"Out of the question." Stanford proclaimed.

He and Huckabee were standing inside Harkness' tent. They were there to discuss the community resuming their smuggling work.

"I mean, what are you thinking? With two warriors left?"

"Are there no other able-bodied left amongst you?" Barbara, the goblin mother, asked.

"Able-bodied, sure. But not fighters. Ma'am, we're not a community of warriors." He turned pleadingly to the boss. "You know that those that are here are here because they have no other place to turn to."

"What's out of the question is you reneging on this deal." Came the boyish voice of Scratch, the fifth and last participant in the meeting. "You can not afford to show weakness here."

"The guild knows about our situation." Harkness put laconically, as was her way.

"Your cousin in the city knows, yes. And no doubt he's already putting together some alternative. If the border-hoppers from outside catch wind of ol' Huckabee here playing the blues solo, they'll be switch partners like that." He snapped his fingers. "You'll lose them."

"Be. That. As. It. May." Stanford tapped his foot in frustration, "Huckabee and the boss can not defend a caravan by themselves."

"You have access to as many of our goblin warriors as you need." Barbara answered.

"How many is that really?" Harkness wanted to know.

"As many as you need."

"But-"

"Goblins breed quickly." Scratch interrupted. "It's kind of our superpower. You know about our offer to any women amongst you."

"Huckabee." Stanford urged the last combatant underling to say something. "By Benesant, really, stand up for yourself."

Huckabee scratched the back of his head. "Gee guys. It sounds good, but a caravan is a long procession, you know? We could be attacked at any place and goblins.... other goblins I mean... don't really care if they stand a chance, they'll attack anyway."

"Lydia." Scratch said. "You've got a map of the area there."

"I do."

"Could you show us the route the caravan takes?"

Without speaking she drew a line with her fingers.

"And this is all supposed to go over in a month?"

She nodded. "twenty-nine days."

"In that case, let us suggest a detour." He dragged his nail over the aged paper, making a curve from the starting point at the edge of the zone to the meeting place.

"Why there?"

"Because next month all that territory will belong to allied tribes."

Above the door of the orphanage stood the ornamental form of its founder, surrounded by non-descript children looking up at her in adoration.

It was an expensive stone carving, payed for out of donations and noble patronage, as well as the modest profits of the institution's yearly fund raising efforts.

Letta looked at the display with mixed feelings, it seemed to exalt the name of the founder more than the mission of the orphanage.

The attorney knocked on the building's heavy oaken door, and gave her a little smile. The man had confirmed she was who she said she was and send message to her next of kin. Until such time that a relative would agree to take her in and come to retrieve her, she would have to stay here, with the orphans. With the other orphans.

A girl a few years older than her pulled open the entrance, seemingly having to struggle with its weight. The girl was still barely a teen, and the excessive frills on her green and white dress did no favors to her outward display of maturity.

"Hullo there, Alpheba." The man spoke. "Could you get your master for us? There's someone that would like to meet her."

"Yes mister." Alpheba responded. "Would you like to come in?"

"We would, thank you." He took off his hat. "Come on in Letta, it's nothing to be afraid of."

The two were led into a small carpeted room with two chairs and a coffee table. Alpheba disappeared behind an interior door opposite the entrance, leaving them in each other's company.

"Don't worry." The man ensured the girl. "The director here is very kind."

-

After almost fifteen minutes they were greeted by the kind lady herself.

An absolute prune of a woman, hunched over and shriveled up by age, shuffled into the waiting room and warmly exclaimed her happiness at seeing them. "Oh Stein, how nice to see you. How's the wife and kids?"

"Just fine, thank you." He bend over to accept her handshake, which she turned into a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

"And who's this then? What's your name dearie?"

"This is Letta." The man spoke for her. "We are trying to reach her family in the Tanner barony. Unfortunately.... it seems like her parents and brother have been lost to the orc's raiding."

The headmistress tutted. "Awful business. I heard the man from the dog kennels died killing it. That Boris fellow. Terrible, terrible thing."

"It wasn't an orc!" Letta almost screamed out. "It was goblins! A one-eyed goblin!"

"She's understandably quite upset," said Stein, "of course, the orc was using goblins, they've been keeping her prisoner for months."

"There was no orc." Letta tried to suppress her cracking voice. "It was bandits. Bandits and goblins. They're working together, they're-"

She was hugged tightly by the headmistress, she smelled of mothballs. "Oh girly, I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve to go through all of that."

At once Letta was calm. Her arms fell heavily to her side and her eyes stared into the distance.

"I'll take Letta to meet the other kids. They're playing with the dogs now, we've got quite a few new ones to take care of, since the kennel closed down."

