Not wanting to waste a golden opportunity Bjorn started to cast his spell while his back was turned towards the orc. As soon as the spell finished casting he whipped around and directed the stone to hit the orc. It shot away from where he was standing and flew straight into the orcs chest, and an audible crack sounded. The stone landed on the right side of the orc, his right hand immediately curled in to protect his now broken rib, and a look of anger spread across his face. Not wasting any time as soon as the rock started its trajectory he leapt forward, planted his foot sideways and kicked with all of his might into the spot the rock just landed. Luckily for the orc, and unluckily for Bjorn the act of the orc dropping its arm actually stopped his leg from making a solid connection. Using its left arm the orc trapped Bjorn’s leg between his arms. Hefting Bjorn slightly off balance by his leg he did a quick spin and let go sending Bjorn flying, and then skidding on the ground after he landed.
Hearing the crunch snapped Alaric out of his stupor of trying to figure out what actually was happening. He turned with a manic grin on his face and threw a punch at the elf, dropping him with a sucker punch. The elf fell, but he wasn’t knocked out. With the hit Olvog snapped out of his stupor and turned and threw a wild haymaker at Alaric, who deftly caught the punch and executing a two step turn threw Olvog over his shoulder. The human who had the broken leg tentatively got up on his feet and rushed forward at Alaric. The kick Alaric landed on the human was a quick powerful kick meant to break bones, which had mixed results. For one the man’s movement was hindered, but it hadn’t been enough to fully incapacitated him. What probably happened was the kick had enough force to break one of the two bones in his lower leg. Turning towards the rushing human Alaric set his feet to meet the rushing man but was brought up short. Looking down the elf had latched himself onto Alaric’s leg, which slowed his movements just enough for the human to plow into the dwarf and all three fell in a heep.
Rushing forward the orc charged on Bjorn. From where he lay he oriented himself towards the orc and took up the defensive position Alaric showed him. As the orc neared he reached into his clothes and produced a crude knife. It looked more like a shiv than it did a knife. It looked like a spike off of a pickaxe that got rubbed down into a point. From where he lay Bjorn could tell that the shiv was sharp enough that it could easily stab into his body. Making a snap decision he cast, cast stone again. As the orc fell on Bjorn he tried to stab Bjorn the best he could, as for Bjorn he tried his best to control the shiv arm, which he had mixed results in. With the knife in his right hand Bjorn did his best to control that hand. Using his left the orc threw a punch that landed on Bjorn’s head dazing him for a second, but Bjorn’s hand did not relax on the hand holding the shiv. Using the moment of distraction the orc switched the shiv from his right to his left hand, and bringing his body close stabbed towards Bjorn’s ribcage. Which sank easily in between his lower ribs on his right side.
From where he lay tangled in a pile of three bodies Alaric tried his best to fight back, but as odd as it sounds, his best advantage was distance. Although Alaric was a good scrapper he had formal training on how to fight multiple opponents from a standing position. It was a losing battle; his two fists, in comparison to the 4, just weren't enough to compete. They quickly gained the upper hand and got Alaric on his back. Olvog had recovered from the throw and slowly got back to his feet, seeing Bjorn with a shiv in his ribcage, and his other two goons winning against Alaric he was in no rush to get back to Alaric. So he turned his back towards Bjorn, who would be dead soon, and pulled a second shiv and started to walk towards Alaric. From where he lay Alaric could see the shiv in Olvog’s hand, and did some quick calculations. They would lose, Once he got stabbed it would be harder to fight back and he was already losing to the two. His mouth thinned to a line as he continued to struggle, getting a good grip on the human’s collar he wasn’t able to push him off.
