Chapter 30

Downstairs

May 6

The group heads downward. Ertak stays up with the children, and Kieron, Agnarr, and Eogrin Galesong take the elevator down, while Neiia floats down beside the elevator.

The group gets down, and just as Agnarr is pulling the elevator basket up again, the group is attacked by two kobolds riding on the backs of large two-meter slugs. One of the slugs attacks Kieron directly, knocking her to the ground, and after that, Kieron is completely slimy and slippery.

The other one comes to Neiia. Agnarr notices that the kobold who fled from above is just about to attack Neiia and shouts a warning while pulling the basket to the platform and dropping it there. However, the basket doesn’t stay there but falls over the edge and starts falling down.

Upstairs, Ertak notices that the elevator basket starts sliding down, so he grabs the rope and stops the basket and starts pulling it up. Kieron rises from the ground while Eogrin hits the slug that was on top of Kieron with a sound blade and stuns it. The kobold on its back doesn’t have time to react to this but flies in an arc down to the floor. The other slug attacks Agnarr and Neiia, but Neiia escapes further away. Agnarr hits the kobold that fell from the slug’s back with his pick, which gets stuck in its back, and when the kobold turns, the pick slips out of Agnarr’s hand. Agnarr ends up under the other slug a couple of times but doesn’t fall until the second time, but this time he almost flies straight down the elevator shaft. Agnarr grabs the edge of the shaft at the last moment and stops his fall. When Agnarr climbs out, the slug and the kobold sitting on it attack him again, but Neiia dehydrates the kobold riding it so that it falls unconscious and then falls down the elevator shaft.

The kobold with Agnarr’s pick in its back jumps back onto its slug and attacks Kieron. The slug knocks Kieron down again, and Kieron gets stuck under the slug. The slug pummels Kieron for many seconds before Neiia manages to dehydrate the riding kobold unconscious, and Agnarr beats the slug unconscious. Kieron emerges from under the slug while Neiia dehydrates the last fleeing kobold. Neiia goes to check on the unconscious kobold, but at the same time, two more kobolds attack her. Neiia retreats back to the large room while Agnarr and Kieron, stumbling in the slime, are getting up. Kieron, when falling, almost slid along the ground all the way to the shaft but manages to stop herself before falling.

Neiia creates a large water bomb and shoots it to where the kobolds disappeared. A large amount of water flies out, but no kobolds. Kieron tries to get rid of the slime but doesn’t succeed. Agnarr comes to help and gets the slime off Kieron’s shoes. Next, they clean their weapons. Meanwhile, Ertak descends down the elevator with the children. Agnarr is still giving Neiia first aid, and Kieron is cleaning her weapons.

Ertak steps out of the elevator basket and falls to the ground on his side. Similarly, Kim jumps out and falls. Savram is still in the elevator basket, but the rope Ertak tied doesn’t hold, and the basket starts falling down. Neiia manages to move Savram to safety before he would disappear from sight.

Ertak comes to the others to heal them while Kim slides along the edges of the room. The group stays to rest and guard the doors. Eight minutes later, Kieron hears some sounds from somewhere, and at the same time, Ertak also hears something from the side corridor. The group looks in that direction, and at the same time, two spears fly past Agnarr from behind him, one flying quite near Neiia and the other hitting extremply close to her.

Ertak casts a light and sends it to where the spears came from. Kim goes there first but comes back when Agnarr tries to rush past her and stumbles, painfully pushing Kim in the back.

Agnarr gets to the next room, and there he is attacked by six normal kobolds and one boss-looking kobold with a pick. Neiia is ready to throw a big ice ball at the boss standing next to the enemies (and Agnarr). Kieron is hiding beside the corridor and suddenly notices a figure in front of her, and when she looks more closely, she notices that behind Ertak are two kobolds attacking his back. Kieron shouts a warning and attacks. Ertak doesn’t fall even though the first kobold manages to wrap a rope around Ertak’s legs, but the second kobold hits Ertak quite painfully, but Ertak’s earth element property causes the wound not to be fatal.