by Pirateaba
From a pure power standpoint, the Red Fang tribe to the north was by far the strongest. They were spread out around the entrance to the High Passes, and they had six Hobs in their tribe. They dominated the other tribes occupying the grasslands in that area, although the Goblins stayed away from the Human cities where adventurers lived.
To the south, around the Blood Fields, the Broken Spear Tribe was another barrier to any movement. They ruled that area with an iron fist, much like their Chieftain. He was no Hob; like Rags, he was a smaller Goblin, but one taller than normal. He wore armor made from Shield Spiders as did much of his tribe, and they had even managed to tame the deadly creatures. If the Red Fang Tribe and the Broken Spear Tribe ever fought, it would be hard to say who’d come out on top.
Other than that, the only other major Tribe in the region was the Ghostly Hand Tribe. They lived further south than the Blood Fields, but they alone would occasionally travel north through Liscor. The Broken Spear Tribe left them alone, mainly because even they feared the Ghostly Hand Tribe’s Chief. She was a terrible [Shaman] capable of raising the dead, and several Goblins in that tribe knew basic magics. They used poison and traps to fight, and they were just as deadly to other Goblins as their enemies.
All three tribes were so far above Rags’ small tribe in terms of hierarchy that it was impossible to compare them. She couldn’t even imagine challenging one of their Chieftains, only imagine the mutilated corpse that would result from such an act.
But they had to leave this place. Ceria had said, and the writing was on the trees.
Actually, nothing was on the trees, including bark. The Workers had stripped almost every tree around here of bark, even the ones they hadn’t cut down. Piles of thick bark lay rolled up in the snow.
Rags got off her stump and wandered over to one of the rolled up pieces of bark. She squatted down and inspected it with utmost care.
Yes, this was definitely the death of this forest. A cross-section of the bark showed Rags that there was definitely a layer of detachable wood—cushioned by something soft and almost jelly-like in between. Was this what exploded to make the bark fly so far?
Hm. Could she use this? Why wasn’t the bark exploding now?
It had to be the cold. Rags could think of nothing else. The bark was hard and the in-between substance was sludgy and stiff. If it warmed up, what would happen?
They had to leave. But to where? Rags had made overtures to the Broken Spear tribe to the south already. It was warmer down south, and she’d had the idea that her tribe could inhabit the Blood Fields if necessary. But she wasn’t sure their Chief would even acknowledge her, much less grant her safe passage.
Failing that, she might be able to negotiate passage north. The Red Fang tribe was vicious, but they might grant her some space far north if she offered them tribute every week. It would be desperate, but far better than certain death. Rags could weigh the options in her head; analyze the odds of survival thanks to her [Tactican] class and skills.
But—all of that was still running away, wasn’t it? It wasn’t how you leveled. That was the key. If Rags wanted to be stronger, wanted her tribe to be stronger, they had to stop running eventually.
But running was what Goblins were good at.
Cowards. That was what the Drake had said. It burned Rags just to remember. But what hurt most was that she couldn’t dismiss it. It was true.
Goblins were cowards. Maybe that was why they were so weak. Maybe…it was that Rags had to change. The nature of what it meant to be a Goblin.
Cowardice. It was a bad word. Goblins had no real word for ‘coward’, just words for those Goblins who ran when their tribe needed them, or stabbed each other in the back. Actually, Goblins who stabbed others in the backs weren’t thought of in a negative light. Stealth was a very valuable skill.
But cowardice was a bad word in other species’ languages. Rags understood that. The word was like a burn on your head, making you smaller, less important. Coward.
What was the opposite of that? It was a word Goblins didn’t really know. It meant ‘foolishness’ or ‘stupidity’ in their language, but Rags had heard Erin say it once. She’d been talking about how Rags played. It was a better word. A good word.
Courage.
And it lit something inside of Rags. Something. A feeling she’d only felt once or twice. The first time she’d set foot in Erin’s inn. The feeling she sometimes got as she played chess and when she was in the middle of a battle.
