Turn 158
    I hope everyone is having a good week. We seem to be making some steady progress here for the moment; as always, do let me know if you have any questions about how things are going! I'd like to wrap this bit up and get everyone back together this week.

    * * *
    Upstairs:
    "Well damn," remarks a disgruntled Emmett when their search turns up nothing. Descending to the ground floor once again, "Why don't you guys take care of the prisoners? I'm just going to take a quick look around."
    "Be careful," is Lynden's advice, wondering briefly if he should accompany the half man. "Come on Barrend," he continues in dwarvish, "let's see if we can't persuade them to reconsider their religious beliefs..."
    Pham leaves them to that and begins a slow circuit of the chamber, avoiding the altar for the time being.
    Emmett heads for the downward stair. The red light from his eye reveals nothing alarming as he proceeds carefully down the spiraling way, but as he rounds the first turn his ears pick up the sounds of goblinoid voices. The stair ends in a part-natural, part-shaped area with two branching halls, one leading to the right and one to the left. The noise is coming from the left passage.
    It turns out to be coming from a room containing about twenty goblins, similar to those encountered above. They stare at him in apparent astonishment for a moment, shrinking back a bit from his heavily armed presence and chattering among themselves with great agitation.
    The distance and the intervening rock prevent the nosie from carrying upstairs.
    Emmett glances quickly at the 20 goblins, then points at two towards the front of the crowd, "You two. Upstairs. Now." His hook moves to clarify his orders as he's giving them, and then the half man turns and heads back to the stairs. Once there, he climbs about 4 steps, draws his sowrd and waits to see what effect the orders will have.
    Ten seconds later, a horde of screaming goblins rushes up at him; they appear to have decided to take a chance.
    On the other hand, they are also more interested in getting past him than in trying to attack him, and their only weapons are improvised -- candleholders, boots, sticks from broken-up furniture. On a third hand, there *are* kind of a lot of them.
    [I take it dealing out merry hell is the order for the day?]
    * * *

Downstairs:
    While they consider their options, the noise level rises considerably.
    Val gives ibn Hassan a warning look, now that he can see the man. "Let's be careful," he says nearly silently.
    The spy gives him a sidelong glance and smiles. "Trust me," he mouths. Then he eases the door open just an inch or so and peers through into the space beyond. It reveals a dark corridor with a couple of doors off it, running for about fifteen feet before it ends in a small "room." That end is illuminated by an uneven red glow.
    A moment of silence, and then the unmistakable sounds of mayhem erupting. Even without the red light, that usually means that Emmett is around somewhere.
    

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