First stared at his hand incredulously, moments before it had been mutilated beyond prepare, but with a few hand movements from the human the two halves melted together and feeling returned, as if he had never been injured.

"It's a good thing all the tissue was still there." The healer, whose name was Stanford, commented. "I can't cast regenerative spells."

"Don't they say you should never use healing magic on a child?" Huckabee asked. " 'Cause they need pain to grow up right or somethin'?"

"Hey, yeah. I heard that!" Dee said.

"I think it might be too late for this guy." Stanford laughed, ruffling First's hair. "I hear he's already quite reckless."

First didn't talk, he continued staring at his hand.

"Besides, I know they look like it, but goblins aren't children. 'First' here is a fully grown adult. You better keep an eye on him in case he tries anything." With those last words Stanford stole a glance at Dee, who noticed it.

-

The group had found a clearing to rest at, most of the tents were still folded up and they were sitting out in the open.

As such, there was no clear barrier between groups and no sense of intrusion when joining a conversation. One of their fellow warriors, Patrick, approached to give his opinion.

"I don't like that we're keeping monsters now, have we sunk that low?"

First ground his teeth. "You know, I didn't ask to be locked in a cage and made to fight those orcs. That's on you people. I'll be gone first thing in the morning, if that's what you ask of me."

"Oh my! How eloquent!" Stanford exclaimed in surprise.

Margaret and I are flying across the treetops. She has the same kind of pegasus mount as me, but while mine is black hers is white. It's fitting for a paladin that specializes in light magic.

【How will we find them?】 She yells at me over the sound of rushing wind.

I have no idea actually. In video games it's so easy, you wander about until you come across an orc, then you kill it, once you've killed a set number it's 'mission complete'. Then again, in those video games the monster won't stop appearing at all, which is supposed to be the goal of the mission!

【Where did you find the knife?】

【Oh! We passed it already, it's before the fork in the road.】

I pull Shadow's reins to turn him around. Margaret makes her own wide arch to follow me.

【What were you doing on that road?】 I ask, riding closer to her in order to not have to yell as much.

【Uh, what?】

【Did you need to be on the ground there? For a quest?】

【Well. No. That is, there were some people already going my way, so I tagged along.】

Now I'm intrigued.

【Adventurers?】

Margaret is not looking me in the eyes for some reason. 【I was... with a witch apprentice and her adventurer escort. They went to the witchwood, so they're not here.】

It seems like her face has gone completely red. It's probably nothing.

Margaret could almost slap herself. She didn't want to tell Laurus about the pretty girl that had wanted to meet him, but she also didn't want to deceive him. If Beatrice did find him, he'd discover how she'd avoided having them meet. How awful would it be for Laurus to think of her as a dishonorable person!

She could only hope that the noble girl would forget about her current infatuation and found a new hero to obsess over.

-

Margaret was so pre-occupied with her own thoughts that she almost flew over their intended destination. She had lady make a sudden dive to avoid looking ditzy in front of Laurus.

With great spectacle she had lady rush headfirst towards the ground, only to pull up at the last second and land elegantly.

Lady huffed and looked back at her in disapproval.

"Sorry, Lady." She whispered. "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

"Wow." Laurus laughed, circling downwards. "That was amazing."

"Well... haha, you know me. Can't wait for some action." She play-acted.

-

She looked around, the goblin corpses were still lying there, undisturbed.

"How strange, we killed these weeks ago. Before I found your neighbour and her friends."

"Oh, that's right. It was you who saved them, wasn't it?"

It wasn't a direct compliment, but the acknowledgment of her heroism made her blush.

"Shouldn't the bodies have disappeared?" She wondered out loud.

"I don't think so." Laurus paced around the scene, looking for clues. "It's still cold, the slimes haven't woken up yet."

Of course, that's right! Margaret could slap herself again for saying something so stupid in front of the nightshade hero. Monsters' bodies didn't go up in smoke, they were eaten by slimes. In this part of the country slimes would hibernate during the winter, because of the cold.

-

"Do you collect world memories?" Laurus suddenly said.

"No. Not really." Margaret stiffened. What kind of memory had Laurus found? Her lieing to the Dichtershire girl would not be significant enough for a memory to form, would it? Then again, there were 'broken promise' memories, so there was a precedent.