Yes…she did know one place that would be a challenge. A challenge beyond challenges. A place of death. Possibly even worse than the High Passes. The death beyond death.
In point of fact, the place of ‘death beyond death’ was no more than a small crack in the side of one of the distant mountains. Technically, it was part of the Red Fang Tribe’s territory, but as a general rule, all Goblins avoided the area.
Rags closed her eyes. An image—sounds—engulfed her. She went back inside her head, not just back in her thoughts, but back. Back in time.
Memory. A huge glistening mass of slime rears up and engulfs the first Hob. He drops the two-handed battleaxe and screams as the creature engulfs him whole.
The slime rears up, nearly twelve feet tall. It’s not simply clear jelly, but colored sections that swirl together in a hypnotizing miasma. Crimson redness engulfs the Hob’s form like mist within the creature’s liquid form; when it clears, the goblin is gone.
The tribe’s [Shaman] raises a staff and croaks a few guttural words. Spinning arrows made of blue light strike the slime, vaporizing small bits of its mass.
The amorphous slime does not scream, but purple gathers around the places where the missles strike, like antibodies rushing towards an injury. It rolls quickly towards the [Shaman], but two of the remaining Hobs move to block it.
The Scale Slayer Tribe battles the slime for thirty minutes before they retreat. One of their Hobs staggers away, half her face melted. The small Goblins limp away, burned, many beyond saving. They will die that night.
This is the third tribe that has sought to conquer this strange place. The abundance of strange plants gathering around the cave is not worth the death that comes out. They leave the slime to feast on their dead, and it is remembered. This is a dying place. It must be avoided at all costs.
Rags blinked, and woke up with a gasp. She realized she was being carried, unevenly propped up on other Goblins as they made their way back to their den.
Where was she? Rags looked around and realized she’d left her forest. Sometime as the ancient memories of her people had engulfed her, her warriors had come back and found her. They’d carried her back rather than disrupt her trance.
That was no good. Rags shouted and thumped the Goblins beneath her. They lowered her to the ground gently and she looked around.
She was…around two miles away from the forest where they’d found her. Good. That was good. Rags shouted and her warriors reacted with dismay. But she was insistent, and soon they had returned to the forest and ended up returning to the Goblin’s den, carrying the bark the Workers had left.
Rags lugged along a huge roll of bark, still thinking. She ignored the grumbling of her warriors around her as they carried equally heavy burdens. They would obey her, complaints or not.
She was a Chief. The Goblins may have resisted her at first, but once she had claimed her position, her status was undeniable. She would lead, until one stronger challenged her, or she fell.
A Chief was essential to any tribe. Without one, the Goblins were aimless, no matter how many of them there were. A Chief could direct them, give them purpose. Wandering bands of Goblins or weaker tribes were absorbed into a strong Chief’s tribe, and Rags had added one tribe and a few lost Goblins to her tribe just as countless Chiefs before her had done.
But being a Chief was more than just about leadership. It was also something that connected all Goblins. There was power in it, just as there was power in [Shamans]. Goblins gave their Chiefs and
Shamans their abilities.
In a [Shaman]’s case, the more Goblins that were in the tribe, the more power their spells had. But a Chief took something different from their Goblins. They took memory.
It was something every Chief could do. They could remember things that had happened to their tribe, things that had happened years or even centuries in the past. This could be extremely valuable, as Goblins remembered strategy or good places to hunt or hide. But it only worked with enough Goblins.
With a small tribe, Chiefs could remember the last generation’s memories, or maybe a bit further back than that. But with a huge tribe numbering in the thousands? Rags was certain any Chief of such a tribe would be able to remember backwards thousands of years. Perhaps more.
In her case, she’d remembered the place where Goblins had discovered death. Death, in the form of a small rift in the mountain from which monsters and horrible things emerged every now and then. It was something to consider, but Rags had no time to ponder that. Because when she returned to her cave, she found more death.
