“The broken sticks! The sticks!” Jack yelled to the Spartan, pointing to the two halves of the stick that the scorpion had snapped.

The Spartan didn’t seem to understand the words, but worked out the meaning of Jack’s gestures and immediately seized the weapons. The fracture had left each half with a pointed, jagged tip, which the Spartan now drove into the monster’s back, mercilessly piercing the exoskeleton again and again in the search for a vital organ. Jack remained locked to the scorpion’s tail, the venom splashing onto his hands and face and burning wherever it touched his skin. The beast flailed like a mad bull, but it could not buck him nor avoid the Spartan’s attacks. Eventually, it shuddered and slumped.

Jack pulled himself free and looked over to see Trotsky and the panther-woman. Between the two of them, they had managed to pull the venomous stinger off the end of the scorpion’s tail. Trotsky, now in full rage, held the giant arachnid by the tail and, although it was at least as large as he, he now slammed it bodily into the arena walls, over and over with the force of an avalanche.

Jack turned to the balcony and called out to Sergeant Schmidt. “We survived,” Jack said. “We beat your little game. Now, how about letting us go?”

Schmidt rose from his seat and applauded half-heartedly. “Very goot, Herr Jack. Very goot. But you are not done yet. Zere are still four of you. You vill now fight until zere iz only one. Or ve vill machinegun you all.”

This post is part of an ongoing story set in the pulp-era world of Hollow Earth Expedition. If you are new to this series, I suggest starting at the beginning.

The pair of impossibly large scorpions scuttled out through their gate in a confusion of legs and claws. They moved rapidly for creatures of their size, their many limbs flashing dusky yellow beneath the bright Hollow Earth sun. In the spectator seats above, the Nazi soldiers and their chosen slaves cheered on the deadly creatures.

Jack darted across the arena floor, back towards his cage. The motion seemed to catch the attention of the scorpions, prompting both to pivot towards him and then rushed forward. For a brief, panicked second he wondered if he shouldn’t just crawl back into his cage, hold the door shut, and hope that the scorpions filled up their bellies by feasting on the other three unfortunates in the arena with him. But that wasn’t Jack’s style: he would rather become arachnid food than leave someone else to do his fighting for him.

The bars of Jack’s cage had been cut from a wood that felt as hard as iron, but Jack had been wearing away at the thin rope that tied it all together. He had been intending to use this weakness a means to escape, but now he had more pressing needs. With a swift kick to the corner of the cage, he burst the seams of the enclosure and scattered a small pile of deadly-hard sticks before him.

Jack scooped up several and tossed one to the Spartan, who caught it in one hand and whirled it expertly to face the beasts. He tossed a second stick to the giant called Trotsky. Trotsky was not nearly so deft: he watched it coming towards him and watched it bounce off his chest and settle to the sandy floor. At least the giant now had some kind of weapon within reach. Jack looked around for the third combatant, the panther-woman, but he didn’t have time to see where she had gone before he needed to parry the thrust of a claw with his own stick.

The crowd howled in anger from the stands. The games-makers had wanted a slaughter, but Jack had turned it into a fight.

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you are new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning of the story.

As the wagon train rounded the bend, Jack peered around his tree to get a better look inside the cages. He was relieved to see that none of the occupants had Scrumtumbler’s unruly white coiffure, Limefellow’s prim bow-tie and bolo hat, Celeste’s sparkling red dress, or Maia’s silky black hair. What he saw were the tear-streaked faces of men, women, and children. They were a diverse collection of people and must have been captured from a variety of tribes throughout the area. Some were tattooed and others were ritually scarred. Some had long, braided hair and others were cleanly bald. The one thing they had in common was the mournful look in their eyes as they peered out from behind the wooden bars or their cages.

The giant, scraggly man pulling the train of carts stumbled momentarily over a root, and he got a swift jab in the ribs from a Nazi rifle barrel for his troubles. The soldiers laughed as his oversized features twisted into a grimace as he struggled to get the wheels moving again. Jack didn’t know much German, but he recognized the name the Nazis applied to this big man: Trotsky, whose namesake was an outspoken opponent of Stalin and Hitler. The four soldiers seemed to think it was a good joke to call their colossal slave by the name of a pint-sized political enemy, but nobody else was laughing.

Jack looked from the bearded giant to the four uniformed Nazi soldiers to the eclectic collection of prisoners. Looks like Halloween came early this year, he thought. Then he spotted a person hiding behind a tree on the other side of the road. He was dressed up like a Spartan from an ancient history book, complete with a shield, spear, thick bronze breastplate. His face was obscured by one of those helmets with the big red horse-mane running down its center.

With one hand, Jack quietly unscrewed his canteen cap and took a sniff just to make sure no one had slipped him a mickey.

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com

This is an ongoing story about a lost world of hungry dinosaurs, sinister villains, and non-stop action. If you are new to Hollow Earth Expedition, I suggest starting at the beginning of the story.

Jack had discovered several red sequins littered among the underbrush, but so far he had not found the girl. Judging from the tracks, she had been fleeing from some very big, nasty creatures. Jack cursed himself for not having been at the drilling machine when his crew needed him. Now they were scattered and probably dead, and it was his fault.

Something big crashed through the underbrush towards him, and Jack instinctively took cover behind a tree, his .30-06 pressed tightly to his chest. As he listened, he realized it was no jungle beast. First he recognized the sound of subdued weeping, then an irregular creak of axles and wagon wheels. Then came goading voices, callous laughter, and the sharp crack of a whip.

Peering around the tree trunk, Jack saw a train of wooden cages set on crude wooden wheels. Through the leaves he counted four cages and caught glimpses of native people imprisoned within.               These four cages were linked together and pulled along by what at first seemed to be an enormous, shaggy beast. Then it passed by an opening in the branches and Jack saw that it was no animal—it was a gigantic man wearing a ragged black tunic with a long, shaggy beard. He must have been at least eight feet tall, and his rags did little to conceal his broad shoulders and thickly-muscled legs. This man’s strength must have been enormous to haul those four carts along the rough jungle trail, and the scene made Jack feel as if he were spying on a fairy tale, watching an ogre carry villagers back to his dungeon. Well, if that giant had any of Jack’s crew in those cages, then Jack would just have to introduce the Brothers Grimm to the Remington bolt action.

Weaving his way silently through the bushes, Jack moved towards a curve in the game trail to head off the wagon train and get a better look into the carts. What he saw surprised him more than the eight-foot giant. That big man wasn’t the one taking prisoners; in fact, he, too, had been made a prisoner. His hands were chained to a heavy yoke around his neck, and that yoke was pinned to the carts he pulled. His captors were using him as a beast of burden to help them haul in their other victims. Beside the cages walked the true aggressors: four men in gray uniforms and rounded helmets.

“Nazis,” Jack muttered as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder.

Don’t miss any of the pulse pounding action! Get all the episodes of this story delivered to your inbox each month by subscribing to my free ezine!

Hollow Earth Expedition was created by Jeff Combos and is property of Exile Game Studio. For more Hollow Earth Expedition action, check out ExileGames.com