We march into the woods. Having a small army of over thirty goblins means there are not many threats to our group. There are some predators trying to hit one of my goblins, but since everyone is armed, they rarely succeed. Most causalities are from fights with bigger monsters, or groups of them, like spiders to the south. Today, we go north. We cross the rabbits’ place and go deeper. We spot numerous animals and monsters, but most of them flee before us.

I’m thinking about forming small hunting parties. It would be more dangerous, but the food situation is getting worse. I suppose I should stop making more children with Axi, but… well… I have enough food for myself, and I don’t have any contraceptives. I don’t want to kill my sexual life.

My musings are interrupted as something jumps out of the woods in the corner of my vision. I turn around, and I’m stunned. It’s a snake. It’s at least a meter in diameter, maybe even two meters. Fuck. I doubt it’s a second-tier monster.

"Run!” I shout and run back in the cave’s direction. We are too far, though. Even while running, it will take us twenty, maybe thirty minutes. I take a look at the snake and see as it swallows one of my goblins whole. It attacks again and bites another one. We all start running away.

I don’t want to be left behind, so I don’t bother looking behind me. I concentrate on running, but I hear the cries of my fellow goblins, one by one. Suddenly, a wave of mana passes, and some of it is attracted to me. What? I observe with my Mana Sense as this mana forms a rune on my skin. This can’t be good! I reach to disperse it with my own skill, but the rune refuses to be manipulated, almost… Damn! It must be the snake’s skill! Good thing I have the Mana Burst perk!

I use it and observe as my mana hits the rune, which deforms a bit. Come on! Break! Rune survives, though it’s weaker. I use the perk again, and the rune breaks after the third use. I slow down and look around. I don't see any goblins, but that's probably because we were all scattered in the chaos.

I trot to the cave. Before reaching it, I find a few goblins, and we regroup. In the cave, I spot Axi and a few more goblins. Damn. This snake killed a bunch of us. No more expeditions to the north, I vow to myself. More goblins return in the next hour. In the end, we lost over ten of us, and only nineteen goblins remain.

I sit down and think. We had a lot of causalities, but we still need food. We will need to go hunt again. Let’s rest for a bit, though. Half an hour passes, and I believe it’s time to rouse the tribe. I kick goblins, so they raise, and we grab weapons. We leave the cave, and I find something staring at me from the forest. The snake. The cold realization cuts through my chest. The snake didn’t mark only me. It marked everyone.

“Back!” I shout, and the snake lazily slithers forward. I grit my teeth. We can only fight now. There’s no back exit from the cave! I cast Mana Orb and throw it at the snake. It’s surprised and tries to dodge, but its bulk prevents it from having an instantaneous reaction. My orb hits it, but the snake is more surprised than me. Obviously, my Mana Orb does nearly nothing. The snake’s vitality is too strong; it’s like throwing pebbles into a river, hoping to create a dam.

My spell should work, but not enough to make any visible difference. I prepare the second orb. It’s not like I have anything better to do. Goblins with bows start shooting, but arrows harmlessly bounce back from the snake’s scales. The beast seems only irritated and rushes forward.

“Back!” I shout and run to the back of the cave. The snake slithers into the cave, and the pit trap is too small to do anything, while spikes break on the snake’s scales, leaving only scratches. The few goblins who refused to listen are thrown back, and the monster swallows one of them, not caring about anyone else. It’s over. We are all going to die.

I shoot another Mana Orb. Maybe there will be a miracle. Axi jumps forward and strikes the monster, but only her ax breaks. The scale has only a scratch. The monster swipes his head, which strikes Axi. She flies a bit and hits the cave’s wall. The snake looks around and looks at me. I shoot another Mana Orb, which only further enrages it. It moves at me. I jump to the side, using a stalagmite to partially cover behind it. The snake changes its trajectory to hit me and hits the floor instead.

Everything shakes. Then it cracks, and I’m falling down. Ugh! I look around. The cave’s floor collapsed. I see the snake above me. And a tunnel to the side. I smile. It’s the miracle.

“Everyone! Here! Into the tunnel!” I don’t wait and jump there first, while I hear goblins' cries from above. The tunnel is not very big, so the snake shouldn’t be able to get into it. A few goblins get into the tunnel soon, and then Axi. She is still alive! She has blood dripping from her mouth, though. Another goblin jumps inside, and soon after that, the entrance caves in. Me, Axi, and five more goblins are still alive. We are also trapped underground, and only two goblins have weapons. One spear and one bow with a few arrows. I have magic, but it’s not very useful.

