(Joat’s POV)

*Whoosh*

The sounds of people re-logging finally stops, and I see the rising sun dawn over the village, over my division

“Oook, everyone here? Count yourselves out”

“1”

“2”

“3”

They start shouting ascending numbers. Overall, my members look pretty well off; all members of the Shield teams have a hide shield.

The hide shield, we made by getting some wooden discs (which we collected from Jenna’s barrels, once we asked her of course) and covering them in a wolf pelt.

However, because we made those shields, we ended up running out of time and most of the Attack, Skirmish and Support teams don’t have helmets.

But I told them how the armor works so they were mostly alright with it.

“47”

“48”

“49”

…

..

.

Where’s number 50? I look at everyone confused

“It’s you boss”

“50” I smile, as if nothing ever happened.

So everyone is online, even Miss Nameless, Sharpy and the Pinky’s.

The all came on about 20 minutes ago, looking forward to play…but were caught by surprise at what was going on.

Sharpy was a bit unsettled, ok quite angry, about being separated from Miss Nameless so I had to assign her as the support messenger for his team.

Pinky’s took the raid news well, but I could feel that PinkyS seemed quite sad about something…

I open up my chat

DillyDally, my division is ready to go

Good timing. Meet up at the cave

“To the cave!”

I walk in the front and let everyone follow me…ahhh, such a powerful feeling.

We walk through the forest…the wolves don’t even stand a chance.

The wolves have 30 hp and it takes even the weakest player only 3 hits to kill them.

I had everyone get the strength stat as well as the Vit, if they didn’t have brutality. This is so they can do some damage and live longer.

We can do this without worry because stats are removed upon death…so we can all play around with adding stats. However, assigning points is permanent…which is a bit strange; because if you don’t get the stat back…you won’t have those points either.

Bit of a strange system, but then again; if you’re assigning points then you probably are going to want to use that stat again.

So I guess that stops people completely rebuilding their characters upon death…

We quickly reach the cave, seeing it filled with people.

Great! Everyone’s here.

“Raid Leader Braxel, we’ve come!” I give him a wave and he gives me a nod.

Everyone gives our hide shields a good look, they look mildly impressed…Why only mildly?

Anyways, I walk up to him and stand by him in the mouth of the new cave, with DillyDally at his right.

Everyone looks our way and quickly hush eachother to silence.

“Let’s go kill some goblins” Braxel says gruffly

“YEA”

Braxel turns and walks into the cave.

I quickly follow behind him.

The cave is a corridor that we walk through 5 a side, but the corridor quickly ends up in a large spacious cavern, with 7 exits.

However we’re not the only ones in the cavern

…

..

.

“CHARGE” Braxel yells as he charges

“KILL” the mass of 10 goblins charge too

Well…I won’t even bother charging, because Braxel just killed 3 already…

About 3 seconds after the charge started…it ends.

“So Braxel…which corridor do we take?” I go up to him while he’s wiping a bit of goblin blood off his horns.

“We don’t”

…

..

.

Ok?

We're all quite confused on what to do and silently ponder for a couple of minutes until we hear footsteps come from one of the exits.

“INTRUDERS? KILL!”

More goblins?

We all turn around to see a group of 11 coming out one of the exits.

So 1 more?

Ok, no big deal.

“CHAARGE”

Braxel leads 50 people on a charge that literally demolishes the goblins…wow that’s terrifying.

DillyDally comes up to my division, who are mostly here (Thrash and the attack group charged with Braxel…).

“Braxel says that it would be best if you do not do anything for the moment”

Hmm…is it a ploy so that he gets more recognition as the rightful leader? Or is it because he’s just bloodthirsty?

I mean we don’t get xp and I don’t see anything dropping from goblins wearing nothing but loincloths…

Well whatever, my division needs a rest; because we’ve been working since midday yesterday with little rest.

We all plop down and relax on the stone floor…

“INT-”

“CHAARGE”

Well those goblins are screwed.

