It was a good day.

After a week of tracking a marauding band of goblins who had been terrorizing a nearby settlement Kuron and his companions, Taac, Callis, and Tollwut, had finally found their encampment in the caves hidden in a beautiful little pocket valley. The cave was cramped for someone his size, at nearly 8 ft tall most places were cramped, but Kuron had learned to ignore such difficulties when hunting. The villagers had promised 50 gold pieces for wiping out the goblins who had been raiding their herds and pantries. That kind of money could change a life. Even split four ways it was more money than Kuron had seen at one time since he was a child, and if being on his own had taught him anything, it was that there was never enough money to go around. Life was not easy for a monster.

Kuron grimaced briefly in the dark at the familiarly bitter thought, but ignored it with the ease of practice. The “civilized” races did not like his kind. I know the reasons, he thought to himself as he navigated through a particularly tight spot, probably better than most of those postulating about their superior birth do, and nothing I say or do will make the slightest difference against their prejudice so there’s no point in wishing it were different. He broke off the thought abruptly as the narrow junction opened up into a larger chamber and he finally saw their target, and his eyes narrowed as he considered the new vista. The chamber was taller than the passage before, enough so that even he could stand up, albeit cautiously. Ahead, filling most of the chamber, was an underground lake, fed by a small brook on the far side. To the right the passage continued on back into the mountain, widening slightly, and to the left there was an almost invisible path that skirted the edge of the lake towards a hole in an otherwise unremarkable section of wall.

Callis, a burly ex-guardsman from Egjora, went to push by Kuron towards the right, but Kuron swung his torch in front of him and motioned to be quiet. Callis bristled, but before he could say a word Taac, the grizzled leader of their group, pushed his way into the chamber. He surveyed the scene quickly, then motioned to a flat space near the edge of the water where they could all gather. They carefully threaded their way there with Tollwut, the young sorcerer who had obviously not anticipated the difficulty of the trek ahead of time, bringing up the rear. Taac checked to make sure they were out of sight of the left wall before he turned to the others.

“Alright,” Taac said quietly as he pulled off his pack and set it quietly on the ground, “looks like we’re here.”

Callis motioned towards the right path impatiently. “What do you mean we’re here,” he said peevishly, “the path keeps going on that way! We don’t have time to stop, we’ve lost enough time lugging around these two!” He waved his arm at Tollwut and Kuron, the former already sitting down and breathing heavily.

“No,” Kuron said quietly, with a slight edge that he couldn’t quite keep out of his voice. “Taac is right, their village is behind that wall over there, with the little hole in it. I can smell them from here, and they’ve undoubtedly seen our approach.”

Callis started to retort, but was cut off by Taac. “It’s a classic defensive measure among the smaller races,” he said as he pulled a strip of jerky out of his pack. “It slows down larger opponents and gives their defenders places to stand and attack anyone coming through. My guess is they’ll have four or five of them gathered at the back. We would have to go on all fours to get through, and they’ll be waiting to cut us up as we come along.” He took a big bite and rolled his shoulders back. “I reckon our best bet is slip along the lake, see if there’s an opening there we could take advantage of.”

“I can crack rock,” Tollwut put in quietly from his seat on the ground, “point me in the right direction and I can bring the whole cavern down on them.”

“No,” Taac replied with a chuckle. “No offense, but I don’t really want to be under who knows how many tons of rocks when you start breaking them.”
Kuron had been observing the wall from the corner while they were talking, considering their options. Going into the water did not seem like a good idea to him. It was oddly still despite the brook pouring in, and it appeared quite deep. Here on the edges on the Umbral Depths the waters were often foul, or filled with flesh eating creatures, neither of which was appealing. He paused as he looked at the hole in the wall, and his eyes narrowed.

“I think there is another way…”

It took about 5 minutes to convince the others, and about 15 minutes to get ready. Now, lying on his back on Taac’s shield, holding his own shield over his face with one hand and his dagger reversed in his other hand, Kuron wondered if this was where he would finally die. Tollwut finished his adjusted levitation spell, nodded to the others, then Taac and Callis grabbed him on either side and shoved him headfirst into the hole in the wall.

