Tavern 4

She placed her face close to the ceiling of the cave, angling herself around the descendant stalactites. If she could only reach that little bit further and grasp the rock ahead of her, then she could attach the final support hook. She had never got on too well with stone, that was more for Dwarves, but not even the dumbest, crater-brained dwarf would attempt such a menouveur as this. All it would take is to put her foot in the wrong place just once, and it would be curtains.

The ambitious Elf looked down at the red, bubbling lava below as she desperately straddled the ceiling and she watched as a single bead of sweat trickled from her brow into a long drop towards it's hot, molten fate. It was at that point that she began to truly appreciate the risk involved in this fools errand. But with the prize so close now, it was not the time for hesitation.

She stretched forwards with the hook in her hand and thrust it into the rock. She waited for a moment with abated breath and then let out a sigh of relief as she realised that the rock was holding and she was not plummeting to her doom.

Gradually she scuttled across the roof of the cave until she was above the object of her desire: The Flute of Malitocritese.
Gently she attached the pulley to her belt and tilted herself on her axis until she was upside down, standing on the ceiling. She allowed the rope to take the strain and then slowly adjusted the wench, lowering herself towards the central platform.

The wench cricked and cracked as the pulley descended until finally she was above the flute. The young Elf, now very proud of herself, reached out and grasped the object in her hand. Lifting it from it's plinth she examined it.

Exquisite. Crafted from the finest gold and set with the magical jewels of Malitocritese himself. But the true beauty would be in playing this treasure, and that would come later. Now was the time to make a brilliant exit.

Delicately she shimmied back up the rope towards the ceiling. And indeed, she was no more than a hair's breadth from the support rock, when she heard that terrible noise.

A low rumble deep below her made the entire cavern begin to shake, and she knew it could only mean one thing: an eruption was occurring somewhere in the mountain, and it was about to domino through the entire cave network.

The initial jolt threw her off balance and she suddenly lost her grip, falling several feet all at once. Luckily the rope held out, for now at least, but she would have to act quickly if she was going to get out of this alive. She pulled herself back up as quickly as she could, while the intensely boiling lava spat wads of molten rock up at her. She made for the support rock just as a “twang” of rope sounded in her ears. Suddenly she was unsupported and found herself hanging by one hand from a vibrating stalactite. Instinctively she swung her body up, loosing grip just late enough to get her hands on another, and as that one fell away from the ceiling she lashed out once more, connecting with another and then another, and another again, all the while trying some how to survive for long enough to angle herself towards the exit.

She was lucky.

A little too lucky.

As she swung out for another hold, her satchel fell open, leaving the Elf swinging up and the flute cascading away from her. Her reflexes moved like lightning, unfortunately for her, they just happened to move in the wrong direction. In a serious lack of judgement, she turned in mid swing and reached for the flute.

Skilfully her hand wrapped around the flute to take a firm hold of it, as she and the flute, both hurtled towards their deaths.
Realising the grievous error she had made she spun in mid air for something to take hold of, but the ceiling raced away from her ace the molten river exploded up to meet her.

Suddenly she felt an extreme impact in her side, knocking her off course. She landed with a resounding thump on the central platform and tried to gather herself together. She wasn't sure what had happened and looked down to her side, which now felt as if it had been punched by a mountain troll. She let her eyes adjust and plucked one of several thorns from out of her leather tunic. Squinted at them for a moment before grabbing the ground suddenly as it began to shake violently and sink into the fiery lake.

“Melody! Get up!” A voice shouted from the other side of the cavern.

She looked over at her brother, standing at the cave entrance and bounced quickly onto her feet.

The other Elf drew his bow and launched an arrow into the ceiling. Next the Elf crouched low to the ground, sprinkling seeds upon the floor.

“Hurry up!” Melody screamed, “This platform is almost gone!”

The second Elf glanced at her disapprovingly for a second and then flung his hands high into the air. As he did so, the seeds he had sprinkled on the ground suddenly exploded with life and shot up into great strands of creeper vine that grew rapidly towards the ceiling, eventually wrapping itself around the arrow that was imbedded there. The Elf then took hold of the bottom of the vines and using a small sickle he hacked through them quickly.