"I understand." Stein put his hat back on. "I'll be returning to the office. There are some young adventurers returning from the wild after going missing, and we still haven't verified their identities."

"Bye Stein. Don't work too hard now." The woman joked.

"Goodbye miss Lacrima, goodbye Letta." He waved as he left.

"Goodbye..." Letta spoke in a monotone voice, still staring in the distance.

"Don't go telling just anybody about bandits, girly." Lacrima told her once they were alone. "An upstanding person like him has no business hearing about that awfulness."

It took two days for the remaining population of the new camp to ready a farming field outside the wall. They had to remove the tree trunks of the felled trees.

The bandits had axes and swords to cut the roots, but before those were exposed the goblins had to remove the surrounding dirt with make-shift trowels. Second and George had developed the tools out of chipped stone and clay, and a rotating cast of farmers put in the work. Near the end of the second day it was Biter, Fyro, Benjamin, and Scratch himself.

"Ugh!" Fyro complained. He was drenched in sweat. They had all taken off their tunics after exerting themselves in the day time, under the beating sun. And wrapped some cloth around their hips purely for modesty.

Scratch didn't even admonish him for whingeing as he had done in the morning. He was too exhausted to speak himself, he simply leaned on his tool and overlooked the field. It was almost done. It wouldn't be anything impressive, barely a farm, more like a large vegetable garden. But it represented something. Once they were growing their own food, this would no longer be a camp, an effort in survivalism, it would be a society, their own place in the world.

"Ben. Benjamin!" Fyro called out to his brother. "You never do anything! Come help with this one, if you're not going to do that one!"

Benjamin looked up from behind a half-dug trunk. He had been lieing down in the shadow.

Scratch gave a little pointy gesture to affirm Fyro's point. Benjamin's efforts were better put to use next to someone that could keep him awake with constant nagging.

The goblin boss let himself fall on his back. The ground was relatively soft for a forest floor after it had been broken up by the digging.

He shielded his eyes from the sun when Biter came to stand over him, blocking it entirely.

"Tired?" The younger brother asked.

"A bit. How's your hand?"

Biter's hand had been pierced by an arrow during the defense of their home more than a month ago, they had healed it with the questionable magic of the evil god Cyclophan, which filled it with fake flesh.

"The same as always." He answered, and stretched out the very same hand to lift the boss up.

Scratch reluctantly took the limb, feeling the unnatural patch of skin in the middle of the palm, and got up.

"Stanford's come to look." Biter told him.

A the edge of the fledgeling field stood the bandit healer.

"I better go say hello." Scratch decided. He dusted off the cloth and went to speak with the visitor.

-

"They tell us goblins are subterranean and can't stand the warmth of the sun." The man told him as he came up to him.

"Honestly, that would explain a lot. You sightseeing?"

"Actually, I'm here to function as intermediary."

"Intermediary?"

"Yes. It is like this, Miss Harkness and I trust you, and most- I would say all of the bandit community- trust us. But I'm afraid that trust isn't very transitive."

"Meaning...?"

"There are objections to your Yuki and Haruki being too... comfortable with humans. We have a mother with a young daughter among us, you know how mothers are. You've joked about inviting women to join your family, and the proclivities goblins are known for..."

Scratch threw up his hand. "Say no more. I completely understand, I'll have a talk with the boys about workplace decorum. But I want you to understand, those were no jokes. The tribes of this forest need mothers, real mothers with maternal authority, we're weaning them off the brood-slaves."

"That... is a laudable effort. But for now I see very little enthusiasm among our people for your program. In fact, it seems to inspire a lot of suspicion."

Scratch shrugged. "We'll give it some time. Rome wasn't build in a day. Are you going to help out here?"

Stanford took a look at the work. "Uh, gee."

"Do you have something better to do?"

"I suppose not."

-

Stanford was stronger than the diminutive goblins and his strength greatly aided their efforts.

When it was time for the workers to change shift the allocated plot was almost completely prepared to receive seed.

"Phooey." Stanford wiped the sweat off his brow. "It's been decades since I've worked on the lands, it's hard work, but certainly gratifying!"

"There's no accounting for taste." Scratch remarked dryly at his appreciation of agricultural labour.

They both watched Fyro and Benjamin regain their energy when hearing they were dismissed and replaced by last generation troublemakers.

"It's a decent plot." Stanford eyed the size of the cleared land. "But is it enough to feed our population?"

"It's more of a proof of concept." Scratch answered. "If this potato patch works out, the coming decade we'll surround ourselves with potatoes."

"That is... ill advised." The healer said while touching his chin.

