18 Desperation

'We are all dead' Imigob weakly, but correctly assessed the current situation.

One didn't need his above average brain to figure that out, the only goblin's that weren't convinced of their fast approaching demise were the ones that were already dehydrated and starved.

"I'll… I am going to get water…" a goblin hunter with a bleak look in his eyes said as he stared further into the lake, where water wasn't polluted by the reeking death.

"You'll never make it, it's in the water, it's probably watching and listening to us right now, you'll just get killed…" Imigob reminded the hunter of what lurked out of reach, out of sight, that a rotting carcass that only wished for them to resemble itself awaited in ambush.

"...I" the hunter hesitated for an instant, swallowing his saliva to soothe his dry throat "I'm going to risk it" he had nothing to lose and didn't care for Imigob to come up with reason, he rushed toward the lake.

Grabbing hold of a bucket, he held his spear tightly as he ignored the headache and nausea his sudden movement brought him, completely focused, he didn't hear the shouts coming from behind him.

It was all white noise to him.

Thrusting the spear into the ground, he rose his body up, propelling himself through the air and above the darkened waters, he flew through the air, eyeing the clean water with intensity.

Holding the bucket above his head, he allowed his body to hit the water in the most painful way, so as to not sink in too much and avoid tainting the bucket with the filthy water.

He wasn't so smart, he was stupid, below average even by goblin standards, but in the state he was now, nothing was left to chance, swimming the few meters separating him from the drinkable water, he filled the bucket and rising it above his head as far as he could, he began swimming back through vile, oily liquid.

'Is he going to make it?' Stolgob had been watching from afar, silently rooting for him in spite of not believing that he would survive in the least.

Now however, the goblin seemed fast approaching, closing in on the shore and escaping from danger with a valuable prize.

"He is making it!" another goblin exclaimed, wholly unaware of what was going on beneath the water.

Loimos had just been standing a distance from where the goblin had made his heroic leap, he just walked over, looked up at the swimming green monster and simply grabbed his ankle, hoisting himself up since even with the improvements of his ability to move under water, he couldn't actually swim just yet.

Even with only one arm, Loimos wasn't shaken off as the goblin began to panic and struggle, the hunter was fatigued, his stomach empty, he had no energy to struggle with.

The biggest and strongest were the first to feel the strain of a lack of nutrition, the hunter stood no chance of prying the undead off of him, especially since he had to keep the bucket full of delectable water above the rotten blood.

Loimos bite right through the monster's ankle repeatedly, until it was barely holding on by a thread of flesh, his bones dented and chewed, the blighted blood touched and mixed with his sanguine wound, bringing a pain he never could have imagined, making him drop the clean water and sink.

Trying to scream out in pain reflexively, he swallowed some of the surrounding water, between the pain, shock, confusion and terror, he failed to notice that the weight pulling him down had changed its position.

The last sight the rest of the tribe had of the brave hunter was of him struggling to move before a horrid undead burst out from the water behind him.

With one missing arm, filthy bones oozing rot and blood, he resembled a foul creature of the depth, grabbing the goblin by the head, Loimos sunk his teeth infected by decay into the goblin's throat, quickly forcing the twitching mess down under.

Straight to the bottom, the instant his life force left his body, the skeleton began converting his corpse into rot to fuel the generator still embedded in his rib cage.

The lake was growing darker.

'We are all dead' Imigob reiterated his earlier thoughts, he had allowed his heart to be fueled by hope for an instant, but it had served as nothing more than poison, only reinforcing his nihilistic belief.

Their numbers, their prodigal members, their defences, it was all for naught.

"We are no match for the dead" he laid on the ground, his empty gaze fixated at the sun up above as it slowly grew dimmer.

It wasn't time for night yet, a dark cloud had begun rising in the air, the miasma pursuing them was only growing stronger and faster as time went on, and now, it was expanding its cruel dominion over to the skies.

It made no doubt in the goblin's mind that the very sun itself would soon be consumed and become nothing more than another medium for the rot to spread even further.

"We have been forsaken by the gods" Stolgob looked over to the love of his life, Irgob who was currently spouting some pretty scary stuff.

He would have liked to say something to comfort her but really had no clue what he should say about this.

Say that there were no gods? That's depressing if she truly believed in them.

Say that they hadn't been abandoned? That was just wishful thinking .

"We are not dead yet, we can still triumph" in the end, he settled to just push back the inevitable and also use a big word to show off how smart he was.

Silence had befallen the entire tribe after witnessing the hunter's brutal death.

Pokzgob, the mage of the tribe approached the chieftain with a grim expression.

"I have been sensing the vibrations in the earth" he began, his face told of his mental tiredness as he had been circulating his mana into the ground without stop.

Gobstroz nodded his head, indicating for the mage to keep on speaking.

"The serpent-men appears to have all died off, I sensed no movements coming from the direction of their villages, it makes no doubt that they have all succumbed to the rot and will soon become new sources for the mist…" he gritted his teeth and looked away "...We have no other choice but to push past and move toward the fishfolks" he concluded and turned away.

Loimos emerged from the water, onto the small island, within sight of all the goblins, holding up the disembodied and already rotting head of the hunter.

A sign of what was to come.