It was a narrow fit. The entrance was designed to allow goblins through quickly, but force larger opponents to have to duck or crawl to make it through. Even lying down as he was, Kuron was larger than most goblins, and he experienced a brief swell of panic as the walls closed in. Thankfully, the goblins entrance was larger than it seemed, and they seemed to have never thought about this trick. There were four goblins with spiked clubs waiting inside, according to Tolwutt’s quick spell, but when Kuron emerged through the short tunnel only a few blows landed on the shield covering his face as he caught the defenders by surprise. He slammed the shield up and to his left, connecting with someone’s face by the sound of it, and slashed his dagger at the goblin to his right, cutting across his chest. He sat up, slamming his horns through the injured goblin even as he intercepted another blow with his shield from a goblin who was quick to react to the sudden explosion of violence. His knife flicked out, and now it was just one goblin on their feet.

The remaining goblin was younger than the others, and could feel his terror pulsing in his veins, but his position left him no good options. Kuron was between him and escape, and he could hear the other attackers coming through the passage behind him, which meant that way was also closed to him. Flattening his ears, he swung desperately at Kuron, hoping to batter the massive creature aside so he could run. He never even saw the blade coming.

Taac emerged from the short tunnel in time to see the last goblin fall to Kuron’s blade. The massive minotaur nodded silently to him and reached around to hand Taac’s shield back. Taac glanced around at the carnage and smiled. Guess the big guy is worth putting up with after all, he thought smugly. The rest of the group finished coming through and Taac shook himself as he looked to the next step. Despite the noise their entrance had made, there was no sound of incoming hostiles, so it was likely that the goblins did not know their walls had been breached. The whole fight had taken maybe 10 seconds from first blow to last, and the space they were in now had a large, sturdy door set in the wall opposite the entrance that would have muffled the sound anyways. He thought for a moment, then nodded decisively.

“Kill the lights,” Taac said as he snuffed his own torch. “That door would block light coming from their village, and the goblins in here were sitting around in the dark. No one seems to notice they’re dead, so let’s keep it that way until we’re ready to end the whole village.”

The others complied, Callis with his customary bad grace, and Taac motioned Kuron forward in the near total darkness. The beast’s senses were by far the most acute, and despite their current success, the party could easily be overwhelmed if the goblins got the drop on them. Kuron paused by the door for almost five minutes before slowly opening it. Light streamed in, startling after the darkness, and Taac’s first thought is that they were discovered. As his eyes adjusted though he realized the light was actually fainter than it had seemed, and he stepped through the doorway and looked around.

The entrance was on a slight rise to one side of the cavern, and a wide path led down a gentle slope to the village a few hundred yards away. The village cavern was easily the largest he had ever seen, several hundred feet wide, bordered by what appeared to be an arm of the same lake they had seen in the other cavern. The ceiling soared above them, with several small holes cut into it that allowed sunlight to stream in. Obviously the goblins had decided skylights were worth the risk, and Taac idly wondered how and where they had hidden them from the surface. The effect on the village was a patchwork of light and dark, with torches giving off faint light in between splotches of sunlight. The village itself sprawled over half the cavern, with nearly two dozen buildings visible from where they stood. Near to hand, there was a building set neatly against the wall to their left, obviously a guard house of some kind, but it was empty.

“Something is off,” Tollwut said quietly as he came up next to Taac. “Where is everyone? This guardhouse could easily hold 10 goblins, and no one leaves just four guards with no one to back them up.” He shook his head as he looked around. “For that matter, what kind of guard doesn’t send a runner to say there’s intruders at the door? There’s no way they didn’t realize we were there before Kuron came through. We should be fighting for our lives right now.”

“Agreed,” Callis said shortly, glancing sideways at Taac. “Do you think we missed them somehow? Maybe we’re in the wrong place.”

“No,” Taac shook his head, never taking his eyes off the village, “we are in the right place. But yes, I reckon we missed the bulk of the warriors. They must be out on a raid or something again.” He drew his sword and smiled as he felt the thrill of the bloodshed to come. “Which is good timing for us. We’ll kill whoever is left, burn the village. Without a base of operations they’ll either have to move on, starve, or come outside for supplies. And if they come outside we’ll slaughter them in the open air.” He glanced at the frowning bulk of Kuron, “Do you have a problem?”

