Chapter 16

Corben awoke with a desperate gasp for air but could not move. Lonaraa held his head firmly between her breasts while being sound asleep.

It may have been a dream to go out being suffocated between the mounds of a beautiful woman but he greatly preferred for that to happen much later in his life.

"Hey!" He let out a muffled shout but didn't get an answer from her.

Finally, out of desperation, he pinched her side. Lonaraa awoke with a yelp and instantly pushed him aside.

Corben rolled to his back and took a sharp inhale.

"Why did you do that!?" She asked with a scowl, massaging the pinched spot.

"Sorry, but I prefer not to die in your embrace today," Corben replied, still trying to catch his breath.

"Oh, I was holding you too tightly?"

"I'll live. At least you didn't kick me out of bed this time." Corben chuckled.

"You are being mean to me again." She pouted.

"Then you shouldn't be this cute when angry." He turned to face her.

Lonaraa scoffed but couldn't keep an angry expression for long. After a few seconds of a staredown, she just leaned forward and kissed Corben.

"You should be nicer to me!" She pouted again after a kiss.

"I think that can be arranged." Corben grabbed her waist and pulled himself closer to her, kissing her neck.

Lonaraa let out a sigh of contentment, running her hand through his hair.

"That's much better… but we should get up. Our friends are probably waiting for us."

"Are you sure?" Corben asked continuing to work on her neck.

"Mmm… I… if we do it now, we won't get out of bed before noon."

"And?"

"We can't let everyone wait on us."

"You are too nice for your own good, woman." Corben rolled away from her and sat up.

"You want me to be mean to you and others?" She asked, getting out of the bed and giving a full view of her slender naked body from behind.

"No, that is not what I meant," Corben replied, enjoying the view. "But I guess you are right. We better go down before the goblin tries to either spy on us or just barge in without knocking."

After quickly washing with a wet cloth, they both got dressed and walked down the stairs to the area they had rented for the celebration.

The rest of the group was already there. Jithu's high-pitched voice was the first to invade their senses. The gnome was enthusiastically explaining the intricacies of the irrigation automaton to Yiliana, who was doing her best to ignore her and tried to medicate the hangover with copious amounts of coffee.

Eldum was stuffing his face with yesterday's leftovers while Osbeorn had put his muzzle on the table, wincing each time Jithu opened her mouth.

"Good morning." Corben and Lonaraa greeted them.

"Finally, you're here!" Jithu turned all her attention to the pair. "I need details, positions, angles. For Science!"

"Can you shut up for a minute? Their private business is their own. None needs to hear how they did it." Yiliana scolded the gnome.

"Ah, you are just envious you weren't the one getting plowed." Jithu waved her off.

"You are insufferable. I, unlike you, have some decency." Yiliana took another gulp of coffee before looking away from the pesky gnome.

"'Decency' you say?" Juthu smirked.

"Lass don't…" Eldum tried to intervene, being fairly sure how the spat between those two would end.

But Juthu was on the roll and went for a kill. "And who got wasted and started to whine about how much she wanted to get d…"

"Shut up!" Yiliana shouted.

Jithu's mouth clamped shut instantly. The gnome glared at the elf and raised her fist but Yiliana wasn't done with her.

The elf took a long exhale with closed eyes. "Maybe it's time to keep my promise." Her lips twisted into a cruel smile.

"Don't… Help!" Jithu managed to get out through her teeth, looking at the rest of her companions with a pleading expression.

"Run into that wall." Yiliana barked at the order that the mind-controlled gnome obeyed despite her desperate pleas.

Juthu jumped down from the stool and ran into the wall head first with a thud and fell to the ground.

"I see that you four are having fun." Corben sat down with his team.

"She looks really hurt. Wasn't that a bit much?" Lonaraa glanced at the passed-out gnome and sat down next to Corben.

"She'll live, unfortunately." Yiliana shook her head. "But if someone feels generous toward those in need, Eldum told me you have a wondrous potion that would help me get over yesterday's celebration."

"Sure, I have few." Corben opened his backpack. "You want one too?" He asked Eldum.

"Nah, this stuff doesn't give me a hangover, but the fluffy beast sure could use one." The dwarf patted Osbeorn on the head. The bear responded with a growl, closing his eyes.

