The meal was, again, surprisingly good. Though the coconut pork flavour of the gravy was certainly unexpected.
Once they were finished, Bob led the group down the ladder with their packs, in case something happened, and they couldn’t easily return to their fort tonight. It was always better to be safe, but with the amount of fighting that they were going to have to do very soon, Karl was questioning if they were even going to lose sight of the huge tree today.
The mages seemed to be having the same thoughts, as they didn’t have the superhuman strength to make the packs a negligible burden, but nobody openly questioned the leader’s decisions. That was a recipe for disaster out here, and any questions could wait until they were finished, or at least on their lunch break.
The pile at the bottom of the tree contained various metallic coins, shiny obsidian tools, and a few unknown ointments in leather pouches that Hawk and Rae had assumed must have some purpose.
Rae had returned to her den in the beast space for the morning, while Hawk continued to scout. Thor was waiting in reserve, ready to fight at a moment’s notice, but not wanting to be loud and distracting before it was time to fight.
Likewise, the Golems were not yet summoned, so the flanks were unprotected. Well, as much as they could be when they had a mage who specialized in barriers in the middle of the group. That was her position, so that if they had to defend themselves, both ends of the convoy were equal distances from her, allowing for a circular barrier, which was the quickest and easiest to create.
Bob gestured through the trees. “Our first target is the ridgeline. That marks the edge of our zone, but if we see monsters just beyond it, we will go to help whatever team is working over there.
Then we will follow that along the edge of our area, and circle the perimeter, zigzagging through on the final leg to clear every likely hiding spot.
We don’t need to be perfect, but the more we get, the easier tomorrow will be, and the day after that.”
Hawk was flying through the trees today instead of overhead, so he could see more of what was going on at ground level. They hadn’t seen many monsters in the branches, other than a few small insects and rodents, none of which were a threat to Hawk, but he still kept watch, as having trees overhead made him nervous.
He would rather be much higher, but from that height, he would miss things, and be slow to assist when needed.
[You can go up if you’d like, buddy. We have a scout here on the ground, and you can warn us about the big things.] Karl offered.
[Once you get to the ridge, where the trees are thin.] Hawk agreed.
After that point, he would at least be able to see the ground as he flew overhead.
The rest of their zone was more sparsely wooded, with low pine trees that he could see between. It was just this one area where they had set up camp that had the worst visibility.
But when Karl thought about that, he realized that their zone didn’t actually cover the most likely spots for the monsters to hide. It was rugged terrain, and a difficult spot to get to them, but most creatures would naturally go for the steeper cliffs, or the larger trees, and not the region they were searching, where the ground was too rocky for dense forest.
“How do these work zones get picked?” Karl whispered to Doug, who was in front of him in the line.
“Grid squares on the map. We get a number when we are drawn or hired for the mission, and then the numbers are assigned to blocks on the map. We got a fairly easy one this time, no climbing gear required, and no huge bodies of water to traverse.
But that also means that the monsters will naturally move through here. They don’t usually hide, they go looking for food, fights or whatever it is that motivates them.” The cleric whispered back.
That made sense. Karl had misunderstood the situation, the monsters weren’t hiding and trying to build their numbers, they were just doing as they pleased, and that meant in the case of the Goblins, they were looking for loot.
They loved shiny things more than your average crow did, and they were happy to kill to get them.
[Big Green things!] Hawk cheered as he spotted something in the distance.
“Big green things, Hawk says, straight ahead.” Karl warned the others.
Bob prepared his Guard ability, and the four wood Golems were called out, as well as Thor, while Rae napped after working all night.
The crashing noise of the creatures chasing an amused Hawk back in their direction was unmistakable, and Karl immediately wondered what the bird had done to annoy them. He could fly, surely they didn’t think that they were going to catch him if they had just spotted him.
Then Hawk came into sight, and everyone saw the young Goblin in his claws. It was still alive and flailing, and the crashing was getting louder.
“Hobgoblins.” Bob warned as the creatures came into sight, flanked by another dozen Goblins.
Hawk rotated upward, as if avoiding the humans, and threw the small goblin back at its tribe, but hit it with a Rend for good measure before it made it back to the ground.
The Hobgoblins flew into a rage, smashing at the trees, the ground and anything in sight before spotting Bob and the other humans.
“Groopata!” The largest of them screamed as it charged at them, and the warrior shook his head.
The Hobgoblin’s club hit Bob’s guard right as Karl hit the monster with a [Shred] attack that took its head off, and two lightning attacks stunned and burnt the smaller goblins.
Thor charged past Bob, spearing a hobgoblin through the legs with his upper horns, then throwing him into the air for Hawk to tear apart.
The Goblin tribe began to scatter as the Lightning Cerro charged into the middle of them, but they had no sense of organization, and the two mages were quickly picking them off with small attacks, while the Golems spread out to keep them from flanking the group.
Thor circled back to make another pass as the Hobgoblins, while the mages focused lightning on the small goblins, who couldn’t survive even the lightest of chain lightning attacks from the twins.
Karl stepped to the side so he could hit one of the Hobgoblins with Shred as Bob blocked its attack again, letting the club hit his shield and saving his energy by not extending [Guard] to cover the whole area.
That was the end of the tribe, and the group moved quickly to check the bodies, in case the noise had brought any other threats their way.
“Whole lot of nothing. A few bits of gold jewellery and some gemstones. It will sell well when we get back, but not useful now.” Doug noted as they finished.
He cast some sort of spell on the group, and Karl began to feel refreshed, as if he had just had a good nap and a long shower.
That wasn’t what he had expected from their cleric, but it was a very welcome surprise.