{"id":163,"date":"2019-08-22T11:59:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T11:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/141.148.246.190\/index.php\/single-post\/the-giants-gamble-pt-22\/"},"modified":"2022-05-19T14:38:37","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T13:38:37","slug":"the-giants-gamble-pt-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.alexisveenendaal.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/22\/the-giants-gamble-pt-22\/","title":{"rendered":"The Giant’s Gamble Pt. 22"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n

Chapter 22: Stirring the Pot<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n

\n

\n

In a gruff imitation of an ogre\u2019s voice, Kilian yelled down the stairs, \u201cEverything\u2019s fine! Just a few moths!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Moths?<\/em> Flint mouthed quietly.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There was a pause before the booming voice responded, echoing up the stone in a haunting vibration of sound. \u201cWELL, KEEP IT DOWN!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cDo you think\u2026?\u201d Opal whispered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s got to be,\u201d Kilian nodded. \u201cWho else would give orders like that?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI smell food,\u201d Evelyn said dreamily. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Roon realized she was right and sniffed the air. There was the distant scent of cooking meat and surprisingly rich spices. \u201cThe kitchen must be down there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWhy would the Duke be in the kitchen?\u201d Flint scratched his bald chin where it was flanked by two long, thick braids. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s dinner time,\u201d Thia suggested. \u201cLet\u2019s go. Quietly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

They snuck down the stairs, careful to avoid any more rats. Soon they heard the clanking clatter of dishes and the scent of food grew stronger. They reached a doorway, and all crouched behind it and peeked through. Tiny green-skinned goblins rushed about a large kitchen and dining room. The dining area was split into thirds, with the far end holding one giant-sized table and benches, the next stretch of tables a size for ogres, and the third and final set of tables were Roon\u2019s size. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

To the left were two large hearths. Ladders leaned next to massive boiling pots and a few goblins stood balanced on them, tossing in spices and chopped vegetables, or carefully stirring the pot. Another pot sat empty nearby. It was large enough to fit their entire party, plus some. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cGiants don\u2019t\u2026 eat people, do they?\u201d Roon wondered.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a good question,\u201d Thia said. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t they?\u201d Evelyn asked, looking excited. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThat stew smells delicious,\u201d Flint said. \u201cSo let\u2019s hope it\u2019s not human.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Then, through a pair of swinging doors came a grotesque-faced female fire giant wearing a black-scale apron. She held a dripping cleaver in one hand, and her arms were covered in gore up to her elbows. She looked around the room suspiciously and the goblin\u2019s paused in their work to stare at her nervously. She sniffed the air noisily. \u201cI smell a human. Guards!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Kilian\u2019s eyes widened. Roon stared at him and Evelyn. \u201cI told you you smelled,\u201d Roon hissed. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Ogres immediately appeared in the far doorway and slunk in with shoulders hunched. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Opal whispered, \u201cI\u2019ll go take a look,\u201d and suddenly shrank and transformed into a small black spider, which then crawled up the wall and through the doorway. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cLet me try something,\u201d Kilian said, creeping forward and peeking around the corner. He held up his hands and cast something into the room. He moved back a moment later. \u201cCan\u2019t tell if it worked,\u201d he breathed, \u201cI tried to use a spell to confuse the big one.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There was a deafening roar and suddenly part of the stone doorway broke apart as massive fingers grasped it and tore it aside. Kilian fell back and clambered up the stairs. A cloud of dust and stones exploded in the air as they all scattered. Roon ran under the fire giant\u2019s long legs and slid beneath one of the smaller tables, breathing hard and waiting for his vision to clear. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI knew I smelled human!\u201d The giant shouted triumphantly as little long-nosed winged creatures with fiery wings dove from the ceiling overhead. Roon recognized them as little fire mephits. They dove at Flint, who\u2019d escaped the doorway and tried to ward them off with a swing of his hammer. One opened its beaked mouth and spit hot ash at the dwarf, who rolled out of the way. Roon heard the song of Thia\u2019s blade, but his attention was drawn to the swarming goblins.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cShit, shit, shit,\u201d he scrambled out from under the table and cast blink.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Roon dematerialized from the physical plane and everything in his vision turned to shades of gray. He blinked. There was a pulsing, almost muted sound of the battle around him as he passed slowly, as if walking underwater, through the ethereal plane toward his friend\u2019s shadowy forms. He found Evelyn first. She was unconscious on the ground, a bleeding gash on her pale temple. Roon knelt next to her and touched a hand to her head as he reappeared in a world of colour and healed her. She stirred, so he drew out his shortbow and shot the nearest goblin, then blinked away before it could turn on him. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

