Save yourself so you might save others

Your choice was pretty easy - you doubted you had any real chance of escaping the goblin camp alive even if you tried to sneak out alone. You had no chance if you tried to take someone else with you. Should you manage to get out then you might have a chance to go back for a rescue later.

Pushing yourself to your bare feet you stagger forwards in the darkness. The ground is rough and cold but nothing compared to the steep sides of the Pits. Chips of sharp stones line the sloped rise out of the mining area. In no time at all your feet are bloody and swore. More times than you care to count you trip, stumbling forwards and with your wrists still bound together there's nothing to stop you from falling roughly on your front.

After what seems like an age of franatic, addreline fuled, scramble-climbing you make it to the top of the Pits.

You turn to survey the goblins' camp. Fire and destruction is everywhere. In the darkness you still can't make out the creature that's attacking - in fact, there might be two or three of them. Far off to the righ, however, you can see what looks like Rtok's band of warriors. They seem to be the only group of goblins acting with any tactics and holding their own in the tactic. Of the King there is no sign.

It's not safe here. In fact, standing up on the edge of the Pits makes you an easy target for anything that can cope with the dark to pick on. You have to move.

Turning your back on the goblin camp, the Pits and their ****-rail you stagger towards the line of thick trees that seem so common on the Island of Domination. The vine that binds your wrists is incredibly sturdy and despite tugging and twisting on it as you stumble torwards cover you remain bound.

The woodland is thick with vegetation and noisy. Animal calls and cries echo out in all directions. The sounds of the conflict in the camp are quickly drowned out. You need to find somewhere to rest and recover your strength.

The cave mouth is half hidden at the base of a giant tree. It looks damp and unpleasant but you're glad you've found it. Carefully you drop back down to your battered knees and crawl forward. Silence. It seems as if there's no other animal in here.

Crawling with bound wrists is far harder than you had hoped. Neverthless, you crawl onwards, naked bum in the air as you discover what you first thought was a simple cavity under a large tree is actually a short crawl space into an underground chamber. It's not a very large chamber, perhaps large enough for three people your size to snuggle together in and a draft from the back suggests there might be another way in and out but the ground is lined with a soft moss and it seems far safer than either the woodland night above or the goblin camp.

With your wrists still bound you curl up to sleep.