"It's coming from here." Biter firmly clasped his nose when pointing at the well.
"Ugh. I smell it now too." Scratch's face wrinkled up as they looked into the hole. A pungent odor emerged from the underground. "I think the bottom connects to our new sewer."
The light reflected green from the slime extract, venomous caustics slid over the two goblins' face as they stared into the distant waters.
"Let's not try drinking it." Scratch began. "I suppose we're dependent on the water tower now."
Biter put up a hurt face. "... We worked really hard on this well."
"And now it's done." Scratch stated. "Just because we invested a lot in it, that doesn't mean it has value now. That's called the sunk cost fallacy."
"It just seems like a pity."
Scratch patted his brother's back. "That well saved our lives, so it wasn't for nothing. Tell you what; we'll board it up and we'll put on a little memorial on top. Alright?"
"Yes. Like First's, and Yeller's."
"Sure. The well was part of the family just like them."
Most of the dead goblins had some manner of memorial to them. The idea had begun with Scream, who had written on the side of the wall before his death. Others had gotten graffiti in their name on the sides of the cliff as well, posthumously. Yeller, First and Teeth had three red lints tied to a tree somewhere in the forest. Kicker and Biter had taken the initiative themselves.
"But at least that means the sewer is done," Scratch wrung his hands, "and we can get some proper toilets."
"Proper?"
"Yes. I'm thinking porcelain seats, flushing cisterns, perhaps some air fresheners in the stalls..."
"I don't understand."
"That's alright. We'll talk to the minister of waterworks about it."
-
The minister of waterworks was standing knee deep in less than clean water, shoveling sludge into a wooden bucket.
Scratch knocked on a wooden plank as if he was intruding into a room. "Hi there, we figured the sewer was about done-"
Aimone stopped what he was doing and glowered at him. "Mannaggia! Nothing's done until we've gotten rid of these cursed slimes!"
"Yeah? It's a problem?"
"Of course it's a problem, they clog up everything. Civilized towns do not have monsters in them."
"Wow. You just said that to my face, huh?"
Biter interjected before it became an argument. "Can't we just kill them?"
Aimone looked around in the cesspit the town had been using for months. "This many? That's usually an adventuring quest. It's a lot of killing, and some of them are stronger than goblins."
"You'll manage." Scratch stated pithily. "Didn't I assign you some helpers?"
"Gone." Aimone focused on his work again. "Your girlfriend took em for her project."
"For her what?"
----------------------------------------
They still listen to you, don't they? Cyclophan strained his mind to comprehend Scratch's dilemma. You're the leader of goblins.
Scratch puffed pensively while looking at Harkness manage his goblins. She had leadership experience and knew precisely how to divvy up the task into teams. The goblins that had attained experience building the stone water tower were now putting their hands on a gatehouse.
It's not that straightforward. Status and leadership is fluid, it shifts around with numerous small attacks on authority. I did it to Drool, Teeth did it to me. If I don't respond it sets a precedent.
Then respond! It's not that hard. Kill her while you still have power.
I could do that... Scratch touched the painful cheek where she had slapped him. I could break off our relationship with the humans completely and lose everything that we've worked so hard to attain and rely on. We'd lose about half of our goblins but we'd probably win in the end. That's my last resort.
You are not just my dungeon keeper, but also my champion. If you can't keep power I'd rather you die so I can appoint someone else.
Scratch made a mental node about Cyclophan not being able to demote a still living champion. What I need is a weapon, something she's scared off. She wouldn't try this sort of thing if I could punish her for it.
So you're asking me to grant you more dark magic.
If it's not too much god-damn trouble.
Cyclophan remained silent for a bit, pondering. I have prepared many magics to outfit my dungeon with
deadlier traps and monstrosities, but magic for intimidating subordinates... hhm...
Or uppity women as the case may be.
I'm thinking more demons.
Scratch let out a disappointed sigh. That's firmly into the more monstrosities camp.
