I napped fitfully my first night in the dungeon, well I think it was night. I hadn't even passed a torch in several hours and with no sunlight the only way I could determine the time was when I got tired. I had found an especially dark nook and decided that it was probably the safest place to sleep. Even if someone came by with a torch, if they weren't looking directly into the crack in the wall they would probably pass right by me.
My ammunition collection had gone far better than expected and to avoid grabbing the wrong rocks by accident I decided that I had to get another sack in order to keep them separated. I ended up cutting the cover flap off my satchel making it into just a bag with a shoulder strap now.
Using my small blade I sharpened a piece of bone I'd picked up into a needle and after braiding a few strands of hair began sewing together the sides to make a long rectangular pouch. It was long like a sock which I could carry with one hand and store all my small unenchanted objects. In a pinch I could even use it as a makeshift sap to club someone over the head if I was lucky enough to catch them by surprise. This left my now open and easily accessible satchel for the enchanted items. I cut down the straps of my knee high sandals, turning them into regular sandals with just a single wrap around the ankle. Salvaging the extra leather cord from each foot gave me more than enough cord to make a shoulder strap for my new bag.
Next I decided to cut down my loincloth a bit. After a bit of awkward measuring I stitched the end in a loop around the rope belt in the back. This made it into a pair of underwear instead of just a piece of cloth draping in front of my junk, it also helped keep the breeze off a bit and gave me some more material to work with. I had just enough cord left from my sandals to make a sling with the strip I had cut off my loincloth. Once I've practiced a bit I should be able to fling exploding stones quite far. I hoped that it would give me more time to launch projectiles than just throwing them would.
Happy with my progress I decided it was time for bed and squeezed into the crack in the wall. I tried to get comfortable while nibbling on my meager rations and a sip from my water skin. With rocks jabbing me from nearly every side I curled up to get what sleep I could. I don't think I slept long and eventually gave up, I had some breakfast and a long drink of water.
My goal for this morning was to scribe the water rune on my waterskin allowing it to stay full so that even if I ran out of food I would always have fresh water. It didn’t take long to scribe the waterskin, I ended up putting the majority of the rune onto the bottom and sides of the cork. I then added the rest of the water rune to the opening so that once the cork was fitted into the skin it would begin filling replacing what had been used from moisture in the air.
This way every time I took a drink even if I drained it the skin would refill when corked. Since I had been practicing to get this result with the water rune before I was arrested it was fairly simple to figure out how to make the two partial runes work together. With my water supply squared away I tested several rocks with my new sling launching them back down the tunnel the way I had come. After using up most of my sack of unenchanted ammunition I was able to hit my target one time out of three.
Happy with the results of my training I placed an enchanted stone in the sling and began forward down the tunnel once again. I hoped that my nap didn’t put me too far behind the group that was keeping the road clear of bad guys. My goal was to catch up but stay far enough back that I wasn’t noticed. That way they would deal with the brunt of the monsters and I would be close enough to beg for aid should any monsters come up from behind. I came across more evidence that I was on the right track when I found another group of bodies, this time there were several goblin corpses strewn across the path.
The goblins had been stripped of everything useful and the only item I found was a broken spear haft. Unfortunately, the looters had taken the end with the pointy bit and left the shorter broken end next to a dead goblin. Deciding it would make a good knife handle for my sword point I picked it up, after finding nothing else I began sawing at the jagged broken ends with the sword tip and continued walking.
By the time I found the next group of monster remains I had cleaned the stick and carved a notch in the wood to tie my blade point into. Scribing runes of protection onto the knife handle in a way that would promote durability I hoped that the magic would be enough to keep the crude knife from falling apart the first time I tried to use it.
After scribing my knife I searched the remains of the group of goblin corpses and to my surprise the bodies were still fairly warm, I was getting close. I would have to be far more careful going forward to make sure I didn’t alert the group to my presence. My guess was that with no human bodies in either of these battles the group ahead of me had to be that wealthy criminal who had purchased that large group of slaves. If that was the case and I stumbled upon them, I would most likely be cut down before I could even ask to join their party.
I thought it would be much safer to continue following them deeper into the dungeon. At this rate I expected to reach the first settlement before I even had to worry about food, rationing the way I was there should be several days of food left as long as I wasn’t discovered.
Not even finding broken weapons from this group I moved forward, trying even harder to stay in the shadows while keeping up my speed, I didn’t want to lose them if there was another split in the tunnels. I followed the group like that for nearly a full day. Moving forward as fast as possible while still remaining stealthy and then stopping to search the aftermath of the groups skirmishes with the locals.