"Eh." Laurus sighed, dissapointedly. "Another 'vengeful goblin' card, these aren't rare at all." But he still pocketed the glistening playing card.

Margaret sighed in relief. "You like card games Laurus?"

"Sure, doesn't everybody?"

"Sure!"

-

After that they tracked down the hole in which the remainder of the goblins hid. It was pretty well camouflaged actually, but Laurus had life detecting magic.

Although goblins are extremely primitive and disgusting, they do possess the ability to communicate to some degree. With some violence they can be made to talk.

"Pig man give Loud weapon."

Pig man, that means orc. The weapon was loud or something? Metal does have more of a clang to it than a wooden club.

They made the mud covered goblins give them their best estimate of where the orcs had come from and then killed them.

"Tadaaa" Scratch presented the new dish with pride and fanfare.

They had been about to slaughter the chicken for eating breadcrumbs but producing no eggs. Dumb had pointed out that there was no precedent for chickens ever laying eggs and Scratch had relented, figuring that this could be one of the many ways this world of punishment differed from the real one. But Quiet had suggested that the bird might refuse to lay eggs because it didn't have a nest for it.

As a project to keep them busy Scratch had overseen the creation of a chicken coop, right outside the cave entrance, with a little bed of twigs for the chicken to make use off.

Quiet had been correct, within two days they had gotten two eggs.

-

The kitchen was now located outside. The hearth inside the living room was too small to do everything, from baking bread to roasting meat, so right next to the bloomery a sixth hut had been build, with a pretty chimney of woven branches. Inside was a brick oven, a large stone cauldron and a pit for fire. There the two small chicken eggs had been hard boiled.

Scratch was serving them peeled and in thin slices for everybody to try.

-

"Well, isn't that a treat?" He asked.

"Not really." Dumb answered, taking little bites.

"Teeth?"

"I ate it too fast. I didn't really taste it." Teeth said dejectedly.

"Pearls before swine!" Scratch sighed as he stood up again. "Anyway, you'd normally eat this with salt." Salt! Such a minor but crucial thing. I swear I'll never complain about something being overly salty again. he thought.

"How do you get salt?" Quiet inquired, in his usual soft spoken manner.

"How do you get it... how do you get it?" He wondered to himself. Arduously. I only know that early civilization considered a rare and precious resource. "From sea water... or special kind of rocks I think."

"Not rocks in mine." Digger said, in-between licking the plate. "Only eye-ron, shale, chalk and sandstone." He had perfectly memorized the types of rock Scratch had pointed out.

"Maybe further down." Scratch mused as he collected the plate again, having to put some strength to pull it away from

Digger. "It does seem layered like a cake." Not something that you would think could come into being naturally. Then again, who knows? When rabbit can spontaneously sprout horns, who knows?

"Do you want us to get past the sand?" Scream asked.

"Sure. You do that, the rest of us can focus on defenses now. We've got more to lose every day." There was a final tone to Scratch's last words and everybody got up to leave. "Before you start. Take some time to clean your teeth. I mean the prisoners especially, you're disgusting." He called out over the crowding.

The bandits had formed a long caravan, travelling deeper into the woods. But First was not coming all the way with them.

"Are you sure you're going to leave? We trust you now. We can protect you." Lydia mentioned.

First stared at the geese. "I'm not a pet." A word he had recently learned.

"Are you going to find your way back to your den?"

"I know where it is. This is where I go the other way."

"Good, then this is goodbye." She kneeled and stuck out her hand.

Once again First mimicked the gesture.

She firmly grasped his hand and started shaking it.

Her grip was strong, but her skin was soft. She had a pleasant smell to her. These things drew his attention to the curves and shape of her body, much more pronounced than the other women of the bandit troupe.

At that moment First became aware of her as a woman. The blood rushed to his head as he was overcome with a desire to breed her. A few minutes longer in her presence and he would be trying to hump or grind her. Quickly he pulled away his hand and ran away as hard as he could. I don't think I want to be a monster at all. Shot through his mind.

Some distance away from the bandit procession he stopped to clear his head. His body was still fired up and ready to breed.

"Bye bye!" A familiar voice came from behind. "Goodbye first goblin!" It was Cobaline, she had followed him to wave him off, her mother nowhere to be seen.

