Guerrilla Warfare

The dwarf didn't leave much behind him, some tattered clothes and armor, a rusty short sword, a belt, and a waste bag with 25 silver coins and 12 copper coins. I didn't know if that was a lot or a little, but I took the opportunity to put on my belt and hang the sword, knife and hand ax on my waist so that it would be more comfortable to use them if necessary.

With the clothes and the leather, I managed to make myself some improvised shoes, which, although they were not a comfort, at least took away the unpleasant sensation of the ground on my feet.

When I went back down the passage, my surprise was to hear two shrill voices speaking in an unknown language... I was next to a wall; there were no lights, so they didn't use torches to move forward, they must have a skill similar to mine but a better vision.

Indeed, they were heading to the latrine. I left the shield aside; it was not useful in an attack from behind. The problem was that now there were two goblins. When I impaled one, it would scream or alert the other... The thing was not to miss the shot and see how to fix the second enemy... While nauseating smells and sounds of trumpets followed one another, I got closer...

Shit, they were facing me. They didn't turn their backs on me. Change of plans: I would ambush them at the crossroads, taking advantage of the corner where my body wouldn't be seen...

The first of them must have finished first and approached the intersection... I skewered him from the side with the spear, making it pass through him from one part to the other and leaving him with more than a meter on each side. Just as the first could not turn or chase me, I ran under the spear, and with the ax ready, I headed for the other shitter.

It is understood that he was alerted, but with his loincloth around his ankles, his ass in the air, and the cairn half out, he only managed to stumble out so that an ax stuck in his forehead...

I finished off the first one in the back, cutting his neck with the knife... Luckily, I hadn't had the idea to raise the alarm. I imagine that with the pain of a spear piercing his body, he had better things to think about... I was a goblin, not a disciplined soldier... I bet and won; this was a realistic game, and the stun of pain was a factor...

I searched the bodies of the two goblins, a stone club or mace, and what seemed to be a spear, although for my size it was more of a pointed cane, I hid the corpses next to the dwarf's and since a priori I did not have use for so many weapons I left them at the exit...

Something strange crossed my mind. Hadn't the goblins been surprised by the disappearance of the luminescent mushrooms?

The answer came with the sound coming from the tunnel; the voices of at least three goblins could be heard, and if... they had discovered the trail of the first dead man...

I stayed at the limit of the light, but if they really saw in the darkness, this would not be of much help. I retreated a little more; the tunnel barely allowed me to go with the shield in front and the spear ready... Something must have alerted them, noise, they saw me... how to know, but the truth is that it didn't take me long to feel their gaze on me, their weapons ready, and a certain aggressive attitude. They weren't brainless beasts, so while two of them stayed in front, the other ran through the illuminated tunnel...

One had to be a male, while the other, due to her anatomical characteristics (she had tits, small but tits), was a female. The first was armed with a long knife; it was not a sword, not even a short one, but it was not the size of a normal knife. The second was armed with a kind of hammer that she held with both hands (a long stick with a stone at the end).

I looked at the tunnel; despite their small size, they couldn't surround me. I crouched down like a rat, and waited.

My spear was launched as soon as the first one was at a distance, but he dodged me, the spear passing ineffectively over his shoulder. With my left side covered by the shield, the goblin went to the right and stabbed into the gap... I moved the shield to block, but in this way, I left my spear immobilized against the rock. The blow of the hammer resonated against the shield, and I took a step back. Yes, yes, I dragged the spear backwards, and not having much angle or possibilities, I attacked over the shield.

The female goblin's shoulder was punctured, although the bone deflected the blade outwards, preventing it from getting hooked on the spear but leaving her arm useless. The male attacked with the knife towards the hand that was holding the spear, and by reflex, I dropped the weapon. Before losing my fingers, I took cover behind the shield while I unhooked the ax from my belt.

The dynamics of a spear and shield and an ax and shield were different. While the first combination allowed me to attack without opening the shield's defense, I had the disadvantage of leaving the enemy inside or in front of the defense, with the ax In order to attack I had to open the angle of my shield arm so that the path of the ax (in a narrow corridor only from top to bottom could be launched)...

The technique proved crude and obvious, and the goblins read the movements. We had reached a tie; they couldn't reach me, but either I couldn't hit them or I had to go back and close the defense mid-attack...

However, with greater size and greater strength, although semi-crouched to be at the height of the monsters, I had one option left: to throw them down with the shield and knock them down. My charge forward ended with the surprised female goblin by the floors; however, his companion stepped back in time, allowing him to cut me on the arm with his long knife.

It wasn't impeding; it wasn't horrible, but it hurt. A clean cut from the elbow to the middle of the arm... I stepped on the female's chest to immobilize her and crushed her head with the bottom of my shield. For the male, I picked up spurs and ran in the opposite direction...

When an ax is thrown in a movie, we see a glorious scene where the ax comes out in perfect circles and sticks in the back of the person fleeing, knocking him down. Reality was just as effective but rougher; the ax came out with the weight part in front but not with the edge, and I didn't hit him in the back; I hit him in the ass, making him fall on his face with the bad luck that he stabbed himself with his own knife in the fall....

I made sure they were dead; this time I didn't hide the corpses; it was useless with a fleeing goblin that would have raised the alarm, so I searched in case there was anything on their bodies. The female goblin was wearing a necklace made of sharp teeth, as big as my pinky and narrow as a needle (there were more races and beings in this dungeon), and the male was wearing a crude bag with a few almost extinguished luminescent mushrooms... More likely, they were edible.

Now I could analyze the difficulty of facing the goblins. Since frontal opposition was ruled out, it was easier to hunt them one by one.

Every hole, and every corner, became the place where I hid. The first groups of 3 and 2 gave me a bit of a battle, although I had always managed to surprise and suppress even one...

At one of the forks, I found a raised ledge that overlooked a larger cavern, illuminated with large mushrooms, a bonfire and about 22 large tents. Many goblins were running, eating, and shouting, and only a few were patrolling... There would be no more than 40 of them, and although they were few compared to the thousands of rats, they were not such easy monsters to kill...

I continued killing and hiding as I went down and explored. Of the dead I had strewn the path with, I found few useful things: a small water skin, more mushrooms, a dagger of more elaborate manufacture (not like the goblin knives)... Discarding some tunnels that looked like other latrines or blind wells, and others that led nowhere, I only left unexplored two ascending tunnels that flowed in the opposite direction to the cavern, and with them in mind, I moved forward.

The road widened while a sharp curve to the left came. Sheltered behind some stones, I looked out. A barricade with five goblins was waiting for me; from the attitude and the fact that they were looking at the tunnel, it seemed that they were waiting for the previous patrols to arrive.

The drop from the ledge was too high, and the landing, no matter how soft it was, would only throw the entire cave on top of me... The barricade was out of the question... I had to provoke them to come... But until I had the idea, it was best to explore. The first tunnel up was narrow, and I ascended for what I counted as about two hundred steps. From that moment on, the sound of flowing water sounded ahead... The cavity was about 5 meters in diameter, and from the far wall fell a stream of water that formed a small pond on the ground a couple of meters wide...

From the amount of footprints there were, it was clear that it was an area heavily traveled by goblins... probably the colony's water source. I drank and filled the skin. Among the goblin footprints was another of an animal... it was a large animal, a set of feline footprints with more than 16 centimeters of footprint and a possible distance of almost five feet... I checked the entire area, and as soon as I saw the feline trails, I could almost guarantee that there were two adults, one larger than the other, and no less than two smaller felines...