Wealth Mountain is an ancient structure in the far away, uninhabitable northeast. It's taller than any other peak, protected by an unfathomable monster, and apparently filled to the brim with precious goldatinum metal.
Four goblins, all of which ha...
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The carriage-train chugged along for a good few hours. The crew sat stiffly, uncomfortable as they remained bound in the dry wooden caboose. Suddenly, a light snap! sound came from Drek, as if some ropes had released their tension.
"Hmmm! What was that?" Colb asked aloud. Drek squirmed his way to the front of the group, showing off some shredded rope.
"Rrghegh... I freed myself," he announced. "Without knife or arrow, it took long time. Rrghegh, but with loose piece of wood on cart floor, I slowly wore away rope."
He snapped a sharpened slinter off the bottom of the cart, walked up to Stibs, and sliced the old goblin free. "Rrghegh... is also much easier to cut while not bound myself," Drek noted. The young goblin proceeded to cut 27, Colb, and Kashmir loose as well.
"Rrghegh... escape has begun. Let's jump out of cart," Drek announced with glee.
"Hurmph, I'm impressed!" Stibs praised. "Good job." He pat Drek on the back. The roguish goblin flinched at the sudden affection.
As the group prepared to dive out of the moving cart, some Elvish shouts suddenly came from further up on the carriage-train. The prisoners all reactively ducked their heads down.
"Hmmm, did they realize we've cut our bounds?" Colb asked in a harsh whisper. Kashmir's ears perked up, and her eyes widened as the Elvish guards continued to yell. She gave the goblin crew a panicked look, then pointed her finger at the gravestone Colb had etched into the floor.
Suddenly, the wooden cart split beneath them, as some heavy force smacked into the side of the carriage-train. The prisoners, guards, and anti-magic elf all toppled onto the road as the line of carts flipped over and shattered from impact. The camelmules neighed as their bounds to the front of the carriage-train snapped off, and they fled into the forest.
Colb, suddenly finding himself face-down in a field of goldatinum-colored clovergrass, sat up to see his surroundings. An impressive city of pewterorange, lemongranite, and marblelime (three of the rarest, most beautiful plant-based building materials known to exist) was just a five-minute walk away.
The armed elvish guards were shouting and mobilizing defensively. They looked to the tricolored elf for orders, but the terrified leader just turned and fled towards the nearby city. Similarly, all the blue-skinned water elves scattered into the forest, abandoning the remaining six weapon-wielding guards to fend for themselves.
Colb next peered upon the flipped-over line of carts, trying to figure out what these elves were so afraid of. Standing in the wreckage was a beastly thing: a pink-skinned mammal covered in splotches of yellow fur. Around its neck shined an enormous brown mane, which put even Borin's hair to shame, and a pair of long, razor-sharp teeth stuck out from its mouth.
"Hurmph – I didn't know those things were real! I think that's a lionpig!" Stibs exclaimed.
The monster let out a roar, then charged towards the six weapon-wielding elvish guards. The elves reacted by slashing at the air with their boomerangs, and firing blowgun darts into the monster.
