*Date: 33,480 Second Quarter - Iron Confederacy and Goblin Chiefdoms Border*
Demir and the group set up a secluded camp on the cliff overlooking the goblin camp. The dwarf committee unloaded their cart and there were preparations for a banquet. Smoke rose from cooking fires, torches were lit, and crude tables were being assembled in the clearing below.
"Whatever they are gonna talk about, I want to hear it," Roderic said, his voice low and firm.
Huntress Marven, the black-haired tall archer who shot down and captured Kazzak, intercepted. "I am not as good as Killgor but I have hiding skills. I can sneak if you want."
Demir cut in. "I can accompany her and protect her if something happens."
One of the mages of the settlement who spoke less but ate like a pig interrupted. "Is it necessary what NPCs talk with each other? We are gonna kill them and take their stuff."
"Ardrem, I can explain later to you. But don't cut in on what you don't understand. This is not a game anymore and every bit of information is important. Some maybe for surviving, some maybe for getting out," Roderic said firmly.
"What would goblins know about getting out? They aren't even in the covenant of eleven kingdoms," Ardrem protested.
Roderic dismissed Ardrem and turned to Demir. "We are short on numbers so we can't attain every job skill we'd like. We have to take everyone and use them in rotation. Killgor had to sit this one out so I am counting on you and Marven to sneak."
Demir was starting to admire Roderic. He was a much better leader than he'd anticipated. He'd expected a fight-crazy warrior but he was acting like a small group leader. Not cocky, meticulous, calculating, and most importantly firm and participant. Even though Ardrem talked ignorantly, he didn't dismiss him in a way that would make him resent it.
"Sure Roderic, will be careful. If shit breaks out, I'll drag Marven somewhere to hide, not bring her here."
"Good instincts. Were you military before the game closed on us?"
"No, just common sense I guess."
Demir went back to his small group and explained that tonight they were gonna spy around.
"Be careful Demir. You never know about this game anymore. Don't risk your life alone," Marco warned.
"I want to come with you too," Sin said, his eyes still burning with that unquenched fury.
"Sin, the moment will come. This spying is not the place for you. Just..."
The burning in Sin wasn't dimming down. His eyes always wanted to cut down anything in his path after his father's death. Even though Timmy was his twin, he had to be the mature one and tried to calm him down.
"After the dwarves left we are gonna attack anyway. We walked two days, just sit and rest," Timmy said.
Sin left without saying anything.
Marven approached. She'd covered her open parts with mud. "Ready big guy?"
"What are you wearing? Don't you have sneak skills?" Demir asked.
"Contrary. Why are you wearing that shiny armor? Remove it and cover yourself with the same mud. Sneak skill is useless if they've already seen you or taken your smell."
Marven took Demir to where she'd wetted soil and made mud.
"What is that smell? Is there shit in it?" Demir asked, his face contorting.
"Yeah, I think goblin shit. They won't ever notice us," Marven said matter-of-factly.
"Ughhh."
Demir lurched and Marven laughed, her blue eyes shining under the artificial moon.
"How though? Your stomach can take this? Were you a toilet cleaner before the game?" Demir asked.
"These are first date questions. Are you sure you're asking those?" she said in a flirty way.
Demir blushed at the idea. Flirting while muddying each other. He tried to hide it. The game closed on them, he'd lost people, he had no idea if his best friend, a friend practically left alone in the game, was alive or dead. But here Demir was laughing with a girl pretending to be a huntress and warrior.
"Okay, this is enough. Let's go before they all get drunk and miss their conversations," Marven said.
Roderic wished them blessing and Ardrem, before they left, cast some spells to help them hide.
They moved like shadows down the cliff. Feet careful, breath slow, the night a blanket that kept their shapes muffled and their intentions safe. Every crack of twig sounded like a drumbeat; every owl call like a sentry's probe. Demir felt naked without his plates. The metal had been a second skin for so long that when he peeled it off and smeared himself in the stinking mud Marven had prepared, he felt like a child again, small and exposed to a world that could chew him up.
The mud smelled of rot and old campfire and something worse. Goblin latrine, Marven had said with a grin that somehow made Demir flinch and smile at the same time. It clung to his hair and dripped down his neck. His armor lay in a bundle at the lip of the cliff, silent and useless for now. He tucked his cracked shield into a satchel and slung his short sword at his hip. It felt light and unfamiliar in hands that had learned to trust heavy blows.
