Violet paced after her rescuer. She kept a slower pace than she had to, to hold him back.

She wasn't happy, but she certainly wasn't distraught. The goblins had almost forced her into her previous arrangement, seeing as the bandit troupe had been thinned out and the promise of citizenship an unlikely pipe dream. She had little love for the monsters that had been using her as an insect queen to build their little fort. It didn't traumatize her to see them so systematically eradicated by the adventurer.

Still, the current situation was far from ideal. She had lost the colony Harkness had entrusted her with and was now under the protection of a goblin slayer. The man had naturally assumed that she was a farm girl captured by the subhumans and held against her will. She played along with this, not to receive the treatment of an outlaw bandit, but the fiction came with constraints.

She couldn't let him escort her to safety. At the city she would quickly be identified as an outlaw, even a farm girl from nowhere would have citizen registration. And she couldn't very well part with him in the middle of the forest either, it didn't fit her established character.

So now she was behind him, venturing deeper into the woods, back toward's Harkness' hamlet. He was going to bring her back only after attacking the evil at its source.

"Is that the best equipment you have?" She asked rudely. "You know you can buy new stuff at the adventurers' guild, right?"

"Goblins pick up adventurers' weapons, it's best to use cheap ones, they do the job." He answered without looking at her.

The man was covered in scratched up tin plates with a helmet that covered his entire face. On his hip was a sword and in his fist a mace, both old and worn but impeccably maintained, and he was carrying a large shoulder bag for miscellaneous equipment. He stank like an animal, he hadn't taken the outfit off in weeks.

"You should at least travel with a party."

He stopped abruptly and turned around, she almost bumped into him.

"No more words out of you," he demanded dryly, "I have been slaying goblins for two decades. I know how it's done, leave me to it." Despite his disheveled appearance there was a hint of sophistication in his voice.

"I'm just trying to help." She lied.

He began to walk again. "Then tell me what you know about this strain, any special types among them?"

She remembered Harkness' own litter. As a highborn she had produced stronger goblins. "Only the hob-" She cut herself off.

"Hobgoblins?" He grunted. "That's bad. They're the same species, but stronger. They must have dominated the smaller ones."

"Y-yeah?"

"Have you seen the main nest?"

"N-no." She lied again.

He resumed walking, at a briskly this time, setting the pace himself. "Stronger goblins can dominate larger tribes. The nest might be bigger than I can handle on my own."

"I'm sure it's fine." She insisted. "There's probably other adventurers around here to team up to." She had a faint hope that he would unsuspectingly approach some of her bandit friends.

"Hrm."

-

After not too long they began to see trails of smoke snaking into the sky, close to each other. It was right against the sea cliffs.

"Humans." Violet claimed. "Let's meet up with them. I, uh, would feel a lot safer in a community."

"No." The goblin slayer. "Could be bandits."

"But there are no bandits here."

"I thought you had never seen the nest."

"No. I haven't. I just... assumed-"

"We're veering to the side, finding a vantage point." He gestured with his hand as he said it.

She greedily used her opportunity to shut up, but wondered about what kind of man he was to lead a saved damsel into danger like this.

-

The vantage point he found was the cliffs themselves.

They stopped at the rock wall a significant distance to the south of the smoke trails. The signs of civilization were barely visible.

"Tie this to your waist, we're climbing up." He tossed her the end of a long rappelling rope and began to retrieve other mountaineering equipment from his bag.

"Why do you have this." She wondered out loud.

"Adventuring isn't like exterminating monster pets on an acre." He had an admonishing tone like a disappointed father.

"We need to travel through caves, mountains, rivers. Scaling the environment is the primary challenge, that's what requires preparation."

She scoffed but obeyed anyway and tied the rope to her waist. "Well, you better not drop me. I'm not an adventurer like you."

They scaled the wall slowly as he secured the rope to the rock every few meters with his equipment.

"Wait. I changed my mind. Just leave me at the bottom, I'm sure it'll be safe."

"Shut up."

