Shal, meanwhile, had called for her staff, and she was swinging it wildly at the huge slimy creatures. Swoosh! Thwack! The walls echoed with the sounds of her brutal attack, and the strength of her frenzied swings was so great that when one connected solidly, it was as if Shal had folded the center of the monster's body in two. Its flesh folded over the staff and stayed that way until Shal could pull the staff out. She must have broken the creature's spine, for when she removed the staff, the monster's body folded grotesquely in the opposite direction. Just as Shal freed her staff, another giant frog came leaping toward her. In an almost instinctive defensive measure, she pointed her staff straight up at the flying monster and then watched in horror as it skewered itself on the staff's sharp end and slid down over her arms. She screamed loud and long and immediately pulled back for all she was worth, extending her arms outward to get the disgusting animal away from her.

At that moment, Ren, who was fending off another frog, backed into the one Shal had just unskewered. The frog he was battling took advantage of the distraction to jump and land on top of him, squeezing his body against the body of the dead frog.

Ren became a human sandwich, folded deeply into the dead frog's soft, quivering belly, and covered by the mass of the live frog. He flailed out in panic, slashing up, down, sideways, pushing frantically at both of the creatures as their guts began to ooze over him. Soon both frogs lay jerking spasmodically on the floor on either side of Ren, who was shaking the slime and gore from his arms and retching…

"Behind you!" Tarl yelled, but it was too late. The last of the frogs was leaping at Ren with a vengeance. It smacked into his back with a wet thwack and sent him sprawling into the back wall of the room. As he struck the wall, it collapsed, and Ren fell to the floor of the next room with the frog on top of him. Shal spoke the final words of a Magic Missile spell, and three projectiles shot from her fingertips and buried themselves in the cold flesh of the frog. It jerked to its death on top of Ren before Shal and Tarl could reach their friend and pull the creature off him.

When they finally got Ren out from under the giant amphibian, his complexion was a pasty white, and his black leathers and armor were dripping with blood and ocher-colored ooze.

"Are-are you okay?" Shal asked, anxiously releasing her tight hold on Ren's hand.

Ren lay silent for more than a minute, then rose slowly and shook himself head to foot. "God, I need a bath! I've fought some of the most disgusting creatures in the Realms, and I've never felt this filthy…" He noticed their expressions of concern turning to relief. "Some valiant fighter, huh?" he asked, embarrassed.

"We should all stand up so well," Tarl said sincerely. "For a minute there, I thought I was-"

"Hey, you two, come and take a look at this." Shal was standing near the frog she had just killed, pointing at it. A grayish-green band encircled the creature's broad, damp neck. If it hadn't been for a triangle of silver that hung from it, the band would barely have been visible. The triangle, embossed with a small silver pyramid, glistened even in the dull light from the larger room. "It looks like a collar or something," said Shal, gingerly reaching for the medallion.

Ren grabbed her outstretched hand with startling speed. "Don't touch it!" he hissed. "Who knows what cursed master these god-awful animals served? That's not a symbol I'm familiar with, but these creatures sure weren't sent by anything friendly."

"Look here!" whispered Tarl. He had come around the frog from the other side and was holding up the far end of the stretch of canvas on which Ren and the frog had landed. Underneath was a veritable armory of weapons-ball and chains, throwing hammers, daggers, throwing stars, axes, shields, armor. Most were rusted or corroded, but two items stood out from the rest: a dagger and a hammer, both of which shone as though a metalsmith had polished them the day before. Each glowed with an eerie green light, and each was in mint condition and obviously of top quality.

"Those wouldn't glow like that unless there was some danger nearby," hissed Ren. "My own daggers do the same." He pulled Right from his boot, and sure enough, it was gleaming with a bluish light. "Listen…" whispered Ren. He pointed toward a gaping hole in the wall of the muddy room where the frogs lay dead. The sound of grating humanoid voices drifted through the air like the buzz of so many cicadas. Quickly Ren handed the hammer to Tarl, keeping the dagger for himself.

Together the three moved silently back into the larger room and worked their way along the wall to the opening. Ren crouched down and glanced cautiously through the hole, then quickly pulled back behind what remained of the wall. "There's a lot of them-orcs, hobgoblins, kobolds… a real mixed lot," he whispered. "Must be at least forty of them. We've got to get out of here-maybe back through the barracks and over the wall."

Tarl shook his head. "We haven't located what we came for," he whispered. "Our information is only partial, and the undead still walk."

"At least we know what kind of creatures are here," argued Shal, also in a hushed voice. "We can tell the council and they can send troops."

"No," insisted Tarl. "I think we should talk with them and try to get more information about their leader."

Ren tugged gently on Tarl's collar. "You're a nut case, my cleric friend. I speak orcish well enough to know that their idea of a pleasant conversation is to say, 'Die, human scum!' " He tugged lightly on Tarl's collar again and whispered with intensity, "Do you understand me? We've got to get out of here!"

"Get out of here?" The sharp, barking voice of a kobold sounded behind them. "Get out of here?" He let out a low chuckle, a perverted sound, like a dog growling.

Tarl and Shal turned to see a kobold strut through the doorway with an entourage of about two dozen orcs and goblins behind him. Ren watched as the troop of humanoids began to climb in through the hole in the wall.

"The party? The party? Is this the party?" snorted a fat orc, obviously, from his dress, a leader of the troop.

"Yes, master," barked the kobold. "The three of them… ours for the taking for the Lord of the Ruins."

The lead orc's yellow, piggy eyes gleamed brightly, and he snorted again in his excitement. "Torture the party… kill the party… get big praise from the Lord of the Ruins!"

"Power to the pool!" shouted the kobold.

"Power to the pool!" Orcs and hobgoblins alike took up the chant. "Power to the pool!" All jabbed cudgels, axes, or swords into the air in time with the chant as they began to circle round the companions, who were pressed together in a small cluster, back to back.

"What's that they're chanting?" Tarl asked, looking to Ren for a translation.

"They're getting ready to kill us, probably by torture, and they're saying something over and over again about 'Power to the pool,' " Ren replied.

Tarl tried to block out the jeering and chanting. He managed to concentrate long enough to cast a spell of Enthrallment. He had practiced the spell many times before, but he had never before tried it on a hostile group.

If the spell were successful, the group of creatures would understand and be receptive to anything he said, at least for a short while.

"Tell me, friends," he asked evenly, "to what pool do you refer?"

The kobold beamed, his tongue lolling over his yellow fangs like a panting canine. "Pool belongs to the Lord of the Ruins. He says to kill, we kill. Pool glows brighter. The Lord of the Ruins grows stronger. We grow stronger. We kill more. Nobody stops us… Power to the pool!" he shouted once more.

Others started to pick up the chant again, and Tarl could feel his control slipping. He waved his arms in a benevolent gesture. "Surely killing us can be of no value to your lord-or to the pool. Can't we do something else to add power to the pool?"