…

About an hour has passed, and the goblin count has increased to 19. Seems like a new group of goblins will appear every 5 or so minutes with 1 more than last time…

However my division hasn’t attacked a single goblin yet (excluding Thrash and Co.).

So instead, we’ve been taking turns to mine the veins in the entrance cave and have gotten a bountiful 36 iron ores.

Apart from that…it’s just been sitting around, building a campfire for cooking. Partially because I think Braxel’s group are going to get very hungry soon and partially because some of the players haven’t added perception and even some that have…don’t have very good vision in the dark cave.

I actually didn’t notice it was dark, till Lancel tripped and stumbled around like a blind fool.

Having night vision is extremely useful...and it’s very entertaining to watch those without it stumble around.

Over the hour a couple of DillyDally’s division got hurt, but that’s mostly because they fell down from lack of vision and were half-trampled.

Thus everyone is quite happy with the fires that we finished lighting a few minutes ago.

Although…the goblins aren’t happy

“Intruders make light!”

“Kill them!”

This time 2 groups come, from adjacent corridors. Both groups hold 20 goblins.

Why 2 groups? Because of the fire?

“JOAT, REMOVE THE FIRE” Braxel shouts as he charges the goblins.

“Guys, pat it out” everyone sighs a little when I say it; guess they were looking forward to a hot meal.

We pat out our fires and see the goblins be fully demolished in mere seconds...though quite a few kills were from chargers stumbling onto the goblin in the dark...well that must be the reason why Braxel shouts charge every time; so they know where to charge...

It takes them about 5 seconds to kill 40 goblins…scary

Another 5 minutes pass and it’s 21 from each corridor…but thankfully they come from adjacent ones so they get massacred by the same charge.

Hmm, so when we get to 30 we should have 30 goblins coming from 3 corridors?

Seeing as though there’s 7 corridors

…

..

.

That’s a lot of goblins…

I turn to Squirrel who’s pouting slightly over the unlit campfire…

“Squirrel...how many goblins would be in the first corridor if it went up to 70 goblins coming out?”

My math isn’t the greatest but I bet she knows her stuff

“2440” Wow that was quick “But, if we use the theory that every 10 waves, a new corridor of

goblins will come…we’ll have a total of 10535 goblins”

…

..

.

Holy mother of Aiag…and I’m not the only one who is just a bit mindboggled by the number.

Pretty much everyone in close vicinity heard that…so pretty much my entire division.

“Phew, thank god we’re fighting them only a couple at a tim-”

“SHHHH” Everyone jumps at me to stop the jinxing words out of my mouth

Crushed by a whole group of cuties…as well as a fat hippo, elephant and some other men…it’s a blessing(?) and also quite painful.

I “MMMMGH” from underneath them and they all get off, leaving me 82 hp less than healthy.

“Sorry, but it’s not like I jinxed it”

*TWITCH*

Everyone has a momentary nervous twitch when I say that

Ok, shouldn’t have said that…But I don’t believe in jinxes

“Joat’s Division…you’re up” Dillydally calls us to arms.

“Let’s get this show on the road guys!”

Everyone stands up raring to go

“Hippo and Goats are up first”

The Hippo and his team members stand up and crack their knuckles

…

..

.

“Where’s the Goats?”

“They went to have a look at one of the corridors” The monkey-beastlady tells me…a little late!

*BLEAT BLEAT BLEAT*

The whole room turns towards the bleating noise coming from one of the corridors.

A moment later…silence

…

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.

“EVERYONE READY UP!” Braxel screams out

*RRRRRRRRUMBLE*

“WHAT’S HAPPENING?” I can barely hear myself over the din of the small earthquake that is happening…well this is oddly familiar…

“THEY’RE COMING!” Braxel shouts and he produces a long shaft with a pointy end from his inventory along with many of his division

…

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A spear? Who made that and how are there so many of them? Wait now’s not the time!

