After the group finished up their breakfast in record speed, after finishing the meal they extinguished the fire and scattered the material around. They eventually set off for the kobold cave with enough flammable materials to burn a village for days. The group was able to make their way through the kobold cave with ease, the kobolds did not learn from their previous encounters from before.
No guards were posted, no patrols, the cave was left unguarded once again. The duo of Brian and Aurelius went into the cave first, Brian had to move the 2 pallets containing the oil collected over 2 days, while Aurelius had the heavy duty of silencing all the kobolds in the outpost. Jacob and Riley went to gather more wood from the area near the cave for more materials.
Jacob and Riley entered into the crystal lit cave outpost with their first load of chopped wood. The smell of blood and iron permeated the cave as corpses of kobold lay strewn all around the outpost, the kobolds at least learnt to post more kobolds than their usual 40. One kobold was still alive with its throat pierced through, limbs were flailing about seemingly by reflex. Jacob casually brought Flowing Water up and lobbed off its head, after they walked further in with the wood being pulled behind them.
They first laid eyes on a constantly squirming kobold with its mouth gagged by a blood soaked rag and right beside it was Aurelius, who was making a contraption that looks like a mini launcher that can cover quite a distance.
“Hey there Aurelius, here’s the first batch of wood. We’ll go get the second batch immediately after. What have you and Brian been up to?” Aurelius responded without looking up from his work and also briefly pointed towards where Brian and Riley was held for sacrifice just a few days ago.
“I am currently making a hurler for the molotov, we can set up the bigger barrels of oil and other flammable materials where we want them. Afterwards, I can use the hurler to ignite them from further away. To ignite the molotov we have a pile of makeshift torches right by that sacrificial pyrefire over there. Oh and Brian is scouting for viable places to place the barrels and other traps.” Riley’s interest immediately piqued went to look at what Aurelius was making.
“Oooh, can you make another one? I haven’t seen one before and it looks cool, have you made this type of thing before? Anything else you can make? A bow?”
“I can make one for you after we are finished with the kobolds. Yes, I made one before. There are actually quite a few I can make, a bow would take more time and seeing as we have limited time in this world. It would not be wise to make a bow when my hands would work a lot better than a hastily made bow without arrows.”
“Thank you! Yea...the time spent does not seem as proportionate as the rewards. I didn’t learn how to shoot a bow and arrow too.” Riley lips and eyes switched constantly from downcast to hopeful, confused on whether to feel happy about a hurler of her own or sad about not getting a bow. She did not have enough time to ponder as Jacob got her to follow him back out of the cave.
“Come on Riley we got another batch of wood to get for them, Aurelius is gonna be busy for quite awhile. Lets not disturb him further.” Jacob and Riley then left for another batch of wood.
When they came back to the cave, Brian was waiting for them by the entrance. The smell of blood was still entrenched as they had no way of ridding the smell, the smell was much more abhorrent than the last time the duo came. Both Jacob and Riley had their nose scrunched up from the smell.
“Yea the smell is getting worst by the minute, Aurelius explained what he wanted to do with this batch of wood. We are gonna set up another stage of traps from this site, so the first stage will be where the horde is coming from. The next stage will be from this exit to the surface, lets get moving quickly.” Brian welcomed them with a slight dash of annoyance, most likely due to the smell. Sheen of sweat could be seen dripping down from his head.
“Hey there Brian, yea just point us where you need us. I’m ready to get this done sooner than later right Riley?”
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“Most definitely, lets go lets go.” Riley responded to Jacob with enthusiasm that astounded both Brian and Jacob.
After Brian shared the general layout of what was needed, with Jacob cutting the remaining black silk sash needed along with the wood he and Riley brought. The three made swift progress with the traps at the entrance to the outpost and a little further back, Aurelius joined them midway and the progress became swifter still.
“With that done, do you all wanna take a break before we proceed to luring the kobold horde out?” Aurelius inquired once the rudimentary traps were set up by the group.
“I think none of us wanna stay in this dump further if we can help it. Would you mind being in charge of igniting the barrels? I will be ready to tip it over before the kobold horde comes over.”
Riley and Brian nodded along as Jacob replied
“If only I had more time, I could have made some explosive with what we had. I will standby near the hole. Brian and Riley the both of you should wait here, we would not be engaging with the kobold horde during the first set of traps if able. No need to fatigue ourselves, if we can help it. ” Aurelius lamented as he agreed with what Jacob suggested while making a few suggestion of his own.
