Sorry for the delay on this one. I have no excuse beyond procrastination and that I'm planning out the next arc.

However this chapter is a little longer than usual, so I hope you enjoy!  :)

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I regretfully leave the room, leaving behind witchy possessions unplundered, left to rot and be nibbled away by rats.

Not that I've ever seen any rodents in the Forgotten Lands anyway. Any that I may eventually find are likely to be six-foot tall with a taste for human flesh.

As we exit, the only direction for us to travel is east to the area labelled ‘Directional Hub'.

Like previous tunnels, it is littered with off-shooting rooms, most structurally intact but others less so.

However, all of these rooms are empty with little intact within, the purpose of them being lost with the race that carved them out of the stone.

Soon enough we neared a set off large metal doors, similar to those encountered before, though this one appears to be left ajar. Likely since it is incredibly inconvenient to open if you don't happen to have a group of burly men at hand.

Stood in front of these doors are two gnolls, looking far more inattentive than you'd hope from a guard. Furthermore, the don't even have their weapons on them, but rather have them against a wall two metres away.

If they were paying more attention at their post they would've noticed the archers aiming their bows at them.

They quickly died, making far more noise than I'm comfortable with.

Lets just hope there isn't an army on the other side of these doors

Stepping over one of the dead monsters, I walk over to the wall and pick up one of their spears to use as a javelin if necessary, since I lack a bow.

Curiosity is killing me, so I take point rather than Argus.

Moving up to the imposing door, I creep to the half a metre gap just big enough to walk through without issue, bringing me to the edge of the door.

I get as low as humanly possible, without actually being on the floor, and peek around the corner of the door.

The room is circular with a diameter pushing 30 metres, with an ornate domed ceiling that has had most of its previously intricate details washed away by time.

Although the most noticeable features by far was hanging in the centre of the room by a large metal chain.

A huge clock about five metres in diameter, or what I assume is a clock based on what has been described by a few merchants from rich cities. Though instead of being mounted onto a tower, it is attached to a cube, allowing three additional clocks to allow at least one to be visible from anywhere in the room.

One of the hands twitches repetitively whilst the other remains motionless.

I guess not all magic fuelled technology can stand the test of time.

Or perhaps it just needs to be powered.

Drawing my eyes downwards, there are tons of benches in various states of damage.

Around the on the opposite side of the room is a door identical to our own, possibly the one with access to the area the other group is clearing.

In addition to this door are three others, one the same as these two doors except for two metal statues at either side of the doors, fashioned after a giant humanoid with a height of around three metres, with a large hammer in hand.

In fact, these are similar in design to those constructs in the previous ruin that cleared out the rubble, all be it far larger and with very visible damage to both. So if these are suppose to be more than decoration, they hopefully won’t be functional anymore… hopefully.

From the general look of things and the name of this room, ‘Directional Hub’, this appears to be a gathering area for the ruins similar to that of a town centre.

Perhaps there were once vendors around here and hundreds flittering around, maybe more judging by the immensity of this room.

Looking at this is almost painful, a place so full of life to become so desolate.

Forgotten.

I have yet to visit an actual full sized city and had such expectation for the wonderment to be found there, but it is hard to imagine it being anything more than a shadow of the lost beauty found in such a dangerous place. 

What truly happened here?

I raise my hand, beginning to indicate for everyone to follow me into the room, freezing mid-gesture.

The initial shuffling of feet stopping suddenly behind me.

I’m certain I heard something.

Sure enough the noise slowly grows larger, repetitive thudding, still distant.

Crap, that’s the sound of marching!

I hastily make the hand sign for a large group of enemies and step back from the door to avoid the corner of my head being spotted, though everyone else surely can hear the sound themselves.

A loud bang occurs as one of the doors open, but the large room echoes around, making it difficult to hear which door actually opened.

The marching resumes with the near thunderous sound being a huge contrast to the earlier silence, being further amplified by the spartan room, turning the noise of a possible fifty men into that of an army.

Everything still becomes gradually louder and I begin to move backwards only to fond everyone far behind where I last saw them, gradually inching away from the booming legion.

This remind me of a children's story in my village about a giant scared away by an enlarged shadow of a mouse.

It would be hilarious if this turns out to be four people, but not nearly as laughable as all of the idiots who will be insulting others about their cowardice, forgetting the new stains in their pants.

Just as I am sure they are upon us the deafening parade quietens ever so slightly, and continues to do so little by little.

So Ii begin to move back to the door and risk a look at their numbers, ignoring hushed curses stabbing me in that back, though no one appears to be concerned enough to go after me.

Let them shake in their boots and grasp onto their weapons until their fingers wither into dust, I’m going either way.

Arriving back at the door I resume my previous position and prepare to peak around its corner.

