The plan was a simple one, at least it would be after they found where the Goblin Glutton was. They would make it so its attention was fully focused on Dean. All he needed to do was fight it for three minutes, he didn’t even need to kill or hit the thing. Just keep it busy and distracted. Avery was the only one who knew what a Goblin Glutton was. Dean and Mary had never seen or heard of a Goblin Glutton before. Dean hadn’t got far enough in his studies yet and Mary was a normal civilian. She had no dreams of becoming a hunter and watching over low ranked gates was easy pay for someone who retired years before. Though they had never heard of this monster before, with how Avery was describing it made it seem like a tremendous task to even harm the thing.

“So that’s the plan?” Dean asked, he was hunched over and inspecting the rough plan layout that Avery drew in the red dirt. Avery may be a good shot with the bow but boy were her art skills worse than a child’s.

“That’s the plan.” She was squatting down, she used the stick she drew with and pointed it at a drawing of a large simple goblin and what seemed to be a drawing of Dean. The lines of the sketched out characters in the red dirt were rough and wobbly.

Dean took a closer look at the depiction of him, touched his forehead and looked to Mary. “Is my forehead really that big?” Mary held in a laugh but her face was evident of the struggle.

“Yep.” Avery replied as if it was a matter of fact. Mary covered her smiling lips behind a fist and turned her back to Dean, trying not to show him how amusing the drawing was. The drawing of him in the dirt was eighty percent forehead, Dean’s forehead was averagely sized but the drawing couldn’t help but make the old lady laugh. If she was able to have kids, she wished it would be someone like Dean and Avery. If only her husband could have met the two, she was sure he would have got on well with Dean.

[LittleMoon is amused]

[LittleMoon wishes to capture Avery’s drawing]

[LittleMoon has gifted you 50 Points]

“Yeah yeah, laugh it up.” Dean sulked. The drawing of Avery far in the back was much more detailed and prettier than herself. She wasn’t average looking, she had a cute charm to her but it looked like the depiction of her was a chibi out of a shoujo manga. All sparkle eyed and such. Dean couldn’t help but imagine this ‘LittleMoon’ laughing until tears rolled down her cheeks and showing her friends the photo on her phone. He didn’t know what she looked like but he felt they were a female with that name. Avery joined in with Mary with the laughing, it was a good thing that they lightened the mood up after the bad news. Strategy and skill are useful but low morale could make both of them useless.

…

Back at the goblin fort there was mayhem. Two goblins were shouting at a group of ten who were quickly grabbing food rations from their food storage. One of the yelling goblins called out: “Before it eats us, grab it all quickly!” His green skin looked ill with worry. The other goblin next to him shouted: “Hurry! Faster!” The ten goblins were sweating profusely as they was pulling down ominous meats hung out to dry, and the fruits and vegetables that had been stored in wooden boxes. “Bring the box, we don’t have enough time!” Two goblins pushed the one who was pulling fruit from the wooden box, it seemed a lot smaller in comparison to the other two. The both of them picked up the box and left the food storage. The Goblin who was pushed to the ground scrapped his legs. The small goblin wept, he was far from being an adult, he was only five years old. Four more years and he would be an adult. The goblin who was telling them to hurry over came to the young goblin’s side and helped him up “Tak, don’t cry.” The small goblin shoved him aside and got to his feet, “Alu, let’s run. We can flee and he’ll starve.” ‘Tak, you know what happened last time. He’ll call us back if we leave and then we’ll be his supper.” Tak looked out to the entrance, “If we got further away we could-“ “Tak, enough. We got faraway, we wouldn’t make it.”

It’s not like the goblins didn’t try to run after they saw their Chief eat his right hand man, Tak was the child of the right hand, he was the first one to see his father be eaten by the man he idolised. At first they gathered their best fighters equipped with what better quality weapons they had. Most of it was chipped and rusted from a thick coating of blood. The Goblin tribe was not the cleanest and hardened blood on their weapons was a way to boast: ‘Look at how many I’ve killed, my weapon has the blood of thousands’ they thought it said. Ready for battle, they charged at the beast that once was their leader who watched over the tribe before they were tiny balls of green with limps not strong enough to hold weapons to protect themselves… though they were the best the tribe had to offer, they easily became food for the monster’s bottomless appetite. After they became nothing but a small green crunchy snack, the tribe packed the things they needed to survive as quickly as they could. If you can’t defeat it, run. They live off combat but they weren’t thick enough as to fight a losing battle. Their was no honour in that, no joy. While some of the goblins were distracting him with their rations (sacrifices that needed to be made) the others fled from their home. It would be a bitter taste asking for help from the other goblin tribes but they would do what they needed to survive. The beast may be strong but it was fat and slow, surely they would easily outrun it with their agile bodies.

Ten yards away from the fort, they had cut a path through the blue shrubbery in a hurry. Over exhausting themselves so the children could follow behind. Fear of them being eaten drove them to the limit, things were looking good for them now, they just needed to join another goblin tribe. But, things never go that easy. With a harrowing shriek, the goblins shook in fear. The fat beast that was once their chief cried out in a sound that was far from a goblin’s. The sound moved the bushes, scared the forest’s critters to flee. The sacrifices must have not been fast enough to feed the glutton and they became his meal soon after. And now he was hungry. The wretched sound penetrated the goblin’s ears, sending vibrations through their bodies and then their legs stopped. They beat their legs, thinking it was fear stopping them, but it wasn’t fear that controlled them. It was something else. They turned and started to return home. A bloated siren was singing them home, beckoning for food. With no control over their bodies, they were merely hanging pieces of meat, puppeteered by a gluttonous beast. Now they only had one option: to survive for as long as they could, keep the beast fed. It was no easy task, it looked as if his hunger was bottomless but they’ll try.