The ridge was four stories high and it took more than an hour to reach the top. In the last stretch Violet stopped doing her best and simply let herself be lifted up by the goblin slayer's considerable strength.

He didn't grunt or complain pulling her onto the top. "Now we approach the nest." He simply said.

-

The cliffs were a thin ridge of stone setting a hard border border between the forest floor on one side and the much lower sea level on the other.

The top was relatively flat and they could hike casually over it.

"Are you just going to leave your rope thingies?" Violet asked.

"I've got the rope, the copperheads are expendable." He explained through his face covering.

-

Compared to the time it had taken to hike through the forest and climb the rock, they arrived at the encampment relatively quickly.

This was the first time Violet got to see the village from such a top-down view. It's wasn't very pretty.

Besides the overpopulation of goblins crawling around the small village like maggots, the layout of the structures wasn't neat and planned out.

The wall the protected the perimeter was a lopsided circle, the two warehouses stood right across the from gate with a short fat road between them.

The other buildings like the water tower and the goblin's platform stood alone with no road leading to them, ugly pathways of dead grass in-between.

The mud huts of the goblins, close to the cave opening and hard to see from the top of the ridge, came across as relatively elegant in comparison. Despite their primitive nature.

She tried to come up with a way to signal to the others without raising the adventurer's suspicions.

He groaned. "Bandits." He had seen the human constructions. Perhaps even spotted some humans navigating the sea of monsters.

"Yeah! You were right. Is this too many? It's too many, let's go back."

But he didn't move. "Must have a tamer. Or allied with a strong goblin type."

"You're not... You're not going to fight all of them, are you?"

He looked at her and then back at the village. "Let's get closer."

"Oh, no..." She groaned.

-

While they traveled over the top of the stone wall, to be directly above the cave, he began to explain.

"When goblins gather in large armies, it's called a goblin horde. Kingdoms will lose good men trying to fight goblin hordes by marching troops."

"So if it's too much for an army it's definitely too much for an adventurer, right?" She responded.

"It's too much because they try to close them in, like when battling another army. What needs to be done is to drive them apart, scatter them. Then exterminate them separately, a slayer knows this."

They were standing directly above the village now.

"How are you planning on doing that?" She asked.

"I need to find the lynchpin. The strongest goblin that's controlling them, and kill it. Then I destroy the home."

"Destroy it? Just like that?"

He retrieved magic items from his bag. "To drive a goblin into panic you need to make a big impact. Even then, they will still fight if you block off the escapes. There is a gate, so all we need to supply is the big impact."

He put down paper charms on the stone surface.

"What are those?" Violet wanted to know.

"Spellpaper. I'm collapsing the stone to crush the huts right below. An explosion of that size should be enough to drive them away, hopefully it will kill a good portion too."

"That's..." Violet was disturbed, but could not condemn his actions. After all, killing goblins was a good thing, and human collateral was a bonus if they were bandits.

"After that," he pointed into the mass, "I kill the hobgoblins, so they can't reunite the horde."

"Listen, don't blow up the mountain right now. We're standing on it, we'd die."

"I'm waiting until the bandit guard leaves. After that I can probably ride the rock slide down. As for you..."

He turned to her. His expression was still hidden behind his helmet, but he had a threatening aura.

"I see now that the thieves' guild has stationed bandits with the goblins. That makes all humans suspicious."

"What? I... no. Listen, I'm a victim. The goblins took- I'm from a farm..."

He brandished his sword. "Either I risk having killed an innocent woman, or I risk letting these goblins live. That's an easy choice."

Violet breathed in to start screaming like a kitchen kettle, but before she had even fully filled her lungs the sword struck the side of her head. The thing wasn't as sharp and light as what knights usually carry, but the sheer weight and force of the swing crushed a part of her skull and concussed her brain. She fell to the ground. The sharp edge had struck blood, but that was the least of her injury.

"I always forget that a human takes more hits." He grumbled as he began hacking into her.

She made a faint noise, a proof of life and suffering before it was snuffed out. He kicked her body over the side into the sea.

