Despite possessing eyes that could see through the dark of night, the goblins were oblivious. They ignored the floating debris in the air, paying it not a single curious glance. They also felt something on their skin, a static that stuck like a humid breeze, and yet they did not mind. No alarm was raised among them. No hesitation. No realization. For them, the strangeness was part of the forest, for they had seen something like it before when mana gathered in a certain area.
And yet, despite that fact, they were comforted by their long snouts. There was no magic in the air, and therefore no mage among those they were about to kill and plunder. They were assured. They were dumb. And their attention was elsewhere. The fact that they couldn't put any of these clues together was a testament to their stupidity.
They soon came across two silhouettes standing in front of a small yet blazing fire surrounded by torches. Sniffing the air, the goblins realized that there was actually another human nearby, standing next to a wagon fit for plunder. And a mule.
The goblins saw and smelled what they wanted and nothing else mattered. After all, this would be nothing more than several minutes of fun and several days of celebration once they were done with their prey. Compared to when they had to overwhelm the human village with greater numbers, killing two and an orc was going to be easy.
Then the unexpected happened.
The mist suddenly parted, pushed away from the village by a tremendous gust of wind. The goblins found themselves holding on to the thatched roofs, cowering as they were caught off-guard by the sudden and powerful gust. Then a scream from one of their fellows sounded, followed by the squelch of an ax cleaving through flesh.
The rest of them looked down from the roofs and saw one of their own laying on the ground in a pool of green blood, his body split in half. An orc stood before the corpse, illuminated by the campfire and torches that were seemingly unaffected by the wind, brandishing an ax that was bigger than any weapon they’ve ever seen.
Behind him was a human, clad in nothing but a simple tunic and trousers. He was unarmed, small compared to the orc in front of him, and yet the goblins needed only to look into his eyes.
They glowed a subtle hue, sending a primordial fear down their throats as they saw that blank stare. But the goblins did not falter. Humans were weak. They screamed. They cried. They died. He was no match against the green champions.
They snarled into the night, howling their cries and obscenities into the air. And then with numbers on their side and recent victories fresh in their minds, they leapt from the roofs and towards the adventurers.
Most of their number fell upon the human behind the massive orc, thinking it best to go after who they assumed to be the easiest to deal with. He was taller than them, but that meant that he was slower, inflexible, and at their mercy.
The goblins were confident that the human was no mage, wielding no staff or weapons at all. He was there to die, and so they would grant him that fate. As they landed on the ground and charged towards their seemingly feeble prey, they were thrilled.
Then the first among them slammed into the dirt, buried into it by an unseen hand. The others among them were only able to catch a glimpse of what happened before they too were pulled away, slamming into one another in a clash of bodies. They lost grip of their weapons and shields, losing them in the unseen onslaught as a mysterious force grabbed them like dolls and tossed them about. There were cries. There were screams. But not a single one came from their prey.
Several goblins were able to recover after a few seconds, shaken but angrier than before. They grabbed their weapons and hurled themselves at the human, only to find themselves thrown back with the push of a hand against the empty air. They snarled and hissed with contempt. This was no ordinary human. He was a mage!
A mage with no staff. A mage who did not utter any words. A mage who used no magic that they could smell. And yet he grabbed the goblins with unseen hands, smashing them into the dirt and against the walls.
So fixated were they against the human that they failed to realize the behemoth raging behind their backs. The orc had killed the four goblins who decided to take him on, their green blood watering the soil around him. Then the orc set his sights on those that had ignored him, swinging his ax at the nearest goblins and cleaving them in half. Their rusted and stolen armor crumbled against his swings, proving themselves no match against the head of such a large weapon.
The numbers of the goblins had dwindled, nearing half their number, and they were forced to regroup, jumping back onto the roofs. They licked their wounds and bruises, glaring and snarling at the adventurers who did this to them.
The human and the orc stood side by side one another, looking back at the goblins with contempt in their eyes. The goblins, meanwhile, were filled with a hate that boiled like a kettle begging to explode. They wanted to pull the adventurers limb by limb, then parading their screaming bodies across their hive as retribution.
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But just as they were about to make another move, they were struck. Bits and pieces of debris flew towards them, reaching speeds faster than the quickest of arrows. It bruised many among them, causing a few to fall from their positions in the roofs and back towards the ground.
Just as they thought that their fortunes couldn’t get any worse, a pebble shot straight through the chests of two goblins, splattering their blood into the air and killing them in one fell swoop.
The goblins began to waver. Their hatred was strong, but the fear they now felt was growing stronger. They thought themselves invincible, capable of taking on two measly adventurers with their numbers and weapons.
They were wrong.