When he reappeared the second time, Roon stood next to Kilian as the sorcerer shot an earth-shattering spell into the middle of six goblins, and all of them dropped dead. The sorcerer flew back and up to land, balanced, on the edge of the empty pot. He then shot down at the ogres as the stupid creatures tried to slap him off the rim. He was too quick, and danced around their slow blows. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Roon sent a toll of necromantic energy like a ringing gong into the ears of one of the ogres, and it stumbled back holding bleeding ears. Then, he blinked into the ethereal plane and waded towards Thia. The elf had just cut down one of the ogres with her gleaming blade and was running along the top of the table toward the fire giant. Her sleek black hair flew behind her as she screamed her battle cry and jumped. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

There was a thunderous blast as Opal, no longer a spider, threw back a wave of incoming goblins, killing half of them. Hiccup, who had been hiding under one of the tables, shot past Roon, his grayish shadowy figure moving as a blur as he shot a fireball into the room. It exploded, killing the last of the ogres. Then, the goblin turned toward the other goblins and shrieked. \u201cRun for your life, Nibblesworth! I\u2019ll find you later!\u201d The squirrel obediently leapt off Hiccup\u2019s staff, as he so often did, and ran up the stairs out of sight. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Thia got a few slashes in at the giant before it batted her away with an angry grunt. She was knocked off the table to hit the ground roughly on her back. Roon appeared next to her in a flash and healed her with his staff before disappearing again just as the giant noticed him and went to grab him around the torso. Kilian leapt from the lip of the pot and threw up a cloud of thick fog into the room, obscuring the giant from them. Evelyn was obscured within the fog, and it was impossible to tell where the girl was. \u201cRun!\u201d The sorcerer suggested urgently. \u201cSearch for the Duke!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Roon reappeared as they all started for the opposite door. Then, they heard howling in the distance. A few moments later, the doorway was filled with the raw-skinned, blackened forms of two enormous flaming dogs. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cHellhounds,\u201d Thia cursed, as if she\u2019d seen them before.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/main><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Part 22 of The Giant’s Gamble, the adventurers travel through the depths of the iron slag mines and find some bubbling pots of mysterious contents being spiced and stirred by a variety of monsters and beasts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[18,19,17,14,15,16,23,20],"series":[],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-giants-gamble-dungeons-and-dragons-series","tag-campaign","tag-cult-of-the-dragon","tag-dnd","tag-dungeons-and-dragons","tag-fantasy","tag-series","tag-the-giants-gamble","tag-wizards-of-the-coast"],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/blog.alexisveenendaal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Giants-Gamble-Blog-Photos10-copy-13.png","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/blog.alexisveenendaal.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/seriously-simple-podcasting\/assets\/images\/no-album-art.png","download_link":"","player_link":"","audio_player":false,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"dark","subscribeUrls":{"amazon":{"key":"amazon","url":"https:\/\/music.amazon.ca\/podcasts\/09c34bbc-b359-49af-a286-31830ed5634c\/short-stories","label":"Amazon","class":"amazon","icon":"amazon.png"},"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/short-stories\/id1621456328","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_play":{"key":"google_play","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbGV4aXN2ZWVuZW5kYWFsLmNvbS9mZWVkL3BvZGNhc3Qvc2hvcnQtc3Rvcmllcw","label":"Google Play","class":"google_play","icon":"google-play.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbGV4aXN2ZWVuZW5kYWFsLmNvbS9mZWVkL3BvZGNhc3Qvc2hvcnQtc3Rvcmllcw","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0lcQCRs52MfYlKs35lVX4K","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"itunes":{"key":"itunes","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/short-stories\/id1621456328","label":"iTunes","class":"itunes","icon":"itunes.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/blog.alexisveenendaal.com\/feed\/podcast\/default-podcast","embedCode":"

The Giant’s Gamble Pt. 22<\/a><\/blockquote>