Then he sat down, watched the village, and awaited his moment.

"Does it work?" Angus asked Felix.

The four children were leaning against the watchtower, close enough to the gate to keep an eye of who came in and out. They were wearing simple padded clothing, protective, but not quite armor.

The other hobgoblin held the red healer's pendant tightly in his grip. "There's too many goblins around, I can't make out anything specific."

"Tell them to leave. If everybody goes into the cave we can defend the village on our own." Ada proclaimed.

"The pendant doesn't matter, we have our magic weapons. Once he shows up we'll know anyway." Angus held up the cursed bolas.

Their throwing weapons were ropes woven together to have three ends, with metal weights on each. When slung towards and enemy they would naturally tangle around them, and the curse of binding made sure the victim wouldn't untangle that easily.

"But you don't know," Felix insisted, "he's a super warrior that kills you before you realize he's there. But with this," he held up the pendant, "I can feel the sensations of anyone that's near. If he sneaks up on us, I'll feel his heart beating in his chest."

"Papa says that if he attacks he'll attack while mama is away." Jasper said. "That's right now."

"Let him come," Ada flexed her bicep, "we're ready for him! Goblin knights!"

Right then a flicker of light shone over the stone cliff and with a deep rumbling sound a mass of stone barreled down.

Suddenly the rock made a thundering explosive sound as it impacted with the ground, covering the cave entrance and crushing most of the work huts in front of it.

Felix stiffened as he felt someone get crushed, but the sensation was soon snuffed out as they quickly died.

An oppressive cloud of powered stone swept through the entire village and up to the perimeter wall. Goblins everywhere were running away from the source, stumbling over each other to do so.

-

Without having to think about it the goblin knights rushed into the clouds, their legs were long enough to wade through the goblin mass, but it slowed them down, until almost all fleeing goblins had passed.

An arrow came flying at Felix from where the square had previously stood, it scraped his cheek. A few centimeters to the right and he would have died, but that didn't occur to him. "To the left!" He grinned while holding the pendant. "His legs are sore... or maybe that's my own legs."

Heeding his brother's words Jasper didn't aim where the arrow had come from, but where the enemy was running towards. A shadow in the dust darted to the left and the bolas whirled towards it. It seemed like it struck true, but the shadow disappeared before the dust had settled.

"Did that hit?" Angus asked.

"It did." Felix confirmed. "He's hiding behind the bloomery."

Ada still held a bolas, Angus and Felix were brandishing adventurers' swords, they circled around the still remaining mud hut.

Jasper held back as he began to heat up the head of his mace with fire magic.

None of them caught on in time that their enemy had vaulted over the top of the hut.

The slayer had cut the tangling rope. It still clung to the side of his torso and left arm, but didn't bind them together.

They barely caught a glimpse of it as he jumped down the other side of the building, almost on top of Jasper and struck him to the ground with his shoulder.

"Jasper!" Some of the older goblins had finally muscled through the crowd and came running towards the fight.

George, Fyro, Mac, and Benjamin lined up with shields and spears between the slayer and the rest of the village. If he wanted to flee the scene he would have to go trough them.

He didn't seem impressed. He lifted up his sword to pierce Jasper's stomach, but had to turn around and hack Ada's bolas in twain before it hit him.

Angus charged at the man, their weapons clashed with all the weight the hobgoblin had in him, but he wasn't able to push him back. He tried again to heave at him with all the strength he had, but the human knight was just too strong to lose footing.

They fenced with their swords a bit. Angus knew the proper stances and was able to keep his enemy occupied just fighting defensively, not taking any risk by trying to create an opening.

While the two clashed weapons Jasper scooted backwards to stand up and his other siblings came to approach the man from behind too.

"Far too clever for goblins." The adventurer panted from behind his covered face. He reached into a pouch by his pant leg and spun around throwing crushed glass into their eyes.

"Argh!" The weapon was mean and painful and the three hobgoblins dropped their weapons to reach for their eyes.

