Choice Results are at the bottom of the page. Good luck!

Piling together some branches and tying them up in a bundle. You light up your makeshift torch and enter the dark, cold tunnels. Weapon and torch ready in hand you slowly make your way into the cave. The long narrow tunnel stretches out before, widening ever so slightly the deeper in you go in. The rank of the odor of desiccation and decay tickles your nostrils, causing you sneeze. A sneeze that echoes for miles, before fading away into the impenetrable darkness ahead of you. Nerves on edge at the overwhelming sense of evil that pervades every inch of this place, you creep forward, lightly stepping upon the stony ground. When you hear something crack beneath your feet. Warily you look down and see piles upon piles of bones; scattered throughout the tunnel. Reminding you that beasts must dwell here. You look back the way, you've come in the hopes of turning back, but the entrance to the cave has disappeared. In its place you hear a harsh, ragged breathing that grates upon the senses.

Controlling your rising panic, that something is behind you, blocking your way out of here. You press on ahead deeper into the cave. All the while hoping that whatever was behind you has already had its fill of meat for the day. Almost immediately, as if to deny your wish, the groaning behind you becomes louder and closer. Heart pulsing rapidly, you speed up your pace, until eventually, the underground cave widens out, and you can no longer hear the harsh breathing. Heart still racing, you pause for a minute to calm yourself down and look around. Hanging above you from the ceiling are thousands of pointy stalagmites, that look just about ready to fall off and kill you. You also see some type of drawing scrawled into the side of the cave wall. Bringing your torch closer to the wall to examine the drawing, you conclude it must be a Dwarven marker. Placed here to guide would-be travelers to their city. Unfortunately for you most of the marker has faded away over time. However, you can make out Dwarven words engraved at the top that could prove important.

You step away from the markings on the wall, glance back the way you've come, before putting your head down and setting off once more; using the makeshift torch to guide you. Minutes pass by within the deathly silent tunnels, the smell of desiccation growing stronger and stronger, the further in you go. Worried by what's ahead of you, you notice the torch begin to flicker as it nears the end. Instinctively you stride forward even faster, almost running, when you trip over something and slam into the ground; your arms and hands grazing the rough stone floor. You looking back to see what had tripped you, and see four skeletons huddled together upon the cave floor, their arms wrapped around each other with a fifth skeleton, small as a child lying in the middle. Not sure, how these creatures had died, you quickly dust yourself off and get back up. No time to dwell on what happened to them. You pick up the torch, you had dropped, burning your fingers and continue until you reach a massive, open-spaced chamber that is eerily filled with a pale white light.

At the far end of the chamber you see another tunnel that probably leads deeper into the underground cave system, but between you and your goal is lies a group of maybe twenty to thirty creatures dressed in ragged clothes worn out through age sleeping pressed against each other upon the cold hard floor. Dwarflike in appearance and stature, you realize these must be the feral dwarves. Rabid creatures that have lost all sense of themselves, they will be difficult to face in battle without seriously getting wounded. You look about the chamber hoping to see another way forward and see a crack in the chamber's wall. Big enough, that you might be able to squeeze yourself through. You also notice that the creatures are sleeping directly beneath stalagmites that look ready to fall. Lastly, at the edges of the chamber, you do see some decent places, where you could hide as you creep your way around the chamber to the other side.

Choice 1. Do you use the crevice to battle the monsters?

(Click here if you have Doren as a companion.)

Spoiler: Spoiler

Never one to complain, but even you have to admit a head-on battle with these odds required a bit more finesse than your usual hack and slash style which was your much-preferred method of fighting. Unfortunately for you however there was still the matter of the elf to think about. You couldn’t leave the gob witted idiot behind, and yet dragging the elf along with you would only increase the chances of discovery, and you doubted very much that there would be much room enough for the two of you in that crevice you had spotted earlier.

So instead you settle on a third option, and grunt back at him, “Stay here and don’t do anything stupid. I’ll be back soon.” To which the elf responds by staring up at you in surprise, opens his mouth to say something, but by then you were already moving along the edges of the cavern’s wall. The rough stone brushing up against your left shoulder as you try to navigate your way towards the opening. Breath held in instinctively as you near the fissure, you see one of the sleeping forms begin to move.

Rolling up to the balls of its feet, it blearily stares around with bloodshot red eyes, and touches a finger to its unkempt beard to pull something out when it’s wandering gaze spots you over by the wall. The dwarf staring at you for a long stretched out moment as though it wasn’t sure what it was supposed to do when suddenly it’s face twists up into a snarl of rage and gives a high pitched shriek to awaken the others, before barrelling forward with a full-throated roar.

