Coldeven 12: Loose Ends (Day 10)

This morning (if you can call it that) we decided to take care of the shadow mastiffs that had so nearly killed us a few days ago. It sounds crazy, put like that, but it actually made a fair amount of sense. First off, the constant struggle to keep alive in this place is really honing our skills, and Eaora's newfound ability to fill entire rooms with searing fire encouraged us. Secondly, we knew our enemy, and what to be careful of. But most importantly, we were able to take full advantage of what I see as the first key to victory.

Spike's First Key to Victory: The first blow falls hardest.

People have this idea that a fight can somehow be "fair". I thnk this is obvious insanity, as the best kind of fight is clearly a onesided battle. But even in a fight between two relative equals, someone is going to strike the first blow, and that person is more likely to win. When I was a kid, there was a bully among the steet children. He was regarded as nearly unassailable by the majority of the kids, and to be honest, by me. He liked to torment me in particular, probably because I was younger, and thus smaller than he. His pattern was always the same, he would pick someone younger and smaller, and then would thrash them publicly. I remember nursing a split lip and black eye for a week. If anyone challenged his authority, he would sic his followers on them.

After 2 months of this, I began to realize that this was a sign of weakness on his part. Now, no way was I ready to take this guy on in a "fair fight". He was twice my size. I needed a different approach. I found him, shadowed him until he was alone, and hit him in the back of the head with a board. He was tough enough that I had to hit him with it three times before he stopped twitching.

So, we went back to the shadow mastiffs that had given us so much trouble before. B.B. used her silence to keep their howling from affecting us, Eaora softened them up by filling their lair with flame, and then K, Lo-Kag and I went in and put the rest of them down without too much trouble. Some of them were pretty tough. K. had to hit one of them more than once.

We continued to explore the area.

We found a giant spider that had been enchanted to obey someone's commands. It didn't seem too threatening, so I was inclined to leave well enough alone. Others weren't feeling quite as charitable, however, so we killed it. It turned out that the thing was the servant of a goblin mage that had been working with the shadows of the region. Considering we outnumbered him by 6 to 1, I thought we could probably negotiate with him. He proved very unreasonable though. Maybe he knew what we'd done to his pet spider.

Surprisingly, he also proved pretty difficult to deal with, throwing lightning bolts and turning invisible. But in the end, I looped my chain around his neck and yanked. Invisible or not, his neck snapped like a twig. Among his possessions, we found a wand, from which I "pushed" to see what it did. I succeeded in electrocuting myself with a bolt of lightning, nearly killing myself. Since Eaora can do similar things all on her own, we decided I should keep the wand handy, though I'm not sure I'm ready to use something so hard to control in a really threatening situation.

It was at this point in our exploration that we found the strangest room yet. It was, to all appearances, a walled forest under open sky. Despite assurances from others that the ceiling still lay above, the illusion of being outside was hard to shake. Sadly, any joy I might have felt at being outside was completely destroyed by one thing. It was raining, and all of us were very shortly a sodden miserable mess, enveloped in the odor of wet dwarf. After exploring the area somewhat, we decided to call it a day, and found a dry room.