"Do you think you can make it work?" Second asked cautiously.

"Probably not." Scratch fumbled with the device.

It was called a 'crossbow' and it used specially crafted ammunition. Kicker and Biter had insisted on taking it along and they had taken two of the crossbow bolts with it. Currently Scratch was trying to get one of them loaded into the weapon via a cranking mechanism to pull the string back.

"Okay, stand back." He positioned his arms to grab the implement without sitting in the path of the moving parts and held it in front of his working eye to aim.

The brother had strung up the uneaten carcass against a tree for target practice.

"Fire!"

As the string flung forward the upper part of the crossbow bolt scraped his cheek, drawing blood. It made a straight line right over the target, missing it by half again its own length.

"It worked! It worked!" Laugh clapped joyfully.

"It missed." Digger said.

"Scratch always misses." Dumb added casually. "He can't use slings either."

"If you're so clever, you try it." Scratch threw him the weapon and went to retrieve the bolt.

-

When he came to the tree and stood on his toes to pull out the projectile he noticed that the impact had ruined it.

"Ah, it ruined it."

The other bolt raced past his arm right into the carcass as he turned around.

"JESUS!"

"See?" Dumb came running to inspect his hit. "No problem for me."

Scratch pulled the weapon out of his grasp with one hand and slapped him across the face with another.

"Ah!"

"You idiot, you almost shot me!"

"No. I didn't! I aimed at the target."

"You aimed at the target... you aimed at the target..." He was losing his composure and calmness. "If you shoot when other people are in the way, eventually you WILL kill someone!"

Dumb didn't know what to say, he started tearing up from getting slapped and yelled at. "I didn't...I..."

"It's alright, shush, it's alright." Scratch gave him a dispassionate hug to defuse the situation. "Just... never do that again? Okay? Ever."

-

"Can I try?" Asked Laugh.

"We ruined the bolts." Scratch answered, Dumb still in his embrace. "We'd have to find a way to make new ones."

"It would make us a lot safer if we could." Digger said.

"I wonder about that." Scratch patted Dumb's back. "I really do."

"I'm not allowed to come close." Cobaline muttered.

"Don't come close. Just use that axe on the floor to push it towards me." First tried.

He had been convincing the girl to give him some of the animal feed. All he needed was a single bowl, she could leave it on the ground for him to grab, he reasoned.

Cobaline looked around and found the stone axe Scratch had made. Huckabee had questioned him about it and just left it to lie around afterwards. Obediently she followed his suggestion and awkwardly pushed a bowl of sloppy pig's gruel towards him. I his hunger First stretched his arm out with his face against the bars to grab it as soon as possible.

It was so close, just a little bit closer, a bit more... one more push-

-

"OOOOOOOOOOOORCS OOORCS!"

"Everybody there's orcs coming!"

The panicked voices of Huckabee and his female friend shook the entire camp awake.

Cobaline dropped the axe in shock, practically throwing it.

-

"Cobaline, there you are!" A woman picked up the child and ran off with her.

Everywhere people were running about, grabbing belongings, leaving their tents. It reminded First very strongly of the reaction the village goblins had had when they had stormed in to save Scratch. He doubted these 'orcs' were here to save him however.

But he did notice the handle of the axe had toppled towards him, he could touch the very tip with his finger nail. With repeated tries, perhaps he could incrementally drag it towards himself...

"So you ran back and led them to us?" Lydia Harkness spit the words out like an angry llama.

Huckabee was apologetic "I'm sorry, boss. We didn't know what to do. We-"

"Were else were we supposed to go!?" Dee said indignantly.

Lydia started pacing to and fro. She snapped her fingers at a guard for him to listen to what she was about to say.

"We need to evacuate the footfolk, collect our fighters to form a line of defense while they make their escape."

She pointed at Dee and Huckabee. "That counts for you two too. What you were supposed to do is what we're going to do now, put our lives at risk for the good of the group. Now go!"

-

As they walked out of the tent Huckabee slapped Dee at the back of the head. She didn't even respond, that's how shocked she was at the development.

I'm back in Eston. Man, this is such a boring city, a total beginner area. I'm strolling around the marketplace, but nobody sells anything that's meant for adventurers.

