Peregrin Old-Fur: Captured

The dragonborn brought me to a table where some elves were working. Most of them looked scared; some had obviously been wounded. The table was round and on it was a large bucket of water. The elves each had a wet brick in one hand, and a knife in the other.
“We sharpen knives here.” The dragonborn responded to my confusion. “Are you familiar with knives?”
“Of course I am familiar with knives, I am a Goblin Hunter!”
“Then you know how to sharpen a knife.”
“Well…” I hesitated. “I normally throw the blade away, and get a new one when it gets dull.”
“Watch carefully.” The dragonborn picked up a brick from the bucket. “Place the edge of the knife against the brick, but not the back side.” Placing the brick on the table, he demonstrated the correct method of sharpening. “Like so.” he showed me. He then scraped the knife off the brick in an arc.
“Do this about 20 times on both sides and the knife will be very sharp. After that, place it in this bag, and grab another dull one.”
“Now your turn.” He handed me the blade. I looked at the blade, thinking of my brother’s death. I couldn’t help staring at it.
“Is there something wrong?” The dragonborn asked with concern. I shook my head and I grabbed the brick from the bucket and began to sharpen the knife.

One of the elves stared at me and when I looked at her, she immediately looked down.
“Why is she looking at me like that?” I whispered.
“This is probably the first time most of the elves and the other races have seen a Halfling.”
That made sense. A lot of the people here were young and didn’t seem to be far from their homes. I grabbed a few more knives and sharpened them. On the third knife, I accidentally let the blade slip off the stone and it sliced a bit of skin off my finger.
“So this one is definitely sharp.” I stated. I looked over to the dragonborn, expecting him to heal me. He simply shook his head.
“You’re going to have to learn to not be so dependent on me.” He grabbed a filthy rag, covered in mud, dry blood and sweat and handed it over to me. I looked at it in disgust, but I took the rag. I found the cleanest spot on the rag and placed it over my finger.
“Hurry, you need to get back to work.” The dragonborn politely demanded.
“Why, what’s the hurry?” I asked. As if on cue, a girl started screaming. I turned around to see a stalwart, dragging the girl by her leg and brought her down to a cave-like entrance and walked into a dark area which I could not see.
“What’s down there?” I asked. The dragonborn stayed silent. The silence only lasted a short while. Then he sighed, “I have a feeling one of these days, you’ll find out for yourself what’s down there.”
For the next few minutes, I stared at the pathway, wondering if there was an exit to this messed up place. I noticed that there were two stalwarts guarding the entrance.
“Will she be okay?” I asked the dragonborn.
“Depending on the mood of Tylovine. If he’s satisfied, she’ll only be injured. If he’s upset-“ He stopped talking. I continued to stare at the entrance.
“Get back to work.” The dragonborn demanded. “Before you end up like her.” I let those words sink in. We finished the rest of the bag and then the horn blew. It had an earpiercing sound.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“We go to sleep.” The dragonborn stated.
The dragonborn and I walked back to our so called “room”. He brought me a sheet so I could lay on it for the night. I did not thank him for it. I was too angry at Tylovine for killing Berhin and mad at myself for not being able to save him.
We lay on our sheets for a short while, my head beginning to fill with questions that demanded answers.
“So, what’s your name?” I asked the dragonborn. He sighed.
“My name is Hortamus. Anymore questions?” He asked politely. I paused for just a moment.
“How did you know about my brother’s death?”
“I knew this question would come around again. I’ve known about you for quite a while. You and your brother were infamous around here. Tylovine meant to take both of you in here and turn you into fine slaves. Unfortunately, your brother put up a fight and Tylovine didn’t like that, so he killed him.”
“I would have put up a fight if I could. I could have taken him down.”
“Peregrin, he has trained in that sort of dark magic for years. He knows how to handle fighters.” There was silence for about a minute.
“Why does he want to attack Kemadri? Is it just revenge he seeks?”
“No. It’s about a pair of gauntlets you stole.”
“Wait, the gauntlets I gave to Baris, the slave to my father?” He nodded unsure if we were talking about the same pair of gauntlets.
“It has symbols on it doesn’t it?” I nodded my head. “That’s goblin writing. Those gauntlets hold a deep spell hidden within them. After Tylovine failed to take over Kemadri, he started creating these gauntlets so that he could take revenge. If you knew about the Goblin language, you would know that those are words on the gauntlets and they say “destruction will fall upon thou”. I stared into the abyss, thinking about those words.
“What is the deep spell on the gauntlets? Why is there Goblin writing on them instead of Common?”
“There’s Goblin writing because Tylovine was raised by Goblins, and the Goblins he that raised him were killed.”
“By whom?”
“You’re not the first Goblin Hunter. They were killed by Reen’s father, Gragretor.”
“-and what of the gauntlets?”
“If the gauntlets hit the centre of Kemadri, the town will be destroyed by an earthquake.”
“He’s planning to destroy Kemadri!” I gasped.
“Indeed.” He stated. “I know this is a lot of information to absorb in one day, but you need to get some rest.” I nodded my head and as I tried to clear my mind. It took me about half an hour but sleep finally came. I felt uneasy laying my head down in a place that was unfamiliar to me. The thought that I was being watched by a stalwart did not bring comfort. Before it would have had no effect on my emotions, but now that I knew that they were involved with my brother’s death, I had even more reason not to trust them. My eyes grew heavy, like someone was forcing them shut and my thoughts faded away.