Kuron looked at him for a moment, then shook himself. “This was supposed to be a camp for a raiding party, not a village.”

“You feel bad for the vermin?” Callis chuckled darkly as Kuron looked away. His voice dropped to a hiss. “Whoever heard of a monster that didn’t like to kill?”

Kuron turned at that, and Taac quickly stepped in. “Exactly, these goblins,” he stressed the word slightly, “are going to kill and kill again unless they are stopped. And regardless of what we expected, we took the job, and I aim to get my gold at the end. So cut your bickering, and let’s get to it, shall we?”

Callis and Kuron glared at each other briefly, then nodded and turned back to face the village. Taac started off down the trail to the village, leading the way. The beast might have better senses, but it was time for bloodshed, and he’d been looking forward to this moment since he took the job. They were finally seen as they approached the first building, and the fun truly began.

An older goblin with a walking staff accompanied by two younglings stepped onto the path not more than twenty feet in front of the advancing group. They stopped abruptly and gawked at the intruders who had appeared out of nowhere, and Taac rushed to meet them. The older goblin recovered quickly. Yelling something at the youngsters he leapt towards Taac, swinging his staff around to try to trip the human. Taac parried the blow with practiced ease, and riposted savagely, savoring the feel of warm blood as it sprayed across his face. The two youngsters had bolted away even as the older one had attacked yelling for help. Callis’ arrows found them first.

“Remember,” Taac said loudly as goblins started to appear out of doorways and in the path, yelling and crying out, “we’re still outnumbered, so chaos is our friend. Keep them from forming an effective defense!” He glanced at Tollwut. “Light them up, pyro.”

[OOC: Warning, this post involves the death of children]

Screams echoed in the cavern, accompanied by erratic bursts of combat, smoke choked the air with the acrid stench of pitch, and the fires that raged randomly around the village gave off a lurid, uneven lighting. If chaos was the plan, thought Kuron grimly as he parried yet another ambusher and slammed him into a burning doorframe, then this was the most successful plan he’d ever seen.


Kuron had nearly walked away when Callis shot the two children. No money was worth the death of innocents, of that Kuron was firm, but indecision had held him. They were goblins, after all, and part of a murdering, thieving community at that. They might not have committed the crimes yet, but they surely would in time to come. He knew there were serious logical flaws in that thought, but he hadn’t had time yet to dwell on it. As if their deaths were a signal, the whole village had rioted, Tollwut began throwing fireballs at seeming random, Callis and Taac had charged forward, and Kuron found himself busy defending the maniac pyro from several goblins emerging from the shadows surrounding them. By the time the initial rush was over Kuron had lost sight of his companions, and the fighting descended into absolute madness.


Kuron finished off the ambusher and looked up in time to see Callis entering the village square ahead of him. Despite his distaste for the human, Kuron knew that his chances of survival would be greater if they stuck together, and he hurried to catch up. The village square was fairly large, bordered by some of the larger structures in town, several of which had caught fire, though it was hard to distinguish if it had been Tollwut’s work, or just the natual spread of the flames. Directly ahead of Kuron, Callis was silhouetted against the roaring inferno of one of the larger buildings, laughing as he reached for an injured goblin that was trying to crawl away from him. He grabbed it by the back of its neck, lifted it up in the air, and ran his blade through it’s back before tossing it away. Kuron tasted bile in his throat as he approached Callis, the man he was rapidly coming to believe should not be allowed out of this cavern alive. Callis saw him approach, and turned with the first genuine smile Kuron had seen.

“Hey Kuron,” Callis called with what sounded like actual delight, “I was wondering how you were getting along. I think the village elder just ran into that burning building up ahead for some reason. We should probably…”

Whatever he was going to say died with him as a bolt of lightning struck the side of his face with overwhelming fury. Kuron instinctively threw himself to the side as another bolt hissed through the place his head had occupied a moment before. He heard a thin, reedy voice yell something at him, and he dove aside again as another bolt screamed by. His attacker was an old goblin, apparently the elder Callis had mentioned, who leaned on a short staff with one hand as he walked out of the flaming building towards Kuron. The goblin’s other hand held a shining orb from which short arcs of lightning constantly sparked, and Kuron hurled himself forward as the elder raised the orb at him again. The attack came faster than he had expected, catching him in the left shoulder and causing his heart to stutter as he crashed down, losing his sword. Kuron could smell his own cooked flesh, and his left arm hung limply, spasming randomly with residual discharge. Through the pain he pushed himself up on his hands and knees, knowing he had to move or he would follow Callis in death. He looked up right into the eyes of the elder goblin, now no more than ten feet away. The goblin stared down at him, dark eyes shining in the flickering firelight, still holding the orb high.