"Why? Potatoes are a super food, aren't they?"

"They certainly are... super, but farming is more complicated than selecting an optimal flora and growing it as much as possible. You'll deplete the soil and get diminishing returns every year."

"Yeah, we have to fallow the ground, right? So we alternate then, prepare all the ground but use only half of it."

"That's certainly part of it, but to use land optimally, you need to make use of crop rotation."

Scratch raised an eyebrow. "Crop rotation? I've never heard of that. Is that some weird magic thing?"

"Crop rotation is actually a special technique brought to us by Haruki."

Haruki looked up from his weed picking. "Huh, by me?"

"Oh, no, haha," Stanford laughed politely but dismissively, "Haruki the first hero. All changes to society are brought about by heroes, special people above mundane humans."

"That's right!" Haruki chimed in. "Me, Yuto, Sota, Yuki, Hayato and Haruto are all named after the first heroes. There's a play in the human city every year where they wear masks and they re-enact how they saved the world!" He was reiterating what his mother had told him about his name.

"That's a lot better than being named after some gangsters your mum didn't even like." Scratch said.

"It's a lot better than being named after an attack with your nails." The young goblin responded mischievously.

"There are three types of nutrients in the soil," Stanford explained after Scratch had send Haruki off to go finish his chores, "chisso, compost, and mana. The optimal strategy is to replace each crop with one that does not feed as heavily on the same nutrient, and possibly replenish at least some of the nutrient the next crop will feed heavily on. Potatoes and other roots use the compost but deposit chisso, so you follow them up with fruits like tomatoes, which need the chisso. After that the legumes, you know, bean, peas, and the like. Then lettuce or cabbage before you fallow and start with roots again. You also have to make sure to alternate between species that use up mana from the ground and those that take in mana from the air and return it to the ground after being harvested. You can't follow up ambrosia's with spring-beans. Well you can, but... you know."

Scratch scratched his head at the deluge of information. "How do you know all this?"

"How? I can't quite say, I suppose it's just something one picks up as a kid."

"See. This is exactly what we need humans for. You're now my minister of agriculture."

"What? I couldn't possibly..."

"Don't be like that, it's an honor. The only thing you have to do is tell us what plants should be planted when."

Stanford took a long and tired look at Scratch's self-satisfied smile. "I can never tell when you're joking."

"I never am."

It would be almost a month before the community would get their hands on any potatoes they wanted to plant. So the tilled field lay uselessly outside the wall while they occupied themselves with other things. Scratch and a few others had set out to win over neighbouring tribes with gifts and promises, and those lef behind worked on construction.

An internal road was being paved. From the gate to the square and around the tower both goblins and humans tore out the top soil, matted with grass roots, and laid in shale stones, with the occasional clay tile to fill up leftover space.

The 'driveway', as Scratch called it, served mainly to make the place seem more like a real town, even though it wouldn't see carriages that would require such a surface for the foreseeable future, and as a team building exercise between bandit and goblin.

-

While working on this project, one of the bandits saw a scene that displeased her greatly.

"Cobaline!" Denise called out to her daughter in a distressed and almost panicky tone of voice. "Stop right there! Cobaline!"

The little girl, who was mock-fighting Yuki and Haruto with dead branches. Yuki was playing a mighty adventurer, the others were goblins being slain.

When being called out by her mother Cobaline dropped the stick and straightened her back. She was caught doing something she already had been told not to.

"Cobaline, get away from them." The mother demanded angrily. "And you two, didn't I warn you?"

Haruto had not been privy to her and Scratch's previous scolding, that had been Yuki and Haruki, but he knew better than to start an argument.

"We're not fighting, we're just playing." Yuki answered defiantly.

"You-!" The woman held herself back from slapping him.

From behind her Second had paused his own work on the road and came running up to the group as fast as his goblin legs could carry him. He saw himself as an older family member coming in to diffuse the situation, but when he arrived Denise pulled away her daughter from him too, feeling herself beset by an additional harrasser.

"It's okay because they're just playing, Yuki and the others like to play pretend, and they act like adventurers, but-"

His run-on sentence was interrupted by Cobaline herself speaking up. "I'm lonely without Letta! I just want to play with the others, mommy."

"These aren't other kids, baby," Denise admonished her daughter, "we don't know when they'll try something."

Second's eyes darkened at these words. "Do you realize that you're twice their size?"

"Excuse me?"

"Scratch has shown a lot of trust in you, you know? Taking you into our home. If any of you 'try something', there's nothing we can do, but we're giving you the benefit of the doubt, it'd nice to-"

"Now listen here you monster-"

"It'd be nice see some RECIPROCITY!" He raised his voice to overtake her interruption.