As soon as the shiv entered his body Bjorn used his right hand to trap the orc's left hand stopping him from withdrawing the shiv. The orcs' face grew savage as he knew it was only a matter of time now. Leaning even closer he spoke into Bjorn’s ear. “Even with you dead it won’t stop me, I have well over 12 hours for your body to fully cool. I will still get my pound of flesh from you in the end.” The overconfident orc shouldn’t have been so. As the orc finished his statement Bjorn took his left arm and jammed it into the spot the stone had hit. With their close proximity it was just pure luck for him to actually hit it. He could feel his strength start to wane, as it started to become harder to breathe. Luck was on his side, as his stiffened fingers drove right into the spot where the stone had landed. When he felt the orc stiffen from the shooting pain in his side Bjorn made a gamble and used his cast stone to aim at the orc’s head. The stone shot down and made a connection with the back of the orc’s head stunning him. With a mighty shove he rolled the orc over so he was on his back and Bjorn was on top of him. Relaxing his right arm he withdrew the shiv and turned it towards the orc. The vacant stunned look past off of the orc’s face as the shiv sank into his eye socket. Hitting bone Bjorn put his weight on the hand carrying the shiv, as the orc’s strength rapidly left him the pressure the shiv made on the eye socket quickly grew as there was a moment of hesitation before the bone gave out and the shiv sank fully into his brain cavity and the orc went limp.
As Olvog drew closer he was oblivious to the plight of his orc mook, if he was aware he probably would have turned towards Bjorn and finished him off. But all of his time being the head dog in the camp had made him arrogant and disregarded Bjorn as a threat. And so he stalked towards Alaric. From where he lay Alaric resigned himself to dying here, at least it was a good reason to die. He knew he couldn’t count on Bjorn for help, after all he was ten times the fighter his friend was. The last time he saw Bjorn the orc was on top of him and had shoved the shiv into Bjorn’s side. But his determination to take whatever he could from these monsters who took what they wanted made him struggle onwards. When Olvog got in striking distance he looked down at Alaric. “I thought by the end of the day my blood would run. I have to admit I didn’t believe you, now that I finally get to end you, and your little pet human, I can agree you made my blood run. I am thrilled that your little resistance is finally over.” Leaning down he thrust the shiv at Alaric.
The entire time he was fighting with the two men on the ground he was trying to push them off of him. When Alaric switched the direction of his force the human was caught off guard and got pulled further on top of Alaric, directly into the path of the falling shiv. Which promptly sunk deep into the human’s back, The strength of the human lessened by a large degree. Shouting with anger Olvog withdrew the shiv and grabbed the human by his back, yanking him off of Alaric and threw him to the side. The man flopped uselessly to the floor and tried to rise, and failed, he stopped moving where he lay.
Laughing Alaric taunted. “You stupid cunt, how does it feel to have killed one of your own men.” A snarl was all the Olvog had in reply as he raised the shiv to stab downwards again. Olvog stiffened as the shiv that Bjorn had retrieved pierced his back. Standing ten feet away Bjorn didn’t waste any time and started to cast, cast stone for the third time. A look of horror crossed Olvog’s face as he said. “You’re a spell caster?” He didn’t get a chance to say anything more before the newly formed stone flew at Olvog.
In a move the surprised both Bjorn and Alaric Olvog deflected the stone with his shiv. As Olvog started to try to close the distance between him and Bjorn, Bjorn backed away and started casting cast stone again and again. Trying not to get too far away from Alaric Bjorn traveled in circles. For his part now that Bjorn had Olvog distracted all Alaric had to deal with was the elf, his fighting experience and higher stat pool gave him quite the advantage. It didn’t take long for Alaric to maneuver the elf in front of him and trapped his arms against his body with his legs. Placing his hands on either side of the elfs face, one in front and one behind, he pulled quickly in opposite directions, there was an audible snap as the elf’s struggling went limp. Throwing the elf off of him Alaric stood and quickly took off after Bjorn as Olvog. Even with his best attempts they had traveled well over 300 feet away from where Alaric had been laying.
