[Woodmother of the Goblin Tribe] Dryad, Female, Woodmother

They can only move during the night.

A vague, incoherent drumming fills the air of the cavern as the hobgoblins wait now, after a successful outing, for the night to return.

There is no smoke, there are no flames, and no shattered windows remain in their wake. The village that they had attacked has been plucked clean of people, like a tree robbed of all of its precious fruit.

Vapors drift through the air, coming from a fire that burns in the center of the cavern, filled with lavender and bones.

The wood-mother sits on her throne of soft cushions and dead flowers as she looks at the carving of the landscape laid out before her.

The human capital is a large, significant fortification. Even with triple their numbers, a straight on assault would be doomed to failure, and that’s with the hobgoblin's transformation being complete. She needs to be smarter about this.

The dryad lifts a finger, clawing a mark through the village on the map, which is now empty — deserted. If anyone comes by, they’ll never know what happened to the people there. It isn’t typical goblin behavior to take prisoners, at least not in such large numbers. It’s not unheard of for goblins to barter with humans in ransom exchanges. A woodsman’s lost daughter, who had wandered astray, traded for fine metals and foods. A hunter’s son, who stalked too deeply, bargained free for strong arrows and bows. Such things happen, but on a small scale.

But a whole village taken by goblins? Ridiculous.

They will think it was the work of bandits of their own kind or opposing factions from other nations.

The dryad lifts her gaze, looking at her children, who are fat, well fed, and prospering as the gods intend. They toss more bones into the fire as they gorge. They kick half-eaten and sometimes still screaming bodies to the side as they mate. They claw, gnaw, and bite at anything around them, acting like the animals the gods intended them to be.

Goblins in their base state are small and clever, they’re more like humans.

Hobgoblins are what they become when the scales are tipped to the side of primality and away from the corruptions of civilization.

In order to weaken the humans, they need to move toward the capital. They need to destroy their routes of trade and reinforcement in order to provide themselves with the largest advantage possible. Their best chance to destroy the human capital will be during the long night, when the gods hide the sun. It should have been obvious to her from the start why they would do this.

— A villager crawls towards her, babbling in the human tongue that she knows but chooses to ignore. Her children gather around her.

Humans can’t see in the dark. They can. The long night will allow them to infiltrate the city. The gods had been sending such an obvious sign for seasons now, but she had been too blind to see it because she had also been living in the imprisoning comforts of civility and fire.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

She waves her hand, throwing out a burst of magic that kills the blaze entirely, leaving the cavern aglow with nothing more than the shine of feral eyes and filled with nothing else except whimpering terror and the squelching of flesh, as nature intends.

The dryad leaves her throne, joining her children in the first animal frenzy of many, before the arrival of the longest night, which is soon to fall.

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[Gottlieb]

Rotwald the harpy screeches, her mouth and body covered in goo from a series of nutri-rations. Apparently, she has been storing hers in a nest of sorts for a while now and has engaged in a feast.

“Aren’t half of those bad now?” asks Grunheide, the goblin, leaning back on her chair and watching the spectacle unfold. It’s quite a mess, honestly, as most of them have certainly become mushier than usual, given that her nest is up near some intensely heated coils.

Gottlieb shakes his head. “I read about this; it’s normal harpy behavior,” says the man, watching as Rotwald prances around a pile of empty wrappers on the floor. “They like to keep things they catch, like fish and rabbits, in their nests to ferment,” explains Gottlieb. “Then they’ll have this big feast to eat everything at once.” He shrugs.

“…Huh…” replies Grunheide. “Why?” she asks, looking at him.

“Social proof is the leading theory,” replies Gottlieb. “The harpies compare their collection with the other harpies who are nesting in their area,” he explains. “By showing they have a lot of spares, they ‘prove’ that they’re capable members of the flock.”

Grunheide’s chair squeaks as she leans to the side. “Oh… huh, neat.”

“It is,” replies Gottlieb. Rotwald screeches, holding out her wings proudly and looking their way. The man looks to the sides for a moment, before digging out a few extra bars and holding them in the air. He had prepared for this. He just wasn’t sure when it was going to happen. He does his best to impersonate her screech.

The harpy sways in a circle.

Gottlieb sways in a circle, as best he can, on his chair with his large torso.

Rotwald looks toward Grunheide, checking her collection of stuff. It looks like he’s passed the test. Good thing he read so much about harpies back when he was trying to understand his new crewmates more.

“So, uh… what happens if a harpy doesn’t have any stuff?” asks the goblin.

Gottlieb shrugs. “Oh, that’s usually the old and the weak. They get their feathers plucked and are then thrown out of the roosts to fall to their deaths.”

“Wow. Harsh,” says the goblin.

“That’s nature,” replies Gottlieb, shrugging. “What can ya do?” The harpy lowers her head, narrowing her eyes, and makes an odd rumbling sound in her gut. “Oh, bad news, Grun,” says the man. “I don’t think you made the cut.”

She sits upright, looking at him and then back at the harpy, who is tilting her head and approaching with her talons bared. “Wait. How the hell was I supposed to know about this?!” she asks, lifting her hands. “You could have told me!”

Gottlieb shrugs, shaking his head. “Weird. I thought you were the smart one, considering how many points you dumped into that,” he remarks. “Guess not smart enough to read a book though.”

— The harpy screeches, charging at her. Grunheide screams, scrambling over the back of her chair and flopping down onto the floors, before hastily crawling away into the space below the desk, with the harpy trying to fish her out.

Gottlieb nods in smug approval, before returning his gaze to the monitor. He may be wiser now, too, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgiving. The goblin betrayed him back when he and Kai were duking it out. So, one hand washes the others. They’re even now.

“Schwarzwasser, report,” he orders, watching the security team clean out the newly spawned area. The camera feed is oddly grainy, so he has to rely on their communications.

“The wat— …ls! Two b…s have …ed. There is a dr—. D-A-”

She’s cut off, and there’s only static afterwards.

Gottlieb looks back to the screen, but there’s nothing to see there except a bright, pure whiteness that illuminates the entire room for a brief second. After it dissipates, the feed is gone, the camera having been destroyed.

He sighs. “Why do I even hire you people?” asks the man, rising to his feet. Rotwald screeches. He whistles to her. The harpy looks his way as he shakes his head and nods for her to follow. “Grun. Braun. Rotwald and I are going to check it out ourselves. Hold the fort down till we’re back.”

“Okay!” calls the minotaur from up on his barricaded platform. The harpy shoots a glance his way, and the man shrieks in terror, quickly pulling up a handful of half-eaten wrappers and some bones from some monsters.

It suffices.

“Hey, Kai?” asks Gottlieb, looking back over his shoulder. “Do I need some sort of hazard protection before going in there?”

[Response]

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- Wear a helmet. Expect a significant reduction in life expectancy.

"Thanks, bud,” says the man, giving the monitor a thumbs-up as they go.