A severed head sat in the center of the small cave that Rags’ tribe called home. The other Goblins sat around it, staring at the head and then at Rags as she laid the boom bark in the snow. She walked towards the head slowly. It was staring at her.
Rags knew the face of the Goblin who had died. She was a Goblin she’d chosen a week ago as a messenger. She’d sent the Goblin to the Broken Spear tribe to talk to the Chief and bring back a message. And the Goblin had, after a fashion.
The head was a clear answer to Rags’ request. The young Goblin’s head rolled across the ground before coming to a stop. It was still bleeding; the blood hadn’t clotted entirely yet.
That meant something. To Rags, who understood death, it meant that her messenger had not been killed until only recently. An hour—perhaps less?
It meant that the Broken Spear Tribe’s Chief hadn’t just killed her messenger there and then, but had the Goblin brought close to Rag’s territory and killed the Goblin then. It was a message within a message. It meant ‘we can do this to your entire tribe if we want.’
It didn’t change the rest of it, though. Rags stared into the vacant eyes of the Goblin.
Dead.
It was always like this. This was why…this was why she had to do it. Even if it meant death. She had to try, try to brave the ‘death beyond death’ to stop this from happening. Erin had done it, once. If she could do it, Rags could too.
Erin Solstice was a terrifying human. She had killed a Hob by herself, something that even Silver-rank adventurers had trouble doing. In a straight up battle, their tribe would have supported the Hob while he cut down a party of adventurers one by one. But the previous Chief had been overconfident as he hunted Erin down like prey, and she had killed him.
She was stronger now, Rags was sure. Erin had gone through fire and violence and now she had people who would help her, and strength. She had been able to kill the creatures in the ruins with just a frying pan. And afterwards, she’d hurt the adventurer with the huge eyes.
Adversity. Rags had to prepare her tribe. So she buried the head and sat and thought.
Burying the head was a sign of deep respect. It meant that the Goblin who’d died was not merely food. The Goblins would have buried their last Chief if Klbkch hadn’t done it for them.
Rags watched her Goblins eat and warned the rest to leave the bark in the snow, well away from the fire. She wasn’t ready to test the effects of warmth on the bark just yet.
Let’s see. What did she have to challenge certain death with? She had…forty five Goblins. A paltry number, compared to the hundreds of Goblins in the larger tribes.
What else? Poorly maintained weapons, aside from her short sword. Wood clubs, a few metal weapons. Nothing useful.
They had slings, adapted from the Red Fang tribe to the north. Rags had instantly adopted the weapon when she’d heard of it, going against the traditions of her tribe. The new weapon had led to more kills from scavengers, and an increase in the Goblins’ ability to harry their enemies.
She had only six small jars of acid left, and Rags knew that Erin wasn’t able to harvest any more acid flies so long as the winter lasted. Rags had several potions taken from travelers, but she had no idea what they did. She regretted losing the one Ryoka had taken back, but that was that.
They had potions, a few weapons, Rag’s magic and superior armaments, and enough food for a few days thanks to the Rock Crab. And they had the bark. And…something else.
Rags went into the back of the cave and kicked Goblins until they moved aside to let her get to the Chief’s spot. She had something there. She reached under her small nest of dried leaves, grass, and cotton, and pulled out a tangle of wires and metal.
This was what Rags had. It might be the key.
The Goblins of her tribe stared with interest as Rags brought the remains of the crossbow out and laid them close enough to the fire so she could see, but not close enough to burn anything.
Rags inspected the gleaming metal and tried to think. This was a crossbow—or it had been. Rags had found it next to a pile of death, and the humans had named it. So she had taken it, but she had no idea how to fix the crossbow.
In truth, she had no idea what a crossbow really was. She thought it was like a strange box that fired twice, maybe tied together, but the pieces of the one she’d found in the ruins didn’t look like that.
At any rate, the problem here wasn’t so much that Rags didn’t know what a crossbow was—she had the pieces. But she had no way to put it back together.
Rags poked at the wires, stared at the wood. Then she did a very Goblin thing. She reached out behind her, and punched the Goblin sitting behind her. He grunted, and she pointed to the mess on the ground.