By this time the sounds of battle off in the distance had grown closer, they were running out of time, who knows what will happen if whatever is killing the gnolls got to the slave camp. Bjorn’s mana pool was getting close to being depleted, a splitting headache was overtaking him, still gritting his teeth he pushed through it and cast his spell one more time. This being his 13th time casting cast stone, his mana pool having 17 left, the headache got worse. Throwing this stone at Olvog he dodged this tone too. Out of all 10 castings he did not a single one hit its target, a few he dodged, but the majority of them got deflected by the shiv. The shiv looked to be almost useless now, it had lost its point, and the metal had bent backwards to the point where it was almost touching his arm.
Seeing Bjorn stumble, and with his movements becoming more disorganized and the spells coming out slower, Olvog smiled. “Your magic is almost out, what is going to stop me when you have nothing else to defend yourself? Hehehe.” His chuckle was that of someone who took delight in others suffering. Trying to cast his cast stone one more time he failed, Bjorn couldn’t keep his mind oriented on the mana flow enough for the spell to fully complete, it did take some of his mana, but not all of it. Bjorn stumbled again as the headache became a piercing pain that shot back into his brain. Coming to a stop he set his feet and raised his arms. “Foolish, I am going to enjoy this.” Said Olvog.
The look of surprise on his face would have been comical if Bjorn wasn’t distracted by the headache. Olvog’s feet got sweeped out from underneath him and Alaric grabbed his body making sure he landed on the shiv sticking out of his back. Olvog hit the ground hard and the shiv got shoved all the way through his body and it protruded out the front on the right side of his torso. Olvog went into shock, and he just lay there, still breathing, slowly and laboriously. With a smile Alaric raised his foot and said, “I’m going to enjoy this.” Repeating Olvog’s words back to him the same way he just said it to Bjorn.
Bjorn called out. “Wait, I think I deserve to be the one to end him.”
After a brief pause Alaric nodded and lowered his foot. “Be my guest.”
Bjorn maneuvered himself to Olvog’s head, looking down at the piteous hobgoblin. Raising his foot he paused before saying. “This is for Meira.” As his slammed his foot down on Olvog’s skull as hard as he could. The hobgoblin’s head sandwiched between the stone floor and Bjorn’s foot did not give way and bounced, Olvog’s body went rigid as it reacted to try and protect the head. Unfortunately it didn’t actually move, his body disobeyed the orders of his brain. Raising his foot he brought it down again, and again, and again. On the fourth slam there was a crack has Olvog’s skull gave way and Bjorn’s foot pushed the broken piece of skull into Olvog’s brain. And still Bjorn didn’t stop, he got a sick pleasure out of seeing the hobgoblin’s body twitch as his foot came down. With all the time Bjorn spent down here shoeless the bottom of his feet had thick tough calluses. It was probably what saved him from cutting himself on the shards of bone from Olvog’s shattered skull. Even after Olvog’s body stopped twitching and there wasn’t much left to Olvog’s head Bjorn didn’t stop stamping. All of the anger, and shame over the last few months came flowing out of him as he continued to stamp down. Tears were flowing freely down Bjorn’s face.
Eventually Alaric grabbed ahold of his friend’s shoulder and said. “I get it my friend. But we need to get Meira and get out of here. If I was to guess from the sounds of battle and how close they have gotten the gnolls are losing this fight, and I don’t want to find out how whatever those creatures are treat slaves.”
Nodding in agreement Bjorn took a step away from the corpse of Olvog and turned his back on him. The two of them took off at a run heading back to where Meira was huddled on the ground. As they were running they saw the body of the human mook moving. “Huh I guess he didn’t kill that one.” Said Alaric as he moved over to the human who was feebly struggling to pull himself back to their little hut. Towering over the struggling man Alaric looked down at the human and said. “You don’t deserve it, but I’m going to end your misery. I am in a bad mood, and I can’t let that little shit stain Bjorn think he killed more of you than I did.” The man made no reaction to Alaric’s words, so he bent down and quickly snapped his neck. Standing he took off heading towards Meira again and Bjorn soon followed. When they hauled her up onto her feet and took off towards the gate to their enclosure. The walls around the slave camp were 12 feet high, out of Bjorn’s jumping range.