“You should not have come here,” Kuron was surprised to hear the elder speak in Egjorian, “We have done nothing deserving of the death and fire you have brought. Why do you seek to end us? You burn our village on the surface, burn our crops, steal our herds, you drive us into the dark like vermin. You leave us a broken people, desperate to survive any way we can. Yet when we raid your herds we do not murder the shepherds, we do not burn your homes. We have not sought your deaths, yet you still pursue us.” His voice rose as his outstretched hand shook, “Well no more. If we are but monsters to you, then monsters we shall be!”

A building nearby suddenly burst into flames, and the elder’s head twitched to look for only a moment, but it was enough. Kuron launched forward, the elder’s hurried attack passing close enough to burn his fur, and impaled the elder through the chest with his horns. They paused together for a moment, the minotaur still down on his hands and knees, and Kuron saw the hand holding the orb drop to the elder’s side, as the blood ran down his horns and dripped to the ground. He placed his massive hands, each almost as big as the elder’s head, on the elder’s shoulders and gently pushed his body off his horns, then slumped back.

“NO!”

Kuron turned as the high scream echoed in the square. A small goblin girl ran across the ground and threw herself on the fallen elder. She knelt there, holding the frail shoulders as she shook him, yelling in their own language, before lowering her head to his chest sobbing. Slowly her sobs stilled, and she slumped back, angrily wiping tears away with her hands and leaving a trail of blood under her eyes. She looked up at Kuron, who even sitting on his haunches towered over her. She shouted something incomprehensible at him, spat on his chest, and finally hissed a word he understood.

“Monster.”

Kuron sat, nailed to the ground as even the lightning had not accomplished, as his soul shriveled under the little girl’s furious pain. That single word broke through all the extenuating circumstances, confusion, and excuses with the power of the gods, exposing the evil of what this job had become. What started off as a legitimate attempt to hunt down a group of predators attacking a village had morphed into something else in this bitter, burning cavern. In the attempt to fit in with the civilized races he had truly become the barbaric horror they had assumed he was. Kuron stared down at the girl, and his hand rose towards her, shaking with a grief he could not explain. The girl flinched back from him, tripping over the fallen orb, her eyes wide with panic, and Kuron’s hand and head dropped as the first tear fell from his eyes. The girl reached out and pulled the orb to her chest, then rose slowly and turned to face Kuron. She raised the orb in both hands, as the electricity raced along her arms and her hair stood out, and Kuron watched silently through tears, waiting for the bolt that would end his life.

Kuron looked into her eyes, and they stood there for a moment, in the center of a burning village: the Monster and the Survivor, alone amongst the dead.

He saw her eyes flare wide with shock and pain, felt the heat of flames that engulfed her small body, and smelled the sickly sweet scent of her charred flesh. He saw her lips form the scream she was no longer capable of making as the fire consumed her, and he moved at last, catching her body as it fell, and watching the light of her soul leave her eyes. The orb fell from her lifeless hands, rolling until a hand reached out to pick it up. Still frozen in his horror, Kuron followed the hand up the arm, then further up to a face that he knew.

“And now we’re even for saving my life from that hunting party,” Tollwut said with a grin as he winked at Kuron. “You can’t take your eyes off these monsters for a second, even the little ones will try to kill you.” He tossed the orb up and caught it again. “Yep, I’m keeping this as a souvenir. Taac said we’re about done here, so get whatever trinkets you want and meet back at the entrance in a half hour.” He sauntered away, whistling a jolly tune while Kuron cradled the ashes of the little girl, before turning and calling back. “C’mon Kuron, none of us cared about Callis, and Taac already said we’ll split his take among us. So smile! After all,” he said as he continued on his way.

“It was a good day.”