Nobody dared move or speak; the wolves sounded mean, hungry, and entirely feral. Instead, they focused on getting their bearings and adjusting to the dimmer light inside the cavern. Of the group, only Orsik and Ielenia could see in the dark owing to the enhanced gifts of their respective races; the others blinked and squinted their eyes, hoping to help them adapt.

 They were standing on a narrow strip of packed earth, sandwiched between the stream and the damp rock walls. A few uneven stone steps, crudely and hastily fashioned, led up to a small, dank chamber on the east side of the cavern, where the sounds of wild savagery were loud and persistent, and the stench of wet fur and animal excrement was thick and pervasive.

Orsik, finding himself nearest the front, crept towards the steps and stole a glimpse into the chamber. Three wolves, large but not well-fed, stood snarling and snapping at each other, at the rust-coloured chains restraining them, and at the black-and-silver head of the dwarf who was now looking at them. The wolves were the only visible creatures in the room; their chains led to an iron rod, driven into the base of a stalagmite. A pile of discarded rubbish lay at the far end, beneath what looked to be a natural fissure in the rock. Orsik brought his head back around the corner. “Three wolves,” he whispered to the group. “Mean-looking beasts. No goblins.”

Anders reached into his pouch and pulled out a handful of salted beef strips. Clutching them in one hand, he placed the other hand on Orsik’s shoulder to slowly shift past him and enter the area. All three wolves stood, hackles raised and low growls filling their throats; their eyes were glassy and crazed with hunger, and he could see their ribs protruding from their matted fur. These wolves were clearly not being kept as pets.

He tossed the beef behind the wolves; they scrambled to devour it, snarling and snapping at each other, while Anders moved swiftly across the chamber to the other side. The beef did not last long, and the wolves lunged against their chains.

Westra and Trym followed suit, tossing a pair of apples and a cooked cold quarter-chicken, joining Anders on the other side of the chamber. Ielenia sighed and cast Mage Armor on herself, before moving into the chamber. She tossed a crust of bread, but the wolves had grown wise to this trick and now seemed to be more interested in the elf as a potential meal. The one closest to her lunged, jaws open wide; she leapt back gracefully, and the wolf’s fangs snapped shut on the hem of her dress. Orsik ran to her side, muttering a quick prayer to Marthammor Duin as he loosened his warhammer from its sling. The other two wolves leapt at him, thick spittle flying from their mouths as they tried to bite him, but the dwarf was nimble enough to avoid injury. For how long, he couldn’t say; he and Ielenia were still inside the radius of the wolves’ chains.

Trym leapt into action; drawing her shortsword, she darted out behind Anders and slashed at the wolf closest to her. The wolf yelped, dropping to its knees momentarily before struggling to rise, giving Trym enough time to retreat behind Anders once more.

Ielenia, angry about her torn dress, aimed her Ray of Frost as the offending wolf before darting to the other side of the chamber where the others waited. The wolf Trym had injured attempted to snap at the elf as she moved; Anders brought his greatsword down towards its head. The sword did not make contact, but it was enough to allow Ielenia to reach safety.

Westra launched a javelin towards the wolf farthest from her, the same wolf who was cornering Orsik. The steel tip pierced the wolf’s torso, drawing squeals and snarls from the beast as it turned its head towards the wound, trying to remove the javelin with its teeth. Orsik took advantage of its distraction, and brought his warhammer down onto the wolf’s head, killing it instantly; he too moved to the other side of the chamber.

The remaining two wolves, enraged that they could no longer reach the intruders, lunged hard against their chains; the iron rod holding the chains shifted slightly, and a crack appeared in the stalagmite to which it was secured.

Trym darted out from behind Anders again, stabbing forward – the wolf she struck dropped to the ground, dead. Anders raised his sword again to finish the last wolf, but the arrow wound from his earlier encounter with the goblins interfered and he dropped his arm with a grunt of pain and frustration. Westra stepped forward, swinging her greataxe low, and swiftly ended the lone wolf’s miserable life.

The sudden quietness of the chamber was in stark contrast to the cacophony caused by the wolves – there was only the heavy breathing of the adventurers, the gentle gurgle of the stream, and the occasional plip of condensation falling from the cave roof to the stone floor. Trym walked over to the rubbish pile and examined it; it was mostly bones with scraps of cooked meat still attached. She looked up above the pile into the steep, dark chimney. “Orsik,” she whispered. “Can I get some light?”

Orsik nodded. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a piece of phosphorescent moss. Holding the moss and touching the hilt of her shortsword, he muttered an incantation and Trym’s sword began to glow with a steady blue light. She removed the sword in its scabbard from her belt, and held it aloft towards the fissure; she could see that the opening was at least wide enough to fit through, but she couldn’t see much more than that. Cursing her short stature, she looked at Anders. 