Now with his back towards Angus the adventurer rather easily threw off the first attacker by driving his armed elbow into his ribs and then smashing the pommel of his word against his temple. The hobgoblin staggered back and fell over.

"To use a healer's pendant for such a purpose..." The slayer picked up the red chain from amidst the writhing goblins.

"What holy man did you take this from, huh?" He lifted his sword above his head to finish off the groaning hobgoblin in front of him.

"Don't-" Angus' voice rang hoarsely behind him, "turn your back on me yet."

He had scrambled to his feet quickly to distract the human from finishing off his siblings. He held his sword as outstretched as possible, pointing it at his enemy in an accusatory manner.

"Got anymore nasty tricks in your pocket?" He asked sincerely.

The adventurer didn't answer his question but began to close the distance between them, sword in hand.

Angus walked backwards, towards the blocked off cave, switching his sword between hands for a bit. "So you're stronger than me, huh? So what? You think all I can do is brute force?"

The slayer lunged at him, Angus touched blades, but rather than push it back he pushed it to his side, redirecting the weight to where he wanted it to. The man barreled to his side and he used all of his strength to keep the momentum going, turning the two of them around and pushing the slayer's back against the collapsed rock.

-

"I think that's the first time I ever did that correctly." Angus chuckled. He was now in-between the slayer and his siblings.

His brothers and sisters still weren't able to recover from their bleeding eye sockets, but the goblins had moved their shield wall forward to protect the young hobgoblins.

The slayer summoned a burst of strength and pushed his weapon against Angus'. But again the hobgoblin was able to use his own momentum against him, blocking the man's leg and grabbing his elbow to push him to the ground. They landed on top of each other.

"You only fight weaker enemies, don't you." Angus started to gloat, as he twisted his enemy's arm trying to pin him down. "You don't have any experience fighting someone with technique."

"Just. Die." The slayer wrestled his arm free and rolled on top of the goblin. Both their weapons had fallen to the side and he tried to strangle him.

Angus gurgled as he held on tightly to the man's thumbs to prevent them from pushing in his larynx.

Stones from a sling and hand bow arrows from the goblins deflected off the human. Seeing that he didn't have much time left before the other members of the nest would manage to pull him off the hobgoblin, he lifted his head and brought the metal helmet down on his enemy's head.

Angus soundlessly screamed as the headbutt broke his nose. He began to struggle harder, but the man now held a tight grip on his hands and continued to smash his face in with his helmet.

Eventually the goblin stopped struggling. His body twitched as it broke down and filth began to leak from his bowels. He was dead.

The slayer stood up to face the others.

The goblins that had been approaching now fell back into their turtle formation again.

He picked up his sword from the ground and walked up to the group.

The hobgoblins were blind, but they had a tight grip on their melee weapons. The goblins were protecting them and fiercely facing down the enemy.

"Just stand still." George told the others. "He can't charge into-"

The slayer closed his fingers in a ring around his mouth. "Rhada's Breath!" As he leaned forward and exhaled a fan of flames engulfed the group. They scattered, their clothes were burning and they were in pain.

The slayer stepped right over the goblins, who were rolling on the floor, and after the hobgoblins, who were running away, stumbling.

The surviving hobgoblins fled towards the human buildings at the other side of the village.

They non-combatant bandit men that lived in the tents had fled alongside the goblins, but there were warg wolves loitering around the warehouses.

Mewling, the hobgoblins curled up each separately behind crates and walls.

"Goblins..." The slayer muttered to himself. They were advanced, probably tamed. There could be traps, ambushes.

He caught a glimpse of a wolf slinking off.

He then held up the healer's pendant and decided to put it on, to get information about his enemies. Rather than keeping it in his clutched hand like the hobgoblin he properly equipped it, putting it over his helmet and on his shoulders.

The effect was immediate and uncomfortable. He could feel the stinging of the crushed glass as if it was in his own eyes, making him tear up. But he could also feel the hobgoblin female leaning against a wooden crate with her heart beating in her throat.

