He was waiting in the next room, near the bottom of the long staircase. They passed under an archway carved with demon skulls and saw the beast: an immense ogre, nearly twice Aldred's height and four times his bulk. A ridge of hair rose from his scaly scalp and was dyed, though not just one color, but alternating stripes of black and white. A spiked bracer with a fist shaped like a long terrible scythe covered his right arm. A huge spiked ball attached to a chain hung from his left hand, and it had the appearance of being able to demolish a castle wall.
The creature smiled, exposing sharp metal teeth. Behind him crouched a company of goblins with their glossy green skin, clutching metal shields emblazoned with the Skull emblem. Scabs, boils, and pockmarks marked their ugly faces, which smiled repulsively. Some wore spiked collars around their necks, others metal rings that pinched the skin of their torsos. They had red eyes devoid of pupils, and Elysia wondered if this was the sign of some dark god's corruption.
She looked around her, and to the right she saw crumbling stonework. It seemed that the ancient stonework of the dwarves had been torn down and pushed aside to make room for new, cruder excavations. Iron chains had been fastened to the wall near her, and to the left rose a huge fireplace, carved so that the hearth was the gaping jaws of a demonic head; on the stones there were stains of dried blood. "Have we ended up in a goblin temple?" Elysia wondered. "It's just what we needed: a man-hungry orc and a horde of fanatical goblins. Well" she consoled herself. "At least things can't get any worse."
She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to look up the stairs. Down it came another company of goblins, led by a stocky orc, clutching a scimitar in his left hand and carrying a banner in his right that bore a stylized representation of fanged maws, to the top of which was nailed an embalmed human head. Behind the standard bearer were more goblins armed with maces, spears, and axes.
Elysia looked at Jules, and the ranger shrugged. "What a terrible place to die." The cat girl thought. For a moment, the three groups exchanged glances, and there was a brief silence.
"For justice!" Aldred yelled, raising his great sword high and charging down the stairs with astonishing agility for a man covered in metal plates.
"Death to the goblin scum!" Frey bellowed as he followed. Overhead, the glittering gems seemed to grow brighter for an instant.
Elysia was on her guard, and alongside her, Jules braced himself for a fight. The standard bearer glared at them, but made no attempt to move any closer. Elysia was reluctant to attack the goblins upstairs, as they formed a difficult barrier to break.
Catgirl heard the clash of weapons from behind her, and the uproar of war cries, as the foul stench of the orc filled her nostrils. Iron-shod footsteps echoed on the stairs behind her, and she turned just in time to parry a mace blow delivered with considerable force by a greenskin warrior. The force of her impact jerked his arm.
She gritted her teeth and slashed, which she described in a flashing arc as she cut through the darkness. The goblin jumped back, and Elysia nearly lost her balance, but then she descended as quickly as the unsteady ladder would allow.
"Jules, defend the ladder!" she yelled her.
"I'll try."
Elysia continued after the goblin, though she found some trouble chasing her agile foe over the broken steps. The goblin stuck its tongue out at her and screeched derisively, filling the catgirl with fury and indignation, causing her to lunge forward and stumble. She fell to her knees and rolled as she felt pain from having scraped the skin from her kneecaps from hitting the stone. Something ran over her and she felt a scratch. "I have stumbled upon a nest of rats." She thought to herself. For a moment, she felt disoriented, but as she got to her feet she saw the tableau of battle before her.
Frey landed sword strikes into an enemy's chest, and the mail shirt burst outward where the huge weapon's blade struck. The paladin, arcing an ogre's shattering ball of spikes, slashed upwards into the stomach. Elysia watched as the tip of the weapon protruded from the ogre's back, and the goblins sped past him to attack Frey. Just out of fighting range, Johann Zauber produced a scroll and chanted an incantation. A ball of fire appeared in his left hand, and the light showed black rats swarming everywhere and made shadowy flapping wings swoop down in agitation.
Elysia struggled to keep her balance, and she shifted her gaze to Jules Gascoigne who was standing on the stairs, holding off several heavily armed enemies. He had already killed one, but more appeared behind another standard bearer.
Pain lacerated Elysia's body as a truncheon smashed into her shoulder; shimmering silver stars filled her field of vision, and as she fell forward, she dropped her sword. Above her stood a goblin, holding a raised club and wearing a triumphant smile on his face, along with an expression of dark lust. "Move, damn you." the catgirl told her aching limbs as she came crashing down on her like a felled tree trunk, moving painfully slowly to Elysia's panic-sharpened senses.
At the last instant, Elysia rolled to one side, the club hitting the rock with a loud crash. Catgirl contorted to kick the goblin, who flew off; she then groped desperately for the sword and was relieved when her fingers closed on the hilt.
She lunged forward and skewered the goblin before he could get to his feet; the creature cursed as it died, and suddenly a titanic flash blinded Elysia, and she staggered back, shielding her eyes as hell exploded before her. A hot breeze blew across her face, filling the air with the scent of sulfur. "I'm dead, dead and in hell." she thought she; but then her realization lit up her mind: Zauber had released the fireball.
She then looked around her and saw Frey and Aldred making their way through the demoralized goblins. Behind them, the ranger and the sorcerer rushed, and Jules caught him by the arm.
"Let's go!" she shrieked. "We have to get out of here while they are still confused.
They began to run down the long corridor, the din continuing behind them.
"What's going on back there?" she yelled her.
"There are different tribes of Goblins," Frey replied with a high-pitched laugh. "With any luck, they'll slit each other's throats as they fight over who's going to eat us. Perhaps you Elysia will be used to procreate."
Elysia stared into the depths of the abyss, stars twinkling in its depths. Aldred and Frey watched the corridor behind them, Jules started across the corroded metal bridge, and the wizard, Zauber, leaned against a cast-iron gargoyle, panting heavily.
"I'm afraid I'm not cut out for life as an adventurer," he snorted. "My studies did not prepare me for this strenuous exercise."
Elysia smiled, for the sorcerer reminded her of her pampered mistress. The only conflicts they had been involved in were fights over the correct interpretation of the latest gossip.
Zauber was inspecting the gargoyle curiously, and the catgirl revised her earlier opinion of the mage, realizing that he was only apparently related to those ancient scholars she had seen roaming the empire. None of them would have survived the trek to the fortress city of the Five Peaks, and the fact that Zauber was such a skilled wizard spoke volumes about the man's determination and intelligence. Magic was not an art for someone cowardly or fearful, since it contained its own dangers. Curiosity gripped Elysia, and she suddenly wanted to ask the wizard how she had joined the paladin.
"I think we've lost the Goblins," Aldred yelled, as he and Frey lumbered toward the others.
The questions she had been about to ask Zauber died on her lips. As they crossed the bridge, he had the feeling that he wouldn't have another chance to ask them.