The only other times I stopped was to relieve myself on the nearest wall and to occasionally get a drink and snack on my travel rations. They never left me anything useful, stripping even the cloth fragments I suspected the goblins wore, though not seeing a live goblin I suppose these ones could run around naked.
The biggest threat they had come across so far that day was an orc, I found the corpse of one of the male slaves and a large muscular green orc. The group had stripped both bodies and even pried the orc’s tusks from it's jaw leaving me with yet another naked body to look over before pressing on empty handed. It made me wonder if they knew I was behind them, perhaps they had seen me groping the first corpse I found and mistook me for a necrophiliac. It almost makes me wish I had been an apprentice necromancer rather than a runesman, I would have an army of undead by now to do my bidding.
A sudden shout broke the silence, echoing down the tunnel from up ahead. With my heart racing I ducked into the nearest shadow and began to slink forward as quietly as possible. I soon came to an intersection and before me was the large slave group, it's master standing in the middle shouting orders.
They had been assaulted by a few orcs along with several goblins, though only two orcs stood and most of the goblins were either dead or severely injured. The slaves fought very well, at least to my eyes they did, they fought as a team working with the one standing next to them.
Whenever the orcs left an opening the one to the left and right of him would slash at him or stab with their rusty swords. The slave fighters eventually moved so that they encircled the two orcs that remained and quickly cut them down. The criminal with the masters bracelet never even broke a sweat, standing in the center of his army shouting “kill it!, kill it!” over and over.
Once the battle was over they began looting the bodies, I was surprised that only one of the human fighters was injured, the orcs must not have been very good warriors. Hobbling around with the rest of the group he took a dirty loincloth off of one of the orcs and began to bind a large gash on his leg. The criminal still shouting orders noticed him bandaging his leg and ordered the slave to stand before his master.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
To my horror, the man drew his sword and slashed the throat of the injured slave in one smooth stroke. After the slave toppled to the ground he pointed his sword at the next nearest slave saying something before pointing to the body of the man he had just cut down. The slave bowed her head and came forward to begin stripping the body of its valuables.
I couldn’t believe he would do such a thing, it was such a blatant waste of life, sure they were all going to die sooner or later but to kill a man just because he would slow down the group a little bit while he healed seemed wrong to me. His blade glinted off of the fire light in the intersection and I noticed that of all the weapons in the group his was the only one not rusty.
Upon closer inspection I realized it was missing it's tip as well, that meant that this man is the one who killed the woman in the entryway. I guess that explains why she was dead and stripped. She must have gotten injured early on or possibly even said something he didn't like so he cut her down. I watched for a good 30 minutes while they looted all the bodies. The only delay was when the leader ordered one of the female slaves to service him while the others looted corpses.
He gripped her hair tight as she knelt before him, still shouting at the others while she worked. Once finished he hoisted her back up to her feet by her hair, then slapping her on the ass he pointed down one of the hallways. After passing around a waterskin they started on down the passage once again.
I remained hidden and only moved once they had faded into the shadows of the corridor ahead, I didn’t even need to search this group since watching them loot the bodies assured me that there was nothing at all left for me to take. They had even taken the slave collar off the dead man, the killing blow to his neck had just missed it.
I almost stumbled into their camp an hour later, I was getting tired but didn’t want to stop until they did. I should have been paying more attention, if it had been a monster camp and I was spotted, I'd have probably been forced to stay for dinner. There was so much noise coming from their camp that the two guarding each end of the tunnel didn’t hear my muffled curse. That pig of a man was having his way with one of the female slaves again while the others not on watch tried to sleep. Taking careful steps back the way I’d come I found a small crevice in the wall and slid into it. I could just make out the silhouette of the guard watching my end of the tunnel. Laying my head on the stone floor I closed my eyes and tried to get some sleep.
I woke some time later with a start, the disturbing dream I had fading as cognition returned. I peeked out the crevice and looking up the tunnel I groaned, the guard was gone. I must have slept through them packing up the camp and moving. Hoping I wasn't far behind them I hurriedly did my morning business and set off down the tunnel.
Snacking on rations and having a long pull from my waterskin helped to wake me the rest of the way as I walked. I came across the remains of another battle not long after passing their camps location in the tunnel. Several more dead goblins and another dead slave with minor injuries. What was that idiot thinking, if he kept killing off his slightly injured warriors rather than letting them die in battle he would run out of slaves long before we ever made it to the village. It struck me while I was picking thru the bodies that I may have to try and kill the man. If I could kill him without injuring any of the others, they might just aid me in getting to the village, especially since I wouldn’t kill them off every time one of them stubs a toe.
