Chapter 14 : Trapped under the mountain

Through the goblin lair, down and out by Dwarven mountain halls

#### A Trap!

We wake up falling down, and land in a net hanging in the dark. While we struggle to get our bearing, we see lights appearing all around us. When the shapes become clear, we see we are surrounded by hundreds of goblins. Some of them tie up the net, and start pulling us along. While we are being dragged along wooden walkways, suspended bridges, and stone ledges, me and Rufus manage to start sawing at the thick ropes with our daggers. When the dragging stops, we find ourselves in front of a grumpy throne holding a huge, fat goblin king! He demands to know what we came doing in his realm. Our answer that we are passing through is ridiculed - what is it that brings us passing through? So Rufus answers we are seeking the world's most powerful artifact. This is an answer he seems to like. He continues by saying we should expect to pay for the passage.

What are we willing to pay? We cry out that we are but humble travelers and have little of value to offer. This annoys him, it seems, and he says with an air of finality "Well, then you will pay whatever I want from you". And with that he signals to his people and they start pulling us towards the edge of the platform. Rufus and I both just managed to break through the net, each on another side, and with some fussing and pulling we are all outside meeting an onslaught of countless goblins. As soon as we get rid of one, several others creep, jump or fall onto us again. We need to get moving! While Druw and Juneeka get ready to cast some spells, it suddenly turns dark all around us. That must be the work of the shaman, who we saw standing beside the king.

We plod our way through goblins and darkness, but fortunately Juneeka manages to counter the darkness with a light spell. I see the king and his shaman have gone, and I make my way to the throne - and the edge of the platform. Quick as these goblins are, I still manage to dodge my way through them. Cautiously peering over the edge - weary of being pushed off - I glance over the side. Just below around the edge are a number of ropes, so I reach down and swing myself over, while calling out to the rest that there are ropes. At that same time we hear a triumphant scream from below, and the whole platform starts keeling over. Probably the shaman again. Except for me, no one else has time to grab onto anything. Fortunately, ropes and walkways break or falls enough so we arrive on a path below only mildly scratched. I find my way, falling and scrambling, down alongside the cliff wall onto which the platform was built.

Meanwhile, Druw has started a spell that looked just like some sort of tornado, whirling around and tossing scattering goblins in all directions. With this in front of us, we run in the best possible direction - which is actually sort of random since everything looks the same down here. At each intersection we guessed which way was most likely to lead out, and at some point came to a rock cliff again, where we could follow a path alongside it. All the time, goblins kept on coming from everywhere - well, except from the front - and we beat and tossed them off as best we could. The path went onto another walkway, at the far end of which we saw it entering into some opening in the facing rock wall. It sort of reminded me of the entrance to a dungeon or prison, but in passing I could see no signs of doors, hinges, gates or the like. Anyway with all those goblins pressing us there wasn't really anywhere else to go. But, as I feared, as soon as we were inside we heard the sound of a gate slamming shut and we heard the king calling and laughing "good luck in there, suckers!"

It did not seem so bad. The room ended in a large space extending upward. The top half was barred by an iron fence - much like another room was up there. There seemed to have been an opening in the middle of the fence, but the whole fence was woven shut with iron bands. Having nothing else to do, I climbed up and tried to get a peek inside, but I could not see anything. Juneeka asked her weasel to have a look. The room seemed empty, but there also was a corridor leading out from the back. Hearing that, I started prying loose the iron bands. Rufus propped up his ladder of lordly might to help me. We made quick progress, and soon had an opening that I might have wiggled through already. At that moment I got slapped by something that felt like a huge tentacle. It struck mostly my clothes and armor, but I felt - and heard and smelt - something burning into them. Probably some acid or something. I rinsed it off quickly with water from my water skin, and pried loose the next band so we could all get through and confront this cowardly monster. It took some fussing and doing, and getting Hender back out from inside its gelatinous mass, but we managed to defeat it - it dissolved into almost a liquid. We closed off the gate again with the bands, and went into the corridor.

#### Exit by Dwarven

Our largest fear was to find a dead end, but instead we saw Henders' spirits picking up with each step. He told us we were going into Dwarven structures here. But they were so old, he could not tell when or by whom they were made. In some huge colonnaded room, we suddenly heard a large amount of foot- (or paw) -falls. We could not quite make out what, but were suddenly confronted with a huge centipede. It was a tough bugger, but some earth shattering spell by Juneeka literally blew it to bits. Our next problem seemed like it was going to be another golem. We were facing a set of huge double doors, with an equally huge dwarven statue next to it. A mage hand, Rufus own hand and finally Henders hand confirmed that trying to open the door triggered a brutal strike from the construct. Drew settled this by casting Dimension Door which, to our amazement, brought us outside! These doors were the entrance, but invisible from outside, and we see a path running along a ledge at the mountain side. We have to hope it goes in the right direction for us... as it only extends in one direction.

Rolling slopes of hills stretch into the distance, and further away we see a vast expanse of woodlands covering the valley in between the slowly receding mountains. We travel with Juneeka and me scouting out ahead, some hundred yards ahead of the rest, she flying like an eagle. I’m not exactly sure why we choose to do it this way, but in any event it did not prevent us from getting ambushed by some forest trolls. They started shooting us from above, staying well hidden in the treetops. Later, they engaged us more or less one by one, which was to our good fortune as they turned out to be quite tough, hard to hit but doing us a fair amount of damage. Had they come as one, we may have fared much worse.

#### Shortcut!

As we traveled further, it appears we have crossed below the mountains, and are still nicely on course to the coast we must follow to reach Mycus. Heading due south, we reach a port town on the seaside and join a caravan that heads East and South, following the coast all the way down through what our map calls ‘Hafanus Isle’, even though the surroundings here have nothing like home and hearing our own language becomes less and less common. We travel through jungle, and later desert, to reach the bustling, hot city of Agadesh on the coast in the south of Mycus. Seeing that everyone entering town seems to be subjected to some search, we first make camp among one of the caravanserai to find out what it is all about. We learn that all magic items, not swords or armor, musts be offered for sale to the priests of the city, and they will buy any they like at their price. Later, we also learn that trading of magic inside the city is strictly forbidden.

Drew and I go ahead, leaving all our magic items with Juneeka in the Bag of Holding. We find ourselves an inn – we settle on the ‘Hopping Camel’, which we have come to call ‘Prancing Camel’ instead – whose innkeeper goes by the name of Edi. Later that day, Drew and I hear out the local rumors. There is recent unrest, apparently because the people find the rule of the Satrapi unsatisfactory, being bent on becoming king more than properly governing the city and country. The city guard comes down firmly on any riots or other unrest. The Merchants instead want to establish a republic. The priests may be in panic over the supposed death of the ‘Mad old King’, whom they believe to be just a fairy tale even though he officially is the Deity of the city.

By the end of the afternoon, Drew flies out of the city, to retrieve all our items and fly back, so that the rest can also enter the city the next morning officially and carry the paper pass that is issued at the gates. To our surprise, they also get an offer to join the city guard – they get issued a pass that will give them access to the Temple grounds surrounding the Pyramid. They are told to go there at noon. At about the same time, at breakfast, Drew and me are joined by an elderly man in military style clothes who acts as if we are old friends. He tells us they are hiring people like us. When I ask him who ‘they’ are, he says ‘We are merchants who want to make some things better in this city’. We say we may be interested, and he instructs us to be at the Inn in the evening, after dinner time, so we can be picked up by someone.