【Laurus, Laurus!】 Margaret is with me, she's grabbing my arm and pushing her chest against me.

Eeeek! Don't look! I definitely shouldn't peek at her cleavage.

Dammit. I looked.

Women make me nervous.

【Laurus. Are you listening? I think we could try to defeat the storm dragon in the sky dungeon.】

-

Ah! Sorry Margaret, I have made promises elsewhere. Silphie and the others are expecting me to exterminate the goblins.

【I uh, have a mission in the woods.】

She looks a little disappointed but then very serious. 【I understand. So we only came back here to prepare.】We?

【You still want to come along?】 It'll be boring you know.

【D-don't you want me in your party?】 She pouts her lips while pushing closer against me.

No! That's not what I meant by that at all!

I say nothing, I try my best not to look at her boobs.

【It's about the orcs, isn't it?】

What? Orcs? 【What do you mean?】

【When I was in the forest looking for you, there was a goblin with an orc weapon. The hidden people must have seen them! Is there an orc horde in the Eston area?】

People around us stop to stare.

Wait a minute, if there are orcs giving the goblins weapons then those have to take priority, right? And besides, those weapons are probably what's making the goblins a problem in the first place. If I instead go fight these orcs, then that counts as fulfilling my promise too, right?

【Yes.】 I put my finger to my lips. 【We're going to chase away the orc horde. But I've been keeping quiet about it not to alarm the people here.】

【Oh!" She clasps her mouth. 【Sorry.】

【It's alright.】

-

Aaargh! Don't look at her boobs!

It was confusing what exactly was happening in the camp. Most of the residents were leaving, they had big carts with wheels for their belongings and packed pretty much everything on they possessed.

However, the strongest of the humans were staying, they were putting on their armor, sharpening their blades and preparing themselves for a fight.

First didn't spend much energy trying to sleuth the situation, he had successfully retrieved his axe. With the thing firmly grasped between his hands he had enough room inside the cage for a full-body swing. He practiced aiming for a bit but then decided to hold off escaping until most of the humans were gone. The loud noise could prompt them to respond.

-

After a couple of minutes of silence, any sound of humans coming from far in the distance, he made the decision to try his luck. He hadn't swung the thing in days and his body was stiff from inactivity, so when he spun around on his heals he audibly grunted from the pain. But the tool hit its mark, the hinges on the cage door, spectacularly shattering the stone head and significantly deforming the cage part. He his it a few more times with what remained of the axe and at the end fumbled with the parts himself, using his hands, until he got the door to fall off. He was free.

-

First left his ruined weapon behind. He jumped out of the cage and straight onto the meal Cobaline had pushed towards him. He grabbed the bowl and messily slurped down the pig feed. He retched, it was disgusting, Quiet's fish and vegetables had spoiled him. With the slobber still on his chin he proceed to cautiously and stealthily sneak through the abandoned camp.

The forest line was visible. When he reach that he could start running without the humans noticing. He wondered about Yeller and Teeth, hopefully they had escaped safely.

-

Just when he thought he had found a clear path to victory his nose was filled with the enticing aroma of freshly roasted meat. The slobber couldn't have been what the humans ate themselves. His stomach growled painfully, it seemed like escape was going to have to wait.

"The orcs?" Barbara looked alarmed.

"That's what the nightshade hero and his girlfrien' were talking about." Her fellow guild member said.

They were at the dockyards, retrieving precious gems that had been smuggled into the city inside crates meant for fruit.

"Have you told anyone else about this?"

"Uh, no. I mean. I would nae know where ta go. I don't have a sister like yers."

Barbara cringed at the mention of her more successful sibling. "Who knows if she really even saw anything? It wouldn't be the first time a purty dame misled ye, GEORGE." She lashed out at him irrationally.

He quickly changed the subject. "But, this is bad, aint it? If they tell Dichtershire, we're neck deep in military o'er here."

"That's for the leadership to break their heads over. Not you. I'll go pass it on. Besides..." She paused to reseal a crate. "Goblins pick up any old junk they'll find. It's probably some discarded adventurers' item. There's lots of 'em around all of a sudden. I saw the Rose hero take an escort mission last week. Was wielding some rare equipment too."

"Adventurers..." George scoffed.

