“–ake up.”

“Urgh.”

“Come on, wake up! There is something wrong, the goblins are making a ruckus out there. You do not really wish to die sleeping, do you?” She did not, but he was still too noisy.

“Mmlblg.” She said, sitting up without opening her eyes.

“Your words. Try those instead.” She was using her words. He was too stupid to listen.

“Y’know m’not goo’ wi’ mor....” She slumped back down, too tired to deal with things.

“So, first, morning ended a while ago—”

“Urgh.”

“—and second, you absolutely must get moving. If we are to have any chance at all, it will be soon.” She finally got her eyes open enough to see just how tense he was, serious expression lit by afternoon sun and marred only by the disgustingly filthy bars of their cage.

“Ye can’t be this hard up all the time, girl. Ye sick?”

“It is something we have investigated at length and great expense, but for all that we have found no better understanding. She is simply afflicted in this way, some days better, others worse.”

“M’fine.”

“An’ the two of ye are licensed?” She heard him draw a deep breath, and decided to muster a little strength and head things off.

“Fen, s’fine,” she said with a hand held out towards where she thought he was standing. “M’fine. Soon as I c’n wake up, I’ll be good.” She struggled to her feet and slapped her cheeks, the too familiar sting blowing some of the cobwebs from her mind. Taking a deep breath, she continued in a clear and steady voice. “Yes, we’re licensed and not too shabby, I’ll thank you to know Mister Mougein. We’re even D rank!”

“At yer age? No’ shabby at all. D-rank meself, in fact, though I’m a merchant now. I—”

“Hold please. Something is happening,” Fen said while she turned her attention outward towards the goblin camp. It had become unfortunately familiar to her over the past week, and so it was easy to immediately spot the something her companion was referring to. The normally lazy goblins had all armed themselves and were gathering on the eastern side of the clearing that their long-term camp was built in. She wondered if the goblins had caught someone else. Mister Mougein had been tossed in with them only the previous day, but the goblins didn’t seem to have any particular schedule they were trying to keep. But maybe— she cut that thought off and tucked it back into a corner before any hope could fully emerge to torment her.

She and her childhood friend and adventuring partner, Fenell, had so far spent eight awful days in the cage with only each other and the teeming goblin mass. Eight days where their rations ran out and they were forced to live off what the tiny monsters fed them. Why they were being fed was something that worried her, but it was also a relief. It was unlikely they were being kept for food if they were themselves being fed. Plus, the longer they could hold out, the more likely it became that the guild would start posting quests to investigate.

As she watched the commotion, she felt that hope peek out again. She hardly dared even consider that it might be a rescue of some sort but, even if it wasn’t, she felt Fen had the right of things. If there was going to be a chance to escape, it would be soon. They had to be careful though, because there were still a group of goblins left guarding the cage. So far as they could tell the little creatures didn’t understand speech, which left some freedom to plan, but there just wasn’t much they really could do. She didn’t want to touch the bars, but she shuffled closer to watch the gathered goblins send parties off eastward.

“Ye suppose they’re headin’ off ta town?” Mister Mougein asked, earning the attention of the goblin guards who waved their spears to force her away from the bars. She shot the dwarf a scowl but the two men were both focused on the mustering force.

“No,” she said. She could see pretty well, and it was obvious that they were just large patrols, and not raiding parties. “Even dumb gobs wouldn’t go at those walls with only weapons and no tools.”

“She is correct. I am seeing several goblin gatherers among their number. I surmise their smaller patrols are being preyed upon.”

“Escalation,” she guessed. It was a fairly well-known phenomenon where, after over-hunting a particular monster tribe, they would begin to send out larger and larger groups for protection and revenge. If that’s what she was seeing, then whoever was out there, if anyone was out there, they had come in force. Either of number or in levels.

“I’ve heard tell o’ that. Never seen it meself, though.”

“Mm. Did it once.”

“Yes, in a large hunting party. Then we all promptly ran away. You should not give people false impressions.” She gave him a dirty look, which he returned with reproving eyes. He had always been annoyingly strait-laced, even when they were still kids, and he always accused her of being frivolous. His gaze soon returned to the rowdy goblins, that tiniest quirk of his lips falling away to a resolute seriousness, and she joined him. There wasn’t really anything else to do, and if she were being honest it was the most exciting thing that had happened since their capture.

They passed the next few bells in tense silence interrupted by fits of grimly humorous conversation and the occasional observation as the goblins kept sending increasingly large patrols eastward. She didn’t dare to bring up the possibility, but there was no doubt they were all thinking the same thing. Something was killing them at record rates, because every time she checked there were fewer of the creatures around.