“I’ll put my back to the wall and you run at me, step on my hands and I'll push you up to the height.”
Nodding in agreement they set up, running at Alaric Bjorn soared as he threw him in the air. Flying well over the 12 feet necessary for him to make it over Bjorn caught the lip of the gate and swung one leg over. From his vantage there were no gnoll’s in sight. Quickly shifting his weight over he lowered himself till he was fully extended and then dropped the remaining feet to the ground. On the other side of the gate he tried to lift the wooden beam that held the gates closed but it was heavy. “Hurry up Bjorn, we need to get out of here.” “I know.” Bjorn called back at his impatient friend. Setting his feet and placing the beam on one shoulder he heaved with all his might and it still didn’t budge. With a thought he pulled up his character screen and saw that he had leveled up from killing Olvog. Without a moment of hesitation he dumped all three points into strength. He felt his body grow larger, and at the same time his muscles grow denser. Trying again he set his feet and heaved. This time the beam slowly slid free of the bars holding it in place, not able to hold it any longer. He dropped the beam and it fell free of the bars, but it dropped on the ground in front of the doors.
From where he stood he could hear Alaric trying to shove on the door but the beam stopped it from sliding. “Just a second.” Called Bjorn as he situated himself on one end of the beam, squatting he got one arm in each side of the beam and lifted, crab walking to the side it swung free of one of the doors. Dropping the beam he rushed over to the now clear door and grabbed ahold of it pulling on it the door swung open.
“Nice work Bjorn.” Alaric said as he led Meira out of the slave camp. “Which way now?”
Looking around frantically Bjorn had no idea. “We can’t go that way.” He said as he pointed towards the gnoll town. “Either the creatures, or the gnolls will kill us. So it looks like we have to travel that way.”
Nodding the party took off at a speed slightly faster than a walk as they started running away from the fight. Once they made it past the slave camp the back wall became clear. “Into the mines.” called Bjorn as they turned their trajectory heading towards the open cave entrance.
“Good thinking. It is like a maze down there, we can easily find places to hide down there where no one will be able to find us. And on top of that there are weapons down there we can use. Heading down the mines they traveled about halfway to where the slaves would be working and settled into a side tunnel. They only had to wait for an hour before the sound of many feet tramping through the cave could be heard. The sound came from below them. “The latest mining group.” Bjorn whispered as the sound grew louder. They lay in wait for the group to pass them and for the sound to fade to nothing before they took off down the mines again.
Making it down to the bottom of the mines they found the entire place deserted. “Huh. I would have thought they would have kept someone down here all the time.” Mused Alaric as he walked over to the pickaxes. Soon they were both armed with pickaxes. Searching the guard post they found a few portions of bread and meat, they also found a wooden shield and a hammer, and a pot filled with a salve that after identifying will increase the recovery rate, and finally some bandages. Which they immediately used to treat everyone’s wounds. Dropping his pickaxe Alaric armed himself with the shield and hammer. Other than that there were odd nicknacks, but nothing that would be useful. So they settled in to wait.
Three rather uneventful days passed as they waited, they would have waited longer but by the end of the first day they had eaten through all of their stocks of food. It was hunger that drove them to the gnoll city, two days without food was doable, but they figured that three days was enough for whatever attack had either left, or grown complacent. So they headed back with a bit of trepidation. As soon as they made it back to the main entrance to the mines they saw the sight of a husk of a city. There had obviously been a fire set in many of the buildings because many of the buildings had collapsed roofs. The fires had to be individually set because the buildings were made of stone. In between the slave encampment and the mine entrance there lay the 10 gnoll guards and 20 or so of the slaves. Which didn’t account for the 100 slaves that were down in the mines. They lay in wait for over two hours trying to see if there was any movement from inside the city. During which they hadn’t seen any movement of any kind so they figured it was probably safe enough.