“Care for a boost?” he asked, keeping his voice low. Begrudgingly, she nodded, and Anders walked over to her. He lowered his hands; Trym placed her foot in his cupped palms, and her free hand on his shoulder for balance. Slowly, he raised the halfling up until she disappeared into the fissure.

She looked up, using the light from her sword to see, and listened intently. There were sounds coming from the chamber above: goblinspeak, a wolf snarling and barking, a goblin yelping in pain, and a booming, guttural laugh. The fissure formed a sort of natural chimney, which she judged to be about thirty feet high. She reached down and tapped Anders on the hand, indicating that she wanted to be lowered down.

When her feet touched the ground again, she restrapped her sword to her waist. “It’s wide enough to climb up,” she said. “I could hear goblins, and maybe a wolf, and definitely somebody bigger. Could be their leader, but I couldn’t hear enough to say for sure.”

“How high does it go?” Westra asked, concern evident on her face as she looked into the now-dark chimney. 

Trym shrugged. “Twenty-five, maybe thirty feet. Hard to say for sure.”

Ielenia gestured to the other end of the chamber they were in. “What about the other way?” she asked. 

“We don’t know what creatures we might face that way,” Trym replied.

“We do not particularly understand what we could face above, either,” Ielenia retorted. “You did not see. You only heard and guessed at what was up there.”

Westra held up her hands, stopping the two of them from getting into a heated debate. “Why don’t we have a look at the other path just to see what it looks like, and then we can make an informed decision?” Trym rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, while Ielenia strode across the chamber, holding the hem of her dress above her knees to avoid dragging it in the wolves’ blood that had pooled around the bodies. Orsik, with a hard look at Trym first, followed her.

The main passage in the cavern, the one that they would have followed had they not gone into the room with the wolves, climbed steeply upwards. The stream must have been coming from the top, as the water had more velocity the higher the cavern went, only slowing to a trickle where the ground began to level out. On the other side of the stream, they could see a side passage leading to the west. Ielenia tapped Orsik on the shoulder and pointed upwards; a dim shape crossed the roof of the cavern to the north. Staring hard, they could just make it out from this distance – a bridge, with a patrolling goblin guard. 

They went back to the others. Orsik spread his hands and shrugged. “It goes up, fairly steeply…probably works itself around to whatever room’s above us. There’s a bridge with a guard that crosses above the main path, and I think he’d spot us and sound the alarm before we could really do anything…Anders here is a fair shot, but he can’t see in the dark and it’s dark all the way up.”

“There is also another passage that goes west, off the main path,” Ielenia added, “But the problem of the goblin guard, and of your collective inability to see in the dark without magical assistance, remains.” 

“Listen,” Trym said. “I know I heard a different kind of voice up there – it was deep and it was laughing cruelly. I’d bet my share of Gundren’s gold that it’s the goblins’ leader, and wouldn’t it make sense that a leader would keep captured prisoners nearby?” She looked at each of them in turn. “We don’t know how many more rooms this cave has or how many goblins would come running if that guard spots us – what if we could take whoever’s up there by surprise?”

Ielenia nodded. “I think Trym is correct.” She smiled at the halfling, who was staring at her suspiciously. “I think we should climb.”

“Orsik?” Westra asked. “Is that also your opinion?”

He sighed. “As much as I don’t fancy the climb, I think it’s probably our best option at this point.” 

“That’s settled, then,” Westra said. “Up we go.”

“Why didn’t anybody ask for my opinion?” Anders, looking slightly put-out, asked Trym, who was closest to him. 

“Probably because they didn’t think you had one,” Trym replied. “You just seem to go wherever Westra goes.”

Anders flushed. “I’ll go first,” he volunteered, walking rapidly away from Trym. He lined himself up underneath the chimney, raised his arms above his head, and hoisted himself upwards. The others watched as his head, torso, legs, and feet gradually disappeared from sight. 

Westra borrowed Trym’s lighted sword and held it aloft, trying to gauge his progress through the vertical shaft. When she judged him to be about half way up, she motioned for Ielenia to follow Anders up. The elf obliged, shimmying her way after him. Then Westra looked at Trym. “Will you be able to cover the light with something when you get close to the top?”

Trym nodded, re-fastening her cloak around her waist instead of her shoulders. She tested flipping the cloak over the sword hilt a few times until Westra nodded with approval. She offered Trym her hands the step on, and then the halfling was on her way up the shaft. After a quick look to Orsik, during which he gestured towards her, Westra proceeded upwards.

Meanwhile, Anders had reached the top of the shaft. Arms aching, he pulled himself up just high enough to peer into the room. It was mostly dark, but a large fire pit in the centre of the room gave off enough light that he could make out two large stalagmites just ahead. A loud voice boomed from the far side of the room.

