At dawn, Finn and Darwin left their hiding place and slowly and stealthily approached the monster village. At the entrance to the village, they saw two hobgoblins standing guard. Using the slime and his telekinesis, Finn created a whip that split in two at the opposite end from where he was holding it and captured the two hobgoblins, pulling them toward him.
'I feel like Indiana Jones' Finn thought, snapping a hobgoblin's neck.
"Okay, let's move forward" Darwin said, finishing snapping the other hobgoblin's neck.
The two entered through the large gates and quickly hid in the bushes to avoid being seen by the monsters, if there was one awake. Little by little, they made their way deeper into the village, passing through the tents and small stands where they stored their resources until they reached what appeared to be the cells where the female monsters were captured.
As he passed the cells, Finn couldn't help but hear a rather familiar snort. Glancing quickly, he saw a chained horse-woman separated from the other monsters, staring directly at him and Darwin. Finn held her gaze for a few seconds, curious that she didn't react violently like the others he'd met.
"Another horse-woman!? Well, how many have escaped the centaurs!?" whispered Darwin, also looking at the horse-woman.
"Don't you feel like there's something wrong with this one?" asked Finn.
"Yes... she's holding our gaze and hasn't gone crazy trying to capture us" nodded Darwin.
"And her gaze, it's not normal. I can still feel that desire the other horse-women emanated from her, but this one seems calmer, more rational. That scares me. It's like if she now has the ability to reason" said Finn, and Darwin agreed with him.
"...we have to keep going" said Darwin, trying to forget about the horse-woman.
After advancing a few meters, the two finally arrived at the goblin witch's tent. Slowly peeking through the curtains, Darwin could see the goblin sleeping on a bed made of straw and wool, as well as an ogre sitting at a table eating what appeared to be a harpy leg.
"We have trouble. There's an ogre guarding the goblin witch" said Darwin, closing the curtain.
"Well… it shouldn't be a problem. If I use my slime to drown him and silence him, you can use your fire to burn his face…" Finn tried to come up with a plan, but at that moment, a loud explosion was heard, followed by the screams of the monsters.
Boom!
"THEY'RE ATTACKING US! THEY'RE ATTACKING US!" the hobgoblins shouted.
"Everyone up, we're being attacked by Earthlings!" Another hobgoblin shouted, only to be slammed hard by a massive fist.
In front of Finn and Darwin stood a huge beast made entirely of earth and bones. It had the skull of a deer with glowing green eyes, a torso made of earth, stone, and bones; one arm made of pure bones of different species and the other of stone; and finally, its legs were made of earth and stone. The beast was about 5 meters tall and radiated pure rage.
Finn didn't think twice and grabbed Darwin with his left arm while using the other arm alongside the slime, pulling himself out of there just before the monster attacked. Finn and Darwin crashed into the tent Finn had used to pull them out. Finn and Darwin quickly got up, hearing the screams of the monsters fighting each other.
"It's a territorial fight! There's something on these lands!" Darwin said quickly.
"Something like what?" Finn asked.
"I don't know, but it's no coincidence that earthly creatures, monsters made of pure magic, suddenly appeared right where all the goblin witches usually gather to ascend a goblin to a goblin witch" Darwin stated.
This was the information they had managed to extract from the last goblin witch just before coming to this place. Rituals were often performed in this village to ascend goblins and introduce them to magic.
"In that case, we must send a message to…"
Boom!
Finn couldn't finish speaking when the tent they were in was hit by another earthly creature, destroying the tent and sending the two of them flying several meters in different directions.
Finn crashed into several tents and then bounced a few times against the ground before crashing into the wooden wall the monsters had built to protect their base.
"Ugh, my arm!" Finn complained, seeing his arm turned in the wrong direction.
Finn sighed heavily before guiding his slime around his arm and forcing it to fit, causing him great pain. Finn breathed heavily a few times before reaching for a healing potion from his bag and downing it thoroughly. In a matter of seconds, his purple and swollen arm recovered and returned to normal.
Unable to rest for a moment, Finn rolled to the side, avoiding the ogre body that had been thrown by the earthly creatures. He then stood up and ran in the direction Darwin had been thrown, dodging and killing several hobgoblins in his path.
