The Dungeon
II. First Encounter


Ozwik could see that there was no light down below, so he broke out a small lantern, and lit it. He shined it down the stairs.

"They were made by humans, I think," he said. "They're tall enough for us, and aren't overly steep."

"Anything else?" Ummossia asked.

"It smells bad," Fillga said, peering over his shoulder.

"Looks like the tunnel splits in two down there - left and right," Ozwik said.

"Smells bad?" Vangar asked. "What does it smell like?"

"Garbage," Fillga said. Then what she said dawned on her, and she looked around to Vangar.

"Yes," he said. "Waste products from the inhabitants."

"Lovely," Kasselwort said. He had slipped up towards the front - being short had its advantages - and was cautiously sniffing the air coming up from the tunnels.

"What is it?" Vangar asked.

"I'm not sure. . . the garbage is too overpowering. There's something else. . ."

"Well," Ozwik said, "I'm going down, an' I'll let you know what's down there."

"Alone?" Quillian asked. "Perhaps I should lead the way? My vision is much better in the dark, you know."

"We're not going to huddle around you just because you see betting in the dark," Ozwik said, annoyed. "And I don't want you walking twenty yards in front of us just to avoid the light from the lantern. If something happened, we couldn't get to you in time."

Quillian shrugged, but positioned himself behind Ozwik and Fillga as they began going carefully down the steps.

When they reached the bottom, they could tell the garbage was to their left, so the turned right, and saw the passage turning to the left again, shortly down the hall.

Ozwik went carefully forward, and peered around the corner. He saw only more hallway, with a side passage not far away. Then it seemed to end further down, about twice as far away.

The hallway was obviously built for humans. It was about six feet tall, perhaps a little more, and lined with stones. In places, Ozwik saw torch sconces in the walls, but with no torches. Aside from the smell of garbage, he could also smell something else, something he couldn't quite place his finger on, but reminded him of something.

Although there was no sign of danger, Ozwik, Fillga, and Quillian still moved quietly forward. He could just barely hear Fillga, and couldn't hear Quillian move at all, even though he was in chain mail. The others, he could hear clumping along behind him.

He sighed. How far down the halls does this noise carry? Nothing to it now, of course, but still-!

As he started walking down the hall, he thought he heard a door open, and held his hand up to make everyone stop. Listening intently, he turned his head one way, then the other.

"If you heard the door opening," Quillian said, very quietly in his right ear, "I think it's coming from behind us."

"The entrance-?" he started to ask, but knew that wasn't it. Sunlight still streamed in behind him, faintly. Then he heard an odd scrapping noise, definitely coming from behind him.

He turned around, and started heading to the back to see what the noise was. Who knew what was down here? He didn't want the whole place to know they had visitors. And he knew there was some one that lived here, just from the fresh garbage alone.

When he got to the base of the stairs, after passing Thror and Kasselwort, he spotted the Priests and Mage standing around.

"Hope this isn't too much of an inconvenience for you," he sneered at them.

"When you need us, we'll be there," Ummossia said, looking slightly surprised at his anger. Perhaps she was honestly surprised. There wasn't really much need for them at this point. Exploring was usually up to the fighters and other explorers.

"Who's making that noise?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Noise?" Ummossia asked looking even more surprised. "Oh, you must mean Donovan - he was checking out those doors there."

Ozwik gaped at the direction she was pointing. It was the passage to the left as they had come in, where the garbage smell had come from. Looking now, he saw there was a series of doors down the hall, on both sides, about a dozen altogether.

At one door, he saw the fighter Donovan, leaning into the room and rooting around in the garbage, as some spilled out onto the floor.

He stalked over to him, and reached his side just as he pulled out, holding something in his hand.

"Hey, look!," he said. "I found a sword!"

He looked startled when he saw Ozwik, and Ozwik looked unhappily at the ‘sword' he pulled out - a short sword with half the blade broken off.

"Great," Ozwik said. "Now, do us a favor, and chop off your stupid head, will you?!"

Without waiting for a response, Ozwik stormed back to the front lines. Behind him, he heard Donovan saying, "What's with him?"

"Nothing Donovan," Ummossia replied, "but perhaps you should be more quiet."

Still muttering under his breath, he reached Fillga's side.

"Anything serious?" she asked.

"Nothing that a punch in the nose won't fix."