He had no idea what to do, so he reached out and punched the Goblin behind him. That Goblin had no idea what to do either, but he punched another Goblin to ask. And meanwhile, Rags was ‘asking’ another Goblin, and the other Goblins kept asking too.
And then one Goblin punched wondered if the metal had once been held on something. The idea of a bow had made her think of that.
Rags remembered the splintered black wood and the memory made her realize the Goblin was right. Another Goblin thought the pieces would go something like…this. Another Goblin disagreed. More punched each other, but all the Goblins were thinking now.
Within an hour, the Goblins had figured out what was missing from the crossbow. They needed wood. Sturdy wood, so the metal could be pulled back like…this! And then, yes, then you could put something in the slot. An arrow? It would fly far and strike hard, they were sure.
They had a few Goblins with a level or two in [Crafter] or [Carpenter]. Rags called them over and showed them the pieces. The Goblins muttered and then grabbed firewood and began to carve.
Meanwhile, Rags’ own mind was on fire. She looked at the metal, and then ordered more Goblins to recreate the designs of the crossbow with metal. They had plenty of scrap metal, and now all of her tribe was curious.
They hit problems, though. How were they supposed to fasten the metal to wood? Rags inspected the pieces of the crossbow, and found the black metal screws. Such was the craftsmanship of the Dwarven crossbow, the wood had broken while the screws remained intact, unbent.
Screws? That was way beyond the Goblin’s level of technology. But wait—the Workers were still working on that inn. Rags sent a group of Goblins out to see if they could find anything.
They came back with a bucket stolen when no Worker was looking. The nails and metal in the bucket weren’t like the industrial, mass-produced items of the modern world, but to Goblins, they were still a miraculous thing.
Rags watched the original crossbow being reassembled by her Goblins, and then considered the issue of ammunition.
Bolts. Now, that was another problem. Like anything metal, Goblins didn’t make so much as scavenge. They didn’t have enough arrowheads for their archers to make arrows as it
was, and it seemed these crossbow bolts would require different shaping of the head and shaft.
Rags set a few Goblins to cutting lengths of woods anyways while she tried to figure the problem out. They could probably fashion enough crossbow bolts for her, but they’d be made of wood and not metal, which would decrease the power. And wood was hard to come by in the winter, and harder still to manufacture without proper tools.
They couldn’t use wood for all the crossbows. So then what? What could a crossbow fire besides wood?
…Practically anything.
If you couldn’t make enough arrows, change the crossbow. Rags squatted down next to the team of tinkerers and soon, they’d widened their prototype crossbow and removed the string. Now it more closely resembled a sling mounted on a stock.
It took hours, and the entire tribe working into the night, but with a superior model to copy, the Goblins eventually came up with something that made Rags’ heart skip. They placed it next to the remade crossbow, two mismatched weapons, but two deadly ones nevertheless.
Rags loaded the Dwarven crossbow, pulling hard with both hands to cock the mechanism. Then she took one of the crude bolts one of her Goblins had made and fired a round outside. The bolt disappeared as the crossbow kicked Rags back into the cave. The Goblins were in awe.
The second crossbow was different, but no less important. Rags, massaging her chest, let another Goblin fire the first shot of that one.
This crossbow took a small stone rather than a bolt. The Goblin placed it carefully in the leather sling and drew the bow back until a small ring of metal could catch on the release of the crossbow. He aimed the bow at the cave wall and pulled the trigger.
Goblins dove to the ground as the small rock flew across the cave and shattered on the stone wall. Rags blinked as a shard of stone struck her on the forehead. She began to kick the Goblin who’d fired it, but she was elated nevertheless.
The new crossbow the Goblins had created was a stone-shot crossbow, not the advanced versions of crossbows as they exist in the world today. It had a lot less range and accuracy than a crossbow that used actual arrows, but ammunition was plentiful. Goblins could load it with small stones or even roll clay and dirt into pellets and bake them near a fire until they were hard.