I could grab her. First's forehead started to sweat. I could take her and keep her in the cave. There was no doubt in his head that this was the path nature had intended for him.

He dug his nails into his thigh, hoping to overpower one sensation with another. Above nature. Above nature. Even if all his intuition screamed at him to grab her, yet he knew that he wouldn't be able to drag her halfway before being cut down. He knew that acting on base instincts was not something Scratch would do.

He turned his gaze away from the girl and stumbled away, exhausted by his own exertion of willpower.

"Ragar has failed." The orc mystic's eyes shone with an otherworldly light as he received wisdom from his god.

"Not surprising." Kubar smacked with his mouth full. He was a massive creature, a head taller than his fellow orcs, so he was able to claim the most food for himself, he never failed to make use of that privilege.

"The humans have destroyed the extermination party, at great losses to their fighting force. They are fleeing the area, towards the magical woods."

"Towards the fairies?" Grat showed more curiosity in the wisdom of the gods. He was thin and small and didn't receive much respect. But with his sharper mind he was able to inform a lot of the tribe's decisions as Kubar's adviser. "Do they know of our mission?"

The mystic ignored him. "The core is yet to be found. Seek out the fledgeling king and rob him of it."

"Who's to say- *smack* *smack* - that these spying humanoids aren't the ones with the core?" Kubar mentioned.

Grat clenched his hand in frustration. "You-... wise king... please allow me to remind you that Ragar's prey were humans and the guardians of the prophecy were goblins."

"So?" Getting defensive Kubar put his cow leg down and righted himself up to show his intimidating size. "What's the difference? They're all humanoids."

"O-ofcourse they are. Nary a difference. But the distinction can be made. You see, the human species, they're not capable of speech, while the goblins are, just a few words, but are a lot smaller. My lord."

The shown deference was enough to calm Kubar down. "Then we'll hunt down those humans! Who's with me?"

A great clamoring from his subjects erupted. Fifty frothing pig heads, each of them a warrior to some capacity, cheering loudly over a declaration of war.

"Ku- my king. Please let me..." Grat tried to talk to his master over the sound of chanting orcs. "once we've found the core, we longer need... if only we would search in the place I had first pointed out, we would... sir. Sir!"

It was no use. They had gone too long without pillaging and raping. What the orcs needed now was a war before they could continue their search.

-

"An enemy approaches." The mystic suddenly proclaimed, ignorant about his surroundings.

"What? An enemy?" Grat tried to listen to him over the war chanting. The other orcs where too embroiled in their frenzy to listen.

"Kubar shall be brought down by rose and nightshade." The soothsayer whispered.

-

"EVERYBODY QUIET!" Grat yelled. It went completely unheard.

Then the mystic woke up, disconnected from the voice of their god and with no memory of it as before. "What did I miss?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just the fated end of our tribe." Grat sighed, resting his snout in his hands.

But the soothsayer had already stood up and joined the eager shouting.

"I think we've figured it out like this." Scratch proclaimed "It needs the fletching to keep a straight path."

They had made countless prototypes for the crossbow bolts, but now they were consistently firing off proper projectile.

Their practice target looked like a pincushion.

"I think a metal tip would stop them from getting ruined." Teeth remarked.

"We're not likely to get them back after shooting into live targets. It's fine like this. Let's make 20 and keep them in a dry place."

"I'd say keep them in the tower." Dumb said, he had been standing to the side. "That's where you're going to shoot them from."

-

For an elevated position they had build a structure to aim from. Scratch had called it a tower before construction, so that was what everybody keeped referring to it as, but it ended up looking more like a platform or podium.

It was a wooden floor, much broader than it was high, with no roof or walls.

-

"While you're up there, keep them in a box or crate. We have some planks left to make a protective casing with."

"I... missed some of those words."

With regular conversation the goblins had developed near perfect speech, but the gaps in their vocabulary would show at unexpected places. Scratch had never said 'crate' near any of them, never mind in such a way that the meaning could be derived from context.

"I'll demonstrate, put you on the right path. Let's just look at how the perimeter is going."

-

Dumb and Scratch took a stroll past the perimeter. Right now it was a line in the ground, but eventually it had to become an impenetrable defense.