"Well, if you want me to, I can hit you anytime-"

"Not me," Ozwik growled at her. "That oaf they call a fighter back there."

"Oh. You mean poor old Donovan?"

"C'mon!" Thror complained. "Let's quit gabbin' and get lookin'."

"You're right," Ozwik said. "Let's find that stupid artifact and get out of here."

"I don' care ‘bout your artifact," Thror said. "I just want to find my family."

Everyone looked at him. He had never before mentioned why he came along with this group, seemingly heading for an abandoned monastery.

"You think your family is down here?" Fillga asked, astonished.

"Somewhere around here, yes," Thror responded, suddenly looking embarrassed. "That balcony were made by Dwarves, no doubt in my mind. Now, let's just get on with it, and forget I said anything."

Smiling slightly, Ozwik moved forward, making mental notes as to the distance traveled, and features on the tunnels. He did this for two reasons. The first was so he could make a map, and the second was so they wouldn't get lost. Not that that seemed very likely. This was pretty much straight forward tunnels, with left and right turns, nothing fancy.

They quickly found a door in the wall, along the right hand side of the side passage, right at the corner, more or less.

Fillga stepped forward, and put an ear to the door. After listening for a moment, she made some odd gestures to Ozwik.

"There's some one inside," Ozwik whispered. "Not humans, at least five of them."

Fillga listened for a moment longer, and Kasselwort suddenly started sniffing the air. Ozwik didn't spare it any of his time, as he watched Fillga's fingers fly in the secret language of their Brotherhood.

He was about to tell the others that Fillga recognized the language they were speaking - Goblin.

But Kasselwort quietly whispered, "It's goblins."

"Goblins?" Thror said, sounding angry.

Ozwik sighed. If there was one thing dwarves and gnomes could agree on, it was that all Goblin's should be killed on sight - or even sound and smell, apparently. He was about to order them to move on, when Thror raised his huge battle axe.

Fillga, catching sight of the movement, rolled to one side as he brought the axe down on the door. With one powerful blow, he splintered a large hole in the door. With another blow, it fell off its hinges.

Looking inside, he yelled, "Die vermin!," and charged in.

Ozwik put his hand on his fore head, and muttered, "I'm going to have a huge headache pretty soon. I just know it."

"He tried to kill me!" Fillga said in a harsh whisper.

"Just the old racial hatred thing, boiling over," Ozwik answered, not raising his head. "Nothing personal, I'm sure."

When he looked up again, both the dwarf and the gnome were gone. Fillga and Quillian looked at him expectantly. A moment later, the Priests and Mage arrived.

"What's going on?" Merrik asked.

"Goblins," Quillian said.

"Goblins?!" Donovan cried out. "Where?"

With a slight shrug, Quillian pointed to the ruined door.

"Wah-hoo!" he cried out, charging in.

Fillga sighed, and slipped into the room. A moment later, Quillian went in behind her. The sounds of battle began ringing from the room. Mostly the battle cry Thror yelled, and the rather wet, slick, chopping sounds of his battle axe.

The Priests and Merrik were looking at Ozwik.

"C'mon," he said. "Best to get this over with."

The room was dimly lit by lanterns from outside. Ozwik could make out the ruins of a table, and some chairs, and about a half a dozen small beings that he recognized as Goblins right away. They were about four feet tall, yellow skin with red eyes. Their flat faces were marked by a wide mouth with small, sharp fangs, and a flat, almost pig-like nose, and large, bat-like ears. They all wore piecemeal armor, mostly patches of leather sown together, and had either clubs or daggers, and small wooden shields. They had a long reach, almost five feet, which had the added effect of their arms reaching nearly the floor when the stood up straight.

The battle should have been short and sweet. With a savage dwarf fighter, not to mention several other warrior types, including the Priest of Rhadamanthius, the poor, helpless Goblins were completely overwhelmed.

Except that moments after they charged into the room, they heard the screeching noises of the Goblins from outside the room. Ozwik turned, and saw a half dozen Goblins charging into the room, swinging their short swords around.

Now they had a battle with two fronts. When the last of the Goblins in the room were killed, Ozwik felt they could focus their full attention on the small army that was trying to force their way into the room. A moment later, he realized they were trapped in this room.