But no matter how the camp emptied out, the guards around the cage stayed firm; too dim or too loyal to their chief to move. The filthy creatures even offered more of their food, which the others ate with reluctance, but she refused outright. If help was coming, she didn’t want to be hobbled by the intense stomach pain that came every time she ate that stuff. Better to be hungry but clear minded and ready to move.

The problem, though, was what kind of ready to move they ought to be. Ready to fight the guards and make their way out to meet up with whoever was coming? Ready to make a quiet exit without alerting the monsters? Those were the main options she could see, because there was no chance of them being straightforwardly rescued. To start with it was dangerous and stupid to try wiping the goblins out completely. There were just too many of them for the town’s regulars to handle and putting the request out to the capital’s adventurers would take too long.

Something like that would ultimately be far too costly, even if they could. Goblins just didn’t have anything in terms of materials or possessions that was of particular value. Due to that, and the fear that they could attack the city, the Venbuelli guild had an unspoken rule about provoking some of the large nearby monster encampments. Even if some of the guild staff came out of retirement to lead a scout party so they could leave quietly, which would be the best circumstance the three of them could hope for, they would still need to be ready to run.

All of those factors meant they couldn’t expect to just sit back and do nothing. They’d be contributing to their own escape somehow. That meant checking their footwear, stretching, and warming up a bit at least. For her it also meant focusing on keeping her mana topped off as much as possible as she made preparations, while also keeping the proper magic structures in mind, ready to release at any moment. There was also the option of stealing weapons or damaging the cage in some fashion. The guards would certainly notice that though, so it would have to be something they resorted to if better options failed.

They discussed many plans and possibilities until the sun had begun to shrink as it sank below the edge of the world, but came to the conclusion that they just didn’t know enough to risk acting. Which didn’t mean she would do nothing, as their only mage she intended to prepare a few things that could be invoked quickly if needed. As the dark of the forest began to grow she discarded several of those preparations as they settled on the idea that it would be a nighttime rescue. Goblin eyesight was notoriously mediocre, and with so many drawn away from the camp it was the sensible solution. Even if moving at night made light magic risky to use, she always had her ice with which to set up perfect traps in the dark, so she couldn’t complain at the wasted effort.

“Did either of you hear that just now?” Fenell asked as she was carefully laying yet another spell into the floor of the cage. The goblins looked over at the sound of his voice, which forced her to stop. While it wasn’t likely the gobs were smart enough to get suspicious no matter how blatant they were about their preparations, none of them wanted to risk messing up the rescue in any way. She focused on listening but couldn’t catch anything. A glance at their dwarven companion showed he hadn’t either.

“Again. A woman’s voice from the east.” Her friend seemed certain, and his hearing had always been far keener than her own, and she did trust him. Most of the time. She kept listening and was rewarded in time by the distant clash of weapons and a growing hissing from what was left of the massed goblins.

“I hear it now.”

“Aye, sounds like fighting.”

“Perhaps,” Fenell said. She quirked a brow and waved for him to continue, otherwise she knew he’d just leave it at that. “I have been listening for a time now, and I have heard but one voice the entire while. The sound of weapons clashing, I would not swear it, but they are too few for a company sent by the guild.” He drifted off into silence again.

“So, what are you saying?”

“I believe there is a small party at most, but it could even be a single individual.”

“Lad, there’s no one that could challenge a goblin camp alone. Cept maybe one o’ the Kanna trio, and they’d never be fool enough.”

“Yes, perhaps it is they who have come. Perhaps the entire guild has banded together to save us. Or perhaps the great golden demon herself came down the mountain on a pillar of fire in this our time of need!” He audibly huffed and angled a shoulder between himself and the bewildered merchant. “If you so doubt me, then let your own senses bear testament.”

She just rolled her eyes and aimed a shrug at Mister Mougein’s unasked question. Fenell always got so irritable whenever someone didn’t play into his little cryptic all-knowing scout act. It was one of the things she liked least about her long-time companion. But, as pointing it out had never helped before, she wouldn’t bother to say anything this time either. Instead she did as he suggested, sulky though it had been, and listened harder.

Whatever was happening was growing closer quickly, to the point where there was a visible clustering of the massed goblins, and as it did it became more and more clear that it really was small scale. The most obvious point was an absence of the roar of mass melee, but there were no shouts of pain, anger, Arts, or Spells either. That absence began to paint a picture for her of who was out there.

“Fen, can you hear any talents being used?” High ranked adventurers tended to be far quieter when fighting, too experienced and calm to unintentionally shout in the middle of a fight, and needing only to murmur their talents to have Maria accept them. Some legendary figures, like her own idol Lleuli, were known to be able to cast one or two Spells silently.

“No, only what sounded like a provocation,” he said, eyes closed and head tilted to listen.

