"Darlings, get back!" Sienna yelled as she reached out to Saltzpyre.
That was the last thing Markus saw and heard before the radiant light seemingly exploded. Instinctively, he closed his eyes to shield them from being blinded and took a step back. The moment his foot connected with the floor, something strange happened; it sounded like... squishing?
As the former sergeant opened his eyes, he found a scene from his nightmares. Littered around him were the corpses of young men, all were completely ravaged with brutal wounds, some were seemingly butchered with their bodies disemboweled and missing several appendages; others had chunks torn out from their flesh in patterns similar to bite marks.
'Ostland...' Kruber thought, dropping his sword and shield before collapsing to his knees. His mind returned to the most dreaded moment of his entire life, the one moment that he couldn't drown out no matter how much ale he downed and always came to him in his dreams.
"Back again, aren't I, mates?" The sergeant muttered solemnly as he looked around. It was then that he noticed he wasn't on the battlefield that had been burned into his mind, but rather a rural village. A sudden scream broke his trance as he realized that the situation before him wasn't some illusion of the past. The former sergeant hastily picked up his sword and shield before standing up and rushing to the source of the shriek.
A militia boy desperately waved his sword at a group of goblins, attempting to fend them off as his sister cowered beside him. The goblins had come so suddenly and he rushed with his sister as fast as they could to the village chief's house to take shelter, but they were too late and ended up being cut off in their path.
"Stay back!" The boy yelled as he swung his sword at an advancing goblin, causing the creature to step away.
"T-they're surrounding us," The girl said shakily as she held out a sickle to the goblins at their flank.
"What..." The boy said in terrified awe as a much larger goblin came forward, it was over twice his size and, unlike its smaller brethren, it did not appear threatened. The boy had never even known such goblins could exist and now it would be his doom.
Just as the goblins began to close in on the pair, pained shrieks began to emanate from the back of the crowd.
"Oi!" The voice of a man shouted, drawing the crowd's attention as they turned to face in its direction.
A sudden deafening boom rang out through the air as the pair shut their eyes from the pain in their ears. By the time the ringing subsided and they opened their eyes, the majority of the crowd had been dispersed, either fleeing or dead. The large goblin that once seemed so menacing now lay on the ground with its face caved in and its belly split open.
Before them stood a gigantic man, his sword and shield were covered in blood and grime, a strange staff hung from his side with a smoking tip, and his armor and hat were stained with gore, yet his presence seemed strangely comforting and inspiring.
"Where can I get you lot to safety?" The man asked the pair as they soon began directing him to the chief's house.
The children and elderly of the village huddled together at the back of the chief's hut as the sound of forceful banging continued at the door. The more able villagers, both men and women, stood ready with farming tools in hand, prepared to make a final, desperate stand.
A few of the cowering villagers let out a scream as a dwarf stumbled out of one of the rooms.
"Valaya's Lantern! What's going on!?" The stranger called out as he looked around him.
"What's a dwarf doing here!?" Another of the villagers yelled out in confusion upon seeing the stranger.
They didn't have much time for confusion, however, as the door to the house suddenly burst open and the invaders made their advance.
"Gobbos!" The dwarf yelled out as he quickly drew a strange device and pointed it at the creatures.
A series of loud bangs filled the room as the first few goblins suddenly fell dead, parts of their body seemingly exploding with blood.
"They're still coming!" A villager yelled as she jabbed a pitchfork at an advancing goblin, only slightly grazing the creature before it lunged at her.
The goblin's leap was cut short, however, with a hammer blow to its face.
"Shelter behind me, manlings!" The dwarf shouted as he holstered the device and drew the shield from his back, "Let a dawi show you how to plug up a hole."
"It should be right ahead," The boy said as he directed his sister and the stranger through the ravaged village.
As they turned the corner on the path, they were met by yet another horde of goblins.
"They're here too!" The girl cried out, before realizing they were swarming the village's shelter, "They're trying to break into the chief's house!"
"Looks like it'll have to be cleared the old-fashioned way," Kruber stated; he'd already spent the shot from his blunderbuss and it'd take too long to reload, "Stay low, you two."
"Come on! Try to kill old Kruber, you filthy bastards!" The mercenary said as he advanced into the crowd, carving a path through the greenskins with a series of wide slashes and shield bashes.
The goblins that once advanced upon him were now wavering and some appeared ready to retreat until one of their archers managed to land an arrow into the man's less protected leg. Knowing that such an injury would impede his abilities, the goblins' confidence was renewed and they began rushing at him, only to be cut down all the same. The former sergeant pulled the bloody arrow out of his leg, seeming to only find it a mild inconvenience, before continuing to clear the horde.
Fully realizing the futility of their efforts, the goblins close by finally broke and began to flee. Even the archers appeared to have ceased their firing.
"They broke through!" The boy said, watching as the goblins in the back of the crowd breached the door to the chief's house, before flooding in.
The moment of dread was short lived however, as several loud bangs were heard before the lower half of the doorway was filled in by a short figure with a large shield.
"The filthy gobbos sneak about, but we'll grab 'em by the snout!" A voice sang out as the goblins that attempted to enter the house were pushed back, some receiving hammer blows to their head.
