17.1 ᴘᴀᴛʀᴇᴏɴ.ᴄᴏᴍ/sᴛʀᴀᴛᴏᴛʜʀᴀx

The Goblin swung her new cutlass experimentally and admired her new gold necklace as they walked.

Rain worked a green scale free from his teeth with a claw. The Kobold leader had possessed a much tougher body to chew on than the other Kobolds, another sign that it would have been a bad idea to fight him when he was unwounded.

"Rock shaped like a goat?" muttered Rain, turning over what the Kobold had said.

"Yeah, I sometimes went there when scouting for the tribe. A lot of the time it would have levelers camped by it so it was dangerous. They like the spot for some reason, I guess it's a convenient safe place near the stairs to a higher floor of the dungeon." She shrugged and pointed with her new cutlass. "It's right there, follow me."

She led the way through a crack in the wall and they shuffled through until they came out on a shelf of rock overlooking a vast cavern which had in the centre what seemed a monolithic upright cuboid rock formation. The formation had apparently been carved in some distant time past as the top quarter was loosely shaped like a goat's head. A cluster of trees grew on top of the rock formation draping greenery down its side.

The rest of the cavern was relatively barren with only a number of rocks spread sparsely around the sands, as such it was easy to see the campfire and rising pillar of smoke at the base of the formation.

"Oh shit, they really are there," exclaimed Opal.

"We don't know if it's the same group that the Kobold mentioned, we need to get closer."

They climbed down from the shelf and wandered into the cavern proper. It didn't make for good cover and the pair were wary with how they approached and carefully hid from sight.

The campfire as it came into view was surrounded by more people than any single adventuring team Rain had ever known. It wasn't until they got closer that he realised why that was. A number of Goblins and Kobolds were chained around the edge of the camp while a skinny HobGoblin oversaw them.

The actual adventuring team sat around the fire. A tall Elf with black hair, an even taller female Orc who looked to be nearly seven foot tall, and beside her a Human woman. The woman had wavy blonde hair and wore form fitting hunting leathers under a loose cloak, a staff lay by her side.

"I know why you want this Brax person, he was one of your old slavers, wasn't he?" Opal nodded at the Elf.

"No. I have no idea who that Elf is. But the woman, that's Eliza. I don't know why she is with a shady group like this but that isn't going to stop me from killing her."

"Well you aren't getting at her like this surrounded by her allies."

Rain gnawed on his lip. "We should get closer, maybe if we hear their plans we can figure something out."

They crept to the edge of the camp, maybe too close, a chained Goblin spotted Rain and he froze unsure what to do until Opal raised her finger to her lip in a shushing motion and the Goblin quite deliberately looked away from them. Rain hurried to get out of sight behind a boulder.

"Lucky. That Gobbo could have called out."

"Maybe we can free the Goblins without being noticed and then when they are chasing them down I get Eliza."

"I'm not sure I'd be able to get near without being noticed to free them, you definitely can't."

Rain frowned but remained quiet to listen. Voices drifted over and they peeked around the stone.

"Here, Eliza, warm my meat."

"No! I'm not that kind of mage! How many times have I told you, I don't do fire. If you want it warmed stick it down your pants you stupid Orc."

"Bwahahah! Ola, quit being a tease, you'll just get slapped down again."

"Not my fault she has a stick up her arse and can't take a joke," the Orc grumbled.

"Hey, relax, we got a good haul, plenty of throwaway slaves we can sell off. Just think of the money."

"Eurgh, don't say that. I feel dirty enough working with you two."

"You'll change your tune with a fat stack of coin in your hands, don't you worry."

"No way! I wouldn't be doing this if I weren't in so much debt for buying this stupid staff. Soon as we're done we're parting ways."

"Ola here said something similar back in the day and now she's my reliable partner in business."

The Orc nodded. "Honour and all that is bullshit. Strength is the only virtue, everything else is meaningless, you know that, it's the same with leveling. The strong stand on the weak and relish every moment of it. Someone ten levels above you can lean on you, someone twenty levels above you can take everything you own and make you their bitch and you won't be able to do a thing about it. Same shit we do with these level-less monsters. You can think of them as level one if you like, it's not our fault they are so weak."

"Oh… I knew someone who was level one… as an adult."