It didn’t take very long for the party to realize that they had stumbled into an area that was entirely too crowded with monsters. The second time that the monsters ambushed them from behind and they had to fight their way back was when Zeyn decided they needed to pull out.

Aiko totally agreed with his decision and was glad to see that he was level headed enough not to try pushing too deep for safety. When they came across the next set of goblins coming up behind them down the tunnel that they were sure they had cleared, Aiko was glad that Zeyn had called a halt to their progress.

She could tell that everybody else was exhausted and quickly cast Airwalk. She only invested a small portion of her mana into the spell because that’s all that she needed in order to get everyone up above the heads of the goblins that were rushing towards them. Zeyn quickly figured out her plan and everybody rushed up onto the platform and began fighting the bewildered goblins from relative safety.

A few of the more enterprising goblins made things difficult for them with spears and bows but these were quickly singled out and were the first to die. After that ambush, the tunnel back was clear and they spent the rest of that day in their encampment before packing up and heading back to town.

Aiko hadn’t known at the time or hadn’t noticed but all of the goblins had been divested of their right hands. Once the party made it back to town, they were paid for the number of monsters slain based on the number of hands that the orcish woman, whose name Aiko discovered was Merrill, was carrying around in her backpack.

Zeyn was very meticulous about paying the children what he owed them and was equally as meticulous in making sure that he didn’t officially include them in the party. He sat them down at a small table with high stools next to it and then proceeded to seat his own party at the table next to it, within easy earshot of the party’s table. This did very little to dissuade anybody’s belief that they were a part of the party and certainly not Brell and Vargas. The illusion was further tarnished when he paid for meals for the three of them while he was ordering his own group’s meals.

The duo came by and had a chat with the older party and it became very apparent that Merrill and Brell were fairly close. After making sure that Aiko and her friends were indeed okay, they left in good cheer. Apparently, that was all it took to earn a lot of hospitality from the kitchens of the Adventurers Guild. They had baskets of steaming bread, bowls of butter, and a huge clay tureen of soup laid on the table between them along with simple wooden bowls and spoons.

While they ate, the seven of them planned out how to tackle the goblin nest. It was obvious that the goblins had several hidden tunnels leading off the side tunnel they had used. The problem was in figuring out how to counter them and keep them from being able to use those tunnels to ambush everyone from behind.

Aiko asked Merrill if she had ever used a pick on stone and the orcish woman just grinded her with a nod. It seemed that they had their method for detecting where the tunnels would be in the sides of the main tunnel.

Next, They had to figure out what they were going to do about said tunnels. The elven sorceress, Shumay, suggested that they just seal each of the tunnels shut. The walrin man, Menk, asked whether or not the goblins would be able to dig the tunnels back open. There was a bit of arguing but the consensus was that simply sealing the tunnels wouldn’t work.

That left us all figuring out what we were going to do to trap the tunnels or collapse the tunnels. Zenya told everybody about a type of large, to her, creature that had many legs and big fangs on its front. She said that if they caught a number of these and let them go into these tunnels that the greenlings would have a lot more to worry about than digging out some tunnel.

Zeyn agreed in principle but asked how many of these creatures she had encountered recently. Zenya was left a little bit stumped on that one and finally admitted that she hadn’t seen one since they left the deep dark part of the forest where she lived.

Menk agreed with her on principle but not execution and said that he might have a different creature in mind. He said that in the coastal city near them that there were strange jelly creatures that would wash up on the shoreline. He said that these creatures were often used by hunters around the city to poison the tips of arrows.

The creatures in question had long hairs growing off the bottom of them that hung down into the water and if you touch them felt like fire and needles all along your skin. These hairs could be brushed over something and that feeling could be put into something else like an arrowhead.

They ended up waiting several weeks for an order of these creatures to be brought from the coastal city so that we could use their fire hairs as a trap. It was not the best thought out plan because they arrived in a barrel and when it was opened everyone gagged at the smell of rot. The silver that Zeyn spent to get these creatures was a complete waste.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

They waited and looked for an answer to this problem in numerous different places and different ways. After almost another week Aiko got the feeling that she was supposed to go look at the job posting board in the guild.

Normally she wasn’t allowed to go over to that board because the adults were afraid that she and her friends would try to take one of the jobs even though they weren’t old enough. On that day however nobody tried to stop her and somehow her eyes were drawn directly to a posting at the bottom edge of the board where someone was requesting that a nest of giant spiders be cleared out Of the woods nearby.

