Pitch black darkness, hungry Ghouls behind him, and an even scarier foe before him. Was this not what all good adventures were made of? Skrakch considered humming a jaunty tune, but he knew Winifred would join in. Considering how often he’d heard her drunkenly sing, he knew he’d end up regretting it. It was much better for his sanity, and his ears, to keep quiet.

“Are ye sure this is leading us somewhere Skrakch? It feels like we’ve been walking for hours with nae sign of anything.” Winifred whined, and not the first time. Almost the entire time they’d been walking she’d kept up a steady litany of complaints. Whether it was the fact that she couldn’t see anything or listing her various injuries that were aching or bleeding in some way. “I’ve got a sore head, and all this fucking mud is hardly helping.” She continued as if on cue, kicking her feet with a splash.

“Gods Below Winnie! If you ask me that one more time, I’m turning around and feeding you to a Ghoul.” Skrakch said, irritated as he began half dragging his companion forward. It was no mean feat for him considering their difference in size.

To be fair to her, he thought to himself, the last time he’d fully drained his Core of Mana, he’d passed out for a few days. Hell, even when he’d woken up, everything had hurt for a week afterward. There was a reason most people never went below half Mana if they could help it. The more you spent, the longer it took to recover. So when you spent your last drop in battle and failed to kill your opponent? Then you were just meat on the chopping block.

“Can ye at least smell something different? Like the markets? Aye...a good old steak and ale pie would do me some good right now.” She said in an almost dreamy tone. Skrakch wouldn’t have at all been surprised if she doused him with a liberal amount of slobber. “I wonder how long it took Gregore to make his way through this muck. Can you imagine his face? I bet he fell on his ugly arse.” Winifred crowed weakly.

Taking a deep breath, Skrakch tried to parse the different scents in the air. There was mud from all directions, death and blood from behind, and a fresh breeze coming from before them. It was getting less and less present though. Nose quivering, he did pick up a new smell, a greasy thick smell of sweat. He screwed up his face in disgust.

“Looks like we’re getting close. So what’s the plan? Something tells me we’re not going to be able to take him in a fight.” Skrakch says.

“Oi! Ye tryin’ to have a go?” Winnie asked, clearly affronted. “That cheatin’ beggar didn’t say anything about weapons! Anyways...yer supposed to be clever. Think of your own plan!”

“Of course, not Winnie,” Skrakch replied soothingly. Although, if he was honest, he was kind of ‘having a go’ as she would put it. He’d feel a lot safer if she’d actually managed to do the massive brute some more harm other than a broken jaw. “Maybe he’ll be in a better mood than expected!”

“We trashed the arena he was the Champion of, killed his employer and got him attacked by Ghouls. Aye, I bet he’s waiting to throw us a parade.” Winifred scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“See, that doesn’t sound so bad!” Skrakch grinned, hoping for the best. “The upside of it all is that he’ll still have quite a difficult time speaking!”

Pressing onwards, they began to see a light in the distance. Speeding up, they walked into a larger cavern, wide enough to fit multiple Human males side by side. There were small puddles of water here and there, obviously created from the dripping stalagmites above. Winnie, forgetting herself, rushed to the nearest puddle and splashed some of the water onto her face letting out a groan of relief as she did so.

Skrakch could see Gregore at the other end of the opening. He was standing by a ladder that most likely led back to the surface. It was probably some secret escape route of Rodyr’s designed for emergencies. The large man was incapable of pulling much in the way of facial expressions, his jaw was bound up tight with a piece of filthy material with a knot on top of his head giving him a slightly ridiculous appearance. There was nothing silly about the look in the eyes, however.

“I’m glad to see you both made it,” Gregore said as they approached him. With his jaw completely bound, he was forced to speak with gritted teeth. The effect was altogether pretty hilarious, or so Skrakch thought.

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

“I wasn’t sure if you would get free, a Mana-deprived woman and a filthy rat. I wonder, did you have a method to control the Undead? Or were you just stupid enough to risk your neck bringing them here. Either way, I hope you have a good reason for me not to slice you apart, because I don’t favor the odds against you here.” Gregore continued with difficulty, hefting his greatsword high in the air.

Taking a deep breath, Skrakch left Winifred to stand on her own shaky legs. Stepping a bit closer to the Champion, he fetched one of the bags of coins he’d stolen, tossing it at Gregore’s feet.

