lex and Bellie were puzzled, they had encountered another piecemeal of a goblin group. This was extremely strange, goblins would always use swarm tactics if they had these numbers. Ambushes like this normally implied that the nest was not a very big nest.

But all the dead goblins in their wake now implied that the goblins had willingly spread their forces out to soften the blow from an invading party. As an alert system and a delaying system, this would be fine. But goblins simply did not do this, they would either move in a horde, or in tiny individual groups of four, not setting up ambush chain camps like this...

Alex was concerned by this, he had killed plenty of goblins, even in large numbers. He had special skills that could handle the swarms if he had the support behind him that is, he could fend off plenty of goblins.

Ever since the great calamity began and humanity began awakening their powers and skills. Normally magic and warrior skills were rare between people, but when the first calamity began, the number rose greatly.

If the great kingdom had soldiers with the powers and magic support of today. The goblin threat would not have broken it and caused the kingdom to implode in on itself, paving the way for the second calamity, the demon lord. The researchers and magicians knew that the rifts were responsible for the sudden increase in magic to permeate out into the realm, before that the most magically gifted of the people in the realm was the elves that lived protected underneath the might of the World Tree.

"I do not like this... something is wrong... The goblins are lining themselves up for the slaughter. If these three camps had all piled onto us we would have been in trouble" Alex commented as he retrieved his ax from the skull of a dead hobgoblin. They even had hobgoblins! This nest must be massive Alex thought if they have goblins outside like this to man such a perimeter.

"You are giving the goblins to much credit!... Come on the tracks are increasing, I think we are near their main camp now." Bellie said as she drank a mana potion. Giving the girl named Sylvie a firm push as they began to move once more.

---

Meanwhile, Grandir was running full speed, sweat dripping down his forehead, he was headed back towards an area where he knew he would cross their path, so he could intercept his friends. He was running faster than normal giving up on stealth, he reached a point where he could track his friends and their path forward into the forest, and their bloody path through a few goblin camps, his face got more worried seeing the dead goblins. He sped up once more to reach his friends faster, hoping to catch them before they reached to far ahead.

As he sped past some trees, three goblins that were hidden, waited till he was gone, before they followed behind him trying to remain stealthy. Lurk smiled beneath his hood seeing the dark elf speed up towards their cave.

Alex looked at the cave entrance down inside a rocky pit in the forest ground. The path down towards the cave was completely empty of goblins. Bellie looked at the forest path at the top where the goblins would exit from into the forest.

"... A lot of goblins have left there recently... but they went a different way than towards us?... They went an entirely different direction... Are they fleeing?... Or moving to flank us when we go inside?..."

Even Bellie was showing concern now, what were the goblins doing... In fact, if the goblins would walk that direction they would perhaps run into Grandir, as that was the direction he went.

Alex noticed Bellies face frowning. "Maybe we should give up this heist... can you tell if they had humans with them?... "

"No... they do have a hobgoblin though... This is weird... " Bellie looked at the tracks and then looked down into the rocky cut in the ground leading into the cave. Just when she was about to say something she turned and put an arrow on her bow. Grandir came running out into the clearing, gasping.

"... Something is ... Wrong..." Grandir breathed hard... "I came across some goblin camps... But they were already dead... I think someone else is here fighting them... someone had fought them with wind magic." He walked over to them looked at them sternly.

"I think this is our chance... We can move in and take the real prize while others are fighting the swarm..." Grandir smiled at Alex and Bellie, that also smiled in return. Sylvie lowered her head slightly looking away from them.

Well hidden and a bit away from them, Lurk, Aurk and Vorm were sitting observing the adventurers. Well out of hearing range, But Lurks enhanced senses could hear a little of what they were saying, and saw that the adventurers looked happy now that they had realized that the goblins were out and fighting 'something'. He had made this plan mostly out of desperation. He needed to somehow make it easier to save the women, and also make it safe for himself and his chosen few goblins.

During their time sending out the groups of goblins, Lurk had checked each off them, handpicked the ones that had Low [Evil Trait], and sent them to specific places where he did not intend to set his plan in motion. The moment that any of the pyres would be lit. Lurk had given the camps special commands to stay put and ambush the intruders. Whilst he and the sun soakers went off to kill off the other camps.

It was not something he felt good about doing, the goblins that he slaughtered were not expecting it at all, bunched up as he lobbed a tempest wind disk into them, the survivors being taken out by Aurk and Vorm, with little to no problems. He even gained a new threshold on his Wind Magic learning a new Wind spell.

He had instructed the goblin at the watchtower to send the cave goblins and Vrek and two of the bosses way in another direction, into the camps that he had sun soaker team had destroyed. Giving the adventurers time to get inside and secure the women.

He hoped that Aurk's surprise that they left at their camps would distract Vrek and his team for long enough when they reached them, or whittle their numbers down sufficiently.

