Short Chapter (2.5k or so)

Taryk Special!

With a horde of goblins charging behind him, Taryk cried out loudly, “Stop! We’re here!”

The chanting grew louder as the remaining goblins began to catch up. Although tired, they were extremely excited for this battle; or rather, it’s benefits.

Their temporary leader, Taryk, was tapping his feet impatiently as he saw the last of the two hundred goblins come wheezing in from the back of the pack. Sighing loudly, he spoke to Grok who rode the wolf, Runt, beside him, “Hey, I’m going to scout, make sure to tell the younger ones to make torches so that we can see. Oh, and rope from some woven vines. Otherwise it’ll be.. interesting.”

“Who are ya talkin’ to? You know I’m the leader right now?” Replied Grok agitated that he was being told what to do. While he himself thought the directions made sense, the simple fact that Taryk passed off the task to him irritated him to no end.

“Chief, I’m gonna borrow some of the stronger ones to steal - well, borrow - some weapons, you can deal with the mess that is the camp. Isn’t that the leader’s job?” Spoke Taryk with a raised eyebrow.

“Still, ya telling me what to do and all that,” defiantly replied Grok as he shook his fist in as threatening a manner he could while stumbling off the wolf’s back.

“Well, do whatever you want, I’m gonna borrow ‘bout ten of the others. You gave me that much authority, ya know?”

“Fine, but the leading goes ta me, ‘kay?” Spoke Grok as he firmly stamped his feet on the ground - multiple times.

“Yeah fine, I’m gonna steal weapons that’ll actually kill them. Don’t go in otherwise you wanna die.” As if done with the whole conversation, Taryk merely turned and raised a hand of his shoulder casually.

With a small ‘harumph,’ Grok turned away and Taryk walked off towards where the goblins gathered.

Surprisingly, for such simple minded creatures, at least where their carnal desires were concerned, they efficiently began clearing a space for their new base camp. Even going so far as to cut down small trees to build temporary shelters, gathering larger branches as cover and support. Actually building huts that could be arguably superior to their old, mud ones.

As he glanced over the goblins setting up a temporary camp at the mine, Taryk called out while pointing, “you, you, you, you… follow me!” After pointing out fifteen goblins, five more to spite Grok, Taryk walked towards the camp he was at only the day before.

Taking the goblins back towards the rear entrance, he roared, “form up! No stragglers, y’all be pretty blind down there for a bit, but it isn’t too bad so don’t expect anything else. Just stay where I tell you to!”

Assigning four at the top of the ladder to sort and grab the reclaimed weapons, he climbed down the ladder.

The eleven remaining goblins were following him closely and he reached the bottom rung as the first one down. Hearing the squeals of the goblins who didn’t pay attention to his warning, he yelled back at them to quiet down.

Going deep enough to block out the majority of the sunlight, only a small pillar of light stood above the ladder, but was growing darker with each step the goblins from behind took. This, naturally, caused them squeal louder resulting a headache for Taryk.

With his superior eyesight, the relatively slow descent was no issue for letting his eyes get accustomed to changing brightness. Especially with the torch-like glow of the ores further in, shedding some light on the tunnel ahead.

Casually speaking, “Told ya, don’t blame me. Anyways this is nothing. It’ll be worse later on,” Taryk pointed to a goblin, who could hardly see him, and forced his spear into the goblin’s hand. “You hold onto this, it’s mine though. I’ll gut you if you break it - not even kidding. Anyways, four stay here, and the rest follow me!”

As the goblin’s whispered amongst themselves, not wanting to advance further into the dim lighting the tunnel, Taryk sighed pointing at the four goblins closest to the ladder shouting, “Ju’ Ki’ Hy’ Ba’ will stay. The rest follow me.”

With a few disgruntled mutterings, Taryk led the remainder through the tunnel.

As the goblins came from the small shaft into main tunnel, Taryk and his party of goblins saw the radiating white light. Sighing loudly as he relived the images of the scene in there, he raised his voice, “DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT GO TOWARDS THE WHITE LIGHT! ANYONE WHO DOES WILL DIE BY MY HAND.”

After the voice reached their ears - and again, and again - with the loud echo, the goblins instantly looked back towards the laboratory. The almost blinding white lights seemed to pull everyone in from the darkness, none could even see two entry ways carved into the stone. Although tempted, no one seemed curious enough to test Taryk’s patience.

With the remaining goblins in a slightly organised group, Taryk led them to the center of the room. As he was on lookout for the inukshuk statues the entire time, he didn’t notice those trailing behind. Stopping every fifteen seconds or so, he grudgingly rounded all of the curious goblins up and brought them in the center where the dwarven army lay demolished.

“Gather!” As the shout echoed throughout the cavernous walls, each goblin huddled together over the corpses. Seeing that they were relatively obedient he continued, “This is just one group of the rocks we were fighting! Just here alone is fifty weapons axes, maces, greatswords - wait, we threw some of that shit around… There are a lot of axes, maces, greatswords, daggers and so on here! Stay by me and carry as much of this shit as you can!”

As he heard the slightly disgruntled mutterings of the goblins around him, he pursed his lips, adding, “AND KEEP THE BEST FOR YOURSELF!”

“WEAPONS! KILL! TREASURE! WOMEN! WOMEN! WOMEN!”

The reverberating shout echoed through the cavern and the goblins quickly got to work. Without regard to Taryk’s original caution, the goblins ran to from each corpses looking for the best weapon they could see.

With the pandemonium that ensued, Taryk rubbed his forehead and complained loudly, “idiots, all of you. Shit - HEY! GET BACK FROM THE WALL!”

