Chapter 33: Exploring the rest of the place

May 6

The group starts walking back. On the way, Neiia, who is walking in front, notices just before stepping on a tripwire that someone has set up as a trap, connected to a crossbow to fire it, if the wire is pulled. Neiia notes that there could be a problem with kobolds if they have gotten this close, so it’s better to disarm the trap very quickly. Neiia grabs the crossbow and yanks it so that the crossbow points directly at Kieron as it fires. Kieron doesn’t have time to dodge, and the bolt hits her. Kieron says that hurt, takes a couple of steps, and falls unconscious to the ground.

Neiia continues on her way and goes to the others. She finds Skiiiiirrrrsssh, whom Ertak healed, eating a fresh kobold. Skiiiiirrrrsssh tells that this kobold tried to sneak in here. Agnarr carries Kieron to the others, and Ertak gives first aid. Neiia and Agnarr go to set the trap again. They manage to put it back in place.

Kieron doesn’t regain consciousness after the first aid, so the group stays to wait. After twenty minutes, Kieron is still unconscious, so the group starts thinking about what else to do; they decide to go and explore the cave.

Kieron regains consciousness 10 minutes after Ertak, Agnarr, and Neiia have left to explore the cave on their own.

Ertak, Agnarr, and Neiia come to the trap and start thinking whether they should disarm it when suddenly it fires, and a kobold who was sneaking past it gets a bolt in the side. The kobold starts running away. They can’t stop it.

They continue on their way and go left from the slime room. They come to an intersection and hear kobold lullabies from there, so they return to the slime room because they don’t want to disturb the putting of the children to sleep. From the next intersection, they go left again, intending to come to that big room where there were many kobolds, from another passage.

Just before the room, a mushroom beside them starts screaming. Agnarr is completely lost for a couple of seconds, and Neiia rushes forward away from the noise area but retreats when she notices a big ambush in the next room. Ertak recognizes the mushroom and tells that it doesn’t dodge, so Ertak and Agnarr break the mushroom. At the same time, a rope wraps around Agnarr’s legs, and a kobold pulls his feet from under him. Agnarr falls to the ground. Agnarr then gets up as the kobold attacks him.

Ertak commands the kobold to come to him, and as it passes by, Agnarr hits the kobold, and then the kobold runs past Agnarr behind Ertak’s back and wraps the rope around Ertak’s neck and hangs there. Ertak gets free from the rope, and Agnarr hits the kobold, which tries to run past Agnarr to escape but can’t get past.

After Agnarr’s next strike, the kobold no longer moves. Neiia has created an ice portal and gathers a large amount of ice and casts it into that big room. After that, she gathers another and casts a new explosive chunk of ice into the room. After this, she peeks into the room. No kobolds are visible in the room, only various sleeping mats, blankets, or more correctly, pieces of them. There aren’t even pieces of kobolds in the room, so apparently, the kobolds have fled before Neiia cast her spells. According to Neiia, there had been more than a dozen of them. Next, the group continues on and examines the throne room, the king’s bedroom, and the altar room again. Neiia has a lot of ice in her hand, so she decides to throw it away, so she shoots the first bolt into the king’s bedroom’s fur pile and the rest on the walls. The group continues on.

Next, they go right from the intersection after the slug room and come to a chamber where there’s some movement at the other end. Ertak goes there first, slowly, to see what’s there. Three ghosts attack the group. Ertak runs through one ghost, thinking they don’t do damage, but the ghost weakens him. One ghost also hits Ertak before they escape. While escaping, Agnarr drops his axe, but Neiia levitates it after them. The ghosts don’t follow more than a few yards into the corridor.