“HOW MANY?” Squirrel shouts to Braxel with a worrying tone

The rumbling stops

“ALL OF THEM” Braxel replies

…

..

.

“JOAAAAT”

Well I still don’t believe in jinxes…

*RRRRRRUMBLE*

The rumbling sound increases substantially as the horde is probably getting closer.

Zzoid, what are we doing now?

A shield team for each corridor, since they’re 5 abreast so our teams will block off the masses.

That’s only 3 corridors…but that’ll work!

I quickly see my 3 shield teams choose adjacent corridors and create their little shield wall.

Tikari, have Attack and Skirmish teams backup the shield teams

Already done Boss

Good girl

Support team; 3 of you go to shield teams and the other 4 head to a 4th corridor quick!

I see the whole division move and soon we’ve got 4 corridors blocked. Although 1 corridor only has 7 people in it (since me and my ‘advisors’ went and joined them there).

The corridor stretches to outside my eyesight and the ceiling is only a little above our heads.

“CHARRRRGE” Braxel roars once again

…

..

.

Just what is he doing?

DillyDally’s Division split in 3 and charge down the corridors.

DillyDally, can you spare somebody to help block the 4th

I can spare 2, sending them your way

DillyDally is actually thoughtful of the situation.

I really don’t know why we even thought to have Braxel as raid leader…he just shouted charge and ran off with a makeshift spear.

But then again…the entire division just did the same thing…

I’m going to ignore them and hope they do just fine.

EVERYONE, GOOD LUCK!

Sending the message to everyone, that’s my duty as a division leader done.

Now to focus on the corridor infront…

Its dark…and I can’t see anything but I can hear the rumbling

“JOAT”

I turn around to see Honey and some black jackal next to him calling over to me

They sprint up to me and I put Honey on the front and the Jackal on the back.

Zzoid, Zzand, Crow-beastman, Honey and I are on the front line, while Ravena, Beaver-beastlady, Tikari and the Jackal are behind us.

As we’re finalizing our line…I spot a large mass of green, far away in the corridor.

…

..

.

Wow…that’s a lot of goblins…

"JOAT HOW MANY" Shouts Zzoid

"LETS JUST SAY, IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO COUNT"

…

…

(Apexus’ POV)

“CHAAARGE”

Yea that’s what I’m talking about!

I charge behind Leader Braxel, with my new spear in hand.

LETS KILL SOME GOBLINS!

We charge into a corridor and I force my way to the front. Hehe, first to kill!

We charge for a minute till I can see a horde of goblins running towards us wearing nothing but loincloths…Ha! This will be fun!

“RUN ‘EM THROUGH”

“KILL THEM ALL”

“YAAAAAAH”

A number of different battle cries arise from me and the ones around me.

“INTRUDERS KIL-“

*STAB*

My spear impales the tiny goblin, ending its worthless life

*SNAP*

It breaks in two and I take another step before I collide with the mass of goblins

-48

*SNAP*

OW!

-10

“OOF”

A large body collides with me effectively crushing me between them and the goblins

The pressure increases tenfold within seconds and I feel the last bit of hp drain

…

..

.

What the hell happened?

…

…

(Anoobis’ POV)

This Joat is certainly smart…but I am still more genius than him.

“RUN!”

We all turn our backs on the closing horde and run out the corridor.

Quickly, all of his other people run out and everyone charges to the exit!

Well I can’t deny that he’s smart…no way can they block thousands of charging goblins…It’d be the same as if they were trying to block a tsunami.

The goblins themselves won’t do much, but when there are thousands of them, the pressure will be huge. And we only had 9 people…so that was not going to be a smart move staying there.

Everyone quickly funnels at the exit and when I’m just about to go through, 4 endless streams of goblins burst out of the corridors, all in nothing but loincloths.

“INTRUDERS!”

…Oh god that’s a lot of them.

“EVERYONE OUT” Joat shouts over the din of charging goblins

He takes a pick out…what is he doing?

