[Welcome Explorer, to the Black Hills Alluvial]
The twelve goblin seniors looked down on the blood smelling sands and felt an uncanny sense of trepidation. It was a coward's feeling, a sheer fear of the unknown; but it was what had kept them alive while many of their peers had fallen over the years. So, they trusted it, to an extent.
When they found the dark cavern—quite clearly freshly dug at some point this past week—that trepidation had turned into a terrible tension, while they proceeded to set themselves up to receive whatever new, possibly horrific predator that had dug its den and moved in. When nothing happened, they decided to simply wait it out. At some point it would have to wake up and come out.
The creature had clearly made an effort to cover its tracks. All the signs hinted that it was setting up for another ambush by cleaning away every sign of previous victims, other than a few smaller bones which the creature was likely too stupid to notice; but the experienced eyes of the senior’s could still tell.
Then one of them found the gnawed on tree cores with every inch of bark removed, and then some. The find had them marveling over the strength of what must be tremendously sharp teeth, that could somehow take on such a notoriously stubborn material, for the sole purpose of sharpening.
Skalle, their old marshal sporting his black cap, bent and picked one up for a closer look. This was no mere hound sharpening its claws, this was the work of a true demon. All my years. Only ever met one other beast capable of such an act casually.
He had no need to share the thoughts, they were all thinking the same.
They waited several more hours for the beast to emerge, the tension mounting all the while. Yet it was when Sträng, father of Pipan, summoned a fetish of his Class to find him some nearby food that things turned truly eerie. It was done on a whim—since he wasn’t counting on finding any food here in the sand pit, figuring the little critter was more likely to run up the dune and simply disappear—so the surprisingly immediate results managed to catch the naturally tonsured ol’ goblin completely off guard: The wooden critter dug into the ground, leaving a hole a foot deep, before it emerged and spun into its patented celebratory dance. They found several neat cuts of meat buried then, cut far too neatly. They were so neatly cut off the bone as to put the creature’s weapons into an even more lethal light. But why would it bury this and not eat?
A brief discussion ensued. “Cou-could it be a lure? Did we really come prepared for a beast such as this?” Asked their green cap scout.
An older woman, with a lilac cap on, spoke up. “Course we're not. I didn’t even bring any sponges,” She reminded, and looked around the circle warningly.
There were groans all around, with Skalle facepalming and muffling a: “Can't be earnest!?”
“Of course I am, how could I bring them along and risk the lot going to waste? They turn bad, being away from the pond for so long, and we were going to the Rex meeting called—not hunting for dangerous beasts.”
Nobody could refute the logic, but it was another blow to their already teetering morale.
Then came the point where they ultimately decided to abort, after having started to realize how this new beast may very well be nocturnal.
Falken, their old scout, raised her voice uncharacteristically high-pitched. “We’ve gotta git out of here, swiftly!”
It was no good sticking around, certainly not when they had spent all day being tense while it slept inside; they'd be delivering themselves straight into its fangs, moving more tiredly and perhaps struggling to see? At least if it had any sort of shadow camouflage, which would risk the ferocious whatever tearing through several goblins and ripping them apart before they managed to take it down… and even that might be getting ahead of themselves. They might even be forced to flee!
Although all of 'em getting killed without a few escaping to warn the Redcap was a truly remote-, not even worth considering, possibility. They were frankly too high level for such a scenario. If a beast capable of that feat even existed, then it wouldn't be setting up its den in these bare, draught-starved lands. No one with a choice would.
But Skalle put his hand on the ol’ scouts arm. “Hold it ya timid twat, if it had been stirring we would know. What we need to confirm is that it’s really still in there, you’ve gotta spend [Track’s Tracer]. The beast may have left already when we got here and we’ve been wasting time all along,” he finished with a serious nod.
The scout looked at him in disbelief at first. That was a costly Skill they wouldn’t have available for a week if they used it now, and they may well have need of it later, to hunt it down should the beast escape them.
But Skalle didn’t hesitate, only gave Falken the go ahead. The goblin leaned down over the ground and closed her eyes, while she vibrated on the spot, ever more intensely, until she glowed a spectral green—soon enough variously colored footsteps were highlighted in the sand criss-crossing all over, until the scout opened her eyes again, flaring her arms and studying the patterns old and new, attempting to make sense of it all—then all the but one pair of tracks faded away, leaving only those which belonged to whomever had left this pit the latest.
What they found was the familiar prints of a chimera-creature, but a specimen nearly half again as heavy as their own placid friend, which put images in their minds of a creature with a far more predatory amalgamation of parts.
They followed those tracks going around haphazardly for about ten minutes—before the prints suddenly took off in a very familiar direction; straight for the goblin village.
No, no, no. Oh no. This cannot happen, not again. The seniors didn't exchange a word, only adopted grim masks as one.
They had been through this before.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
All of them put their best hustle on, and prepared for the fight of their lives upon arrival. They hustled like they hadn't in years, headed for their vulnerable home, as doggedly as if every life that mattered in the world depended on it.
Which two did, at the time.
