GLINT's Arc

Chapter 7 of 10

Glint pressed flat against a cold pipe. Below him the warren crowded with kobolds. They lifted their spears and chanted. On a stone platform stood a cloaked figure larger than the rest. Three rat-lizard heads poked from the hood. This was Kwarvarask, the cult leader the kobolds served, the true Boss beneath Wrencher's talk of work. Kwarvarask raised its claws. All three heads hissed as one. "The breath of the queen will cleanse the surface filth," it whispered. The kobolds screamed back their approval. Glint felt the sound shake the pipe under his hands. He finally understood. These kobolds did not want the town. They wanted to burn it. Behind the platform squatted a huge engine of salvaged metal. Pipes fed into its mouth. Glint had seen a thing like it in his old delver's map. A ship thruster. One blast would roast everything above, including the Academy he had crawled so far to reach. Then Kwarvarask turned to the iron cage. "First we feed the queen," it hissed. Kobolds cranked a wheel. The cage lowered toward a pit. From the pit rose a monster of stitched flesh and scrap. Five lizard heads snapped on one body, cables sewn into its skin. The gnome inside the cage gripped the bars and spat. "Keep your scaly hands off me, you three-faced sack of guts!" the gnome roared. Grease smeared his haggard face. A soggy cigarette hung from his mouth. Glint did not plan. He dropped. He landed on the cage roof and yanked the pin that held the door. "I is not on kobold’s side!" he hissed. "I'm getting you out." Nihm stared. "A goblin. Course it's a bloody goblin." He scrambled free as the five-headed thing lunged. Jaws slammed shut where his leg had been. At that moment the far wall exploded. Four strangers charged in. A half-orc swung a huge blade. A halfling darted low with daggers. An elf loosed arrows. A dwarf shouted and raised a hammer of light. Real adventurers, Glint thought. The kobolds broke into chaos. "Now! Move!" Glint hauled Nihm off the cage. They dropped to the cavern floor and ran for a dark pipe. Behind them the adventurers fought the hydra. Glint looked back once. The five-headed monster caught the half-orc and flung him into the wall. Kwarvarask's claws glowed. The elf fell. The dwarf's light winked out. The heroes who had saved the whole room went down one by one. Glint shoved Nihm into the pipe and crawled after him. The screaming faded behind the sludge. They were alive, and alone, and the thruster still waited above the town. "Right," Nihm wheezed. "Start talking, goblin. How do we stop that thing?"