It wasn't hard to follow where the goblins had went.
Despite their best efforts to carry him, Vell still weighed close to a half ton, and left a clear dragline in the ground. It was easier to follow still when the lines had killed the grass and loam, making a dark trail amidst the vibrant forest floor.
There was no separation among the group as they followed the trail together, prepared for another surprise assault.
The plant life began to thin out as they came upon the goblin's lair.
The entrance was a cave opening inside the base of a mountain. It spanned nine foot in diameter, ringed with glowing orange flowers, intermingled with the occasional red bud.
From where they stood, they could see the glow from fires beyond the mouth thereof.
"Well, let's not all be pansies." Mrax said pushing to the front and leading the way into the cave.
As they rounded the corner into the cave, they discovered the glow was not only from the occasional torch on the wall, but from lava flowing with in the mountain.
They followed the drag trail to where it ended; a cliff, dropping straight into a river of lava.
A twenty-foot bridge made of rope and wood spanned the distance to the other side.
"How in gods name did a bunch of goblins lug a half ton rock across this?" Kaet asked.
"Ropes. Ropes and who knows how much leverage." Koldar spoke up. "Crafty creatures goblins. Best be careful."
Mrax stepped out onto the bridge and heard the board beneath his foot began to groan.
"Yeah, that's not happening." He stated, stepping back off it.
"Move, scaredy cat." Kaet told him, stepping in front of him.
She raised her hands and a large red disc appeared in front of her. From this, a metal bridge structure began to emerge.
The structure finished with a thud, as the ends slammed onto solid ground on either side.
Kaet stepped back, catching her breath and wiping sweat from her brow.
"Very nice, sis." Mrax said, stepping on across it with ease.
The soldiers were stunned. They had never seen anything like that before. This woman, this outsider, just materialized a bridge right in front of them.
They shook themselves from their trance as Kaet walked across, Elm holding onto her back.
"Let's go boys." Koldar said, leading the way.
Three of them crossed.
Then two.
Then came the remaining ones, Dave and Heblek.
They were still unsure of the structure, and crossed slowly, looking down at the bridge, and the fiery lava below.
"Look out!" They heard Koldar yell.
They looked up, and saw a large tree trunk, held by ropes, swinging toward the bridge.
Dave jumped backwards, succeeding in landing back on the opening side.
Heblek wasn't so lucky.
The trunk slammed into the bridge, snapping it as though it were still rope and wood. Heblek was tossed into the air amidst the shattered bits of metal and wood.
He screamed as he fell, flailing his arms till he splashed through the lava below. Then silence.
The group looked over at Dave, the pendulum trunk still slowly swinging between them. Dave was still stunned, staring over the edge into the lava.
"Go back!" Koldar yelled at him, "tell Krewing we got this far."
Dave nodded, then jogged back around the corner and out of sight.
Koldar sighed and looked over the ever-dwindling group. "Now what?"
"Simple," Elm said pointing to the ground were drag marks were once again trailing, "we find them."
"Besides," Mrax hated to have to point out, "we gotta go further in to find a way back out."
The group reluctantly relinquished part of their armaments as the heat grew the deeper they trekked.
Lava continued below them through most of the caverns, sometimes just a small crack in the ground allowed it to be seen below, other times it was directly off a ledge to either side of them.
Griddel alone didn't so much as remove a stitch of armor.
Sumav began sweating profusely and shaking as they carefully crept through the caverns.
"You alright?" Jerza asked him, taking off her leather headdress.
"I am. Just not used to the heat." Sumav assured her.
"Join the crowd." Breknaf grunted at him.
They slowed when they began to see shadows ahead and heard the goblins chattering amongst themselves.
The noise of metal hitting rock repeatedly echoed through their caverns, with the faint whimper of something distinctly not goblin.
Kaet and Koldar peeked around the corner leading to the noises.
The sight before them made them both wince.
The goblins had tossed Vell to one side of the cavern where he laid motionless.
Next to him, chained to the wall, was a young woman, barely clothed. The left side of her face and her left arm had been crystallized.
The crystals had grown out of control, jutting out and making it painful for her to move.
Goblins moved to and fro, little sacks and pick-axes in their hands, mining the crystals off her.
As they watched, one of them poured a foul smelling orange liquid over her arm, and the crystals took off, growing another six inches instantly.
The woman tried to cry out in pain, but all that came out was a whimper.
"Well?" Elm inquired from behind them.
"We found Vell, no sign of Gathen."
"Good, then let's-"
"But that's not all." Kaet interrupted her furry friends advance.
"There's a girl. She's, well," Kaet looked to Koldar as she searched for a way to say it.
"...being mined from the looks of it." Koldar finally explained. "Probably what they plan to do to Vell if given the chance."
"I'm ready." Jerza opened a pouch on her belt and pulled out what looked like white marbles.
"Smoke pellets." She told them.
"You may be good to fight, but he's not." Koldar pointed.
The group turned to find Sumav sitting cross legged, hands in his lap, his body turning a purplish hue.
Sweat was pouring off of him, more than the heat allowed for. When he looked up, his eyes were bloodshot.
"Were you hit by a dart?" Breknaf asked, warily touching a still gloved left hand to Sumavs forehead.
"He's burning up!" Breknaf carefully backed away.
"What's happening to him?" Nasri hated seeing him suffer.
