Elora slumped exhausted. That damned goblin had led her and Jack through the worst 5 hour trek of her life. At least the goblins seemed to have stopped at a small cave. Elora straightened up and walked into the cave.

[You have entered a safe zone][Kif’s Lair]popped up in front her her eyes. Safe zones were different in Global Conflict than in other games. Logging out anywhere that was not a safe zone incurred a minor penalty to the player. Logging out in combat incurred a full death penalty. Also respawn points could only be set to safe zones. You could still fight in a safe zone just like in normal areas. Elora walked in and idly registered her respawn to Kifs safe zone. Considering that they had spent 5 hours running from the Shadow elves home town to reach the border it made sense that there would be some Side of Dark save zones in the area.

There was a fire going in the cave and a small goblin girl with [Goblin Mi] was cooking some unidentified meat at it. Elora sat down next to the goblin to rest and recover her Stamina.

5 hours ago.

“Right all weak elvses here” Yelled Kif, “Lets go!!!”

With that Kif turned and ran off screaming, leading the rest of the goblins he had brought with him. Elora watched, blankly for a moment before Jack spoke up, “I guess we should get going then as well.”

The two shadow elves quickly caught up with the goblin party in time to watch it pull the aggro for several wolves in the area. instead of fighting in an orderly fashion Kif pointed and said, “Food!!” The goblins swarmed the wolves and the party, including Elora, quickly gained a small amount of experience. Several goblin brutes picked up the carcasses and the party continued on. About 30 minutes into the trek Kif started singing and the goblins sped up their pace to match his song.

Goblins are the very best,

goblins are the very best

Elves are weak and Orks are red

Elves are weak and orks are red.

Undead smell like Grandpa's feet

Undead smell like grandpa's feet

Matron Rue is nice and sweet

Matron rue is nice and sweet

The song went on for ever, four and a half hours of all the goblins singing a military marching song, every one of them was off tune and out of sink. Elora and jack both picked up the Goblin Language skill along with a Voluntary deafness skill. The second one decreased any conditions inflicted from sound based attacks such as roars or shouts. During the entire 5 hours the only breaks that the 2 elves got in there running was when the goblins managed to attract something big enough they couldn’t swarm it to the ground. At those times Elora and Jack stepped in to help finish the monsters off.

Back in the present.

Kif walked up the fire, “Ya ready to burn the humans?” he asked. “Humans?” she replied.

“Farm place on the other side of the hill we be sitting in. small about 40 humans there.” Kif replied, then Elora got a notice.

[Goblin Kif would like to invite you to his party]

“Your a player!!” she gasped,” why the hell did you run off like that?”

Kif looked at her weirdly for a moment before saying, “Goblins side of the quest on a timer, Only able to get the matron to send this many for 8 hours. We gots 2 hours left then they go home.”

Elora just stared at him for a moment then hit the accept button, adding herself and Jack to Kif’s party.

“Right, time to go kill all humans!” Kif yelled and his goblin party shouted it with him.

Kif lead the war party out of the safe zone and around the hill. Before them was a small village of 4 farm houses, a general store, a larger home for the village elder, and a horse corral. There was a field of rabbits between the hill and the village proper and there were several low level Humans cornering and attacking the rabbits in groups of 2 and 3. As Elora took it in Kif yelled,” Kill the bunny lovers!!” and charged out to attack the human players in the field. His goblins loyally followed him while the 2 elves stayed behind.

“A plan would be useful.” Elora spoke to Jack. “Your right.”he replied,”How about we let the goblins draw the aggro while we try to do the damage? they seem pretty good at pissing off every living being in sight.” Elora accepted and the shadow elves joined the fray.

Kifs Point of view (first time the author tries for this)

“Kill all the bunny lovers!!” Kif yelled and led his borrowed war party onward. Kif rushed towards the humans leveling in the bunny field and drew his sword. He had been lucky to recover the sword of the ork Sub commander Hrolk and it was amazing. Goblin damage was dependant mostly on whatever weapon they were wielding so the sub commanders blade had proven great at letting Kif get killing blows on wolves and other monsters that he should not have been able to take. The 3 humans he was running towards looked up at his shout and froze, which was not their best decision as the 2 rabbits they were fighting got in a hit, inflicting crippled -30% movespeed, to one of them.

Kif got in range and gleefully swung his blade at the crippled player.

-20hp

Floated up. The player's allies jumped at Kif and he had to quickly back up receiving a knock to his head by one of their staffs and completely dodging the knife of the other. The staff wielder murmured something quickly and glowed yellow.

