Chapter 69: Ch 69 – Stall

“The ground! On the ground!” Someone shouted out. I had no idea what was happening deeper into the mass of people.

All around me everyone pulled free knives, stone or otherwise. Devin pulled one out and offered the handle to me. I took it without any argument, and he wasted no time pulling his sword free in the next moment.

We stood there waiting. The tense moment lingered as we stood there, more waiting than anything. All of us could do very little to figure out what was happening. It had grown quiet again. I didn’t know if someone had died, or if they had been dragged away. Instead all there was a shuffling of people, the shifting of boots on stone.

Then there was movement, several of the people within the mass shifted towards us, if not for the fact that our party had already started with some space behind us, and the towns folk we might have been pressed flat into the stone blockage ahead of us.

Instead, we could only watch as several townspeople fell onto their backs and here half trampled by others in their group as they tried to get away from something within.

“Above!” Naan yelled in my head.

I was instantly aware of something reaching for me because Naan was already looking at it. I ducked and looked up to find an open bulb reaching down for me.

“Devin!” I shouted pointing my knife up towards the looming thing even as I tried to slash, but it was out of reach.

He glanced behind himself to find the thing level with his head.

“Shit!” He cried out a quick swing of his sword severing the thing to the ground so it rolled into the corner.

Green plant juice sprayed free from the vine as it flailed for several moments before dropping against the wall. Then it was entirely still.

That done we all looked around glancing up, and along the walls as well as over the floor.

Several among the towns folk stood up in the middle. They were all spotted with green muck from their hasty defense. I couldn’t help but glance that way via Naan. Four of the men in the group had started hacking at the vines with various tools when one of them had been attacked. The result was the vine had been mostly torn up and had stopped moving.

It was only then that I realized that the sounds from behind the fallen stone had stopped, not that they were all that obvious to start with.

“Naan, what about Dragon Smith?” I requested.

A violent shift in it's sight left me feeling a touch nauseous. But I could see Dragon Smith rolling a shoulder, he was bleeding from a few places but otherwise seemed quite whole and mostly unharmed besides a few scrapes.

“Can we clear out this blockage?” I asked next.

A few moments and a shift in perspective left me forcefully ignoring Naan’s gaze once more. I instead leaned into Devin trying to focus.

Before it could reply however there was another question, “Dungeon?” Dragon Smith spoke to us, the sensation like a vibrating cord leading in his direction.

“We cannot clear this with everyone so close.” Naan replied to Dragon Smith, guessing likely that his request would be the same as mine. Naan went to repeat itself to me but I quickly interjected that I already heard.

Naan seemed uncertain at that, as though it hadn’t realized I could hear its conversations yet. Not sure why that would be new, but it should have been obvious.

“Then what? Pull back and do it?” Dragon Smith suggested.

“I guess that’s the plan.” I sighed out loud.

Lucky on my side everyone was still quiet and watchful.

I looked to Devin, “Could you give me a boost or something?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot.

“What?! I need to address everyone and I’m short.” I insisted. Of course on second thought, what was I asking for? Him to put my on his shoulders?

Of course, several people had already glanced my way at the tiny commotion.

“Fine… next time we are bringing a royal stool or something.” I grumbled under my breath at him.

He just shook his head at me, but he was practically grinning all the while.

“Attention everyone!” I called out pausing to let people try and find my direction, “Everyone, I know it's a bit scary, but we need to all move back from the blockage.”

The remaining people in the passageway that were not already facing us, turned to me.

“Why?” “Those plants are going to attack us again.” “We shouldn’t have come down here.” “Who is that?” Where just the mutterings I picked up, most of them were lost to whispers I missed because someone else was talking.

“We need to remove the blockage, and we can’t do that with everyone this close!” I shouted, trying to explain hoping that would answer the most important point.

“I can’t see anything…” “But there are more vines back there…” “Why is she acting like she's in charge?” “Husband…” The crowd continued as nothing but an unintelligible mess of disparate statements.

“The longer we stand around, the larger the chance that those plants are going to be more interested in attacking us again! We need to keep moving, and to keep moving we need to move back so that we can make a hole.” I called out again.

Everyone just shuffled glancing this way or that way. A few murmurs from within seemed to be Charlene trying to get people to do as I asked, but for the most part, everyone just seemed to be standing around ignoring me.

I didn’t know what to do. Nine in ten of them probably couldn’t even see me. I glared up at Devin, “Well?”

“Everyone! Please do as she says!” Devin called out.

“Please move back!” Gerl chimed in a moment later.

The crowd didn’t seem to be wanting to do much of anything.