Melody was almost out of floor as the vines swung over to her. She leapt into the air to meet them, taking a firm hold and using them to swing to safety alongside her brother.

The entire cave shook and the magma began to boil up towards them, and so the two quickly made their escape out of the cave and back into the tunnel network.

Once they were clear of the dangers, it did not take long before Annwn proceeded to berate his younger Sibling.

“Melody, what you did was entirely irresponsible!”

“Well I thought it was heroic.” Replied Melody with a ‘matter of fact' aye about her.

“There is a fine line between heroism and foolishness. A line you seem unable to perceive.”

Melody sank but at the same time you could see her wildling fury begin to bubble toward the surface in a manner not too dissimilar from the molten fate they had just escaped. Annwn was treading on fragile ground now, but somehow, he could not seem to stop himself.

“Besides, were it not for my intervention then you would never have gotten out of that cave.” Prodded Annwn.
It was a prod too far.

“You arrogant bastard!” screamed Melody at the top of her lungs, “I was handling the situation just fine until you came along!”

“Fine? Fine! I appologise, I hadn't realise your penchant for swimming in lava!”

“I hate you so much!” she shouted eventually, after stumbling for a counter-argument that wasn't there.

So Annwn, allowing himself to be more foolhardy than commonsense would suggest, went that one step further:
“I'm telling mother of you.”

Eruption. Melody leapt at her brother and before they knew it, they were both rolling on the floor, tussling in the dirt for supremacy. It was not exactly what you'd call a fight, these two leafy Elfs punching and pulling each others hair, each just waiting for the other to surrender. Something that never happens between two hard-headed Elfs, especially related ones.

He hit her, she bit him, he elbowed her in the ribs, she kneed him in the stomach. And slowly, bit by bit, they exhausted themselves, until they heard a voice.

“‘ello my pretties, Alfie thinks you've got something for ‘im”

It was a menacing voice that came with a smell you could have scraped of the arse of a dead cat. They both looked up into the face of old Alfie – and his boys standing behind him – large knives glinting in their hands. Alfie reached down and picked up Melody's satchel from the ground and proceeded to rummage.

“Well ‘ere we go, this is what we're looking for,” Alfie pulled the treasure from the part and examined it like a rat examining cheese, “oh yes, should fetch quite the pretty penny on the market.” The foul little thief began to slide the flute into his coat as Melody flew forward,

“No, it's mine, give it back!”

Annwn dived after Melody, wrapping his arms around her waist and forcing her to the floor again. They both looked up at the blades pointing down at them. Everyone there was well aware that I either Melody or Annwn moved then they would be ventilated with ease. So for once, they both agreed on something – not to move.

Then there was a loud, blunt thud. Melody wasn't sure if it was her own heart or whether it was something worse, either way she didn't want to know about it and so she shut her eyes tightly. A series of other thuds followed quickly from the first and somewhere amongst it Alfie could be heard saying:

“Blimey, he's a big fu– ” and then a final thump thankfully ending the potentially rude sentence with a simple: “urfg…”

As all fell momentarily quiet Melody gingerly opened one eye.

Her eldest brother, Selric, made his way through the dusty air.

“Selric! Oh thank heavens, how in the heck did you find us?”

“Well,” the strapping Elf began as he adjusted his sword holster, “everyone has been looking for you, Melody. I overheard these humans talking in the street about following a silly Elf into the caves and getting the jump on her as she tried to make off with the loot. I figured it could only my sister they were speaking of.”

“Well at least one of you is a real hero” said Melody as she scornfully looked down on Annwn who was still dusting himself off.
She made her way over to Alfie and with one hand on her nose she rolled him over and pulled the flute from his coat.

Or at least one half of the flute.

Both brothers saw the look on her face and both knew to stand well back.

“You useless idiots! You morons couldn't mount a rescue if your lives depended on it! What's the point if the treasure gets wrecked in the process. You big pair of oafs!”

With that she stormed off out of the cave shouting assorted Elven profanities at her brothers. Neither could speak. There was nothing to say. Instead they just did what they always did: shrugged to each other, rolled their eyes and followed her home.