It is another dull day at the mine, the two guards sleep outside between the two barricades in front of the mines entrance next to their makeshift spears.They are supposed to stay awake, all goblins know this but they all also prefer to risk it, none of the other goblins will wake up sooner to scold them anyway. Four goblins sleep between the guards post and the actual entrance to the mine, clutter of cups and bowls, chairs and stools, sticks not yet sharpened and the remains of the fire where they roast wildlife. All of these were scattered around, it had looked like the aftermath of a tornado.
It would be easy to walk up to the two guards and relieve them of their weapons and lives. But with all the clutter beyond the barricades it would be difficult to advance farther undetected.
It is late morning, and a small crackling sound wakes one of the guards up. He gets up with a frown and picks up his sharp stick, if anything bugs him he'll kill it and go back to sleep, driven by anger rather then sense of duty. No bear will be stupid enough to attack Gaveng, and even a bear would, the goblin would waste his life in a bear fight to sleep soundly even a bit longer.
He looks around to see where the noise came from but a different sense attracts his attention, the sense of smell. Someone had been cooking, meat. Goblins often hunt, but aside from the occasional hog dumb enough not to run away they don't find anything, and even when they do nothing is normally left after a night's feast. Still he can smell meat, and beyond the bushes he can even see a tantalizing piece of venison.
The goblin guard leaves his post, leaves his weapon too, so infatuated with this meal he completely forgets everything in this world besides this meal and his salivating mouth. Every meal in the mine is a battle for scraps, but here he finds a piece of cooked meat, how lucky can he get? Not lucky at all as the next moment his head splits diagonally, a rather clean cut all the way through. Dali's family axe, wielded by Fren and worked with the magic he learned.
"That's a bit overkill, isn't it?" Rodrick asks him, whispering to him.
"I didn't know it would be so easy, to hack them… "
"That was good practice, now let's go with the plan."
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The sound of a rock hitting wood right next to his ears wakes the goblin guard, he wakes up as angry as the first one did, but he is the only one this time. He was angry at start for the waking noise, but now that he sees the other one had left his post he is livid. He walks over to one of the sleeping goblins and wakes them up.
"Guard with me."
"What? Why? I'm sleeping, go away!" It seems waking up angry is a thing all goblins do.
"I'm not guarding alone, come with me and guard." The guard grabs the other's arm and tugs on it.
"Let go, where is the other one?"
The commotion wakes the rest, the one guard refuses to be the fool who guards alone, but none of the ones who wake up want anything to do with it.
Soon enough the commotion wakes Gaveng and he can clearly hear from the others arguing what conspired. The goblins normally make a ruckus out of anything, but if one goblin dissapeared that means he ran away. The thought one of his peons decided to do something else and ran away infuriates him. He walk up to the commotion with axe in hand.
"We have a deserter? I'll go get him. You, with me!" He points to the other guard who is part frightened and part relaxed. Having Gaveng on his side is both a source of stress and a relief. In a few moments Gaveng retrieves his shield, small round and made of wood. Looks like a cauldron lid with a spike in the middle. Axe and shield, his signature look, he can already imagine how scared the deserter will be when he finds what painful death will be his punishment.
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They head off from the mine, looking around, the guards dares not leave Gaveng's side or he would be scolded perhaps, or even worse. As they walk through the woods, not even knowing where to look first they see a sharp long stick that looks groomed. "Found his spread! He must have gone this way." Gaveng points at their new lead.
Examining the glorified skewer, Gaveng pulls it from where it sits in the ground. Suddenly vines and ropes drop on them from above, tangling and coiling around them with every jerk they make trying to get out.
Gaveng uses his strength, pulls and yanks. "Come here! Get me out of this! Get these ropes off of me!" He yells for help, instead of a plea it sounds more like a command. They haven't walked very far and if he screams the goblins still at the entrance should be able to hear him. That's when he hears a loud thud, and some screams, what is happening over there? Whatever it is, looks like he won't get much help from any one soon, what worthless minions they are.