"Bardin!?" Kruber shouted out as he continued to wade into the breaking horde, recognizing the familiar singing, "Bloody good timing, dwarf!"
"You're here too, Azumgi!?" The ranger called out as he pushed back another goblin before caving its head in with a shield bash, "Let's show these wazzocks what it means to mess with us!"
Faced with an immovable bastion and an unstoppable beast, it didn't take long before the rest of the goblins broke, fleeing in all directions upon realizing the futility of continuing their assault.
"They're getting away!" Bardin yelled out as he reloaded his pistol and began firing on the retreating greenskins.
A volley of arrows suddenly rained down from above, impaling the rest of the running goblins with extreme accuracy.
"Problem solved," Another familiar voice remarked as Kerillian leapt down from the roof of the chief's house.
"Well, you took your precious time, Wutelgi," Bardin commented as he reloaded his pistol, "Showing up only after we've already routed the grobi."
"Some of us do our hunting more quietly, dwarf," The elf stated before firing another arrow into a nearby bush, causing a sudden death cry to shriek out from it.
It was then that Markus noticed that multiple of the goblin corpses, separate from the ones he'd just seen Kerillian execute, were pierced with arrows; parts of their bodies were bloated at the impact points, a clear sign of the poison the wood elf coated her ammunition in. Notably, many of those goblins appeared to have been archers, their bows still gripped in their dead hands.
"Guess that's why the buggers stopped firing," The sergeant thought aloud as he remembered the sudden ceasing of the arrows that had been firing upon him, "I owe you a drink, elf."
"You think I want to sample from your barrels of cheap mayfly swill?" Kerillian responded snarkily, "You can give it to the dwarf, it's probably gone sour already anyways."
"Hey, only a few of our barrels have ever gone bad," Kruber retorted, "Besides, I was thinking more about sharing a good old bottle of brandy; would 'Queen Kerillian the First' be interested in that?"
"Now hold on Azumgi, you heard the elf, 'give it over to the dawi' if I remember right." Bardin butted in.
"Don't put words in my mouth, dwarf," Kerillian berated before turning to address the mercenary with angry whispers, "And you said you'd never mention that name."
"So, is that a 'no'?" Kruber asked.
"Just have it opened by the time I arrive," The wood elf answered relentingly.
"Um, excuse me?" One of the villagers exiting the chief's house began, "Who are you?"
"We're the bloody Ubersreik Five!" The former sergeant answered, "Or four... actually, three."
"I knew you struggled to read, but I didn't know you also struggled with counting, Kruber," Kerillian said snarkily.
"They must be adventurers!" A boy from behind the trio spoke up, his sister following along, "They rescued us from the goblins!"
"But, we didn't send a request to the guild," The villager stated.
"I guess you could say we just popped in," Kruber stated.
"Some kind of magic likely," Bardin said, remembering the Citadel of Eternity, "Must've teleported us to wherever we're at now."
"Next time One-eye suggests another scheme like this, try knocking some sense into him, mayflies," Kerillian added.
"Well, whatever power brought you here, thank you for saving our village," The villager responded.
"Bit early to celebrate, manling," Bardin stated, looking around at the goblin corpses, "Got any oil? We'll have to burn the grobi before their spores settle in."
"Spores?" The villager repeated questioningly.
"Just trust the dwarf on this," Kruber said, knowing that knowledge about the greenskin reproduction wasn't all too widespread, even he only had a basic understanding that the creatures were like mushrooms, "He's been killing the things for a lot longer than some of us have lived."
"Alright, I'll see if we can get some oil," The villager responded as he retreated back into the house to inform the others of the situation.
"Let's get to piling them, come on dawi!" Bardin said as he dragged a goblin corpse by the legs; as he did, its loincloth loosened, revealing its anatomy underneath.
"Disgusting," Kerillian spat.
"Hm, strange, looks kind of like..." Kruber started.
"A willy?! Euck!" Bardin yelled out and gagged, immediately dropping the goblin's corpse.
Large pyres stacked with goblin corpses burned brightly as smoke rose into the air.
The villagers who weren't tending to the fires were either treating their wounded or digging graves and praying for the fallen.
"Grimnir's teeth, grobi with willies! The world's gone mad!" The dwarf ranted; he hadn't stopped since seeing the greenskin's appendage.
"Have you considered that we all saw the same thing and don't want to keep being reminded of it, dwarf?" Kerillian said, annoyed.
Kruber listened on as he reloaded his blunderbuss. The whole experience was strange, one moment they were in the Chaos Wastes, and now they were in an unknown village that appeared to have been victimized by greenskins.
"We saw you get hit, sir," The militia boy said as he approached the former sergeant with his sister in tow carrying healing supplies.
"I'm fine, let your folks have it," Kruber said as he raised his pant leg to show the spot that the arrow had struck. Despite not even taking a sip from his draught, the flesh underneath his pants appeared to be completely unharmed, if a bit bloody. He didn't know the exact reason behind it, but similar minor wounds he'd taken seemed to just disappear a while later; it started happening after his time in Bretonnia, "See? No need for that here."