For a moment it seemed like they would get in a shouting match, but their argument was interrupted by the bloodcurdling scream of a goblin fighting for his life and losing.

The cavern below the bird coop had been turned into a bathing place and fishing spot.

A basket trap hung in the underground river and a through filled with water stood nearby the towel rack to dump the captured fish in.

Linus, who had limited mobility after having his legs ruined, occupied himself with watching the trap and sewing a cape.

Haruki sat nearby, sulking at being told off.

"It's not fair." He muttered. "Cobaline says it's not fair too."

"Don't say 'fair'." Linus repeated a lesson from Scratch. "Say: 'it's not nice', or 'it's not fun'. Nothing is 'fair'."

"I just-" Haruki splashed his feet in the water. "I'm not a monster. I don't-"

He paused. He had seen something move in the dark waters. He entered the cold liquid to take a closer look.

"Hey. The fish trap is broken."

"Is it?" Linus looked up from the sewing work. "Maybe Yuki or Second can help repair it..."

A pale white thing, resembling bleached driftwood was gliding near Haruki's legs and billowing tunic.

"Har..." Linus said weakly.

Haruki didn't respond, he looked around him to see what could have destroyed the trap. Then, suddenly, he screamed.

Red blood spread around him as two powerful jaws perforated his lower leg with countless teeth.

"Nooo! Aaah!" He cried from the pain as he kicked the monster with his other foot.

The creature started trashing him around and dragging him underwater.

"Haruki!" Linus flopped forward on his belly to grab his little brother's hand.

The two managed to grasp each other's wrists.

Haruki started sobbing as the monster twisted his leg.

-

"What's going on!?" Second came running down the tunnel after hearing the screaming.

"I don't know." Barbara said in distress. "It's in the hole, I can't see anything there."

With some other first responders behind him Second rushed down the wooden staircase. "Linus, Haruki!"

The two were laying on the riverside, grasping each other. Haruki's leg was in the maw of a hideous monster.

The creature was yellowish white, a reptile with short legs and a long snout, its nostrils and eyes being high on top of its head. Its skin was leathery and bark-like, it looked thick.

Without hesitation Second jumped into the water and grabbed Haruki's waist, to prevent him from being dragged in further.

"Where's Scratch?" Haruto exclaimed behind him.

"He's on a diplomatic mission." Fyro answered.

"Forget about Scratch!" Second spat furiously. "Grab a spear or... something!"

There were no spears within immediate reach, but there was mining equipment. The other goblins rained down on the beast with the earliest make-shift picks their family had been able to produce.

The hard implements bounced against the creature's skin, but it was clearly distressed by the barrage, because it began to thrash the goblin around harder.

"Don't let go don't let go-" Haruki whined desperately.

"Don't worry, we've got you, everth-" Suddenly the beast focused all its strength in a single powerful yank. Haruki slipped out of his brothers' grip, his head smashed against the cave wall with a sickening *crack* and he disappeared underwater as he was dragged upriver.

"N-" Second was stunned at how quickly it had happened. He wouldn't have been able to finish his sentence in the span of time it had taken for the creature to turn everything around.

His brothers held him back as he tried to swim underwater into the airless depths. "NO!"

Nobody said anything. By now, they should have gotten used to death.

A bit out of the way, near the river, stood the tree home. A large open space underneath the roots of an ancient tree in which goblins lived.

On the way to the tree home, where they had once been captured by orcs, Scratch had managed to find some blue grass.

He was toking the substance when conversing with Nug, the local alpha male, and Runt, his translator.

Surprisingly, the feral goblins had better food reserves than they did.

The flour they had traded for with another tribe before the culling and had been using to bake bread had almost run out, and the spoils from hunting and foraging could barely sustain their own numbers alongside the humans. By contrast, the tree tribe was stripping two large boars of their meat when they arrived.

Scratch and his entourage had brought soft skins and furs to the natives, in the hopes of establishing patron-like relation with the group, as they had done with the river and hill tribes. However, the tree tribe was in an unfortunately strong position currently.

"Nug's tribe is strong." Runt translated the grunts of his leader. "Have food. Have women. Have weapons."

The last time the they had visited the tree tribe Nug had offered them the reverse, for the cave goblins to unite under his leadership with their superior tools. Scratch had hoped that a harsh winter and the culling would have weakened them, but they seemed to be stronger than ever. Besides the boars they were wielding orcen weapons and farm tools, and the pink flesh of farm girls was visible through the roots of the trees.

