Haar’kiev 26
It was a bit past midnight when the knock sounded at his door. He’d been more than half-expecting a dynamic entry of Nargus and Gnat leading a dozen guards, to arrest him on some false charges. But no, it was a barmaid who silently offered him a sealed note, and left.
> I will tell you everything I know in exchange for your protection. I’ll be in the Burning Dawg at the top of the sixth watch. Trust none of the other guards, N has most of them in his pocket. Most important, they cannot be allowed to see you meeting me.
>
>
>
> G.
Duromar snorted in amusement at the obvious trap. Still, it might be better to show up and spring the trap, rather than wait for one he didn’t see coming.
Sixth watch was the last watch of the day, running from about 2 AM to 6 AM, ending at sunrise. That gave him most of two hours to get ready. There was a significant chance he’d end up killing some guards in a few hours, so he packed everything he owned in the chest, then hauled it downstairs, tucking it in a corner near the stairs. He even left a note asking Dediur to hold on to it until he came back to claim his armor but hoped that was just paranoia talking.
Soon enough, it was time.
----
The Burning Dawg Inn, as suited the smallest and least impressive of the three inns in the keep, used the fifth bell as their last call. So it was no surprise that the common room was empty at that hour. Empty, that was, except for one rather nervous Gnat sitting alone at a table. He was wearing armor but was not carrying a weapon.
Duromar pitched his voice a little bit quieter than his natural volume. “Alright, I’m here. What do you know?”
“Shhh! Not here, upstairs. Are you sure no one saw you come in?”
“Shouldn’t have. Didn’t use a lamp.”
Gnat led the way upstairs and to a door he unlocked. Pushing it open, he hurried in. When Duromar stepped in a moment later, the door suddenly shut behind him. Across the room, he could see Gnat had already picked up a shield & an axe and was moving to attack him.
It was obvious Gnat hadn’t expected Duromar’s reflexes, though. Both swords cleared the sheaths and hit [-18] before [-23] he even got a swing in. The guard dropped to the floor with a keen of pain but managed to hold onto his weapon. At that moment, with the situational awareness learned the hard way, Duromar felt the air moving behind him. He whipped around, dodged the longsword, and lashed out at Nargus [-19], who had been hiding behind the door. Ignoring Gnat for the moment, assuming he would stay down for long enough to take out Nargus, Duromar focused on him. He stepped past an awkward swing that was nowhere near him and struck [-18] twice [-17]. Nargus was now the one sinking to the floor in pain. As he turned to check on Gnat though, he had to lean back to avoid the battleaxe he hadn’t seen coming. Then he had to dodge another longsword attack from behind, as Nargus was already back up again. Deciding that Nargus was the greater threat, he swung to take him out, hitting [-15] hard and dropping him. He avoided yet another axe blow, then hit Gnat [-22] one last time, and watched him drop. [+819 E.P.]
He was startled by a soft whisper coming from Gnat, “but it was two against one…”, and then he seemed to pass out unconscious.
He checked Nargus first, grimacing when he found the guard stone dead. He took the ring from his finger, though, assuming it to be magic. Turning to Gnat, he found the guard still alive but bleeding. Even as he checked though, Gnat breathed his last.
Ironically, it was Gnat who had the potion of healing in his coin purse.
----
I'm not proud of it, but what else could I have done?
[Treasure: 1141 E.P.] & [Damage: 242 E.P.]
----
When the first bell sounded, a civilian-clad Duromar made his way out of the keep, casually greeting the guards on the way. No more than a quarter of an hour later, he and Torendrock came back in. Half an hour after that, they came back out, this time Duromar was fully armed and armored. When they parted ways, Torendrock went back to the halfling camp, and Duromar headed down the road, on his way to the Mines of Chaos, one last time, with just a single brief stop planned.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
It had been a bit more than two months since he'd last been there. Not much had changed. His quest notification still listed 28 gnolls as unaccounted for. Nothing new had been added, either.
The troll room was unoccupied. In fact, the entire upper floor was unoccupied. Heading down the stairs, Duromar vaguely recalled that the barracks were to the right. He yanked open the first door down that passageway and found a handful of gnolls tending to their gear. An especially alert gnoll had his battleaxe up and swinging as Duromar closed the gap. Unfortunately, in his eagerness, his grip on the weapon slipped and it flew across the room, clanging against the far wall. Duromar cut him down with a single blow [-37], trailing the tip into the gnoll behind him. The rest of the gnolls moved to surround him but missed with every attack. Attempting to finish the injured gnoll, he swung at it again [-21] and hit without finishing it off. Annoyed, he stepped around two attacks and hit that one again, finishing him [-26] and cutting down the one behind him as well. The fourth took another hard blow [-28] without going down, but he was obviously nearly finished. Two swings finished the last two [-25] fairly [-29] easily. [+341 E.P.]
