(Book One Complete!) Friendly Neighbourhood Goblin (Mercenary Company LitRPG)

Light.

It began with a snap. A deep orange glow breathed to life in a wad of dead grass. They shared a gasp when the first flame dared to lick the air.

"Quiet," Yeza hissed. Her face, ringed by the midnight darkness of their cave and lit by a ruddy flicker, would have looked frightening if not for the wobbling shadows of her eyebrows.

Ergul suppressed a laugh, but the seriousness of her expression drew it out of him.

"Ow!" he said, when her fist found his shoulder.

"Quiet I said, or This-Spear-Is-Going-Down-Your-Throat will wake and he'll remind you why he earned the name."

Stump rubbed his arm. "He was nicer when his name was Gurn."

She shook her head and carefully rifled through a sack they'd stolen on their skirmish against the Tree-Swinger tribe. The matrons had already accepted the gifts they deemed worthy of their thrones, leaving the scraps for the lesser goblins.

"Don't say that. His warname is who he is now. Someday you'll receive one, and I will, too," she said.

Stump crept around the fire, feeling its heat travel from his face to his back as he found a comfortable spot next to her. "I'm not very good at war," he said, dropping his voice low. "I'm sure they'll find me a name that says so."

She pulled a book free and nudged the sack aside with her foot. "What would you want your warname to be?"

His ears twitched at the question. No one had ever asked him that before. He didn't even think it could be asked, in the same way a matron could never be challenged, or a true name could never be uttered once a warname was granted.

But before he could gather his thoughts, his mind was snagged by the tome opening in her hands. The pages turned with a crisp whisper at the flick of her thumb, and sketched on each in colours dulled by time was the promise of adventure. Tall men dressed in metal rode great stallions and carried shields twice as big as the most fearsome goblins. Their swords stood like towers of steel reaching for the throne of Grumul.

"What does that say?" said Stump. He placed a finger on an elegantly squiggled word beneath the knightly image.

She gave him a sideways glance. "Why don't you read it?"

"Me?"

She placed the tome in his lap. "You need to master it. One day Grumul will speak to you through the Words From The Sky, and you must learn to read his gifts."

He took a deep breath and shifted closer to the fire's glow, then ran a finger over the grainy bumps of the drawings and the incomprehensible swirls of the text and wondered whose story it told.

"Alright," he whispered, strangely nervous.

Yeza rested her head on his shoulder and pointed to the page. "This word is simple: 'The'."

"The."

"Read with me, Ergul," she said, and began to tell the story.

And Stump followed along. "The knight feared no man nor beast, no king nor dragon…"

Light.

It bled over them slowly, like a rising sun peeking through the canopy. The fungal trees sagging with lichen disappeared behind them. Sparkling clouds of spores thinned and vanished, and the vibrant twilight colours of the woods dulled to green and brown flecked by afternoon sunlight. Birds chirped, bugs buzzed, and dead leaves crunched underfoot.

They moved in silence.

They'd travelled for hours without so much as a word exchanged, but as they journeyed from evening to noon as if stepping backwards through time, quiet gasps escaped the mercenaries who'd never ventured beyond the shroud. The sky was bright and bluer than the sea, and wisps of white cloud sailed across it like snowcapped islands.

Tallas was first to look directly at the sun, and did so immediately after Ilora's warning not to.

He hissed away the pain and promptly walked into a tree.

A murmur of mimicaws fled the highest branches.

"Idiot! Idiot!" they squawked.

Rilla held up a hand for silence, and they all stopped and waited, crouching on the forested slope. The caws subsided, the branches stilled, and after a breeze carried nothing but woodland ambience, they were on the move again.

Navigation was shared between Stump and the Iron Fleece, who'd traversed the hills only days ago with the other half of their missing company. Occasionally they'd stumble on old dirt roads from before the Godslayer and would follow them through valleys choked by underbrush only to find the paths swallowed by nature before reaching a destination.

But there was one that stretched unbroken from the black walls of Aubany to Nevae beyond the shroud. They crept along its flanking hillsides, careful to stop at every passing shadow of a mountain bat or shriek of a stonecrawler, until the familiar shape of the land churned the bloodlust in Stump's belly.

The road was still blackened by the explosion. Scraps of burned wood hinted at what had once been a wagon. Bones were all that remained of the bodies, and even they had been pilfered of their most worthwhile parts for food or gifts for the matrons of rival tribes.

Tribes that no longer exist, Stump thought.

