Empirical Gnollage: Installment 51 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment051.png]
Al stopped as soon as he heard the voices, and the others stopped behind him. The fog was too thick to see where they were coming from. It was difficult to even tell how far away they were, and the noise from croaking frogs and buzzing insects made other sounds difficult to focus on. The faint, unpleasant speech seemed to be coming from multiple individuals, perhaps bickering with each other, but it wasn't clear how many. Al motioned for his companions to get closer and they crouched down in front of the cart.
"Our turn to ambush them," Al whispered. "How many are there hiding in the fog?"
"Not sure, but we can find out!" Wikwocket whispered back, "I'll sneak closer and take a look."
"All right, but be careful. If something goes wrong, come back here if you can."
Wikwocket gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up and reached up to check that her new sword was in position to be drawn quickly. Then she quietly slunk away, fading off into the fog in the direction of the voices. Completely unbidden, Gruntle followed after letting her get some distance ahead. Al let him go - he'd proven he was quite sneaky, and Al felt better having some backup nearby in case Wikwocket was spotted. Besides that, Gruntle's enthusiasm for a fight would immediately and noisily alert them if something went wrong. Al carefully drew out his mace and listened nervously. Minutes ticked by. A loud chattering noise that reminded Al of the giant rats they'd seen in Wulfcynn Keep cut through the voices of the goblins, whose tone immediately became cautious and alert. Al braced himself reluctantly to charge ahead, but there was no further escalation of activity. After a while, the voices returned to their previous conversational tone.
Wikwocket emerged silently from the fog, followed closely by Gruntle.
"That was close," Wikwocket murmured quietly as they got near, "looks like they have a couple of pet rats, I think one of them smelled or heard us. There are four or five goblins camped out over there in the fog, in front of a big old stone building, but I don't think they realize we were watching them."
"What are they doing?" Al whispered.
"Looks like three of them are just sitting around a campfire. They've got some tents set up in front of what looks like a big door into the building, one or two of them seem to have someone in them. I assume the building is the tomb we need to get into."
"So, we must wait for them to leave, convince them to leave, or otherwise get rid of them," Bote quietly mused, watching for Al's reaction.
Al found himself hesitating. The possibility of avoiding a fight hadn't even occurred to him. He wasn't sure what to think about the fact that he'd been almost looking forward to brutalizing those little green...
He gave Bote a puzzled look. "It's normal to want to just get rid of them...isn't it? It doesn't feel like we can trust them to just go away on their own. Every time we've met goblins, they've attacked us," Al said quietly.
"How many times?" Bote asked.
"...two? That's not much, is it," Al considered. "I still feel like they're up to no good."
"Enemy clan," Gruntle growled in agreement.
Bote nodded, "I do not have reason to believe that your opinion is wrong, though I find it interesting how firmly this Al holds onto it."
Al thought for a moment. "All right. Maybe we don't have to jump straight to attacking them, unless this group tries to attack us, too."
Gruntle growled quietly.
"If I'm right, we'll end up having to fight them anyway," Al tried to reassure him, "but Bote's right, I probably should think about alternatives to just charging in. I don't really know why I feel like this about goblins. Bote, remind me to ask you to give my soul a look once we're done with this job."
"I will remember to deliver this message from yourself," Bote assured him.
"So, what is the plan?" Wikwocket asked, and they all huddled together to consider. Al still couldn't shake the assumption that a fight was going to take place, but they settled on a plan that would give the goblins a chance to convince them otherwise.
Wikwocket gently tugged her new sword from its makeshift wooden holder on her back and stalked quietly down the road into the dense fog, back towards the encamped goblins. Gruntle readied his flail and shield and silently followed, just close enough to see where she was. Bote and Al readied their own weapons and followed as inobviously as they could, trying to keep the dark shape in the mist that was Gruntle in sight.
Somewhere further into the fog than Al could see, the sound of Wikwocket's voice rang out, and Al saw the looming dark shape of Gruntle drop to crouch low to the ground.
"Hi there! You guys want to be friends?" Wikwocket's voice asked. Her answer was a cacophony of agitated goblins voices, the hissing-grunting noise of angry rats, and the sounds of blades being drawn from sheathes. Wikwocket's quick footsteps came running back as she called out.
"I don't think they want to be friends!"
Al and Bote moved forward as the sound of many more running feet started up right behind her, and the small shape of Wikwocket came into view and dodged behind Gruntle. As they got close enough to see more clearly, three maliciously-grinning goblins came into view, expecting a lone gnome to be an easy victim. Their expressions changed as the crouching lump uncoiled into a lunging gnoll, whose flail whipped forward and sent one of them flying with a meaty CRUNCH. A panicked dive saved a second goblin from Gruntle's snapping jaws, but the third found itself running into the point of Wikwocket's well-aimed spider-marked blade as she sprinted out from behind Gruntle to intercept.