The scream of a lone kobold echoed through the crystal cave and the cave system below, at first no response came. Then all at once hundreds or thousands of sounds came from the hole all of them inhumane, the drumbeats came after. Followed by the tremors caused by numerous footfalls of the now alerted kobold horde.
Brian and Riley bodies shook as the sounds of the horde got louder and louder, subconsciously Riley wrapped her arms around Brian for comfort. Her own discomfort lessened afer grabbing onto Brian, Brian for his part patted Riley on her head. A small smile appeared on his face as he was reminded of his daughter still out there somewhere.
Jacob had his place by the first of the barrels, his hands were holding Flowing Water at the ready to cut off the top of the barrels. His blue eyes were staring into the dimly lit cave, moments were marked by the constant rumbling of the floor. He paid attention to the noise instead of what his eyes could see, listening for the familiar volume of the screeches.
Aurelius for his part stood at the ready by the hole ready to ignite his molotov and hurl it over to the barrels. 4 more bottles stood on a pile of kobold corpses ready to be loaded into his hurler, an easy smile adorned his face as he patiently waited for the approaching horde.
The sounds and tremor grew louder and more impactful, Jacob tightened his grip around the hilt. He swung his sword, cutting off the lids of the barrels. Raised his right leg and kicked them over one by one dumping the contents over and began running back to do the same for the other sets of barrels.
The first of the kobold horde started appearing from the darkness, their faces rabid as they rushed headlong. Heedless of the smell of oil and blubber, the kobolds ran past the first of the barrels incensed by the smell of their slaughtered kin and the human waving a shimmering blue sword. Some kobolds slipped on the oil but none stayed down for long, if they did they stayed down forever as crunches of bone could be heard as they had their bodies broken by the kobolds behind.
Jacob having reached the place where Aurelius stood, immediately stabbed Flowing Water into the ground as he grabbed two bottles of molotov, holding both by the nearby torch. As more and more kobolds filled their vision, Aurelius went into motion. He lit up his molotov and with a single smooth motion, swung the molotov to the barrels that the kobolds first ran past.
Precious moments went by as the molotov hurtled through the air towards its destination, meanwhile Aurelius already had another molotov loaded into his hurler and was in motion to fling it to the second sets of barrel.
Jacob followed after Aurelius and ignited the two bottles of molotov in his hand, as the first burst of flames went up. The screeches from the kobolds turned into screams of pain as clumps of them burned within the flames, another burst of flame followed by another set of screams as they all combined into an endless cacophony of pain. Jacob lobbed the two molotov in his hand to the nearest two sets of barrel at the same time as the kobolds passed the last two sets of barrel.
4 more sets of flame joined the bonfire, the field where the kobold tried to enter had turned into a blazing inferno. With only a few stragglers making it past the barrels, Jacob got Flowing Water out of the ground and swiftly dealt with them. Strands of light blue essence flowed into him as he sliced through each of the kobolds with practiced efficiency.
As the kobolds burned with small strands of essence occasionally flying out and entering Jacob or Aurelius some of them even flew to Riley and Brian, some of the remaining vanguard stood behind the flame as they screeched and screeched to no avail. It was brought to a silence, when the elites arrived. The sounds of the drums getting louder as they did. Small kobolds shrouded in what seemed to be their version of mage garbs appeared one by one out of the massive kobold warriors. The kobold mages in their scraps garment stood before the burning flames.
Started waving the baubles they held in their hand, some looked like staves, some looked like random twigs snatched from the forest. However, what was synchronised was the words coming out from their mouth and the resulting phenomenon. Blast of ice cold air shot forth from the mages, cooling down the constantly increasing temperature and smothering the burning flames. Jacob looked to Aurelius and smirked as he said.
“Well, we expected that now lets get rid of those pesky mages.” Aurelius returned the smile as he lobbed two claws each to the side of the two walls, right above the waiting elites of giant grotesque rat-like kobolds and the mages, swirls of red essence could be seen faintly coalescing around his eyes as he threw the claws.
Snaps could be heard from atop the horde, giant stones and a mix of rusted weapons along with the wooden construct made to hold them started crashing down into the unsuspecting kobolds. Blood splattered all around the site of impact, as countless kobolds were crushed by the environment they use to travel every night. Jacob marveled at what Brian and Aurelius accomplished while they went to get the second batch of wood. Aurelius meanwhile kept a steady smile and waited for the kobolds to recover. The duo of Riley and Brian was not vibrating with excitement instead of fear, Riley was even whooping expecting victory already. However, neither the screeches nor the drums of the kobold stopped.