No listen. If you construct an altar according to my instructions-
You'll get your damn dungeon. This one is what you could do for me.
A familiar.
What?
A demon that does exactly what you want it to, a familiar. That's the weapon you need.
Familiars are demons?
Only the good ones. I mean... not good, evil. But powerful.
Tell me more.
-
It didn't escape Lydia Harkness' attention that Scratch was staring at her while she was guiding his goblins for her own initiative.
"Did you see Scratch's here?" Huckabee had noticed him too.
"Yes."
"Aren't you going to talk to each other?"
"If he has anything to say he can come to me."
Huckabee made an uncomfortable grunt. "You know Dee... Dee would have asked if anything was the matter."
She sighed. "Nothing is the matter, I've just realized something that I should have realized sooner."
"What's that?"
"That Scratch is a child, just like the rest of them. It's up to us to take charge of this group."
"Take charge?"
"Have you been listening to their stories? Their songs I mean." Now she stared back at the goblin. "The only forces of good they ever encountered were those trying to kill them, to them good is evil and evil is good. I want to steer them onto the right path."
"And for that you have to take charge."
"To become a leading example to their little society. Aimone has commandeered the sewer system already, but there are other things. Construction, defense, trade."
"Do you think he'll just let that happen?"
"A firm hand is necessary."
"...Right."
"And it's the most sensible arrangement. Our people are more spread out over the region, so my workload here is reduced. Besides, isn't our expertise greater than theirs?"
"It is." Huckabee nodded. He didn't really have the big picture but the boss sounded confident so he followed her lead.
----------------------------------------
The hobgoblins were too big to properly spar with their smaller family members now. While the green goblins were the size of small children, the hobgoblins came closer to the average human in size, though just below.
For more reasons than just Harkness' expansion of control their education their training regiment had to merged with that of the bandit guards.
This meant the bandit guards now had a training regiment.
"How did you not know this? Have you been swinging your blade like a hammer this entire time?" Harkness put her fists on her hips like a disappointed mother.
"I'm... sorry? I'm not a knight you know." Huckabee became indignant at being lectured.
Gildo snickered at him.
"You must be more skilled at it. Come here and show it to the kids with me."
"Ah! Audace is a soldier. Perhaps he... he would be a better... fit." Gildo deflected.
Audace hesitated. He had seen her capacity for violence up close.
"Yes! Fight! Fight!" Angus cheered.
"It's not a fight, it's an exercise." Her mother wagged the dulled practice sword sternly. "Come Audace, you won't get hurt."
The Grienician reluctantly adopted a fighting stance.
"Now attack me." The bandit leader commanded.
He looked pleadingly to the other guards before attempting to come withing striking ranged.
Harkness easily slapped his blade aside, struck his wrist to make him drop it and delivered two would-be fatal blows to his neck and stomach as he stumbled past her.
Audace groaned. The blade was dull and didn't pierce the skin, but it left painful bruises.
"Get up. Let's do it a bit slower this time, so they can see."
As they re-enacted their movements in slow-motion she explained every action she took. "Re-direct the blade, strength doesn't come into it, just tap... and tap... and tap. Is that clear?"
"Yeah I wanna sword-fight." Felix proclaimed impatiently. He liked weapons.
"You can take turns, the grown-ups can take the role of attacker first."
-
There were four guards and four hobgoblins, so they were evenly paired.
Huckabee was in front of Ada, the only female non-human in the village. Small in stature compared to himself, she looked like a mid-teen, even if she was barely a month old and would never grow to be much older.
"Okay, here I come." He came in slow. "Tell me if you're-"
"Hya!" She savagely knocked the weapon out of hand and began hacking at him with all her might.
"Ah! Stop. No!"
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"Ada. Girl, stop." Harkness jumped in to grab her wrist. "It's not a fight, it's just an exercise." She then turned to her guard. "You underestimated her strength."
"Yes."