“This is so stupid…” I grumbled to myself. Deep down I knew I should be more patient, but I was nauseous, and antsy. The idea of being stuck here while the Elves were out there doing who knows what, while the ceilings could come crashing down... it was just all too much when combined with their pointless stubbornness.

Taking a breath I turned to Devin, “Make a path, let's go talk to the soldiers in the rear.”

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He nodded and sword still out we started towards the rear guard.

They all quickly pressed to the sides wanting nothing to do with our group of knife-wielding goblins or Devin who looked far too serious with his sword out. The goblins honestly looked to be enjoying themselves giving sharp-toothed grins at everyone. Of course from my perspective they were excited or happy. From the Human’s perspective, they likely thought they were trying to be intimidating or threatening.

I felt a little bad for scaring people as we rushed past them towards the group of soldiers in the back.

Charlene rushed over to us as we were moving through, though she came up short upon noticing Scout and the other goblins. "Anna... I tried to help."

I nodded, "We're going to talk to the soldiers."

"Maybe if we go person to person we can get them to agree? Everyone is scared and the only reason we came down here was their big captain... without him..." Charlene trailed off

I knew that much, but I wasn't about to try and convince the whole town one by one. At least if I could get the soldiers to help they would probably work as a group.

I waved her off, "I'll figure it out. Just stay safe."

Charlene frowned slightly, stepping back, and we continued past her. We found several wounded, but those wounds were very much related to the elves, and not the plants. We pushed on.

When we were nearly at the back we found there had been one or two vines trying to come back out here as well. The soldiers had apparently taken care of it with their swords quite easily.

It was quite possible that my interpretation that this place was terribly dangerous was wrong. Then again I recall seeing Emmett’s head being bitten clean off and decided that maybe numbers were just incredibly helpful.

“Men! We need to move the group back.” I said as I walked up to them, trying to be commanding and charismatic.

“Who are you?” One of the men asked.

So much for charisma, I sighed.

“That’s the woman that the captain was speaking with earlier.” One of the others spoke up.

“Devin?” Another asked tentatively.

“Captain Dragon Smith is stuck on the other side of a huge block of stone, we need to move back so we can make a hole.” Devin stepped up and spoke.

“Can’t he just smash it like everything else?” A man asked.

“Are you soldiers or not?” I asked frustrated and demanding, “Stop wasting time questioning me, and move so we can do this!”

“You’re not in charge here.” A soldier stepped up from the side towards me straight-backed and quite intimidating.

Devin interjected himself between him and me, “Step back.” he threatened.

The soldier did so, not looking like he wanted to actually fight anyone but he replied more softly, "I wasn't going to hurt her..."

Fucking damn it! This is so stupid…

“I’m the one that found this stupid dungeon! I made a deal with your captain so that we could all get through this stupid place together, and I’m telling you we need to make room!” I said stamping my foot and shouting at the soldiers.

Some of them honestly looked like they just wanted to do it. But they were looking for someone else to do something first. It was like our whole group just shut down without Dragon Smith.

“Fuck everyone! You're all idiots.” I exploded.

“Devin, Gerl we’ll go around.” I insisted.

“Around?” Devin blinked.

“Miss… Anna?” Gerl asked skeptically.

Scout beat his chest, “Around!” and the other goblins grunted enthusiastically. There was perhaps a little too much eagerness in the shortest members of my group.

I pressed Devin forward and our group worked our way past the soldiers who didn’t seem to be all that interested in stopping us either.

“Naan, what's the closest we can get to him from here?”

“You seem to be under the impression that we can dig through the walls to reach him. But the plants are still in the way. Have you forgotten?”

I knew that I was just too damn frustrated with the group of terrified, aimless, and downright obstinate humans that were just milling around being useless.

“We’ll figure it out.” I replied.

“There is a dead end near there. We could try it… but this is quite a bit more dangerous.” Naan pointed out.

“I know…” I agreed.

“Devin, forward.” I gestured with a hand.

Devin took a step forward, but then looked back at me, then to the group of milling soldiers. He considered them for a moment before speaking, “You lot are seriously going to make a woman lead a group of two men and ten goblins through this place alone? For what? Because you don’t know what to do? So what if you don’t know who she is, what's better? Just standing around here waiting for someone else to solve your problems, or doing something?”

The soldiers all seemed to look away at that shame prevalent among them.

We were about to leave when one of them stepped up, “I’ll help if you think you know a way out of here.”

I blinked, glancing back at them. I was bit surprised by the sudden shift in attitude. As if all it took was one person to make a decision several others stepped up as well. I couldn't help but breathe a deep sigh of relief, I might have been willing to charge off and do something stupid, but having help was going to be so much better.

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