Swinging it towards the wall at the side of the exit I see a small crack appear

…

..

.

Ah, so that’s what he’s doing!

I quickly run through the exit and into the corridor behind everyone else…no one else is following me but I’m sure I wasn’t the last person.

Looking back, I see the blueish lizard and the squirrel-beastlady using their picks furiously on the sides of the wall.

*RUUMBLE*

The cavern shakes and I see the corridor behind me collapse down. Last thing I see of the 3 is that Joat is punching the lizard?

Hahaha what fools!

Joat and those two are certainly smart…but only a fool would sacrifice themselves! I would’ve gotten a few lower beings to sacrifice themselves for me…Haha! This is why I am the genius and they are the fools.

Chuckling to myself, I keep running to the entrance cavern and out the cave

…

…

(Joat’s POV)

The goblins are closing in rapidly

“KILL ME” Zzoid screams at me

“WHAT?” I bash him in the face dutifully killing him while asking the question. No time to waste

“KILL ME” Tikari screams

“I DON’T KILL WOMEN”

“DAMMIT JUST KILL ME”

“NO”

“JUST DO IT”

…

…

(Baila’s POV)

Phew we made it…thanks to Joat, Zzoid and Tikari. Well that’s what this black Jackal guy was laughing about when we left the cave.

Apparently he found it funny that they sacrificed themselves to cave the corridor in…

…

“Baila, you can stop it now…he’s dead” Big Sister puts a hand on my shoulder, as she delivers a kick to this Jackal’s dead body.

I take a deep breath and give one last kick to his corpse before letting it rest in peace.

*Clap Clap Clap*

Everyone around me claps at my great performance…well I didn’t give them time to join in so I guess they just let me vent my fury as their own.

With me finished…we leave his body to the forest and walk back to the village.

I think Joat gets a couple of plus points for being so sacrificial…but I’m still going to get my revenge…very soon!

“Hey Baila” PJ whispers to me as we’re walking through the forest

“What is it?”

“You know that you can give him a hug when he revives”

*Thump*

Ow, why’d my heart beat so strongly? Guess it was the anticipation of crushing him in the hug

*Thump*

Ow, why is it doing that?

“I’ll hug him alright” I muster an evil tone, which PJ just smiles at.

“You do that”

She makes space between us, thus ending the conversation.

After a short while we’ve arrived back at the village to see a large number of pillars of light.

“Damn those goblins!”

“Damn whoever made those crappy spears!”

“Damn Braxel! Who thought charging was a good idea?”

…

..

.

They’re all complaining and the complaints quickly turn from their enemies to Braxel…since it kind of was his idea to charge.

And soon, they’re all calling for his blood.

We don’t do anything because we’re still alive and happy, so we don’t have any beef with Braxel…

*Whoosh*

Braxel appears looking pretty much identical.

Immediately the whole square of people rush at him to complain and shout at him

“QUIET!”

The complaining masses quieten some, but only after a couple more shouts from Braxel and a couple of others still loyal to him do the masses go silent.

Braxel walks over to the tavern and climbs the stairs.

“Once the goblin horde came…there was nothing to be done”

“So why didn’t we run away? Asks a cat-beastlady with breasts as bountiful as mine.

“Because the goblins would give chase as our Boss found out” The crow-beastman caws

Everyone thinks about it for a second before nodding at the idea…and once some realize that Joat isn’t here…the rumor of a cave collapse quickly spreads around.

“Ahem” Braxel coughs

The attention goes back to him

“Because one corridor has few goblins”

“HUH?” The crowd collectively exclaims their shock…but then again, I was filled in by Zzoid that Braxel survived 15 hours in there, so he must have found the way to survive that long…and that was charging the corridor with only a few goblins?

“So one of the corridors only had a couple of goblins and we just happened to choose the wrong one?” asks a large black lion-beastman

“Yes”

“What bullsh-”

“HE’S telling the truth” someone speaks up hesitantly from around me…oh its Charmine!