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At the same time, more running footsteps approached from either side. Al swung at the goblin who emerged at the mist on his side, but only succeeded in putting a nick into the edge of the curved blade the goblin parried his mace with. Al heard the heavy thump and and the fall of a body as Bote's hammer struck the other. Then, it was Al's turn to parry as his vicious green foe lunged forward to stab, then jumped back and sprinted back out of sight into the fog.
The goblin who had avoided being bitten by Gruntle rolled deftly and lunged upwards, cutting a bleeding slash along Gruntle's hip too quickly to dodge. That one dodged back into the fog like the other. Al could hear their running footsteps ahead of them. They didn't seem to be retreating far.
Wikwocket heard Gruntle's enthusiastic barking laughter start up, and waited for him to move. She followed as he charged into the mist after the goblin that struck him. Up ahead, goblin voices shouted urgently over the sound of agitated giant rats. Gnoll and gnome emerged from the fog at a campfire. Two goblins were there, seemingly arguing as they worked frantically to cut free a pair of giant rats from where they were tethered. The ropes were cut through as Gruntle lashed out, smashing one of the goblins to the ground with his flail, then changed direction to bite down into the other goblin's shoulder. Green-skinned flesh tore away as the stricken goblin pulled away and fled. Wikwocket stabbed forward as Gruntle moved aside, skewering one of the rats in the head, the blade biting deep into its skull.It spasmed and dropped dead. Gruntle ran off into the fog after the fleeing goblin, while the remaining giant rat experienced a fortuitous attack of instincts and wisely fled in the opposite direction as Al and Bote arrived to help.
Al, Bote, and Wikwocket evaluated the goblins' encampment and listened to the sounds of Gruntle chasing the last goblin from out in the fog. It didn't seem like he needed help. Silent pauses were punctuated by sounds of frantic motion, a desperate goblin's pleading voice, and running footsteps as Gruntle repeatedly found it only to have it flee again, bleeding, through the opaque fog.
It appeared the goblins hadn't been there for too long. There wasn't much ash in the campfire, and Al guessed it had been burning for no more than a day. There were only a few gnawed bones around it as well, and it was unthinkable that goblins would actually clean up their camp, so if they'd been there longer it'd be much filthier, he assumed. There was a pair of tents made from cowhides crudely sewn together, propped up with broken tree branches.
From somewhere out in the mists came the sound of sniffing, then moments later a shriek, a snarl, and a wet THUD which ended the shriek. Gruntle soon came back into view dragging the badly abused body of the goblin, which he dropped next to the campfire as Bote moved to take a look at Gruntle's injury.
"It does not appear too serious, but we should perhaps take some time to treat it properly. This is not a very clean place, and I doubt that even gnolls are immune to wound infections," Bote advised. Gruntle gave a grunt of agreement and crouched down to let Bote clean and bandage the slash.
Wound infections were not an uncommon cause of death in what Gruntle remembered of his original clan. He hadn't seen even one death from that cause in his new clan, whose medicine rituals were potent and effective. It had taken Gruntle a while after being brought into this new clan before he could get used to the idea of spending effort, time, and valuable resources to help someone else who had gotten themselves wounded, but after substantial guidance from his adoptive party, he had come to consider other clan-members to be a treasure belonging to the clan itself. It had always been up to individual gnolls to defend whatever personal trophies they had from being taken by stronger clan-members, but an outsider stealing or extorting from the clan would unite the whole clan against them. Thinking of abstractions like illness and death as something that stole clan-members from the clan strained the limits of Gruntle's creativity, but it got the point across well enough, and he understood that it gave his new clan an advantage over how his original clan functioned.
While Gruntle was being treated, Wikwocket emerged from one of the goblins' crude tents, looking disgusted. "If a stagnant swamp had feet, this is what they would smell like," she said as she dragged another poorly-tanned cowskin out of the tent. It had been folded over with the cow's fur inside and sewn together at the bottom to make a rough sort of bedroll. "There are two of these in each tent. Maybe one of them was always awake on lookout? Also, I found this bag of dried mushrooms." She held out a leather bag the size of Al's head.
"They weren't out here just collecting mushrooms, right? They had to be here for something else," Al suggested. He looked down at the dead ones. They were wearing the sort of inexpertly-assembled protective leather and hide clothing that he expected of goblins, and they were carrying mismatched short blades. Otherwise they were barefoot and carried no other useful objects as far as Al could tell. Wikwocket had patted them down for hidden coins or other valuables and found nothing.
"There's a big crumbling stone building a little further ahead. I saw goblin footprints heading to and from a big stone set of doors in the front of it. Maybe they were planning to loot the place, I assume that's the tomb we're looking for," Wikwocket speculated.
"Let's see if we can get in, there might be more goblins running around out here and I'd rather be done before they find out we're here," Al proposed. The others agreed, and they made their way through the fog to the structure Wikwocket had mentioned.