He quickly grabbed coin purses and stepped back into the passageway. Surprisingly, there wasn’t anyone coming to check out the fighting. It hadn’t been a quiet fight, either.
He pushed open the next door, baffled by what he found. Five gnolls, right next door to a fight, were all sleeping as if without a care. Shrugging it off, he separated two bodies from heads when the absurd happened, [Fumble!], and his weapon slipped right out of his hand. Two of the three remaining gnolls woke up, neither of which was the one he’d been attempting to kill. He used his remaining sword to finish that one and turned to face the last two. He smashed the battleaxe to the side and easily cut down the first unarmored gnoll [-28] and then scooped up his dropped sword in time to skewer the second [-26] without hardly any more trouble. [+341 E.P.]
Still no alarm, at least none that he could detect.
The third door opened into a pack of gnolls playing a game with throwing knives. Not, as he might have guessed, involving throwing them at each other but at a target instead. Three knives flew at him as he cut down one [-33], with one more trailing behind as he cut down [-33] a second. More knives went flying as he took down a third [-23] and a fourth [-30]. The last turned and ran to the weapon rack, meeting him halfway across the room with a clash of weapons, but to no avail [-30] as he went down as well. [+341 E.P.]
The knives were unusually high quality for gnolls, especially compared to their usual gear. With a moment’s thought, he grabbed them as well.
The final barracks held more sleeping gnolls. Duromar almost felt a little bit bad about how easily they went down. Almost. [+341 E.P.]
----
He found the last batch of enemies in the only clean barracks in the complex. The gnarl-rons, gnoll’s common ally, were ready and waiting for him. The first two had segmented flail-like weapons that they swung to try and disarm him. Duromar cut the first down [-26] before he could even swing but barely hit the second [-14] as he cut under the flail. The rest pounced on him, mostly missing, except for one sneaky hit from behind [-6 dam]. He lashed out [-15] at the second one to try and attack his back, ruining the attack. Targeting the other flail first [-22] and then [-19] one of the sneaky attackers next dropped his opponents down to five. None came close to hitting him. Trusting his reflexes to save against back attacks, he hit the current lead [-17] twice [-18], chopping right through his attack. He felt one attack deflect off his armor, but the rest missed. With just four left, they screamed a rallying cry instead of retreating. He cut another [-17] down [-22] easily, then stabbed behind himself [-20] on both sides [-18], hitting something vital in each as both rear attackers collapsed. The final gnarl-ron, realizing the battle was well lost, tried to retreat. [Crit! Severity 23, Top of right shoulder, -25, +1 honor] He didn’t make it. [+1008 E.P.]
----
The journey to the beholder's lair was uneventful. The corpse was still there, untouched. He ignored it, and headed down the long spiral staircase he'd ignored the first time. At the bottom of the pit, he pulled out the bag of hefty capacity, then reached inside to remove the two once known as Nargus and Gnat. He laid them down and climbed out again. [+1 honor]
----
For the moment, things are calm. We’ll see how long that lasts.
P.S. [Damage: +389 E.P.] & [Treasure: +283 E.P.]
----
Jevar’kiev 3
Torendrock, the Halamins, and I are headed to Farzey today to meet up with Marigold. While it’ll be good to see her again, I feel like I’ve left my old companions behind in ability by too much to continue adventuring with them. For me, this reunion is about saying goodbye, not hello.
----
Jevar’kiev 10
Headed back to the keep for the last time, just to pick up the locking gauntlets and my repaired armor. I know, I didn’t write anything about the reunion.
But as I wrote last, they were getting together again to plan a new expedition. I withdrew from the celebration when they started discussing possible destinations.
----
Jevar’kiev 17
Got my armor back, finally. Gauntlets work well, so I’m happy.
There’s been a reward posted for any information about Nargus and Gnat. The problem is that no one saw them leave the keep. No one has come to me yet, but that’s enough of a warning as far as I’m concerned.
As I write this, I’m sitting in an inn in Farzey. Cleaned out my room, headed out as if I was going to hunt orcs, and just kept going.
Not sure what I’m doing next, but my current idea is to head to Fangerie city, and look for a two-handed giant slayer sword, or better yet two of them, and then go hunt giants.
Don’t think I’m ready to hunt dragons just yet.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Name: Duromar
E.P.(+5%): 194713
Next Level: 275001