The line took them right past the treeline, the cave on their right and the forest on their left the entire time.

"We're making good progress. I think we'll live." Scratch remarked, in a positive mood.

"No." Dumb said.

"No? What no? Don't no me."

"Scream said goblins hide when humans come. The better you try to defend yourself, the more of a target you become. Even Horns knew that."

"Now listen here." Scratch stopped him. "Horns' group sniffed us out looking for humans, they were starting trouble by themselves. So don't give me that. Don't go believing some prisoner over your own brother."

Dumb pulled away from him. "The spring is different. That's all I know, that in the spring it's different."

They arrived at the center of productivity, Fat was guiding Kicker and Biter into cutting down the first tree of many.

"So it's not going to be anything like the wall thing?" Dumb asked.

"No." Said Biter, he and Kicker immediately took the opportunity to take a break from work. "We're just going to lay the trees over the line.

"To slow them down." Kicker added. "Then, with less trees to obstruct vision Teeth can shoot them down from the tower..." He looked at Scratch. "... if he has ammunition."

Scratch nodded. "He does."

Fat plopped down on the forest floor between them and started rolling around. "It's going so sloooow. We're still on the first treeeee."

Dumb gently kicked his head. "Do it faster then."

"No." Scratch said resolutely. "Trees are heavy, the equipment is sharp, I don't want to see you cut any corners. If it helps, try thinking only about completing the tree you're currently at, not the entire perimeter."

"But what if we don't finish in time?" Kicker asked.

"We have time." Scratch said. "But you're not going at it alone. A lot of labour is freeing up and we can all tackle this together. If it gets too bad I can get the bad teeth trio to drop the digging and join the woodcutting."

Fat let out a slow, reluctant sigh. Then he suddenly jumped to his feet. "Let's keep the momentum going then. I don't want any more breaks to discourage me."

"I keep thinking about that goblin." Dee said.

"Don't... talk about goblins in here please." Beth moaned.

It was rare for bandits to have access to luxuries. They had been given the rare opportunity to bathe away from the men. When procession had come across a naturally occurring hot spring, Harkness had immediately declared it exclusive to female members, to great protestations from many men. After an intense battle, the loss of many of their friends, and the sudden relocation, they felt they more than deserved an opportunity to relax and feel clean again.

But now Dee was ruining the mood by talking about such a repulsive creature. It made Beth feel dirty in the water.

"Do you think it knew it was going to die?" She continued, unperturbed.

"It's obvious to us that goblins get wacked eventually, they're a low level monster. I'm sure they see it differently."

Suddenly a head popped up from below the water surface.

"Goblins aren't as stupid as people think."

Dee reflexively splash water at it in a panic. It was Harkness.

"Oh boss. Sorry. Ye scared me."

Beth chuckled. "You do have a habit of appearing out of nowhere."

-

Dee and Harkness ended up talking about goblins with each other, which was Beth's cue to leave and talk to some non-warrior women, who didn't concern themselves with monsters in the bath.

"What we had with us was actually a newborn goblin." Harkness said. "You can see their age because their teeth start to rot and their skin begins to mold and peel really quickly."

"So the little guy never had the chance to learn how dangerous living here is, did he?" Dee leaned back to let her hair soak in the water. "Kinda makes me feel bad. I hope he at least takes one of them with him."

"For him to kill an adventurer?" Harkness pondered the scenario. "Perhaps... if he gets lucky with a weapon against a rookie. But more to the point. I believe our friend First was under the command of an intelligent creature."

"Huh? What makes yah say that?"

"His manner of speaking. Goblins often learn a few words from their captured mothers, but they stay primitive. Only in cases of goblins growing up in captivity do you see such proper grammar. Not only that, but his clothes were, if anything, too primitive for him to be completely feral."

"Haha..." Dee laughed flippantly while staring at the stars. "You'll have to explain that one to me-" She caught herself. "-uh, please. Boss."

Harkness didn't seem to care about her tone. "The clothes were made in the forest, not stolen from humans. Either he made it himself, or it was made for him."

"Say... boss... how come you know so much about goblins?"

Harkness smiled. "Well... I have been a bandit for some time now. You start to learn about the creatures around you."

"Uh, sure." Dee had been a bandit for over a decade and had never bothered to learn anything.

