Fire and Brimstone

Alleania leads a group into the Underdark city of Hor’olorbb as an ancient dragon approaches with a goblinoid army to destroy it.

2.

Fire and Brimstone

 

 

They could hear the deep roar as it echoed off the passages and cavern walls of the city.   Though it still was several miles off (at least that is what they guessed), it filled all of them with dread that made their waiting that much more awful.

The air was turning quickly to smoke, a sharp smell of burning that tickled the nose and stung the eyes.   It was the smell of death and destruction, for there was a dragon in the tunnels of the Underdark and his fiery breath was pushing forward a desperate army of goblinoids.    They were just now reaching the city of Hor’olorbb, but from their nearly berserk charges at the tall gates of the Drow city, it was obvious they would not be able to withstand the army for long.

In the walled noble house of Ar’Rilla, a group of people anxiously watched the approach of the army.

“They won’t be able to hold that gate for long.”  Alvis told the others in between fits of coughing from the terrible smokey air.

“They’re using Trolls and Ogres.”  Alleania told her brother-in-law as she stared grimly from the parapet top of the wall.

“Yet here we wait like rats in a trap.”  Aurei commented with a frown.   She clutched her young cousin to her closely, shielding the girls’ nose and mouth with her cloak.   It did little to filter the smoke in the air, but it did comfort the little girl, who had quickly grown extremely fond of Aurei.

“We’re not trapped, Duchess.”  Howst, the chief wizard of House Ar’Rilla, replied in his usual grave voice, “We have many escape passages.”

“Could we not then send out the children at least?”  Aurei asked, glancing down at Orrie.    The girl looked up alarmed and clutched her tightly.

“I want to stay with you!”   She managed to say before launching into a coughing fit from the smoke.

“It’s not safe, Orrie.”  Aurei explained to her, “The air is growing unbreathable.   I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to stay here with the Dragon’s noxious fumes filling everything ahead of it.”

Motion behind them caused all on the wall to turn.    It was Zeatt, holding a rag over her face, coming up the steps to join them.   She paused at the top to cough violently for a few moments, before joining them, “I got out of range of the Gem - the air is clearer there too.   I cast the Message spell, and it was received in Westmark.” 

The Drow lady could not say more, but sank to her knees coughing.

“Alleania, can we go into one of the tunnels under the noble house?”   Eleazar asked as Aurei and Alvis helped Zeatt to stand.

“Yes; there is not much we can see yet from here.    The walls of the city will take some abuse before they give way.   I would say we have a few hours until the city is overrun.   As soon as the humanoids have passed the exit for the first hidden passage, we’ll be able to go past them… and confront the Dragon.”

“If we can even breathe when we’re that close to him.”  Aurei snapped.

“Let’s go below for now.   The air there should be cleaner.”   Alleania suggested and they all quickly descended the stairs, as the sounds of hammering, mixed with Goblin war cries and coughing filtered through the stale air from the gate.   

Reviews

[Elina]

"...pushing forward a desperate army of humanoids." Not entirely sure, but should "humanoids" actually be "goblinoids?"
"The air is growing rapidly unbreathable by the hour." This sentence feels a little redundant to me; "growing," "rapidly" and "by the hour" all implying similar things.

[Eddie Davis]

goblinoids would indeed be better, and I see what you mean on the redundancy of the other sentence.