"Aaand, hup!"

Scratch was trying to encourage his brothers by making strange exercise noises.

After a day of hard work clearing the perimeter he was making them run around the tower with him.

"Why?" Dumb whined. "Whyyyyy." He was slouched and dragging his feet in exhaustion.

"Keep the pace up." Scratch was now running backwards to address the goblins while jogging. "The first step towards proper self defense is a fit body and plenty of stamina. 3 more rounds."

-

"Scream told him that if he gets strong enough he will evolve, so now we're doing training to get stronger." Second explained to Dumb when they were finally allowed to rest and catch their breath.

"So he wants to grow a horn, does he?" Dumb commented in a deadpan manner.

"I think he had something like the orange boys we fought in mind."

Scratch approached them. "Everything you do should serve at least two goals. Yes, evolution is a long-term goal, but for now getting this group ready against invaders is important too. Dumb, come with me."

-

He took his younger brother to a grassy patch a few steps away from the group.

"I'm going to demonstrate something. Stand right there. Okay. Try to punch me."

Dumb hesitated.

"Don't worry about me, just try to strike me."

"I wasn't worrying about you."

"Okay, bring it on."

Dumb ran towards him with his arm lifted. Scratch stepped aside, letting his fist graze his cheek but firmly grasping his arm by the wrist and elbow and twisting it to force him against the ground.

He kept Dumb against the ground with is knee while talking. "I'll do it again in slow motion, then I want you to try it on each other. You're not supposed to let him hit you, but with one eye I'm not as good at judging distance.... Right!

We're going to be practicing a number of ways to deal with an opponent that's stronger and heavier than you are, up you go." With those last words he let go of Dumb and helped him up. "Let's do that again, attack me."

"You want me to attack you?"

"Yeah yeah. We don't have time for this, just attack me."

Unexpectedly and with sudden explosive movement Dumb kicked him in the crotch. The others roared as Scratch fell to the ground.

Eventually they did follow his orders and spend the rest of the evening practicing martial arts, until it was time for dinner.

Normally Quiet took on the task of cooking dinner, but with him being made to train with the rest of them that responsibility fell to the prisoners, on top of their regular mining activity.

What they ended up eating was a hashee of under- and overcooked meat with bread.

Reminds you of how much progress Quiet has made over the past month or so, seeing someone of their skill try their hands at it. Scratch thought to himself.

He looked over to Digger trying to defend his handiwork from Teeth's scrutiny. The prisoners looked a lot better than when they found them. Goblins in other parts of the forest had a malnourished, mangy appearance, with various crusts and discolorations all over them and painful looking eyes and teeth.

They looked like monsters. But with a healthy diet and cleaning practices they had become more healthy and easier on the eyes, they had regained the appearance of human children, just with a different colour.

-

He brought his spoon to his mouth. After a day of hard work chopping trees and teaching self-defense he was hungry enough to eat anything.

"It's not as good." Scream said. He was standing behind him.

Scratch had his mouth full so he didn't answer.

"We're not as good as Quiet at making." Scream sighed, sitting down at the table. "I try to learn, but I'm never as good."

Finally Scratch swallowed. "Are you fishing for compliments?"

Scream looked at him in confusion.

"Trying to get me to tell you it is good? Because it isn't."

"AH! No! I..." He quickly shut up and stared in front of him.

"Rather, give me a status report on the mining."

Again Scream's eyes dashed side to side trying to make sense of the phrase.

"Tell me how the mining is going. Can you deal with the sand?"

"Yes! We've made lots and lots of scaffolding, with it we can tunnel through the sand."

"Is the weight distributed properly?"

"We made them arched like you asked."

"Good.. good..." Scratch resumed eating.

Nervously Scream tried to address something else."Uuuuh... Scratch?"

"What?"

"There was something in the sand."

"What? Like a creature?"

"No. This."

What he showed him was a rectangular flat object, with dimensions comparable to a playing card. The back was stark white, the front showed a lifelike image with text overhead.

The image was disturbing. It seemed like a secretively taken picture of Scratch, walking through the tunnel, his eye still infected and dirty, in a feverish trance.

When was this taken? Where? Why? And by whom? Questions buzzed through Scratch's head. But the text was if anything more disturbing.

'Guidance from an Evil God.'

