Chronicles of a So-called Fire God (Abridged)

18. Entering the Caverns

The acrif had begun to snore heavily by the time we were ready to continue. With any luck he'd be out for quite some time.

I saw Sneaky looking over the belongings of the acrif.

"Sneaky, he won't like to find his belongings missing," I warned.

Sneaky hesitated for a moment and then took what he saw was of value anyway. From what I could see this included a filthy rag wrapped around what sounded like some coins and a large, green gem. I reasoned that it could only end badly, for Sneaky that is, so I left him to it.

Ahead of me Lestergrad had picked up the tracks of the cultists and determined that they were heading for a door we could see in the cliff wall a few hundred feet away. As we headed that way a small voice called me.

Turning I saw a large ogre. At first I flinched, I expected a blow to come from one of the ogre's large arms, but then I noticed the attire. This ogre was wearing a wrap-around silk gown, not something I'd find odd if I were to be possibly greeted by a noble from a large mansion in Grennis, but definitely out of place here in the wilderness at the bottom of a rocky valley. The image was jarring further as I noticed the ogre was apparently wearing make-up. This one had bright purple tinted lips and a green, greener than an ogre anyway, shade of some sort adorned the ogre's eyelids. The soft-spoken ogre repeated itself.

"Is he for sale?" it asked. I still wasn't sure of the gender. Who is with ogres? So I erred on the side of caution and mentally made a note not to try and offend this ogre.

"Er ... who? What?" I asked. I was confused by the softly-speaking, smartly dressed ogre in more ways than one.

"The shiny one?" The ogre replied with a question in its tone.

Turning I realised the ogre was referring to a magical shininess because none of my friends glowed in any way. Allowing my magical senses to take over for a moment, I tried to see who he referred to and was almost blinded when I looked at Iggy.

"Gah!" I shut my eyes and rubbed them trying to remove the bright overburn mark now dominating the centre of my vision. Slowly turning back, and still rubbing my eyes, I tried to formulate an answer.

"No, my friend is not for sale," I said, "He's my friend." I reiterated while I tried to keep my tone even to avoid sounding incredulous; hoping that would answer the question.

"Pity," said the ogre. "If you change your mind, ask for Lox." The ogre then turned and walked off, his robe sashaying lightly in the air as he wandered back to his cave.

Thankfully my vision was returning to normal as I re-joined my friends.

Following the trail found by Lestergrad we reached double doors set into an archway in the cliff wall. The doors were ten foot tall and appeared to open inwards. Knowing that time was of the essence, I decided to try to door. It opened easily.

Everyone readied themselves for a fight as I pushed the left hand door.

Inside was a lone stable-hand brushing up after the horses that were stabled here. At the sight of us he came charging forward using his broom as a quarterstaff. Expertly he kicked the head of the broom off, which came flying straight towards my head. I ducked just in time to avoid being hit full in the face. The broom head hit the wall behind me and landed harmlessly out of reach.

Bostick fired a spell of blue-green missiles from his wand. The stable-hand was caught off-guard and stumbled backwards. Torq charged in swinging his axe. Unfortunately the stable-hand recovered in time to fend off the blow from the axe and caught Torq in the stomach with the other end of his makeshift staff. The stable-hand then kicked Torq to add to the embarrassment. Torq growled.

Sneaky threw a knife at the stable hand, who was occupied trying to deal with a resilient Torq. The knife embedded itself up to the handle in the stable-hand's upper arm; rendering the arm almost useless. The stable hand had no choice but to let go of the staff with his left hand as all the strength was sapped out by the wound.

Torq took this to his advantage and swung for the man's legs. Not being able to defend himself as easily the axe cut clean through the man's leg and, screaming in pain, the stable-hand fell. Even then he wasn't interested in giving up. I found myself trying to work out why all these cultists had to fight to the death. It was a perplexing question; I'd never witnessed such passion in people before.

The stable-hand swung the staff in his right hand at Torq's head. It was a clumsy attack from a prone position and Torq easily side stepped it. Torq swung his axe around and ended the life of the stable-hand before he could cause any more harm.

As I headed over to Torq I picked up the broom head. "Never had someone use a broom as a weapon on me before," I said.

Torq was cleaning his axe on the stable hand. "It's a new one on me too."

Lestergrad and Sneaky were checking out the stabled horses; for very different reasons. Lestergrad was untying the horses looking to set them free. Sneaky was trying to see what he could pilfer.

Other than a bridle, Sneaky was unsuccessful. Lestergrad led the four horses through the door and whispered in the ear of each before they galloped into the distance.

We searched the room to make sure there were no surprises hiding in any undiscovered cubby hole. Satisfied that there were no more cultists, we then approached the only other door we could see apart from the one by which we entered. The heavy set door was shut, but I could hear mumbling from the other side. I pressed my ear to the wood and concentrated on the conversation on the other side.

"Are you sure these things are safe?" said one voice.

"Aye," an older, gruff voice responded, "for you and I any how. Intruders though, then gods help 'em."

I also heard chains rattling against wood.

"Caution friends," I said in a low voice. "The cultists are laying traps for intruders."

We steeled ourselves as I prepared to open the door.