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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7155927" data-attributes="member: 143">I thought I posted ch51 on Wednesday, I guess it didn't go through. I'll post two chapters today so you have a proper weekend cliffhanger. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />* * *Chapter 51Bredan started to turn but winced as he put weight on his injured leg.  “Hold on, let me heal you,” Quellan said.The cleric cast cure wounds spells on Bredan and Xeeta, while Glori used her lyre’s magic to treat her own injuries.  After just a few moments they were ready to set out again and returned to the ruined outer chamber.  Kosk hefted the body of the dead goblin and tossed it behind the ruined sofa after recovering his knife.The interior door near the foyer arch opened with just a token resistance, the brass hinges lacking the caked rust that had characterized the iron fittings in the barn outside.  It led to a dining room that had been thoroughly looted.  The furnishings had been removed, with only a fragment of what might have once been an impressive table propped up pathetically in a corner.  Ceramic shards of dinnerware and shattered crockery were scattered across the floor.  The decorative wallpaper was covered in ancient stains where it hadn’t rotted away altogether.  A tall shelf just a few feet below the level of the ceiling circled the room, but it looked like any items that had once been stored there were now likely part of the detritus that covered the floor.  The large windows that might have once allowed generous beams of sunlight into the room were now all boarded up, allowing in only slivers of light.There was another door in the center of the wall to their right that was slightly open.  The most promising feature, however, was a set of stairs that descended along the wall to their left.  The railing that had once protected diners from accidentally stumbling into the stairwell had been almost entirely torn away, leaving just bits of uneven wood sticking up like jagged teeth.  The stairs began on the far side of the room, but as they entered the room Xeeta slipped carefully forward enough to peer down over the edge into the darkness below.“Door at the bottom,” she reported.  “Could be the cellar.”“Seems like a good place to check first,” Quellan said.  He started forward, his boots crunching bits of crockery under his considerable weight, but he was still short of the center of the room when they all heard something, a faint skittering sound.  The sound seemed to come from beyond the other door.  It might have just been another rat, but after their earlier encounter they all tensed in response.Finally Bredan drew his sword started to head in that direction.  But he made almost as much noise as Quellan did, and after a few steps Xeeta made an exasperated sound and gestured for him to stop.  The tiefling crossed the room without any apparent effort, yet her soft boots made hardly a whisper of sound and she somehow didn’t step on or scatter any of the myriad ceramic or glass shards that littered the floor.Staying close to the wall, Xeeta leaned out and used her rod to prod the door further open.  It let out only a slight creak that went unanswered, and when it was fully open she leaned forward cautiously and looked into the next room.“Kitchen,” she said.  “Looks clear.”  Without waiting for a response, she went in.“Wait!” Bredan hissed.  He hurried after her, his progress across the room sounding more like an avalanche compared to her delicate tread.  With any chance for stealth utterly ruined, the others followed.The kitchen was in almost as bad a condition as the dining room, though there was somewhat less clutter.  Once again it looked like anything of value had been stripped bare, but the embedded sink and a large brick oven, with an iron door caked with rust, remained more or less intact.  Some cupboards along the wall to their right had been thoroughly ransacked, down to having their doors ripped off their hinges in a few cases.  An open arch to their right led back to the foyer, while another interior door in the opposite wall presumably led to yet another part of the house.Xeeta had already made her way over to the arch.  Confirming that nothing was waiting for them there, she came back over to the others, glancing into the empty cupboards on her way.  “Could have just been a rat,” she said.“Or it could have been a goblin, or a pack of them,” Kosk reminded them.“Let’s stay close, and stay alert,” Quellan suggested.  “If there is an ambush, we don’t want to get separated.”Xeeta inclined her head, acknowledging that the comment had been directed at her.“So… the cellar?” Glori suggested.“Shouldn’t we clear the rest of the building first?” Bredan asked.“Normally would be the best strategy,” Quellan said.  “But in this case the cellar would be the most likely hiding place for any more goblins, and therefore the most likely place we could expect to find the missing boy.”“If he’s here, I’ll eat my sandals,” Kosk said.“Let’s just go,” Glori said.  “This place gives me the creeps.”But once again as they started to turn they heard another noise.  