She sat in the bushes for hours, watching the goblins she learned a lot about of their habits, where most of them would hang about. What food was caught. All this information and she’d be more than ready to devise a plan when morning came. The only problem was that she wasn’t going to wait for their numbers to thin when daylight came.

Besides, the goblins being active at night wasn’t such a bad thing. Over half of the goblins had gathered outside. The presumed leader was a highly decorated hobgoblin, at least as decorated as a goblin could get with stolen armors and leathers.

Sensing now wasn’t the most opportune time to strike she sunk back into the bushes. The goblins began to get rowdy, restless and even ended up lightly attacking each other. Probably in hopes to get their adrenaline pumping. Once the hobgoblin walked into the surrounding forest, the night was once more silent. Wherever they went, they probably wouldn’t take them that long with such numbers.

Rina stood up, having no concept of taking light steps she went straight to the cave entrance. It was dark, very dark. If she were of another race, she’d have trouble in the darkness. The darkness wasn’t the only trouble that one would have but the way the place was made was akin to a maze. Luckily her vision was aided by the traces of magic; navigation was easily down. The only difficulty she might encounter would be exiting the cave, to fix this she clawed on the walls, nothing intricate or even have any meaning, they were mostly just a broad swipe at the rocks.

Traversing the darkness, she came to a three-way path. The magic felt faint in every single direction. Had she went the wrong way? No, the three routes must have converged together to form a stable signal. Everything came full circle for this exact moment, except she probably would find food at the end of every tunnel...probably.

While she was deciding on a path to choose a young goblin sprang from behind her wielding a misshaped dagger, it jumped on her back screaming and yelling.It jabbed her in the back several times. Blue blood spurted out every time. In the darkness, it was almost as if it was glowing. She screamed in pain.

She tried to claw the tiny creature but failed, miserably as it was able to dodge her attempts.

She rammed her back into the cave wall. The first time did not remove the creature, so she did it again and again and again, so on until the goblin was unable even to hang even, She didn’t stop, she only ceased her actions when it slumped down the wall with a broken spine. At this point, she was just releasing anger. Anger? Emotion? This was possibly the first time she’s ever felt anything over the instinct to feed.

She backed away from the goblin that would no longer be able to walk again. She got a good look at its body. From the small size, even lower than average size she deduced that this was a child of the species, one that was most likely left behind to grow.

She touched the wound where she was stabbed. She winced in slight pain. Besides her clothing being wholly tattered on the backside she acknowledged the difference in color compared to other races, in fact, her blood had a faint smell of magic. She licked her finger. Instantly she spits, it wasn’t that it was disgusting, but there wasn’t any real taste to it, but something just forcibly made her get rid of the substance. She turned back to the goblin, the rage returned. She didn’t even feel like harvesting its pitiful amount of magic.

She placed her chitin covered leg and pressed her heeled appendage on the creature’s throat. Of course, it tried to scratch at her, but her chitin was much tougher than the goblin’s nails. Slowly she pressed the heel into its throat. It gurgled. Screamed. And at one point it looked like it wanted to beg for its life. She didn't have anything from it. She kept going until she pierced its windpipe and watched it drown its blood.

Was it overkill for an already weak creature? Probably? Did she care? Not in the slightest. From now on she’d have to be extremely careful from now on, the low amount of magic the creature’s produced practically hid them from her enhanced vision.

Before she even continued forward, she heard something.

“Watch the darkness, keep those torches forward!”

A voice is coming from behind her; it sounded like the voice of a human. And at least accompanied by eight sets of heavy boot steps. She tried to pick up her right arm but realized she couldn’t remember when a sharp pain came through. It seems the little goblin did more damage than she thought. Taking on four heavily armed opponents in her state would be more than what she could handle.

She turned forward to pick a path that she’d believe that would be safe. But then she thought again. Maybe she could use these humans to clear the way for her, and then attack when they least expect it.

She went to the far tunnel it sat in the darkness. Hopefully, they wouldn’t go down this way.

“Captain!” One of the knights looked at the walls, The blue blood and still bleeding goblin alerted them. “What do you think happened?”

The one knight out of them all who was presumed to be the captain adorned a cape on his steel armor. “Frankly, I don’t care. We came for the girls. Not investigations.”

Another one of the knights one with a torch revealed the passaged. “Sir, There are three ways! Which way shall we go?” The torchlight began to flicker it’s way toward Rina as he moved to the middle way. She hugged the wall.

“You and you.” He responded, “Go down the center. I’ll go left with Erwin.”

“Sir!” They all responded. And they went down their respective tunnels, once again blanketing the area in the darkness.

Rina had seen the aura of the so-called captain. It was overwhelming. He was going to be a problem, so she went to the middle passage.