Moving forward the place closest to them was the slave encampment so they searched there first. Coming around the corner of the open gate, one of the gates had been torn at one of its hinges and hung at an angle, the other had been blown completely off. Looking inside they found dead gnolls, obviously they had used the slave camp as a last ditch effort to defend, even though the walls built around the camp were not really defensive they probably tried to funnel their attackers into the entrance to give them more of a chance. They also found well over 100 dead slaves, again not quite enough to count for the 250 or 300 slaves that were at the camp all the time. There were also a few of the dead attackers as they drew closer Alaric said one word. “Drow.”
Stolen story; please report.
The creature on the ground had the same body proportions as an elf, they were tall though not as tall as Meira, slender, and looked graceful. Their facial features were chiseled and somehow sleek all at the same time, the combination was surprisingly alluring. The main difference was their skin was a pale shade of purple and they had long white hair tied high on their heads. They all had that, male and female alike. “What are the drow? Just purple elves?” Bjorn asked.
Shaking his head. “Drow feel like they are the superior beings, they are arrogant and oftentimes willing to take whatever they want, whenever they want. They feel like they are entitled to whatever interests them. Like many things down there they are ruthless, most drow won't kill you on sight though. They will evaluate you, if you don’t measure up to whatever their skewed standard is, that is when they will kill you. If you do measure up they might fight you, or maybe they will trade with you. Don’t let it mislead you, you are still a lesser being. I can only think of one person I’ve ever met who claims to have gained the drow’s respect. After meeting the woman I am inclined to believe her, if I was more of a man myself maybe she would have considered me her equal, instead she laughed at me when I tried to ask her out.” Alaric was silent for a moment. “That memory still stings a bit. A man’s gotta try. Anyways, if you ever meet a drow you’ll likely end up dead. Especially considering what a pathetic excuse for a man you are.” He ended with a smile.
“Hey, this pathetic excuse for a man saved your life. Thank you very much. So what does that say about you?”
“Pfft, I was just having an off day, give me a full night's rest and I'd have killed all 4 of them without your help.”
“Sure you could have, whatever you say bud.”
With his last comment Bjorn’s mind started to churn at the change in demeanor while he was enslaved. Going from being okay with killing creatures, to now having his own part in killing multiple people in rather gruesome ways. The leap from one to the other was surprisingly easy, and oddly enough, the thought didn’t scare Bjorn really at all. And now he had just made a joke about how he killed 2 more men while standing in what most places on earth would consider a war crime. The absurdity of the situation was not lost on him.
“Hey, you alright?” Asked Alaric, all traces of a smile had left his face.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s find whatever would be useful and leave this place behind.”
After a moment Alaric nodded and said, “Alright, where do we start?” Both of their eyes fell on the little shack that was still standing. Simultaneously they both said. “Not there.” With a smirk on both of their faces they turned back around and all three of them started heading towards the guard house. Inside they found a large amount of gnoll and drow bodies. Taking it for what it was they started looting. The army had probably taken most of the really good stuff back with them, but what was left behind was better than what they currently had. Soon they had found enough clothes from the drow to fit both Bjorn and Meira fairly well, and they both had 3 sets, dressing himself and Meira with the least blood stained clothes he sat the other two sets aside for now. They had also found two different pairs of leather boots that would fit both his and Meira’s feet, quickly donning both they went back to looting. Unfortunately for Alaric none of the elves were both small enough, and wide enough to fit his bulky frame.
Quickly they left their makeshift weapons behind and had more fitting weapons. Bjorn got himself a nice ornate bow with a quiver, not knowing what Meira would use for a weapon he picked up a second one off of another drow, and plenty of arrows for both of them. Alaric settled on a large round shield and a hand ax with a rather wicked looking head. Bjorn also picked himself up a sword, With his sword came a belt so seeing how he was already carrying one he threw another one on for Meira if she wanted it. They found plenty of sheaths and all sorts of different sized knives and daggers, they both strapped multiple on themselves, under the pretense that “You never know.”. Bjorn found a set of chainmail off of a decapitated drow that would fit him, after trying it on though decided he didn’t like the weight of it on himself, leaving it behind he kept searching. Soon he came across a set of ringmail, which was a set of leather armor with multiple small metal rings affixed to the outside forming a pattern that should block most small blades. The weight wasn’t too much so he decided it was good enough and donned it.
