We continued on, the faint dripping of water steadily becoming louder. It wasn't completely dark. Every 10 or so feet were faint candles and what looked like glowing fungi. I tried to imagine what kind of creatures lived down here, but was unable to.
"Look." Esmerelda said as we came upon a doorway. Her breath was coming in quick, ragged gasps and I knew she was just as terrified as I was. Something about this whole place was wrong.
"It's a door." I said stupidly. But it wasn't the door she was pointing to. It was a poison trap that I hadn't seen at all.
Another thing I hadn't noticed until just then was that it was hot down here. Unbearably hot. We were both sweating profusely and I was already losing my tight grip on my bow. I wiped my hands and leaned closer.
"Can we disarm that?" I asked.
"Sure. Stand back." She grabbed an arrow from my quiver and fiddled with the trap from a distance. Within seconds, it sprung and a poison dart embedded in the door frame where we would've been standing.
"Thanks." I kissed her on the lips. "That was close." I heaved a sigh of relief.
"Mmm..." She purred, grinning. "You're a good kisser, you know that?"
I nodded.
"You open the door and shine the torch inside and I'll cover you." I suggested, kneeling down and drawing back my bow.
She nodded and slowly turned the door knob. I tried to hold my arrows as true as possible, but it was hard. I felt like I was in some kind of horror movie where something bad was about to pop out and maul us to death.
I narrowed my eyes and watched for any sign of movement as she slowly opened the creaking door. Expecting a giant ogre or demon, I was instead presented with a startled goblin who looked like he was stealing something.
Without further thought, I unleashed my arrows. The goblin looked at me with a mixture of surprise and betrayal as he dropped the trinket he was holding and crumpled to the floor.
6/100 Goblins slain
200 (x2) xp gained
"Nice shot." Esmerelda returned my kiss. "Keep it up, big boy and you'll go far."
I don't know why, but her sultry words caused my cock to twitch.
We cautiously crept inside the semi-darkened room. It was a fairly good-sized room, but other than the dead goblin there was nothing.
"Why don't you light that torch on the wall with yours. Then maybe we can see something." I suggested, pointing to the east wall.
Once the room had been brightened and we'd secured it the best of our ability, we finally saw what the crafty goblin had been up to.
"Whoa!" Esmerelda whistled low.
"What the hell is that?" I gasped.
"Looks positively evil."
I shivered as I studied what looked to be a pure black demonic idol with ruby eyes. It was a large cat of some kind and though it may have been worth hundreds of gold to the right vendor, I really didn't want to touch it.
Esmerelda had no such qualms, however. She nicked it and cast it into her bag.
"What?" She looked at me defiantly.
"Nothing. I just wouldn't have touched that thing."
"You don't believe in all that evil, demon, mumbo-jumbo bullshit, do you?"
I shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I'm not touching it."
"Suit yourself."
I poked the goblin with my foot and saw that he was clutching a large, rusted breastplate in his tiny hands. I relieved him of his burden and shoved it in my backpack, being careful not to cut myself on the edges.
The goblin had a couple silver on him that I snatched up. The only other thing of note in the room was a large hydra statue that stood oddly out of place.
"Hmm..." Esmerelda scratched her chin. "There's something about this statue that doesn't seem right."
I searched around the room while she studied the large statue.
"Aha!" She cried out and when I looked over, her hand was in one of the Hydra's mouths. I laughed at the absurdity of it.
"What is it?"
"Look!" She pointed with her free hand. Slowly, ever so slowly, the statue began to move, grating loudly against the ground.
I stood in awe, my mouth open at the scene unfolding before me.
"How in the hell did you know?"
She smiled and shrugged. "I just have a sixth sense about such things. Maybe I have a little rogue in me, after all."
A few seconds later, an iron-barred door appeared behind the statue. A message flashed across my HUD:
You have uncovered a secret passageway.
We looked at each other for several minutes before picking up our feet. Stepping through the iron door, we came upon a well-lit hallway. Again, chills swept through me, raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
"What is this place?" We followed the hallway all the way down to a set of downward stairs.
Listening intently for any tell-tale sounds, we slowly stepped down the creaky stairs, weapons at the ready.
At the bottom of the stairs, we rounded into a large room. I nearly fainted when I saw what was there.
Chapter 12
"Oh my God!" Esmeralda gasped as she took in the massive treasure hoard that lay before us. I was too stunned to move as the entire room was covered in treasure.
"Are we supposed to be here?" I said as I finally found my voice. I had never seen anything like it before in my life.
"I… I don't know." She looked around nervously as we advanced upon the hoard of treasure sprawled out in the room.
"Let's check for traps, just in case." I suggested and we both split up, each of us taking a different side of the room. We had to be careful not to step on or break anything as there was just treasure everywhere.
10 minutes later, we came to the conclusion that there were no traps.
Once we realized that there was no traps in the room, we just stood there looking at it. Should we take it? Surely it belonged to someone, right? Then again, this was a dungeon and finders keepers losers weepers.