+25 hp

floated up above the crippled player and his crippled stat vanished. Angry, he moved in to attack Kif with his knife wielding ally. Kif moved in grimly, He needed to knock one of them out of the fight before they managed to surround him. At this low level healers were almost as tough as fighters so Kif went for the person he was closest to, the knife wielder. Faking an attack he froze and made his eyes go as wide as they could. He pointed behind the player and said “Monster!!” The knife wielder didn’t turn around like Kif had hoped, in fact all he did was shoot a quick glance to his allies, unfortunately for him that glance gave Kif enough time to ram Hrolk’s sword through his Cloth shirt and out his back. With a grunt he slumped down and Kif quickly switched the sword for the dropped players knife. Kif rushed the healer as some goblins from the war party jumped the last player in the party. 3 quick knife stabs later, Kif was sitting on a corps gathering his breath and rubbing 4 growing lumps on his head. “That healer was a better fighter than the other two” He muttered. “Well, it is time to heard my fellow idiots back together for the quest.

Kif retrieved his sword from the knife wielders chest as Elora and Jack came up. “Now that the players are out of the equation you ready for the quest?” he asked.

They both nodded and He called the goblins together from where they were scattered about the field. “Lets go.”

Kif didn’t lead the charge this time, selecting 4 Goblin brutes he ordered them to break down the doors to the 4 farm houses. Kif split the attack groups between the 4 houses and followed one in. Elora and Jack both lead their own groups into a house and Kif left the 4th house to the goblin NPCs.

Entering behind the brute Kif quickly looked around.

It was a small 4 room building, the front door entered into the living room to the right was a kitchen and in the back appeared to be 2 bedrooms. there was a farmer, his 2 sons, and his wife in the building.

[Farmer Dan Fiddles level 13][Joe Fiddles level 4][Baran Fiddles level 6][Elen Fiddles level 9]

Farmer Dan and his sons were forming a wall between the goblins and his wife while she started casting a spell. All three of them were armed with swords.

The brute that broke down the door charged Dan and was cut in half by his blade. He stepped forward and said, “Come on ya cowards.”

Kif let out a cry and rushed him with the rest of his party behind him. He ducked the farmers blade and swung his own at his leg. Dan jumped over the attack and then brought his blade down in a heavy strike straight down. Kif struck the sword with his own, shifting its strike to the floor. Dan’s heavy strike buried his sword in the wooden floor. Kifs arms were numb from deflecting the attack but he was still able to bring his blade around and behead Dan. Elen Fiddles let out a scream of despair as her husband and 2 sons were cut down. Cornered by the goblins she finished her spell and launched a fireball at the one who had behead the man she loved. Kif looked up from his victory in time to see a 4 foot diameter ball of fire rushing towards him.

-200 damage

With a bang. Kif died.

[You have died would you like to respawn?]

{Yes/No]

“Yes,” he said. grabbing a spare dagger out of his chest in the lair Kif ran out to rejoin the quest.

Elora stood in front of the second house. One of the goblin brutes was beating on the door but apparently these farmers had more warning than the ones Kif was fighting as they had blocked the door with something. Seeing the goblins struggling to get in the door Elora walked around the house looking for something to use to get in. She noticed that there was a gap between the ceiling and the outer walls of the house, most likely due to the warm climates and the buildings lack of a fire place. There were 4 wooden supports holding the ceiling up. Maybe she could bring the building down on it’s inhabitants. Elora quickly cast Enfeeble on the wood and watched as it darkened and seemed to rot some. She grabbed one of her brutes and ordered him to attack the corner, then moved around to the next support. The house groaned as 2 of the supports collapsed. Elora moved to destroy the third support when the farmers rushed out of the house, no longer able to hide in the building.

[Hunter Gill level 12][Gills kid level 3][Gills kid level 3][Gill's wife level 5]

It was obvious to Elora that Gills kids and wife weren’t that important if the game wouldn’t even give them a name. She left all her goblins but the second brute to jump the family while the 2 of them attacked Gill. As she moved in Elora noted that Gill was armed with a longbow.

Elora quickly cast shadow bolt at Gill and moved in to attack him with her sword.

-15

Miss

Gill dodged her sword strike and then kicked her in the chest, knocking her back several feet.

He attempted to draw his bow and fire when the brute swung its club at him. Cursing Gill took the club to the shoulder then rammed the arrow into the brutes side. Elora got back to her feet and struck Gill in the back with her sword. The brute grabbed at Gill and he matched it in a wrestling grip. The brute pinned him in place as Elora struck Gill twice more in the back, killing him. Elora quickly pulled the arrow out of the Brute and cast cursed healing on it, stopping the bleeding.

One house down, she thought.

Jack looked at the house then shrugged as his goblin brigade broke down the door. He stepped inside and frowned. The farmer in this building was putting up a decent fight but the other five members of the family were to low level to matter. Jack drew his blade and pushed the goblins out of the way. Getting the farmer's attention he attacked with an overhand swing that quickly lead into the 8 base sword attacks. Jack was no master swordsman but the shadow elf teacher had drilled this basis into him.

