From its prone position, arms splayed out wide, the minotaur couldn’t defend itself, and both blows struck home at the same time. Nadi’s blade plunged into the creature’s neck while Borg’s bash blew the beast’s nose to bits, splaying it across its hairy, and now painfully contorted, face.
Nadi didn’t relent, pulling her blade out and plunging it right back in a few inches to the left. Blood spurted, and though the beast roared in rage, it was an impotent rage, like when a raving old misogynist who loses his town council seat to an eminently more capable young woman can’t stop decrying the dissolution of family values (in that instance, I suppose it’s redundant to say “eminently more capable” when I’m saying “woman”; I apologize for the unnecessary, if correct, words). The minotaur shuddered and twitched, hands flailing, and managed to clip Nadi in the left thigh, which sent her stumbling backward. The damage was done, though, and the foul cow stopped moving a moment later, blood still slowly pooling beneath it. A stray tunnel goblin, the last one in the cavern, shrieked and doffed its cap (why it was wearing a cap, I have no idea) before racing down the tunnel from which we’d entered the room, leaving four conscious but very tired and one unconscious but presumably better rested adventuring companions and one minotaur corpse alone with our thoughts.
Whiska reached Rummy first, reaching into one of her pouches and producing a small vial filled with bright blue liquid. She popped the stopper off and poured the contents into Rummy’s mouth. She tipped his head back and plugged his nose, forcing him to swallow. He coughed and sputtered and, miraculously, sat up a moment later, eyes wide. “That stuff tastes like…well, like the air in here smells.” He wrinkled his nose. “What in the name of Goolydar’s dangled digit is that?”
(Goolydar is a halfling god who…you know what? It’s not that interesting of a story. It’s a stupid colloquialism that’s meaningless. Trust me.)
“That,” said Nadi with a satisfied smile, “is the smell of victory.”
Rummy’s face soured. “I hate to be so crass, especially when we apparently won, but, well…victory smells like minotaur diarrhea.”
We made a unanimous decision to relocate to another chamber that smelled slightly less fragrant. We found one not too far away. Unfortunately, the mobility and endurance of minotaur farts is ungodly, so it took a few tries to find a spot where the air was at least moderately fresher. Of course, then we realized that the stench had permeated our jury-rigged clothing, which made burning it a necessity, beyond the obvious crime against fashion we committed each additional moment we spent in them. Unfortunately, that would have to wait.
Once we’d found a spot we could sort of breathe, we brought Rummy up to speed and kicked around options for what to do next. We still didn’t have much in the way of food, and we still didn’t know where to find the dragon. Fortunately, adventurers have a high incidence of fate intervening to help them, if only because fate so often wants to kill them.
Just as we began to debate which way to go, a tunnel goblin wandered in, nonchalantly gnawing on a strip of jerky (I shuddered to think what animal that jerky came from; my guesses included pony, giant spider, human, and, most disgustingly of all, cow). We jumped to our feet and grabbed for our weapons, but the goblin seemed in no hurry to engage. It took another bite of jerky, swallowed hard, and said, “You go left,” pointing to the right.
We traded confused (and, in Whiska’s case, murderous) looks. “Excuse me?” replied Nadi.
“Left,” the goblin said again, pointing more emphatically to the right.
“Always struggled with that too,” said Rummy cheerfully. “I think you mean ‘right,’ friend,” said Rummy, pointing helpfully in the same direction.
The goblin shook its head vigorously. “No! Left! You need to left this place and go that way!”
“Ah, so more of a tense issue than a directional one,” said Rummy with a nod. “Makes sense.”
“No it doesn’t, you goat-touching half-brain!” said Whiska.
“I’ve never actually touched a goat,” mused Rummy. “I bet they’re not very soft. Well, maybe the babies are. They’re cute, at least.”
“Why would we go that way?” said Nadi before Whiska could unleash another stream of invective.
“Find dragon! Go left. Secret passage.” The goblin paused to bite, chew, and swallow again. Then he made a gesture that either meant “find a secret passage” or “I have incredible constipation.”
“Why would you help us?” asked Nadi.
“Want you get dragon eaten! Then goblins rule tunnels with stinky minotaur dead.” It laughed, a shrill bark that sounded like a hyena on laughing gas getting goosed by a candlestick.
“Points for honesty,” said Rummy, nodding amiably at the goblin, who returned the gesture in kind before sauntering off on its way in the direction opposite where it said the dragon waited.
Nadi shook her head as she watched it go, then reached out to stay Whiska’s hand before she could raise her staff to blast the goblin in the back. “Let it go,” she said. Then, she looked at me. “Do we trust it?”
I shrugged. “What else do we have to go on?”
“The goblin’s laugh…hurts my ears,” said Borg.
“Heloise is right,” said Rummy. “We’ve got nothing to lose by trusting it.”
“Unless it’s sending us into a trap,” replied Nadi.
“Do you really think it’s smart enough to do that?” I countered. “And, even if it is, we have no idea where to go, and I am not staying down here long enough to be eaten by Whiska—or to have to eat Whiska, which is an even more distressing thought.”
“Agreed,” said Whiska.
“All right,” said Nadi. “Let’s go find that dragon.”
“And some new clothes,” I added. “I really don’t want to die in something that looks like haute couture in an insane asylum and smells like a butcher’s block in a restaurant that only serves obese cats.”
Chapter 24
THROUGH BLOOD AND FIRE OUR HEROES EMERGE TRIUMPHANT
After coercing an evil goblin, a foul servant of the mighty dragon, into giving them directions that were straight and true, our brave band of heroes soon found themselves at the entrance of the mighty wyrm’s lair. Heat permeated the heavy air in the surrounding tunnels, residual warmth from the sleeping dragon’s flaming snores—a reminder that, even slumbering, this was a creature to be feared and awed. The heroes hoped—prayed, even, to all the gods of Erithea—that they might take the beast unawares, but the dragon’s hearing was so acute that even Nadinta’s soft footfalls alerted it to danger and caused it to growl and stir. It bolted upright and attacked immediately, sparing not even a fraction of its awesome power as it blasted the entrance to the grand cave, melting rock and treasure alike in its terrible wrath.
“No one dares to enter my lair!” roared the great and powerful red, its thunderous voice shaking the walls and bringing a rain of stones and dust down upon our heroes’ heads—heads that remained unmelted only through the timely and powerful magic of Whiska, whose eldritch ice shield withstood the beast’s great blast.