Garek Enkdal - the City of Ten Thousand Blades
The revelries continue, the crowd unceasing in their noise and enthusiasm as some flag and take their leave while others quickly take their places, sometimes with some difficulty where the seats at the tables are contested. Yet beneath the surface there is an undercurrent of anger at being driven back underground, and some of the fights that break out are nasty, perhaps fatal, though you choose not to look close enough to say for sure.
Grutok's band seem to be old campaigners - after the initial swilling down of the local rotgut, fast as they can, they settle in for the long haul, slowing their intake somewhat, but never stopping. Food, when it infrequently arrives is surprisingly tasty, if unrecognisable, though to Hamin at least it is something of an oddity if not concern that there seems to be no attempt at rationing. It seems that estimates of how long supplies would last might have been somewhat optimistic.
You steal what sleep you can, constantly awoken by the noise and jostling, and it is with foggy heads that you are finally roused by the big Orog declaring that it is time to go. Grutok himself does not appear worried by the retreat below - you surmise that he is happy as long as there is a fight in the offing, matter not the foe.
If you retrace your steps down any of the alleys that you trod to reach the drinking establishment, then you know it not, nor do you consider it at all likely that you could find your way back as you wander about half a mile or more, you estimate, past ever more of the derelict stone buildings that serve as dwellings for the benighted inhabitants of Garek Enkdal.
At least Malgrom seems unconcerned by the path that Grutok leads you (though the boars that snort and growl at the Grey Dwarf's heels do little to help his mood), and he nods in satisfaction as a final turn leads out onto a wider way and thence to an opening to one of the tunnels that link the caverns, this one at least far less crowded than the others.
This tunnel is perhaps a little wider and straighter, though because of that the many rough-cut stairs that descend seem steeper and harder to navigate, though you all pass safely down.
When the tunnel at length opens out it is onto a smaller cavern, though one still teeming with Orcs. From what little you can see (and smell) from your vantage, this cavern seems devoted to armorers, smithies, dyers and such crafts ... though you do not enter, for the entrance to the next tunnel stands just north of the last, this one wider still, though relatively flat and quickly traversed.
The smells get worse, and the boar-handlers struggle to hold their charges upon their leashes as you enter yet another cavern, this four times the size of the last, but still only a fraction of the size of the main cavern, and likely the dwelling of more animals than Orcs. Thankfully Grutok chooses to follow the eastern rocky wall, so you are able to stick to the outskirts as it traces around westwards, the numbers of Orcs increasing somewhat as you reach yet another tunnel, this much narrower and very steep indeed, though the big Orog manages to push his smaller kin out of the way and force a path for you.
The tunnel is blessedly short, and quickly opens out into an admittedly tiny cavern, perhaps 300 feet across, bare of dwellings except for a stone barracks.
As foretold, here are gathered many soldiers, an attachment of which are at work removing a crude barricade that stands across a tunnel opening to the north, while nearby lounge another group of Orcs, armoured too haphazardly to be soldiers, gathered around one larger, meaner Orc who has an Ogre standing protectively at his side.
"Var," Grutok grunts, nodding towards his rival before turning his attention to the progress of the clearance of the barricade. "Soon be done," he surmises.