Hello, Everyone!
Welcome to another episode of Mary Windfiddle’s adventures!
Last time, we followed the little goblin girl towards her village, had to stumble in the darkness and then climbed a high wall completely blind. Mary was terrified.
Let’s hope this’d be the worst of her underground mishaps.
(Spoiler alert: It isn’t!)
The goblin village was small, about twenty cots lit by a few campfires. It was perched on a wide outcropping 250 feet up the wall, next to an underground river. In the near distance, a waterfall came down from a hole in the ceiling and the goblins had set up nets to catch any fish falling with it. That explained the tribe's diet.
Kiyra called out for her grandma and an old frail-looking goblin came to meet her. She hugged her and scolded her for going too far from the safety of the village, then turned to her saviours.
"They don't eat goblins, Grandma!" Kiyra said. "And they're nice!"
The grandma introduced herself as Viyra and invited them to join her and her granddaughter around the campfires. Mary was the first who accepted, she’d give anything for a little light and security.
They ate fish and mushrooms and asked Viyra about the loggers.
"Oh, yes!" she said. "We heard a fight down in the valley some days ago and sent Liyra to check it out. She came back and told us all about it. There were dwarves from the surface and dwarves from the deep. Most of the light ones were killed. We saw seven who were captured and led to Gracklstugh."
"Gracklstugh?"
"The city of the dark dwarves," she explained. "We don't go there, it's too dangerous."
Mary and her companions wanted to know more about the underground city and the tunnels around it. Viyra, with the help of the scout Liyra, helped Mary draw something of a map.
There were several tunnels leading away from the cavern the adventurers were currently in. The goblins had marked the entrances of each of them so that they knew where they led to.
There was, of course, the one towards Belfast (where Mary’s company had come from), and near it there was another, leading to what their hosts described as ‘fiery death’. Right under the wall the adventurers had just climbed, there was a shaft leading downwards, to a city inhabited by deep gnomes. Mary’d only heard tales of them. They were nothing like the cheery residents of Frinkeltong. She had always wanted to see one but this wasn’t the time for curiosity. They had more urgent things to take care of.
On the other side of the cavern, near where the Hammer resided, there were two tunnels: one that lead to what the goblins called ‘the brains’ (very dangerous, they said, don’t do there) and the ‘chatterers’ (which, after asking more questions about, Mary realized were just Muconids). And, finally, the last tunnel they could go on, was leading towards the Duergar city. The goblins also mentioned something about a 'Dark Lady’ that lived beyond Gracklstugh. They talked about her with fear and ambiguity and Mary and her companions didn’t ask for more information. That seemed like someone they wouldn’t go to, anyway.
"So, we need to go here," Bruno mumbled, pointing at the piece of paper. "It'll take us many hours with Mary and Aurum stumbling in the darkness."
"And also, we have to climb down the wall," Paulina added. "I don't see those two doing that, they looked pathetic on the way up."
Mary' ears started burning. She had just managed to compose herself but now, with the prospect of scaling the wall downwards, she could feel her hands tremble.
"Isn't there another way?" she said desperately.
"We have goats," Viyra said. "Sometimes we go down on their backs and they are quicker than our feet. But they cost money."
"We have money!" Mary exclaimed and turned to her companions. "Right? We do! We have money! Let's give the nice goblin lady some of it, and not have to climb down in darkness by ourselves!"
Paulina smirked. Mary felt her face redden but her embarrassment paled in comparison to the fear of breaking her neck in the darkness.
Viyra turned out to be really good at bargaining. She got them to pay a sum that seemed way too high for what they got, but they didn't have much choice.
They bought two goats, a female named Bessy and a male named Messy. They were of a breed that was way larger than the goats Mary had ever seen. Each was big enough to support the weight of two people. They were also a grumpy pair and it took the party a few tries to get them to cooperate.
Mary sat behind Paulina and Aurum behind Bruno. The dwarves who could see in the darkness were going to steer the animals and the humans (or at least Mary), were going to be just helpless passengers.
And so, they said their goodbyes with Kiyra and her tribe and started climbing down the wall. Cold sweat trickled on Mary's forehead as she looked at the darkness and she swallowed hard. Then Paulina kicked Bessy's sides and they descended.
Everything was going fine at first. The goats were quick and reliant, and they were progressing well. But then, suddenly, a loud cough shook the cavern.
"Aurum, put out the damn thing!" Bruno shouted.
A small glimmer of light told Mary that Aurum had lit his pipe and was obviously puffing smoke in the dwarf's face.
They heard the familiar rumble and 'whoosh' and the wall behind them exploded to pieces.
Paulina and Bruno spurred the goats. Somewhere at the bottom of the wall, another rumble sounded out.
But Mary found a spark of nerve. She grabbed on to Paulina with one hand while the other found her component pouch. She sent the illusion of Bruno's cough thirty feet above--and behind--where they were currently at.
The next rock thrown by the Hammer flew and hit exactly where the sound was coming from. They heard him roar somewhere in the valley.
Suddenly, Mary felt as calm as she could be. Even in the darkness, she was still capable of magic. She could do this!
She cast her Dancing Lights near the place where the Hammer had last hit. She combined the four butterflies into a single shape with the vague outline of a human, and made it shimmer on the wall.
She heard the Hammer roar in anger and another rock flew towards the gleaming silhouette. It crashed right at it but that was far away from the party. Mary smiled and started moving the Dancing Lights like a light beam in front of a cat.
She toyed with the progressively angrier and angrier Hammer all the way until they got to the ground. Messy and Bessy clomped down to a corridor and exited the cavern, and soon the giant was far behind, where his rocks couldn’t reach them.
Oh, my Lord! We did it! Mary did it! And she was so confident when she had to!
I’m so proud of her! <3
I hope you liked this part :) Let’s meet again in the next one, when we find out why hiding behind stalagmites isn’t as safe as we think :)
Take care and be well!