While they were out scouting and placing goblin camps. Lurk had queried Aurk about any nasty critters in the area. There was a big bear that the goblins had long evaded its territory off, a Shock bear of giant proportions. They had spent some of the days finding it and then putting food down to lure it closer to their camps, hoping that it would handle some of the outlying camps. Which luckily it did at the right moment.

Vrek should be involved in some manner with the bear since he was sent right into the path where the bear would be. He had also moved Sala out of the cave along with the other few goblins he had hand-picked to other camps. So the adventurers would not murder her thinking she was just another murder hobo goblin.

He watched as the adventurers headed down into the cave, smiling and nodding to Aurk and Vorm. When he had explained what he had planned, he was worried they would flat out deny him. But they nodded and agreed. Clearly, they did not approve of the goblins at all since their entire life had been filled with scorn from the others. This would give them freedom of a sort away from Vrek and all the other goblins. The only issue they were worried about was Xarn, that was the only point they were worried about it. But Lurk said they would be able to be free of him too. Since Xarn would not know where they were due to the sudden split of the goblins did from the main cave.

It would take to long for Xarn to find out about the fate of Vreks cave, but it would rely on Vrek also dying with the rest of the goblins. Lurk had also checked out the ruined town once more. Finding the place the kobolds and gnoll had looted from. A workshop underneath a building with a hidden floor leading down into it. It was fixable but the kobolds must have stumbled over it by accident, leading to them looting it of anything not already looted by the former owners.

Lurk thought this place would be a good hiding place since the workshop had runes on the walls that he could surmise were magic dampening fields, that would prevent magical searches. Whoever owned this workshop was clearly not on the correct side of the law, and worked with a lot of different materials, from cloth to metal. Which was why they found all those bags with clothes and odd tools.

There were a lot of empty containers that showed that the placed had once held a lot more materials and items, but were long gone. Only one chest remained. It was stuck in the floor completely immovable and locked. It looked like the kobolds had been trying to smash it open but not made a single dent or scratch in it.

During his planning of how to do all of this, he had also in detail gone through his Menu while sleeping. He noticed a new line had segmented off. Linking him to Sala who had a similar Magical Circle network around her. And then two connections between them leading to the child inside her.

But what shocked Lurk was that the body in Salas Menu was not her normal body. It was slightly larger, and she had two horns on her forehead. It looked like an evolution was about to occur, turning Sala into a proper Half-Goblin/Ogre. She looked more monstrous, but still had the same face but longer arms. Lurk hoped the evolution would not happen too soon because he examined the Ogre options seeing the [Remove Ogre Curse] that cost a whopping 10 FBP, seemed to change the evolution from Ogre to Ogre Magi. When Lurk opened that option up to see how Sala would look she suddenly looked like a human, with elegant delicate shapes and curves, an extremely beautiful woman with the two horns on her forehead. Of Course, she would not be as tall as the original ogre magi but the looks were almost the same.

Lurk had none of those evolutions, regardless of how he put it in the menu, he would not transform the same way. Which confused him to no end. But the biggest shock when he was digging into the menu and examined Vorm and Aurks, he saw that their Evil trait had slightly lowered. So it was possible to change it, it was not much. Them becoming his minions, not just because of the Evil trait, but because they truly wanted to do so had given a tiny cut in the Evil trait.

Lurk was just glad his gamble here had paid off... If it had not been adventurers attacking, it could have gone entirely different, but now the plan was afoot. But then women's shrieks were heard down from the cave, and Lurk gritted his teeth.

"now what?!... Come... Quietly!" Lurk said as they hurried down the path, sneaking into the winding cave corridors... peeking inside they could see the adventurers had killed off the goblins in the main chamber and the last hobgoblin that was guarding the women in that room. The helmeted goblin was splayed open on the ground with arrows in his head and arm and leg cut off.

But instead of saving the women, the Dark elf was putting collars on them he was pulling out of a backpack, grinning evilly as he did so. Bellie, Sylvie and Grandir were the only ones here, Alex was off in another room. Small glowing lights were floating around them illuminating their surroundings so they could see properly inside the dark cave.

"This is a big haul! We will get a lot more for these women as slaves than that crystal club from that one-armed goblin! It's a shame they are already goblin-mothers but there's a fix for that."

The dark elf had kicked one of the women in the stomach harshly. The women were crying trying to avoid being collared, one of them had already been killed. The ones with collars already on were silently sitting without moving much.

Lurk gritted his teeth, this was not something he had thought would happen. He stared at the adventurers his eyes glowing fiercely purple. When he saw the one named Alex dragging Resti out into the main chamber.

"Oi! this one could do magic!, nearly burned my beard off!!" He dragged her over in the middle of the room next to Bellie and throwing her onto the ground.

"Hah.. ´This one will be worth a lot more than Sylvie here," Said Bellie as she put her foot onto Restis head briefly before kneeling down clamping a Collar onto her neck, her eyes dimming instantly giving up resistance.

The girl in the robe was gritting her teeth Lurk noticed she also had a collar on.

Lurk eyes glowed purple staring hate at the three adventurers...