“Listen, that’s half of what we got from Rodyr’s safe. We both know the old Bull had a lot of gold coming in from the arena fights. I bet you barely got a fraction of the income. Maybe you grab that bag, and we both go our separate ways.” Skrakch grinned cheekily, hoping the man wouldn’t call his bluff. One-quarter of their ill-gotten gains was definitely worth his life, after all.

Sweeping the bag up in an instant, Gregore tossed the bag in the air, testing its weight. “Not bad, this is a lot of coin, But what’s stopping me from killing you for the other half?” He smirked, pointing the massive blade towards Skrakch.

“Come now, it’s two versus one. And we both know the Wraiths will notice this escape route eventually. Do you have the time to kill us before they swoop on through?” Skrakch countered as he stepped away from the young man.

“One cripple, and one cowardly rodent. Let’s be real, it won’t take me more than a minute.” Gregore states, stepping towards them, his intent clear as day.

“Actually, it’s one cripple, one Iskrin, and one dashing rogue.” Stepping out of the shadows behind Winifred and Skrakch, Zacharias gave a small bow as a cheeky grin split his face. “Plus, the last thing I saw before skipping down the hatch myself was the Wraiths clearing out most of the Ghouls. We have a few minutes tops.” He warned. “And I wouldn’t keep arguing mate because frankly, you sound fucking ridiculous.” Zach chortled, mimicking Gregore’s current way of talking.

Scoffing slightly, Gregore looked them over appraisingly. “Alright, one bag will have to do. Pleasure doing business. But the next time I see any of you, you’d best watch your back.” As much as he tried to make the threat sound intimidating, in his current condition, it came up short and he knew it.

Turning swiftly, the Champion shot up the ladder with remarkable speed, leaving Skrakch and Winifred to stare at Zach.

“Looks like I earned my share after all, eh? Let’s give it a moment, we don’t want to climb up to a blade in the throat”, Zach chuckled, walking over to the ladder and looking upwards. “I don’t know about you guys, but that guy seemed seriously dodgy.”

“Hold on a minute, how did you get down here!” Winifred pointed a shaky finger at him. “The hole was packed with Ghouls.”

Shrugging casually, Zach shook his head. “I saw you all jump down there, but not long after the Ghouls lost interest. It was a simple enough matter to make my way over after that.”

Laughing uproariously, Skrakch walked over and clapped the Halfling on the shoulder. “I knew you’d make it out fine.” He paused for a moment and sniffed the air. His nostrils were assaulted with the acrid stench of rot. It seemed to be emanating from Zach’s clothing in fact. “Well that’s just disgusting,” Skrakch said, taking a few steps back.

“You say disgusting, I say ingenious,” Zach replied with an easy shrug. “Don’t run the risk of getting your arse bit if you smell like death itself.”

“Well then, I supposed everything worked out,” Skrakch said. He was actually a little surprised, maybe even impressed that Zach had come up with such an escape plan.

“You mean other than almost being eaten alive? I swear you have a death wish mate.” Zach groaned out, before turning his open palm towards Skrakch. “Well, let’s see what we almost died for. It better be worth your weight in gold!”

Rooting around in his pockets, Skrakch pulled the remaining three pouches loose, tossing them to Zach. Pulling them open, the Halfling froze for a moment, staring into the pouches.

“You… you bloody idiot! This was all that was in his safe?” Zach roared out, tossing the pouches at Skrakch. “It’s nothing but food tokens, you bloody vermin. We just stole a lifetime's supply of moldy bread!”

Quickly snatching the pouches up, Skrakch upended them, pouring out batches of copper coins, each with the picture of a strand of wheat on them.

“No way, this was in his safe under his bed, why the hell would he keep food tokens in a safe!?” Skrakch asked incredulously as he stared at the piles.

Chuckling quietly to herself, Winifred barely managed to gasp out, “Under his bed? Did you think the Lord kept his gold under his bed like a child? You fucking thick brained muppet.”

Shaking his head, Zach just sighed. “Let’s get out of here before Gregore realizes we just gave him less than copper. Odds are good he’ll be even more pissed at Skrakch than we are.”

Staring at the coins in disbelief, Skrakch couldn’t help but grumble to himself. “But it was the perfect plan…”