gfunk said:
Yeah, put up or shut up!
Okay...you asked for it!
JAIL BREAK
Tilly shook his head in admiration for the dwarf, while at the same time silently cursing the luck had prevented the battlerager from finding them sooner. Still, he wasn’t willing to give up hope yet. “Oso, do you think you can go back to the elevator platform and examine the spot where Salazar and the others fell. Maybe you can find some evidence as to where they may have been taken.”
The ranger nodded and trotted quickly back down the hallway. When he reached the platform, he had little trouble locating the hidden control room. His sharp eyes picked out the concealed door easily. He wasn’t prepared for the scene on the other side, however. Blood was everywhere. No surface was left unblemished by it. No body was present, but it was easy to note the huge boot prints in the sticky residue. Oso saw that they led back to the platform itself. He could tell by the amount of pooled blood at one spot that the ogre had paused there…near two smaller pools of blood. This, then, was where Pez and Rusty had lain.
He followed the trail, both boot prints, and blood spatters, out into the corridor. The trail led first to Xukasus’ room. There, it was difficult to sort out the evidence through the mounds of filth and refuse, but Oso was a ranger after all. It didn’t take long to learn Salazar’s ultimate fate. A pile of bones in the corner was definitely human. Neither dwarven bones, nor those of a winged creature were present. That meant that Pez and Rusty had been taken elsewhere.
Tilly swallowed his grief when Oso told him of his find. He’d expected no different really. It only made him more determined to find the others before it was too late. Oso picked up the trail once more and saw that it led towards the chamber Tilly had described earlier…the one with the dwarven statue.
As the group scanned the room, Oso almost crawled across the floor, looking for subtle hints here and there. The footprints themselves had vanished, and so he was reduced to trying to find tiny drips of blood here and there.
Gardrid drifted absently over to the statue, gazing up at it quizzically, “Hmm…find workmanship. Looks vaguely familiar…can’t quite place me finger on it.”
“I’ve found it!” Oso cried. He was standing by a blank wall on the southwest side of the chamber. “It’s another secret door. The trail disappears at the wall.” With a little searching, they found the door. It led to a short, dusty passage. Here, the footprints were again obvious, and they went to a wooden door at the end of the hall. Another door stood closed to the northwest, but Oso ignored it, focused on his quarry.
Tilly motioned the others for silence. Creeping up to the door, he pressed his ear flat against it. Sure enough, he could hear soft voices on the other side. The language was guttural, interlaced with grunts and squeals. He couldn’t understand the words, but he figured hobgoblin was a good guess. He motioned the others forward, and then threw open the door.
Beyond was a small guardroom. Two hobgoblins were seated at a rickety table, tossing dice. Two more lay on cots, blinking blearily at the intrusion.
Oso immediately stepped forward and loosed an arrow. It pierced the neck of one of the seated guards, going completely through as he slumped to the floor.
Behind him, Fario ducked into the room, drawing his sword and quickly dispatching one of the groggy guards still in bed. Gardrid was right behind him, flinging an endless torrent of dwarven curses at the remaining two. The second, bedridden hobgoblin attempted to rise, at the same time lifting his sword from the floor. Gardrid’s axe amputated his arm at the shoulder. As he rolled off the bed to the floor, the dwarf quickly spun completely around, decapitating the sole survivor, who had never even had a chance to get up from his seat.
“Is this the best they got?” the battlerager sneered, “You fellers may as well go on back home. I think I can handle this all by my lonesome!”
“Don’t be so cocky, dwarf,” Oso said humorlessly, “We still haven’t met this Kazmojen fellow.”
“Ah, bring’im on!” Gardrid bellowed, “He’s probably just another pansy hobgoblin with delusions of grandeur (how ye like that word? Rusty learned it to me).”
Tilly grinned to himself. The dwarf’s enthusiasm was contagious. He was actually starting to believe they might have a chance.
Beyond a door at the far side of the guardroom, the group found themselves on a causeway of sorts. It spanned one wall of a great cavern. Fused with the rough-hewn walls were smooth ones of dull, black stone. Some of these walls had doors and windows set into them. Halfway down the causeway, a pair of tall statues, carved from white marble, stood in alcoves on either side of a heavy, reinforced door in the west wall. These figures depicted a male and female dwarf clad in armor, each brandishing an urgrosh. On the eastern side of the causeway the cavern plunged away thirty feet or more, ending in a pool of still, black water. An arched stone bridge spanned this moat, connecting with the main fortress on the opposite side.
Oso was able to pick up the trail again, and it led past the statues, the doorway and the bridge, all the way to the far end of the walk, where it ended at a second door. Again, Tilly crept forward and listened through the wood. It was not voices he heard this time, but the creak of leather and a clink of metal. He again motioned the others forward quietly.
Gardrid was getting tired of all the sneaking around. He wanted to find Rusty, and he wanted to bust some heads along the way. He pushed through the tiptoeing elves and kicked in the door. “Rise and shine sleepin’ beauties!” he roared at the stunned pair of hobgoblins still in their racks in the room beyond. He then strolled almost casually to the nearest one, and then buried his axe in the guard’s chest.
Tilly found himself caught up in the battlerager’s fervor, and he rushed the second guard. This one had managed to grab his sword, and he quickly brought it up to block the halfling’s first thrust, but Tilly’s second blade came in under it, and punctured his lung.
“This ain’t no challenge at all!” Gardrid whined, “Which way now elf, or should I just open both doors and see who’s at home?”