In the distance, Finn could see Darwin lying unconscious in the middle of what used to be the female monsters' cage. But before Finn could reach him, a hand grabbed his foot, yanking him with great force and slamming him to the ground. An ogre had seen him and followed him closely. The ogre lifted Finn into the air again, wanting to whip him again, but he managed to react this time.
"Ugh, fucking beast!" Finn exclaimed, reaching out and forcing the slime into his mouth and then out through his eyes, nose, and ears, quickly killing the ogre.
Finn fell heavily to the ground, watching as a hobgoblin approached Darwin's unconscious body with a sword in hand. Using his telekinesis, Finn pulled Darwin's body, avoiding the monster's attack, and then moving his fingers sent the hobgoblin flying away from the cell.
With some effort, Finn got to his feet and limped to the cell where Darwin was unconscious.
"Idiot, get up, this isn't the time to be unconscious!" Finn moved Darwin's body until he stood up, dizzy.
"Shit, that hit totally knocked me out!" Darwin said, standing up as quickly as he could and drawing his sword.
"We have to get out of here or we'll end up dead" Finn said, looking toward the wooden wall surrounding the village. "If we break the wall, we'll be able to get out of here."
"You won't leave!" a voice exclaimed from the distance.
Suddenly, Finn and Darwin were pulled with great force by a spell, dragging them along the ground until they were right in front of what appeared to be a well. Finn looked up and saw a goblin wearing elegant cloaks and a stone arrow tied with rope around his neck. The goblin was standing over the body of an earthly creature.
"Do you think I don't know what your intentions are here, humans?!" the goblin witch shouted. "I WON'T LET YOU TAKE OUR RIGHTS AWAY. THEY BELONG TO US. THAT'S WHAT THE MURAL REVEALED TO US!!!"
The goblin extended his hands, launching a powerful torrent of lightning at Finn, causing him to writhe on the ground. Acting as quickly as he could, Darwin conjured a fireball as big as the goblin witch's head and threw it at him. Seeing the fireball approaching, the goblin simply moved his hand, dodging the fireball, but not the dagger that was flying at high speed behind it and ended up catching him in the eye.
"Ugh, filthy humans!" the goblin cried in pain, ceasing his attack on Finn.
Darwin quickly grabbed Finn, avoiding an ogre's attack and hiding in the goblin witch's tent. Quickly taking out a healing bottle, he poured it on Finn's burned chest, causing him to breathe heavily. After a few seconds, Finn recovered and stood up, groaning in pain.
"FUCK!! That hurts like hell" Finn complained. "The other goblin witches' lightning didn't hurt this much!"
"It's because it's on another level" Darwin said, peeking out of the tent to see if anyone was approaching.
Finn slowly stood up and, using his telekinesis, made the slime float at the entrance, waiting to attack whoever entered.
"We have to hide. The goblin witch will surely be looking for us," Darwin said, turning to look at the enormous amount of straw on the goblin's bed. "That'll do the trick," Darwin said.
—
After a few minutes, the goblin witch entered the tent, holding his eye, which kept healing. Upon entering, the goblin quickly searched, unable to find Finn and Darwin. A look of horror slowly formed on his face as he walked quickly to the center of the tent.
"No, no, no, did I leave the passage open?" the goblin asked, waving his hand and removing a large rug.
'Hidden doors?' Finn wondered in amazement. 'That must be where they perform the rituals!'
Under the rug were what appeared to be stone doors with strange symbols on them. The goblin searched desperately for any indication that the doors had been opened recently or that someone had been here.
"Did they get in?! HOW?!" the goblin asked, pulling out the stone arrow hanging from his chest and waving it at the doors, as if cutting them in half.
"Now!" Darwin shouted.
The slime floating in the air moved quickly, covering the goblin witch's head, beginning to suffocate him. The goblin raised his hand and began to channel fire, but Darwin moved faster, coming out of his hiding place and cutting off the goblin's hand. He then grabbed the goblin's other arm, lifting the goblin and slamming him to the ground, instantly knocking him out.
"We've got him" Finn said, pulling the slime away from the goblin.
"Yeah, but we still can't get out of here. It's still total chaos outside" Darwin said, listening to the fight continue outside.
"We'll have to wait" Finn said, then looked at the goblin witch. "We should cut off his other arm to make sure he can't use magic."
"Sigh, I think I only have one healing potion left" Darwin said, taking the last potion out of his bag.
