugbears and goblins to pillage this city, sparing no man, woman or child. I let him go, under the threat of pain to come if he were to return. Goblins are such lowly weak scum without their big cousins to protect them. And yes. We found his cousins. There were several. And not the weak kind I've told you about before, the ones that probably couldn't survive a small pack of rats if they were hungry enough to attack humanoids. These were big, with weapons to match. Thank the lords for little favours like healing magic...

Anyways, we got the better of them. The first group anyway. We stumbled upon more as we went further in, but only in small packs. Until the tavern. We heard voices, orcs singing in their crude tounge. Only Osbourne had the ears to decifer the words, but we all knew the meaning. Orc-songs are usually only about killing and war, and we had seen enough evidence to suggest this to be no exception. I figured w should join them, and found my lute. I started to sing a song to get the spirit of fighting into the hearts of my comrades as we burst inside, suddenly realizing How many we had against us. Fighting started, and I heard a scream from Osbourne. The other two seemed to be doing somewhat okay, so I rushed to help the halfling, only to be cut down myself. I'd be dead now if Aliela and the monk hadn't managed to hold their own against six brutal orcs, and pushed a healing potion down our throats. What happened later was, if I remember correctly, that Aliela made the stupid choice of hiding in the gathering point of all the beer in the city. And with rampaging orcs around, or rampaging anything actually, that's never a good idea. So yeah. While I and Osbourne were stable, though unconcious, the others fought a bugbear. Stupid critters...

Obviously, I recovered. It took some time, and it hurt, but it was okay. I fealt wh had wasted enough time dying already, and wanted to go after the attackers and save the few remaining dwarves. The other plague ridden, half evil, stupid companions of mine refused, saying there wasn't enough magic potential remaining for the day, and that we had to wait 24 hours before we could do any such thing. 24 hours! Of all the stupid... Well, they refused to go, and they refused to let me go alone as well, practically holding me prisoner and obviously not caring about the lives at stake, so I made a proposal. If we could distract these evildoers enough, they wouldn't work so hard to get at the dwarves.

So, we let them know we were around, and that we meant buissness. A few orc corpses, some orc blood and a lot of noise made sure of that. Then we hid in one of the rooms further up, barricading the door before resting. It took a few hours before they realized we were there, but when they did, they were all over the place trying to get the door open. That is, until I scared them away. I made it so that it sounded like there was stacked an army in there with us. It scared the crap out of them, but not in the way I had intended it...

To be continued in pt. 2