Settlement

"Are you both ready?" Elric asked the two as they prepared to descend the tunnel passageway, deeper inside the mountain caves.

Due to the nature of their strategy, Klein was now in front of the group to shield them from any harm, followed by Alice in the middle and Elric at the back.

Elric had placed his sword which he tried to sharpen as best as he could before departing.

Alice and Klein had already used their skills in advance to be ready for any incoming attacks.

As they descended deeper and deeper down the passageway, they heard water hitting the ground continuously. The sound became closer as they saw the end of the tunnel, the entrance to the cave.

It was no surprise to the three since they have seen what a cave looked like before. It seemed rather familiar to them, a life that was much simpler than the one they were living now.

The cave was quite similar to the mines but the ceiling was much higher and it was wider than what they were used to.

"Let's tighten the formation and stick close for now." Elric commanded as they huddled closer together.

They noticed that there were multiple entrances into other passageways. One was behind them, where they came, another one to their right, and two of them in front.

"What should we do Elric?" Alice asked in a whisper.

"We're going to check them out one by one and see if we can find anything. But we need to make sure that we can get out at any time if we stumble upon something dangerous." Elric said as both of them agreed with a nod.

They carefully walked towards the passageway to their right, still keeping their formation intact, as it is the one closest to them.

As they reached the end they hid behind stalagmites and observed what was in the cave that they entered.

Goblins were mining. They were using small pickaxes as tools to mine the walls of the cave.

Elric and his friends looked around to see that the cave was littered with various gems that they only heard of when they were taught about the currency of the Kingdom.

They saw Sapphire, Ruby, and even Emerald Ores inside the cave that they were in and the goblins were all mining them which Elric found strange.

'Why would goblins need to mine all these gems?' He thought.

The goblins were taking the raw ores into another cave that appeared to be a storage room. Another entrance seemed like it was connected to a place where the goblins can come through without having to go around the cave that they were previously in.

"Let's go back and check on the other passages." Elric said as they all retreated into the large cave.

"We have to know how many there are before we decide our next plan of attack." Elric explained.

"Alright, which one should we check out first?" Klein asked.

"Maybe we should check the one on the left. I have a bad feeling about the middle one." Alice suggested with a hint of fear in her tone.

Even Elric could not shake the feeling that something bad might happen.

However, they have prepared well for this exploration and they can't move forward if they do not go through with this. So they proceeded towards the left entrance of the cave.

Slowly and quietly sneaking inside. Hoping that they wouldn't encounter a goblin.

They all hid behind rows of stalagmites and scanned the dim cave for anything. It seemed like it was the armory. It's a room where they kept all their equipment.

However, it was all strangely well organized which only fueled Elric's curiosity.

"I think it's an armory. This is where they…" Klein stated his opinion but was halted by footsteps which alarmed all of them.

They all peeked through the gaps of the mineral spikes to await the thing that was coming closer.

A goblin with a small wheelbarrow, fit to its small stature, was delivering various bladed weapons and armor. It was stacking it all up into a pile and quickly returned to where it came.

"Let's go, we need to check the last cave entrance before we return and regroup." Elric said.

They sneaked out of the armory undetected and continued to the middle passageway. The tunnel seemed rather deep but it still glowed orange from the strong light coming from inside.

As they all carefully walked inside, they could hear snarling and growling coming from the cave they were about to enter. It sounded like the chatter of masses.

And as soon as they cleared the passage, they saw the settlement of the goblins that numbered easily in hundreds.

This sight made them freeze and quickly hide.

Fortunately, the goblin village was about five meters lower than the passageway. It was as if they were standing and seeing the view of a cliff-side.

They saw hundreds of tents littered across the cave but there was a huge wall with a door, made out of wood.

It was something that wanted to be separate from the others. Maybe a hierarchy exists even among the savage goblins which seemed to be less savage than what the people were told.

"I think we have an idea of how many they are. So we need to go Elric." Klein got up and wanted to quickly get out and back up to their cave.

But as they were quietly retreating, two of the miners who went out of the mining cave saw them.

"Run." Elric said in a calm tone.

The three of them rushed to the entrance up to their cave.

The goblin quickly ran after them to try and intercept their escape but Klein deflected its attack and knocked the monster back and collided with the other green creature.

"Elric, what if it calls for reinforcements?" Alice's words made them all stop and turn around to face the hideous monsters that were pursuing them.

"Alright, we will fight them but we will make it as quick as possible to not attract any unwanted attention. At most, we can take up to four of these creatures. Any more than that and we will be overwhelmed. Do not panic and do what we usually do, got it?" Elric explained.

Both Klein and Alice nodded in agreement as they both took arms and reinforced their formation.

Klein with his shields to the left and Alice with her dagger to the right. Elric was right in the middle with his sword unsheathed and was ready to slash at his opponents.

The first goblin came at them from the front with its pickaxe.

Klein quickly shifted to the front and parried its attack when Alice came from behind him and quickly slashed deep at its neck and torso killing the goblin instantly.

The other goblin was shocked but still chose to attack. Alice moved back behind Klein once more.

They repeated the same attack pattern and quickly subjugated the second goblin.

However, they could not prevent the sounds of their weapons clashing from being heard.

Three more that heard the noise came rushing from the mining cave and another one from the armory quickly ran towards them as well.

"Keep focused. Maintain the formation." Elric commanded once more.

The three goblins came and swung their pickaxes at the same time as Klein moved forward as he lifted his arms and fronted his shield to defend the heavy assault.

Klein controlled his screams and only let out grunts of pain from the impact of the axes that carried all the weight of the three monsters with veins that bulged on his temple.

Alice came rushing towards with her sharpened dagger hands and slashed consecutively at the three goblins who had their pickaxes stuck to Klein's shield.

Elric also came out and assisted in finishing the last one.

However, nobody noticed that the fourth goblin who came from the armory had gone missing.

The sly creature hid in the stalagmites and came pouncing out of the shadows and thrusted its dagger to an unsuspecting Alice.

*CLANG!*