"Now listen here. Goblins and hobgoblins are always at full potential, what are hobgoblins ranked as?"
Huckabee resented being condescended to. "...E."
"Rank E, like any commoner. So a hobgoblin is going to be as strong as a commoner at full potential."
"Yeah!" Ada celebrated. "I'm great!"
"And never stronger." The mother turned to her daughter. "That's why it's important to learn the techniques, Ada, that's how you improve. So, let's do it again. Huckabee, brace yourself, Ada, redirect."
"I did redirect it." Ada pouted. "I redirected it back the way it came."
----------------------------------------
Most of the wolves in the pack were on the younger side. Fully grown, but not yet fully matured. The eldest still thought of them as pups.
They bounded through the woods with youthful energy. Now that an understanding had been reached with the bipeds they could go pretty much anywhere without fear and hunt all over the forest from river to river.
But within the den they were expected to be calm and demure.
The wind wolf, who had been nicknamed "Wendy" by Scratch, presided over the space like a sacred temple. The wolves would take in their positions on the bedding and not move unless getting up to leave, listening to the gentle rippling of the river and observe the birds that they were not allowed to touch.
The cockatrices shuffled around in their midst. The things had been blindfolded to disarm their petrifying stare and they had to go through life blind, feeling at the crumbs and leftovers with their claws before clumsily pecking at them.
At one point there had only been a two, but they had multiplied and the coop now contained a small flock. Enough for the goblins to occasionally slaughter one and leave the bones to the wolves.
The cave geese had procreated too, but only recently. A line of two-headed geeselings swam after their mother in the dark water. Their necks were not yet long enough for them to move their heads independently.
The monsters were passive due to the influence of the evil god and would normally be a peaceful sight to look at, but this day the cave was in chaotic disarray.
-
Heaps of dust swept through the air and the urgent calls of mining goblins disturbed the peace and made the pups antsy. Though Wendy sat undisturbed as ever.
Cyclophan had dug into a deeper cavern and fallen several stories into the depths, stone powder had gone flying everywhere and dirty sewer water and slimes were leaking into the underground.
The goblins were scrambling with ropes and buckets to manage the situation.
"Hold this here. I'm binding it shut." Yuki had experience helping Second with his workbench and instructed his younger siblings into helping him close off the water.
"Is it secure yet?" Fyro had a rope tied to his waist and was ready to descend into the unknown. It was a good strong rope from the bandit camp, not a shoddy homemade one from the goblins.
"Calm down, there's no need to hurry." Linus commanded. He was seated some distance away on even ground, being crippled. He wanted to project a voice of reason but he wasn't heeded.
All these voices prattled and shouted over each other with no clear leadership or direction.
Regardless, in the end the flow of water was stemmed and the floor of the cavern was found.
-
Cyclophan's tunnel between caverns was less than three feet deep, wider than it was far. It led from a corner of the wolves' den to the top of a drip stone grotto many times larger.
The stalactites emerging from the ceiling the goblins abseiled from were as tall as a man, and only a fifth of the distance to the ground.
The stalagmites on the floor were squatter, and luckily not so dense that walking was impossible. With their crude footwear the goblins had protection enough against irregularities in the stone.
The room was as wide as the entire village above ground and branched off into tunnels in multiple directions. The walls were visible by a distant diffused light coming from deeper in the depths, not casting shadows and only just strong enough for a goblin to make out the contours of the stone.
At first the boys spread out with wild abandon to explore the alien new terrain and find where the core had landed. But when Scratch heard about the excavation he called them back to secure territory one step at a time.
"Let's start with a rope ladder. Does everybody know what a rope ladder is? Where's Fyro?"
"Fyro is still in the forest." "What's a rope ladder?" "Do we have to climb back up?" The kids talked over each other.
"Forest? What forest?" Scratch wanted to know.
The young goblin gestured vaguely around himself at the many stalagmites surrounding them.
