They ate the usual biscuit and jerky before setting off towards the goblin nest.

Erwin had worked through a portion of the night, brewing and mixing several nasty surprises for the goblins. Elise had replenished her insect army with the battle of the bugs overnight, keeping her swarm fresh. The kobold, which was made to eat all of the unused bugs, now had venom dripping from its fangs and two sets of compound eyes. It was starting to grow exoskeleton plates in a few places as well.

As Otto led the way with an alchemic lamp, which showed bright blue splotches on the ground where the tracking potion had dripped, Erwin gave them the plan one more time.

“We'll set up the goblin experiment today. Aaah, I can't wait! Look at this beautiful purple, this one is...”

Kynos fought hard against his auto-ignore skill to pay attention. He barely heard Erwin rattle off the names of three or four, possibly five compounds and eventually lost that battle. His snapped back to attention as the speech came to an end.

“....distillate, for direct consumption.”

That's bad, seemed like Kynos missed hearing about his role. Luckily for him, Erwin was a scientist and used to recapping.

“So here's the short version. I want to test four things. The first we'll use with food bait outside a few side entrances, the second is for the insects to inject into the larvae, the third will be a gas bomb that'll only affect the air in about a quarter of the hive, and when that goes off, we'll secure a few live samples.”

Erwin cleared his throat and continued.

“We have to remember to not touch one large section of nest with anything, for the control group.”

Kynos was designated as the scout, having left behind everything but a water canteen and his Variable. When they reached the nest, he used shadows to support his weight and smoothly scaled the bramble wall. He noticed that the nest was larger than they had initially assumed, covering a large swath of the forest. The bramble wall encased several trees and thinned out at the top, revealing some of the underlying structure. He deployed a hair-thin shadow web as he traveled, scouting for movement.

Luckily for Erwin, the nest had an irregular shape, and about a third of it was built separate from the rest, making for a perfect control. They could even collapse two trees to completely cut it off.

Erwin had already prepared the food paste with the chemicals mixed in for Kynos to deposit, which he dropped down in globs around two rarely used side entrances. Since the goblins were as good as blind during the night, most of the nest's population was out gathering food, so it would be som time before the bait was discovered, just like how Erwin planned it.

Kynos also suspended the glass vapor bomb in some vines about the main entrance of the nest. He could cut it any time with magic, and it would shatter on the fall, the liquid inside quickly reacting with water vapor in the air to become gas. They would set it off before they left.

He saw many clusters of grubs lying about, but on his way back around the far side of the nest, Kynos discovered a particularly dense area where the top wasn't exposed, but completely covered by a branch and mud ceiling. Erwin made directly for it, letting the group know that those locations are known to house a dense population of larvae.

The alchemist quickly melted through the thick outer wall with corrosives and handed Elise a potion for her insects to drink. As the two busied themselves with the packed rows of larvae, Kynos quietly injected lone, wandering goblins that his web discovered with a syringe held by a shadow tendril. The toxin knocked the goblins unconscious, and he would ferry them via shadows to Otto, who had unfolded a light metal platform with a pulley and two small wheels. The goblins would be gagged and bound, then tossed into a large net on the makeshift cart, which they would escape with as the gas bomb went off.

Kynos had been forced to kill one particularly resilient goblin, which the toxin had no effect on, but the rest of the plan went off without a hitch. Otto carted away ten goblins as Kynos dropped the bomb and cut two trees with his Variable. He looked on as the resulting sound and gas alarmed five dozen goblins out of the nest. Erwin was a bit disappointed that he couldn't watch the entire thing, but all of his concoctions needed some time to really take effect.

That afternoon, as Erwin cackled maniacally over the goblins at a corner of the camp, guarded by the kobold zombie, the other three relaxed at the stream. Otto polished his equipment, Elise wandered around nearby, replenishing her insects and gathering edible plants, and Kynos was perched on a rock, fishing idyllically. The three exchanged less than ten words in the many hours before dinner.