"I think I know." Clavis announced, his back to the group. "Show them your hands."
Sumav raised his hands from his lap. They had turned black and had started to shrivel.
Kaet gasped and buried her face in Mrax' chest. Sumav had truly become a sickening sight.
"The fish. He touched it bare handed. Apparently the poison could be contracted by simply touching, and not ingesting it."
"You bastard, you knew this would happen!"
Koldar grabbed Clavis and threatened to shove him into the lava.
"How could I?" Clavis told him, "the fish was foreign to me and the boy. Simply because I was careful enough to wash my hands after handling it doesn't mean I knew it would poison him! Not to mention holding that open wound bare handed; no doubt that's when it entered the bloodstream."
Mrax pushed between them, holding Clavis away from the edge.
"You may be wanting to be rid of that glove." Clavis told Breknaf, "his body may be infected and we don't know how else the poison could be contracted."
Breknaf carefully pulled off his left glove with his right, balling it up in the palm of his right glove, then carefully stripped it off, turning it inside out.
He proceeded to toss the possibly tainted material into the lava.
"It's alright." Sumav said weakly, standing, "goblins over here, right?"
Kaet nodded.
"Then let's hope they fear the poison as much as you do." He took off around the corner shouting as he did.
Between the way he looked and the shock of his sudden arrival, the goblins took off, but not before Sumav ran into a crowd of them, breaking bones and smashing faces, doing his best to spread his sickness. He continued until he chased them out of sight.
The rest of them entered the mining area, kicking aside miniature tools.
The enforcers took up positions on either end of the room, watching for goblins to return.
Elm and Kaet checked on Vell, finding that they had managed to bind his arms and legs in chains.
Mrax checked on the young woman bound to the wall.
As he reached out a hand to touch her, marveling at the crystals, she flinched away from him.
Where the left side of her face hadn't crystallized, it appeared to make the shape of a hand.
"It's alright," he assured her, changing his metal hand into a large pick and breaking the chains loose from the wall.
"See?"
"Thank you." she felt her way up to her face, a look of pain crossing her features at the jagged crystals.
"How long have you been down here?" Mrax implored as he knelt next to her.
Before she replied, she morphed her own crystallized hand into a blade and began to chisel off the rough crystals from her face.
"Around a month. They ambushed me and a group of family and friends I was hiking with. Me, they discovered they could mine off, as you see. My companions," she paused, rubbing excess crystal off her cheek till her face was smooth, "I believe they ate them."
Clavis gulped guiltily. "You don't think they ate Gathen do you?" He was visibly shaken at the thought.
"The young boy they brought through with him?" She motioned to Vell, whom Elm and Kaet had gotten to a seated position.
"Yeah, where'd they take him?" Mrax kept a steady tone. They'd already seen their fair share of men die today.
"I believe to the treasury. Then to the goblin king."
"Great." Koldar sighed. He didn't like the idea of taking on the horde to get the boy.
"Can you show us the way, miss?" Clavis asked her.
"Please, don't call me miss. Name's Sharna. And yeah, as many times as they've taken me up to the mock me before the king in the past few weeks, I could almost walk you through the caves blindfolded."
Vell stood and Elm climbed back to his shoulder.
"Ready when you are." He told them, seeing Vell grin as he patted him.
The soldiers brought up the rear as they followed Sharna. She lead them down spiraling staircases and through tight tunnels.
Twice they had to cross bridges, though these were designed stronger. Not risking another trap, they stepped quickly across them.
She led them around a corner where piles at gold and gems could be seen shining from the entrance to a side room.
Jerza and Nasri quickly diverted into the room, followed by scolding from the rest of the group, even Koldar.
"We don't know if we'll make it out of here. And if we do, we ought to come out with some profit. Especially considering our lost allies." Nasri tried to sound sympathetic to the plights that had befallen her fellow enforcers, but came off more sarcastic.
The rest of them entered, and took a pocketful of jewels, if that.
Breknaf picked up some coins as he wandered deeper into the room, looking for anything that could particularly bring value.
After a moment's search, he came upon a small, golden throne, with an odd skeletal figure sitting thereon.
It appeared humanoid but was made of not only bone, but jewels and gold as well. It had a bone tail leading behind it and long purple staff rested next to it.
In its lap, sat an object that caught his eye, not by its beauty, but it's bizarre nature.
The object appeared to be made of black stone. It was similar in base to a candle holder, but instead of coming straight up from the bottom of the base, it split in two, and formed a ring.
Inside the ring, suspended in the air was a blood red orb, darker even than Kaets hair.
At the top of the ring, a small animal skull was mounted, held in place by blue vines. Some of the vines twisted around it, securing it to the base, and then several sprouted from it, appearing like a mass of horns from the skull.
He reached out, enthralled by the terrible nature of the object, and ran a finger along the horns.
He jerked back quickly at the tip when it pricked his finger, a drop of blood running from the horns tip.
"You alright?" Sharna asked, seeing him nursing his finger.
"Yeah, let's get out of this hole."
They turned to leave, Breknaf bringing up the rear.
If he would've turned around and watched, the blood from his finger ran the length of the horns, one of which unfurled and aimed down at the orb, releasing the blood droplet upon it.
The orb spun silently for a moment, then a black mist seeped from it, silently attaching itself to Breknaf as he walked away.