"These aren't trees, ergo: it's not a forest. We're going to make a rope ladder to get up and down more easily. And
Fyro really shouldn't be wandering around by himself like that, I don't know who of you are old enough to know this but his own brother was grabbed by a cave monsters so-" He looked at the rope they had come down with. "How... are we going to get back up?"
"With the rope ladder?" Somebody suggested.
"Yes. Well, yeah. But right now..." Scratch grabbed the rope and pulled himself up. He managed to keep himself into place with his feet to grab higher on the cord. Then he took in the distance again and calculated a bit in his head.
"This is too high, we can't climb this."
By lack of foresight they had stranded themselves.
-
Not much later they were hiking the stone forest themselves.
Scratch led a sextuple of his youngest nephews while they were calling out for Fyro.
"Fyro!" "Hey Fyro! Come out!" "I know you can hear this, there's echoes everywhere!"
Over the reverberation of their yelling they could occasionally hear the fluttering and hushed squealing of small animals, indicating that there was life in these caverns.
"Why doesn't he answer?" "Scratch. Is Fyro dead?"
"He's being a brat." Scratch answered not stopping to speak. "If he'd gotten hurt we'd have heard him scream." He turned the corner around a ridge of stalagmites and made ready to yell the name again Fy-"
An something ice cold grabbed him by the mouth and pulled him down. He couldn't make a sound.
"Shh!" It was Fyro. "You'll wake them." He whispered.
"Fyro!" The others came running around the corner and began talking over each other. He couldn't get a word in edgewise.
Suddenly their voices were drowned out by the sound of countless wings unfurling and beginning to flap simultaneously. The gray noise reverberated endlessly against the cave walls, creating a deafening sound.
Fyro dove to the floor and put his hands over his head. The others knew to immediately imitate him.
The group was swarmed by bats, each half the size of their bodies. The creatures had flat faces and no fur, possibly even lizard-like scales if it wasn't a trick of the light.
The beasts scratched at them and tore their clothes, but eventually decided they were too heavy to carry off and no threat to them, so they left.
"Friends of yours?" Scratch grumbled, lifting his hands from his head.
"Monster birds." Fyro called them. "Didn't want to make much noise." He showed his new wound, three lines from a bat claw running down his forearm.
"Let's stop this exploration business and go wait at the rope together.... Quietly this time." Scratch whispered.
Everybody could readily agree to that and the group sneaked back.
-
When they returned a rescue operation was already underway.
The rope they had slid down from had been re-purposed. At the bottom there was a single wooden step as with a rope ladder, the top was knotted through a whole in a carved wooden spool. By turning the mechanism the rope could be spooled and unspooled, making the one-person platform go up or down.
Second stood there waiting for them triumphantly. "I have been working on this pulley since we first started digging the sewer." He declared.
"I do seem to recall you having an odd fascination with simple machines," Scratch remarked dryly, "is it safe?"
"One at a time." His brother explained. Then he looked at their scratches. "Is the cave?"
"Not yet."
When the rope was down they could tug on it to signal to Biter and Quiet above to start pulling. The younger goblins were subjected to the mechanism first while Scratch and Second discussed the future of the cave.
"Bats as big as your torso, I wasn't thrilled about it."
"What are bats?"
"Oh, you know. These furry flying mammals, a bit like rats."
"Right... what's a mammal?"
"It's just... they're monsters, okay? We can't do anything here while they're around. With the temperament they have."
"So do you still want to? Do anything I mean."
"That depends, could we do it? How would we get rid of the smoke? Can you dig chimneys so down here?"
Second pondered for a bit. "Hayato and the others have been using long drills for Aimone's sewer drain. I think we can do something like that for the smoke too. You should ask Sota, he knows about fire."
"Yeah... I don't like it either you know."
Second looked surprised. "What?"
"I can read it on your face, you think this entire thing is stupid and dangerous and I'm just making you do things for my own enjoyment again."
