Empirical Gnollage: Installment 80 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment080.png]

Al was not at all confident the rats had been cooked much, seeing how quickly the rats' nest they'd used for cooking fuel had burned up. For a moment, Al considered abusing his new understanding of magical fire-production to deal with the matter, but decided against it. Not only did it seem impatient and lazy, but he wasn't at all confident he could control it well enough not to end up with giant-rat-sized piles of ashes.

He finished his rough sketch of the two rooms they'd explored so far and looked up before he packed the writing implements away. Gruntle was still noisily gnawing on a half-raw, half-burnt rat. He wasn't as horrified as he thought he'd be when he saw Bote eating a piece of cooked rat meat. Wikwocket was cooking another piece of meat skewered on her dagger over Al's still-burning torch flame. She saw him looking at her.

"You want a piece? Free food! It's actually pretty good when it's freshly cooked." She said, holding the dagger out towards him. Al gave in to curiosity and took the small slab of cooked flesh with his fingers - carefully, since it was still hot. He clumsily juggled the piece for a few seconds until it cooled enough to hold more comfortably, and then sniffed it. The smell reminded him a bit of cooked rabbit meat. Taking a cautious bite, he found the flavor was similar, too, though also having some odd flavors like dark chicken meat and poorly-processed venison blended in.

"Needs salt," he decided aloud. He still ate the rest of his sample, though.

A lot better cooked than raw, at least, he thought. He absentmindedly wiped his fingers off on his robe, then realizing what he'd done he magicked the grease-stain away. He was just putting his pack back on when a faint noise echoed down the hallway from the room. Gruntle's ears swiveled. He dropped what little was left of his rat-snack and he stalked in the direction of the hallway. Al took his torch back from Wikwocket and inexpertly pulled Purgatio from its sheathe.

"What was that?" Al whispered as Wikwocket scuttled silently over to join Gruntle at the hallway.

"Glass breaking," Gruntle answered in a low rumble. "Maybe voice. Quiet now."

Wikwocket disappeared down the dark hallway. Al and Bote jogged to catch up as Gruntle followed her.

"The luncheon of the adventurer is an unsure thing, it seems," Bote observed.

Al's torchlight quickly caught up to Wikwocket and Gruntle. The hallway was no more than ten paces long before splitting directly left and right. Gruntle was sniffing the air at the intersection. He finally looked leftwards with a grunt, and Wikwocket led him away in that direction. Al and Bote hastened to catch up, and they all found themselves a few paces down the corridor, standing in front of another warped wooden door. This one was embedded with a bronze locking mechanism and keyhole. Wikwocket nodded at Gruntle and knelt down to try to peek under the gap at the bottom, while Gruntle leaned forward to touch his ears to the door. After a few seconds, Gruntle huffed.

"Nothing. Smells like bad food," he announced.

"I think I can see some barrels. The room in there doesn't look too big," Wikwocket said as she stood up. She pushed on the door, which refused to move. "Locked. There must be something good in there!"

She extracted a metal ring of tools and set to work trying to force the lock open. A few minutes went by.

"Okay...almost got...no, wait...come on, move!...just...ARRGH!"

The oddly-shaped pieces of metal she had stuck in the keyhole bent as she tried to force the ancient lock open. The springy steel almost returned to its original shape when she took them out.

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"I guess we're not getting in there," she lamented. Gruntle looked down at her and blinked, and then slammed his body against the door with as much force as he could. The damp, ancient wood cracked and splintered, pulling away from the lock mechanism. A second body-slam smashed the remains of the door the rest of the way open, leaving the lock sticking out of the door frame. Wikwocket cringed as Gruntle strode into the revealed store-room heedless of any traps that might be there. Fortunately, no obvious harm came of it.

The storeroom had a collection of shelves, barrels, and boxes. It stank of mold and mildew. Gruntle sniffed around but found nothing of interest to him.

"Anything we need to worry about in there?" Al asked, holding the torch closer to illuminate the room.