He entered the warehouse and was able to pinpoint where she had to be hiding immediately. His eyes hurt from the pendant but it didn't come off immediately, so he approached her hiding place with it still on.

She was crying now, he could hear it from where he stood.

Standing over her crate he was about to land a killing blow when he could hear commotion outside. The human combatants had to be back, he had taken much too long.

-

The slayer appeared in the warehouse entrance.

Outside were no humans, but there were goblins riding wargs.

One of them, wearing an eye patch, climbed down from his mount and stood in front of the human as if addressing an equal.

"You've been attacking my kids."

The man ignored him and exited the doorpost, he looked around to see if there was anyone around that could be a threat to him.

The wolves growled at him. They could be a threat, if he let one flank him. The goblins were pouring back into the encampment too. There was something about the wolf riders that gave them confidence.

He looked at the eye patch goblin again.

"What, no pleading for mercy? You realize I'm a made man, right?"

Without thinking much about it the man thrusted his sword at the goblin.

The goblin's right hand closed around the blade of the sword, it pulled the weapon away from his face but it cut deeply into his fingers.

Feeling the pain in his own sword hand the slayer fumbled with the pendant around his neck, trying to get it off.

Then the goblin squeezed down on the weapon, the metal scraped against his finger bones.

"Ah!" The man screamed in pain and dropped his weapon. He desperately pulled at the chain, trying to remove it with all his strength.

"It's cursed, stupid. Curse of binding." The made man let go of the weapon and held out his bleeding hand. Another goblin came with some bandages to stem the bleeding. "That's why I had it taken into battle, it's a trap. Although," he looked at a hobgoblin being supported by a human bandit, "you weren't supposed to carry it yourself."

"Sorry dad. I didn't want to endanger our friends."

"Did anyone die?"

The hobgoblin whined a bit, his words couldn't be made out.

"We'll talk later." Said his father.

Two bandit men held the attacker down and removed his helmet and other armor.

It had to be the first time in month since his face had seen the light of day, it was greasy and pale, his hair long and split was draped over his nose and cheeks, sticking to it from the sweat.

"Monsters. I'll kill you." He thrashed around with his arms while the goblins surrounded him. He had lost his main weapon, and any method his did have for hurting them would cause him the same immense pain.

"Would you? Would that bring you pleasure?" Scratch said with contempt.

"I hate you. I hate goblins." He growled with a deep guttural rage.

"Yeah. I don't think so." Scratch mused as he brushed aside the hair of the helplessly restrained human. "If you hated goblins, you wouldn't ever want to meet them. But you seek us out. I know who you are, you call yourself a goblin slayer. You go out looking for goblins."

The slayer tried to wrestle himself free to no avail. He didn't have an answer to Scratch's words, they only confused him.

"When somebody like you says they hate something, what they really mean is that they've found an excuse to hate something. An outlet for their anger and violence. That's my experience."

"No. That's not true! I... I can't suffer goblins to live because they pillage and rape! My family-"

"Oh everybody pillages and rapes." Scratch waved away the idea. "You wouldn't know what to do with your life if there weren't any goblins. A desk job? Maybe selling fish at the farmer's market? Come on boy, you're a killer. Admit it."

The man only grinded his teeth.

"Well, that's about enough." Scratch decided. "Do you have all his weapons? Then let him go."

"Do you want me to remove the pendant?" Stanford asked. He had just finished healing Felix.

"Let him keep it. It's a good surrogate for the real thing."

"Pa. You're going to let him live?" Jasper sounded distraught, he was still blind but he could heal what was going on.

"We're going to let him go."

"Pa. He killed Angus. Killed him, bashed his head in like a...."

"Angus is dead?" Scratch took his son't hand in his own. "Kid... I'm so sorry. But killing won't bring anybody back."

"He's likely to come back however." Stanford interjected. "Get the curse removed, and return to finish the job."

"I don't think so." He then addressed the goblin slayer. "In a few minutes the mother of my children will arrive. She is a lot more traditional than me. If she finds out that you killed her eldest, she will kill you."