Once both men were kitted out the best they could be they started walking down the tunnel heading towards Dekxot’s office. In this hallway there was a larger presence of drow in the dead then there were gnolls. The heavy door to Dekxot’s office had been blown open, peering into the room they her body lay torn in half, with her lower body laying on the ground and her upper body on top of her desk.
“Damn shame.” Commented Alaric. “She was the kindest gnoll I have ever met. If there were more like her, maybe there would be less aggression between her race and mine.” Dropping to one knee he bowed his head to pay his respects to her. After he got up and immediately started searching her room.
“Well that didn’t take you long.” Remarked Bjorn. Alaric just ignored him as he continued to look around the room, clicking his tongue.
“Ah ha!” exclaimed Alaric. “Quickly come here and help me.” Bjorn walked over to where Alaric was standing over a stone set in the floor. “This is a cover.” Looking at the stone it looked like it was all one stone and there was nothing to really make Bjorn think that it actually wasn’t just apart of the stone flooring.
“How do you know? It looked just like a normal stone floor to me. Are you sure you aren’t still loopy from our fight earlier?”
“Are you questioning my stone shaping prowess?” Before Bjorn had a chance to interject again Alaric powered on. “Of course you are, you are a dick. You see there, there, there, and there.” Alaric said as he pointed to each of the different corners of stone. “The grain of the stone isn't exactly right, the coloration is off.”
Bjorn got down on his hands and knees and got a closer look at the stone, from where he was the stone looked just like normal stone to him. “No, I don't see.”
“Well that’s because your a dumb ass, the stone rotates.” He placed his thumbs on either end of the stone and turned his thumbs, the stone underneath rotated as the rest of the stone remained in place. He rotated it to about 45 degrees before it no longer rotated, lifting his thumbs the small stone circles rotated back and fit seamlessly with the stone around it again. “Stop standing there gawking, get down here and help me get into this.” Bjorn, who was already on his knees, just gave the dwarf a flat look and set his thumbs to the corners of the stone opposite of where Alaric was kneeling and waited. The dwarf put his thumbs to the other side and then counted to three. On three they both rotated, and this time the sections of stone rotated past the 45 angle, when it got to 90 there was a click and the stone lifted upwards by about half an inch. Placing their hands on either side of the stone they lifted straight up, the stone was surprisingly heavy, but it lifted free just fine, revealing a cubby. Inside the cubby there were three books, two vials, a ring, and two different pouches. So Bjorn started using his identify Ability on all of the contents.
Book of arc lightning
Air magic. Level 56 required
Rarity: Rare
You lack the skill level to learn anything about this spell. Increase your magic level to learn more.
You lack the required level to learn this spell. Maybe if you didn’t spend so much time playing in the dirt you would have been able to learn this spell.
Book of weak bone mend
Life magic. Level 16 required
Rarity: Uncommon
You lack the skill level to learn anything about this spell. Increase your magic level to learn more.
You lack the required level to learn this spell. I would mock you a second time, but I feel like it would be pointless.
Simple Leather bound book
A book
Rarity: Common
Seriously it's just a book, open it up to find out more.
The ring was a simple band of copper, with elaborate carvings that looked like rope strands woven together. While holding it in his hand there was a faint thrum coming from the metal, something he hadn’t noticed before with his other magical gear.
Ring of salesmanship
Magical ring
Rarity: Uncommon
When wearing this ring prices will be 15% in your favor whenever you are bartering for a price.
The first of the two vials was just a small vial, one of the smallest vials Bjorn had ever seen. Inside the bottle was a small portion of liquid, roughly the size of three drops. The liquid was a silvery blue color. It also was emitting a soft silver fog that would roil up, and then settle back down and reinfuse into the liquid. On the outside of the vial there were small magic looking glyphs engraved into the glass.
