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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sniktch" data-source="post: 466437" data-attributes="member: 7704">The sad cook.The door did indeed lead to the kitchen, a rectangular room about fifteen feet wide and thirty long.  The far end of the chamber was dominated by a massive wood-burning stove; in between, the walls were covered with racks holding ancient pots, pans, knives, and other assorted cooking implements.  A wooden door hung from a single hinge to their left, revealing an empty larder.Welby sniffed in disappointment at the lack of food but moved into the room anyway, his curiosity getting the better of him.  Grick and Jack moved in behind him, but the others remained in the dining hall to wait.The halfling neared the stove and knelt to look inside.  As he did so, whoosh!  The flames sprang to life again.  At the same time, the temperature in the room dipped drastically and the three adventurers breath began to mist as it escaped them.  Welby felt the back of his neck creep and ducked when a large pot flew off the nearest rack directly at his head, narrowly missing him.Jack cursed as a length of chain shot out from the wall and wrapped around his arms, immobilizing them against his sides.  A stream of expletives followed as heavy pans began flying off the shelves and bouncing off his helmet, driving it down over his eyes and blinding him.  Grick started to go to the dwarf’s aid but was distracted by a meat cleaver that suddenly spun at him.  He ducked out of the way at the last second, grabbing the cleaver from the air and hurling it into the larder.  It bit deep into one of the old wooden shelves and vibrated as it tried to pull itself free.Welby screamed in terror, the events taking place being too much for the superstitious halfling.  He tried to run for the exit but slipped in a patch of thick reddish liquid that was bubbling up from a crack in the flagstones.  The fluid, which bore a surprising resemblance to fresh blood, was seeping up in a square pattern around one of the floor tiles.  He felt around the stone and found that his fingers could squeeze into the crack, so with a great heave he lifted the stone free, exposing a dark hollow space beneath.Looking up, the halfling saw Grick dodging a pair of long skewers and Jack stumbling around, a large pot covering his head with a meat tenderizer hammering on it, a chain wrapped around his torso, and a serving fork imbedded in his left shoulder.  A creaking sound came from behind him, and he whirled around just in time to see one of the racks pull free from the wall and crash down toward him.  Welby shrieked again, jumped into the hole, and was plunged into blackness.He landed on something hard and jagged that cut into his skin and he panicked for a moment, flailing blindly at the darkness.  Finally he recovered his wits long enough to retrieve a torch from his pack and ignite it with his flint and steel.  The flickering light revealed a small round area at the bottom of a five-foot drop.  He had landed upon the yellowed skeleton of a dwarf and it had cut into his exposed flesh in several places.  Before the dwarf a padlocked iron strongbox was set into a small niche in the wall.Welby pulled a shard of ribcage from his elbow and retrieved the chest.  Unfortunately, he was not skilled with locks nor had he room to swing his axe currently, so he stuffed it into his pack instead.  He started to scramble up the side of the shaft but stopped, gazing back at the sad remains of the dwarf.  Suddenly he had an epiphany.He dropped back to kneel beside the skeleton and took one of its bony hands in his own.  “Welby know.  Welby take,” he said, lifting the body from the ground.  As he raised it over his head and toward the kitchen images flashed rapidly before his eyes, and Welby loosed a ragged cry as the vision took him.*****He was alone in the kitchen when the invaders struck.  They moved through the fortress with amazing celerity, and soon he could hear sounds of battle coming from the dining area.  He had never been a warrior, always preferring the company of his stove and spices, and all of his wars had been waged with grease and oil.He moved over to his strongbox and packed his most loved possessions away, then lowered it and himself into his secret hiding area and sealed it from within.  Around and above him the din of battle continued for what could have been hours or days; he had no way to keep track of the time in this hole.  He never slept, held awake in paralyzed fear by the bestial roars and agonized screams echoing around him.Finally the noises abated.  The minutes began to stretch and yet no sound reached his ears except for the sighing whistle of his own breath.  He reached up and tried to push the stone out of the way but it didn’t budge.  Worried now, he braced himself and applied all of his strength  to the task.  Nothing happened, no matter how he strained. Panicked now he called “Hello?” with increasing urgency, until his throat was raw and his voice a ragged whisper.  He clawed at the stone with his fingers until gleaming bits of ivory poked through the bloodied stumps.  His knife was in the locked box but he did not have the key with him; he searched himself several times before remembering that he’d left it in the kitchen.  Then his finger bones ground away against the unyielding stone and he had nothing left to do.Maimed, hungry, and alone, he lay down on the hard floor and waited for death to take him.  Eventually it did, but that had not brought him rest.*****Grick was having serious problems.  He had managed to snatch the long skewers from the air and now used them to desperately parry the attacks of a half dozen kitchen knives and other implements.  Seeing that Jack was in even worse trouble, he flung the skewers back at the swarm of flying silverware and tumbled over to the dwarf.  Grick grasped the chain that bound the warrior with both hands and flexed his trunk-like arms, snapping the links and freeing him.A skewer entered his side then, but Grick ignored the shooting pains radiating from the wound and hurled Jack towards the doorway.  The dwarf crashed into the archway and bounced off, but Quinn was standing ready and pulled him out of the kitchen.  The monk started to follow but halted when he heard Welby’s third cry.  The halfling had shouted earlier when he’d slipped in the reddish fluid oozing from the floor, then again just before the rack came crashing down and he was forced to jump into the hole he’d uncovered.  Now Grick recalled his fallen companion when the third yell welled up from the opening.The half-orc altered his course suddenly and rolled to the pantry, ripping the hanging door from its remaining hinge and bracing himself behind it.  A number of blows impacted upon the wood a moment later, and he grunted with satisfaction as he beheld a number of glittering knife points sticking through the wood.He flung the door away and bounded toward the fallen shelves but then just as suddenly as it had begun the activity in the room ceased, the various implements still floating through the air falling with a terrific clatter.  His companion climbed up from the hole looking pale and ashen and presented him with the skeleton of a dwarf.“Cookie ‘lone.  Cookie ‘fraid.  Take Cookie home,” he proclaimed with wide and haunted eyes.As Grick took the pitiful burden Welby ran to the stove and looked beneath it.  After a moment he nodded and withdrew a key.They decided to head back up to their camp.  They were tired and hungry after their day’s explorations, and Stumpwater refused to go onward until the ringing in his ears ceased.  On their way to the surface Welby insisted they revisit the crypts, where he took the skeleton from Grick again and laid it amongst a pile of other dwarven remains.The halfling seemed pleased.  “Now Cookie have friends,” he muttered, then rubbed his tiny hands together and turned to follow his companions.</blockquote>

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