As three more among them fell victim to a speeding pebble, the goblins were forced to dodge and weave. The roofs they were on were no longer safe, for the open air proved to be filled with speeding debris with no other intention than to introduce themselves through the goblins. They jumped down, but as soon as they did, the orc was upon them once more.
A few of the goblins were able to jump aside, avoiding the deadly strike by a hair’s length. But not all were lucky. Another goblin found himself too late and too slow. He screamed as the ax tore through his chest. This time, the goblin was not cleaved in half. The ax had skewered it instead.
Five goblins remained. Sweat drenched their already oily and slimy skin as mucus ran down their snouts. They trembled as they held their weapons and shields, legs shaking as they tried to keep themselves at a distance from their deadly enemies.
The Adventurers had proved their mettle, blunting what was supposed to be an ambush and slaying most of their number. As crude as their brains were compared to the intelligent races, they knew defeat when it stared at them.
Realizing that there was no chance of victory, not until they could bring more of their hive to bear, the goblins changed course. They would no longer take on the human and the orc. Instead, they would steal as much of the adventurer’s supplies as possible, bringing it back to their hive before returning with the rest of their kind to enact vengeance.
They would be swift, utilizing their speed and agility to overwhelm the other human standing guard next to the wagon of supplies.
And so they moved, sprinting towards the wagon and the single human standing guard. One of the goblins leapt forward, slicing at the air with his knife, aiming for the human’s throat. The goblin smiled and cackled as he did, noticing just how skinny and weak the human he was about to kill looked.
Then the human moved, quicker than expected, and the goblin found himself impaled through the chest with a spear.
Two of the goblins were upon the human just as he pulled the spear from their fellow, swinging it about and slashing it at the new arrivals. The two goblins parried the strike and went for the kill, both of which were aiming for the man's chest, but neither the club nor the knife would land a hit.
The goblins were stopped mid-swing, frozen in place by the same unseen force that had seen them flung about. Helpless and unable to do anything else but squeal, the goblins watched in horror as the man they were about to kill skewered them the same way.
Their blood flowed like an open faucet from their wounds before their corpses were released and allowed to sprawl into the ground.
Two goblins remained. Seeing the fate of the others, they instead went straight for the wagon, grabbing at whatever piece of loot they could, but there was another guardian they failed to consider.
A loud whimper sounded as two hooves lifted into the air, burying themselves into a goblin and crushing its ribs underneath the weight. The goblin cried and screamed as he was pinned into the ground, losing his weapon in the fall. He tried to punch his way out, but the pain was nigh unbearable.
Unfortunately for their kind, they had no adrenaline. They felt the pain as it happened, when it happened. There was no muting the suffering, no soothing, no lessening. The goblin screamed. The goblin cried. Then the goblin died, his chest crushed under the weight of an annoyed mule.
Then there was one. A single goblin remained standing, surrounded now by two humans, an orc, and a mule. He found himself near the campfire, staggering as he felt his feet pulled to the ground by the same unseen force, keeping him from leaping away or making a run for it.
The goblin panted between his snarls of defiance, desperately trying to put up an image of resistance. But there was no mistaking the fear in his horrid tone and the horror behind its slit yellow eyes. He and his fellows had been made prey, beaten and killed without mercy. There would be no salvation. No respite.
And yet, in spite of that, he decided to scream. Or at least he tried to. As soon as he opened his mouth to let out one loud and desperate warning to the other goblins back at the hive, his mouth clamped shut. Such was the force that his teeth went through his own gums.
Pain rattled the goblin, but he found himself unable to do anything. He was now frozen in place, chained by many unseen hands that were poised to tear him apart at a moment's notice.
Then the air around him thickened to the point of absurdity, causing the goblin to struggle as he found himself hard pressed to breath. A moment later, he felt something else. Something more terrifying than the prospect of death itself.
He saw the skinny human staring at him with a glare of hate, rage, and horror. Or rather, at the trinket he had around his neck. The goblin had forgotten that he had it in the first place and was unsure as to what it was. Thus, he looked down, and saw a necklace made of string, rocks and a small flower carved from wood that had lost its color sitting in the center.
“My daughter…” the skinny man said in a broken voice as tears welled up his tired eyes, “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY DAUGHTER!”
The goblin winced as the man rushed forward with spear pulled to thrust and end his life, but another moment passed, and death did not come. Not yet.
“Wait.” Came another voice, this time cool and whole. The goblin opened his eyes and found the other human standing in front of him, looming over like a dark shadow against a blazing background.
In that shadow, he noticed it. That soft glow in the human's eyes had changed, replaced by a fiery light that burned quietly as he gazed.
For a moment, the goblin felt relieved that he had been spared from death, thinking that the humans would be foolish enough to let him live.
Then the human placed his palm on the goblin's face, bending the goblin’s long snout until it snapped like a twig before his palm pressed down completely.
“Show me where you took them, monster.”