This one has been marching under the orc. When that collapsed he took in a bunch of survivors under him. Cyclophan advised through the magic of the goblin king's pipe.

It seems like Nug knows how to play the game, very clever. Scratch puffed on his pipe and began to speak. "You tell Nug that we're impressed by his tribe, and that we've brought some gifts."

The gifts in question were exceedingly practical. Rope and ceramics, two things feral goblins had no way of producing.

Nug made some more noises and Runt translated. "Nug asks why you give stuff."

Scratch was beginning to grasp the orc language these goblins had adopted, but was content to continue communicating through a medium. Runt had some affinity for them, they had saved his life in the past. That made him a good party to have in the mix.

"Why? To lift you up. One day, all tribes here will be able to stand up for themselves against stronger creatures, I'll make sure of that." It wasn't a lie per se, it really was his ambition to strengthen the region, just a bit more tightly under his control than he was implying.

Nug puffed out his chest. "Tree tribe is strong. Tree tribe defeat any foe."

He's lying. Cyclophan fulfilled his intended role as lie detector for negotiations. They've recently lost half their members to adventurers.

Scratch took his pipe out of his mouth and looked around. There were close to three dozen goblins running around the dried dirt covering the roots. With multiple captive women, rapid procreation would be inevitable, double these numbers wouldn't be out of the question. That's why the food seemed so abundant, it was the haul of a much larger group.

"Then allow us to supplant... add to your troops with some of our know-how." Scratch tried.

Nug's response could clearly be parsed as negative by Scratch's understanding of the orc language, but from Runt came a different translation. "Nug say... please help defeat humans, humans come and kill us."

Hmmm, that's interesting, Cyclophan commented, it's the translator that's lying. The alpha fears you're trying to take over.

And he'd be right, Scratch thought. "You tell Nug what you were going to say we said."

Runt's cheeks flushed and he gave Nug a story.

"But enough diplomacy." Scratch announced, let us show you how to roast that pork and we'll have ourselves a party.

Benjamin had been carrying a clay lantern with a giant candle inside to every tribe the had visited. They were able to light campfires with the flame, hopefully to get the tribes hooked on the miracle of fire, leading them to accept cave goblin stewardship once it had gone out.

-

While his brothers involved Nug with the setting up of the fire, Scratch took Runt apart from the rest.

"Are the humans getting too much?" Scratch puffed on his pipe.

Runt looked over his shoulder but then confirmed strongly.

"You've got friends here? You want to protect this place?"

"Yes."

Uhhm....

Really? That was a lie? He seems so sincere.

No, but, in the cave. One of your goblins got snatched by a beast.

What? Was it an important one?

Which ones are important?

Nevermind, we'll deal with that when we get back.

"Listen, Runt, we can't protect anyone that doesn't want to be protected. If you want our help, you need to get the tribe behind you."

Runt cast down his eyes.

"But... we can help with that."

"You can?"

"We can, if you're willing to become the alpha male, we'll give you the tools to make it happen. But you need to show us who your friends and who your enemies here are, you understand? A coup d'etat."

Why don't you just march in and make yourself their leader?

Shush. Don't question my methods.

Eventually Runt agreed to use Scratch's forces to bring his closest friends to power, even if in the revolution some of his lesser friends could very well die. It was for the long-term safety of their clan and, not insignificantly, he was excited by the prospect of becoming leader.

-

"Was that everyone?" Scratch asked Hayato after coming to an agreement over the conspiracy.

Hayato took out the rolled up parchment supplied to them by the bandits. "Here, here and here, that's all of them."

"All of them that are important to the mission. Well... let's not overextend." He was referring to the smuggling route that they wanted to secure.

"Did we get this one?" Hayato asked.

"We've got to come back in two days and put a puppet in power. But yeah, we've got them."

"It was nice to see Fat and Biter again."

Scratch ruffled the younger goblin's hair. "It'd only been a few days, were you that attached?"

He scrunched the map slightly. "To know they were there..."

Scratch looked a bit sadder. "After this one we're going straight back, something bad has happened

Cave Croc

Family: Reptiles

Threat Level: E

Reward: 3 copper pieces

Cave crocs are the evolved form of swamp crocs. They are stronger and prefer living underground, in water dungeons and grotto's. Their tough skin grants them significant resistance against physical damage. Cave crocs possess the ambush predator trait, allowing them to lie in wait for days on end until an adventurer comes near them. After the initial strong bite they are easily defeated, though one must beware being dragged underwater by a cave croc, as it will try to drown its victim.

Cave crocs rely on darkness more than swamp crocs, and are completely white with no camouflaging colors. They are solitary creatures and do not employ pack tactics.