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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 1162201" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks guys!* * * * * Chapter 54 “All right then,” Arun said, hefting his hammer and turning toward the stairs. “Wait!” Zenna whispered, grasping the dwarf’s shoulder.  “Please, just this once, let’s not stumble blindly into danger!”While the dwarf looked at her with a hard expression, Mole slipped between a gap in the banisters of the railing.  “Do you hear that?” she asked, and bent head-first over the stairwell, dangling enough so that she could see into the room below.  They could all hear what had alerted the gnome, now, a jumble of noises from downstairs that included voices, both male and female, mixed with hoots and barks that sent chills down their spines to hear them. After just a few moments, Mole pulled herself back up, her face white.  “What is it?” Illewyn asked, careful to keep her voice low. “Run!” Mole said. A loud, clear voice sounded from below, laced with anger that bordered on rage.  “Spread out... find them!”  The hooting noises grew louder, accompanied by the crash of wood and glass.  Arun stood at the head of the stairs, looking momentarily uncertain. “There’s too many,” Mole urged again.  “More warriors, baboons, and the apeman...”  She shuddered at the too-fresh memory of Tongueater’s terrible visage.“We need to find someplace defensible... come on!” Dannel urged. The elf darted back around the landing, leading them into the left branch hallway.  The others followed, Arun brining up the rear, frequently looking back to see if their enemies were chasing.  The hallway meandered across the main wing of the roadhouse, with occasional doors on both sides opening onto ransacked guest rooms.  With the turns they quickly left the landing behind them, and finally the hall straightened and ended with a slightly larger room ahead.  The place was clearly intended to serve as a lounge for the upstairs guests, a haven for those who preferred someplace quieter than the boisterous common room below.  A hearth sat empty and cold to their left, while to their right there was a heavy round table of sturdy oak flanked by five simple but comfortable-looking padded chairs.  Two doors exited to the right, and they could just hear the patter of rain on the shuttered windows.  Arun turned to block the hallway, standing guard like a sentinel.  “This is a good spot,” he said.  “I’ve had enough of running away, dwarves don’t run away.”Zenna’s reply was something not quite audible, issued under her breath as she and Mole hurried to the two doors.  One opened onto a compact bath chamber, complete with a heavy wooden tub, while the other revealed a small bridge, open to the night air and the cold rain, crossing over the slanting roof to another door a half-dozen paces ahead.  Zenna pulled that door shut.  “There’s no way to secure this door, it opens outward!” she exclaimed.  There was a latch to hold the door shut, but it was just a flimsy piece of wood attached to the door by a leather cord.  Below that was the handle, basically a foot-long bar of curved iron set into the door at its top and bottom.  “You just need to be a little creative,” Mole said, taking a quick look at the door before darting into the bath chamber.  She returned a few seconds later with a wooden board, which she forced through the door handle and wedged against the doorframe, setting it firmly into place with a few taps from the hilt of her sword.  “There,” she said.  “It’s not a proper lock, but it’ll hold unless someone takes the door off its moorings.”Meanwhile, Dannel had called to Arun, and the two had shifted the heavy table to block the hallway, tilting it so that its heavy top face sat in the mouth of the hall like a battlement.  The round table was nearly big enough to block the entire exit, leaving small spaces around the edges that would serve as impromptu arrow slits.  Illewyn helped by stacking a few of the chairs behind the table, filling in the gaps near the floor and adding to its weight as a barricade.  Even as they finished their work, the sound of animal hooting became audible down the hallway, followed by the familiar clink of metal and several all-too-human shouts, alerting their bandit enemies that the invaders of their stolen safehold had been found. “They’re coming!” Arun warned, hefting one of his throwing hammers.</blockquote>

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