Sadly, even a further search through the cellar failed to reveal more loot and, after a moment of consideration, I decided that, while the whole “Orcish Barbarian Raider”-shtick was funny and something I wanted to stick with, maybe I should wait until I was no longer in such a precarious situation to invoke it. That, and I had neither good fuel, accelerant or even a starter, so setting a fire was complicated anyway.

Thus, defeated, I went to my knees, crawling back out the tunnel, joining up with Roknar.

“Ah, good, there you are. Let us continue on.” he said, as he started to follow me again.

We went back into the main-tunnel and continued on our way. For the next ten minutes, we walked along the sewers, killing rats and two feral dogs on our way, the fights being rather underwhelming now that I had a weapon I was proficient with and armour. The rats just took a few good stabs and the dogs, well, those fights were almost ridiculous. They, just as their brethren above, tried to bowl me over by running and jumping at me, so, when the first one did, I let it impale itself on my lance, setting the butt of it against the ground to brace it. The effect was quite dramatic, the dog impaled itself on the tip of the lance, the wings preventing the lance from over-penetrating, letting the dog hang in the air for a moment, before

it counted as a critical hit, adding a serious bleed-effect to the already high damage. Before the dog could attack a second time, it died from the bleed, making me blink in surprise.

Still, the fights gained me some percentages on my Polearm-skill and EXP, both were quite welcome.

“Wait a moment, there’s something here. Give me a moment, I need to figure this out.” Roknar spoke up behind me and started to inspect a wall, mumbling into his breath and doing his magic again.

I stood at the ready, vigilant just in case the developers felt that a second defense-event was the right thing to finish the quest off and, as if on clue, I heard metallic sounds in the distance us and human voices talking.

“Are you sure they are down here?” an authoritative voice asked, sounding slightly annoyed.

“Yes, Your Grace, I’m quite sure. One of my boys saw some blackpelt crawl into the sewers, right after the commotion at the arena started.” a second voice replied, this one reminding me of the horse-thief, whiny, obsequious and annoying, all at the same time.

There was a loud, audible snort, “No doubt, your ‘boys’” the voice managed to put an impressive amount of scorn into that one word, “were quite busy stealing in the crowd. Guardsmen, do we know what started the riot? Was it caused by these damn thieves?” the first voice asked.

“No, Your Grace, we don’t know. From what we put together, two newly acquired slaves murdered your daughter and escaped. Mister Howell here stepped forward, apparently he was acquainted with someone who had ‘mistakenly’” a third voice replied, showing that he was a good student of the first voice by the doubt he expressed in his opinion of it having been a mistake. “been taken in as a slave and he wanted that person to be released. Sadly, the person in question was also murdered by the two slaves in question.”

“And so, having heard about his acquaintances perishing, he remembered his civic duty and helped tracking down these two slaves, yes?” the first voice asked again, now sounding rather amused. “Be that as it may, I will return to the surface, the smell down here is most displeasing. Guardsmen, Mister Howell, you will continue your search.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” both voices agreed and I had to hide a grin at the oh-so-great coincidence that they just happened to have their talk-talk in earshot of me. It gave me some valuable information, even if I worried a little if Roknar would manage to get us out of here before we ran into trouble, or rather, before trouble found us, judging by the sound, trouble was certainly on its way.

Knowing that there was no point in hurrying Roknar, I prepared myself, making sure that the floor around me was clear and I wouldn’t slip at an inopportune moment, as I heard the sounds approach. Judging by the footsteps that echoed, there were more than just two of them, it sounded like three sets of heavy boots, making it impossible to tell if there were more than those. As I waited, I realised that there might be serious trouble, if they had the command-rod for Roknar, they could force him to stop until I was able to kill them all. Considering the problem such a scenario might cause, I quietly stepped away from him, sneaking almost to the corner where I heard them coming from.

The walkway there was wider, allowing two people to walk abreast, whereas the walkway in the tunnel Roknar was in was just wide enough for one, and that barely. Stabbing my spear forward was easily possible, but swinging a weapon would be more difficult. I had a feeling that I could work with that.

Standing with my back against the tunnel-wall, trying to keep myself from being seen in their peripheral vision as much as possible, I waited, quieting my breath and listening to their footfalls approaching.

Just when I saw a foot step into my line of sight, I activated my Fighting Rage and, still trying to keep as silent as possible, stabbed my lance forward, into the space that would be occupied the next moment.

My ploy worked perfectly, the leading guard hadn’t been paying enough attention and my attack from ambush managed to hit him nicely, sliding through a gap in his armour and into the flesh beneath. Additionally, it seemed that my attack counted as a momentum-transfer, causing him to stumble sideways, losing his footing and falling into the foul water next to him. He had screamed quite nicely, a little high-pitched maybe, but that was quite literally drowned with the splash he made. Pressing my advantage, I followed up, stepping into the open to attack.