A few moments of more pushing and tearing and biting he finally frees himself out and lets out an angry grunt. "Get out." He impatiently grunts the guard who followed him, but the guard's face looks frozen and pale and the vines wrapped tightly around his neck. Pulling the ropes on Gaveng's end must have choked the weaker goblin. Gaveng picks up his shield and axe, with his seething anger he splits the 'spear' he found earlier with an axe swing. "Now I lost two goblins! And it's all cause o' someone. That someone's gonna pay." Throwing blame is a specialty for goblins. He runs back to the mine, whoever did that is likely there right now making the noise.
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The plan works as expected, the deserter bait was supposed to take Gaveng away with some others of his stronger warriors, but as long as he is out of the battle Fren and Rodrick can focus and take out whoever is at the camp. By now there are about eight goblins just outside the entrance of the mine, a perfect set up for the next part of the plan. They can both clearly see this from above.
"Sure lucky you're a lumberjack, huh?"
"I'm not a lumberjack, Dali was a lumberjack." Fren corrects Rodrick as they both push a heavy cut down tree, it roll from the hill above the mine's entrance. The heavy log rolls down with a sound like a wheel on a rushing cart and splatters oil all over the place. The goblins have time to look up at it but by the time they can react it's already above their heads.
Rodrick and Fren slide down the hill too. The log had snapped in two, and several goblins were crushed, they lay down on the ground and it's clear that they won't get back up. When the two humans reach the way into the mine they see a small group of the green monsters standing inside, battle ready, they finally know what's going on now and have taken hold of their weapons.
"Block the entrance, it's don't let them get out." Rodrick nervously yells. Both Rodrick and Fren stand in the way, blocking the exit for the goblins who would like to strike at their backs. Between Fren's axe and Rodrick's sword and shield the goblins can't find an opening to surround them. Some of the goblins are cowardly, some have no sense of self preservation, regardless they are too dumb to realize their disadvantage and instead of making a plan they try to rush and attack the two intruders with weapons in hand.
Rodrick slices one, shield bashes a coming pickaxe swing with careful alignment and dodges another then retaliates with a powerful kick. It might look like a dangerous situation but with his skill and the sluggish movements the goblins have it's barely a danger at all. In fact the goblins strike their own more often than successfully swinging an attack.
Fren remembers what Rodrick told him, 'don't make large swings, they'll take any opening you'll give them.' and indeed he refuses the urge to punish a careless attack with a devastating swing knowing that if he does he might get hit for it. Still, the small stature the goblins posses mixed with their dull movements result in Fren handling the goblins quite easly. He grabs with his free hand one goblin who went in to thrust a spear and with only one hand lifts him up and tosses him back at the crowd. The crowd of goblins don't mind at what is thrown at them as they mindlessly thrust and swing trying to land a hit, the tossed goblin soon gets skewered himself in the back by an ally.
Fren does swing his axe at a couple of attackers, hitting one's neck and another's arm. The force he put behind these wasn't enough to cleave, but was fast enough to keep his guard up. And it was good enough to take out one of them and immobilize the other, so it was definitely a good choice. He even grins a bit now that it seems he's getting the hang of combat.
It looks like things are going pretty well, they can count only five goblins remaining. The goblins stand no chance, they can't even get near enough to Fren to hit him before Fren can simply pick them up with his hand. And if they would try Rodrick… they aren't even touching him, the nimble old man that he is. He's like a riddle they can't figure out, not only how to approach but from where will he swing next?
All is well until the two hear from their backs a growl "HHHRRR. Who are you? What you do to my goblins? Get out! I will kill YAAAAAA!" Gaveng is now on the battlefield, evident from his enraged battle cry. With some rope and Vine still wrapped around his arms he stands between the barricades and his eyes shine with malice. He shouts another war cry to the sky "AAAAA". The goblins left standing are both excited and scared but clearly will now fight harder.
"Sooner than we expected him to arrive, huh." Rodrick looks at Fren with a small grin. "Good thing we planned for that too."