From the depths of the greenery, a sextet of eyes peered at the assortment of personages milling about. One of the bearers of two of those eyes shot a glance over at the bearers of the other two sets and tapped one on the shoulder.
“Humans.. and… reptile people? We need to report back.”
Hums and nods of approval were issued from the other two beings, and they turned to run away. They were… well, they were Grekels, which, if you had paid attention earlier in the novel series, were this reality (and many others’) version of the standard fantasy Goblin, and thus were not exactly the ‘brightest knife in the crayon box’, to quote a certain parody version of a certain simian alien.
As such, their arrival at the scene, time at it, and leaving of it, were neither stealthy, subtle, nor undetected nor unnoticed. Hell, they were not even the first group to have been discovered, though all the others had been eliminated. This was the fifteenth scouting party this week, and while the rest of them were now pushing up daisies, this one was being let go.
Of course, they were not being let go completely, oh no, no, no. Rather, they, though they didn’t know it, had a fourth person tagging along for the ride, though this was no Grekel.
This was a situation that, if left to fester, could lead to one side or the other being destroyed, and so the best was sent to make sure that these idiot not-goblins would be able to return from whence they came, all while revealing to the growing Lyrhean Nation where their potential foe was based.
It had taken a little over three months since they first set up the initial walls, which were nothing much more than a simple gathering of larger branches and a bunch of brambles bound together by earthen means since the first scouting part of not-goblins arrived. Now that the walls were being upgraded with actual logs to form a more sturdy defensive line, the time had come to make damn sure that they knew the location of their foe before they knew of the Lyrhean home base’s position.
And yes, the Grekel had spotted what they assumed to be the main camp, but like the dumb little shits they were, they didn’t bother to question what they saw and took everything at face value. The average Grekel wasn’t too bright, nor were they too observant, being slightly less smart than the average [INSERT GROUP THAT YOU, THE READER, THINKS ARE A BUNCH OF MINDLESS, OBLIVIOUS IDIOTS HERE] and slightly less observant than the average [INSERT PREVIOUS INSERT HERE AS WELL].
As such, they failed to notice that the group that they saw, let alone the ‘buildings’ that they saw, were essentially and obviously nothing more than hollow and useless fakes. The ‘big meeting hall’ they would no doubt talk about? Well, that was just a bunch of wooden parts hastily put together and held up by spare branches. If they had maneuvered around to the back of that ‘building’ they would have seen that it was nothing more than a facade at best.
And while any idiot would have noticed that the buildings they saw were fakes at best, the most moronic of people would have noticed that the people walking about were putting on a performance, and a crap-tier one at best. Add in the fact that these dolts were running away without bothering to hide themselves or the sounds of their movements, and anyone would wonder why these dullards were selected for the job.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Still, despite this, a True Lyrhean was on their tail, not that they had one. Grekel didn’t have tails, after all. It was one of the newer True Lyrheans, as well, one born not but five days after the Great Mother fully recovered.
Taking a nod from that Ranger bitch, Lyrhea had selected a few Rangers among the human cultists for ‘ascension’ as they termed it. Thankfully for Lyrhea’s sanity, the procedure worked on the first try, and she didn’t have to sacrifice any more useful people to gain a stronger subject.
After all, was it not better to pull the slot machine’s lever once and win two times the amount you put on the first try than pull the lever five or six times, losing more each time, only to gain about 1/5 of that which you spent in total over the whole thing? That was one of the reasons why she never really got into gambling; the odds were simply not in anyone’s favor save for the house, and when real life took on gambling aspects nobody who played tended to win out.
But back to what was going on.
Bestiana, so named because she could use beasts and was female (once again, Lyrhea was anything but good at making up names on the fly), was utilizing her agility and connections to the local fauna to track her prey from afar. Not that she needed to rely on such things, though, as she could rather easily get within a few meters of her targets and follow them quite nosily yet they wouldn’t notice. And you could believe her word on that, because she’d tried it several times before.
Despite the fact that she didn’t need to be stealthy, she kept herself far away and well hidden, going from cover to cover, keeping her senses sharper than a razor’s edge and her eyes not only on the prize but anything and everything else around her. The day waxed, waned, and went to night. The moon came into view and faded back as daylight broke, and yet she kept up the pursuit, stopping only when her quarry did and keeping just beyond their sensory range, not that such a range was very wide.
As the fourth day came and went, she let the targets go. Not because she was not allowed to go any farther, but rather because she had found her true target by following the lesser ones. After too damn long, she had located a large compound filled with those not-goblins, and she retreated high into a tree and let sleep take her in her safety.
She would need to be in perfect shape for her next mission, not that she had been given one. No, she was supposed to simply head home after confirming the location of the potential enemy force, but she had other ideas. After all, if this was the main enemy base (which she deeply suspected it wasn’t) she would need to have some info on the locations of high-value targets, be they flesh and blood or merely structural.
If war was declared, this place would be hit, and it would be hit hard. Better to know where to strike and where not to in order to hit harder and faster than the enemy expected, no? The next night, when it came, would be her true test of skill.
If only she still had her boom box from Old Earth. Maybe she could have put on some ‘sneaking music’. Maybe M*ssion Im*ossible? Maybe a bit of M*tal G*ar S*lid? Or, if she really wanted to be funny, maybe she could have played some P*nk P*nther?