"Doncha say that kind of thing out loud. Adventurers are very beloved by people that aren't part of the thieves' guild."

"Or bandits."

"Or bandits."

"Look who I found sneaking about!" The bandit had First firmly grasped by his hair.

"It's you!" Huckabee said, surprised at seeing the goblin again.

"This is all his fault!" Dee fumed.

Harkness was standing behind them and grabbed both their heads to bash them together.

"AH!"

"Ow"

"This is all YOUR fault, you imbeciles. You're the ones letting yourself get caught and leading them here."

"So what do we do with it?" The guard asked.

"If we let him go he'll just run back to his orc masters." Harkness responded.

"Let me go!" First yelled. "I don't even know what an orc is."

"See? See?" Huckabee pointed triumphantly at the goblin, still rubbing his painful head. Dee elbowed him to shut him up.

-

Surprised herself Harkness crouched in front of First. "What's your name?"

"..." He looked around unsurely, the guard loosened the grip on his hair slightly. "First."

"Why were you in our camp First?"

He was worn down, no longer having the energy or will to resist. "We wanted food."

-

"A goblin raider. There's no real mystery to it."

"Just kill it."

There were voices all around from bandit warriors that had gathered to see what the commotion was about.

-

"Silence!" The boss stood up and turned around to address the group. "For stealing food? For going hungry? Aren't half of you thieves by necessity?"

There was a dissatisfied murmur over their own pitiable circumstances leaving them to be compared to a goblin.

Lydia looked down at the captive. "You say you're not with the orcs, we'll give you the chance to prove it."

First's eye twitched. This had better not go where he thought it would go.

"You'll be forming the first line of defense with us. If you survive, we'll let you go."

First tried to shake himself loose, but the grip on his hair strengthened again.

If I survive? What do you mean 'if'? Death is certain!

"Guboook!"

"Ah, Ragar. Uhm, hi."

"Have you been following the humanoids?"

"Yes, I have. I've found their camp... more or less."

"What do you mean more or less?" Rag grabbed his junior by the chest plate in an intimidating fashion. "They didn't spot you, did they?"

The warrior troupe he had brought with him made angry snorting noises. They had volunteered for a surprise attack to massacre some humanoids, not an organized battle against a foe that knew they were coming.

"Well... you see...they, sort of did."

Ragars hand grasped Gubok's neck.

"That is to say, even before we split up, as far as I understaaah~"

"You'll be leading us to the enemy, Gubok, and when we're there I'll decide whether or not to grant mercy." His grip relaxed and Gubok gasped for breath.

"Yes, Ragar."

-

The warriors seemed taken aback and doubtful. Ragar took his warhammer from his belt and clanged it loudly against his shield. "Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah!"

The others started to join in the chant, he was whipping them into a frenzy.

"Why stand here waiting for them?" First whined. "Why not just flee?"

"I agree with the goblin." Dee said. "As strange of a sentence as that is."

"We're here Dee, to stop their advancement and keep them from catching up to the caravan." Harkness explained.

Dee mumbled inaudibly.

All of them were staring into the forest from where they expected the enemy to come. First was tied to a tree with a long rope to prevent fleeing, he had been allowed a helmet and a spiked club from the bandit equipment.

-

Slowly it started to become audible, the chanting.

It was the middle of the day, so First's vision was no better than the others, it didn't take long for the others to notice them when he had.

Large bipedal creatures with the heads of pigs and enormous rotund torsos. They wore black metal armor and weapons and were clanging their shields wildly to intimidate.

"The knew we were expecting them." Harkness drew her short sword in one hand and a bunch of throwing knives in the other.

"There's only eight of them." First was relieved. There were close to twenty bandits there to resist them.

"That's too many." Harkness said.

Huckabee gulped. "Out of all of us, only the boss can go toe to toe with an orc on her own. And that's because she's a knight."

-

An arrow was shot from their side, it bounced pathetically of an orc's shield.

Then the pig-men started running towards them.

The fight was chaos.

Only by the severe outward differences of the parties did they know who to attack and who not.

First rolled around on the forest floor, bashing against the pigs' protected legs and dashing away before they could focus on him.

He started to have fun dodging and swinging until suddenly one of the large beast managed to jam a meat cleaver right into his hand, bisecting it vertically.