"By the way, shouldn't cleanse spell do the same?" Corben asked, handing out the hangover cure.

"I won't ask Elune to heal my hangover. That would be disrespectful towards the Goddess." Yiliana grabbed the potion and gulped it down.

"Suuure… anyhow, are we planning to work today?" Corben switched the topic.

"If you two want more time off, I'm all for taking it easy." Eldum chuckled.

"We shouldn't just make everyone sit around." Lonaraa shook her head. "And you promised to not be lazy." She turned her head to face Corben.

"For someone who supposedly will live thousands of years, you sure can't take it easy." Corben knew she would not give in unless all of his team was on his side. Unfortunately for him, the best advocate for laziness was unconscious on the floor.

"I don't want to be in this sun-filled area. Let's get done with Defias and hopefully get what I'm looking for as well." Yiliana added her voice against slacking off.

"Fine… get the crotch bandit back to her feet so we can get moving." Corben gave in.

Both women had a point anyway. If more money could be made there was no reason to do nothing.

"Do I have to? We could just tie her to the bear to carry around. She is a lot more manageable that way." Yiliana glanced at the gnome.

Corben stroked his chin as if seriously considering the elf's proposal.

"You can't be serious?" Lonaraa raised her voice, getting a grunt from Osbeorn in response.

"He says that it would be easier to carry her around than listen to lass rambling all the time." Eldum chuckled.

"Unbelievable! Are you all serious? How can you treat your teammate like this!" Lonaraa jumped to her feet and came to the gnome's defense with a righteous fury.

"Relax, we are just joking around." Corben grabbed Lonaraa's hand and pulled her back down. "Of course, we won't leave her like this."

"I'll just get the crotch goblin back to her feet." Yiliana sighed, getting out of her seat and approaching the unconscious gnome.

One healing spell later and Jithu opened her eyes, slowly sat up, and rubbed her head in the spot that hit the wall.

"Learned your lesson?" Yiliana asked her, leaning back to give her some space.

"Yes, ma'am. I should offer a solution first before mocking my friends." Jithu jumped to her feet with a mock salute.

"As a sign of goodwill, I will gift you this coupon for carpet munching services executed by yours truly." Jithu pushed a small paper into the elf's hands and quickly ran back to the table, hiding behind Lonaraa just in case.

"You…" Yiliana snapped around to see Jithu watching her with one eye from behind Lonaraa.

"Let's just move on." She gave up on teaching Jithu any sort of lesson.

Meanwhile, Lonaraa leaned close to Corben and asked what carpet munching meant, getting bluer in the face the moment she got an answer.

Once everyone had eaten breakfast, the group went to look for a job on the notice board.

With the wanted posters of all Defias leaders now luring brave adventurers with lucrative rewards, it was hard to even get close to the board.

Best of all, the main hideout of Defias was discovered and pinpointed on a public map, and by a strange coincidence it was in the depths of the Moonbrook mine.

"Looks like we can get everything done in one go if we are lucky. Oh, by the way, shouldn't you put up a reward for finding that heirloom you are seeking? With everyone charging the hideout, someone else might find it." Corben said to Yiliana.

With Yiliana nodding in agreement he went over the next topic. "I think we will need a few hours to prepare but with Defias costumes we could sneak past the main crowd and get a quick hit and run before the masses even get close."

Getting no protests, the team split up to make preparations. Corben stacked up on the herbs he could find around Sentinel Hill with the help of Eldum and Osbeorn.

Lonaraa and Jithu went to the local forge to sharpen their weapons and prepare a few engineering gadgets to stack the odds in their favor.

Yiliana, meanwhile, scoured the local markets for wool cloth to make a sizable reserve of enchanted bandages that would serve as an alternative to her healing spells and Corben's potions.

Once the preparations were done they set out to get ahead of other adventurer teams, many of whom had left for Moonbrook hours ago.

Their main advantage was the disguises combined with illusion magic which pretty much eliminated the need to fight anyone on the way there if they were careful enough to avoid the gnoll camps.

The doglike creatures were at least partly in cahoots with the Defias cartel but the vicious creatures could easily turn on their allies at a moment's notice.

The Moonbrook was easy to reach and predictably there were no people save for criminals left in the town.

