The village of Ebing was an unremarkable place as where most villages in the Kingdom of Arberon, a patchwork of stone and wooden houses crowned by straw roofs made up most of the village. A few smaller huts lined the sides of the Eberon river, from there some of the villagers fished, tended for their livestock, or worked in the local mill. The sound of a buzzing village resonated across the landscape, villagers carrying heavy sacks of grain to their homes and working under the hot sun tending their fields. The most intriguing and perhaps important part of any human village to a goblin is their rather lacklustre security measures. If one could call the local garrison a security measure, it consisted primarily of a few half-drunk, half-asleep villagers carrying pitchforks as their preferred weapon of war. This was of course the main reason for the goblins love for border villages, the scenery was nice of course, but the easy access to loot was nicer still. There was enough food and plunder to be had in such towns, plenty to satisfy a goblin horde for a while, all while keeping any danger from coming close to even the weakest of goblins. Border villages were usually at the edge of forests and tall grass. Goblins thought that it was not only a foolish thing to do but also a waste of resources, so much material to be harvested at one's doorstep and it was simply left untouched. All of these factors were prime reasons for goblins raiding a village and naturally, Zalrodal’s own goblins were of the same opinion. In fact, three goblin clans under Zalrodal had moved towards Ebing under his orders, the four Stenjin in their War-forms behind them. The goblins were waiting at the edge of the village, no further than a well-placed arrow. Of course, there was something particularly strange about this occurrence, and no, it was not the fact that goblins were about to raid a village, but rather that they would do so in broad daylight, the sun shining on their green ears and malformed faces. Zalrodal had decided that with their newly acquired allies they should and could be more daring in their ventures and raiding a single village in a day seemed like the work of small goblin tribes not a united front with four enormous stone warriors at their disposal.

There was however one major flaw with raiding multiple villages one after the other. There is only so much loot that one could carry, usually, a single village was more than enough to fill all the loot carrying capabilities of a goblin. Zalrodal had of course come up with a brilliant solution that no goblin had really thought of before, bringing waggons to the front-line to carry their loot for them. These waggons were pulled by some of the smaller Stenjin who although lacking in size compared to the war-forms were still stronger and sturdier than anything Zalrodal could command.  

The raid on the village of Ebing was unremarkable as far as a raid could be unremarkable. Zalrodal blew into a hunting horn the goblin patrols had “confiscated” from some passing humans and the attack was initiated. Out of the woodwork the goblins charged onto the bridge connecting both sides of the river while yelling their horrific war cries and flailing around their crude weapons and raced into the village. The villagers that had decided that today would be the perfect day for fishing were the first to fall, and perhaps if they had decided to stay at home they could have survived by running away from the green horde. The goblins made quick work of the few villagers trying to protect their belongings, pitchforks and linen shirts were widely considered to be a scarce defence against a hundred angry goblins. The goblins ransacked each of the houses of the village dragging out anything of value, food, gold, jewellery, pots, pans anything that could at all be considered useful. The valuables were carried away in whatever the goblins had at hand, some jewellery ended up inside of pots as they carried the valuables towards the carts at the edge of the village. The four War-forms stood guard and stopped anyone from attacking or hiding inside of houses as they could simply rip apart the doors in a single movement.

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Zalrodal had one main goal in raiding the human village that was unrelated to any treasury acquired. He was specifically interested in the human part of a human village. Some of the goblins dragged away villagers and brought them towards the cart. Another aspiring Dark Lord might have been interested in the human captives as slaves and workers, Zalrodal however had different plans. It comes as no surprise that goblins were generally considered to be rather lacking in the brains department. They had no knowledge of anything particularly useful to building an empire apart from how to clobber someone who stood in their way. Humans on the other hand would be able to create farmland, build houses that did not resemble tents, and advance their engineering efforts. Farmers, smiths, textile workers, potters, cobblers, all-important for Zalrodal to expand his reach. An army does not run on an empty stomach but neither does it run without weapons or a place to return to. Following Migaal's advice, he had no plans of enslaving these people that were admittedly being dragged away from their homes against their will. He planned to have them work as servants and possibly future retainers if their knowledge proved valuable, Migaal was very much aware of the rather unfavourable conditions that peasants usually lived under which is why Zalrodal planned to do things a little differently. For now, he would share his wealth and resources so that they could feed themselves and build houses and would refrain from collecting taxes for the moment. There wouldn’t be much that they could pay regardless.

The goblin horde disappeared out of Ebing as quickly as they appeared, they would travel along the river raiding a couple more villages and bringing back the spoils of war. It was important to keep to a schedule and they departed immediately without rest, the goblins did not mind as this whole operation would expand their “income” which had been lacking in the past months, and it is known that Goblins love their shinies.