Bob nearly fainted. He wanted nothing to do with that vampire.

“I’ll take you to the edge of the city and point you down the path you need to follow to find Vlad’s land. From there you’re on your own,” said Bob.

The group followed behind Bob as he made his way to the edge of the city. Two paths greeted the adventurers, one leading in the direction to Vlad’s lands and the other to large gravesite where the dead woke from their eternal slumber.

Sasha, Todd, and Gnar travelled down the seemingly endless corridor. Days had passed as they traversed the cold wet tunnel. As they moved farther away from the undead city, the skulls became less and less frequent. Eventually the tunnel looked normal. No one would expect that the end of the tunnel led to a city of the undead.

They had managed to reach the gate leading into Vlad’s lands. Stairs led to a door of a mausoleum. Todd opened the door and the group found themselves in a small run down gravesite. They could see a path worn down by the hooves of horses, leading to a village.

A village slowly became visible. Although the village was impoverished, it was vastly different then Khor. Instead of happy villagers roaming the streets, every local kept their eyes to the ground. There was little interaction in this unnatural town.

Sasha was observing people as the passed by. She accidently made eye contact with one of the villagers who bolted away. Clearly attracting attention wasn’t a good thing. Sasha and Todd tried act as low profile as they could, rubbing themselves in the dirt to blend in with dreary locals.

A long stream of people shuffled in the same direction. Not wanting to stand out of the crowd, Todd and his friends followed the villagers and kept their heads as low as possible.

“Hey you, with the goblin. Come over here,” demanded a well dressed man inspecting the line. “You’re too poor to own a goblin. Where’d you steal that from?”

“I didn’t steal him sir. He’s mine.”

The elegant man grabbed Todd by the arm and pulled him away from the crowd. “I don’t believe you,’ the elegant man whispered in Todd’s ear. Guards rushed over and tore Gnar from Todd while constraining him. Todd struggled to escape the guard’s grip but was enable to move.

“Next time you try and steal his majesty’s mine dwellers your head will be on a spike.”

Todd was stripped of all his possessions before a guard lifted Todd up and shoved him back into the swarm of people. He was dragged along the current of villagers until he was greeted by large green tents lined in rows. Todd watched as all the villagers filed into different tents. Todd didn’t know what to do. He froze.

“You can’t hold up the line! Move to your designated tent,” shouted a guard.

“I don’t have one” Todd responded.

“Well, move down to the last tent if you’re new.”

Todd made his way to the final tent. Army style bunk beds were squeezed as tight as possible. It took awhile but Todd eventually managed to find an empty bunk. A young boy sat on the bottom bunk. His skinny, frail appearance made him look younger than he actually was.

“I’m Todd,” Todd said with his arm stretched out for a handshake.

“You new? I haven’t seen you before. I’m Gale by the way.”

“Yeah, I just got here. What uh, exactly do we do?”

“You’ll probably be working in the mines. Most people do. Maybe we can work together, I could use some company and you need someone to show you around.”

“That sounds like a deal,” said Todd. Todd had thought about escaping and sneaking into the mines to find Gnar and Gubba, but working in the mines would provide him with an opportunity to find out where they kept the goblins. Hopefully Sasha was okay.