Left shoulder, right leg, left gut, right shoulder, thrust, Left leg, Right gut, Head.

His attacks flowed together, not giving the higher level farmer a chance to attack him back. With a shout Jack activated bloody strike and left a cut across the farmer's chest.

[You have inflicted bleeding, -2hp for 10 seconds]

and backed up. letting the goblins handle the injured man. Jack left the building certain that the goblins could finish up. “I hope that this quest isn’t the end of this light versus dark nonsense” he muttered.

Kif walked up to the 2 elves saying,” i got 4 how many you get?”

“four” Elora replied. “Six” Jack stated.

“So, 6 more to finish this quest.” Jack stated. “Headcount!” he then roared and started counting the goblin survivors. Of his own group 4 had survived. Elora’s group had 7 left and Jack’s group had 3. One survivor walked out of the 4th house saying they had found 2 humans holed up in the building.

“fifteen goblins left and we need to kill 4 more.” Jack said. Pulling out the only coin he had he flipped it saying,”Heads we hit the store, tails we hit the big house.” With a ding the coin bounced twice in the dirt and landed heads. Kif lead the group to the general store and instructed their only surviving brute to knock down the door. The brute roared and charged, and the defenders inside opened the door to let it in. It hit a tripline and sprawled before dieing as the shop assistants and 2 of the few surviving human players stabbed it quickly. With a bang the door slammed shut again, leaving Kif fuming.

“how about burning the building down.” Jack said. He was looking at the damaged farmhouse that Elora had left behind. “We have 6 regular goblins who have some fire magic, just burn the place.”

Kif nodded and instructed the goblins to start lighting the building on fire while Elora and Jack got the hobgoblins set to block the exits. For several minutes nothing happened, then with a scream the 2 human players led a charge out the front door. They were quickly followed by the shopkeeper and 5 assistants. The players charged at Elora as the hobgoblins got into fights with the shopkeeper. Elora backed up quickly while blocking their attacks while Kif and Jack moved up behind the humans. With several quick slashes the humans dropped and Kif turned towards the merchants. The players quickly finished off the merchants and relaxed. With the quest complete Elora and Jack headed out to turn it in. Kif sent back the borrowed goblins and looked at what was left of this village. Alone he decided to see if his Shock corps rider class would allow him to ride a horse.

The village was silent as Kif moved into the the coral. there were 8 horses in the coral, 6 of them looked like large plow horses while the last two were a Foal and its dam. Noting that there was some tackle on the corals fence, Kif grabbed it and walked up to the Foal. The Foal allowed him to put the tackle on it. Kif led it over to the fence and tied it’s tackle down. Kif then moved towards the Colts mother and tried to put the tackle on her. The horse reared up and kicked him in the head.

[You have died, would you like to respawn?]

[Yes/No]

“Yes,” Kif said, then quickly ran out the cave and back to the coral. He glared at the dam then again entered the coral to put the tackle on her. He had to carefully maneuver the dam to be in the middle of the more laid back horses before he was able to sneak up beside her and throw a rope around her neck. He gave up on the tackle and simply tied her to the colt’s tackle. Kif finally grabbed the colt’s lead and led the two horses away to his lair. He had big dreams of getting a mount and this would help him.

A few days later Kif returned to the Volcan Hive and, after dropping off the horse and resetting his lair to the main hive, headed to meet with Matron Rue.

“We slaughtered hundreds of humans and burned their towns to the ground.” he said as way of greeting. “Don’t lie to me.”She replied, “you hit a small town of nobodies and killed a few nobodies. nothing more. Get out of my sight for now.”

[Ding, You have completed the quest to support the shadow elves. +2 levels +10 silver]

Smiling Kif headed out to the mushroom farms to steal a snack while he went through the global messages he had ignored.

Apparently the only race that failed the racial survivability quest was the dwarfs. The other races of light would have to do several quests to help them before any players could spawn as dwarfs. The orcs and demons had succeeded in a different attack on the side of light and a crusade quest had been generated by the lights humans. It’s army would head out in 3 more days to attack somewhere on the side of dark. Kif determined that he would try to be there to defend the area but first he needed to level up. Throughout all the quests that he had done he had only reached level 12 so far and he still had not added anyone else to his lair. Having made his decision Kif headed out of the mushroom farms back to the lair proper. His goal was to double the goblins in his lair over the next 3 days.

{Authors rant, This is the first story I have ever put into writing. I normaly daydream to much about this stuff and never write it down. Expect Looong gaps between my chapters since my job keeps me from working on this all that much. }