"You seem like an uncommonly wise boy," Said the lovely elf whose name was Lady Lydia. "Will you serve me?"
"Of course!" You squeak, exited at the prospect of serving the long-legged, blonde, immortal female.
You think you hear a murmur of suppressed laughter from the human men, though they present somber faces as they await your response. But before he could reply, Enor, the shirtless human who wielded his sword for no reason, claps you on the back and says, “Good lad, I know that this is a simple task, but one that you will relish. Spy out the way of things down the next tunnel and return in safety.” They had out maneuvered you and there was nothing more to be said.
Muttering blackly to yourself, trying to think of a poison that would cause Enor a painful death, you set about making preparations for the dangerous reconnaissance.
As you do so, the old man announces: "Here is the next passage!" and a wall falls away into blackness.
Leaving the owl to spy on the humans and the elf as they settle into the relative safety of the room you wrap your dark green cloak around yourself, and quietly slip down the new tunnel with only Foxy beside you, skipping with excitement.
You soon realize that you are still underground. But where under the wood are you? There is a chill stale breeze. You do not recognize anything, how large of an area did these ruins encompass?
"Beware, Young Master, your fingers are nimble but your feet are not!" Warns foxy. You look around and see that you are walking on a narrow ledge above a massive quarry, off to the right there is an incredibly sheer drop down into deadly depths. You move silently downward across the dark ledge until the sound of a river can be easily heard. Then, with Foxy following close at his heels, You sneak among the large boulders that line the river, you and the large fox and the bird gradually worked your way toward a shallow ford in the bend of the river.
You are eventually rewarded with a clear view of a battleground. It is not an encouraging sight.
A caravan is stretched across the underground river. One wagon rested on your side of the black, rushing river, three more stand axle-deep in the gravel of the river itself, and six are on the other side of the river.
You begin to weave a scene together in your mind. The caravan was recently attacked. The dead of both sides are strewn around the wagons like leaves after the first frost. Thin cold moonlight pouring down from some unknowable crack in the ruins high above outlines their still forms in the Fox's nightvision which you share in. For the defenders you able to pick out at least twelve dead humans alongside the silent form of a sad, felled troll. As to the aggressors, more than forty corpses of demon spawned snake-people litter the ground, what a waste.
But even as you allow such fanciful thoughts to cross your mind, thin cries erupt from the beleaguered wagons. Excitement washes over you as more than two hundred snake-people emerge from the shadows on the other side of the river, flanking the wagons, they began to advance.
A meager flight of arrows streaked from behind the wagons and falls short, striking none. The snake-people armed with short spears continue on in relentless waves.
You stare at the snake people, for you had never actually seen one. Their skin was an unusual substance that covered their body like scaled armor and could deflect all but the most direct hits they were subterranean creatures most often found in humid, dark places like this. They had obviously found out about this secret caravan and begrudged the city where it was bound. You know that the pupil of the snake-people was similar to that of a cat and opened in darkness to utilize whatever light was available. Their night vision was exceptional, possible better than yours, it must be for the dark underground environs they inhabit. The human defenders, on the other hand, were both hampered by the dark and exhausted.
There would be more unauthorized killing unless some great power was about to appear and quell both sides.
The odds of that were not worth calculating.
Since you cannot bring about a truce on your own you decide to get the hell out of there. You have no wish to get swept up in this; although you have horded rumors about what snake-women did to male human prisoners—placing them in cages and using them sexually until they begged for death... that sounded pretty wonderful...
Foxy suddenly alerts, there is someone right behind you! |