"Scream..." Scratch spoke slowly and softly. He was dizzy, having trouble staying right up. "We're going to stop mining the tunnel."

Scream was a bit taken aback. "Why? We work-"

"In fact." Scratch interrupted him. "I'm going to ask you to seal off what you have dug now."

"Now?"

"Yes. Now."

Scream stood up from his chair to do Scratch's bidding.

Scratch walked to the outside, the card still clutched in his hand. He muttered to the others, barely audible. "I'll be sleeping outside. See you tomorrow."

It dawned on First that he should have taken a weapon from the humans with him. The best weapon his brothers had was still Drool's rusty old knife, human equipment was far superior and they had so much of it that they'd hardly notice if one went missing.

Additionally, hiking through this big scary wood on his own was probably more dangerous than he had anticipated.

The bandits had fled away from the cave, so it was a walk of almost two days now.

Why had he ran out of the camp so hastily?

Oh, right. The breeding.

-

He didn't quite understand how he felt about women.

When he had been a newborn he had tried feeling sexual desire towards his mother in imitation of his father, Drool. But he had quickly been distracted by more political matters.

It was strange how goblins had to force human women to breed with them, when humans were so much more powerful than them. He rubbed the spot on his head their leader had ricocheted her knives off. With creatures like humans around, what right did goblins have to exist?

-

The path was becoming more familiar, the snow was gone now but he recognized the forest they used to hunt and play in. This was the way they'd taken with the guests towards the camp.

As far as he knew neither Teeth nor Yeller had been captured. They had to have returned and told the others the truth about the goblins they had saved.

Would Scratch spare them?

First shook his head at his own suggestion. Scratch may have opposed infighting for who got to be the leader, but even he wouldn't spare traitors like that.

I better reach them quickly, to show them that I'm still alive.

As he increased his pace at the thought of being close he came across a brown object to the side of the path.

-

Yeller had been decomposing for the past week. But he was still recognizable.

"No!" First perched next to him and tried to cradle the crumbling corpse in his arms like it was still his brother.

From behind he heard the sound of hooves.

"Mommy? What is going on?"

"Be still, Cobaline. Be quiet for mommy, alright?" Denise stroked her young daughter's hair to calm her down.

They were huddled behind the dove cote. Normally the birds would make plenty of noise, cooing in their cage, but now they were cowed into silence. All animals were cowering before the enormous being stalking the premises. It was an orc in full metal chain mail, the blood on its mace still fresh. It was making pig noises and sniffing between the animals for human scent.

Denise closed her eyes as the creature sauntered closer to them, until its shadow covered them both. She tucked in little Cobaline as closely as possible.

-

There was a faint *swish* noise.

Denise dared to look up. Out of nowhere the bandit leader, Lydia Harkness had appeared. She sat perched on the beast's shoulders and had punctured his throat with two sharp objects, a killing blow that prevented it from crying out. Strikingly, she was completely naked.

"Lydia!" Denise cried out in relief.

"Hush!" Lydia whispered bringing her finger to her lips as the orc's form slumped over and she landed on the ground soundlessly. "How many are there?"

"I don't know." Denise stood up, Cobaline still tightly held to her chest. "At least forty. What can we still do?"

"Not much. One of the guards and I are preparing a distraction, we're evacuating as many of our people as possible. Please stay here for now, until the coast is clear." With those words she turned around to jump away once more.

"Wait." Denise tried to yell while whispering and managed a bit of an insistent hiss.

"What is it."

"You were at the springs, weren't you? Take this, even if it's just for modesty." She pulled a warming blanket from a horse and threw it towards her leader.

Lydia wrapped it around herself like a sari and tested her movement in it.

"You look great." Denise said.

Cobaline was just staring at her. "You're a horse lady."

"Cobaline!" Denise said out loud despite herself.

"It's quite alright." Lydia said. "You'll know when it's time to run. We'll give a signal."

"That's all of them, isn't it?" Grat panted, after his victim had finally stopped moving.

Kubar gave a deep dissatisfied growl. "They're not here yet. The warriors."

"Maybe they fled?" Grat suggested. "By the smell of it, Garak managed to kill quite a few of them."

