Adventure begins at the library! Read the chapter and vote by 2pm each Saturday to influence which way the story should go. A new part of the story will be posted every Monday throughout the summer.
~ Chapter 6 ~
After quickly collecting the rest of your band, you draw your weapons and sneak back to where the goblins are sitting. One of them has picked up the chest, and is walking towards the back of the cave, the rest of the goblins following.
“Now!” you shout, and you leap into the cave. The goblins whip around, reaching for their weapons, but when they see how many of you there are, they run. You think you have them cornered—you can’t see any exits at the back of the cave.
That, however, is because the exit is in the floor. With screeches of excitement, the goblins dive headfirst into a large hole just before you can reach them. A few seconds later, splashes echo up from underground.
Fuming over your near miss, you experimentally drop a rock into the hole and count the number of seconds before it hits the bottom. You estimate that it’s a fifty-foot drop into the water below. You’re not sure what you would have done if one of the gremlins, identified by its shocking yellow hair, had not pointed out the rickety wooden ladder attached to the sides.
You don’t much like this option either—it would be laughably easy for the goblins to attack from below while you wobble precariously down the ladder. Again, the yellow-haired gremlin provides a solution: it will climb down first and hold the bottom of the ladder to make sure no goblins climb back up to attack.
This turns out to work just fine. You climb down the hole into yet another cavern, the ladder ending right above a lake. Thankfully, the shore is only a few yards away, and you easily swim to it to join the gremlin.
After the rest of the party has climbed down the ladder and joined you on the shore, you pick up the goblin’s trail. Even in the very low light given by the torches you have lit, you can easily see the footprints in the mud. They lead up the bank of the lake and into a tiny tunnel, where you have to stoop to keep from hitting your head on the ceiling. It’s damp, and the walls are slick. It leads up and down, occasionally dipping low enough so that water collects in the lowest parts of the tunnel. Once or twice you hear a splash up ahead, as if the goblins aren’t too far in front.
Then, quite abruptly, the tunnel ends, spilling you out onto a narrow stone bridge with no sides. It spans a cavern hundreds of feet wide, and stands dizzyingly high over an ocean of treasure. The whole space is dimly lit by something beneath the gold, casting a sinister red glow over everything.
The goblins are halfway along the bridge already, still lugging the chest.
“After them!” you shout, and charge along the bridge. Your band follows, waving their weapons and yelling.
This, unfortunately, was the wrong thing to do. At the sudden burst of noise, the gold below slowly shifts, falling away from the gargantuan shape hiding under the treasure. You, your band, and even the goblins freeze, as the reptilian creature rises in a shower of gold to loom over the bridge.
You’ve found the dragon you were looking for.
You: