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Chapter 12 by CrusaderofTruth CrusaderofTruth

How do you approach this?

Ignore the Tarantulas, and kill the rest.

'It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere', and these brutes look perfectly content to sit in captivity. Maybe after you kill the slavers, you can convince them that freedom isn't too bad.

That aside, you find a nice rocky alcove, and wait until nightfall, which isn't too far away, only an hour or two. You busy yourself by rapidly spinning together some thick web ropes, which proves to be very tough. You coil it up and slap it onto your abdomen to carry. Once darkness descends upon the plateau, you creep towards the camp.

Bonfires light up the central areas of the camp, where goblins are lingering, making some sort of tribal dancing ritual, some of them wearing masks, others drinking from open barrels of foul, almost congealed liquids. Revolting. The camp is set out in several rings of tents and crude wooden huts, and although there are large open spaces in the camp, there are also dark gaps between the tents. You also note, in the center of the camp, there is a big, dark pit. Curious...

Silently crawling over one of the sturdier palisades, you slide into a dimly lit crevasse between two tents and the wall. You begin to ponder how you are going to set up any sort of lethal trap here, when some voice inside of you whispers "**** is very flammable. Explosively so." You shudder and look around anxiously, then wonder how you might have figured that one out. A question for later, you decide, looking around for one of these barrels. Peeking out into one of the open zones, you see the goblins rolling out another barrel from a shoddy wooden building. If you could light that one on fire...

Or even better...

You quickly scuttle from shadow to shadow, slipping between tents and shacks, claws making almost imperceptible sound against the dirt. Passing by some tents, you catch snatches of the goblins gambling, rolling bone dice, gorging themselves on roasting meat, and in a couple of tents, rutting like animals. All in all, entirely too busy to pay you any mind. Eventually, you slide into the shack. Inside, the shack reeks of a thick, intoxicating smell, heavy like the scent of those bottles some heroes had on them.

You know from experience that your webbing is flammable, of course... but is it liquidproof? Testing the idea, you quickly begin to weave together a very tight clothlike material, fashioning it into a sort of bag. Dipping it into one of the open barrels, and sealing it tight, you find it does in fact hold the liquid without losing a drop. Pride swells within you, but there is no time to dally.

You could kill the goblins, one by one, through guile and trickery, but the numbers present demand efficiency. Quickly fabricating several more bags, you fill them, and tie strings to them. With no idea how powerful these things might be, the only safe solution is to set them up in a way that gives you time to flee.

Slipping out of the shack, you begin to creep through the camp and hide the bags in several dark corners of the camp, in between tents, and some even in a sleeping bag or two. You marvel at how you haven't been noticed yet, although you judge that some of them may be dismissing catching a snatch of you here and there would chalk it up to simply being one of the chained spiders. However, in a few corners, you see a few goblins lying in positions that suggest they aren't really asleep, some openly lying in pools of blood. That in mind, you still continue to stay mostly out of sight.

Once the bags are set, you seize a stick, and light a few of the crude fuses on fire. they begin to burn, a bit slower than you would like, but you turn to flee in any case-

And bump into a rather burly goblin. The goblin hefts a large club over his shoulder, growls at you, and barks something in a language you don't understand. At your lack of response, the goblin flicks his wrist, and a slender whip lashes into your side, making you recoil in pain and instinctual fear. The goblin barks something again, and you desperately run through what he could possibly be saying...

The only thing that makes sense, given his authoritative stance, and the fact he hasn't killed you yet, is the option he is trying to order you to do something, but what? Perhaps to join the other spiders in their pen? Beginning to back towards the pen, the goblin hisses and snaps the whip at you again, clearly annoyed at the sluggish response.

Then, from the shadows of one of the huts, you see a slender form dash out, and with one fluid movement, brings a dagger up to mercilessly dispatch the hapless goblin. As the goblin falls to the ground, gurgling, you see the figure stand to its full height. An elvish hero, female most likely. In her eyes you see something much more terrifying than the malice and almost indignant rage the goblin had- boredom, the same that you've seen in the eyes of a hundred heroes who have killed you, over and over again.

Caught in the open, mere feet away from something that poses a tangible threat to you, you react in the only way that makes sense- you flee, without a trace of shame. The only reaction you hear from the hero is one of confusion. "The fuck?" Clearly she isn't used to an enemy that runs. Cowardice wins the day, however, as you scuttle over the nearest palisade, knocking over a pair of goblins on the way. Voices raised, swords being drawn, you madly dash away, before those fuses can-

BOOM.

What is the aftermath of such a massive explosion?

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