14.2 ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ.ᴄᴏᴍ/sᴛʀᴀᴛᴏᴛʜʀᴀx

She wiggled and he gently lowered her to the ground bum first and then tossed the rucksack beside her. She gave him an annoyed look but rifled through it.

"Have you never heard of any kind of organisation damned wolf. Wait, Did you bring a knife? ah, here we go."

She pulled out a knife that had belonged to the half-elf Rain had eaten and put it aside, then she pulled her clothes free and wrapped her chest. She then tried fruitlessly to put her shorts on. Rain watched and couldn't help but let out a laugh at her clumsy weakness. After a moment he leant down and grabbed the shorts from her hands then shoved and handled her feet until they lined up with the holes and forcefully dragged them up her legs to sit snug on her hips lifting her up into the air a bit as he thrust them into place.

"Hey! Careful! I'm still sensitive down there!"

She batted away his paws from her hips and picked up the knife. She looked up at Rain questioningly who after a pause gave her a slight affirmative nod. Trust. The Goblin's cheeks coloured.

She then laboriously climbed to her feet. She took a few wobbly steps, then a few more.

"Oh! I can walk again!"

"Small miracles," murmured Rain.

"Shush. Look, it's this way, the place where we might be able to get food. Oh, we might have to fight for it, just so you know," she waved the knife taken from the half-elf in the air enthusiastically and then sunk to a crouch as her legs gave way.

Rain held out an arm and the Goblin swallowed her pride and grabbed onto it. She pulled herself to her feet and Rain began walking down into the cave with the Goblin holding onto him for balance and support.

They wandered through the dark for some time, slowed by Opal's occasional missteps, though that was happening less and less as she rapidly recovered her strength. They came across a thin jagged seam in the wall of the long cave they were traversing and through it Rain could see another large open cave with clean white sand covering the floor.

"This is it," whispered Opal. "Look, you can see their camp."

Rain peeked through the seam and saw what looked like what had been a fairly significant camp with four separate fires and multiple bedrolls and tents, though it was deserted now.

"What am I looking at?"

"Kobold outpost. They liked to raid our tribe whenever we went hunting in the ancient forest. There are about twenty of the bastards."

"Twenty? That's way beyond anything I can deal with. We had enough trouble with just a few, don't you remember?"

"Oh that's easy, we just need to draw them out into the forest and then I can repeat the same trick with the mushrooms. We're near enough that they should follow that far. That is if they are still around."

"Hrmm. If they find us I'm going to carry you out of here just so you know. I don't want to be running and then see you flop down like a wet fish because your legs won't hold your weight."

"Fine. But if we're smart they shouldn't get close, I know a bunch of secret passages they don't know of around here." She gestured at the seam as though it were an example.

The Goblin led the way further down the passage and then down a side tunnel, through a crack in the wall and then through a low hanging wide cave that they had to crouch to get through.

It was as they were leaving the cave that a sound met their ears, a hissing growling roaring sound, like a snake's hiss but multiplied in intensity.

Rain gave her a questioning look but she just shrugged her shoulders. They came out of the low ceilinged cave and emerged into a massive sandy cavern. Huge house-sized boulders were everywhere, often with large glowing crystals growing from them leaving the distant ceiling dark but the ground flooded with warm sunlight like light.

They scampered into the massive cave and hid behind a rock as another terrible roaring hiss sounded and dust trickled from the ceiling far above.

"I bet whatever that is is behind why your Kobold outpost is deserted."

"Probably. This might be a good opportunity for us if we can take advantage."

She took his paw and led them on a meandering path through the boulders. She paused and then put her back up against one particularly large rock and peeked around it. Rain leaned over her and did the same.

A sandy circular clearing met their eyes which was populated by fifteen or so Kobolds spread out around it. Much more importantly was the gargantuan snake that they were facing. A bulky blue and green and black scaled beast of a monster at least fifty-foot long from tip to tail. Its head was raised up in the air putting it at least a dozen feet off the ground and towering over the Kobolds.

It let out another hissing roar, flashing its saber sized fangs and a bloodied mouth.

"What do we do? Attack?" asked Opal.

"We wait for our moment."