She couldn’t even hear that much, the hissing coughs and chittering of the goblins overwriting all the background noise, leaving only the sounds of arms clashing. As she focused on those, they began to sound strange to her. There was the occasional crash of metal on metal, indicating the soldier goblins were likely involved, but the distinctive noise of the common goblin’s wood and bone armor and weapons being struck was sporadic, and she heard none of the usual cracking thock that goblin weaponry made when it struck armor or shield.

“Whoever it is, either they’re not wearing armor, or they don’t need to,” she concluded.

“How would you know that?” Fenell demanded from his sulky solitude.

“Talent,” she said without taking her eyes off the commotion that was becoming more pronounced by the moment. She wasn’t a scout, nor did she have hearing on par with an elf’s, and sure she might be sick all the time, but she wasn’t helpless.

“I’ll admit I cannae hear so well after years o’ wearin’ a can on me head and gettin it drubbed day in an’ day out, but—”

“Shh!”

“Shh!”

The two of them shushed the dwarf in unison, as the goblin chief came out of its dugout hut. At least twice the size of even the largest of the goblin soldiers, and mottled black and grey in place of the usual forest colors, the creature dripped menace. Particularly with its fitted metal armor and well-maintained weaponry. She’d seen it only twice since their capture, though it had apparently appeared another time while she’d been asleep, and every single time it had been bad news. Anyone, goblin or demielf alike, who caught its attention suffered.

That first day they’d been caught, when the goblin ritualist had been showing them off, she’d made the mistake of yelling her frustration at the assembled gobs. A glare from their massively muscled chief had left her drenched in sweat and trembling on the cage floor, gasping like she’d never tasted air in her life. It was as though she’d been running and lifting weights nonstop for days on end, not that she’d ever done that before, but she couldn’t even move for a long while afterwards. Fenell fell to the same immediately after, probably because he was fussing so noisily over her.

She’d seen several goblins fall victim to the same when they crossed their chief, so it was probably a commonly used punishment since it didn’t seem to leave any lasting wounds. Even though she’d never heard or read about such a thing before, after a great deal of thought she figured it had to be some kind of Stamina sapping racial Skill.

It was uncommon, and thankfully so, but some of the higher order creatures sometimes had things like that. Mythical talents that made them all but unkillable. She wasn’t sure a creature as measly as goblin, even a goblin chief, would have such a power; but in the end, whatever the truth, it didn’t change what had happened or her desire to not repeat the experience. Particularly when it had to be in a foul mood from having its camp attacked.

The danger of the monster chief’s foul mood was proven when it gestured at their cage and hissed and coughed its way through some kind of instruction. The hulking gob summoned its retinue of the strongest and best equipped of its kind and moved to the camp’s central plaza, seemingly to await whoever was coming. She didn’t have time to appreciate that, however, as their guards had apparently been given orders to kill them. The dozen or so monsters immediately began advancing at the cage, weapons ready and faces twisted into what she could only describe as anticipation.

But she was prepared.

“[Glacial Wall]!” The bars of the cage instantly turned white with frost, then ice began to grow between them. In short order the cage had turned from vulnerability into protection, though it still held them trapped. She couldn’t cast that Spell for real, of course. Not even close! It was far too high level for her understanding of magic and meager mana pool to handle. That’s why she’d placed simpler Spells into each of the bars and the floor, resting in between every cast, in order to mimic the effect, and Maria had clearly accepted that as being close enough. It had taken a long time, and even with all that preparation she was still wiped out and wouldn’t be able to cast anything for some time, but all those pieces together had created something magnificent.

“Lass, that’s amazin! Ye sure yer only D? Never seen such a grand Spell before.” She grinned at the dwarf from her new home sprawled out on the filthy floor.

“Being a [Mage] is all about preparation,” she said with pride. It came out more as a mumbled whisper, but that was all she could manage at that moment. Fenell seemed less impressed, but he wasn’t. She knew him too well for him to hide behind that stoic look.

“Now we truly are at the mercy of whoever is out there,” he said, words punctuated by the beat of goblin weapons picking pointlessly at the ice. It was a valid thing to point out, since the ice now completely removed any other options they might have had. But there wasn’t anything else that would defend them against those spears, so—

“Oh go jump off the ring, Fen. Unless you’ve got something better? Yeah, no you don’t,” she cut him off before he could say anything. Because he would, if she let him.

With nothing further to say or do the three of them lapsed into silence. She wasn’t recovered enough to move, but she could at least inspect her handiwork from her surprisingly comfortable spot on the cage floor. The ground itself was as warm as before – which was to say not at all – but it wasn’t frozen, so that part was a success. The ice coating the bars was unfortunately too cloudy to see through, but it didn’t reach all the way to the top so they at least had a way to peek out if they needed it. Or Fen did, anyway. She and their dwarven friend weren’t tall enough.

