After I gather the herbs that I needed I went towards the cave. (The herbs were very noticeable, bright red on green grass.)

Getting close to the cave I can see something moving inside it.

‘Are THOSE goblins?!?’

‘Kinda? I dunno…’

‘Yeesh, no need to shout…’

Lizz shouts back, making me feel like she’s the straight (wo)man in one of those comedy duos.

As I get even closer to the cave I solidified the staff in my hands again and focused my vigilance.

When I arrive right next to the cave entrance there’s a small green four limbed creature standing outside, carrying a club in one hand while steadying it on his shoulder.

I sneak up on the goblin and…

*thwack*

"!"

"..."

"..."

Other than the goblin being slightly startled from the sneak attack nothing happens.

And yet, even though it's not injured in the slightest, it still runs off to some other part of the plains we were in.

'Hey...*

'Why did nothing happen?'

'You sounded very prepared for that question, did you know that was going to happen?'

'And you didn't tell me ahead of time because...'

'Oh.'

Realizing I wasn't going to get anywhere by trying to make her feel guilty I decide to instead try to get a better weapon.

I walk away from the cave and back to the lake, when I get there I crouch down and submerge my hand in the water.

'Come on...'

And when I lift my hand out of the water I'm now holding an orange stick, much like the one I had previously, only difference was that this one was filled with water rather than air, hopefully making it heavy enough to do something at least.

Also while I'm at it I decide to widen the stick on certain parts to make it look like a baseball bat, letting me add more water to it.

I look around to try and see where the goblin ran off to, and see it standing at the cave again, in the exact same spot as last time, looking like it completely forgot tht it was ever attacked there before.

I sneak up behind it again, exactly like last time, however this time when I swing at it I also add a bit of extra force by making myself get launched at it by phasing my feet into the ground and letting go.

*SLAM*

This time when I hit it with the bat its head is launched clean off of its shoulders and sent flying off into the distance, making me feel rather quesy at the sudden red geyser that appeared where his head used to be, however before I get enough time to let the fact that I killed something sink in:

‘What!? Don’t tell me the thing I need to prove I killed it was on that…’

‘Fuck!’

Seeing that the head had already disappeared off to somewhere where I cant see it anymore, I decide to give up on it and walk into the cave instead, and seeing as just slamming them with the bat could cause more problems I make the tip of it thin out to a sharp point, if I'm lucky they won't be sent flying if I pierce them with this instead.

'Hey, why did that do so much more damage? Sure, I used water rather than air, but should that really make it strong enough to send that things head flying?'

'Wow... Can't be easy living like that... Kinda feel bad for them now...'

'What the fuck!'

And as she says that the small traces of grief that had set in from killing something instantly disappeared.

After walking for a few ten or so seconds we start seeing some glowing moss on the walls, and on certain parts of this moss there’s glowing mushrooms as well.

I grab a bunch of them and put them in the pouch.

Or at least I try to put them in the pouch, but it seems the opening is too small and they don’t fit.

‘Well… Since there’s no one here I might as well…’

A blue hand then reaches out from behind me and grabs all the mushrooms I was holding, it then goes back to where it came from.

‘The mushrooms would’ve been the only reason to be in this cave, but since there was a goblin outside there might be more here, should we go deeper?’

‘Honestly, why are you so rude?’

She ignores my question completely and we continue walking in silence, until...

‘I’m not good enough at controlling this stuff yet, if you got a complaint then you do try doing better.’

‘Exactly! So stop complaining!’

While we’re bickering I come across a bigger room with torches on the walls.

‘What the…’

At the end of this large cavern there is what looks like a throne surrounded by bowing goblins, and on top of the throne there’s a creature sitting with a crown on his head.

But before I can retrace my steps and leave the figure notices us.

“Oh? What have we here? The little doll from earlier, how quaint…”

‘That’s odd, he seems to know me…’

‘Piss one off? I haven’t even met a goblin before today! And you should’ve known that!’

“Hm? It doesn’t seem like you recognise me? How about I come closer…”

As the high-goblin comes closer and enters the torchlight I can see it's face.

‘Wait… What?’

“Does this face jog your memory!? Because of you I had my rations cut in half and had to go out to hunt food like some… Some… Barbarian!”

Yup, in front of us stood not a high-goblin, but instead there was the guard that had tried to make me steal when I first got here.

“Because of you I had to trick these goblins to work under me and get me food! You’ll pay for wronging me!”

Lizz then flies out of the book and asks:

“But wasn’t it the lizardman that cut your food? Why blame us?”

“Err… Well… Do you guys honestly think someone like me would be able to take on someone like him…?”

@No.

“Not a chance.”

I had expected the man to be surprised by the text for a little bit, but it seems this place is too dark for him to see it properly.

“Exactly! So if I can’t get my revenge on him I’ll get it on you instead! Goblins, Attack!”

However…

The goblins simply keep staying where they are, bowing towards his direction.

A sigh can be heard escape from his lips as he then says:

“Right… Goblins.... Some of the most stupid creatures alive…”

The man then pinches the ridge of his nose and sighs again while he draws a sword from his side.

*clank* *clank* *clank* Can be heard echoing throughout the cavern as he hits the ground with the tip of the sword.

*rustle* *rustle*

And at that all the goblins got up from where they were bowing and looked at the guard whose name I still did not know.

The guard then points the sword at us and yet again shout for the goblins to attack, which they now do while screeching horribly.

I shirk from the sudden change in atmosphere but quickly recover and point my bat forwards, as if issuing a challenge… Or at least that’s what I hope I look like.

*splatter*

And one of the goblins runs straight into it, piercing his heart and dying immediately.

“You fucking idiot!” The guard shouts at the now lifeless goblin.

I drag the bat back out from the corpse and prepare myself.

The goblins keep running at me, seemingly not caring about their dead comrade.

Or they’re just too stupid to notice.

As they approach I crouch down and swing the pole at the feet of the nearest goblin, making it fall, and while it's falling it grabs on to one of the others, dragging them down too, and this new goblin then grabs onto another one, I let this continue for a while and eventually they're all laying on the ground.

I let go of the bat with my left hand so that I know hold the bat with only my right and use Hunting Claws on my free hand, I then quickly proceed to stab as may of the ones close to me as I can whith my white claws before they get back up, letting me kill nearly half of them before they can untangle themselves.

Now there’s only a handful left, and yet they keep charging at me with eyes saying that they are certain of their victory.

As the goblins get within reach I start swinging my bat at them, trying to hit their bodies instead of their heads.

As I keep hitting them they eventually fall, and as I deal the final blow to the last goblins I may have been a bit too excited, as when I hit him I hit him in the head which, just like before, ended up making the head go flying.

Flying in the guard’s direction.

I couldn’t see exactly what happened, however I did hear a loud *splatter* sound, and when I looked towards the man he laid fainted on the ground with a face covered in red liquid.

‘There’s only two quests left now… But I get the feeling that this guy’s going to be a lot of trouble if we don’t take him to the authorities…’

And then I do just that, I drag the man back with me to town while using Lulling Touch to keep him from waking up due to the bumpiness of the trip, and as we walked back I thought about how the goblins were so inept at fighting that I only had to randomly wave my arms around while holding weapons to kill them all. I also thought about how I'm grateful to my uncle for letting me go along with him on his hunting trips, he even made me help prepare the game for barbeque, all the way from a a fur covered animal to a slab of grilled meat on a plate, letting me get a bit more used to blood and gore.