Y:7 D:18

Argos

The city’s stage 1 was nearly complete. This meant that now more time could be

invested in research and exploration. Multiple species had been identified, with some

of them living in isolated islands and other continents. A meeting was organized to

discuss the strategy with which they would approach the Goblins and finally begin

seeking answers.

“Are we really going to keep calling them with names from creatures of our

mythology?” asked Juuda.

Dimitri stepped up. “Well, according to the most popular theory among our

citizens, it is the correct way.”

“You mean that we got visited by the civilization of this world tens of

thousands of years ago, and we sprung up legends after meeting them on Earth?”

“Precisely. It ticks many boxes and answers many hard questions. How else

are you going to explain the similarities we see here with our legends?”

“There is a bigger problem to answer, and this is how they made it this far.

What destroyed them and whether there are still weapons available to any of them,”

said Jain.

“Exactly,” added Alex. “We need to focus on one step at a time. Today we are

planning the first. Jain, are you ready to present your plan?”

“Yes. We have figured out that their most valuable animal is this gazelle-

looking animal.”

“I call them gazortis,” interrupted Gakuto.

“Right,” said Jain with a smile. “These gazortis are important to them. They

are very fast, and they hunt them with large groups. They even have a ritual when

killing one. Our plan is to get Clive flying around and pick the largest he can find and

trap it. We will approach them from the air with the Eagle right at sundown, when

they begin their night, and present them with the animal alive. Then Konoya will

proceed to try and communicate with hand gestures and pictures of items.”

“Sounds like a plan. Does anyone have any comments or objections?”

“Since we are going with the Eagle,” added Bara, “let’s plan to leave some

heavy supplies that Anais has requested.”

“Who will take part in this mission?” asked Juuda.

Konoya replied, “Bara, Clive, and myself should be enough. We do not need

to go with a big team. We need to appear harmless to them.”

“Then it’s settled. Bara, inform Clive to pick the … gazortis, and in the

meantime, get ready,” said Alex, looking at Konoya.

Later that night, with a large gazortis on board, the team left for Anais, and

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after leaving her supplies, they proceeded to visit the large cave, which acted as the

main opening of the underground city of the Goblins. Clive remained hovering on

standby while Konoya and Bara began walking the last three hundred meters to the

opening. The large gazortis was making sounds as it was being pulled from Bara.

The scouts around the area had begun pounding the ground with metal pistons as a

way to inform the city of the approach, since the Eagle was a kilometer away in the

air.

“Continue walking as if you haven’t noticed them,” said Konoya to Bara.

“I am not very comfortable. We are amid vegetation, and Clive cannot pick us

up fast enough. We need to get to the opening faster,” said Bara while walking.

“Don’t rush. They will not attack,” said Konoya with confidence.

The area around the cave had a fifty-meter radius of no vegetation. They

arrived ten meters away from the opening and stopped.

Within seconds, they were surrounded by a large number of Goblins. Clive,

seeing this unfold, began moving toward them. He hovered with the Eagle less than

fifteen seconds away. Some were yelling; others were looking scared. Some were

armed with glass swords, spears, shields, and other weapons, while others were

completely unarmed. There were small ones there as well, children who had come to

see what the commotion was all about. Konoya looked around and smiled.

She pointed at the gazortis and tried to invite them to take its ropes. Then a loud yell

made all of the commotion stop. Amid the silence, their leader began walking through

the crowd. While a male Goblin was approaching from the cave, a younger one stood

up and began marching toward Konoya. It was visibly scared, but something led it to

act brave and approach. From behind, a female Goblin stormed with her weapon

high toward Konoya. Bara raised his weapon to the air and shot a bullet. They all

cowered down from the sound—all but the mother. She flinched but did not lose

focus from her child. Seeing the young one as it cowered in fear made her attack

more ferociously.

As Bara watched the young creature approaching Konoya, he felt he had no

other choice but to turn the weapon toward the Goblin mother. He stepped forward in

front of Konoya and shot from a distance of less than two meters, right when the

mother was over her child. The Goblin placed her hand on her chest. A tiny would

that was barely bleeding but causing a lot of pain was all that the weapon could do.

The Goblin, which momentarily looked like it was there to only remove her child from

harm’s way, now had a reason to attack. She once again raised her weapon and

jumped toward Bara. In his panic, Bara picked his plasma weapon from his side and

shot at her. The bullet went through a couple of Goblins before becoming a bright

spot on a rock, slowly dimming. Before leaving her last breath, the Goblin mother fell

on to her child and tried to push it back. The younger Goblin held the body of his

dead mother and with a loud scream, took his mother’s axe and charged toward

Bara.

In the second that followed, Bara took a flash grenade and yelled, “Flash!”

while Clive had reached almost above them. The flash went off while the Goblins

were ready to attack.

Everything happened so fast. The whole team was in shock. Argos was

breathless while watching the unfolding of these events. With a faint voice, Alex

almost whispered, “What are we doing?”

Bara opened his eyes after the flash to see the young Goblin at his feet, while

all the others were trying to clear their eyes. He grabbed the young one and held it to

the hook that Clive had dropped down from the Eagle. A hostage! They had a

hostage with them. Bara was holding the little Goblin so tight that in his shock he was

hurting him. Something made him feel that they needed one to communicate, so he

took the young one.

While just a few meters off the ground, the team saw the leader looking at the

dead bodies and at the team who had kidnapped one of their own. His scream of

rage brought a feeling to everyone that they have never felt before.

Fear.

His rage made all the other Goblins raise their spears and axes and scream with all their

might. The small creatures somehow looked very large now. What was coming was

now obvious.