“You dare defy Klarg? Klarg say to dance! Dance for Klarg, puny one!” The voice was accompanied by toneless, arrhythmic drumming on what sounded to be a half-full barrel. Anders took the opportunity to hoist himself out of the chimney entirely, and crouch behind the nearest stalagmite; it was close enough to extend his hand to Ielenia when she came up a few moments later. 

Ielenia could see better in the dim light – the cave was large, and one end of it was stacked high with sacks, crates, and barrels. The other end had a large entrance with stone steps leading downward, and the roar of falling water echoed beyond. In the middle of the cavern was a large fire pit full of smoldering coals, casting a hazy red glow across the cavern. Sitting with his back to the firepit was a large bugbear, nodding his head in complete opposition to the beat he was drumming on a barrel he had cradled in his bulky arms. Curled up nearby was a mangy-looking wolf, gnawing on a large bone. A goblin was hopping from foot to foot in a pale imitation of a dance, while another one looked on, panting for breath. Clearly his turn to entertain Klarg had only just finished; his bulbous yellow eyes were narrowed and full of malice as he looked at the bugbear.

She could also see a faint light in the chimney, as Trym and her lighted sword neared the top. Chancing that she wouldn’t be seen or heard by the distracted creatures in the room, she crawled to the edge and whispered down to the halfling. “We can see your light.”

Trym wedged one arm and her legs against the walls of the shaft and used her free hand to cover the sword hilt with her cloak, just as she’d practiced down below; however, down below she wasn’t perched precariously in a stone chute. Just as she finished hiding the light, one of her boots slipped on the stone wall, sending a shower of loose gravel down the shaft. As her foot fell, her other arm reached out and she was able to steady herself.

Below her, Westra was struggling. She was near the halfway mark, but the tightness of the space was uncomfortable. She had made it up this far by controlling her breathing and focusing on the dim light of Trym’s sword bobbing above her head, but now the light was gone and a light cascade of rock and dust was raining down on her head, and she felt the unwelcome and all-too-familiar sensation building in her chest. Her breath quickened and her hands started to shake, and she froze halfway up the tunnel, unable to proceed.

Trym was at the top now, crouched behind the same stalagmite as Anders, who was whispering in her ear and repeating to her the details Ielenia had whispered to him about their current situation. Once she had a good grasp of the layout of the room and the location of the enemies, she indicated that she was going to sneak along the southern wall and hide behind the stacks of provisions, using the glow of the coals to guide her.

The roaring water from outside this room was effective in masking their hushed voices, but Ielenia wasn’t about to risk it; she kept a close watch on the goblins, the bugbear Klarg, and his pet wolf. She was particularly concerned about the wolf; she hoped the smell of the coals would mask their own scents, but she couldn’t be sure, and she hoped the others would arrive quickly.

Tears welled up, unbidden, in Westra’s eyes. The speed of her breath was increasing, and she felt her arms start to weaken. Slow your breathing, she ordered herself, screwing her eyes tight and trying to find some mental image to calm her. Just breathe normally, damn you. Eyes open or shut, all she could see was darkness.

Below her, Orsik could tell that she hadn’t moved and he could hear the rapid speed of her breath, and what he suspected might be a sniffle. Bracing his legs and his back against the tunnel, he fished his amulet out from his tunic collar and grasped it tightly. “Give the girl some comfort, Marthammor Duin, if it pleases you to do so,” he muttered. “By your Watchful Eye, keep watch over her.” He grasped the amulet for a few moments, before tucking it safely away once more.

Westra opened her eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. “You can do this,” she whispered to herself. You can do this. And with another shaky breath, renewed strength and sense of purpose, she resumed her climb. As she neared top, she could see the dim outline of Anders’ face as he reached a hand down towards her; she grasped it gratefully, and as he pulled her to safety the strength left her legs and she collapsed into his arms. 

To cover the extra noise, Ielenia used Thaumaturgy to create the sound of a small rockslide on the opposite end of the cave. Such occurrences must have been common enough in this cavernous hideout, because neither the bugbear nor the goblins bothered to look towards the sound, but it was effective in masking their presence.  She shot Anders a dirty look, and would have done the same to the other one had it been anybody but Westra, before she realized that in this dim light they wouldn’t be able to see the expression on her face anyway.

Anders helped to steady Westra as he relayed the same information to her as he had to Trym. “Trym’s gone further in, but I recommend you stay here,” he whispered, hand cupped between his mouth and her ear. “Harder to hide the sound of chainmail.” She nodded in the dark and crouched down beside him.

Orsik, last to scale the chute, finally made it to the top. He could see well enough for himself, noting the location of the bugbear, the wolf, and the goblins, and spotting Trym in the distance crouching behind the stacked up crates and sacks. None of the creatures gave any indication that they sensed intruders. He took a deep breath, and readied himself for action.