Another problem is the lack of light. We are sitting in darkness. Goblins have decent dark vision, but it’s not magical; we still need some light to see. We can try to burn some clothes, but that’s a limited resource.

There’s also a question of what’s now. We are trapped. Can we dig out? Maybe, but there’s a crazy, strong monster waiting there. We can also try to follow the tunnel, but it’s also a risk. We know nothing about it. Before the entrance collapsed, I noticed the tunnel was almost certainly natural. There are plenty of irregular stones, which will make any walking a chore and maybe even dangerous.

Also, even if I were to find another entrance, we would need to wait for the runes to fade. This is the reason I didn’t abandon the rest of the tribe. There’s strength in numbers, and I’m almost certain the runes will fade with time. I should also be able to speed it up with my mana skills. I can’t use the Mana Burst perk on others, but throwing regular mana should only be less effective.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

First things first. “Axi?” She grunts nearby. I stand up and walk slowly toward her, with my hands before me. Honestly, I have a problem telling goblins apart. They all look similar. The only person who I can tell apart with confidence is Axi, but that’s because she has very characteristic traits compared to the rest of the band.

Yes! I feel up a boob! It’s Axi! I sit by her side, and feel up the bo… I mean, mana. I know what the rune should look like. I have the bonus from perk to sensing inside my body, but I just need to know the rough position of the rune. I found it quite quickly. It’s blurred to my senses, and without looking at it before, I wouldn’t recognize it.

I push mana at it, but without much success. I sigh. I need to use isolating mana, but that would harm Axi’s vitality. I should let her recover first. It’s not like we are in immediate danger from the snake.

I take some time to recover from the wound and to recover my will. Wounds are going to close faster than on Earth, but it should take at least days to recover completely. The high Vitality stat seems to be helping. Also, I need to recover my mind. I need ambient mana to cast Mana Orbs, but I also need to strain my brain’s muscles to do so. I suppose it's strain on the soul. After an hour or so, I rouse the goblins and push one of them forward. Who knows what lives here? I’m not going first.

We walk the tunnel for some time, tripping on stalagmites and stumbling because of stalactites. The first goblin is bruised the most, but the rest of us are also hurting. I notice a light. This… It could be either an exit or a predator hunting in the dark. No matter. We need to go forward.

It’s a mushroom. How? We all come forward. I study it. There are some seeds in its cap. Is it even a mushroom? It could be a plant looking like a mushroom. A bit of cap is eaten, maybe by mice or something similar. Is that how this mushroom is reproducing? Is it using animals to carry its seeds? What does it eat, then? Mana? Maybe there’s something under the tunnel.

I push one of the goblins to pick it up. We need a light source, and I’m not risking myself. The goblin comes closer and… bites it. I want to sigh. I watch as the goblin munches the part of the cap, without repercussions. The goblins want to eat more, but I stop it. I wait a bit more, and seeing the goblins is not dying, decide to pick it up. Fortunately for me, the mushroom is still glowing. Nice.

We continue down the tunnel. We spot more mushrooms. I let the goblins pick a few more, but not all. I also notice mice, or maybe rats. I’m not sure. This is interesting. Why are only a few rodents here? They have plentiful food, or rather, there’s enough food for more of them. The obvious answer is that something hunts them, keeping their numbers small.

Soon after, we find it. A spider. Are we going south? I quickly consider everything I know about them. This type of spider seems to be communal, often hunting in a group, but not always. Actually, I usually find them alone, but that may be because we don't go too far into their territory. They don’t spin webs, or at least I never saw any. Tier 1 spiders are venomous, while Tier 2 spiders can spit it, making them way more dangerous.

The sole spider is Tier 1, judging by its size. It doesn’t attack immediately. We attack first. One goblin shoots from his bow, and I cast Mana Orb. Axi borrowed the spear and strikes it down before it could escape. Damn! That was brutal. Naturally, we eat it. We are all hungry.

After the meal, we continue. We find another spider and a fork in the tunnel. Should we continue? I don’t think so. I know there has to be an entrance to the spider’s den, though I would like to avoid going there. Hopefully, we will find another one. We need time to recuperate, and we are sated now, so there’s no problem with stopping. I force goblins to backtrack, and we prepare for the night.