Aiko was ecstatic and ran to gather everybody up. When Zeyn had a look at the job posting that she was pointing at a giant’s grin spread across his face. The job wasn’t extremely easy, even for the seven of them, especially since it was only a means to an end and had to be handled a certain way.

The very next day the seven of them were busy in the forest. It was almost two weeks before they were back in the tunnels of the dungeon and headed for the goblin nest.

They had figured out at some point that Merrill did not need to actually knock on the stone sides of the tunnel. If she had done that it would have given their position away to the cunning little monsters.

Instead brass would go along one side of the tunnel and quietly tap on the bricks and tiles with his ear pressed up against them. Aiko was on the other side tapping on the stone brick and tile, the same way.

Numerous times each of them found a hollow space behind a patch of brick or tile that had obviously been worked out and could be moved with very little effort. Every time this happened, they would signal to one of the others in the back who were pulling along a small cart full of very large very angry spiders in separate bags.

Zeyn had a manic grin every time he opened a bag and tossed a spider into a tunnel before sealing it shut with a climbing spike. Several of the times that they tossed a spider into a tunnel they would get an almost immediate sound of screeching and battle as the goblins encountered a spider that was almost the same size as them.

After doing this same thing almost a dozen times they encountered something new. Further down the tunnel they found several of the side openings that had been left open and one of them had a spider still sitting inside the smaller tunnel. They knew at that point that all of the tunnels in the side were connected.

Brass and Zenya began discussing furiously and when Aiko walked over to them a giant grin was shared between the pair of them. They were only too happy to share their horrible plan very gleefully. When the three of them told Zeyn Aiko was afraid that his face was going to split apart from how wide he was grinning.

It took a little bit of work and a good bit of backtracking to make the plan happen but it was well worth it. They went along several of the tunnels closing all of the ones that were open that they could find and pinning them all shut. They then went back to the first few tunnels that they had sealed shut and released all of the spiders into them. Next, they took the remains of the campfires that they had gone back to the camping area to get and placed them in the very first greenling tunnels before sealing those shut.

The mass of spiders could be heard scrabbling away from the smoke, down the tiny side tunnels. Before too long, the screeches of the greenlings that were still in the farthest parts of those tunnels joined the scrabbling and chittering of the spiders.

The party found a corner in the main tunnel ahead and just around it they could hear the panicked and pained screaming of the greenlings from the tunnels. It was time to finish things. Brass confirmed this a moment later as he snuck back from the corner and whispered to everyone that the main nest was around the corner.

The fight was a bloody massacre. The greenlings were already panicked from what they thought was an attack by the spiders. The spiders were wary of attacking the adventuring party but not the greenlings. And the only ones in top form were the party.

By the time it was done, they needed the cart to carry all the bags of hands, spider parts, and other items from the day’s work. They made a grizzly discovery in the greenling nest. Several townspeople had been captured and eaten as well as numerous prior adventuring parties.

There was nothing left of the people but bones and scraps of their clothing. It was a nest that the town had been trying to locate for a long time. Aiko was originally a little against killing all of them before trying to talk to them but she had been coerced to go along with the wisdom of her elders. After seeing how the creatures acted, she was sure that the older party was right, mostly.

Aiko still insisted that they take the infants and toddlers back to the town and at least try to raise them as people, not monsters. There was evidence that it was feasible. The greenlings had been raising slimes as a food source. In fact, the kind of slimes they were using could help around town so they took most of them back in jars later that day.

They made a fortune from the trip because they were able to collect bounties on the monsters, sell the silk from the spiders, sell parts from the spiders, and sell any adventuring gear that didn’t belong to the family of the fallen in town. They also got a small reward for returning the remains of the dead to be consecrated and keeping them from turning undead. The slimes they sold to clean the cesspits were just the dressing on the salad.

The people of the town were dubious of Aiko’s idea of raising the greenlings but one strong supporter was the innkeeper. They began teaching the toddlers and soon discovered that it was easier than teaching most children. The greenlings were clever and grew up very fast compared to most other species in town. Aiko used some of her funds to begin construction of a building to house children without parents and nobody objected when she began calling it an orphanage for no reason.

Aiko insisted on calling the greenling children goblins. The town went along because they didn’t want to associate them with the monsters from the dungeon. A couple years later, the town had a population of goblins that all tended to look on Aiko as a sort of mother figure, much to her dismay and the constant teasing of her party of friends.