At that moment, a door in the southeast corner of the room slammed open. Two more, armed hobgoblins rushed in, followed by a large, black-skinned hobgoblin that had only one arm, but spun his long sword wickedly in his remaining one. This was Zarkad, Kazmojen’s chief jailer. He had just been entertaining himself “interrogating” one of the prisoners when he’d heard the commotion out here. Fearing a jailbreak, he had been furious, intending to kill any prisoner with the temerity to try it, no matter what Kazmojen said. He suspected Krylscar was behind it. That human was in serious need of an attitude adjustment. However, when Zarkad saw the armed warriors standing over the bodies of his men, he knew this was something else entirely. He felt a brief moment’s hesitation, especially when he saw the look in the eyes of the dwarf, but then he remembered himself, and swore that he would have five new slaves for the block before this day was done.
Tilly was just pulling his blade free when the black hobgoblin charged. The huge creature slashed at the halfling, opening up a gaping wound in his leg. Tilly stumbled back a step, but managed to recover and parry the flurry of blows from the jailer. Seeing an opening, he lunged forward, stabbing his shortsword into Zarkad’s shoulder, but before he could retreat, the hobgoblin caught him with a backhanded swing, slicing through his armor, and deep into his shoulder.
One of the guards charged at Oso as the ranger was struggling to knock an arrow. The guard stabbed the elf superficially in thigh, and then raised his sword for a finishing chop. However, he greatly underestimated the archer’s skill with the bow. Oso drew back, standing toe to toe with the hobgoblin, and fired directly into its face.
As his opponent fell, Oso quickly reloaded, and spun towards Tilly. The rogue had just scored another telling blow against Zarkad, and the jailer was circling warily. Oso loosed his shot, and struck the hobgoblin squarely between the shoulders. Zarkad’s sword dropped from his numb fingers and he fell to the floor, clutching at the shaft. The last thing he saw was his remaining soldier lifted bodily from the ground by the force of Gardrid’s killing blow.
As the noise of the battle settled, Fario held up a hand for silence. He had heard something in the room that the hobgoblin’s had come from. It sounded like moans of pain. Sword in hand, he hurried into what amounted to a chamber of horrors. Ghastly furnishings decorated the hellishly lit room. Glowing hot coals filled the black belly of a large iron oven that dominated the center of the area. Three branding irons lay half-immersed in the coals, and two iron cages hung from ceiling on either side. One of the cages held an enormous beetle with red glowing glands, and the other held a pile of bones and skulls. Against the south wall, a haggard woman sat in a tall, iron-wrought chair, metal clamps around her wrists, ankles and neck.
Fario ran to the woman, and quickly slid the pins from her shackles. She collapsed forward into his arms, and he laid her gently on the floor. Fellian kneeled beside them, a brushed his hands over the woman’s face. She opened her eyes slowly, and a brief look of relief dawned on her countenance. “Thank you,” she sighed.
Fellian closed his eyes and laid his hands on either side of her head. Murmuring soft prayers, he began to heal the most grievous of her injuries. Soon, she felt strong enough to sit, and then stand.
“Dear lady,” Fellian began, “we appreciate the pains you have suffered, and we do not wish to trouble you further, but we are on borrowed time and must find the other prisoners held here. Can you help us?”
“I am Coryston Pike,” she answered, “from Cauldron. I was taken from my home and brought here about a week ago. I’ve mostly been kept in my cell, but occasionally I’ve been brought here for questioning…but they never asked me any questions. I know there are others here, but I don’t know how many. The cell block is beyond the far door in the next room.”
“Have you seen them bring in two new prisoners lately,” Tilly asked anxiously, “a dwarf, and an elf with wings?”
“I’m afraid not,” Coryston said, “but as I said, I’ve not been out of my cell much, and there have been many comings and goings that I’ve heard.”
Tilly turned to speak to Gardrid, but when he looked around, the dwarf was gone. He heard a loud crash from the other room, and when he ran to investigate, he saw the battlerager stepping through the ruined door to the cellblock.
“It’s liberation day lads!” Gardrid shouted up and down the long hall, which was lined with stout wooden doors, each locked from the outside and pierced with a small, barred window. He then began systematically smashing in each door with his axe.
Pez sat quietly in his cell, knees crossed and hands resting upright. He was attempting to meditate, and regain some of his spells so that he might find some way out of here. He had come to several hours ago, battered and bruised, but still alive. At first he wasn’t quite sure why, but then he remembered that they were dealing with slavers. He imagined that a commodity such as himself didn’t come along too often.
His situation was made worse due to the companion he shared his accommodations with. Starbrow was perched between the bars of the window in the door, his beady eyes glaring at Pez. The rat had been hidden in the warrior’s backpack during the battle, and had managed to escape unseen in the uproar. He had followed the ogre here, and watched as he had deposited the prisoners unceremoniously in their cages…much as he himself had been.
Now Starbrow savored the moment. This tall, winged elf had sneered at his master, and accused him falsely. He had gloated about how Keygan would be imprisoned and Starbrow would never see him again. Ah, and now the tables had turned.
“You not so smart now,” the rat chittered at Pez in Undercommon. “You bad elf. Wicked. Starbrow tells Master what you say. Master punish bad elf.”
Pez pointedly ignored the familiar. At first he’d tried to catch the little vermin, but in his weakened state he wasn’t up to the task. So instead, he had to sit here for hour after hour and be chastised by a rat. How the mighty had indeed fallen.
Just then, Pez heard a voice bellowing outside in the corridor, immediately followed by the sound of smashing wood. He leapt to his feet, rushing for the door. Starbrow instantly jumped through the bars, landing on the floor on the other side. He hissed up at Pez, his sharp teeth shining, “Starbrow not forget you, bad elf. Tells Master everything. You be punished!” With that, the rat scuttled off into the darkness.