With the element of surprise gone, you dash the last few feet towards the gap in the walls and throw yourself inside. Your body already whirling around with drawn dagger to see a throng of murderous dwarves coated in blood and dust, smash into each other as they attempt to reach you through the small gap. Their hunger and blind rage bottling themselves up in a tight spot, and giving you a significant advantage.

Heart in your throat at the sight of their gnashing yellow teeth, you let out a grunt and begin the bloody work of stabbing the ugly little bastards in their bloodshot red eyes as they snarl and fight each other. The feral beasts nothing like the dwarves you had known on the surface. The bestial creatures turning upon each in an instant as soon as they smelled blood, and fed upon each other right in front of you. The ground between you quickly becoming a blood-soaked quagmire of missing limbs, innards and bloody claw marks that were carved into the walls.

With all semblance with the common dwarf removed from your mind, you hack, stab and slash at the blood addled monsters. The beasts all but oblivious to the pain as some of them still attempt to press in after you, throwing themselves forward in fits of unbridled rage as they ignore those behind them mauling on their legs, your movements hampered by the tight confines of the hole as you try to work your blade much faster, a few of them managing to get close enough to claw at you until at last the frenzy of blood is finally over.

“By the bellow-hearts puke,” you gasp out, “but that was some bloody close work.”

Battlefield Results

- 80 Health Points

Loot

+ 24 Gold Pieces

Item Acquired: + 2 Chunks of meat that still have skin on them. (Eating the flesh of another is considered a crime against nature and as such is deemed an act of great evil + 20 Health Points.

Item Acquired: + 27 dwarf ears. (You've heard rumors that the dwarven lords pay good gold for feral ears. 27 ears will bring you + 135 Gold Pieces once you reach the dwarven stronghold.)

(Click here if you do not have Doren as a companion.)

Spoiler: Spoiler

Never one to complain, but even you have to admit a head-on battle with these odds required a bit more finesse than your usual hack and slash style which was your much-preferred method of fighting. With far too many of them to fight head-on, you settle upon the third option of clearing out the nest from a defensive position.

Edging your way along the wall of the great cavern, you feel the rough stone brushing up against your left shoulder as you try to navigate your way towards the opening. Breath held in instinctively as you near the fissure, you see one of the sleeping forms begin to move.

Rolling up to the balls of its feet, it blearily stares around with bloodshot red eyes, and touches a finger to its unkempt beard to pull something out when it’s wandering gaze spots you over by the wall. The dwarf staring at you for a long stretched out moment as though it wasn’t sure what it was supposed to do when suddenly it’s face twists up into a snarl of rage and gives a high pitched shriek to awaken the others, before barrelling forward with a full-throated roar.

With the element of surprise gone, you dash the last few feet towards the gap in the walls and throw yourself inside. Your body already whirling around with drawn dagger to see a throng of murderous dwarves coated in blood and dust, smash into each other as they attempt to reach you through the small gap. Their hunger and blind rage bottling themselves up in a tight spot, and giving you a significant advantage.

Heart in your throat at the sight of their gnashing yellow teeth, you let out a grunt and begin the bloody work of stabbing the ugly little bastards in their bloodshot red eyes as they snarl and fight each other. The feral beasts nothing like the dwarves you had known on the surface. The bestial creatures turning upon each in an instant as soon as they smelled blood, and fed upon each other right in front of you. The ground between you quickly becoming a blood-soaked quagmire of missing limbs, innards and bloody claw marks that were carved into the walls.

With all semblance with the common dwarf removed from your mind, you hack, stab and slash at the blood addled monsters. The beasts all but oblivious to the pain as some of them still attempt to press in after you, throwing themselves forward in fits of unbridled rage as they ignore those behind them mauling on their legs, your movements hampered by the tight confines of the hole as you try to work your blade much faster, a few of them managing to get close enough to claw at you until at last the frenzy of blood is finally over.

“By the bellow-hearts puke,” you gasp out, “but that was some bloody close work.”

Battlefield Results

- 80 Health Points

Loot

+ 24 Gold Pieces

Item Acquired: + 2 Chunks of meat that still have skin on them. (Eating the flesh of another is considered a crime against nature and as such is deemed an act of great evil + 20 Health Points.

Item Acquired: + 27 dwarf ears. (You've heard rumors that the dwarven lords pay good gold for feral ears. 27 ears will bring you + 135 Gold Pieces once you reach the dwarven stronghold.)