The man looked dumbfounded.

"Run." Scratch blurted out and the invader cringed and started walking away from him, cautiously backward.

The goblin patriarch stood up and lifted himself above the crowd, to address all the goblins from the colonies that had gathered there. "Boys! This man is the enemy you feared! Boo him! Boooo!"

A few in the crowd grasped what he wanted them to do and began to boo, then the rest followed. They aggressively booed the man trying to make his way between them.

"This is a promise. The promise is that our people will survive against people like him, he will not harm you!"

The goblins began to kick his shins and throw sticks at him. Afraid to do anything he held his head down and slunk off.

"You can't do this." Ada complained. "What about Angus? Why wouldn't he come back?"

"Shh." Scratch comforted her by stroking her head. "It's going to be alright, he's gone now. You're safe."

Suddenly the stress and anguish she had felt came to her, she gripped his hand tightly and began to cry.

"You should have let me kill him." Harkness proclaimed.

"I thought you would feel that way, that's why I didn't." Scratch answered as he sipped from a mug of magically purified water.

"Mama. Angus is dead..." Jasper cried into her shoulder.

"I know honey. He was very brave."

"I wish he had been less brave." Scratch sighed. "You're all so brave naturally. Please treasure your own lives as we do yours."

"Scratch." She hissed.

"What?"

"But really, why did you have to let him live?" Ada wanted to know.

"Several reasons." Scratch explained. "First, as I mentioned before, we are weak compared to the great wide human civilization that surrounds us. We can't risk being seen as aggressors."

"Only punch down." She whispered.

"Exactly. We know from the thieves' guild that this man was known in town, and so was his mission. If we had killed him in this forest they would have put two and two together and put us front street. And that feeds into my second reason. That Fyro has been getting away with it for far too long."

"You're not talking about the fish heads, are you?" Harkness wanted to know.

"No. The other Fyro, your cousin. He's getting desperate trying to reassert control, now he's endangering his own gang- I mean guild -trying to cause some chaos. I didn't want to clean up the open ends for him."

"What does that mean?"

"Somewhere next week this guy is going to come back into town, talking about the thieves' guild enterprise he almost closed down. Then Fyro's friends will have to start asking questions how the hobo came to that information."

"I understand." Harkness nodded. "You're exposing his scheme to expose us."

"But the thieves' guild will have to kill the slayer to keep their secrets, right?" Ada insisted.

"That's likely." Scratch answered.

"Okay." She was relieved.

"And if the secret does leak out?" Harkness questioned.

"If we're put front street." Felix added.

"The whole county will know about our bandit town."

"That's a risk we had to be willing to take if we don't want to get bullied by the other Harkness anymore." Scratch answered. "And besides, we can't hide forever, not with a territory as wide as ours."

"Scratchy," Harkness kissed his forehead, "I trust that you know what you're doing."

"You're a sweetheart." He responded. "When Fyro gets caught up in a scandal, we have to have allies at the ready to swoop in and take his power."

"Do we have any."

"I think I know a few..."

Cursed Items

Adventurers are able to practice their profession by appropiating equipment found in the wild, and they should not be discouraged from doing this.

However, they should be aware of the possibility that sometimes equipment can be cursed.

Witches will curse equipment so that it is useless to anybody who would steal it. But there are more insidious curses also. Dark sorcerers often leave cursed equipment in their dungeons that will harm whoever tries to use it, as a trap for intruders. Demons are known to take possession of a person through magic items too.

Mages or anyone familiar with mana can attempt to sense mana consumption near an item that is suspected of being cursed. If there is any doubt whatsoever, one should feel free ask a pastor or clergyman. Followers of the goddess of light are eager to help fight possible curses.

Most harmful effects in a cursed item are accompanied by a curse of binding. This is the curse that prevents the victim from taking off the item and escaping the curse. When one find themselves unable to take off equipment due to magic, even if the harmful effect isn't immediately visible, one should seek out a church as soon as possible.