"Hhm.." He didn't look him in the eye.
"Well I'm not. This whole business is important, and if you can't see that I just what you to know that I can."
"Right. It's your turn to go up."
"You go first, I'll watch your back."
Scratch ascended last, after Second, a bit faster since so many where helping lift now. On his way up he could see the sturdy wooden spool fill up the space above the opening. When he passed the hanging stalactites he caught a glimpse of the monsters that had attacked them, sleeping upside down on the ceiling. They were not furry and certainly not mammals, though they resembled bats in many ways, they were closer to lizards.
----------------------------------------
Before the cave could be cleared out and secured, the village needed to plan and prepare.
But before that could be done, they had to occupy themselves with the regular order of things.
One of these things was Harkness having decided to involve her children into a ritual she had been part of at that age.
"Stanford, do you have everything?"
"That I do, but I must remind you that I am not a sanctioned pastor or ritual master. Technically I'm not even a friar anymore."
"During the crusades knights would have their children blessed through the midwife," she matter-of-factly pointed out, "the gods don't work through the titles of the church but through the hearts of men."
He decided not to mention that he wasn't a midwife either and just held up the decanter of holy water and laurel branch. They had commandeered the platform for a blessing ritual for the hobgoblins, Harkness' children, and were attracting an audience of goblins and bandits alike.
"Kids," she told them, "you're one month old now. When I was your age, I was a lot smaller. But I don't think Rhada and Benesant discriminate based on height. I want to pass on to you what my parents passed to me."
The hobgoblins felt a heavy gravitas weighing on the ritual that made them silent. "What is it?" Jasper whispered.
"It's called baptizing, Stanford, come." The bandit leader urged her subordinate to begin. "This is how children receive the blessing of the gods."
"What's a blessing? Is it a weapon?" Felix spoke up.
"A blessing is something you keep in your heart." She repeated a standard definition. "It's a promise by the gods that as long as you're good, they will protect you. That means evil spirits can't take control of your mind or body. Stanford here will complete the ritual."
The healer shyly waved his laurel branch.
"Because we live in Reddington and Rhada, the goddess of fire, is our patron, you'll be blessed by Rhada as well as Benesant." She explained.
"I'm not an observant of Rhada." He hissed at her under his breath.
"The ritual is the same." She whispered back. "Don't take this away from them."
Stanford sighed, "let's begin then." He walked up to Ada and sprinkled her with drops of holy water from his plant.
"Goddess. Please bless this child wi-"
Spontaneously, the branch caught fire. In panic, he threw it on the ground and began stomping it out.
"Wow! Is this part of it?" Ada stared in amazement a the pyrotechnics.
"It's you've been rejected by the goddess." Stanford mentioned a bit stunned.
"What!?" Harkness could not hide her distress. "What did you do wrong?"
He took her aside, his voice cracked a little. "Ma'am. Even I have my limits. You're making me call upon my deity for an unsanctioned ritual. Benesant blesses humans, demi-humans and abhumans, but not monsters. Do you understand?
In her eyes they have already failed good and are aligned with evil. If I continue with this blasphemy, I will lose my own blessing!"
Turning their back to the children wasn't enough to stop them from overhearing their conversation. Ada was especially hurt.
"Fine! I didn't want your stupid blessing anyway! I hate this!" She was in tears and about to run off when her way was blocked by Scratch jumping on the platform.
"Ho there, princess. How about you true believers fill me in on what going on here, because I feel like I should have been consulted."
-
"It is my duty as a mother to protect my children." The bandit leader stated a bit defensively.
"Benesant say we're evil." Angus complained.
"Some sort of christening ritual?" Scratch asked.
"It's called baptizing." Stanford explained. "And it's normally done on one month old babies."
"Well. I'm happy she rejected you."
"What!?" Ada responded angrily.
"Your mother has many great qualities, but slave morality isn't one of them." Scratch explained. "It is my greatest nightmare that you kids would turn out to be good."
