ewancummins wrote:Adam wrote:Cormac expertly flips it and catches the tip of the blade, handing it pommel first to Renn.
"Aye, lets get goin'," he says a quick prayer of thanks to Aerik and the dead dwarven family and prepares to depart.
Renn takes the dagger.
No sooner than he wraps his fingers round the hilt, the blade begins to shed green light again. The glimmer grows brighter and brighter.
Roald turns his head down the tunnel the party used to get into this vault. His right hand falls to his sword hilt, almost without thought.
Several of the others tense, sensing something is wrong.
Things move into the torchlight, coming fast on either side of the rail track in the tunnel.
Ghost elves, bloody pink phantoms with empty black eyes and thin, boneless arms flailing like kites in a high breeze!
Under the phantoms, black manlike forms.
And then the
are among you,
as they leap into melee.
A savage combat erupts.
Total chaos in the vault, neither side fighting in any sort of order, just stabbing, hacking, and bashing.
Renn cuts the snout off one of the creatures with a backhand blow of his broadsword.
The Bard falls back against the stone wall of the vault, stabbing again and again with her sword as the swine things try to pull her to the ground. One of the monsters rips out a fistful of her long hair.
Cormac shoots a hasty few shots, then snatches out his axe and wades in, determined to fight to the death.
Roald and Boarhort press hard into the enemy, laying about on either side with sword and hammer.
Orogs scream and die, but they just won't stop coming.
Rumbling echoes over the grunts and squeals. " Clear the way!" Reese cries out.
The warriors have just enough warning to jump sideways and avoid the oncoming mine cart shoved by their followers. The cart smashes into the last orog standing and carries him five paces down the track before flipping over pinning him to the tunnel floor. The monster grabs the side of the cart and shoves up with inhuman strength, freeing its trapped foot.
But before it can stagger upright, Renn and Cormac rush upon it and hack it to death.
For a moment, the party stands victorious in the light of dropped torches. The only sound audible in the vault and the tunnel is the collective gasping for air.
And then they all hear it...
Scurrying coming down the tracks in the gloom. Like an army of giant rats.
The mine-devils appear at the edge of the torchlight, moving in a mass at least ten deep and three wide. The scaly dog men whisper in Elvish, all at once,
"Elves are coming! Elves are coming!"
The party has only partly explored this level of the mines, but it knows of three possible routes of escape:
It could follow the rails back to the elevator chamber and try to climb the shaft into whatever lies above. This route might carry it into pursuing elves if the party were not stealthy and lucky.
It could stay here and try to clear rubble in the hopes that what looks like the corner of a doorway in the back of this vault is an exit to another part of the underground complex. That might take some time.
It could flee down a side tunnel that has no rails. That passage, which opens not far away from the current location of the party, seems to be the deepest and furthest part of the mine yet discovered by them.
Or perhaps someone in the group has other ideas.Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