Only when Tallas surveyed the surrounding forest for traps with the help of his Rogue class did they emerge from hiding.

"Looks the same as when we first came through," said Boren, staring at the mound of ash and broken planks.

"Denna said your company didn't find much," said Stump. His eyes wandered to the spot where Garron had died. There was nothing left of him—not a piece of his armour or bit of bone to mark his passing, but the slight divot in the road was forever burned into Stump's memory.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Dharmis stepped through the wreckage with a searching frown. "It was already scavenged by the time we arrived. Couldn't even find the badges of the others."

"Do you remember their names?"

Boren hummed in thought. "Elendi… Wojan, and…"

"Garron," said Ilora, finishing the thought. "From Grimsgate, wasn't he?"

Her companymen grunted in agreement.

Hearing the name out loud was a strange feeling, like being reminded of an old friend from another life. Stump had hardly thought of Garron since visiting Shepherd's Hall and having his image of the Iron Fleece shattered by Torrig.

"Did you know him?" Stump said.

"I played dice with him once," said Dharmis.

"You lost dice with him once," Boren corrected, and then dodged a stone hurtling his way.

"What was he like?" Stump pressed, but felt oddly nervous about the answer.

To him Garron was as impenetrable as the heroes of old, his flaws as nebulous as the figures of knightly tales. All that existed of them was what was on the page, and all Garron had been to Stump was a suit of armour, a badge, an ideal to live up to. The question felt nearly as silly—and as blasphemous—as asking the matrons what taverns Grumul frequented.

Tenet of Lumensa Fulfilled - Virtue +1 (6/11)

Dharmis, unaware of the gravity of his answer, shrugged. "He seemed friendly enough. Though I think he cheated."

"Care to explain how one cheats at dice?" said Boren.

"Shut up."

"Cards? Possibly. Dice? How would you—"

The second rock found its mark.

Stump left them to their bickering and waddled closer to the bones of the wreckage. He stared down at the cracked and broken earth and let his mind wander to the ambush. He could almost hear the creaking of wagon wheels coming down the road, and the hum of the stone. Thrung's charge rang in his mind, and the memory of the explosion was so vivid Stump's heart kicked up its pace.

Why was Garron here? Who was he escorting?

"This where it happened?" said Morg.

Stump turned to find the dwarf beside him, unmasked and wearing the amulet around his neck. It thrummed with arcane light.

"Yes," said Stump. He pointed to a boulder up the hill. "That's where I was."

"I take it we're close to yer cave, then. What's our plan here? Sun's beginnin' to wane. Do we move on 'em or wait for 'em to come to us?"

Stump hesitated at the question. Not because it was hard to answer—goblins were not terribly difficult to outmaneuver—but because he was once again at the head of the charge, and the last time he'd been granted leadership nearly all his tribesmen had died.

And I was nearly executed.

He took a long gulp of warm afternoon air and steadied his heart. "We can't let them decide the battlefield," he said. "If they ambush us it'll be the Iron Fleece all over again. We need to attack them."

Morg's beard lifted with his grin. "Thought you'd say as much. Before nightfall, then?"

"In the morning, just after dawn. The monsters are most active in the evening, and they're drawn to fighting."

The dwarf nodded. "Then we'd best let the others know what yer thinkin'. Hopefully they've got the mettle to see this quest through."

They turned in unison to see Tallas standing with Hadder, their heads tilted to the sky.

"I never imagined it could be that colour," said the felari. "It's really quite—ah!" He spun away, rubbing his eyes.

"Did you look directly at it again?" Rilla's tone was exasperated.

"He did indeed," said Hadder, who was also mesmerized by the sky's majestic seawater hue. He at least had the foresight to cup his hands around his eyes.

"You'll lose yer sight if ye keep it up," chimed Durgish.

Morg and Stump exchanged a hopeless glance.

The dwarf cleared his throat. "We'll make camp first. Then we'll get to steelin' 'em for battle."

"Right. They'll need it," said Stump. "This time we'll be fighting in their territory."

The distant squeal of a mountain bat interrupted their musings. Everyone glanced skyward, and after a motion from Rilla they scattered to the trees before it passed overhead.

The light dimmed and its warmth faded with it.

They managed to find a flat stretch of earth nestled near the brook Stump had crossed during the Wildrun, and settled in for the night.

"How dark does it get?" wondered Tallas. He tried to hide the waver in his voice, but that only made it more obvious.

Boren, dumping a bundle of sticks onto the ground, gave him a cold look. "Dark," he warned.