To that end I decided I needed to practice more, both my runesman abilities and my sling skills needed to improve greatly. In order to do this I decided that every time I stopped to search bodies I would also scribe an exploding stone and fling all the other pebbles I find back down the tunnel the way I had come. Searching the next battle site I found 4 stones, making one of them into an exploding stone didn't take long at all. I had half a dozen in my sack now and aside from the one water rune I had made for my waterskin it's all I've done.
Getting ready to fling a stone I looked back trying to decide where to aim. It's very hard to practice when you don't have a target, so in the end I decided to prop up a goblin. I drug the body over and propped it up against the wall, like it was sleeping and using the wall as a backrest. All three stones missed unfortunately and I had to move on so I wouldn't lose the party. Rocks from a sling, even exploding ones do no good when you can’t hit anything. As bad as my aim was I definitely needed to focus more on collecting ammunition.
Moving forward I spent less time trying to slink from shadow to shadow and more time looking for loose stones that would fit into my sling. By the time I made it to the next pile of bodies I had 8 stones. Keeping with the routine I had set, I scribed another exploding stone and the rest went into the sling for practice. It may have been luck but this time, the goblin target I had made was struck twice, once in the torso and once was a glancing blow on the head. With a successful round of training done I quickly moved on after picking up the stone that had hit the torso.
The next battle I came across appeared to have been a bloody one, there were close to a dozen goblins and one large orc. There were also 2 dead humans with only one having their throat slashed. Both were female, and both had their hair cut off, so it seems that they may have had the same idea that I did with the hair rope.
I checked the women for any naughty jewelry and tried not to grope them in the process just in case they came back as ghosts or perhaps if Master Bertol was watching my progress. I was gentle and even managed to keep my blushing to a minimum when moving the naked bodies. One of them had been cut up pretty bad, she had slashes all over her body so she must have died early in the battle.
Lucky for me I was finally starting to get used to the smell since it took me quite a while groping through all the blood and entrails to ensure that there wasn't any useful metal bits hiding. Finding nothing of value from this battle either, I rubbed my hands in the dirt to get the blood off and then launched a few more stones at another goblin corpse.
Starting to get tired again I decided it's probably better to begin sneaking once more, luckily I found their camp just round the next tunnels bend. It seemed they had been there for a bit, the place they camped was another larger intersection, it had four tunnels that I could see, not including the one I was hiding in.
Shitter had all their burlap sacks on the ground and was sorting thru them and re-equipping his troops with the best of what they had collected. I decided to name the criminal shitter, since it was the closest thing I could think of to the feeling I get in my gut when looking at him. He is such a foul man that I was definitely sure he’s the kind of person this dungeon was originally created for.
Once done playing with the loot he moved onto playing with one of the girls. That’s when I decided it was time for bed, walking back down the tunnel I found a lip near the floor that I could just slide into and be out of sight. So unless someone knew it was there or I was snoring it should be safe, I could just faintly hear shitter grunting in the distance.
“Hopefully I'll be close enough this time to wake up when they pack up to leave in the morning.”
I tossed my fire bone into the crack, the small flame produced a little light helping to ensure there wasn't any creepy crawlies in there. The initial flash had burned a large web and killed several small spiders, that’s when I decided I needed a light, who knows what i’d slept with the last few nights. I remembered Master Bertol making some jewelry with simple stones that would glow when rubbed. Rubbing one direction would turn them on and the other direction would turn it off.
I stowed my bags in the crevice once I knew it was clear and began studying my journal in the flickering fire light. After finding the glowstone rune I spent some time trying to puzzle out how it was different from the standard fire rune. I flipped the pages a few extra times to make sure it looked like I was studying more than I actually had.
I pulled out a smaller stone and began scribing. The first stone I made to glow too hot and it eventually caught fire, this was to give myself a bit of practice and fool anyone thinking I already had the rune. The second was also too hot and too bright, I ended up tossing it deeper into the crack so it wouldn't be seen while it burned itself out.
The next stone I made was too dim, this one I kept as an emergency light. Since it was so dim it would last far longer than the one I intended to use daily would. If my main glowstone burnt out and I were stuck in an area with no lights at all I could still have enough light to scribe a new, proper glowstone.
Pocketing the dim one I finally made a light that I could use reliably, it ended up about as bright as a torch and if I cupped it in my hand I could have just a single beam of light shining forward. I decided while laying down to sleep that I need to find a bone or stick tomorrow. One that I could hollow out the end and insert a glowstone, this would be far easier to carry and point than cupping the rock in my hand was.