"Aaaah" First fell to the damp forest soil, completely losing sense of his surroundings.

When he thought to look up it was already two seconds later. The pigman loomed over him, knife raised overhead, ready to slash down and do the same to First's skull.

On closer inspection, the enemy was dead. When he had turned to attack First Dee and Huckabee had taken advantage of his divided attention to jam their swords into either side of his body. It took a moment before he slumped over, enough to scare First with his menacing pose.

"I suppose..." Dee panted. "... that proves he's not... with them."

"Watch your six." Huckabee turned around to face an attacking orc that had just killed two of their comrades.

-

First looked around dazed.

The humans were clearly losing, there were only 12 of them left to 5 orcs.

Their tactic seemed to be for two each to attack an orc from different angles to find more openings, something that became harder the less of them were around.

The orcs possessed an enormous strength and mowed down their enemies with wide and powerful motions, barely moving at all during the fight.

The rope that bound him to the tree had been cut in the affray.

The bandit leader was matched in a battle of strength with the larger orc, pushing her weapon against his.

...

The rope had been cut! He could run away!

The humanoid was speaking in its disgusting monkey language.

It was offering an unexpected amount of resistance to Ragar's force when their weapons clashed.

"Very nice. It's not everyday I meet a 'noid able to push back my warhammer." He stepped forward and drove her further back as he said that. "Perhaps I will keep you as a breeding sow."

He didn't expect her to understand his language, so he made slobbering noises with his tongue.

When this battle was over they'd slaughter Gubok and feast on his flesh, after that they only needed to follow the trails of the carts to kill the non-combatants. There was no reason why he couldn't schedule a rape in-between these activities.

His flat-teethed smiled grew wider imagining what he would do to this woman, when suddenly his warhammer started to burn in his hand.

A fiery red glow was emanating from the sword she had so firmly grasped in her two hands.

"Magic!" Ragar sputtered in disgust. He had to drop his warhammer.

Immediately bashed the woman with the shield in his other hand, knocking her against the ground.

"Oh well." He grabbed the shield with both hands and brought it down towards her stomach.

First was frozen in place.

Now was his chance to run away from an unwinnable battle. It was common sense.

He looked at the big orc push down the bandit leader.

There it was. That had to decide it for him. There was no hope for this battle. But his body didn't agree. Instead of fear he only felt increasing battle lust. The pain was taking over his mind, being a goblin this meant he could not resist fighting to the death.

I never had common sense, did I?

He pried the knife from the grasp of his dead attacker with his good hand and threw it at the largest orc. Before it had even hit he had grasped the club again and lifted it above his head too.

-

Just as the knife whizzed past the orc's head he thrust his shield in the ground, inches away from Harkness' feet as she rolled backwards.

In a single movement the bandit leader rose to her feet and threw two throwing knives straight at First's head.

Lydia couldn't help but hold her breath and keep her eyes on her own projectile as it flew through the air.

Just as she had intended it ricocheted of the little goblin's head and into the neck of the orc behind him, underneath the face guarding helmet and at an angle she wouldn't have been able to reach with a direct toss.

She had to focus on her own disgusting attacker again, he had risen to his feet in the time it took for her to watch the maneuver.

This was clearly the only experienced orc warrior. She could only hope her subordinates were able to defend against the lesser forces while she kept the big one busy, but once in a while she could throw some minor assistance their way.

She jumped backwards at the mad flailing of the beastman.

"Getting mad? Good. That means you're losing focus. How about some of... this." She elegantly spun her sword around into a reverse grip in order to put her hands together in the proper way for her most powerful spell. "Rhada's breath!" As she said that she stretched her arms forward and a line of flame spewed from her hands, enveloping her enemy in fire.

Unfortunately the orc had had the clearness of mind to cover his face with his shield.

"That was the last of my magic..." she murmured under her breath, taking a defensive stance once more and confident the creature couldn't understand her anyway. "...let's see how long I'll hold out against you without it."

Huckabee felt a strange pang seeing the goblin lying on his back on the damp leaves.

He had kind of rooted for the little fellow to survive.

"Who's left?" He wondered aloud as Dee was still stomping the skull of the orc they had worked to the ground together.