"If they're fleeing..." Kubar spat in frustration "...go FIND them! ALL OF YOU!" He was yelling at the various orcs that were lazing about in the vicinity, gorging themselves on human food. "KILL THE LAST OF THE HUMANOIDS!"

The warriors sprung to their feet and scurried in all different directions, trying to look busy.

-

"Look at these things." Kubar said disapprovingly, as he kicked at a wandering goose.

"These humans of yours enslave such worthless and weak animals."

"They sure do have a lot of them." Garak sighed. "This whole place smells like horse."

Kubar laughed. "They sit on horses. They put them in front of carts. They sure like the things. If you ask me, the only thing a horse is good for is eating!"

As he said that the shrieking noise of a humanoid could be heard over the footsteps of orcs.

"It came from where the horses are!" Yelled Grat.

"That was the sound of a warrior." Kubar smiled. "Finally we can end this."

-

But when they were rushing to the grazing patch the horses had been left they found the animals had been cut loose and were rushing towards them in the opposite direction.

As they moved through the encampment they attracted the attention of various hidden humans, who came out of their hiding places to mount the creatures, escorted and lifted up by a handful of human warriors.

"That's them!" Kubar growled. "That's their warrior caste!" He hacked at the unmounted horses rushing around him and obscuring his vision. "Go get them! Where is everybody?"

"Everybody is spread out trying to find them." Grat groaned, having already given up.

Before they knew it all the horses had rushed past them, taking the last of the humans with them.

"Is everybody here?" Dee did a headcount.

A significant portion of their troupe's women had been at the hot spring at the time of the attack, along with two small boys that were with their mother. That made eight people, including Dee and Beth, the warriors. They had all been able to retrieve their clothing before setting out.

"Why are we here?" Beth asked.

"This is where we agreed to meet the boss. Once she's here, she'll know what to do."

"Like hell she will." Someone in the back shouted. "How did the orcs find us?"

"Who said that? Come one, who said that?" Dee responded angrily at the dissenting voice. But whoever it was, she kept quiet now.

"Dee." Beth asked seriously. "What if the others have been captured?"

"No way." Dee said resolutely. "Not Harkness, that would be impossible."

A response came from the back again. "Bullshit! We're just waiting here for the orcs to find us!"

"Okay, Emma, I can see you Emma! You're not helping anybody Emma!" Dee called her out.

Emma grimaced at being confronted like that. "Am I wrong? What orcs want is women. The first thing we'll hear coming from that direction." She pointed towards the encampment. "Is the sound of a trampling orc horde."

"No we won't, Emma, you absolute-"

They then became aware of the sound of countless trampling hooves.

-

Dee had her sword drawn. But it turned out the be Huckabee on horseback, followed by a herd of the things.

"Everybody hop on!" He said. "Right now we've got one for everybody, unfortunately."

"How many people did you get out?" Dee asked, repeatedly trying to mount a horse.

"Twelve of our people, and Patrick is here too."

"Hiya." Patrick waved his hand.

Beth was the only one that waved back.

Dee stopped trying to mount. "So only one-third survived."

"For now." Patrick looked over his shoulder nervously.

"For now... that's right." Dee moved her arms about wildly. "We need to leave, where's the boss?"

Huckabee pointed upwards. "She's covering our escape from the treetops."

Beth interjected. "Is she still..."

"Last I saw she had some blanket wrapped around her."

"Good. Good... We have her outfit here. For whenever she feels like joining us. Dee?"

"Huh?" Dee still wasn't succeeding at heisting herself on the horse.

Beth helped her up. "You knew the plan, right?"

"Yes, that's right." She turned her horse so she could address everybody. "Everybody! Today is tragic. But we must put off mourning until we have some distance between us and the orcs. Everybody get up as quickly as possible, we're going to keep riding through the night,"

Gubok crawled over the beaten dirt floor.

He had survived the aftermath of the attack by playing dead. The tendons on his legs had been cut, but the bleeding hadn't been too severe. With an angry grunt he closed his fat palms around th branched of a conifer and pulled himself up. Today, he had lost everything.

He could no longer return to the rest of the tribe, Kubar, their chief, would have him bled to please the evil god

Manshuu, and eat him afterwards. The only just reward for failure.

What would become of him after this? What good is an orc without a tribe? In the wildlands, where they usually roamed, orcs that were banished from the tribe would be quickly devoured by predators or other orcs. Without even the use of his legs, he was marked for death.