"No fire," said Morg. "You'll be lightin' a beacon to goblins 'n all manner o' beasts."

The oxfolk frowned at the wood he'd gathered. "What should we do for warmth?"

Morg shrugged. "Invite a friend to yer bedroll."

Dusk became night. Stump and the beastfolk among them had no issues seeing in the dark, but sight was not his concern. It was the rustling of the trees and chirping wildlife that amplified at night that would mask the sounds of any creature approaching from the shadows.

As they got comfortable and doled out bread they'd taken from the manor, Rilla paced the circumference of their campsite, looking for paths of entry and secret hideaways. After a while she turned back to the rest of them.

"Who's on first watch?" she said.

Everyone conferred in silent stares.

"Fine. Durgish and Tallas. The two of you will spend..." Her order faltered when she noticed Wick leaning against a fallen tree. He hadn't said anything, and didn't look particularly opposed to her command, but the steam left her tone all the same. She cleared her throat. "As long as Wick approves it. Do you agree, commander? Or did you have other names in mind?"

The other muridean was in the process of chewing his last bite of bread. He straightened, and covered his mouth as he raced to finish his meal. After a swallow he said, "I'll take first watch with Tal. After two hours I'll wake you and Durg."

"I'll take third watch, if you don't mind," said Ilora. She sat with her greaves laid across her lap, and looked to be polishing them with a rag. "I don't need much sleep beyond three or four hours."

After agreeing to fourth watch with Morg, Stump made his way deeper into the woods to relieve himself. He followed a path of swirling golden pillars of nightflies to a moss-lined ditch and slid into it. Stone and leaves tumbled with him, and as they settled his ears twitched at a whirring in his pouch.

His heart shuddered when he found the Sending Stone and listened to the frightened plea of Yeza on the other side.

"Stump…?" she said.

He brought the pearl to his ear, squeezed, and tried to speak, but fear choked his words.

"Stump, are you there?"

"Yeza…" he managed, but reigned himself in before saying everything on his mind—Are you hurt? I'm so sorry I didn't come sooner. I'm going to rescue you, Yeza. I promise. If she had the Sending Stone, it meant Thrung was nearby, listening.

If I show worry, he'll only use it against me.

"I'm here," said Stump, as evenly as he could. "Where are you?"

As she spoke, a crackling, sinister voice dictated her words.

"Home," she said. "In the bone pit. Are you... are you coming for me? Or are you... running away, like a coward?"

He ignored the obvious provocation. "You'll be safe there. Do as Fire-Spitter says and he'll be fair to you."

The wheezing grew louder, and Stump was able to parse Thrung's words before she repeated them.

"He says you cheated. That you lost the fight, but your friends won the battle for you. You would have died if they didn't intervene. It would have been you instead of that traitor Griza if she hadn't saved you. He says—"

"He can tell me himself."

There was a long pause before the stone exchanged hands. The next words that leaked through were from a burned throat.

"Ergul..." said Thrung. "You fight with fear in your eyes. Even now you strike my people from the shadows, hoping to dwindle our numbers. This is how the tall men taught you to do battle?"

You strike my people from the shadows? Either there was another company hunting goblins beyond the shroud, or Denna was still out there, fighting to complete her company's quest. But there was no point tipping his hand with the knowledge of that possibility. The less Thrung was certain about, the more Stump had the upper hand.

"They taught me to win battles," he said.

"Because that is the only way you can! Six-Thirty! You're too frightened to meet me face-to-face. Six-Thirty!"

"You're right," Stump placated. An angry Thrung worked in his favour, but there was a balance when Yeza was only a challenging remark away from a beating. "The tall men are scared. They saw what your army can do. But if this is how we win, then this is how we'll fight."

"No," Thrung growled. "You want my throne? My crown? You want Yeza back? Then you must take it from me. If you're not here by dawn, alone, she dies. Come home, Ergul. Come and face me, and we'll see who the Godslayer favours."

The Sending Stone went quiet, and Stump found himself there in the dark of the woods, lit only by the flickering nightflies, and knew without a hint of doubt that Thrung was lying.

He would never give me a fair chance to kill him.

He was counting on Stump trekking to their cave as quickly as possible. On the way they would be ambushed and killed by what was left of the goblin army, and Thrung would have his victory without the need for a duel.

Because Thrung was the real coward.

And that meant the tribe would be stirring to battle and scouring the woods within the hour.

And I need a new plan.