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 4 ~
The dungeon winds on down into the ground, occasionally opening out into large caverns. Most of the caverns are nothing more than underground lakes, but some of them look as though they used to be villages. What creatures used to live in them, you’re not sure. In some places, you find what look almost like libraries, but the shelves have long been looted. Tunnels have been carved through walls to them, but they’re round and roughly made. Perhaps by the Bookwyrm, in a search for books, you think.
You and your band stumble on for a few hours. You take so many turns that you’re sure you’ll never be able to find the way out, even though you’ve been writing down your route. After a while, you take what must be a wrong turn, because the tunnels are becoming progressively rougher and smaller. There’s barely enough room to turn around.
Suddenly, you come out into another cave. At first glance, it looks like a dead end, since there’s no tunnel leading out of it. However, upon closer inspection, you see that it’s some creatures’ home. There are sacks, satchels, bedrolls, and piles of random stuff scattered all over the cave. The cave itself is brightly lit by bronze braziers, placed at intervals around the edge of the room. Tinkering, sewing, and cooking throughout the space, are a pack of gremlins: small, big-eared, furry creatures with large eyes and sharp teeth. They all stop what they’re doing once you enter the room, and stare at you. You stare back.
The thief of your band steps forward. She whispers to the rest of you, “Don’t make any sudden moves. Gremlins aren’t usually hostile, unless you provoke them. Let me talk to them.”
She speaks to the gremlins in a language that sounds like the chatter of squirrels for ten minutes straight, while the rest of you alternate between staring at her and the gremlins. Finally, she turns to you and summarizes the conversation.
“They say they’re a band of wandering merchants, selling small gadgets that improve one’s lifestyle. Until recently, they were based close to a town in a cave, but a pack of goblins attacked them, and they were forced to escape through the dungeon. They found this cave, where they’ve been recovering for about three weeks now. Apparently they had been keeping an eye on the goblins for a while, attempting to see if they were going to interrupt their trade. They seemed to be stealing the most valuable things they could find, which was fine with the gremlins (it didn’t bother them). Oddly enough, though, when they sent a spy to the goblins’ former lair, he didn’t find anything. And gremlins are very good at finding hidden objects. He thinks they might have been selling them to someone, or something.”
You don’t like where this is going. You already have some evidence that the goblins are in contact with a dragon, and combined with the fact that the goblins are stealing valuables but not keeping them…
“Anyway, they’re not sure how to reclaim their old base from the goblins. They say if you find some way to help them kill the goblins, then they’ll send three gremlins along with us to help on our quest.”