Gubok let out a long nasal whine. Was there any creature in the world more pitiable than him? His only consolation was that the humanoids wouldn't escape justice. It was natural for a godless feral species such as them to think they could stay ahead of the orc tribe by moving away, but by now Kubar would have knowledge of their position already, before they knew he even had knowledge the extermination had failed. Through the oracles, Manshuu could relay the outcome of any bloody battle.

And bloody it had been. Gubok looked with empty eyes over the red mass of bodies and blood-stained earth as he tried to steady himself on his damaged hooves. He had to grab a hold of a higher conifer branch, resting his full weight on them was just too painful.

He sighed and rested for a while. He couldn't stay around for Kubar to come find him. He was terrified of what his sentence would be. Looking around, his beady eyes fell on Ragar's large black metal shield. Hanging with one hand from the branch, he leaned down to grab it.

-

Holding the shield by the top and pushing the bottom into the dirt, he could support a part of his weight, and lessen the burden on his damaged ankles. Carefully, pushing the object into the ground in front of him and dragging himself to the front, he was able to walk a few steps.

He painfully crouched down to retrieve Ragar's warhammer. It was one of the finer pieces of weaponry, his lips curled up thinking about how incensed Ragar's spirit had to be seeing him take his equipment for such an ignoble purpose. Using the shield he crutched away. Where will I go? What will I eat? He wanted to whine in self pity again, but he didn't, admitting weakness attracted predators.

"Is that a goblin?" Huckabee squinted his eyes in the dark.

"I can cut it down." Said Patrick.

The two of them were ahead of the pack to inspect the way.

"Even if it was," Huckabee responded, tired of his colleague. "We're looking for someone that tames goblins. We wouldn't want to kill their servant."

When they had gotten closer Huckabee recognized First, crouching by the side of the road.

"First! Buddy!"

First's head turned around, his eyes were two glowing lights in the darkness. They looked empty somehow, without spirit.

Huckabee wanted to dismount, but Patrick stopped him.

Huckabee looked from the goblin to his friend and back, sensing an ominous atmosphere.

-

"Hey there little guy." He tried. "Remember me?"

"We saw each other yesterday." First was no longer looking at them and the two little lights were not visible.

"That's right... we did. What are you holding there, buddy?"

"This is my brother... You hadn't told me... your people killed him."

-

What First was cradling was the rotting corpse of a one-armed goblin.

"Oh no. Oh, no." Huckabee dismounted, Patrick tried to stop him again but he swatted away his arm.

He approached First slowly. His weapon was sheathed and his palms were open.

"First. I didn't know you, or your brother. I only knew that someone was attacking our camp and I had to fight them."

First didn't react to his words. "Yeller... He never wanted to us to fight. But we always did end up fighting."

Huckabee put a hand on his shoulder and looked at the remains of the goblin called Yeller. That he had cut down this child in cold blood...

Suddenly First spun around and pulled Huckabee's sword out of the sheath. "And you killed him!"

Huckabee grabbed the goblin and pulled him in close, where he didn't have the freedom of movement to swing the sword.

"Why you vile-!" Patrick immediately unsheathed his own weapon.

"Patrick. Stay back." Huckabee ordered, hugging First tightly. "First. I'm sorry. I'm sorry your brother is dead. I'm sorry I killed him. I'm sorry we kept you in a cage. I now understand... you don't deserve that."

First buried his face in Huckabee's chest. "It's my faaauuulllt!

"No... no..."

"It's my fault. I wanted to fight. I wanted to be a warrior. Because of me Yeller is dead!"

Huckabee didn't know what else to say, so he just started stroking the back of the boy's head.

"Why are you here?" Second climbed up the what they were still calling the tower, it wasn't a big task, the structure was barely above chest height.

On top were Teeth and Scratch, the latter lying on his back and staring at the sky, the former holding his crossbow and looking out over the half-completed perimeter.

"Teeth is always here because he's traumatized and paranoid. I'm here because I don't want to be inside right now." Scratch responded.

Teeth didn't answer but he did greet Second with a little nod.

"Can you both come inside? There's nothing there and there's nothing here. You're making the others nervous."

Neither answered him.