Marven moved with practiced silence. She had a way of folding her long limbs into the ground, sliding between boulders as if the rocks themselves welcomed her. Demir followed, imagining he was made of the same forgiving stone. But his boot slipped on crushed leaves and the sound it made turned his teeth cold. Marven threw him a look that was equal parts amused and reproving. "Keep your breath shallow," she hissed. "Like this." She demonstrated, chest barely rising, shoulders slack. He forced himself down, felt his heartbeat hammer like a smith's bellows. He mouthed her example, imitated it, and the rhythm slowed.
Lower on the slope, the goblin camp sprawled beneath the cavern mouth like a rotten flower in bloom. Tents and lean-tos clustered around a central, larger canvas draped in patched hides and stained banners. Torches guttered by posts, goblins lurked with crude spears and sloppy armor. Beyond them, where little wagons stood with dwarven markings, Demir could make out shadowy forms of figures that didn't belong to the goblin brood. The dwarves' crates were stacked on wagons, half-unloaded. The gleam of metal caught the moonlight in dull, accusing flashes. Seeing that, something cold and bitter fizzed in Demir's gut.
Marven pointed, a long finger slicing the air between two tents. "There. Two sentries. Dull blades, half-drunk. We don't need to kill. Knock them. No noise." Her voice was a thread of silk over steel.
Demir swallowed, set his jaw. The plan tightened in his mind like a loop. He studied the two sentinels: hunched backs, slow eyes, breath puffing in the cold. One toyed with a clay cup. The other rubbed at his spear haft, fingers thick with grease. Both were too complacent. That was their virtue and their danger.
Marven drew two arrows, then Demir watched with a ridiculous mix of envy and respect as she snapped the iron tips off and blunted them with a small stone. "If you pierce, they bleed. Dull is for closing heads without telling the rest." She notched an arrow, drew, and released. The first flew soft and true; a dull thunk, a roll, the sentinel slumped over like putty. Marven's second shot was perfectly timed, the arrow striking the second guard at the temple with a whisper. Both collapsed without a cry.
"And place beer cups. Make others believe they slacked," Marven whispered to Demir.
"Lucky."
"It's called skill, honey."
They moved between tents like ghosts, keeping low. The nearer wagons had dwarven sigils stenciled on them, hammer and crown, twisted with mud. Dwarves ambled about near them, cups in their hands, laughing with goblins in a clumsy, uneasy camaraderie. The sight was a blow. Dwarves trading with goblins: the rumor was a knife in the throat of everything Demir believed. He forced it down and focused on the task.
The smell of beer and cooking drifted, and the sounds became a tapestry of life: goblin guffaws, dwarven baritone chuckles, clink of tankards, the soft scrape of carts. Marven shushed him with a press of her fingers to her lips. She had eyes for movement, for the way a goblin's shoulder twitched when drunk. She led him along a narrow trail between stacked crates and a smoking pit, pulling him close to a pile of hides where the warm breath of animals and dirt and excrement would hide any human scent.
"Listen," she breathed.
They pressed themselves beside a mound of sacks and peered past a lean-to into a clearing. The big tent rose before them, canvas drawn tight and heavy with stains. A low table stood inside, and around it a collection of figures slouched: goblin lieutenants with curled tusks and crude armor, dwarven envoys in patched chain, and at the center, chairs pulled close in apparent deference, a wealthy, fat and tall goblin with a circlet of brass on his head. He looked like a king gone soft.
Demir's breath slowed dangerously. He felt every hair on his arms stand up. At the edge of the tent, more officers lounged with jugs turned up, heads nodded in drunken agreement as one of the dwarves spoke. The words drifted out, muffled at first.
Marven's jaw tightened. "We'll hear better if we get closer. No sudden moves." She adjusted, sliding an inch forward, then another, until they were almost on their bellies, faces inches from the canvas. The tent's flap was open half an arm's length, and in that opening, the two of them could see and hear without being seen.
Inside, the dwarf committee had laid out samples: ingots, a cluster of short blades, something wrapped in oiled cloth. A goblin with a ledger tapped at a list, muttered figures. The atmosphere was not of crude barter but of a business transaction: measured, precise, terrifying in its mundane efficiency.
From the ripped part they could see inside and hear everything.