"Beside that, I used to work alongside a knight that was extremely dedicated to slaying goblins. He would discuss them and the optimal methods for clearing their nests without end. He couldn't properly serve his lord because he was so pre-occupied with goblin nests, to the exclusion of everything else."

"Really? That's crazy! What happened to him?"

"He quit and became an adventurer. He's still around, only takes goblin quests."

Both women started laughing at the story. Not because it had been particularly funny, but just because it felt good to laugh and they couldn't stop themselves.

-

"It's nice to know you at moments like this too." Dee said a few minutes later, while she was combing her boss' hair.

"How so?"

"Just.. You know, that you're human like the rest of us."

"I'm human 24 hours a day, Dee."

"Oh, don't take it the wrong way. I'm just glad to see you show the fun parts of you sometimes."

Harkness' ear twitched. "I better not show too much of myself. We have company."

-

"Ugh. I can't believe this." Dee grabbed the comb like a weapon and stepped out of the bath. "Huckabee, that better not be you. I swear you're not funny or interesting, you're just a-"

She hopped over the rocks to come eye to eye with a drooling orc.

"Gahahaha" Kubar was happily chopping up humans. Just a single swing from his enormous battle-axe could cleave through multiple of the fleeing creatures. "They're so weak! How could Ragar and the others fail to bring down these pathetic worms?"

"These aren't the warriors." Grat sighed. "We're baiting out the defenders by attacking the defenseless, remember? Your plan?"

"Uh-huh." Kubar responded absentmindedly as he grabbed a woman by the upper arm and pulled her towards him."

"That means we don't have time for breeding!" He layed his hand on his boss' to get him to stop.

Kubar threw down the prey in a frustrated manner. "These warrior humans better show up fast."

-

They looked over the chaos around them, it seemed that in their bloodlust most orcs had forgotten about the plan and where simply rampaging.

"the rose and nightshade..." Grat whispered to himself, what did it mean? Poison?

"What's that?" Kubar asked him.

"I don't like seeing our people acting like animals. This base gratification, it goes against our better wisdom. What about the dungeon core?"

Kubar playfully punched his smaller adviser against the side of the head, almost knocking him down. "It's good to indulge once in a while, Grat, it keeps the blood pumping. A responsible king knows when to let his people indulge. Besides..."

He stepped on the neck of the woman that was crawling away.

"We have enough time to find the core. If the humanoids tell the fairies about it we lose our advantage. So extermination is our first priority."

"Heh." Grat smiled.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. I'm just glad to see this side of from from time to time. The serious side."

"Heh, maybe." Kubar brought down his battle-axe and chopped the victim in two.

"What is happening?" Harkness and Dee were meeting Huckabee halfway when he had come to get them.

"I- ah- sorry- I-" He was completely flustered, Dee had managed to tie a towel around her waist before leaving the spring, but Harkness was completely naked.

"Pull yourself together man!" She slapped him in the face. "There are more important matters to discuss."

"Sorry. The orc tribe. They've overrun the place. Everybody is getting slaughtered."

"Argh!" Dee pulled at her hair. "How did they find us? We should have stayed at the previous camp and just prepared for them."

"No." Harkness said definitively. "We have no hope of fighting off their entire tribe. Dee, you go back to collect the other bath-goers, take them to the warped tree. Huckabee, take me back with you, we're going to save who and what we can."

"Against the orcs?" Huckabee's voice trembled.

"Behind the orcs' backs."

"And then? How can we survive without tents and food?"

Harkness and Dee gave each other a knowing look. "These forests aren't as uninhabited as were lead to believe.

There is at least one faction we can attempt to ally with. But we'll discuss this later, now go!"

Fairy

Fairies are a race of demi-humans with high magical power. Most of them are small, about the size of a thumb. But their queens are human sized.

Fairies can be found all over the overworld and belong to no specific faction. They tend to be pacifists, abhorring war between non-evil beings. The different fairy queens bear no ill will against each other, although they only very rarely interact.

Fairies prefer forested areas over other kinds of environment and will create enchanted forests where special herbs can bloom.

Cases of fairies becoming adventurers are extremely rare, at the time of writing no fairy adventurer has appeared in decades. Although fairies helping out adventurers for extended periods of time does occur.