"Teeth. You say something." Second demanded. "You don't think anybody is coming do you?"

"If they do... I want to be prepared." Teeth said, clutching the weapon more tightly.

"Well, who? What goblin tribe are you so afraid of?"

"Not goblins..."

Scratch addressed him. "Teeth, put down the crossbow. If the humans were chasing us we'd be dead by now."

Teeth was reluctant to do as ordered.

"Teeth!"

Teeth groaned and put the thing against the box for bolts, next to his iron sword, then sat down on the box himself. He let out a long and tortured sigh.

Second sat down too.

"You guys haven't been alive for that long." Scratch said after a while. "Do you spend a lot of time looking at the stars?"

Second followed the line of his gaze towards the sky. "Stars..."

"Yeah, you know? The little points of light."

"Not really."

"I used to." Said Teeth. "All the time. Befor-"

"I wonder if there's any constellations." Scratch interrupted him. "If any of them are close together you can think of them as forming an image. Do you guys see any?"

"I don't know what you mean." Second admitted.

"Just... try to connect the dots. Look there, those are like a straight line, they're like a crossbow bolt."

"I... no I don't see any constellations."

"Pity."

-

They were distracted by the sound of horse hooves, when they looked over they saw the figure of a human very obviously and transparently trying to hide between the cut trees around the perimeter.

"I can't believe this." Scratch groaned. "This is only going to strengthen Teeth's delusions."

"Has he seen us?" Second whispered.

"Humans can't see in the dark." Teeth hissed while getting up to grab his weapon and ammunition.

"Well then." Scratch snatched the crossbow bolt out of his hand to have a sharp object in his own hand. "Let's go have a closer look."

After following the direction First had been walking in the bandit scouts arrived at some sort of logging site.

"This is definitely the work of humans." Huckabee said out loud.

"Or orcs." Patrick said bitterly.

First had been allowed to sit on the horse in front of Huckabee, the horse was big and scary and he was still shaken from the ride. He had recognized the path until then, but the sight of the destroyed trees confused him. None of his brothers had the claws to do something like that. They had used the axe to retrieve wood from the forest somewhere, but to radically change the environment like that... Surely no goblin made tool could achieve that.

"Goblin boy, are these your people?" Patrick asked.

First shook his head unsurely.

"Maybe this is the village of the hidden people?"

"Elves?"

"Could be."

"Let's take a look."

With those words Patrick dismounted and sneaked out into the darkness. Leaving his two partners behind.

-

Despite the starlight the surroundings were pitch black. Some distance away light was emanating from between cracks in a wall and it faintly illuminated the outlines of huts, but he couldn't make out much detail.

Luckily the darkness also served as a cover to move around stealthily. He didn't see any people yet, but when he did, hopefully it'd be before they saw him. Before he could make his presence known he had to know the inhabitants weren't monsters.

As he slowly sneaked towards the light he suddenly heard a young boy's voice.

"Out for a late-night stroll?"

He silently and imperceptibly slid out a dagger from the side of his leg.

"Ho, there. Calm down hotshot. We've got you surrounded you know."

He dropped the knife and put his arms up. "I come in peace."

"In peace, huh? Anybody with you?"

"...no."

"Throw the sword on the ground too."

He did as he was ordered. "Show yourself!"

"You're not in any position to make demands. Three steps back."

As he stepped back the outline of a goblin became visible, hobbling forward to retrieve the surrendered arms.

Tamed goblins. Dee was right, this guy is a monster tamer.

"Where are you?" He proclaimed.

"Wow. You really are blind." The goblin turned its gaze towards him, only a single eye glowing white in the darkness. It was the same voice as before.

With the human disarmed and after seeing him admit to having no backup Teeth squeezed the trigger of his crossbow weapon. The bolt was about to fly loose and kill the enemy when Second stopped him.

"Stop. Let go of me." Teeth whispered at Second pushing down his heavy weapon.

"You could hit Scratch." Second hissed back.

-

"I'm going to repeat to my brothers what I said before." Scratch said out loud while still looking the intruder directly into the eye. "Not to shoot their crossbows. However, some of them seem to have really twitchy fingers, so I'm going to ask you not to make any sudden movements.

"Who's your master?" The human insisted, taking a step forward.

