Tokki was sulking for the next few nights after being soaked in the waterfall, he avoided being near his master.

He did not understand why he had been treated like so, it had seemed to him that things had been going well. The elf had been very pleased with them taking over the cave that the waterfall was hiding, even though it did feel too bright to Tokki’s tastes and he had a hard time shaking off the feeling of bad juju that had been instilled into him by hearing stories of it as a youngling.

He did learn not to defecate inside the cave out of fear, but for him, the whole practice seemed irrational.

Even though he was still feeling a little sore about the incident, Tokki had to admit that things had been going rather well, he had never had access to as much food as he did now, anything he had foraged before had been taken by goblins higher in the hierarchy and so he had always had to eat his food raw, before bringing some back to the settlement.

Still, Tokki had begun to steal portions of meat and hiding them under his sleeping pile made out of moss, he reasoned that he could never know when the charity of the elf would stop.

Arnith had also given him items to own and he was also happy that he would not have to worry about having those taken from him. The elf made him a small bag, a water skin and a new belt to hang things off from, and finally a kind of weapon that consisted of a round stone put into a long and thin leather pouch, the goblin was skeptical about the usefulness of the weapon, but the elf demonstrated its effectiveness on a lizard that had been caught in one of their traps.

Arnith had whipped the weapon around in a small arc and when it connected with the head of the lizard it made its skull go splat, the goblin was much impressed.

The elf had ordered him to practice with the weapon, another thought that the goblin had initially considered as unreasonable, how hard could it be.

He soon found that he had been wrong to think so, as the first few times he had tried to use the weapon to hit the spot that the elf had marked on the cave wall did not turn out successful. What happened, when he tried to imitate the spinning motion that the elf had shown him, was that he had managed to hit himself instead.

Whenever he had become tired of getting hit by his weapon and tried to sneak away, the elf had appeared behind him and gave him a clot on the ear.

It was during the third of such practice sessions that his master came to tell him to stop and prepare to go out. Tokki was glad to have the unpleasant activity over, he no longer hit himself so often, but it did still happen.

“Where are we going master?” he asked the elf as he followed him out from behind the waterfall.

“We need to find out who our neighbors are.” The elf replied and waved him to go ahead of him.

Tokki knew that being the first in a group was always the most dangerous job, but there was no way he could make the elf go in front of him, at least when they were moving around they did it in a very sneaky kind of way, the goblin could respect that, he had always thought that the loud and boisterous goblins of his former tribe were too easy to detect.

The pair left Brightwater on the left side of the gorge, the opposite side from where they had initially approached the hideout. They had scouted the area on this side only a little, enough to make sure there was no one living just outside of the ring of light that the waterfall made and to find a few good spots to plant traps into.

It did not take long for them to enter unknown territory; the ground here was made out of small valleys in between the great stalagmites. Whenever they arrived at a ridge, they would stop to listen and observe as best as they could in the low light of the cavern, before continuing down into a new one.

It was after going over six of these ridges, that they had found the first spot of interest, in the valley below there was a small cluster of giant mushrooms surrounding a pond, the shrooms seemed to be a staple for the fauna in the underground and wherever they were found a higher chance of activity could be expected.

The pair observed the cluster for a bit before deciding to chance to go down to inspect it. When they arrived, Arnith went close to the edge of the pond, all the time keeping an eye on the water for any suspicious activity. Tokki went around in between the mushrooms with his head down near the ground.

They had developed a method to their scouting, The elf would keep alert, keeping an ear out for anything moving in the darkness, while Tokki went around a spot of interest, with his well-developed sense of smell and night vision, he could better find signs of animals and goblins.

The goblin went searching around in between the mushroom trees. Tokki caught a light whiff of something different in the air, but it was only for a moment and it was gone before he could place the origin of it, something in him made him go alert.

The place seemed strange to him, normally a water source as easily accessible as this one would be surrounded by the many signs of beasts and goblin-kin. Having the edible shrooms surround it would attract even more visitors, so the absence of activity unnerved him.

The goblin turned towards his master to express his worries and advise the elf to leave this place, but he saw that the elf had already learned not to linger and was slowly retreating from the pond while moving backward.

“Movement in the water, something big.” The elf whispered as he came close to the goblin.

Tokki needed to know no more and began to move away as well.

They had put some distance between themselves and the silent pond when Tokki noticed something on the ground. There was a weird looking pale strip, caught on the sharp angle of a rock and when Tokki picked it up, the scent that he had smelled before came back to him. The goblin knew now, what had made the hairs on his neck stand up before.

He was holding a piece of snakeskin, it probably had been caught on the rock as the creature had been close to shedding.

“Here master, take.” Said Tokki as he handed the strip to the elf.

Arnith held the skin close to his face and brought his glow-stone close to examine it. Suddenly he threw it to the ground. “WOoehh.” The elf made sounds of being disgusted and he shook his hand as if there were still pieces of the skin on it.

“I hate snakes,” Arnith said when he had ceased reacting to his disgust.

Tokki was not surprised by the elf’s reaction; though he would have been filled with fear instead, this difference reaffirmed to the goblin that his master was a fearless and powerful warrior. The species of giant pythons that lived in the underground were known to the goblins as the arbiters of death, apex predators, whose power and cunning was most feared. To best one of the monsters would be a legendary feat, surely to be retold by the brood mothers for generations.

“Snake sleep in the water, eat those who come near, this bad place.”

“Then we are lucky, we left before it attacked, but will it follow us?”

“Maybe.” The goblin answered. Though the Snakes had long memories and would seek out vengeance if slighted, they were generally considered as lazy predators, content to wait in their lairs for the food to come to them, so it could go either way.

“Best we move onwards then.” The elf said and began to walk away while taking the occasional peek behind.

The excursion went on for a while, the landscape was much unchanged for the few hours that they kept exploring the small valleys. They found a couple of more clusters of mushrooms, but there seemed to be no large predators about, only various sizes of rats and lizards, that were common in the region.

Arnith had decided to turn around and return in and half-circle, so as not to cover the same ground twice. Tokki was glad to be heading back, he did see the merit in scouting out territory this far from home, also he had not been able to shake the unnerving feeling of almost having become snake food and he would much rather be in their safe cave behind the waterfall.

Knowing that they were returning home, the goblin became lax in his observation of the surroundings, maybe if he had been more alert he would have noticed some movement in between the rocks that they were passing and so could have maybe saved them from what was to come, but he was not and so could not.

Tokki felt being hit on his hip with a light tap, accompanied by a small whooshing sound. He moved his hand down and found a dart stuck to the small bag that was hanging from his hip.

“RUN MASTER!” Tokki yelled and began sprinting away from the direction that the dart had come from.

The goblin ran for all of his worth, with as much speed as his short feet could muster. Their attackers had left all pretenses of stealth and he could hear whoops and cries of triumph behind him.

The ground here was littered with loose rocks and he fell on his face when one of them moved beneath his foot. The fall saved him, as a couple of darts flew just over his back. Wasting no time, he drew himself back up with a jump and resumed his flight.

“This way, master!” Tokki yelled when he saw that they had come close to a great stalagmite.

Having gone behind the pillar of stone and safe from the ranged attacks of the sneaky goblins, Tokki was happy, the sound of their hunters was becoming more distant.

“Follow Tokki, master.” He said as he continued to run.

The sounds of the ambush now became far distant and Tokki slowed down, running blind was not a good practice in the underground, never know if you run into something other that could eat you.

“Master, it is safe now.”

“Master?”

“MASTER???”