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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4727624" data-attributes="member: 143">I'm going away for a long weekend starting tomorrow, and I probably won't have access to a computer. So this is most likely the last update until Monday. The Friday cliffhanger will just have to keep. <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 16Jaron’s internal clock was all askew, even only after a few days in the deep gloom of the underworld, and he had no idea what time it was supposed to be as he and his companions left the relative security of the Seven-Pillared Hall behind, and delved back into the winding tunnels of the Labyrinth.  They had relatively clear directions from Rendil, and a clear destination, but that was all that was clear about this mission.  An expedition that had started with the basic objective of recovering Yarine and the others had been getting more complicated by the minute, Jaron thought. He didn’t need to look at the faces of his companions to see the tensions there.  The hostility between Carzen and Vhael formed a frisson that the halfling could feel like the heat of an open flame.  There were lesser cracks in the outward face presented by their team, including the barely-constrained fear in Gezzelhaupt, the sole survivor of the soldiers that had accompanied Carzen from Fallcrest, and the secrets that Vhael and Gral held about their past knowledge of this place.  And Mara, whose sudden reappearance had slid another current of uncertainty into their presence here. He hadn’t told Vhael about Mara, and Carzen hadn’t volunteered anything about their encounter with the ogre.  Jaron supposed that put him in the category of keeping secrets. And then there was Beetle.  His cousin had been in a sulk all morning, and had trudged along with the rest of them, instead of wandering off and vanishing constantly as was his habit.  He seemed to sense Jaron’s attention, and he turned just long enough to stick his tongue out.  He moved over to the other side of Vhael and Gral, muttering about “his stuff.”Jaron sighed.  Beetle was another simmering problem waiting to explode.  The confrontation that had created this latest clash had come last night, shortly after their meeting with Mara.  The Halfmoon Inn had included several small rooms sized for halflings, so the two of them hadn’t had to share space with any of the others.  Jaron had come in from his trip to the bathhouse to find Beetle hastily stuffing something under his pillow.  Perhaps it would have been better to leave well enough alone, but at the time curiosity and all of the worry that had been building up since leaving Fallcrest had pushed him to ferret out what his cousin had been hiding.  It was a small satchel, barely bigger than a purse, made out of ratty leather that looked like it had seen more years than the two of them combined.  It had bulged slightly when Jaron had picked it up.  “Come on, Belden, I thought I told you…” Jaron had said, as he’d opened the purse to dump its contents onto the bed.Even in memory, he felt some of the startlement he’d felt last night.  The little bag had somehow contained a deluge of assorted items, ranging from pieces of petty trash to a veritable horde of gold and silver coins that plinked as they slid off the bed to tumble about the floor.  The cache had included weapons, too, small blades and darts and even a crossbow with a broken crossbar that barely seemed able to fit through the mouth of the bag.  The container was magical, obviously, but Beetle hadn’t been willing to share where he’d acquired it, only insisting that he’d “found it,” and that everything in it belonged to him. Jaron carried the bag now, along with most of its contents.  He suspected that he was only starting Beetle again from scratch; no matter how hard he tried to impart to his cousin the dangers of theft, especially in a place like this, the younger halfling seemed incapable of being anything other than what he was.  Part of him suspected that his cousin’s behaviors were partly an act to cover his desire to continue such activities, but that did not change his own sense of responsibility toward the other halfling.  No matter how much he might drive Jaron to frustration, Belden was still family, and about all he had left of it.  As they left the more-traveled passages near the Hall behind, Jaron had to give up those layered distractions and focus on the journey, for it became quickly clear that they were entering dangerous territory.  Even staying on the main tunnel, which extended for miles beyond the boundaries of the Hall, they passed numerous places that showed signs of battles in the not-too-distant pass.  Odd noises and unpleasant smells carried long distances to them, and more than once, as they passed a side passage, Jaron felt the unpleasant sense of being watched.  His companions felt it too, and as they pressed on further Jaron saw their hands dropping more and more often to the hilts of weapons.  There was no conversation save for the minimal exchanges needed to impart information.  Jaron served as scout, but did not go more than a few dozen paces ahead of the others, carrying a small mining lamp he’d purchased in the Seven-Pillared Hall to brighten the pure black of the tunnel.   