Bottled mentality
Potion
Rarity: Legendary
Bottled mentality is a hard thing to make, it is made by literally siphoning someone's consciousness out of their body. The energies are then condensed into a liquid and then purified so all that is left is the mental energy. These mental energies are immensely beneficial to anyone’s mental strength and fortitude.
The second vial was more the size of an Erlenmeyer flask. Inside the second vial was a roiling cloud of pale red mist.
Trapped Agony
Ingredient
Rarity: Epic
Through labor extensive means the pain and agony of a person are drawn out of them and then trapped into this bottle. If uncorked without proper precautions the agony will be released and will try and find a new body to enhabit.
Completely forgetting about the bags of coins for the time being Bjorn looked at Alaric and said. “I think we just found a way to help Meira.” As he held up the smaller of the two vials.
“What is it?”
“It’s bottled mentality.” replied Bjorn excitedly.
There was a few seconds of silence as Alaric just kind of stared and Bjorn. “What’s that?” He asked kind of dumbly.
Shooting Alaric a look of annoyance. “Shut up and you’ll see.'' He walked over to where Meira stood, he gently lifted her chin up, then opened her mouth. Gently holding her head back in that position with one hand he used his teeth to uncork it, and took the liquid and poured it into her mouth, once it was in he closed her mouth and held it closed for roughly 30 seconds.
You have inhaled the fumes of mentality, it is a pure expression of mental energy, you feel reinvigorated, for the next 3 days your mana regeneration is increased by 300%. You also gain plus one to intelligence, and two to wisdom.
“This should work, just by breathing in the fumes of the liquid gained me three mental stat points!” exclaimed Bjorn excitedly. All he got was a nod in reply from the dwarf. They didn’t have to wait long before Meira’s eyes lost their sheen and came into focus.
“What the..?” She said before her eyes lost their focus again and started moving side to side. “What did you use on me!?” She exclaimed. “Oh my god.” She further exclaimed with her eyes coming back into focus she first affixed her attention on Bjorn, and then Alaric, then back to Bjorn. “I can’t decide which one of you to kiss first.” Apparently making up her mind she rushed forward and planted a rough kiss on Bjorn’s mouth. Her soft lips stayed there for a few seconds, then pulled away, turning around she bent down and did the same for Alaric. Bjorn’s mind went blank at the kiss, so he just stood there dumbfounded.
“Now look at what you’ve done Meira, you broke the kid, it was probably his first kiss.” Alaric jeered at the slack jawed stare he was giving Meira. His comment had a reaction on both of them. For Bjorn it made his jaw shoot closed so fast a clack could be heard from his teeth coming together. Then it made his face blush a vibrant red. For Meira it made her face and the tips of her nose and ears go red as well.
“It wasn’t my first kiss.” Bjorn said in a way that wouldn’t convince Alaric otherwise.
Trying to brush past her reaction to Alaric’s words she plowed ahead. “Whatever it was that you gave me increased my intelligence and wisdom by a good margin, my charisma a little bit, and permanently increased my mana regeneration. Whatever it was, it was probably too good to be used on me.”
Trying to also move on Bjorn replied. “Nonsense, it wasn’t too good to be used on you. We need you to get out of here.” All Alaric did was just stand there and smirk. “I-i-i mean we don’t NEED you, it would just be nice for you to come along under your own power.” The backtracking did nothing but fuel the fire that was Alaric’s smile. Looking at Meira there was something in her eyes, it was gone too quickly before Bjorn could register what it was. “Anyways, let’s get going. But first we have some clothes for you.”
They quickly got Meira caught up on everything that had happened, she was an attentive audience as she picked through the gear that they found on the dead. She oooo'd and awe’d at the right parts in the story. When they talked about the fight with Olvog and his subsequent death her face broke out into a grin. “I’m glad you took care of him, he deserved worse than what he got.” In the end she ended up with a bow, a magical staff, and a rather form fitting set of leather armor that left little to the imagination. She turned down the offer for the sword, but she did get two different style daggers which went onto her belt.
