As Apemantus and I went deeper into the hole, we could just make out a dim light up ahead.  We were in very close quarters with only about five feet of clearance on all sides.  Abruptly Apemantus gasped and before I realized what was happening, we were both falling down a sharp drop-off in the floor of the cave.  Seconds later, I just had time to position my body to break the fall of Iva, one of the archers from the battle, who had apparently been right behind us.  All three of us lay in heap on the floor of a small chamber.  As I got to my feet, I noticed a grate in the wall, which had been the source of the light we had been following.  I approached the grate and could feel heat radiating out of it.  It would seem the chamber; in fact the entire tunnel, was an exhaust shaft.  It was not readily apparent what was causing all the heat.  As I got closer to the vent, I could hear an animated conversation coming from the other side and just below us.  I recognized the language immediately:: Goblin.

“You guys alright down there?”  It was Begdemagus poking his head out of the tunnel.  I motioned with my finger to be quiet.

“There are goblins on the other side of this grate.”  I whispered.

“Really, maybe I can understand them.  Hold on, we’re tying some rope together so we can climb down to you.”

Before I knew it, Regdar, and Begdemagus  had climbed down into the chamber and were peering through the grate (Dani had assumed the form of  an owl and flown down).

“It sounds like they’re playing some kind of game, wagering I would wager.”  Whispered Begdemagus.

We fell to discussing our next move.  I mentioned to Regdar my suspicion that the tunnel was really an exhaust shaft, but I could tell he was becoming frustrated.  Suddenly, he kicked the grate open and leaped feet first onto the table the goblins were seated around.  One by one my companions followed him into the fight.  I however, having come so close to Numbilung: only to watch him disappear before my very eyes was the last to join the fray.  I felt so defeated. The last thing I wanted to do was have to engage with goblins.

The noise of our skirmish and smoke from a fire Begdemagus had started in the course of the fight  had drawn the attention of a woman and a dwarf who had been passing in the hallway. As they were helping us put out the fire.  it became clear to me that they were under some kind of spell:  They were being used as slaves by the goblins to mine ore.  I decided to try to use my purifying power to break the spell.  As it turned out, the woman was from a town called Winterhaven and she was the wife of a man my companions had met on the road several weeks before.  They had set him up with lodgings in Lufkin and promised to be on the lookout for his wife.  We gave her a map to Lufkin and sent her back up the tunnel but not before she explained that her children, a boy and girl were still enslaved by the goblin somewhere in the complex.  We promised we would find them for her.

As for the dwarf whose name was Dorf: once the spell was broken, he wanted nothing less than to help us vanquish the goblins.  He was thrilled when Dani took the armor of one of the goblins and gave it to him. After that it seemed he lived to please her.

Regdar decided we should start to explore the complex.  We went down the hallway and behind the first door we came to were four sleeping goblins.  My companions made fast work of them but I still had no appetite for the practice.  Next we found a room that was filled with all manner of prestige weaponry.  Begdemagus’ eyes lit up and he was about to toss an acid bomb on them when Redar stayed his hand.

“Don’t you realize these weapons are far superior to anything my army has now?”  Regdar proceeded to load as much as most of our minions could carry.  He said for us to continue to explore while he and the minion’s escorted the weapons back to Luftkin.  

We turned down another hallway and I realized that this is where the heat was coming from.  I began to hear heavy clanking.  It was the sound of a blacksmith and the heat was the heat of a forge.  We poured into the room taking the goblin’s by complete surprise.  Dorf tried showing off for Dani by attacking a goblin who was walking along a catwalk over what seemed to be a vast ore pit. The poor little dwarf lost his footing and fell over the side of the catwalk and into the steaming ore.  He was instantly vaporized.

“Dorf!!!” Dani cried out.  She had become very attached to the creature.

As for me, the frustration that had been boiling up in me finally exploded.  I went for the largest man in room, the pit boss.  I hacked away at him with my sword until he went down dead.  I looked over and realized that my companions had encircled a bugbear on the other side of the room.  They had greatly wounded the creature but he refused to die.  I took aim at the creature with my crossbow and realized I had the perfect shot, a killshot.  Apemantus put his hand on my shoulder and gently took the crossbow from me.  He was right; there was something different about this bugbear.  It had a nobility about it.

“Why didn’t you take the shot?!”  Begdemagus  called.

I didn’t know how to answer him.

“That’s it! You obviously have your own agenda.  I don’t know what but I’m not sticking around to let you get me killed.”  He stormed out of the room the way we had come.

“I’ll see if I can talk to him.”  Apemantus said as he followed Begdemagus down the hallway.

Dani had found what appeared to be the pit boss’s quarters.  She had determined that the trunk at the foot of his bed had been booby trapped with a poison needle.  In the process of trying to purify it for her I ended up getting pricked with it myself.  I stumbled out of the room and approached the wounded bugbear lying on the floor.

“Must guard door.”  It mumbled weakly.

If I wasn’t sure before I was now certain that this was no ordinary bugbear.  I lay down beside it and took it’s paw in my hand.

“I only hope I have enough power to heal the both of us big guy..” 

I felt the healing surge cleansing me of poison and knitting the bugbear’s wounds. I moved away from the creature and looked for a suitable place to sleep.  I finally settled down near a door across the room from the bugbear. As I lay there I saw Begdemagus coming back from the hallway with Apemantus.  I wondered what my friend had said to the mage but was too sleepy to do anything about it..  And then my armor started to tingle.  I realized that the door I was lying beside was the best route for us to take in the morning.  With that thought, I finally drifted off.