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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7317592" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 110Bredan blinked as bright lights flashed in his vision and a loud ringing filled his ears.  One moment he’d been following Kosk toward the miners’ shack; the next he was lying on the ground, not sure of what had happened.  He could feel grit under his fingers. The ground here was fine gravel, the leftovers of years of work pulling earth and stone out from under the ground.With an effort he managed to lift his head enough to look around.  He still couldn’t see very clearly, but he was pretty sure that the shack should have been right in front of him.  Now it was gone.  There was no sign of Kosk.  Turning around was even harder, especially as the motion awakened fresh pains that suggested that whatever had happen had affected more than just his senses.  But he had to see what had happened to Glori and Quellan.They were there, still on their feet about fifteen paces back, but something was wrong.  They were both yelling, though Bredan still couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears.  He instinctively realized that whatever had just happened, the danger wasn’t over yet.  With a flurry of effort he managed to get his hands and feet squared away and tried to get up.The ground lurched and he almost fell.  He thought it was his battered head at first, until he glanced aside and saw that there was a hole in the ground, not two steps from where he stood.  He blinked in surprise; had that been there before?  That thought evaporated, though, as he saw that he hole was growing, the gravel and dirt around it pouring in as the earth under it collapsed.  He turned and tried to stagger clear, but before he could manage even one step he felt the ground give way under his feet.He didn’t even have time to yell before the sinkhole swallowed him up.* * *Quellan was stunned when the shack exploded, and he staggered backwards, barely keeping his footing.  Bits of wood and other debris pattered down around him, but he was far enough away that he wasn’t hurt by the blast.  Shaking his head to clear it, he saw Kosk lying in the rocks a good ten paces away, the front of his robe scorched and tattered, fresh blood on his face.  The cleric’s heart froze for a moment before he saw the dwarf stirring, somehow still conscious after being caught by the full force of the explosion.  Bredan had been knocked from his feet, but he too looked to be okay, if dazed.Quellan was about to go to their aid when he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his shoulder.  He reflexively reached up to the wound but felt nothing there.Realization had him turning around to see Glori coming toward him.  She had been bringing up the rear and was the furthest from the explosion, but her face was twisted with pain.  As she saw him she turned enough for him to see the arrow jutting from her back, exactly where he had felt the stab of pain through the warding bond he’d laid on her as soon as they’d spotted the mass of beetles in the camp.He felt something hard bounce off his breastplate, and glanced down to see another arrow, this one broken, lying on the ground at his feet.They were under attack.Glori pointed, and Quellan looked up to the weed-choked summit above the mine shafts.  There was too much growth there for him to see anything clearly, especially with his senses a bit off from the aftereffects of the explosion, but there was definitely something moving around up there.  As if to remove all doubt another missile flashed from the weeds, a stubby crossbow bolt that narrowly missed Glori as she meandered toward him.Raising his shield to cover his face, he turned to help her, but a deep rumbling drew his attention back around.  Now what? he thought, but what he saw still managed to catch him off guard as a massive sinkhole erupted in front of him, the ground pouring into an empty space below.  Stumbling back, he watched Bredan slide into the opening from the other side, unable to do anything at all to stop it.  When the ground finally stopped collapsing the hole was a good ten paces across, loose dirt and gravel continuing to pour down its steeply sloped sides.  Quellan couldn’t see anything below, not even a trace of his fallen friend.“Bredan!” Glori yelled.  She started forward, and for a moment Quellan thought she was going to dive in after him, but after a moment she let him pull her back to relative safety.  Missiles continued to rain down on them from above, and Quellan felt a pain in his right hip as something pierced his armor.  He didn’t even bother looking down, instead covering Glori with his body as he turned them away from the barrage.  For a moment the cleric considered his sacred flame, but their hidden adversaries were too far away.“We have to get to Kosk!” he yelled.  “He’s hurt badly!”Glori’s response was just a vague sound, but she went with him as they made their way cautiously around the edges of the sinkhole to where the dwarf had fallen.  He was barely on the edge of consciousness, and fortunately their ambushers had focused their fire on the members of the group that were still upright and dangerous.  As Quellan knelt beside him Glori let out a growl and rose up with an arrow fitted to her bow.  Her shot vanished into the weeds.  Their enemies still hadn’t shown themselves, though they continued to unleash fire through their cover.“If I get close enough, I can use a sleep spell,” she said as Quellan poured healing magic into his injured friend.  Kosk sputtered and grabbed hold of the cleric’s arm, pulling himself up.  “Who?” he sputtered.“We stay together,” Quellan said to Glori.  Ignoring Kosk, who continued muttering curses, he grabbed hold of both of them and hurried them toward the nearest bit of cover, another low heap of boulders about twenty paces back from the edge of the camp.  Arrows continued to follow them as they rushed behind the protection of the rocks.“I caught a glimpse of the wizard,” Kosk said.  “He’s around here somewhere.  Wait, where’s the boy?”“He fell into a sinkhole,” Quellan said.“We can’t leave him,” Glori said.“Of course not,” Quellan said.  “But we won’t be much use to him if we get ourselves killed.”“How many?” Kosk asked, carefully lifting his head up to peer up over the edge of their shelter.  Another arrow bounced off the rocks nearby, but the dwarf did not even flinch.“From the volume of fire, I’d say four, maybe five,” Glori said.“You got any magic that can reach that far?” Kosk asked.Both Glori and Quellan shook their heads, but then the bard said, “I have something new I’ve been working on.  Something I saw my mentor use a few times.  You’re familiar with invisibility?”“I’ve seen it before,” Kosk said.  “Useful magic.  Why didn’t you tell us about this when we fought the chimera?”“Well, to be honest… I’ve never actually used the spell before,” Glori sad.  “But I think I can make it work.”“How long will it last?” Quellan asked.“I’m not exactly certain,” Glori said.The half-orc and dwarf shared a look.  “Cast it on me,” Kosk said.  “I’ve got the best chance of getting up there anyway.”“If there are five of them…” Quellan said.“Better to fight them up there than down here,” Kosk said.Quellan nodded, and Glori sidled over to the dwarf, careful to keep her head down.  But before she could reach for her lyre there was another loud sound, a low-pitched roar that seemed to issue from the ground beneath their feet.“That can’t be good,” Glori said.</blockquote>

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