When they topped the final hill and looked across the valley, only to find their familiar, sleepy huts—where no new graves had been dug—they all collapsed into nervous wrecks, ones who could finally afford to let up.
The tracking Skill had ended two hours ago and with no way to tell if the beast had kept going in the same direction or not, they'd been forced to assume the worst, only to find themselves looking down upon the very picture of relief.
They lay there for a while, enjoying the view of their home in the rising sun and keeping watch for dangers. When they could finally be bothered to make their way down—dawn had snuck past them, and the village was rousing. No sound could be more welcome. Children greeting the sun, animals baying for feed, even their Redcap relieving herself by the mulch pit.
Of course one of them had to have such joy ruined by the complete opposite noise, soon as she was spotted. "Läker! Thank god you're here, we have wounded!"
Läkers ol' heart hitched, and she almost began an undignified sprint, until the Redcap's next words floated over.
"Strangers!"
Läker immediately caught herself and adopted a professional air, as she walked up to Lila, who was busy pulling her pants up. "Show me."
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Lila had suffered a rough 24 hours. First a complete stranger with nothing but ???? for a race arrived; riding on top of Billy and looking like he'd require half the village to take down at that, while the seniors weren't at home.
Then when he turned out to be alright—according to Billy—Lila had figured they might as well stick to the plan and head out to the orchard… only for the following events to occur.
But even then they had made it out alright, with Minst surviving and pretty much only needing to stuff Blå in an urn to remind her not to push her luck, until a more suitable penance could be worked out. You wanted Sträng there for that one. The old shaman was usually jolly, but no one was more inventive when it came to punishing the youth in ways that benefited the tribe.
She'd made a tough decision that night, while they were all gathered around the firepit. Even though Damon was clearly new to the area, it was equally clear he was somehow of the tribes, as opposed to the wild. So, opting not to wait to discuss the matter with Skalle, Läker or anyone else—Lila had gone ahead and revealed her tribe's best held secret; their hoarding of the elixir. Where most tribes had spent it all on one generation to ensure a golden age; hoping for enough success to last them, until the day when another one was earned from the System. The other way to use it was sparingly, only investing every drop where it would truly do the most good over several generations. It was a way to show they were a tribe that left no children or friends behind.
That had gone terrific. This Damon had barely cared, hardly dignifying the elixir with a single covetous glance. He barely even seemed to recognise it, despite his obvious intelligence.
Instead the man had turned the tables on her, suddenly making the outrageous claim that they were keeping a friend of his trapped in crystal. And that wasn't even the outrageous part, because supposedly they were doing so right there to boot, in the middle of their treasury.
It was a claim too outlandish to be dignified with an answer; if it weren't for those damn unexplainable bits of crystal that a bunch of goblins kept finding in the corner at odd times, hidden away amongst the grass. Yet that evidently wasn't even the whole of what Damon was talking about, yet it leant his words a very inconvenient credence.
Lila and others of her generation had long suspected that the seniors of the tribe kept secrets from the younglings, ones they deemed would cause more harm than good in the hands of the reckless. Growing up she'd been determined to find out what they were, and found satisfaction once she was recognized as Redcap. But not fully, since some mysteries even the eldest among the seniors claimed they held no answers to.
Now one of those remaining mysteries had come back to haunt them, and of course it happened at a time when not a single one of the old bastards was around to consult with.
Lila had barely slept that night, tossing and turning while the children outside tittered at the sounds coming from Damon and Billy's hut. Bah. Likely just a fling, typical kids stuff, turning it into more. Although I understand loneliness, what a pair that would be.
The next morning she'd been determined to address the issue with Damon—only for the hope of the seniors arriving and resolving the issue for her to turn paralyzing, causing Lila to postpone and postpone until she'd suddenly missed her window. She had merely hesitated for a few hours, not having realized she was on the clock, although the fellow having errands of his own was obvious as soon as he told her as much.
Then when Damon only hopped on top of Billy, heading off for the orchard and asking not to have any escorts tag along—embarrassingly enough, the first feeling had been relief, thinking she would get a few hours to figure things out while Damon simply took care of a few spiders. She would have never expected him to take things so far, it was sheer curiosity that had made Blå and Minst tag along to see. If it weren't for that, the goblin tribe would have never realized the urgency in time.
According to Blå, the warrior had rambled something about finding the source, but surely that wasn't possible?
He was only a level 27 something, no matter how martial the Class, he wasn't about to outperform a whole group of goblins more than thrice his levels.
And he surely hadn't, not when it came to the kill count, but with the help of Billy he had been able to reach further than anyone had gone before. How they'd done it clearly wasn't a viable tactic for a larger and slower group, since someone was bound to get stuck, then separated and then the whole operation slowed to a crawl unless you were willing to start leaving people behind.
Damon had figured to do something entirely different, and somehow it worked, if just barely.
Now he was sitting on yet another mystery of vital importance to the tribe, one of the few which even the seniors had failed to find any real clues to.
Except the details so far were miniscule, and the man himself was on the brink of death.
Which all contributed to how Lila shat herself with relief upon spotting the seniors approaching in the last of the dawn light, with the vital Läker in tow.