Sintius and Beth were together with one orc, the leader was fighting the big one and Patrick was still on his feet but losing from the one with the small tusks.

"Paddy!, oh no. This better go well. Dee, come!"

"Don't tell me what to do." But she did come.

-

Together they managed to take the orc that had disarmed Patrick by surprise, stabbing him in the ankles.

"Patrick, are you alright?"

"Nothin' that can't be healed."

"What about Paulus?" Dee asked, looking at their motionless comrade.

"I don' know. I really don'.

As he talked Patrick walked up to orc holding Sintius and Beth into the air and jammed an arrowhead into his ear from behind.

Ragar was furious, he was burned and disarmed by magic and had spend way too much time clashing with this one woman.

When his troops had finished the others he would take his sweet time abusing her. Perhaps he would eat her afterwards. Right now he was determined to beat her to a pulp.

Just when the magic had run out and he had stomped the stamina out of her body her was suddenly pierced by an arrow in his thigh.

He turned his head to see 4 humans standing and all of his own warriors dead or incapacitated.

"You... apes!" He had no words. Somehow the humanoids had turned the battle around on them completely.

The human he had been fighting stopped panting to pierce his eye with a knife. In his shock he barely felt it.

"Gubok... you... useless shote."

-

On the ground, not too far off, with his ankles slit, Gubok watched the gruesome execution with little pity. He had always hated his elder. But he was still insulted that his last words were all but accusing him for failing them. With this, the battle was over and Gubok closed his eyes, playing dead.

"Is he dead?"

"The orc?"

"The goblin."

"I'm not dead." First opened his eyes and intruded on the conversation.

"Playing dead huh?" Huckabee commented.

"I was hit on the head."

"Sorry about that." Harkness helped him to his feet. "I needed to hit something at an angle."

"You've got a nasty gash there." Huckabee pointed at his ruined hand. "When we catch up to the rest we can have our healer fix it."

"You want to use our magic on a goblin!?" Patrick said angrily.

"Hey! First saved our lives distracting that knife guy." Dee reacted challengingly.

"We've got enough healing magic for everyone." Harkness shut them down. "How many dead?"

"Twelve." Patrick sighed. "Can't heal the dead."

"That's more than half our warriors!" Huckabee exclaimed.

"He can count everybody." Dee rolled her eyes.

"Now is not the fucking time." Harkness' eyes shot fire at both of them. "Retrieve the wounded and let's get going."

"Were are we going to settle now?" Beth asked.

"Somewhere far away from the orcs." Dee answered. "Fuck the guild."

"What in the world are you doing?"

"Making bolts."

Scratch had been busy underground, telling others what to do and where to dig. When he came to the surface he came back to a very morose Teeth, in the middle of a large pile of discarded wood shaving.

"I think you need branches that are already close to that size, bud. Or otherwise a handsaw for getting wooden block at the appropriate dimensions."

"Then make me a handsaw!" Teeth threw his carving knife to the ground in anger.

"Hell's bells, calm down, what's gotten into you?"

"I want to use the crossbow."

"And then?"

"Shoot humans."

"Shoot humans!?"

Teeth glared at him. "Yes. Why not?"

Scratch didn't look at him. "Not very tasty. Humans."

"Not to eat..." Teeth clenched a fist and stared at it intensely.

Scratch sighed. "Listen. Buddy. I'll help you make those bolts. Truth be told, I think it's better to be prepared too. But

I'm seeing some things here that I don't agree with. I want you to promise you're not going to look for Yeller and First's killer, okay?"

"But...!"

"Okay?"

Teeth grumbled.

"I'll take that as a 'yes sir, if you please'."

Magic

All intelligent races possess the ability to use magic. Magical spells are techniques granted to us by the gods that make use of our own inner magic. Every school is associated with a god, for that reason the different nations have preferences for teaching magic related to their favored gods. Fire magic is taught in Reddington, as it is under the protection of the fire goddess Rhada, similarly Wind magic is popular in Blurich, water magic in Grienice and earth magic in the Yellow Fields.

The nature of spells is of such complexity that new spells can not be created. The intricate patterns of the gods' own magic techniques can only be copied.

Before his death the god of evil must have left behind a large number of dark spells as well, as creatures such as liches and dark sorcerers are privy to magic no magic college has.