No Storm Lasts Forever, a DND inspired story, by Allan Concillado

Chapter Two: The Goblin Horde, Part Five

Chapter Two: The Goblin Horde, Part Five
     Group A entered the left tunnel. It was wide enough to allow 3-5 people to stand side by side with a little room in between. The smell of tobacco smoke smacked them in the face. Phil covered his nose and signaled for the others to do the same. "This isn't an ordinary smoke," Phil explained, "it's sleeping gas. Don't breathe too much of it or else you'll risk falling unconscious on the spot."

     Slayer took in a deep breath and waited for a moment expecting to kneel over and pass out. "Nope, you my dude are very wrong," Slayer spoke with a tone of pure unadulterated kind of bravo as he looked upon Phil. Everyone stared at him and counted to twenty. Still, nothing happened.

     Justin Time mimicked slayer's action only to find a quick sniff made his legs completely numb, flopping him to the floor. He was very confused. He looked up and spoke in a deadpan voice, "I think my legs are dead, I claimed in a posed look." He made attempts to move his legs to no avail. Justin promptly bit his hand in hopes to get his blood flowing again, as the blood dripped from his hand to the stone he found the feeling of his legs return to him slowly.

     Ace quickly wove a cloth and offered them to the party. "Put these on your faces. They'll only prevent you from passing out but it'll work." They quickly put it on and made their way through the tunnel except for Cyprus and Slayer whom was immune to the effects of the gas due to Cyprus's developed resistance to intoxication and Slayer's dragonborn biology, naturally filtering out gasses that might disrupt his fire breath.

    After a short walk throughout the tunnel they found the final opening to the main cavern with a fire being the most immediately noticeable thing of interest. the cavern in which the fire rested upon illuminated a good amount of the stone surrounding it but allowed a roof of darkness. The fire did more than just illuminate the stone, for sitting by the fire was a small gang of orcs rested upon the same side as what looked like a throne facing the group. the throne itself was hard to make out perfectly but what could be seen was it's composition of bones, flint and perhaps steel. The orcs within the light of the fire tried to offer gifts to a dimly lit humanoid figure rested upon the throne, but the humanoid shape refused anything offered to it, sending it crashing into the fissure behind the throne. The crack in the floor was almost as vast as the cavern itself, only just ending before the cave. Blasts of warmth and gas occasionally escape the crack, heating the cold stone around it. The orcs offering the gifts seemed to shake in the presence of the dim figure.

     "Goblin king i'd imagine?" Ace whispered. The party crouched as they slowly approached the fire, hiding behind a rock left of the fire but still facing it. Phil nodded and pulled out a small paper. He scanned through the writing and returned it to his pocket once he seemed satisfied with whatever he learned from the paper.

     "Call me crazy but I think the only reason these orcs even listen to these royal folk is because of their strength," Phil began to speak, his voice slightly muffled due to the mask. "It would also explain why no one has challenged their authority as no sane orc would dare fight a royal." Phil slowly shuffled up to a stand and drew his knives. "Now I don't fully understand how royals work but by orcish nature, he should still be extremely prideful. If I call him out to a duel he should accept due to said pride... you guys however sneak amongst the shadows and search the tents to find any clues as to prevent him from seeing you all and denouncing our arrival as a trap and attacking us all all at once." The party nodded and dispersed.

     Phil held his blades to his side and strode up to the orcs slowly as to not surprise them. There were twenty of them from first glance, including the one that sat upon the makeshift throne whom was assumed to be the goblin king. Once entering the light of the fire he soon saw the bones, effigies and other such things that littered the cavern floor. Goblin corpses were spread almost everywhere across the large cave, some pierced with wooden spikes, others dangling from the dark ceiling being held by rope and string while the rest laid upon the frozen ground with their bodies mutilated in one way or another. The sight was gruesome but the smell was so much worse than one could imagine.