After a while she felt well enough to sit up again. She didn’t, though. She was way more comfortable right where she was, just listening to the muffled sounds of the world outside. The goblin guards had apparently given up attacking her ice, since the insistent pecking had disappeared. Which was nice, because that noise had made it impossible to listen to anything else that might have been happening. She thought about checking on them since it was possible they’d left to join their chief or gone off to fight whoever was out there. But it was also possible they were waiting for the ice to melt or a face to show up above the edge of the wall. Which wasn’t going to happen until she knew they were safe to come out.

“I can’t tell how things are going out there anymore,” she said some little while later. The floor had begun to chill, perhaps with the oncoming night, or maybe some unaccounted-for flaw in her Spell. In either case her place on the ground had become pretty uncomfortable and had forced her to stand back up — with some assistance from Mister Mougein, she wasn’t too proud to admit.

“Mind taking a look, Fen?” He was the tallest of them, and could peek out just by standing on tiptoe. He gave her a nod, clearly curious himself. She caught his arm when he moved towards the wall. “Stay back from the edge.” He rolled his eyes at her but complied. As a scout and an archer, he had clearly thought the gap wasn’t enough to aim through from the outside, but it was stupid to take the risk when he didn’t need to. She always won those arguments since his stubbornness had never managed to outlast her own when she chose to use it.

“Well?” she asked after his silence had dragged on too long.

“There is someone out there, but there is nothing I am able to say on the matter of identity. It is simply too dark now to make out details.” That was probably not completely true, but it would be like pulling teeth to try and get more out of him and she just wasn’t up for that. The secret to winning with Fen was in picking her battles, and it wasn’t worth fighting him over something so trivial.

“Jus’ one?” The dwarf still seemed incredulous at the idea of it being a small party, let alone a single person. She was beyond caring about those sorts of details, she just wanted to get out of that cage and go home so she could take a shower, eat something good, and sleep. Everything else was a distant concern.

“That I am able to see, yes. Whoever it is, I believe they are about to challenge the goblin chief.” His report was followed immediately by a painfully loud war cry from said gob chief. It had been painful for her, at least, as unscrewing her eyes revealed the others weren’t even clutching their heads the way she was. Fen had always said she was overly sensitive, but she was pretty sure the longears just had it better than culai like herself.

“Yes, no doubt about that now.”

“Yeah thanks,” she said, taking her hands from her still ringing ears. “Any other nuggets of wisdom you’d like to share?” He gave her a look and opened his mouth, but an enormous world-shaking crash cut him off. It wasn’t loud in the way the war cry had been, but it felt like a punch to the gut and made it hard to breathe for a moment.

“What was that?” The merchant asked and she added her own silent support to the question. She was keen to know, because it felt like the back blast from a truly powerful fire spell, but there’d been no flash of light and she hadn’t felt any mana draw strong enough for such a thing anyway.

“I am not certain,” Fenell said slowly, staring out into the early evening dusk.

“Well guess!” She demanded, tired of his hedging, and tired of not knowing what was happening.

“No, I mean I am not certain I am willing to believe my eyes.” She poked him savagely for yet another infuriating dodge.

“Just say it!”

“Since you insist,” he said with a sigh, but not taking his eyes off whatever he was watching. “I will tell you, but you will not believe me.” She readied another poke but Fenell spoke up first. “It was the goblin chief’s axe.”

“What?”

“Lad, axes dunnae make a sound like that.”

“I agree. Axes are not known to make large craters in the ground, and challenging a monster chief solo is widely considered a rather messy way to kill oneself.” He tried to shrug casually but it came off jerky and jittery instead of flippant like she was sure he had been aiming for. “Yet it would seem I must advance the notion that common knowledge might be flawed in some cases.” The more tightly wound he got, the harder it was to understand him. Which meant she just had to kick him into making sense again.

“Cut the stupid noblespeak, Fen! What’s going on?”

“They are fighting,” he said, finally tearing his eyes away to look at her, “and the goblin chief is losing.”

“An’ the retinue? The guards?”

“Gone. I—” Another crashing boom cut him off. An angry woman’s voice reached them, though she didn’t understand a word of it. A moment later there was a horrifying crunching noise and the sound of something heavy and metallic hitting the ground.

“The chief is down,” Fenell said, though quietly. “She,” he blinked a few times before shrinking back down from where he’d perched on one of their packs without her noticing. He seemed trouble, and not inclined to elaborate, so she prodded him again.

“She?”

“The woman fighting out there,” he waved a hand vaguely. “I believe she just punched it. To death.” He was quiet for a moment before adding. “Its head exploded.”

“Oh,” she said.