With the bloodthirsty screeching of the goblins in his ears, and his heart pounding in his chest it was impossible for Jonathan to think. He’d gotten lucky with fighting a single one of the creatures, but he knew he could never take two or three at once. If he stood his ground and fought they would rip him to pieces. Instead, he simply reacted. He opened his fist to allow the light stone to shine, and he started to run, moving as fast as his footing allowed away from the goblins.
At least he thought it was away. Between the strange echoes and the sound of flowing water it was nearly impossible to tell for sure. There were only two ways to go, though - basically it was a coin flip. In one direction was certain death, and in the other, an uncertain path back the way he’d come.
But as he rounded the corner he didn’t barrel into the howling monsters, and their screams didn’t seem to be getting much closer, so he felt like his decision was the right one. That was further validated when the tunnel he was traveling down started to narrow, and then he saw some of the glowing moss he remembered seeing before. Both of them were signs he was heading the right way, but as soon as he had that hopeful thought, the cave re-expanded into a larger cavern that was strewn with boulders from a partial collapse on one side. It was possible that there were other exits on the far side, but he couldn’t see from here.
Instead, he took one last look and the room as he plunged it into darkness as he tried to burn the details into his mind as best he could. Just because the goblins weren’t here yet didn’t mean they weren’t still coming, and he had no idea how far down the halls his light reflected.
After that progress was slow and nerve racking as he made his way as quietly could across the gravel and debris that crushed on the stone floor beneath his feet. He was less than halfway across the room when he heard the goblins enter it and begin to spread out. They didn’t speak exactly, but the way they growled and yapped certainly seemed to indicate there was some intelligence in hunting their prey. Fortunately for Jonathan though, it gave him an excellent idea of how many there were and how close they were getting, which was all the advantage he needed to stay out of reach and keep moving forward.
This cavern, more than any of the others he been in so far was labyrinthine, and even though he’d seen the layout before he’d snuffed his light once more he had to double back more than once. Fortunately the goblins didn’t have that advantage, and as he continued, Jonathan slowly put more and more distance between him and his pursuers.
In the end he let the sound of the river be his guide. It told him where the exit was in the same manner that the goblins were, and between the two sounds he slowly wound a path to safety. After a few terrifying minutes he managed to leave the goblin infested cavern behind and find a tunnel that lead further away from them. It was possible there were other ways to escape, and that he might be getting himself even more lost as he charged heedlessly into the dark, but that was a problem for later. Any path he could walk now he could retrace once the danger was gone. For now, he just needed to stay ahead of the goblins.
So he went further and further down the tunnel, noticing the dampness only increased to the point that there was slime in places on the wall. Jonathan resisted the urge to use his light, telling himself that this sort of thing was to be expected as he got closer and closer to the source of the noise. That became harder as the river got louder though. Eventually he couldn’t even hear the goblins anymore, which would have been a positive if he hadn’t been so terrified he was about to step into a watery abyss at any moment.
Eventually he could go no further as Jonathan’s fear forced him to unclench his fist and give him a glimpse of light so that he could prove to himself that he wasn’t in any danger. The result was just the opposite, and he felt a rush of fear go through him as he took in the horrible sight. Only a few feet in front of him, the cavern floor vanished into the dark as he approached a sheer cliff face.
He couldn’t see the water down there, but he could hear it. The sound told him it was a fast flowing river, but that was all. He had no idea how deep or long it was. He just knew that falling into it was the last thing he wanted to do. In all likelihood anything that went for a swim here would be dragged all the way down to the roots of the mountains. Finding himself back in some dwarven city would be the best possible case. It was far more likely that he would simply drown, and the water would deliver him to one of the deepest hells instead.
He recoiled from the edge, and looked to either side, suddenly loathe to snuff out his light as he’d planned. Between the slick rocks close to the edge and the mossy patches on the wall though, the idea was terrifying. Jonathan backed away slowly, but it quickly realized that was a bad idea because the goblins on his trail were definitely getting closer.
