The cave mouth dribbled rain as a light drizzle rudely imposed itself on the forest, despite it being nearly 12 at night. Sitting at the mouth of the cave was a goblin. He stood at around 70 cm with a humanoid shape, and thus in turn looked like he had the body of a small human child. Though no one would be fooled as placed on his face was two beady yellow eyes which was followed by a large nose and a small, cavernous mouth that housed lots of pointy teeth and a set of intimidating fangs at the front. But the bigger give away was his light green skin colour.
He sat on a wayside rock, shaving a small rod of white oak. It was obvious at first glance that the little goblin had no practise in said action, as you could quite easily see quite a few small cuts littered over his hand, which looked cute as his fingers were tree stumps, short and thick, which were rooted on a small, dark green palm. His skin was not smooth like a humans, instead closer to reptile skin as his skin was similar to tanned leather, yet his leathery skin could put up no resistance against the small blade-like rock which continued to cut his hands.
“Ragh”
He let out a noise of satisfaction as he looked at the rod, the staff/weapon of mass destruction that he himself had crafted, with pride. The simpleness of the rough wood seemed to hide within it his path to greatness. Perhaps he would become a chieftain of a tribe, perhaps even a war chieftain. He had worked on it for about 2 hours now, since the rest had put him on guard duty, and the cuts he had at the start had begun to scab. Goblins and nearly all species in the forest had quick regeneration, not enough to even come close to a troll but enough to be able to survive in such a violent wilderness. And thus with grand aspirations clouding his mind, he stood from the rock and began practising with it. It wasn’t elaborate moves, nor was it a sight to see: just simple jabs, swings and smashes but he was sure it was how he would grow into a weapon of death.
His hands felt dull from the pain and slight blood loss while his muscles ached, an hour into his training. He was eventually replaced as guard, very much to his delight, as he desperately needed to sleep. Sore from training and tired from the day, he found himself walking half-asleep already into the stomach of the cave, where lay 17 other goblins with no protection from the elements. All seemed in deep sleep as you could hear very nasally snores, but he seemed not to mind as he found an empty spot in which he half dived, half collapsed onto, where he instantly fell into deep sleep, but not before hugging his rod.
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Morning came around quickly, too quickly as he woke up extremely drowsy and with still aching muscles. A certain goblin seemed to be shouting at all of them in order to wake them up, much to his annoyance. But food wouldn’t deliver itself to his stomach as he had found out on the first day but he guessed life had only gotten better since then. After all lying next to him right now was his trusty rod, something no other goblin here had. As he walked out, he noticed the goblin who had replaced him had taken the sharp stone and copied his rod, though clearly not as smooth nor intimidating as his.
It would have been much more effective if there was dedicated people to get food and others who focused on other jobs, like humans would do. So could goblins, only they needed a clearer authoritative figure. One who was either clearly bigger than them or proven his strength. Of course the 19 odd goblins here could hold a brawl to find the strongest, but they had already seen the effects of that. After all today was the 20th day after their birth and the 14th since the 30 odd younglings had been thrown out of the tribe and told to establish their own. There were some goblins bigger than our rod bearing one, but none so much that the other goblins felt fear nor intimidation.
Walking ways, the goblins split up in order to reach their favourite hunting spots. At the start, they had ran with vigour to get there first but now, the harshness of the forest seemed to have chipped at their eagerness. Not our goblin though, he lightly skipped through, eager at trying out his new weapon. In fact yesterday, he and the other guard had actually gone to Blood valley. It was a valley around 1km away from their cave, it was around 3km long and 90m wide. Despite being short, the area had something peculiar about it as it had attracted thunder hawks to make it their home. These predator birds were around 2m tall and had wingspans of 4m and above. They got their name due to the way they flew since their flaps created loud noises but it was nothing compared to their scream. They would swipe down from the skies, picking up prey much heavier than goblins before screaming in their ears a very loud and explosive call, usually stunning the prey long enough to get some height. From there they would drop their prey in order to damage them before picking them once more in order to eat them at their home.
They were natural predators so high up the chain that they didn’t even consider scrawny goblin as prey but rather bugs to squash, and yet just yesterday he and other goblin had seen a human, just around 1m taller than him, fight 3 hawks off with a massive staff…
The hawks were messy eaters and thus the valley was always dyed red with blood and had heaps of flesh and bones littered around. Perhaps this was the reason why the plants there were different than others, as they were much redder and the fruit was juicier. There were also weird herbs that grew, which for most likely why the human had come. And yet the same animal as the one their parent tribe had slaved in their cave, was somehow able to fight these apex predators with just a big staff. It was majestic to say the least, and was also the reason why the two little goblins had made pseudo-staffs.