The tunnel narrowed from six paces across to five, and then to four.  It was still plenty wide enough to accommodate their small group, but Jaron could not help but feel as if all that stone was pressing in upon them, squeezing them like a hand crushing a lemon for its juice. They had marched for the better part of two hours before they reached the side-tunnel that led to their destination.  Jaron found the marker that Rendil had spoken of without difficulty, although he might have walked past it had he not been forewarned.  The stylized eye etched into the stone looked out from the mouth of a passage much like the others they had passed, but somehow the knowledge of what lay in that direction made it seem rather more menacing. After verifying that the others were following, Jaron led them in that direction.  The passage continued for maybe a hundred paces, bending slightly around to the left, before it deposited them into a large chamber.  The place showed signs of decay and neglect, and was littered with piles of rubble from what might have once been statues and carvings along the perimeter.  The place seemed to be deserted.  As Jaron lifted his lamp the darkness receded, enough for him to make out a set of doors recessed into an alcove in the center of the wall to his right.  He could also just make out a balcony along the far wall, a ledge some fifteen feet above the level of the floor.  There was no one up there either, at least no one he could see, and as he made his way forward he observed that there was a small door up there as well. He moved across the room toward the alcove, careful not to disturb any of the loose rocks that were scattered across the floor.  Behind him the others entered the room, and spread out, their eyes searching every niche and shadow for any sign of danger.  “The slavers have lax security,” Gral muttered.  Carzen heard him, and said, “Maybe because nobody down here’s stupid enough to take them on.”“Quiet,” Vhael said, gesturing for Carzen and Gez to take the left flank as he and Gral moved after Jaron toward the doors. The alcove was flanked by a pair of statues that were no longer distinguishable as anything other than vague humanoid shapes.  But the doors themselves looked very solid, heavy planks reinforced with generous banding in cold iron.  There was a locking mechanism set into the door on the right, and Jaron didn’t need to probe to guess there was likely a bar on the far side as well.  Shrouding his light so that it wouldn’t betray them through any cracks in the doors, he bent forward and pressed his head against the thin crevice where the two panels came together.  He heard the voices almost at once, recognizing again the familiar cadences of the goblin speech.  He listened for a few seconds, picking up the tone of the conversation, if not the words, which were muffled by the thick wood.  “Goblins,” he mouthed, turning back to face the others.  “If we have to cut our way through that, every goblin in the place will be waiting for us,” Carzen said.  At least he had the sense to keep his voice low, Jaron thought, but at the moment he couldn’t disagree with the fighter’s assessment. Vhael gestured them back from the alcove, moving into the room where they could speak quietly without standing directly in front of the doors.  “There’s another door up…” Jaron began, but his voice froze in his throat as he looked in that direction in time to see Beetle running up the wall.  He didn’t, not really, but it was still pretty impressive to see him ascent where the two walls met, kicking off one and then the other, gaining about five feet with each hop, until he sprang off the wall and snared the edge of the balcony with the fingertips of one hand.  He dangled there precariously for a moment, grinning down at them, then got enough leverage with his feet to push himself up over the lip, rolling back up to his feet with aplomb and dusting himself off. “Beetle!” Jaron hissed, but if his cousin heard him, he didn’t pay any heed.  The halfling started toward the door, a dagger popping into his hand out of nowhere.  “Should we go up after him?” Gezzelhaupt asked, nervously fingering his bowstring. “There’s no way we’d make that ascent without making enough noise to alert the complex,” Vhael said.  “I can get up there quietly, especially if one of you gives me a boost,” Jaron said.  He took a step in that direction, but Vhael cut him off.  “We cannot afford to further divide our strength.”“I can’t just sit here while he’s in danger.”Vhael’s expression did not shift in the slightest.  “There is more than one person at stake.  Your cousin took rash action on his own initiative; now we must hope that he can find a way to open the door.”  And as they watched, Beetle reached the door at the end of the balcony.  He paused barely a moment before it opened and he vanished into the space beyond. “And those guards?” Carzen asked.  Vhael turned back to the alcove and the doors.  He glanced at Gral.  “If necessary, we must be ready to do things the hard way.”</blockquote>

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