I looked at Esmeralda and saw her eyes go wide with greed.
"Let's split it up." She suggested, shrugging her shoulders. With great gusto, we dove into the large pile of gems, coins and treasure. We split everything as evenly as we possibly could and in the end, here was what I ended up with:
127 gp
530 sp
700 cp
Jade Necklace
Crossbow of Distance
Set of chain-mail
Potion of healing x3
Potion of Greater Healing x1
+1 str longsword
It was an extraordinary haul, to be sure. I had never seen that much loot in one place before. And I could tell my pack was starting to get heavy.
I couldn't use any of the items except for maybe the crossbow. However, the healing potions would come in handy. I let Esmeralda have all the mana potions she could find – which, by the looks of it, was a substantial amount.
Once we were finished counting out the loot, we left the room back the way we came. Esmeralda was practically skipping up the stairs, her eyes bright and sparkly.
As we made our way back to the previous room, we both noticed a room that had not been there before.
"Am I seeing things?" I pointed to the new room. "We would have noticed this, right?" I wanted to make sure I wasn't going crazy.
Esmeralda stopped, put her ear to the wooden door and listened. "Come here!" She waved me over. "Listen!"
What I heard was that same skittering noise as before. But this time, there were voices along with it.
"There's someone in there." I readied my bow and steeled myself for what was inside.
"Do you want to skip it?" Esmeralda asked, preparing herself for battle. "It looks optional."
I brought up my HUD and saw that we needed 94 more goblins and 49 more goblin spears to complete those quests. "No, there's probably quest items in there. I say let's storm in and give them hell." Then I smiled. "Plus, there might be more loot." I saw that gleam in her eye again.
She shrugged her sho
ulders. "Your call."
I activated my freezing and double arrow, nocked 2 of them and waited as she slowly opened the door. I had a moment to survey the room before they saw us.
There were 3 goblins sitting around a table playing some kind of card game, 2 large, burly orcs standing guard around what looked to be a goblin shaman.
I figured it would be best to take out the 3 card-playing goblins first – as they would be the quickest to dispatch. Then we could deal with the rest of them.
"Goblins first." I whispered and began firing my arrows.
The chaos in the room when I hit the first goblin was actually quite funny. There was a mad scramble as they stood up, knocked over the table and stumbled over chairs.
Cards and dice went flying and grunts and cries filled the air as they attempted to locate the source of the attack.
By the time they spotted me, I had one goblin completely down.
7/100 Goblins slain
200 (x2) xp gained
Their reaction was priceless. In their attempt to rush me, the two goblins got in the way of the orcs, causing them to trip and fall flat on their faces.
That gave us time to pick off another one.
8/100 Goblins slain
200 (x2) xp gained
The fire from Esmerelda's fingertips gave everyone a pause except for the Shaman, who started casting a spell from the back. When I saw that, I activated my flaming arrow, aimed carefully and plunked him right in the forehead, interrupting his spell.
He cursed and shook his fist in the air as he bellowed out his rage. But I didn't have time to worry about him as the two orcs had picked themselves up off the ground, punted the last card-playing goblin out of the way and charged us, battle-axes raised above their heads.
"Back up!" Esmerelda screamed to be heard above the roar of the attackers. "Let's lead them down into the treasure room."
We stood side by side, burning down the mobs as they rushed toward us. I froze one of the orcs with my root trap, rooting him in place. He was so large and burly and the passageway so small that no one could get by him.
He did, however, pull a spear from his ass and plunk me with it.
"Ow!" I cried out and shot arrow after arrow in him. Speaking of which, I was starting to get a bit low. I estimated I only had about 20 left. That was with reusing them. As soon as we got out of here, I was going to have to make me some more.
The orc had quite a bit more hp and armor as compared to the goblin. He also had more determination. Even as Esmerelda fire-blasted his ass and I peppered it with arrows, he persisted.
His first swipe with his axe came down literally inches from my feet. We had backed up all the way to the stairs and the vibrations of his axe hitting the ground nearly caused me to tumble down the stairs.
The second swipe, however, was not so easy to avoid. Esmerelda screamed at me to move, but there was no where to go. By the time she'd shoved me out of the way, his battle-axe had struck my shoulder, causing a huge gash.
I raced down the stairs and quaffed a potion. It restored about half the hp I had lost, but I was still bleeding. I was going to have to bandage that up as soon as I could.
By the time I was ready to re-join the fight, Esmerelda had finished off the orc and tripped the goblin down the stairs. Ah, my next victim. I froze him in place and shot him dead with just a few arrows.
9/100 Goblins slain
200 (x2) xp gained
450 (x2) xp gained
Hidden quest: Orc Tusks
Objective: Gather 10 Orc tusks
Reward: Unknown
Another secret quest? Wowzers!
"Run down here, I'll cover you!" I yelled up to Esmerelda when I saw that she was being overrun by mobs. I aimed at the first mob behind her and saw that it was the other Orc. It was a good thing that his health was half-way down.