The two years of rations had died down to eight months worth in two hours.

In a hopeless situation were death loomed over them with a clock that slowly ticked, what could they do but try and slow the clock as best they could

…

“So that’s their hideout?” Dean asked Avery, the group was hunched over, hidden in a patch of blue vegetation.

“It could be, there could always be multiple goblin tribes.” Avery responded, she took a look at the surroundings. Ahead of them was a cave, the inside not visible through a curtain of dark. The outside was littered with the skulls and bones of beasts, to the sides of the cave’s entrance were unlit torches. It was as if the goblins were beckoning for someone to come and challenge them. Avery scratched her head, “Goblin Gluttons are always alone, they eventually eat their companions when the hunger gets too bad.”

“So that’s what the bones are for? Oh god…” Mary said, her hand was covering her mouth, stunned with fear. Avery cut in, “No. Goblins usually leave their prey’s corpses skinned of it’s meat outside as a warning to others.” Mary was speechless, it would be a horrifying sight for anyone who didn’t have a stomach for working in a slaughter house. Avery let out a breath, “Either way, we should check.” She picked up a rock, stood up and threw it with enough power for it to hit against the wall of the cave. The loud cluck echoed through the cave, Avery crouched back down, hidden by the vegetation again and put her hand out to the other two and said “Be still.”

Minutes after the rock’s clunk echoed throughout the cave, a group of goblins came out. The goblins were split into two groups. One riding packs of wild wolves and others were riding large spiders.

Avery squinted her eyes and looked at the goblin riders, “It’s not here. Their numbers are too big if there were to be a Goblin Glutton in their group. We should wait for them to go back in.” Avery said in a hushed tone. If Dean and Mary weren’t as close as they were it would have been lost to the wind.

They hid there, waiting for the group of goblins to go back into their cave. But that didn’t seem like it was going to happen anytime soon. They were vigilantly looking for the thing that threw the rock. Maybe they were desperate for a fight. “Give up already” Dean said in a whisper, what was minutes for the group felt like hours of crouching there. Avery was still as a tree, she became one with the plant life. Unmoving, she kept an eye on the goblins searching the outside of the cave. One of the goblins who was on a wolf started to slowly walk over to the three. The wolf’s nose close to the floor, following a scent trail that was only visible to it. The goblin on it’s back was stroking and patting the wolf’s side, in a vile tribal tongue it was complimenting the wolf. As the wolf and goblin got closer and closer, everyone’s eyes followed the two. It was as if the otherworldly forest had gone silent, the sniffing of the wolf’s sharp snout, and a gentle wind pushing against the wolf’s fur were the only things that played in the group’s ears. Mary started to shiver, fear was building up in her as it got closer and closer. Dean slowly moved his hand making sure not to make a noise and placed it on her shoulder to stop her from shaking.

The wolf now was only three foot away from the group, it’s nose went from sniffing the ground to the air. The breathing of it was loud as it was inhaling as much of the smell as it could. The three shifted themselves, read to run at any minute. At two foot away, the goblin’s face had became much more defined through the slivers of the bush. It’s green dirty pointed face revealed a grin, it’s teeth crooked and yellow. Dean was surprised that the drawing they showed in his school didn’t do it enough justice. At one foot away, a putrid smell that radiated from the goblin and wolf had penetrated their noses, it was a smell of something wild and metallic. Any closer and the wolf would be touching Avery. The wolf’s expression changed from curiosity, searching for what the scent was, to a snarl. She saw her reflection within it’s feral eyes and then, within a second, the wolf opened it’s jaw to dig it’s fangs into Avery’s face. But she was quicker. With her free hand she pushed her fist into the wolf’s throat and summoned an arrow. The wolf’s mouth lit up from the arrow being brought into existence. And then as it appeared in her hand, she pushed it hard enough through the roof of it’s mouth to embed it into it’s brain sending it to the afterlife. She quickly pulled her hand out of it’s mouth before she would be dragged down with it. It dropped to the floor, turned from a living thing to a corpse.

Dean gripped his pipe tightly, stood up and swung at the goblin that was unbalanced by it’s mount suddenly dropping. The swing was strong enough to send the goblin flying, it spun and crashed into a tree nearby. It’s spine loudly popped as it cracked against the thick tree, and it squealed in pain unable to move it’s body.

[DarkLie24 enjoyed the gore]

[100 points has been gifted]

[DarkLie24 wishes for more blood]

“Run.” Avery told the other two, all three turned away from the group of monsters that noticed their comrades dying and ran. Dean quickly tossed Mary over his shoulder, someone of her age wouldn’t be able to outrun those things. After the two days of training Dean had done with Arthur, carrying Mary and running was a much easier feat to do than it would have been before. The group of monsters started to chase him, more flooded out from the cave. They had poked a hornet’s nest, the number of goblins, spiders and wolves was much larger than they thought it would be.

“Bloody DireWolves!” Avery spat.

“Why am I always running away from a stampede of monsters?!? Is someone out there doing this to me on purpose?” Dean shouted. The red soil of the forest was being picked up be their heavy footsteps as they ran from the hoard of monsters.