As one of the more daring goblins ran to the furthest piles away from Taryk’s location, he brushed up against the wall. Taryk, mace in hand, ran towards the goblin shouting, “COME TO ME! NOW!”

With a slightly inquisitive look, the goblin paused for a moment. As Taryk’s expression was tightening, the opposite happened for the daring goblin. As soon as Taryk neared the statue, he was greeted by a familiar sight coming his way.

The other goblin’s head, knocked off by the rotating arms of the statue, flew only centimeters past his face.

Taryk released an angry roar, “THIS! IS! WHY! WE! KILL!” With one swing the statue’s forearms were obliterated. The next took out it’s head. Then shoulders; chest, pelvis. Finally as the brown sludge poured from the one leg, Taryk held the other struggling one.

Calling to a frightened goblin, “You’ll have to do it sooner or later. Take the mace; have revenge. It’s for your honor and your brother’s life.” Seeing that goblin was hesitant, Taryk screamed, “NOW!” as menacingly as he could, breaking the goblin out of its stupor.

With the mace trembling in its hand, the goblin struggled to even lift it from the ground, however, he finally leveled it against the squirming leg. ‘How did Boss do that?! With one hand!’ Thought Taryk as he clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth.

The first, second, and third swing missed. But the fourth hit. With a resounding crack, the mace was aimed directly at Taryk, who had to release the leg and jump away to avoid being smashed by his own subordinate. The legs took that chance to advance forward to the other goblin, charging directly into the goblin’s mace.

As the goblin flew back from the impact of the swinging mace, Taryk smirked when he saw

the leg finally collapse and disconnect from the ground in a pool of brown sludge.

“THIS IS WHY WE FOLLOW ORDERS! STAY BY ME! GRAB AS MANY WEAPONS AS YOU CAN! NOW! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!”

With the other goblins scrambling to find weapons - within ten metres of Taryk - Taryk headed towards the goblin who was knocked back. Dragging the stunned goblin back on his feet, Taryk asked, “You alright?”

“Y-yes? I feel… weird? Like something is growing inside of me, am I poisoned? Or crazy?” nervously spoke the goblin as he trembled slightly.

Laughing loudly Taryk patted him on the shoulders smiling ear to ear, “You’ve earned it, that’s all yours now,” nodding to the mace.

After talking to the goblin who ended the statue’s life, Taryk noticed the frantic gathering of weapons from the others. As soon as each held a blade, mace, ax in one hand and another in the other, Taryk stole a glance around and sighed. While he picked up yet another mace from a dwarven corpses and ordered them to follow him, only taking a short sidelong glance at the head of his morningstar that he shed so much blood with - impaled into the skull of elf.

Nearing the ladder, the small group of goblins met up with those at the bottom rung. Taryk casually ordered, “bring these to the surface, tell the others above that no one is to touch them besides sorting between axes, swords, and maces and all of that kinda shit. First dibs will go to the gatherers, then you guys here, and finally ones at the top. Now climb! And you all - back to work!”

With the goblin’s scrambling up the bottom rungs of the ladder, struggling to carry the heavy weapons, Taryk order the rest to drop their arms and gather more.

As only fourteen goblins were trying to supply an entire 200 goblin camp, the process was grueling and many times Taryk had to order some of the exhausted bottom most goblins to switch out from the ones leisurely waiting at the top.

Feeling no need to help in that regard, Taryk leisurely watched them work and occasionally help save the goblins who got too close to the walls.

Occasionally Taryk would even pull one goblin off to the side and provoke another attack by the inukshuk statues. Wielding a heavy mace in hand, Taryk quickly disabled the creatures and watched as his brothers grew stronger and stronger - seemingly for no reason at all. But it was proven by Andrew when he gifted the last kill to Taryk so he introduced such as a system to try to increase the odds of his troop’s victory.

As the weapons began to pile up around the entrance, so to did the bodies of the heaving goblins. With only a third of their force able to be equipped, with some less than ideal weapons; Taryk opted to tell the original group to rest in a separate clearing as he couldn’t be bothered to remember their names or faces.

Walking leisurely to the groups of goblins freshly roasting a small boar like creature Taryk was slightly confused, speaking up to a nearby goblin with a grievous wound on his arm, “Why did you cook him? Seems like a lot of work to build the fire and what not. If it’s already there sure, but this camp was set up like an hour ago.”

In between bites from the boar’s leg, the goblin still focused on the food in front, “it mine, I kill’d tit, get yur own.”

With a passing glance over to Taryk wielding the dwarven mace, the goblin’s body shuddered and the other goblins enjoying the meal began laughing like hyenas at his expense. Taryk simply raised his eyebrow waiting for an answer which promptly came.

“I-I-I got het, ya see? I was hungry then me and dem otha bastards tied em up… and cooked ‘em ‘live, sorry Chi- Bos- Commander?” Stuttered the quivering goblin holding out the half eaten roasted leg to Taryk as a peace offering.

With a wide grin on his face Taryk happily accepted the token of friendship and joined the group in devouring the pig. Within minutes the small group cleaned the boar of anything except the bones, which were just tossed directly into the small fire.

Wiping his greasy hands on the nearby grass, Taryk abruptly stood up and shouted, “All of you come with me!”

Seeing their lazy looking expressions, Taryk sighed loudly grabbing the mace he left off to the side and spoke loudly, “Last to come gets their heads smashed in? Just kidding, but actually hurry the hell up.”

With that, the second group of terrified and confused goblins were brought down to the rock army’s resting place to pillage for more weapons.