Ch. 32 Goblins

Gabriel circled the area twice to give time for Acorn to get in position. Once Acorn found a good branch with easy to access cover Gabriel tucked his wings and started to dive.

*Pew pew pew pew pew pew pew pew* Acorn let off his first cheek full of Crystal Seeds distracting the group of goblins. A matter of seconds later and the *Crack* of Wind Blade hitting it's target was heard. A loud shriek rang out near simultaneously, at this point Acorn knew it was time to change positions and prepare another cheek full of seeds. As he bounced from branch to branch, he noticed one Goblin was on the ground grabbing it's leg that was twisted in an unnatural direction, and another was headless right beside it. Looking up to see if Gabriel was diving again, Acorn stopped on a thick branch for good balance and prepared to fire his seeds.

Gala had already circled the group to come at them from a different angle and was watching for Gabriel, when she noticed he was already diving again, she took off at her next target. Another *crack* rang out as a goblin was split down the middle, signaling Gala to attack. Running into the group she used Deceive on the goblin that wasn't being shot with crystal seeds, she quickly pounced on the goblin and dug her teeth into its throat. Seeing Gabriel wasn't in a position to fight the remaining goblin, Acorn dove off the branch he was on and used his Crystal Tail in combat for the first time. Doing a somersault in mid air, Acorn brought his tail down on the head of the last standing goblin, shattering it's skull, it was dead before it hit the ground. "Good job you two. I'll interrogate the one with the broken leg. Gala, gather their weapons and throw them in the river. Acorn, check for anything useful and see if the bear is salvageable."

Gabriel made his way over to the goblin, mentally preparing himself to learn a new language. He would probably have to torture the goblin before it would speak and allow him to use his Language Mimic, but then he would be able to find out where it came from so they could snuff out the problem at it's source. The goblin was still holding it's leg while rocking back and forth, crying, when Gabriel got close. Without even wasting a second, Gabriel grabbed it's right arm in his talons and crushed it.

*Kiiiyyaaaaa! Ti kib lotti gra sk!* It screamed something in Goblin, but since it was the first time Gabriel had heard Goblin he couldn't make it out yet. So, he grabbed the left arm with his talons and crushed it. *Kiyaaa! Ti kib lotti gra sk!* (Still don't get it, well you got one limb left, sorry for not sorry.) Crushing the last limb the goblin began to scream at him again, but it finally made sense. "STOOOPP! It hurts so fucking bad!"

"Good, it wasn't meant to tickle. Where are you from? Speak or feel more pain."

"HOW DO YOU SPEAK LIKE US!? Who are you?" Gabriel immediately grabbed it's already broken leg and began to apply more pressure, his talons breaking the skin. "I asked where you're from, I didn't ask you to ask me questions. Answer."

"STOOOPP! There's a cave on the other side of the river where our people stay! We we're supposed to bring back food after hunting!"

"Thank you, that's all I needed you for. I hope you enjoy hell." Gabriel took the goblin's head in his talon and crushed it. "Did you find anything worth looking at?" Not even fazed by the killing and torture, Gabriel was already interested in any potential loot.

"There's a backpack with chunks of bear meat and some weird rocks in it. Also, there is a small locked box the one with the sword was carrying. I couldn't find anything that opens it though."

"Thank you Gala, good job." Gabriel began to inspect their finds. He directly stored the locked box to investigate later, then took the back pack and dumped it onto the ground with the help of Gala. Seven rocks of various sizes and about 20 chunks of bear meat fell onto the ground. Gabriel quickly stored the meat and started storing the rocks. He could identify everything once they called it a night. Leaving the backpack, Gabriel flew over to the bear corpse and stored it, taking up the remainder of his Tiny Dimension. "The bear took up too much space, we'll have to call it a night and go home. We need to get this carcass cleaned up, the pelt and bones will be useful in reinforcing our base. Not to mention there is enough meat here to last us over a week. Let's go."

Truthfully, Gabriel just wanted to go back so he could try the other two scrolls, but it was a good excuse as they really could use the materials and meat. A short time later they arrived at the entrance, but Gala and Acorn thought they were at the wrong tree somehow. *Kekeke* Gabriel chuckled as he walked through the Illusion and into their base. He waited for nearly 5 minutes before the other two got the courage up to walk into the side of a tree. As they entered, both had strange looks on their face like they should be in pain.

"We found some stones that create an Illusion when we killed those bandits. I installed then earlier while you two were resting. Pretty neat huh?" Proud of his little set up, Gabriel couldn't help but brag about their loot. 'Neat? I thought I was going crazy for a minute there.' Gala still couldn't understand how a rock could make an illusion, but she seen it with her own eyes. She was begining to feel like magic was more powerful than her teeth and claws, which was not a good feeling when those are your main weapons.

Acorn was still in a daze, but couldn't help but start laughing. "That was so cool! I walked right through the trunk of the tree! No one could ever find us in here now!" Gabriel let out another chuckle before taking out the Locked Box and placing it next to their chest. Looking in his Tiny Dimension, Gabriel realized the supposed rocks were actually ores that he could identify. The biggest being a chunk of steel, the next 2 were copper, the mid sized chunk was silver, as for the last three small ores, two chunks were adamantine and the other was Obsidian. Gabriel knew he had no use for these now, but if he could befriend a smith in the future he could have custom weapons made that would be of a superior quality. An obsidian beak cover and adamantine talon armor sounded amazing. (I'll leave these here for now as they'll only take up precious weight.) Gabriel unceremoniously threw the ores in a pile next to the chest to be used, eventually.

Back to the task at hand, Gabriel needed to finish cleaning out his Tiny Dimension before they could rest for the night. They headed back outside and Gabriel retrieved the bear Carcass. In little less than an hour they had managed to cut up most of the bear meat and put it into storage. They'd also section out the bear pelt and hung it on a couple of branches. The bones were taken by Gala to be cleaned in the river before being piled with the others in the base. After the trio had finished up, they made a quick run to the river to clean up before sleeping. Gabriel had to meet up with Serah tomorrow morning and he wanted to make sure he wasn't a mess while doing so.