As their situation started to turn a bit more grim, Vangar pointed to the group of Goblins pushing their way in, and said, "Sleep!"

The voice was very powerful, and was undoubtedly amplified by magic, but Ozwik was still surprised to see none of the Goblins fall down asleep.

"Damn," Vangar muttered. "They don't speak Common."

That's the problem with magic, Ozwik thought. Too many variables. Now, some good old swinging with a blade, that's more simple.

A light momentarily blinded Ozwik, and caused a dozen Goblins to scream in pain, and run away from the battle. He nodded his approval. Goblins didn't like bright light, so that was one spell that seemed to help. Plus, now they could see a little better than the flickering light of the lantern allowed. Even better, no more Goblins wanted to come in.

Merrik stepped back, and muttered something strange, and waved his hands slightly. A moment later, a burst of darts made of light shot from his hands, and burned through four of the Goblins. They fell over dead without another word.

Another flash of light drove the rest of the Goblins off. Thror, Donovan, Kasselwort, and Quillian chased after them.

Feeling a bit curious, Ozwik stepped closer to the bright light now shed about the room. It took him a moment to realize that a chunk of wood, and the door knob were glowing.

Even after all these years, he still marveled at magic. Then he turned, got a good look around the ruined room. It looked like it had once been a barracks of some sort. That would explain why they were such good fighters. Then he called out, "Anyone hurt badly?"

"Not seriously," Vangar said, "at least, not physically. My pride my not recover from using that Command spell in Common. Stupid."

"Heat of battle, and all that," Ozwik said. "No harm done. How about you, Lotus? Wilda? Prescott?"

The three most junior individuals present would only shake their heads, although Lotus clutched at her side.

"Here, let me see that," he said, stepping towards her.

"It's nothing serious," she said, stepping back.

"I'll take care of it," Ummossia said, stepping between them. She looked condescendingly at Ozwik for a moment, then turned to Lotus. Ozwik could hear her speak gentle words, and saw her hands glow. She touched the injured area, and stepped away. Lotus massaged the area, but no longer seemed to be in pain.

"C'mon," Vangar said. "We better check out what those others are doing. They may need our help."

Ozwik nodded once, and headed for the door. He had some minor wounds, but would worry about them later. None of them were serious. He was most worried about Lotus, who, before she got cured, looked to be in a lot of pain.

No sooner than he got to the door than he saw Donovan run by, with a strained look on his face. A moment later, Kasselwort scurried by, followed by Thror and Quillian bringing up the rear. Quillian shot arrows into the darkness behind them.

"What?" He asked.

"Lots of Goblins," Thror said. "Too many goblins."

"We've stumbled onto a lair of some sort," Quillian commented. I'd say we're outnumbered about three to one."

"Three goblins to a human?" Ozwik asked.

"About, yes," Quillian said.

"That's about even, then," Ozwik said, considering goblin's smaller size and weaker strength. "I've nothing against clearing out a goblin den."

As he hefted his sword, Ummossia called out, "No!"

"What?" Ozwik asked, puzzled. What was her problem? It wasn't like she worshiped Jarrith, the Goblin King.

"We don't have time for this," she said. "And it would drain us, setting us back a day or even two! I don't want to waste any more time getting to that artifact."

Ozwik considered for a moment, then decided she was the leader of this group.

"You heard the lady," Ozwik said. "Fall back!"

They fell back to the stairs.

"Up the stairs?" Fillga asked.

"What's beyond those doors?" Ozwik asked. When Fillga shrugged, Ozwik yelled the question to the others.

"Just more halls," Donovan yelled back.

As Ozwik considered, he heard Goblin growls and calls coming from down the hall. They seemed to be coming from everywhere.

"Up," Ozwik decided quickly.

"Up?!" Donovan sounded disappointed.

"You want to fight them? Be my guest! At least in the sunlight, we'll have the advantage!"

"But-"

"No but's! If we have to fight a hoard of Goblins, then it would be best to fight them where they're the weakest!"

Donovan looked like he was going to argue. Then Ummossia said, "You heard him! Everyone up!"

Once outside, they slammed the door shut, and backed away. For a moment, they stood their guard, waiting to see if the goblins would come up. Goblins hated sunlight, but they would brave it, if they were angry enough.

But the door did not open. Once again, silence descended.

"Well, that could've gone better," Kasselwort said.


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