I tell them about keeping night shifts, something I have already been promoting back in the cave, hopefully with good results. I still pick the place to sleep on the side of the caved-in entrance. Hopefully, any predator would pick someone else first.

Actually, is it a good decision? The spiders could be nocturnal. We can be swarmed during the night. I can’t tell what hour it is, but it should be around the evening now. I mentally shake my head. There is no point in overthinking. We still need to wait for the runes to fade, or the snake will kill us.

The next day, there are still seven of us. Unfortunately, spiders don’t have bones, so we can’t make weapons from their remains, or at least not without some serious innovativeness on our part. We need to continue just like that. The picked mushrooms stopped glowing over the night, so we just pick some more, and I let goblins eat the old ones.

I check on runes. All six of the goblins have them. I use isolation mana on one of the goblins, and the rune dissolves. The goblin in question shouts in pain and falls to the ground. The isolation-type mana obviously harmed his Life Mana. I wait, and after a minute, the goblin stands up, though I can tell it would take at least an hour or two for him to completely recover. I repeat it for two more goblins. Unfortunately, Axi and the rest of them are hurting too much. I’m afraid I can’t damage their health in their state without way harsher repercussions.

We continue our march. On the fork, I decide to avoid going further south. I don’t know the directions, but I assume we were going south for now. I don’t want to find a spider’s den, so I pick the tunnel leading west.

We find a dead end. There are more mushrooms and rodents, but nothing else. Actually, it’s not a dead end; it’s just that the tunnel becomes too small for us to continue, but in practice, it’s the same. I sigh. It's time to meet the spiders.

We go back. Walking through the second tunnel, something flies toward us—more specifically, toward Axi. She ducks, though, and it hits a goblin behind her. He starts frothing. Venomous spit! The archer shoots, and we run back behind a corner. The spider hisses. I cast Mana Orb and shot it from behind the corner. I don’t need a clear line of sight for it, but I still need to know where to fire. There’s not much room to dodge in the tunnel, so I should have hit it.

The archer looks from behind the corner and fires an arrow. Just as he jumps back, venom flies near. I cast another Mana Orb. The spider comes around, and Axi pushes the spear through its head. The spider is still alive and tries to slice Axi with its front legs, but she dodges and jumps back. I cast another Orb and another arrow hits the spider, which has to be nearly dead. Axi jumps forward, dodges a claw, grabs the spear, and pierces the monster again, killing it.

We eat the spider for breakfast. The poor goblin is dead, so there are only six of us left. We use spider’s clawed legs as makeshift short spears. This 2nd tier spider is big enough for this to work. We continue walking and kill two smaller spiders. After half an hour, we see some light that doesn’t look to be from mushrooms. The tunnel is also becoming larger. We leave the mushrooms behind and sneak forward. I look from behind a stone.

Yep. It’s the spider’s den. There are hundreds of spiders there. The light comes from above. Rather than a tunnel, it’s a large underground cave supported by three pillars. It’s actually unnatural, but I don’t think spiders dug it out. Maybe previous tenants? Regardless, there isn’t a clear path out. Spiders use walls to move, using their clawed legs to climb. We would need to climb too, but the tunnel out has constant traffic. It’s completely impossible to sneak. We are fucked.

No. Wait. Maybe there’s another way? I look around the den. There are only some rodents in the tunnel we came from, so it seems our tunnel is not frequented much. There are more tunnels out of the cave, though. Maybe one of them would lead us out? We would still need to sneak through the cave. It’s still impossible, but a bit less.

Can we even stay here? The goblins are on their best behavior, knowing it’s the end of us to be discovered. However, sooner or later, some spiders would decide to hunt rodents and find us. We can’t fight here, obviously. Should I just lead us back to the beginning and try to dig us out?

I concentrate on Mana Sense, hoping for more information. To my surprise, I notice something. Earth mana. Now, I know earth mana should be all around us, but normally my Mana Sense is too bad to feel it unless I have a rock, or even better, some dirt in my mouth. Now, I feel a source of earth mana from a distance. This… The source must be powerful. I have no idea how much, but can I use it?

My musing is interrupted, as there’s a commotion among the spiders. More of them start to leave the cave. Soon, I hear noises from above. A fight? The answer reveals itself as I see the head of the snake looking at me from the entrance.

The spiders start to spit the venom at it while the snake slithers down. I must admit, the bastard is quite persistent. The snake hisses. The spider answers back. The battle begins.

This is our chance.