This one was both softer and closer, close enough that they all heard it, a subtle scrape of something moving.They all turned slowly and scanned the room once more before their eyes all drifted inevitably to the oven.The oven was of the sort one might expect to find in an inn, large enough to cook a dozen or more loaves of bread simultaneously.  The iron door was just slightly open; the latch that would hold it shut was obviously broken.Silently the adventurers spread apart and took up positions facing the oven.  Kosk was the closest, and once the others were ready he stepped forward and extended his staff to grab hold of the handle.  The iron ferrule settled on the handle with a soft click.The door burst open and a furious eruption of legs, hair, and fangs exploded out into the room.Chapter 52The companions found themselves confronted by a giant wolf spider, which proved quite irate at the interruption of its rest.The spider seemed to swell as it emerged from the relatively small opening of the oven door, its legs spreading to catch hold of the brick exterior in anticipation of a springing leap to attack.  Kosk tried to slam the door shut, but the spider overwhelmed him with sheer leverage; after a momentary struggle the door snapped back and slammed against the outside of the oven.Xeeta let out a sharp squeal and staggered back, her eyes wide.  Flames shot out from both ends of her rod, but it was a raw reaction rather than an actual spell.  Yet it seemed to draw the spider’s attention, and its huge multifaceted eyes fixed on her as it leapt forward.The tiefling’s face twisted in terror and she sucked in a breath to scream, but she didn’t get the chance.  The arc of the spider’s jump was nearly flat, propelled by its many legs, but before it could reach the tiefling it was intercepted by a descending slab of tempered steel.  All the quickness in the world couldn’t save it from that impact, which drove it to the floor.  It twitched there, Bredan’s sword embedded in its side.  For a moment it looked like it might still somehow get up, but then Glori stepped up and with a look of disgust on her face fired an arrow point-blank into its head.The spider convulsed once and fell dead.  Xeeta kept staring at it, her eyes wide and her chest heaving, until Glori touched her arm.  The tiefling jumped, causing the bard to quickly hold up her empty hand.  “Hey!  It’s me!  Are you okay?”Xeeta sucked in a deep breath and nodded.  “Sorry.  Sorry.  It’s just… I don’t like spiders.  I really don’t like spiders.”“Most people don’t, when they’re this big,” Kosk said.  He peered into the open oven.  The spider’s nest was full of small bones and other debris from its previous victims.  The back of the oven, which extended past the rear wall of the house in order to let it vent safely, had burst open, revealing how the spider had gotten in.  The dwarf prodded at the bones with his staff, but didn’t see anything that looked big enough to have come from a goblin—or a human child.Bredan pulled his sword clear and carefully wiped it off before stuffing it back into its scabbard.  “Well done,” Quellan said.“Thanks,” Bredan said.  “Maybe we’re starting to get the hang of this, eh?”“Let’s see if we all get out of here alive before we start patting ourselves on the back,” Kosk said as he swung the oven door shut.The companions made their way back through the dining room and carefully descended the stairs.  Kosk took the lead, the dwarf’s impatience making the decision before Quellan had a chance to step in.  The cleric followed right behind him, the half-orc’s hulking frame almost completely filling the narrow breadth of the staircase.  Glori and Xeeta were right behind him, while Bredan brought up the rear this time, his big sword unlimbered and in his hand in case he needed to draw it suddenly and put it to use.The door at the bottom of the steps opened easily to Kosk’s touch, the hinges creaking a bit in protest.  Behind it was the cellar, a dark chamber that extended for a good twenty-five feet ahead of them.  When nothing stirred immediately out of the darkness Quellan summoned light, affixing the spell to his shield.The cleric’s magic revealed another thoroughly looted chamber.  The racks that were constructed along the walls were mostly intact, though the barrels and crates that they’d once held were almost universally shattered and broken.  The room had a musty scent that wasn’t quite unpleasant, but other than a few small piles of debris in the corners and a couple of mostly-intact barrels in the back there didn’t seem to be anything there that could conceal a threat.“Looks like he was lying after all,” Glori said as she followed them in.“There’s something not right here,” Kosk said.He took a few steps forward, sniffing the air, but a sound drew his attention to the left.  Both he and Quellan raised their weapons, but the disturbance turned out to be just another rat, which emerged from the wreckage of a shattered crate only to quickly skitter behind one of the wall racks.“I think we can all be excused for feeling a little jumpy…” Quellan began, but as he turned to the others he detected movement out of the corner of his eye.  He turned in time to see one of the barrels in the back of the room shift and then topple forward, revealing a concealed door behind it.A small horde of goblins poured through the opening and shouted a cry of “Bree-yark!” as they rushed to attack.</blockquote>

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