Harkness bit her lip. "I had hoped to cure you off-"
He turned around dramatically. "Show me your sword."
"My sword?" She stopped his hand trying to take her weapon from her.
"It's a proper one, right? A real knight's sword." He pulled it out of the sheath as she let go. "Felix, I remember you obsessing with George over this sort of thing. Can you tell me what's so good about this sword?"
Felix pivoted subject matter immediately. "The center of balance is just above the grip, the edge doesn't dull quickly, not brittle, light-"
"In other words, good for cutting with, right?"
"Yes."
"How about this tunic, am I wearing a very good tunic?"
"No."
"Why?"
"It's torn everywhere. What happened?"
"It's not very good because it doesn't serve its purpose, isn't that the gist of it?"
Felix gave a general conceding shrug.
"Now. And this is a question for everybody, what's your purpose?"
"Protect the village and uplift the family." Angus stated with certainty.
Scratch slapped him. "Wrong. Absolutely wrong, did your mother tell you that?" He threw the sword over his shoulder, making the woman fumble to catch it.
"Spread our power far and wide?" Ada tried.
"Wrong, and you're not getting closer."
"Do what you say." Felix answered.
Scratch sighed. "A person doesn't serve a purpose kids. That's something your mother's lords have told her because they want her to be a slave."
She defended herself. "A knight is not a slave."
"A slave in all but name." He corrected himself. "You can not be good or bad because you are not a tool. My biggest nightmare is that you fall for one of these grand narratives and you end up doing things you don't want to for 'duty' or 'honor', or worst of all for 'justice'."
The hobgoblins all looked at the floor, slightly ashamed for falling for the gods' narrative.
"Now really take note time, because I've said it before. You live for nobody else, only for yourself. Bring it all back to you. Remember that song we prepared? Don't stop, never give up-?"
"Yes papa." They agreed.
"But really, what happened to you?"
"Am I losing blood? There's monsters in the cave actually, I came here for a healer." He then collapsed on the floor.
----------------------------------------
The cave explorers were being healed by Stanford when Pentajo came to bring an extra patient.
A younger warg wolf had return from the forest with an arrow in her side.
"Room for one more?" He cautiously asked the human.
Stanford gave a resigned sigh. "Very well."
The wolf barked and whined about being attacked to the goblins, though for Stanford it sounded like nothing more than animal noises.
"Wiped out, who's wiped out?" Scratch repeated after picking up snippets of what the canine said.
"A goblin nest... a... a building." Pentajo tried his best to translate into the human tongue, which he knew less well than that of warg wolves.
"It's been wiped out?"
"A human came and wiped them out. The wolf, she fought but had to flee..." He stroked her while she was being healed.
"You can communicate with animals? That's powerful magic." Stanford gasped.
Scratch ignored him. "Which nest? Tell me which."
"A build. Building with the wheel."
"A wheel? A caravan? A mill!"
"Yes. A mill. Yes."
Scratch grumbled. "That's one of ours. You have to take me to see it."
The wolf just stared at him, panting from the still aching wound.
----------------------------------------
Dragonbat
Family: Dragon
Threat Level: E
Reward: 3 copper pieces
Dragonbats live in the upper caves of the underworld. They are extremely weak for a dragon species and prey only on animals and fodder monsters wandering in from the surface. They can be recognized by their scaly skin, leathery wings and large eyes. Clearing out swarms of dragonbats is a standard quest for level E parties in underworld areas.
Dragonbats possess the blindsight feature, allowing them to see even in magical darkness. They congregate in swarms and attack as a group, but have no special pack tactics. Their intelligence is on par with the average animal.
Dragonbats are excessively dangerous for those that are unprepared. They live in areas in which it is hard to see and can do significant damage by sudden ambush. Veteran adventurers that have explored the underworld many times do not consider them much of an inconvenience, since they can be easily defeated with a proper light source.