"Nothing," Wikwocket answered, pulling BiteySue out and pointing its tip straight ahead,"except this mimic!"

She stabbed the nearest barrel, which did not shriek and sprout eyes and teeth. "This mimic?" she tried, stabbing another barrel. BiteySue poked a hole through the old wood and a few grains and small chunks of what Al guessed was probably salt spilled out. Stabbing every other object in the room found only disappointment, particularly when a small box on a shelf fell to the floor and broke open instead of fighting back. It spilled a small handful of gold coins onto the floor, each bearing some Elvish writing and an unknown elf's face.

"Gold is pretty clearly of value so we have to leave that here," Al pointed out.

A quick survey of the room turned up mostly long-spoiled supplies - moldy, clumpy flour, chunky salt, a thick sludge that smelled like vinegar in a mostly-empty barrel, decayed dried meats, cooking-fat hardened like old wax. Some knives and other utensils in the smooth Elven style seemed to be in reasonable shape, but of course that meant they, too, were of value. The population of small scavenging beetles scurrying around was the only other thing they found. They were probably not especially valuable, Al thought.

"I think we should get moving," Al urged, "it doesn't look like there's anything dangerous in here, but this also doesn't seem to be what we heard that noise from so..."

Almost as if purposefully timed, another sound of breaking glass echoed down the hall outside. It sounded like it came from far off. A hint of distant cackling laughter seemed to follow it, and Gruntle crouched low to poke his head back out into the hallway to listen.

"Goblin voices," he growled. Al frowned and gripped Purgatio tighter while Wikwocket quietly left the room and then led Gruntle away.

"Do you think they're following us?" Al quietly asked Bote as they rushed to catch up without making too much noise.

"Not so much in this case, as they would almost certainly have been here already when we arrived," Bote suggested.

"Probably just paranoid to think they might be intentionally staying ahead of us in particular, isn't it."

"Yes, I would say so, though that doesn't mean there is certainty that it isn't happening anyway."

They jogged back up the hallway and past the intersection they'd come in from. The corridor turned, then turned again, then deeper down a set of steps to a landing. As they descended the steps, Al's torchlight showed Wikwocket headed back towards them from a set of steps going back up on the opposite side.

"Drunk goblins!" she whispered to them as they met. "Probably about seven or eight of them. Looks like the room up the steps was some sort of old bar and they got into whatever ancient booze is still here."

Al approached the steps back up hesitantly, not wanting his torchlight to give them away. The landing had paths leading away to either side as well as straight ahead and back the way they came. To the left was hallway - with, Al noticed, a faint sound of running water coming from further in the distance. To the right, more steps leading back up. Al tried to keep his torch to the side, around the corner from the steps to minimize how much light might shine up to the room they were stalking as he tried to look up the steps ahead of them. This left him just enough light to see Gruntle lying prone on the steps, his head just barely high enough to be able to watch from the room over the topmost step. Another sound of shattering glass echoed down, followed by more of the harsh, high-pitched laughter of goblins. Al pondered.

"What are they wearing?" he whispered to Wikwocket.

"Elegant silk gowns decorated with fine jewelry, shamelessly cut high so you can see their ankles," she whispered back. She valiantly held back laughter when she saw Al's confused and slightly horrified expression.

"The same mess the bunch in front of that dead hero's tomb were," she admitted, "Dirty skins and furs. A few of them have spears and a few have small swords, but they looked like they were too busy drinking to be paying much attention. Why, do you need some new clothes?"

"No! Just...never mind. Gruntle?" he whispered up the steps, "Can you hear us?"

The appearance of two glowing spots of amber-colored eyes up near the top of the steps reflected the dim torchlight and suggested to Al that he could.

"Bote and I are probably going to make noise when we go up these steps. Do you think you two could take them on safely for a few seconds until we get up there to help?"

Al saw the gnoll's shining eyes bob with a nod. Wikwocket smiled eagerly and nodded as well.

"All right then," Al said quietly, gripping Purgatio tightly. "Whenever you're ready..."