"No problem, I still have four unused, I'll give you half" Finn said, drawing his sword.
"Good, let's do it quickly. I want to see what's in that hidden room" Darwin said.
Finn nodded and with a quick movement, cut off the goblin's other arm, letting Darwin pour the potion over it and close the goblin's wounds. He then took out a sky-blue potion, pouring half of it into the goblin's mouth.
"Good, that should do it for now. With that amount of sleeping potion, the goblin witch shouldn't be able to wake up for about six hours" Darwin said, putting the potion away again.
"Why do you carry a sleeping potion with you?" Finn asked curiously.
"The sound of insects at night is keeping me awake" Darwin confessed, heading toward the entrance to the secret room. "We need to do a quick inspection of the room."
"You're forgetting this" Finn said, throwing the stone arrow that the goblin witch had dropped to him. "I looked for any signs of writing magic or something similar, but I couldn't find anything..."
"It must have some kind of magic imbued into it that we can't sense, since according to the goblin witches, this thing is what gave them intelligence and magic." Darwin speculumed, putting the arrow back in his bag. "We'll give it to the master later."
Finn nodded and followed Darwin into the secret room. The two descended a wide staircase made of stone and earth. The path was covered in dust and dimly lit by torches on the walls. The two walked down for a few minutes until they reached a straight path that led to a room with no doors.
Upon entering the room, the first thing they saw was that it was decorated with all sorts of symbols they couldn't understand, with a large stone bed in the center. The bed was surrounded by a river of blood, leaving only a straight path to the bed. In the corner of the room, they could see several corpses of goblins, harpies, and even a horse-woman.
"A blood ritual?" Finn wondered.
"Yeah, though, I don't know what they were trying to get from the other species…" Darwin replied. "Blood rituals are primarily used to acquire abilities from other species."
"Maybe they were trying to mutate" Finn speculated. "Just imagine it, a goblin witch with the same size and strength as a horsewoman and the claws and wings of a harpy."
"Maybe… but that doesn't make sense with what the goblin witch said earlier," Darwin said, remembering what the goblin had yelled.
"Yeah, they think we were coming for someone" Finn said, walking around the room.
"He said 'They belong to us,' so he means them in the plural" Darwin affirmed, examining the bed.
"The Godites…" Finn said, stopping in front of a drawing.
In front of Finn was a drawing of a creature. It had elongated ears and reached Finn's waist. The creature didn't have sharp claws or body deformities like the goblins.
"They're looking for a way to get to the godites..." Finn said, finally understanding. "I think when they found the ancestral mural and saw the creation of the goblins, they thought the godites were rightfully theirs and think we want to take them."
Finn looked amused at the drawing of the godite with hearts drawn around it.
"That makes sense, but it doesn't explain how the hell they increased their intelligence in less than a year" Darwin said, taking the arrow out of his bag. "According to them, this arrow is the one that helped them, but how? How did they know what to do with this arrow?"
Upon removing the arrow from its pouch, the room reacted unexpectedly, causing the walls to fade away and revealing a large hall with various magical writings on the walls. The writings glowed and began to spread until they reached the stone bed. The river of blood around the bed was consumed, causing the bed to glow red with some kind of magic they weren't aware of. The stone arrow also glowed golden, transforming into a golden arrow with a drawing of a tree on the tip.
"Well, I think we know how they gained intelligence," Finn said.
Looking at the bed more closely, they could see the shape of a body, indicating that whoever was performing the ritual should lie there. Also, where the blood had been before, there was now only an empty channel with several inscriptions that Darwin could somewhat understand.
"Transfer… they didn't procreate with the monster women to gain military strength, they used the newborn goblins to increase their own intelligence," Darwin said, amazed. "But since they discovered that, they shouldn't have been intelligent enough to understand it in the first place."
"And I don't think they occupied it," Finn said, seeing that on the far wall was another ancient mural explaining in detail with drawings how to perform the ritual. "The goblins must have found this place by coincidence, along with the arrow, then performed a quick ritual to confirm what this mural said."
"Who could have created such a thing?" Darwin asked, disgusted. "It stipulates here that they have to be specific offspring."
"I don't know, but we should inform the guild. With this, we're finally done with the goblin mission" Finn said, relieved.
"Sigh, I hope so" Darwin replied.