"Will you check yourself? My god, and here I thought goblins had no self-preservation instinct. Second! Go get us some rope, and get Kicker and Biter out here too."

-

The two goblins and the human waited patiently on their spot until the promised rope arrived.

"What are you going to do with me?" The human asked.

"If you spoke the truth you have nothing to worry about." Scratch proclaimed.

Eventually some rope did arrive and the three warriors held the human down while Scratch tied him up.

"You're coming with us. We're going to walk slowly, okay? Don't try anything."

Teeth pulled his brother aside. "Why are we keeping him alive."

"First of all, because we can. Second of all, I don't believe a word he's saying."

"So..."

"So he's worth more to us alive then dead. We can trade him. It's called having a hostage."

"And you think there's more out there."

"I do, so I'm stationing the three of you outside for the rest of the night. Everybody has their weapons?"

Kicker and Biter showed theirs. "Yep." "Yes, here."

"Rely on your sword, Teeth, you can't keep reloading the crossbow fast enough, drop it if you have to. Also, don't forget what I taught you." He mimed the movements. "Don't clash with your opponent, use their own weight against them."

Teeth nodded with a serious look on his face. He had no doubt that he would be thrown into a life or death situation before the night was over.

Scratch looked over his shoulder at Second stringing along the human. "I don't want to leave Second alone with the hostage, better catch up to him." As he started running he called back. "Raise alarm before you start fighting, don't be a hero, call for help!"

Patrick's horse was getting restless.

"What's taking him so long." Huckabee shifted in his saddle, he was talking half to First, half to himself.

Suddenly there was the rustle of leaves and his leader dropped from the treetops. She perched perfectly on Patrick's horse's saddle, without the animal noticing. She was wearing her usual light armor again.

"Boss!"

"Huckabee, what have you found?" She looked over from his subordinate to the goblin, whose facial expression hardened and quickly looked away.

"First led us here. But he doesn't recognize it. Patrick went ahead to scout the area."

The boss put her hand over her face. "To scout? What were you thinking? Goblins can see in the dark, he's at a massive disadvantage trying to sneak around."

"W-what? They can?" Huckabee was stumped. Goblins were fodder in the forest, you usually wouldn't keep track of their strengths and weaknesses much as you could simply cut them down regardless. However, in this highly uncommon situation knowledge of goblins was suddenly paramount.

"Let's get going." Harkness let herself fall into the saddles seat, startling the horse. "We want to make nice with the tamer, so we better show an open hand." With that she spurred the horse and had it jump over the fallen trunks and tree stumps.

-

Just when they entered a flat area, clearly built upon by some people they heard a long and clear goblin call. It didn't contain any words, but its purpose was clear. The rest of the group was being warned of their presence.

Over the top of his mount's head Huckabee could see the outline of two goblins, one of them clearly holding a large mechanical implement.

"Hold your fire." The boss said, immediately dismounting "We come peacefully, with a request for your master. Please take us to him."

"Teeth!" First cried.

The goblin seemed to lower his weapon, but when his reflective eyes looked at Huckabee it immediately went up again and a bolt came flying right at him.

The horse staggered, throwing both seated off, and Huckabee tumbled to the ground.

It had all happened too fast, he didn't understand what was going on. When he tried to stand up to get his bearing he felt a wetness on his stomach. He was covered in blood. Quickly he felt around to find out where he was hurt, but found only the body of First, a crossbow bolt piercing the throat.

Monster Taming

Monster taming is a special skill only possessed by certain bloodlines. It involves the ability to form a special bond with pacified monsters that makes them follow the tamer's orders. This skill must be developed and trained in order to gain the ability to tame stronger monsters. The monsters themselves must also be trained in order to understand orders better or complete more strenuous tasks. Additionally, when a monster tamer dies or the bond is otherwise broken the monsters will once again become feral. These drawbacks make it so that monster taming is rarely used outside of the adventuring profession.

When monster tamers and their monsters increase in ability in close unison this can trigger a phenomenon known as 'tamer evolution', where the monster is transformed into a more powerful or rarer type in its family. This is similar but distinct from the phenomenon we call 'dungeon evolution', which is caused by an evil god to make a dungeon more dangerous. Naturally, tamer evolution is good and pure, while dungeon evolution is evil and corrupt.