The Yanille Dilemma

Veedi had been walking for several days now, having been greatly hindered by her wishing to avoid the Khazard Battlefield where countless gnomes were slaughtered daily. She came to a halt though, as the gates of Yanille stood before her.

"What?" Veedi questioned as she observed the large gashes in the town gates.

She then saw writing on the wall which appeared to be in blood which displayed the simple yet heart-stopping name "Ogre's Town".

"By Saradomin," Veedi uttered.

She pushed open the gate and entered, keeping her eyes peeled for danger. There was a large dim-witted looking ogre near the bank, scratching its back with a piece of timber pulled from the innards of the bank. In the distance she saw an ogre standing on a crop patch and another outside the pet store. Something was wrong. Veedi had little time to think about what had happened though, as two muscular ogres were plodding towards her. Fortunately, they had not caught sight of her, so she dived into the bushes.

"I thought I hears rustling in this here bush!" One ogre exclaimed.

"Don't be so stupid! You didn't hears anything. Your imaginaryation was just outs to play tricks on you!" The other snapped.

"Well okay."

Veedi slipped out of the way, her heart pounding. Not too far away from her was the Wizards' Guild; the stuff of legends. Veedi crawled along the ground towards it, nearly being trod on by an ogre she passed. Finally reaching the gate, she clambered over it and landed with a thud on the ground. A nearby ogre turned towards her and walked near to where she was. The ogre could not see her though, as she had now hidden amongst a thorny bush. When the ogre went, Veedi rose to her feet and entered the guild.

"The Wizards' Guild!" Veedi exclaimed looking around.

"There is somebody down there!" Called a voice from upstairs.

"We will investigate then!" Another voice said.

Two wizards in tattered blue robes edged down the staircase, each gripping battlestaves in their hands. They stopped dead when they saw Veedi, and a confused expression crossed their faces.

"Who are you?" One wizard asked.

"I'm Veedi. Veedi Limstrood. I'm from the Tree Gnome Stronghold, I've been travelling for days trying to find here. I've come to set up business," Veedi said.

"Business? Ha! Have you seen it out there?"

"Well, yes. That's why I've come to ask you what exactly is going on?"

"It's the same old story. Town short of money, we can't afford runes because all our runecrafters have left to find work elsewhere. We have few runes to defend ourselves so them beasts from Gu'Tanoth barge their way in here and kill over half the population. Us who were smart enough not to fight the ogres hid up here, but now we can barely cast an air strike and have little food left; we're dying."

"Let me help you! What is it that you want?"

"You? A gnome?"

"And so what if I'm a gnome?"

"Well you're very vulnerable aren't you? We'd never be able to live with it if we caused another death. Seeing all our town slaughtered with us too poor to save them has a rather nasty effect on us, we'll have those gruesome images in our minds forever now."

"I'm not bothered. I made it past the troops of Khazard, and they're a lot worse than ogres believe me. If it's runes you want then runes you'll get."

"Try and get some death runes, or anything that will shoot them ogres dead. We have all the spellbooks on us, it's just the runes we need."

"I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Thank you Veedi. Now let me introduce myself; I am Norbert, deputy head of the Wizards' Guild. The guild master disappeared when the ogres came, now we fear for his life."

"Well Norbert, I'll see what I can do," Veedi said making her way towards the door.

Norbert went back upstairs, followed by a crowd of wizards. He sat in his favourite chair, now coated in dust and looked out the window.

"Surely there are other wizards out there who will save us," Norbert said.

"Well the gnome might just be our ticket to safety," said Norbert's right-hand man Ibrahim.

"I hope so, I really do."

Veedi sneaked out of the town gate, nearly being crushed by the foot of an ogre. She made her way to the north, the odd rune would materialise on the coastline from time to time.

"There!" Veedi exclaimed as she saw an air rune resting on the floor. "It's not much but it's a start."

Veedi picked up the air rune and decided to head west to Castle Wars, surely the odd rune would turn up there?

Norbert sat in his chair with a tense expression resting on his face. He realised something; something which could save the wizards.

"I can sense it," Norbert said.

"Sense what?" Ibrahim asked.

"There is great magic near here, someone has found something."

"The gnome?"

"Of course not!"

"Then who else could it be? The ogres?"

"Perhaps, they have shamans amongst them, but I never thought of them to be too powerful."

"Maybe you are mistaken-"

Norbert rose to his feet and stood directly in front of Ibrahim.

"The eyes and mind of a wizard are never wrong! When a wizard senses magic, they are never wrong."

Ibrahim stepped back, clearly intimidated.

"I'm sorry Norbert," Ibrahim said in a small voice.

Veedi had scavenged about twelve fire runes, two cosmic runes and six earth runes. Not a bad start, she thought, but if this was all strong warriors would carry on them, then the chances of getting a number of chaos and death runes seemed unlikely. As she exited the Castle Wars waiting room having narrowly avoided being hit by a number of mithril weapons by sneaking in the dark corners of the fortress she was in, she felt rather tired. The moon sat high in the sky and mist rose from the swamps behind Castle Wars where the ogres hunted.

"A warning message," Veedi noted.

She had been out looking for runes for nearly four hours, and decided she should get back to the Wizards' Guild. The path was littered with smashed sticks and large footprints were clearly visible on the muddy floor. Could the ogres have come out this far? Veedi dreaded to think.

As Veedi arrived at the Wizards' Guild she crept inside, careful to avoid any ogres that could be nearby. As she ascended the steps she tried to keep her footsteps not too quiet so that the wizards would know it was her, but quiet enough to avoid the dim-witted ogres hearing her. As she reached the top of the staircase she entered the room where the wizards had been; it was empty.

"They've gone!" Veedi exclaimed.

Veedi hurried up another flight of stairs, observing every room she could find, but all of them were empty. It looked like the wizards had just walked out, they had clearly not been taken.

"Where could they have gone?" Veedi murmured.

Heading back downstairs she headed out the door, still in shock over her discovery. As she walked into the open air, two ogres turned to face her.

"Well looks what we've gots ourselves here!" One ogre exclaimed.

"Please, I'm not here to cause trouble! I'm going now!" Veedi whittered, terrified.

The first ogre grabbed her tiny bag and emptied it of its contents. They lifted up a fire rune.

"Look! It's one of those stones withs the symbol-things on them! She's in league with them wizard folk!" The first ogre exclaimed.

"I got lost! Go on, take my stuff, I'm going," Veedi said.

"I don't thinks so! You're coming withs us little gnome thing!" The second ogre said lifting her up.

"Let's takes her to the Cave of Doom!" The first ogre said.

Ten other ogres headed over, all smiling grimly as they observed their catch. Veedi made eye contact with one of the ogres, who seemed to wink at her.

"Cave of Doom! Cave of Doom! Cave of Doom!" The ogres chanted manically.

Things looked bad for Veedi Limstrood. Very bad.