Maybe it was the way the two goblins walked, clearly with excitement, or maybe it was the crude sticks they were carrying but it clearly interested some of the others as around 7 of the others decided to follow behind. It made not much difference to the 1km journey though as all were still quite on edge and wary, even the other guard goblin. But not our goblin though, he was excited and felt confidence. He made his weapon and trained his heart and soul out, what would stop him from beating a thunder hawk if a mere human could.
While the sun was still low in its arc, the goblins made their way into the valley. The entrance and surroundings had random pickings of flesh and splattered blood. But it was nothing compared to what was deep in the valley. The valley wasn’t barren, but the goblins were most likely the second biggest animal species in the valley due to the terror of the hawks. In fact even the following goblins seemed to linger at the entrance for a bit due to what was in front of them, before they saw the still chipper rod-holding goblin walk in.
The fleshy rubbish they saw grew exponentially as they walked in, as there were bones and rotting flesh decorating most of the surfaces. In fact this was the reason why the 2 goblins were entranced in yesterday, due to the meat they saw. It might be random bone pickings to the hawks but it was a whole meat meal to the little goblins who couldn’t even kill the hares in the forest, due to their age and size. It also become quite prominent that the greenery here wasn’t very green, instead the herds and plants seemed more redder as leaves and stalks seemed to be dyed in blood.
In fact none of the goblins strutted in, rather they weaved through the random shrubbery, finding bushes to hide themselves in, due to fear. The bushes, which were quite soft at the start, had gradually become tougher and sharper the deeper they walked in, so much so that most of the goblins now had some kind of shallow cuts despite their leathery skin. It seemed to hurt the group morale as some of the followers stopped looking at the rod wielding goblins and instead at the flesh around them. A good meal, a filling one, a bloody one: it was all that they wanted.
They started to move towards the flesh, away from the bushes, but not before they heard a loud snicker of joy. They immediately ran forward to find the rod wielders, now both chuckling away, as they saw bigger prey. In fact the rod wielders were also like the others yesterday, as they ate the flesh while walking through. But it was also yesterday where they found the prey up ahead: a tree. They had carried on in to see what else was there but were too scared to come back here after they watched the human fight, after all what would they do if he was thirsty for some goblin blood afterwards. But that was yesterday, today they weren’t scared. After all, he wasn’t here today.
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It stood at around 4m tall, with a maroon trunk and reddish leaves. But both paled in colour compared to the blood red fruit hanging down. Each fruit seemed the size of a goblin torso, so around 30cm. There were a few splattered on the floor from which you could tell that these fruits were extremely juicy, as the fruits lay dead in a pool of their own juices. While the other goblins stood inspecting the tree, our goblin had already ran up to it.
It was just before he had put down his rod and started to climb it that a bird call of anger sounded out. The sound echoed through the cave at the side of valley before reaching the goblins. It sounded nothing like thunder, not yet at least, but it scared all the goblins very much. The other guard dropped his rod and ran back to the retreating goblins while our goblin stood next to the tree, clenching the rod in fear.
Baby-thunder hawks could barely fly, which was why they had caves on the floor of the valley. It was a sign of adulthood and strength when they could fly high enough to make a cave at the top of the valley. The caves at the end of the valley were the homes of the strongest birds while the baby caves started at around the 1km border. In fact, this cave was around 400m before all the others for a reason- this bird was weak. It was a weakling, which had been heavily ostracized and beaten up from the other baby birds. It had in luck found this blood berry tree , all alone taken by no other animal since the other baby birds didn’t leave the cluster as it would considered shameful and a sign of weakness. Thus the bird here had taken care of it, because the blood berries were one of the only things the baby birds ate. The babies would either eat blood berries that grew from the orchard near the cluster or pickings from the corpses of adult’s food.
The baby bird hadn’t acted yesterday as it had saw the human who gave a presence of strength, strength beyond what it could contest, but it was another question when little bugs lusted after its food. It quickly followed its cry and ran outside, flapping when outside the cave which lifted it about 1m of the ground.
All the goblins had already fled to the bushes, around 40m away from the tree, but our goblin was too late as he saw the screaming truck charging at him. The fear broke as adrenaline kicked in and the goblin rolled over towards the tree, while the bird was 3m away. The trunk, which was about 70cm thick seemed to provide mental protection for him as he had instinctively rolled towards it without thinking. Perhaps it was this that helped him but it was more the fact the bird was a weakling; it had a major shortcoming when it had fought with the other thunder hawk nestlings: it was too dumb. It would randomly charge at others and also found it hard to control its limbs the way it wanted, both which were most likely effects from some kind of mental disorder.
The bird instinctively followed its prey with its head and wings as it turned to where the goblin would roll to. It was a pity it didn’t actually look where the goblin would roll to as it smashed its head into the tree, shaking it heavily as several blood berries fell down. The bird seemed dizzy as it stumbled backwards, unable to control its body.