From there they started ransacking the rest of the guardhouse, in one room they found packs and tools that would be useful on the road. Rope, needle, thread, hammers, scissors, tinderbox with flint and steel, and waterskins to name a few. They got everything that they would need for exploring. Next they raided the kitchens and got more than enough hard travel food to last them a few weeks on the road. After the kitchens they went to the armory, which was mostly empty. Then onto the barracks, finding all sorts of other useful pouches with all the different knicknacks they could want. Lastly they went to the healers room.
Inside they found the dead gnoll which poisoned Bjorn with the death lotus nectar, and Rret. Upon finding them he spit on both bodies and whispered under his breath. “Bitches.” Then they ransacked what was left of the healer’s stores. Many of the herbs in there were one’s Bjorn had never seen or even heard of. He found himself an alchemy set to replace the one he lost, and plenty of glass vials. After he got the set in the pack he proceeded to fill the rest of it with alchemy ingredients he found. Then he looked around for a recipe book, he was sure the old witch had one, but he couldn’t find it anywhere. The last thing they did there was look around for potions, most of the stock of what was in there had been taken. They did get themselves a handful of vials which they split up and put into pouches for the time being.
After going through all of the guardhouse they decided they had stayed entirely way too long, who knew when something would be back, or if something new would come. So they started making their way out of the city. As they picked their way through the corpse riddled streets Bjorn used WAILA on all of the rings he could, he stopped whenever he found a magical ring and picked it off of the finger before moving onwards. Meira and Alaric stopped and waited for Bjorn initially, but after the 7th time they just kept moving forwards, and let Bjorn catch up.
The group were making their way towards the exit that had been blown open when Alaric let out a startled cry, which made both Bjorn and Meira go on alert. Meira drawing an arrow and Bjorn drawing his sword. But Alaric wasn’t dropping into a fighting stance so they relaxed. Following his gaze there was another smaller camp in the middle of the city. “Not for nothing, but I'm willing to bet that was a dwarf encampment.” He said as he started walking towards it. Following him they walked through a smashed stone wall. Inside they found what looked to be a stone workers shop, there were chisels and hammers all over the place. There were also tons of rough stones, half finished stones, and fully cut stones. There were only 3 dwarf bodies in the entire encampment. There were more tools laying around than could be used or needed for 3 dwarves.
“I knew it, I knew they had to have dwarf slaves somewhere down here, gnolls are terrible stone workers, all of this.” Alaric gestured to the surrounding destroyed and crumbling stone city. “Had to be made by someone. And now I know it was in fact dwarves. It’s a pity. I wonder what clan they were from.”
They did a quick search through the dwarves workshop, upon finding nothing of worth they kept moving onwards. Soon making it up the stairs leading to the way out of the cave. Standing at the top they took a look down at the ruins of the city that caused all three of them so much pain, and for at least two changed their viewpoint on the world.
“Where should we go now?” Asked Alaric.
“I think I could go for an open sky right about now.” Replied Bjorn. Meira quickly agreed with Bjorn.
“Alright, I might be able to lead us out of here. But before we go I have one final thing to do.” Turning back around to the gnoll settlement he hacked up a loogie and spit it down at the remains, before turning back around and heading down the tunnel.
The three companions traveled through the tunnels in companionable silence for most of their trip. Each of them had different things they had to work through mentally and so conversation didn’t flow often. It took them three days to find their way back to the surface, all of which were mostly uneventful. On the second day they had come across a slime big enough to engulf the entire tunnel, instead of trying to make their way through it they backtracked and went a different way. Each time they decided to stop for the day they took turns keeping watch, not that it mattered overly much. It was about halfway through the day when they got back to the surface. Making their way through a stalactite and stalagmite riddled tunnel they rounded the corner and there was an opening in the rock face directly in front of them. Making their way forward they went through the tunnel entrance and straight into a downpour. As they stood there getting soaked by the rain none of them complained, They all stood there in the rain, faces turned up, and breathing in the rich air. They were free.