“What do you mean?” The black lion-beastman states with some contempt

“Where’s DillyDally and a couple of other people? I count 14 people missing from here”

…

..

.

“EH?” 14 people are missing? But that just means that they’re still making their characters, no?

“Check your friends list…they’re all still a higher level hence they’re still alive” Charmine adds speaking a bit more confidently

Ah! That’s brilliant!

I open up my friends list, just like everyone else and then look down my small list

…

..

.

Oh...

I feel a small twinge of something that puts me down…disappointment?

I think I really wanted to hug him

…

…

(Joat’s POV)

...We're not dead?

The goblins…have…stopped?

No wonder I could hear her perfectly and that we're still alive.

I look away from her and see that the mass have slowed down to a stop, leaving a tiny semi-circle of space where me and Squirrel are

…

..

.

O…k?

The goblins are all shuffling from one foot to another but they’re not charging us with screams of kill or anything…what’s going on?

They all look at me and then at Squirrel and then back at me…

We of course just look at eachother and then at the goblins wondering just what’s with the goblins’ strange behaviour?

*Rumble*

The horde split apart somewhat causing a slight tremor in the ground. I see that the horde is not all in view as the corridors are still filled with goblins…well all but one it seems.

Through the parting crowd comes a goblin, slightly larger than the rest and wearing armor!

Well, it’s armor is still limited to ragged leather, but it has a shield and a rusty sword too! But most importantly is his helmet; which is a half-helm with two large horns jutting out its head

This must be a decently important goblin!

He walks out the crowd and right up to me. He’s still a goblin so I’m a good head and a bit bigger than him, but when he’s got over 10,000 goblins behind him…he’s a lot scarier than he usually would be.

“Who are you?”

“Joat, and this is my slave” I point to Squirrel looks at me in mild shock…what?

…Well I kind of had to say that, since he didn’t kill us for some reason…and that might just be because I’m a hobgoblin.

“Ah, so that is why you did not kill this one. But what are you doing at my gates?” He starts to interrogate me with a suspicious tone

Aha, so that's why Zzoid asked me to kill him, smart man. Since they saw me kill him they no longer suspect that i'm part of the raid group...

Identify

MINI-BOSS:GateGuard Rastiek [lvl5]Health40/40Attack:10-12Defense:8

Level 5 mini-boss? that's a bit easy...I wonder whether he has some special ability or something

“I was not a part of them, I was simply returning home Rastiek…do you not recognize me?”

He looks surprised for a second before he claps his hands

“Ah! So you must be one of the younglings coming back from the trial...and this is the third time one has come back as a hobgoblin in our history”

Aha, so goblins do become hobgoblins…I think I read that somewhere but can’t quite remember what it was. But it seems that monster evolution is a thing, great!

Rastiek tone immediately becomes a lot friendlier and even bows his head to me…along with the entire horde…scary!

“Yes, it has been a long time; so long I do not remember when I left”

“Exactly 1 day from 4 years. You are lucky to have arrived when you did!”

“Yes, I cannot wait”

I’m guessing this ‘trial’ is one of those throw them out into the wilderness for a while.

“Also, forgive me for being so rude towards you, I suspected you were destroying the entrance to block us, but really you were helping us stop their attacks on our gates”

“Of course, I would help my family without a doubt”

“Of course you would” He and the other goblins look at me a little more respect…because I said something nice?…but when there’s thousands of them doing that…it’s terrifying!

…

..

.

Oooh, should I do it?

“Rastiek…take me to your leader” I put a slightly monotone voice earning me a strange look from Rastiek...but he writes it off as nothing

“Follow me”

He turns around and starts walking through the parting horde.

I take Squirrel by the arm and follow Rastiek through the horde…

Sorry about the slow update, but writers block is an unavoidable pain.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter and continue rating and giving delicious reviews :D