It was also the first time all the goblins further away got a clear look at the bird as they realised they weren’t in danger. It stood at around 1.3m so should have been a titan to the goblins which it was, just that it was a very fluffy round titan with an elongated head. It looked nothing like the adults the 2 goblins had seen yesterday and upon further inspection, they noticed several peck and claw wounds over the bird. The beak also seemed broken which would explain why the bird had charged instead of pecking, but the charge turned into its downfall as it couldn’t stand up due to the force scrambling its brain.
The second the thud sounded, the rod-wielder still high with adrenaline, remembered the image of the man with the staff, striking the birds. It seemed to heavily affect him as his lust for power overcame his fear. He gripped his rod as he ran around the tree, jumping as he came over to the bird in fear it might peck him. It was his luck it couldn’t as the jump was a feeble 20cm of the ground and would have helped with nothing, but it mattered not as he followed it with the practised actions of yesterday, putting the rod above his head before moving it down in an arc, smashing the bird on its head. It seemed to cause damage to the now-very confused bird as it suddenly bit out with its beak, despite the pain it would cause. It bit into the retreating rod, only to feel intense pain as it screamed upwards in pain. It then slumped its head downwards as the pain joined alongside its dizziness, which fully broke its ability to move the way it wanted. The goblin seeing the bird collapse, did a very crude roll to the side before it began to swing the rod towards the body of the bird.
The bite into the rod seemed to cause double damage to the bird as not only did it cause itself pain, it also splintered the end of the rod. This meant that nearly all the goblin’s weak swings and smashes penetrated its skin lightly. The blows towards the scabs produced proper damage, due the to lack of skin and the strong layer of muscles, which the goblin realised as it began whacking with all its might into the scabs. The bird instinctively reacted strongly at first as it tried to whack its head against the goblin but none of its attacks worked due to goblin jumping away in fear after every attack.
The pain seemed to build up as the bird started squirming and then its muscles started spasming. After about 10 mins of continuous attacks, the bird had nearly stopped moving altogether despite not being dead. When 3 whacks to the head earned him no response, the goblin suddenly gained superficial courage as it began to stop running and instead did dedicated quick and heavy blows to its head. Seeing that his now splintered rod couldn’t even scratch its skull, his rod found a new target in its eyes. He began gouging into one before full on pushing it through. After about more 3 minutes of this and now a full puddle of brain matter and blood at his feet and all over him, his body responded to him being somewhat safe by withdrawing his high.
The rod, now broken stick, helped him in the last moments as he managed to balance on it before collapsing just like his birdy friend. His body responded to the exhaustion as a thundering noise rumbled from his stomach.
The figure of the goblin fighting had at first frightened the other goblins, not for the noblest of reasons but rather because they were scared they would be next targets once he inevitably died. But as he fought, the fear turned into reverence as they saw the qualities of a leader. And now that he had finished, now that he was covered in the blood of his enemy, now that there was no danger, they decided to run over and support him. The primitive creatures didn’t care much about the blood or gore, it was a staple part of their life afterall, but just before they were about to pick him up and carry him back home, he told them to stop.
Words for a goblin meant a lot, it wasn’t that they couldn’t speak but rather that they found not need to. They didn’t need to talk much as they all understood each other from actions anyway since they were all similar body and mind like. They rarely had anything complex enough that they couldn’t show it through action.
Something must have cracked in his brain as he suddenly got a great idea, an idea so dumb that it was great. He told them to check the thunderbird baby’s cave, which made the others send the smallest but very reluctant goblin to check. He was overjoyed to find no lurking predators in there which seemed to overjoy the others just as much but not before he put their mood down by telling them to take him there. They might be primitive but they weren’t without brains, they knew that he was declaring the bird’s territory and home as his own. Perhaps primitive creatures understood this better than educated ones.
They felt pride as they walked him over to the birds cave, quite a bit bigger than their old one. After settling him down, the 8 goblins decided to first pick up all the fruits that had fallen down onto the ground from the bird’s initial charge. They would have stripped the tree bare as well, only the multiple fruits on the floor was enough to last them quite a while. After hoarding the fruits inside the cave, they set down to taking their leader’s prize into the cave: the body of the thunder-hawk baby. It took all 8 of them to carry 1.3m animal, which might seem like a joke until you thought back to the fact that all these goblins were still children who stood at around 70cm. Add to that fact that all of them were scrawny and quite malnourished. All of this added to the magic of how a goblin had managed to kill such a monstrous bird. This was a quality of a leader: having the same circumstances as others but managing to do more, much more than they could.
The move to the thunder bird baby’s cave would be stupid and insignificant to others, something the goblins themselves thought once sober from the adrenaline from fighting/running for their life/lives, but in fact it was the first step which led to causing a racial usurping in the blood valley!
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