In front of me were three figures, two more guards equipped like the one I had just pushed into the sewage and one, standing further back, who looked like a mix between rat and weasel, making me think of the stereotypical used-car salesman. When I focused on the guards, I learned that they were level five but there was an additional sign, marking them as elite. The guy in the back, he was just denoted with a skull, making me seriously worry.

All three of them were frozen in surprise, trying to process what just happened. It gave me an opening to stab forward into one of the guards. Sadly, his armour was far better suited to defend against attacks from the front and, while my stab connected and dealt damage, it wasn’t the same, massive critical hit that the first attack had been.

“Enemy!” the one I hadn’t hit shouted while the other grunted in pain. It added to the splashing sounds coming from the water, where the third guard was trying to get his bearings. But, seeing that it would be a bad idea to try fighting two opponents, maybe even three, depending what the suspicious looking character in the back would do. Hopefully, he wouldn’t fight at all, but on the small walkway in the tunnel towards Roknar, I would have some time.

With that in mind, I quickly stepped back returning into the tunnel I had struck from, where they would have to come at me at once. And not only that, the water was on my right side, while the guards had their shield strapped to the left side, so their sword-arms would be limited by the wall right next to them. In addition to that, the ceiling was sloped, blocking even more of the space they would need to fight.

The guards were quite obviously well trained and, just a few seconds later, the first of the came around the corner, shield raised and his sword in hand, ready to hack at me. My response to his slow, methodical advance was rather simple and similar to the tactics I had used against the mole-rat. I stabbed, aiming for the guard’s sword-arm but he quickly moved his shield, causing the tip scrape across it. A little damage was transferred over, as it still counted as a hit, but it was greatly reduced, likely as an effect of armour. With that done, I simply stepped back, evading his stabbing sword. He was simply unable to get close enough to even force me to hurry, which I exploited by stabbing him again. As long as I had space to retreat, they wouldn’t be able to get at me.

In that manner, one stab, one step, after the other, I slowly continued to move, slowly bleeding the guard to death. Not that I really wanted him to die, right now, he was blocking the suspicious guy from advancing on me. But at the end of the day, each stab caused him to hesitate, giving me more time.

Suddenly, I felt pain in my leg, causing me to curse and look around, seeing the seriously bleeding and quite filthy guard that I had pushed into the water standing in the water, stabbing upwards. In that moment, my strategy fell apart, forcing me to abandon it, the guard would just have continued to attack me from behind.

My previously slow, measured retreat turned into a frantic flight, my stabs turned hurried and brutal, no longer caring for my stamina, just caring to keep the two guards from overwhelming me.

“It’s open!” Roknar shouted behind me and, with another stab, I completely turned and started running, taking a few more hits that made me stumble. I managed to get away from the guard in the water but the second was hot on my heels when I reached the now open wall with Roknar waiting for me. I let myself stumble into the wall, taking a small amount of damage but I got enough distance from the guard behind me.

“We need more time, hold them off!” Roknar told me, as I was about to continue my flight.

Gritting my teeth, I prepared to make my stand, the hole in the wall acting as an excellent choke-point. Outside, the guard was hesitating, knowing that he couldn’t give way on the narrow walkway he was on and not wanting to fall into the disgusting water behind him.

“We have it cornered!” he called out instead, blocking the passage and, in the sudden silence, now that there was no more fighting, I heard the quickly approaching footsteps of more guards.

Snarling at the guard, I tried to intimidate him, to buy some more time. I was down to half health, about forty percent-mana but just about twenty-five percent stamina. While I could do without mana, it would merely reduce the damage I dished out, if I ran out of stamina to dodge, I would die, simple as that.

But the guard didn’t look too hot as well, his health was down to twenty percent and he, unlike me, thought I was trapped anyway and saw no need to throw his life away. Our standoff remained, neither of us willing to move.

My mana drained, the rage depleting it even without any activity on my part, but at the same time, I regained some stamina. I called that one a win.

There was a whooshing sound behind me and the tunnel around me was bathed in a strange, stony-grey light. From somewhere behind me, Roknar called out that it was time to leave. I noticed the guard’s eyes suddenly turning big and all of a sudden, he pressed forward. With a grunt, I combined power-attack with a stab, something I hadn’t tried before but it worked, the lance stabbed into the guard, causing him to stagger back, while I disengaged again, turning my back and running, hoping that I made the right choice.

In the strange cavern Roknar had opened for us, the first thing I noticed was the strangest of all, a grey, whirling something, looking almost like a whirlpool but instead of whirling water, it looked like the whirlpool was in a large, grey rock. The rock itself was decorated with glowing runes, glowing with silver light and next to it waited Roknar, his hands raised and mirroring the grey colour of the whirlpool and his face beaded with sweat.

“Quickly, go through the portal!” he shouted and, without thinking about it, I dove in.