38.
They came out of the hospital in a clutch of huddled forms. Bloodstained clothes were stitched together in a gristly motley that covered their misshapen bodies. Long arms dragged across the ground, spindly fingers brushing the cement. They moved as one mass, going from pile to pile of stolen possessions.
When they moved their stitched together rags of the murdered revealed flabby and pale skin. Sheets of stringy black hair fell to their knees and when they twisted their heads their hair swung like a curtain behind them. Any goblin that strayed too close to them was quickly swatted by a lighting fast blow from one of their gangly arms.
“What hell did they crawl from?” Hana whispered next to Santi. He could do nothing but nod his head in agreement as he stared down at the monstrous creatures. Santi used his Identify ability to see what exact type of Hag they were.
Night Hag lvl. 16
“Night Hag. They’re strong too. Stronger than most of the hobs we’ve fought.”
“You have an identify skill?” Daniel asked as he stared down at the coven as they continued to sort through the possessions of the murdered.
“Yeah. Really helpful when you’re a scout. I highly suggest you take it when you can.”
“Noted.”
They fell back into silence as the coven each took the items they wanted. From the distance Santi couldn’t tell what exactly they were taking. He didn’t really need to. There were all sorts of types of Hag’s, but the commonality about them was that they were normally skilled potion makers or alchemists.
Some of them could be powerful physically, having imbibed their own concoctions. Most were physically weak but had taken on protectors. Like a numerous but weak goblin nest. They’d have plenty of muscle with little real threat to themselves as they collected ingredients and brewed their own foul potions.
“Two nests, not one. Goblins are working with the hags. This is going to get rough,” Santi whispered to the other two. Hana looked nervous but Daniel simply nodded. Daniel hadn’t seemed to find any threat or challenge over the top to the point he visibly fretted. Santi couldn’t tell if it was a facade or if the man really had nerves of steel.
“Could we take it ourselves? Sneak in and kill them and get out again?” Hana asked.
“No. Not as we are right now anyway. Maybe with a few more levels we could do it. Those hags are all roughly our levels so they should be decent fights by themselves. We have no idea how many covens are in the building either. Could be just the one or it could be a dozen.”
“Santi’s right, we can’t risk it. We need to go back to Tank and the rest and plan this out. If there’s two nests, would they come and help each other if we attack one?”
“If they’re already supplying each other? Yeah, that could be something they do.” Santi was worrying about that before Daniel had even bothered to ask. If the two nests weren’t fighting for resources but rather working together and sharing this was going to be a lot harder.
He had been fairly secure in their numbers before finding the hags. Their higher levels would level the field, but if they were supported? Attacking the hags would just lead to the goblins falling on their rear and trapping them.
“We leave at dawn. If the goblin nest isn’t here, then it's close by. We need to find it before anything else can be planned out.”
Santi was trying to remember what was around the hospital. The goblin nest had to be close by, but there was nothing off the top of his head that could be a realistic place for the goblin nest to be. They were getting close to the edge of town and there was just farmlands stretching out from here.
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“Hey, Santi?” Hana asked.
“Yeah?”
“Isn’t there a slaughterhouse or something right outside of town?”
“Fuck. It’s not a slaughterhouse but they take all the local sick animals there to be euthanized or live out the last years. It fucking stinks.”
“Sounds like a good place for a bunch of goblins to build a nest to me,” Daniel chimed in. Santi had to agree with him. It was an animal retirement place filled with lame and dying animals and had a bunch of barns and other buildings to support the large elderly animal population.
The type of energy that a nest would grow from and with plenty of meat for the goblins to consume in the opening days. The more Santi thought about it, the more it made sense.
The hags had taken the hospital, full of sick and dying people. They had a strong affinity to alchemy and potions. If they had a nest then it would make sense for it to be there. A sudden thought struck Santi as he looked around at the ransacked room.
Hag’s liked to use fresh ingredients. They hadn’t seen any human corpses nearby either.
“Do either of you remember seeing any bodies lately?” Santi asked, hoping it was his own failures.
“No, I haven’t.” Daniel said, while Hana simply nodded in agreement.
“Well, I think we have to take the hags first then.”
“They have hostages, don’t they?” Hana whispered as a look of fear and horror crossed her face.
“Oh, dear,” Daniel whispered. His eyes hardened in thought and he started to rise up.
“No!” Santi whispered forcefully, grabbing Daniel’s arm and dragging him down.
“We don’t have the numbers to free them. We need to go and find anybody we can and start doing it the moment the sun rises. You two will look for any enclaves like our own while I fill Tank in. We’re going to need to make a big move and we need more people.”
Daniel glared down to wear Santi was gripping his wrist and didn’t say a word till Santi released him.
“You think there’d be survivors around here? With the two nests roving about?”
“There was nearly a quarter of a million people in the city. Even with all of the death and chaos going on, there will be plenty of people around. We just need to convince them to come out of the holes they’re hiding in.”
“First thing in the morning then. Hana and I go and try to find people to help us. Santi, if we can’t find people, I won’t wait. We go and we rescue those people tomorrow no matter what.”
“Agreed.” Santi offered his hand and the scout waited a moment before shaking on it. Hana looked at them like they had both just started spouting off in foreign languages.
“You two are really having a dick measuring contest right now?”
The two boys looked at her then shrugged sheepishly. Now that the moment had passed and the tension had dissolved, it did look a bit silly.
“I’ll take first watch. I’ll wake you in four hours and you two watch till sunrise.” Santi said, needing some time to think in silence.
Both of them agreed and quickly laid down on the mattress, back to back, and fell asleep. The ability to sleep in any circumstance was a critical skill that one had to acquire. Lack of sleep could lead to bad decisions which would lead to an early grave. That the two of them were able to fall asleep quickly spoke to their exhaustion.
Santi sat to the side in the corner of the room and let his mind wander. Plans were formulated and discarded as he sat in the dark. He could lead an assault team formed of the most powerful they had. Chloes, Tank, Daniel, Justin, and a few others. Right down the middle while the rest of the raid team kept the hordes of goblins off of them.
It was direct and easy. There were just too many unknowns. How strong was the boss who sat in the heart of the nest. The leader of the hags would be a powerful peak Initiate likely, if not a low level Acolyte. Similar in power to the goblin leader. Could they tackle that level disparity with just a handful?
The battle with the troll-kin came to mind. That monster had left many dead and it had been a fairly simple opponent to fight. The nest leader wouldn’t be like that. They would be smart and more balanced and wouldn’t have the easy counters that Santi had used on the War Chief.
It was safer to gather a large number and launch an attack on the building and free the hostages. If they were still alive. Maybe a distraction? A feint at the goblin nest with just a handful while the true force attacked the hag nest? Monsters defended their nests to the last. They would spill seas of blood to protect the nest and any type of attack would have them huddling around their nest to protect it.
Settling on a rough plan, Santi waited for his own turn to sleep. The next day would be a trial. He was glad he had the rest of the potions he had been awarded for clearing the rift. Tomorrow, the goblin and hag nests would be cleared and they could have a sort of peace in this region of town.