The mine itself was in the outskirts which they reached with relative ease, avoiding the adventurer teams that had engaged the bandits.

The entrance was rather well guarded, but Jithu with her infinite talent to bullshit on the spot convinced the guards that they were carrying critical information meant for the leader of defias crime cartel, Edwin VanCleef, personally.

With Eldum in lead, the group navigated the narrow tunnels of the mine. Even with the map their client had provided, it wasn't an easy task, and more than once they managed to get lost and walk in circles until by some miracle finding the right path again.

Also, the mine wasn't as empty as they first assumed it would be with miners working on pretty much every visible node.

The odd Defias patrol didn't pay too much attention to them, likely assuming that the group was patrolling just like them.

It all changed when they finally reached the caved-in section of the mine that had early darkness and silence about it.

Corben lit a light in his hand and with Lonaraa by his side slowly crept deeper in. The first suspicious thing was that there was no rubble on the ground, as if someone had cleared it out.

After about twenty or so meters in, it became clear that the sounds of picks hitting the stone came not only from behind but from deeper ahead as well.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Corben whispered.

Lonaraa tensed up, lifted her shield, and took a step forward to be ready to intercept whatever was lurking in the dark.

The rest of the team followed her example preparing to face the potential attackers.

After another twenty meters, they reached a turn with the miming sounds now being much louder. There also was an awful smell that likely came from the corpses of the miners.

Corben motioned for everyone to stop and cautiously looked around the corner.

The moment the first rays of light hit the dark tunnel, a mummified figure halted the work, turned its head with a sickening crunch, and screamed in a raspy voice.

Corben fell backward with a rather unmanly high-pitched screech, "Undead!"

Next thing they know, numerous mummified figures charged and began assaulting the group with pickaxes.

Lonaraa pushed the first one away with her shield while Eldum started to shoot in the dark randomly.

Corben quickly got back to his feet and threw a fireball at the nearest attacker, setting it on fire. But all it did was make Lonaraa's job of holding them back even harder.

The undead figure continued attacking, not caring about being on fire.

"Hey Yil, bless this for me!" Jithu towed a pouch with vials at the elf.

"What do you plan to do?" Corben shouted at her without turning around, switching to using an arcane type of attack and shooting arcane miles at the undead miners.

"Give them some taste of the holy fire!" Jithu dropped her backpack on the ground and started to assemble some sort of gun.

"As long as it works." Yiliana shrugged and started to recite blessings while holding her palm over the pouch.

The moment she was done, the crafty gnome grabbed the pouch and loaded the first vial into the gun. She ran between Lonaraa's legs, stopping right in front of the draenei, and shouted, "Come to Mama, you undead freaks!" Unleashing the flames from her flamethrower into the dark tunnel.

The devastating combination of fire and holy damage was enough for the dead miners to retreat deeper into the darkness with angry raspy shouts.

Jithu took a few steps forward and unleashed another torrent of fire.

The smell that filled the air was beyond horrible but there was no stopping now.

"Good job!" Corben said to Jithu.

"Yeah, yeah, I know I'm the best. Help me reload while they are not attacking." She motioned at the pouch that hung over her shoulder.

Corben did as she asked and prepared the next vial for her. After another shot the gun ran out of juice and she quickly removed the empty vial and replaced it with a full one.

While Corben and Jithu carefully moved forward the rest of the group inspected the now unmoving dead bodies left behind and retrieved the smoldering miner cards that thankfully were made of bronze and could withstand the heat.

Step by step, they reached the deepest part of this section of the mine and burned the last undead that hurdled at the corner.

"Whoever made them undead should burn in hell." Eldum remarked, retrieving the last miner's card.

"At least now they can rest. Maybe we should just blow up this section so they are not raised again. I'm sure cr… Jithu has some spare bombs." Corben patted Eldum's shoulder.

"Aye, that would be for the best," Eldum replied. "Las, do your thing."

"You don't have to ask me twice. One massive explosion coming right up." Jithu cackled like a maniac while setting up explosives, pulling them out of her seemingly bottomless backpack.

At least this time she had the sense to let the group get a decent distance away before she pulled a trigger.

With minor chaos caused and one of the main tasks done, the group walked towards the tunnel where the central Defias hideout was located.

Proofreading by Sad_Smiles and Visur Nyxan.