“Stay here, okay? And keep the cook and herbalist safe. Punch anyone who tries to hurt them. Understand me?” Surrounded by armed and anxious green-elves, Rum looked into White Rose’s dead gaze, awaiting confirmation. After a few seconds, in which White Rose turned around to look the cook and the herbalist over, the disguised skeleton returned to Rum and gave him a firm nod. And with that, Rum and his elven associates were off to the dungeon.

It took nearly 20 minutes just to reach the entrance, which was the same old stone-slab hole into the mountain, no apparent changes. The party stopped to gaze at the entrance, everyone but Rum tasting their own anxiety, their own expectant feelings of dread and adrenaline. Rum didn’t think they would encounter anything of significance for at least until they reached the large wooden gate, but the others didn’t know that, and they looked at the stone-slab hole as if it would close on them and eat them up the moment they stepped inside.

“This is it?” Alkiath broke the nervous silence.

“That’s it.” Rum responded, then intentionally looked around at each and every elf, as if assessing them. “You know – associates, friends – the fighting doesn’t start before we’re way inside. There’s still more walking to do. I’d say that you can save at least half of your nerves for when the skeletons show up. Right now they are wasted.”

“Wise words” Alkiath said, as if trying to back him up. “Now friends, let’s get those torches lit!”

The party lit 5 torches. It was more than they needed, but “too many are better than too few”, Alkiath said, before they descended into the earthy tunnel. Walking along it was rather uneventful. It was a long silent walk. In the front was Alkiath, with a torch. Behind him was an elf warrior with one of those large rectangular shields they’d been packing, followed by Rum also with a torch, followed by another elf warrior with the other large shield. After this followed the rest of the elves, with Urvanom in the far back, guarding the rear.

The double-door of wood and iron appeared in the place and condition as last time. The ornately carved pictograms of dancing skeletons teasing dungeoneers about the chilling adventure that lay beyond it.

“That’s a big door” Arrovani commented. The elves stopped to rest while they scanned the thick surface, and the handles waiting to be pushed or pulled on. Alkiath gave Rum a cautious look, as if silently seeking approval, before walking up to both of the handles and attempting to open the doors.

“It won’t work” Rum said, as Alkiath himself found the doors unwilling to budge.

Alkiath turned to face him. “What – why? What do we need to do?”

“Last time we blew a hole through.”

Alkiath raised an eyebrow. “If” he said, “the doors cannot be opened by conventional means, then I think that we elves might have a more gentle solution.” He waved some of his elven friends over, and standing next to each other, they touched the left door, closing their eyes before mumbling in their magical woodspeak. That language which the day before had animated the forest to their defence, and whose enchanted friend had given Rum a rough beating just an hour ago.

Before a minute had passed, the whole magical act started to show results. In front of Rum’s very eyes and the eyes of all the remaining elves, the wall began creeping away, in manner most fascinating. Here the fibers of the wood worked like no fibers should, but became animated like a liquid upon its own surface, moving in the rhythmic fashion of a sludge trying to escape an imaginary elongated center. Slowly but surely, this rhythmic withdrawal, progressively and convenient to the party, left behind the perfect shape of a new archway. Within 3 minutes it was all over, and there for all to see, was now a new perfectly traversable hole in the large thick wooden door. Silently, the elves responsible for this wonder moved away from their work. As if to give Rum the honor of trying it out, Alkiath then gestured for him to walk through it.

“Very impressive” Rum said, as he followed Alkiath’s suggestion, though whispering a little “Skin Toughen” to himself, afraid there could be skeletons on the other side. There were none, and Rum shouted back “All clear here!” even though the others had already started stepping through the elegant new wooden archway.

“So which direction do we pick” Alkiath said, when they were all through and looking at the split path ahead. “Can we get through that door?” he gestured at the thick but small iron door to the right, “Do you know where it leads?”

“No, we didn’t go there last time, and nobody seemed to know it either.”

“So we can really only go left then.” Alkiath concluded.

Rum took a deep breath, “yes” he said, while a flash memory of the hoard of skeletons from last time went through his mind.

“This is where we went, and this is where last time happened.”

Alkiath nodded, and then quickly, before any of the elves could think too much about Rum’s sentence, Alkiath rang out a command of “Let’s move friends!”

Getting out of yet another tunnel, they came to the great cavern of last time, with its little bridge, its little stream, and the faint evidence of the valiant battle that had taken place there. There were no skeletons here, and no weapons or armor was left behind, but the bridge had marks of missed weapons cutting into its wooden railing, and the ground still had spots of old blood – of Rum’s blood maybe, but more likely that of his other party. Those competent warriors who had fought and held off until there was no strength left in them to fight with. I wonder if this party will be able to endure what they – what we – did.

Not wanting to linger too long in the damp air of the cavern, the party crossed the bridge and descended upon the next tunnel. Still no skeletons though, Rum thought, what can it mean? Yet it hadn’t been this cavern, nor the room beyond the large double door that had given Rum reason to feel actual worry. It was this tunnel ahead of them now, the path into that great underground highway, where they had encountered that terrible hoard, that endless supply of bones animated to kill. Rum tasted his own worry, and felt his nerves coming to life. A tiny bit of sweat even appearing in his hands, and upon his forehead. Not like the bones of my White Rose, ze was made to... tooo... tooooo... because I could! AND BECAUSE ITS AMAZING! A skeletal friend, who doesn’t want that? Rum shook the distracting train of thought out of his head. Releasing it, and the weight of his worry, out with a big, long sigh.

Suddenly though, as Rum was marching through the tunnel with the others, there came from behind him the strange noise of rock against rock, and of earth falling to the ground. One by one, the heads in front of him turned around to stare. As the last member of his party, Rum turned just in time to get a face full of Royath’s spit, as he abruptly, and with the powerful cry of a warrior, yelled: “TRAAAP!”