Hello, Everyone!
These days I'm really tired :( I haven't slept well in weeks and it shows. I almost didn't updated the story today. Almost.
Anyway. Here comes the next part of my Mary’s adventures. Last time, she and her companions went to Belfast and met with Bruno’s family. We got to know his strict mother Konstanz and his much cooler sister Paulina. Mary had some tea.
Today, we’re finally heading out on a search that might help prevent a war.
The following morning, Mary, Bruno and Aurum took off to find the missing loggers. By now, the dwarves had been gone for eight days. Nobody knew what’d happened to them and with Agrax’ letter and all the arguing about the Artefact and the possible war, the dwarves couldn’t afford to send out any more search parties.
Papios Ferenc, the owner of the bank (and the richest dwarf in Belfast, as Konstanz had made sure to inform the two humans), met them at the vault's entrance and sent them off in the tunnels. He didn’t say anything but his eyes followed them intently.
The tunnel was wide and round, covered with white powder--or what probably used to be Carrion crawler slime before it dried up. They followed the passage for a while, straight ahead and slightly downwards. There were a few offshoots on the right and one on the left, but they had all recently collapsed.
About an hour in, Bruno suddenly stopped and turned around. He put a finger to his lips to hush the others. Soon, Mary could hear it, too: the pitter-patting of small feet behind them. They prepared for an attack but it didn’t come. Instead, in the light that Aurum’s spell provided, a small rat appeared and raised its head to look at them.
Then it started growing, warping and changing its form, until it wasn’t a rat anymore. It was a purple-haired dwarf girl.
“Hey!” Paulina said.
“What are you doing here?!” Bruno exclaimed.
“I snuck out,” the dwarf girl grinned. “Mom ain’t gonna stop me, I’m old enough to be on my own.”
Aurum high-fived her and Mary smiled happily. She liked Paulina and it would be so nice to have another girl in the party!
“Plus, you’ll need me,” the dwarf girl added. “You’re simply going to die on your own.”
All of Bruno’s attempts to dissuade his sister from tagging along turned out to be in vain. She had already decided.
The tunnel they were walking on ended with a hole in the wall. Behind it, something glimmered in Aurum's Light spell. They sent Paulina, in rat form, to scout inside, and she returned in less than a minute giving them the 'all clear'.
The party entered a small cavern. It had only one, smaller exit, and its walls and ceiling were covered with prismatic crystals. They reflected all the light, divided its colors and formed small rainbows in the air.
Mary cast her own Dancing Lights, just to be able to see the four glowing butterflies it produced fly around the cavern. While they were marvelling the view, she broke some of the prismatic crystal off of the wall just to add it to her growing mineral collection.
But after a few seconds of the light show, Bruno shushed them again.
"Someone is coming," he said. "Lights off!"
Everyone took cover wherever they could find.
The cavern was suddenly in complete darkness. Mary realized that she was useless now: she couldn't see her own hand if she waved it before her eyes.
She concentrated on her hearing.
A pair of footsteps approached. Someone was panting, as if they had been running very quickly or for a long time. Mary heard a Thump! and a whine, then some shuffling of a body on the floor.
More footsteps came after the first. Heavy breathing, grunting, clanking of metal. Then, two Thump!s and some growling.
Mary touched her copper ring and whispered a Message in Bruno's head asking what was going on. Unlike her, he was able to see in the dark.
“Two goblins, chasing a third, smaller one,” he replied. “They just fell on the ground for no apparent reason.”
"Hey!" he said aloud in the darkness. "Stop right there! What are you doing?"
There was a snort and then, a croaky voice spoke.
"We chase. Give it to us!" it said.
"Why do you want it?" Bruno said.
"Dinner!" the voice said and Mary heard a whimper from somewhere ahead.
"Why don't you leave it alone and go on your way?" Bruno suggested. "You don't really want to eat it."
"Oh, no, we want to!" Two voices gave out a screechy laughter and Mary heard the drawing of weapons.
"Oh, come on, really?" Bruno said.
There was a growl and a flash. In the sudden light Mary saw two goblins being, well, completely destroyed. Paulina rushed forward and turned into a bear in mid run. She smashed the first goblin against a wall, leaving only a stain where he used to be. The other was hit by Bruno's Guiding Bolt, and immediately turned into bloody mist.
Darkness and silence fell on the cavern again.
"Well, that was an overkill" Bruno’s voice said. "Aurum, you can cast Light again."
A sphere of light appeared next to the exit where the bard was laughing his head off.
"Did you see how I tripped those fools?" he chuckled.
"No, we didn't," Paulina said. "You were invisible."
"Oh, yeah. Right. But did you see how they tripped on my invisible foot?"
Soooo... A wild Paulina joins the party! And look how great everything started!
Well, let’s see how it’s going to continue. Next time in Mary Windfiddle’s adventures: the party gets yet another friend. And also, Mary smells weird but it’s not what you might think!
I hope you get to read that one! Take care and be well!