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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1104513" data-attributes="member: 143">Still ahead in the story, so I'll keep a' postin'...* * * * * Chapter 34Fario and Arun leapt through the doorway almost together, meeting the hobgoblins as they rose from their benches to attack.  Fario darted forward, and in some unspoken harmony ducked just in time for Fellian’s arrow to slice over him and hit one of the hobgoblins in the shoulder.  Unfortunately, the arrow failed to penetrate the warrior’s heavy armor, but it distracted it just enough for Fario to draw first blood, a quick slice to its leg from his longsword that scored through the layered banded armor.  Arun rushed at the second hobgoblin, which rushed around the table to meet him.  The dwarf almost casually batted away its thrust with his shield, following with a punishing blow from his hammer that crumpled the hobgoblin’s breastplate, driving it roughly to the ground.  The dwarf turned to aid Fario, but the battle was already wrapping up.  The two sleeping hobgoblins had stirred quickly once the melee had started, but they were slow to react, reaching for their weapons clumsily as they tried to shake off the haze of sleep.  One managed to draw its sword just in time to take two hits from Zenna and Mole’s crossbows, collapsing back into its bed as it bled out its last moments.  The second picked up a javelin and hurled it at the adventurers, narrowly missing Fellian.  It reached for its sword, but dropped the weapon as the half-elf’s return shot lodged in the meat of its arm.  It tried to pick up the scabbarded blade with its other hand, but came up short as Ruphos confronted it, his mace raised to strike.  “Surrender or die,” he commanded.  The hobgoblin looked at the center of the room, where the last of its companions had just fallen to Fario’s sword, snarled, and complied. * * * * * “Tell it that it had better reveal where those children are, or there’ll be this to answer to,” Arun said, hefting his warhammer.  Zenna spoke to the hobgoblin in its own tongue, repeating Arun’s question.  The hobgoblin snarled, uttered something, and spat.  They’d pulled the arrow from its arm and allowed it to wrap the wound in an old shirt, but it was clearly still in a lot of pain.  That clearly hadn’t overcome its sour attitude toward them, however. “Enough of this!” Arun shouted, grabbing onto the hobgoblin by the throat and dragging it roughly to its feet.  Ruphos took a step forward, but frowned, turning away but saying nothing as the dwarf hefted his hammer and ended it with a single punishing blow.  The two half-elves regarded him with unreadable expressions.  “I don’t expect we’ll get much out of him now,” Fellian commented.  “Enough!” Arun repeated, his anger growing rather than easing now that the last enemy was dead.  “We’ve wasted enough time here.  Come on, let’s find those captives!”Zenna shot a concerned look at Mole, but the gnome was already falling in behind the dwarf as he crossed to the far door and all but threw it open.  Beyond it, rather than more enemies to crush, lay another long corridor, running along the edge of a deep chasm that dropped off to the left.  The elves shared a look but took up their weapons and moved to follow. Zenna looked at Ruphos, who still hadn’t moved.  “Are you all right?” she asked, touching his shoulder with her hand.  He looked at her and smiled sadly.  “Sorry.  This hasn’t been easy for me... all of this.” “I don’t think it has been, for any of us,” she said.  “Come, we’d better catch up to the others.”He hesitated.  “Could I ask a favor?”“What is it?”“Would you lower your cowl for a moment?  I’d like to look at you, the real you, for a moment.”She bit her lip.  “There’s no time...”“Please, just for a moment.”She glanced at the door—the others had already gone—and nodded, pulling back her cowl.  She flushed slightly at his stark gaze, but he only looked, and finally nodded. “Thank you,” he said.  “And I’m sorry.”“For what?”“For judging when I had no right,” he said.  He took up his mace, and lifted his torch.  “Let’s go.”He hurried after the others, and Zenna followed him, lifting her cowl back into place as she departed.* * * * * The corridor south of the guardroom ran along the edge of a deep chasm to their left.  A chill seemed to rise up from somewhere below, and a faint dampness hung in the air. Across the chasm, perhaps thirty or forty feet across from them, rose a sheer cliff wall atop which stood the black stone walls of the Fortress.  Ahead a stone bridge stretched across the gap, and some distance beyond that they could see windows high in the fortress wall overlooking the chasm, narrow slits through which a faint light could be seen.  Arun had headed straight ahead, toward the bridge, but instead of turning to cross it he instead turned right, to where a stone door was recessed into a short passage opposite the bridge.  The corridor also continued ahead along the edge of the chasm for a good distance, ending in what looked like another door about forty feet beyond the bridge. As Zenna and Ruphos hastened to rejoin their companions, the wizard glanced up at a tall dwarven statue set into the high wall to her right, facing outward toward the chasm.  The statue, nine feet tall and fashioned out of white marble, depicted a female dwarven warrior, clad in plate armor and brandishing a dwarven urgosh.  Another statue, of a similarly clad male warrior, stood on the opposite side of the bridge.  Zenna stared at the statues in amazement; the stonework was incredible, and somehow these silent sentinels did not contain the foreboding that clung to the warrior statue they’d encounter earlier.But there was no time for further reflection on the matter, as Arun was already opening the door.  The heavy stone door opened slowly, revealing yet another passage beyond.  Arun grunted and started down the corridor, barely hesitating as Zenna caught up to him. “Slow down, Arun.  We’re not going to help anyone if we rush into danger unprepared.”“I’ve had enough of tiptoeing around this place,” the dwarf returned.  But he waited until everyone was ready before he started down the passageway.  Behind them, Ruphos eased the heavy door shut.  Ahead of them, the passageway split into two branches, heading to their left and right.  Arun headed toward that intersection, but hesitated, the others coming to a halt behind him. “What’s the matter?” Mole asked. “Something’s not right here,” the dwarf said.  “The echoes are wrong...”He didn’t get a chance to elaborate, as a metallic grinding noise suddenly filled the corridor.  Its source wasn’t immediately evident, but it was close, and it seemed to come from somewhere behind the wall to their right.  Frowning, Mole reached out and touched the wall... and her hand passed through it as if it wasn’t there. “An illusion!” she said. “Get back!” Arun shouted, heading toward her even as the noise grew louder.  Mole’s eyes widened and she stepped back, but not quickly enough as a metallic figure emerged from the wall, swinging a massive iron hammer that came crashing down toward her.</blockquote>

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