I glanced at my hotbar and saw that my root arrow, fire arrow and double arrow spells were off cooldown. I had never used them in tandem before and didn't know if they would counteract each other.
Once they were all activated and the orc was within my line of sight, I released the two arrows, one rooting him in place and the other setting him on fire.
The bellow that came from his mouth was so strong that it nearly toppled me over. Esmerelda appeared beside me and together we brought his health down to zero before the tangle spell wore off. But now we still had the Shaman to deal with.
450 (x2) xp gained
"Let me take care of him. You go and gather up your arrows." She suggested, noticing that I was on the last of my arrows.
"You sure?" I arched an eyebrow in her direction.
She nodded.
I stood and watched her cast her new fireball spell, waiting until it was at full charge. The Shaman staggered back as if struck by a heavy object, causing him to lose his own spell.
"Damn girl!" I commented, then turned my attention to rifling through the fallen orc and goblin. I was able to recover a few arrows, more were upstairs. Pulling out my knife, I carefully sawed through the fallen orc's tusks.
2/10 Tusks gathered
At least they both counted. I wondered where we were taking these. There seemed to be an awful lot of quests down here. We were definitely going to have to take a break soon so that we could rest and I could make myself more arrows. I also wanted to take some of this loot and buy myself a fancy new bow.
Once the tusks were sawed off, I searched through their bodies and looted a diamond and 10 silver, of which I handed her half. I'd give her half the price of the diamond when I sold it.
Just as I was finished looting, the Shaman's dead, burnt body rolled down the dusty stairs, practically landing at my feet. So, I looted him, too.
600 (x2) xp gained
I glanced at my HUD and noticed that I was less than 10k xp away from level 8.
He had on a nice onyx necklace, a old, dusty magic book and a gold piece. I fished out 5 silver and handed it to Esmerelda and pocketed the gold. I also gave her the necklace.
"Wow, you're in a generous mood today." She smiled and kissed me on the lips. Then she hopped upstairs and began sawing off the other orc's tusks.
4/10 Tusks gathered
She looted the upstairs bodies and threw me a 20 sp coin pouch. I stuffed it into my already over-loaded pack and thanked her.
"I don't think the room is entirely clear." She said, peering into the room. "Looks like there are a couple more goblins and their spider mounts."
"I'll be there in 1 sec. Let me bandage this gash up." I fished out the bandage and carefully applied it. Within seconds, the wound had all but healed. But I was also out of bandages. I was either going to have to buy some or learn how to make them. Or find something better.
Once I'd sorted myself out, I bounded up the stairs and saw what Esmerelda was pointing at. Two goblin spider riders, sitting atop their arachnid mounts, just out of range of our aggro.
But they weren't out of range of my arrows or Esmerelda's spells.
"Let me freeze the one on the left and we'll take down the other one." I said, activating my freezing arrow spell. When she nodded, I released the arrow and - once I saw that it had frozen the spider - I turned my attention to the other one who was now quickly skittering towards us.
Esmerelda flashed it with a vicious fire blast, and I followed that up with a flaming arrow. By the time the goblin was in range to throw his spear, the spider was sitting at half health.
Before either of us could react, the spider whirled around and cast a web over Esmerelda, then promptly whirled back around to let the goblin throw his spear at her, hitting her squarely in the face.
She screamed as her spell fizzled. I immediately shot a root trap and held the red-eyed spider in place. The goblin threw another spear at me, but I dodged out of the way.
Digging out my dagger, I cut Esmerelda free and told her to quaff a healing potion, which she did. Then, together we burned the spider down at which point the goblin was a cinch.
200 (x2) xp gained
As soon as the second goblin crumpled to the ground, I felt the other goblin's spear whoosh dangerously close to my face. Esmerelda was far more wary of the spider's ass this time around and when she whirled around, she was able to dodge out of the sticky web's clutches.
We danced around the spider, taking pot shots at her, staying just out of range of the goblin's spear. The frustrated goblin urged his trusty steed forward, but we kept dancing out of its way.
Once my freezing arrow cooldown was up, I froze the spider in place and we burned her down. The goblin screamed his full head off, trying to hit us with his stupid spear, but we burned him to a crisp, too.
11/100 Goblins slain
200 (x2) xp gained
I picked up all the goblin spears I could find and gathered my precious arrows while Esmerelda searched through the goblin's bodies.
2/50 Goblins Spears Collected
3/50 Goblins Spears Collected
4/50 Goblins Spears Collected
5/50 Goblins Spears Collected
6/50 Goblins Spears Collected
Who in the hell would want a bunch of goblin spears? That was the real question. Some of these quests I just had to shake my head at.
We searched around the room, but there really wasn't anything of value. Unless someone wanted to buy goblin playing cards. I took one just for a keepsake.
"Well, what do you want to do? It's probably getting late." Esmerelda yawned.
"I vote we leave and come back in a couple days. I'm beat, too, plus I need to make me some new arrows."
"Yeah, and let's sell all this booty."
I agreed. We were each walking out of here hundreds of gold richer. And that was even before selling anything. My pack was really starting to weigh me down.
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