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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7374080" data-attributes="member: 143">I'm going to leave that ambiguous for the present. <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=":)" />No need, since their exit made quite a bit of noise...* * * * *Chapter 136“That… that was close,” Glori said.“I don’t think it was an accident,” Quellan said.  He looked at Bredan, who clutched the hilt of his sword but didn’t say anything.“I think there’s a way out this way,” Kosk said.The cave went on for a quite a distance, but as they followed the dwarf they could smell the change in the air.  Finally, they saw a faint glow ahead, which then resolved into a low opening beyond which daylight could be seen.“Would have been a lot easier if we’d found this way first,” Glori said.  “No guards.”“I’m not entirely certain we could have gone this way, even if we had found the cave,” Xeeta said.“Let’s just get out of here,” Bredan said.They had to climb over an uneven slope of rocks to reach the exit, but none of them had any difficulty.  The exit was narrow enough that they all had to stoop to clear it, crawling under an overhanging slab of stone to finally reach the open air outside.  Bredan and Quellan all but dragged Xeeta clear, giving the overhang a wary look, but this time there was no conveniently-timed collapse to block the way behind them.They were in a small box canyon, surrounded on all sides by sheer fifty-foot cliffs.  The sky above was a stark blue, though the sun had already shifted in the sky so it was no longer visible.  A gap in the cliffs appeared to offer a way out, and after checking to make sure that they were all ready Kosk led them in that direction.The crevice twisted back and forth a few times, and occasionally narrowed enough to force them to walk single-file, but after the close confines of the underground complex none of them offered any complaints.  Finally they could see an end ahead, and they emerged to find themselves on the edge of a field of shattered stones.  The forest was visible directly ahead of them, maybe a few hundred paces away.  The rocky ground around them was mostly clear, with weeds and a few particularly hardscrabble bushes sprouting in the gaps between the stones.  A few larger boulders were scattered about, and a granite mound much smaller than the one that had contained the shrine rose up about a hundred feet ahead to their right, its angled surface maybe eight feet high at its tallest point, not enough of a vantage to be interesting.“We’re back in the valley,” Glori said.“Can’t be that far from where we went in,” Quellan said.  “We didn’t cover that much ground.”“It’ll be dark in a few hours,” Kosk said.  “We should find someplace secure to camp.”None of them looked back; while the canyon was certainly easily defensible, none of them wanted to linger in this place any longer than they already had.“Let’s see if we can find that stream again,” Glori suggested.  “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could use a wash.”“Agreed,” Bredan said, but they’d barely started forward when a hint of movement to their right drew their attention.A man came into view as he stepped up to the edge of the stone mound.  Or not a man, they saw as he reached up and drew back the cowl of his cloak to reveal dark red skin and vaguely familiar features.“Goblin!” Bredan hissed, though this creature was easily his size if not a little bigger, though not as physically imposing as the bugbear they’d fought before.“Hobgoblin,” Kosk clarified.  “They’re worse.”“What do you want?” Quellan asked.  The hobgoblin wasn’t carrying any obvious weapons, though one might have been concealed under the drape of his cloak.  That cloak seemed to twist and shift in color as he moved, blending in with the dark stone of the mound.“Um… I think we might have found our spellcaster, guys,” Glori warned.“He’s going to find my fist in a moment,” Kosk growled.Quellan repeated his question, this time in the goblin tongue, but still the creature did not react, he just watched them silently.“Why isn’t he attacking?” Bredan asked.  He’d drawn his sword, but with the advantage of height and a large span of rough terrain between them it was clear that the hobgoblin had chosen his ground carefully.“I want to know how he found us,” Glori asked.  “I find it difficult to believe that a hobgoblin just randomly happened to be here.”  She had an arrow fitted to her bowstring, the string glimmering slightly in the bright daylight, but did not immediately attack.  Like the others, she was waiting to see what surprises their foe might have in store.“He was following us,” Xeeta said.  “I knew I sensed something before, when we were entering the shrine.”“He couldn’t follow us in, so he waited for us to come out,” Quellan said.  “He probably heard the collapse in the cave and followed the noise here.”“Say the word, and I can take him out,” Xeeta said.  Her hands were clutched tight around the shaft of her rod, and the infused rune sigils had started to glow.  But if the hobgoblin was worried, he gave no indication of it.  He just continued to watch them, waiting for them to make the first move.“Well, I’m not just going to stand here and wait for him to spring his trap,” Kosk growled.  He started forward, but had gotten barely two steps when the hobgoblin lifted an arm from under his shifting cloak.A creature strode up to join him atop the shelf of bare rock.  It looked like a wolf at first glance, but the distance separating them was not enough for it to masquerade as a mundane beast.  Its pelt was dark, almost black, with eyes that glowed like banked coals within the recessed hollows of its skull.  An armored goblin rode upon its back, carrying a large axe.  As he came into view the goblin raised that weapon, and his worg mount let out a sharp bark that had the air of a command.That command did not go unanswered.  More of the worgs and their riders appeared, stepping out from behind boulders or emerging from behind the cover of the mound.  Not all of them had riders, and some bore obvious wounds that had not quite healed, but that didn’t change the hard reality that they faced nearly two dozen foes, adding the worgs, the goblins, and their silent leader.“This is not good,” Glori said.“We can fall back into the canyon,” Quellan said.  He pitched his voice just high enough to make sure that Kosk heard.  The dwarf had stopped a few paces ahead of the rest of them, and while they could not see his face it was clear from his stance that he was ready if not eager to fight regardless of the odds against them.  “We can hold them off there, keep them from swarming us.”“Yield the power of the shrine to me, and I will permit you to leave this place with your lives,” the hobgoblin said suddenly.“Well, that confirms your theory, Xeeta,” Glori said.Quellan opened his mouth to respond, but Bredan beat him to it.  “That power is not for you,” he said.For a moment, the two sides just faced each other across the open space, the only thing moving the weeds that bent and twisted in the soft breeze.Then the hobgoblin smiled.Bredan felt a cold chill that seemed to penetrate him to his core.  He heard something, a soft whisper that tickled at his perceptions, uttering words that he was thankful he could not quite decipher.Then he heard a scream, a scream he knew all too well.He spun to see that a black globe had materialized directly behind him, a field of utter darkness that blocked the route back into the canyon.  It was close enough that he could have reached out and touched it without taking a step.  Instinct told him that it would be very bad if he did that.He looked over and saw that Quellan and Kosk were also outside of that sphere, but both Glori and Xeeta, who’d been a few steps behind them, had been caught inside.  He’d heard Glori’s scream as if she was still right next to him, but he couldn’t even make out a vague outline of her form within the darkness.Before he could do anything, the goblin leader shouted a command, and the worgs charged forward as one, their howls echoing off the cliffs behind them.</blockquote>

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