“Garzt von thark a’hurm on loxitar!” A low voice snarls out what seems to be an order in whatever abyssal tongue that is native to their species, confirming that they are gnolls.

Unlike what most might believe and what drivel is likely fed to the public, these guys are fully intelligent and probably capable of being communicated with provided they are trying to kill you all the time.

However, I doubt these guys actually have a choice in obeying the witches, not that they are normally nice people otherwise.

A second later a deep grinding reverberates through the air, almost drowning out the grunts of those opening the far more uncooperative door.

Getting low and peeking out of the door shows the speaker to be a gnoll with red markings staining his fur, indicating him as one of the higher ups in charge of the regular wolf-men.

In front of him are somewhere between 20 and 30 of his kind, all filtering through the newly opened door.

The very door I suspect leads to the other group.

The other group might be fine, especially since they’d likely hear them coming far before they got anywhere near.

Again, their blatant lack of caution helps assure me they still have no idea we're here.

Once they move further into the tunnel, I walk out from behind the door, shortly followed by the rest of the group. 

“How many?” Says Argus as he moves up to me.

“Maybe thirty, all gnolls and one of those red-painted ones. Headed off in the direction of the second group and from how they were acting they still don’t know we’re here.”

“Ahh damn, them leaders ar’ a pain to kill.” Lt. Hywel growls, spitting at the ground.

“We still should be able to take that many though with surprise on our side, so there should be no problem” Argus remarks with a smug grin.

These idiots are planning on doing something unnecessary.

“No, we don’t need to take any of them at all, don’t go out of our way to kill stuff that isn’t our problem.

We should wait here for the other group to arrive.”

Argus quickly rolls his eyes and comments.

“Except if they get caught off guard they won’t be coming at all.”

“They should have the same number of people as us, and you can hear that furball parade from half a mile away, no one is getting caught unaware.

Even if they decided to fight them rather than let them pass, which would be the sensible choice, they are perfectly capable of disposing of them.”

As I’m beginning to get work up over this lt. Hywel lets out a small chuckle.

“ ’cept your forgettin’ that half of those are a bunch of bumbling’ fools sent from the ‘Taldarian scoutin’ division’, or somethin’ stupid.

Surprised they even managed to get here, and even then it’s with twice the losses!

Sure they could hide them out, but if they do get found, I ain’t so sure they’d be fine.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Plus we don’t know how many losses they got already. Could all be dead for what we know.”

“Fine, it’s their fault if they can’t handle it though, and any of our casualties are on both of your hands.”

I hate having to put myself at risk for fear of someone else's incompetence. It’s why I normally employ a ‘idiots are left to die’ policy.

To emphasise my disapproval I walk at the back of the group rather than my usual pioneering frontal position.

Obviously I still have Torben besides me as well, so they lost two awesome people at the front. That’ll show them!

As we walk though the door left open by the gnolls, I quickly touch the damaged stone tablet besides it.

‘Gol-- sub-m--ules + Transport and ---kaging’

We move at a fast pace, slightly behind that of a jog, in order to catch up to our prey.

I can certainly hear them, but I can’t see them with everyone else in front of me.

I’m starting to regret my decision to sulk at the back. I’m certainly not going admit it though, nor will I lower myself by creeping back up to the front.

With a signal from the Argus we slow down and crouch, allowing me a moment to properly see what’s ahead.

It appears that this main tunnel ends in a cave in, though the gnolls are slowly filtering through a set of double doors just before the dead-end, likely a way around the blockage.

Once the gnolls close the doors, we hurry forwards and surround the door.

Slightly to the left of the doors is a small white line, marked recently by chalk.

Therefore I move closer to Argus to inform him, pushing through most of the group to get there.

“There is a marking on the wall to indicate the other group has passed through here.

Since we haven’t ran into them, I’m assuming they exited this room only to retreat back into it once they heard the gnolls coming.

So depending on how far they back-tracked, they’re probably somewhere in this room provided there are places to hide.”

Argus pauses for a second in thought before replying

“Then this room should make a great slaughterhouse.”

“By the way, leave the officer to me. I have plans for him.” I say just loud enough for everyone else to hear me. 

Argus looks at me strangely for a moment before shrugging his shoulders and preparing to open the doors.

On a silent count of three the door open in a smooth, soundless motion.

The marching that was muffled by the metal door returns, but this room doesn’t echo and amplify the noise like the previous room, so the prior stampede dulls to non-deafening levels.

Though the height of the ceiling of this room doesn’t compare to the directional hub we came from, its size is almost the same.

However this room is far from empty.

It resembles the maintenance room from earlier, with lots of scrap and metal covering the room, sometimes scattered randomly or roughly piled up with similar pieces. Except this room is much, much larger.

Also the nature of this room is clearly different, with not a single thing being remotely recognisable to me, with the only exception being a very damaged small metal man, identical to those in the previous ruin. A ‘Clockwork Gnome’ I believe a sign referred to them as.