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He turned to the near wall, looking at the narrow ledge that went for a ways along it, above the river. He would have to be crazy to try to go that way, but it was that or fight. For a moment he considered doing just that. Facing down the three or four goblins that were charging down the corridor toward him wouldn’t be so bad if he drained the fire from his powder flask and greeted them with a firestorm, but until he found something to burn, that flask and the single shot in his loaded brand was all he had, and then it was gone.
It seemed like a waste to burn it when he might yet be able to escape these monsters. Goblins weren’t very smart after all. Maybe he didn’t have to try to walk down that ledge. Maybe he could just take a few steps out, and scale the wall until he was out of reach and wait for them to lose interest or fall in the river themselves. After all, it didn’t seem that they couldn’t see in the pitch black tunnels any better than he could.
Jonathan swallowed hard, and then with great trepidation he extinguished his light again and held on to the wall for dear life as he groped for hand holds. He’d only made it a few feet up the wall when he heard the noise of goblin claws clacking against the walls and floor of the tunnel he’d just run through were loud enough that he could hear them over the rumble of the river. As he realized that those sounds meant that they were so close he could probably reach out and touch them, he pulled himself up one more time to try to get out of reach, and then froze.
For several long minutes he felt the muscles in his arms and legs burning with the strain, as the strength he’d gained in his years in the deeps warred with his exhaustion. He gritted his teeth though, and forced himself to breathe slowly. He’d come too far to die like this. He’d never let himself give up before the goblins did.
With long slow breaths he calmed himself as he tried to figure out where they were and how many there might be. The answer seemed to be four, and if the growls and wails were any indication, their interest in him seemed to be giving way to frustration, as they groped blindly along the edge of the river looking for any sign of their quarry.
Jonathan was beginning to be cautiously optimistic that this might work when he heard one directly underneath him. He’d already heard one leave and start going back the other way, which meant that there were only two or three of the creatures still here with him, but the fact that one of them was so close was terrifying. Could they really smell him, he wondered? It wasn’t the first time he’d had the thought, but it was the only thing that made sense. Did they smell the goblin blood that he was no doubt covered in, or did that help to mask his human scent? Erkom would no doubt have joked that it was his fear they smelled. The old dwarf would have…
Jonathan felt something touch his boot, and without thinking, he lashed out, kicking hard like a frightened horse at the goblin nearest to him. He was rewarded with a sickening crunch, a pained grunt, and then a splash into the water. For a moment he heartened by his victory. He’d managed to take one more of the things out, even if it was basically an accident.
That feeling didn’t last long though. Within moments the howling started again, and soon enough the one that had wandered away was back. They’d been on the verge of giving up, but somehow they knew that the goblin he’d kicked into the river hadn’t just slipped, and now they wanted to devour the culprit.
It didn’t take them long to find him again now that he couldn’t move to escape them. He lashed out again, but this time he missed and rewarded with the feeling of claws sinking into his calf and a second goblin grabbed at his other boot. Jonathan tried to shake them off, but without success.
“Get the hells off me,” he yelled in frustration. “I’m gonna— Ahhh!” Jonathan could only scream when he felt the second goblin sink its teeth into his leg just above the boot. The pain shot through his whole body, and he didn’t realize that his tired muscles had let go of the wall until he was already falling.
He tried to grab the ledge beneath him, and for a moment the goblins that were still gripping him were forgotten as he flailed in vain while he tumbled into the water. There was nothing for him to grab though. For a second, as he let go of his glow stone he could see what was happening, but he was entirely powerless to stop it as he fell another ten feet past the cliff towards the river below.
The water was shockingly cold when he plunged into it. Jonathan never even had a chance to worry that the water might not be deep enough to stop him from breaking his legs, or that any one of the rocks in it could break his back before he slipped beneath the surface with a terrific splash. Seconds later he fought his way back to the surface, but the stone had continued its way to the bottom, plunging him into complete darkness.
The goblins that had been holding on to him let go as soon as they were plunged underwater, and one of them had managed to hold onto him for dear life for a moment, but they were both lost now, and Jonathan was alone as he drifted down the Stygian river. In vain, he tried to find something to grab onto, ripping one of his fingernails off in the process, but it was hopeless. There was nothing he could do.
He’d almost managed to climb his way free from hell, and like a damned spirit he was now going to be pulled back and punished for daring to escape from his fate.