In addition to the scrap and spare parts, there must be around 50 work benches regularly spaced around the room.  

Saying that there are plenty of places to hide would be an understatement.

The group moves closer to the gnolls moving through the centre of the room and scatters into different pieces of cover.

I decide to move a little closer, moving into the shadow of an odd metal head just over half the size of myself. As I do so, I notice the slightest of movement at the opposite end of the room amongst a messy pile of junk.

Gnolls towards the back of the group begin to call out in pain as arrows seemingly come from nowhere and bury themselves in their backs.

As the entire group turns towards us, the red marked gnoll begins to shout. Whether this is an order or just plain vulgarity is hard to tell with the vicious sound that make up their language.

Another two gnolls at the front of the group fall, alive for now but disabled.

The gnoll officer grabs one of his kin besides him and pulls it in front of him, a moment later an arrow embeds itself in the unfortunate shield, only to be tossed aside like a sack of potatoes.

“Darrum uth gar yoi noth!”

The officer growls out, making a vague gesture in our direction.

Our enemies run towards us, darting between cover whilst searching for their ambushers.

Four however stayed besides the officer, who is now casually walking towards us, his eyes clearly focused on one of our archers in near perfect cover.

He moves his head slightly as said archer looses a second arrow towards him, which lightly brushes past his jaw and draws the faintest trickle of blood.

Picking up one of his dying comrades spears, he throws it into the shadow a few metres behind me. Resulting in a thud and a small grunt from what I assume is now a dead ally.

The dying gnoll the spear belonged to is quickly picked up and takes an arrow in the chest meant for the officer.

Still holding out his furry shield makes eye contact with me, still walking forwards at his relaxed pace.

As I’m further forwards than the rest of the group, the searching gnolls have just passed me, leaving open space between me and the red gnoll’s bodyguards.

After glancing behind me to ensure I’m not going to be stabbed in the back, I step out from the shadows and swagger towards the officer.

Almost challenging him to see who’s walk gives the least shits.

As we slowly walk towards each other, I position myself between him and the archer who clearly wasn’t listening when I said, ‘leave the officer to me. I have plans for him.’

Finally his cold expressionless face breaks into a toothy grin, which I return with my own malicious smirk.

“Varuth gote nastor vo.”

With these words his bodyguards separate from his side and move around me.

Judging from their annoyed faces, this is because they were told to ignore me rather than to stab me in the flank. Leaving only me and a certain blood-thirsty wolf.

Just as I am about to come at him, a wounded gnoll jumps up from the ground before either me or the red gnoll can react and prepares to run me through.

A second before he reaches me, a green flash of light comes from the unoccupied area of the room, in which I earlier caught a glimpse of movement.

The wounded spear-wielder hit the ground just before my feet, a glowing green arrow lodged deep into his skull, making a slight sizzling noise.

A glance over the area I saw the green flash and see nothing further. From the expression of the red gnoll, I assume he has the same result.

As both of us force our attentions towards each other I give a slight shrug and begin to move towards him once more.

My shortsword in my main hand, and my parrying dagger in the other.

Once I get to edge of his spears range, his point comes between the two of us and we begin to match each others footwork.

Constantly keeping the same distance, while I make it difficult for any of my allies to shoot an arrow at him.

We begins to sway to and fro, with him making non-committal jabs at me.

His spear point quickly moving at my face, and then at my feet in the next tempo.

He is worryingly quick.

With a small lunge forward his spear moving towards me faster than I can follow it, I’m prompted mirror his movement backwards. Leaving his spear near touching my throat.

As he moves his spearhead back I strike at it with my dagger to push it aside.

With this I quickly rush towards him to finally close the distance between us.

However, with a skilful display of footwork he nimbly matches my speed and readjusts his spear to hold me back once again.

Stopping in my tracks I quickly shift to the left, narrowly avoiding loosing my right leg to a quick thrust.

Before I can use this to move into swords reach, the spear again halts my advance.

I can easily see a reckless lunge resulting in me being impaled.

This fight stays at a stalemate for a little longer, with both of us being too cautious for a quick victory.

But as the remaining gnoll are cleaned up, Torben arrives with a newly ‘acquired’ crude spear.

As Torben begins to attack, it is obvious that he is far less experienced with it, but this provides the opportunity I need.

I lunge it the gnoll who clearly sees me coming, but realises he is helpless as he redirects a reckless thrust at his legs.

I drop my shortsword as I close the distance and punch the gnoll straight in the face.

Before he can recover, the blunt end of Torben’s weapon smashes down into his skull, knocking him unconscious.

As a couple more people arrive I stand over the corpse to ensure no idiot tries to kill him after I went through all this trouble.

“As I said earlier, I need this one.

So someone get me some damn rope!”