"Are you a wizard?" The girl asked curiously.
"A what?" Kruber responded, surprised at the question. Though he supposed such quick and clean healing did seem magical in a way, maybe it actually was.
"Don't be silly, wizards don't wear that much armor," The boy refuted, "And they also don't fight like that."
"But look at him and think about everything he did!" The girl argued.
"What do you mean by that?" Kruber asked curiously, wondering what about him made him look 'wizardly'.
"Well..." The girl began, "You're wearing a big hat."
"It's a nice hat," The mercenary responded.
"You have a fancy moustache," She continued.
"Glad it's been noticed," The former sergeant commented.
"And you cast that spell that made a huge noise and killed all those goblins," The Girl finished, "It looked really powerful, your staff even looked like it was smoking."
"Oh, that?" Kruber began, realizing that the place they were in likely didn't have many guns. "It ain't magic, it's kind of like a crossbow, but with explosions and... you know what, ask the dwarf, he'll explain it better."
"You don't understand, wutelgi! Grobi with willies! They can aim where they piss now!" Bardin continued rambling.
"Maybe it'll finally get his mind off that," Kruber added.
"Still, what you did was amazing," The boy remarked, "You must be a high-ranked adventurer."
"Rank?" That was something that caught the former sergeant's interest. He'd never heard of a 'ranking' for adventurers.
"Oh, could you show us your tag?" The girl asked, "One of our friends left to register as an adventurer a few days ago, she'll be really excited to hear that some high-rankers visited here."
"I'm sorry, I don't know what in Taal's name you two are talking about," Kruber replied.
"But, aren't you an adventurer?" The boy asked.
"I guess you could say that, but I've never heard of things like 'ranks' or 'tags' for adventuring," The mercenary stated, "Is it some kind of local thing? Actually, what country is this?"
"Oh, you're not from around here?" The girl asked, "This is the Western Frontier, it's a territory of the Kingdom."
"Western Frontier?" Kruber repeated confusedly, the only thing west in the Old World was Bretonnia, and while most of the land wasn't as developed as the Empire, it could hardly be described as a 'frontier', "And Kingdom of what?"
"Just the Kingdom," The girl said as if that was all there was to it.
"Sorry, but could I take a look at a map of this place?" The former sergeant asked; it was better to have a visual aid on the matter.
"Of course, I'll go ask the chief," The boy answered, heading over to the large house that had once been sieged by the goblins.
"Grobi willies! Not even Cousin Okri's ever seen something so nasty," Bardin continued.
"We get it, dwarf, quit talking about it already!" Kerillian scolded loudly.
"Oi, pack it in, mates," Kruber called out, "Let's figure out where the hell we are."
"Are you sure this thing's right?" Kruber asked, as he looked at the map, it was relatively detailed, but it didn't look like anywhere he was familiar with.
"It's a bit old, but it should be accurate," The chief answered.
"Never seen roads like these before," Bardin commented, "I've traveled probably over half the Old World looking for Karak Zorn."
"Wasn't any 'Water Town' in the Empire or Bretonnia last I remember," Kruber added, looking at the spot on the map marked with weighing scales, "Don't think there are towns dedicated to Verena now that I think about it."
"These patterns don't match any of our forests," Kerillian remarked; rededicating herself to the weave made herself much more in tune with the Worldroots, but that feeling seemed off now, "The trees around here too, they speak... differently."
"To say the least, we ain't in anywhere we know," Kruber concluded.
"Not to mention those gobbos," Bardin spoke up, "They're completely different, they have-"
"If you bring up their phalluses one more time, I'll pin your mouth shut with one of my arrows," Kerillian warned.
"I was gonna talk about their eyes," Bardin corrected, "Grobi eyes are usually red, but these looked almost like goats."
"Now that you mention it, there was an orc with them, but it also looked a bit off, with its face," Markus added, the creature he killed looked much more like a goblin than an orc, but its size was unmistakable.
"Still, grobi are grobi," Bardin stated before turning to the chief, "Oi, manling, you know where the gobbos came from? There's probably some left wherever they're hiding."
"Our hunter saw a couple of them at a nearby cave just yesterday," The chief explained, "We were gonna send someone to the guild today to post a quest, but they attacked before we could."
"Well, can't leave a job half-done," Kruber stated, "Point us to where it is."
"I'm very grateful for your offer, but I'm afraid with all that we've lost here, I'm not sure how much of a reward we can offer," The chief stated.
"Just have beds and food ready when we come back, it'll have been a long day by the time we're done," The former sergeant responded as he left the house, not willing to abandon the village over such a matter, "Won't have Taal and Rhya hearing I let a village burn to greenskins."
"Going out to fight grobi with no hesitation, you almost sound like a dwarf, Azumgi," Bardin said as followed the mercenary.
"I guess you lumberfoots dragging me along too," Kerillian stated as she took her leave as well, "Just try to keep up, you might even learn something."
It didn't take long for the trio to find the cave, every one of them held some form of experience tracking down their target, whether it was from poaching game, decades of wandering, or holding a connection with the very earth and foliage that surrounded them.
After thoroughly dispatching the remnant greenskins in their den and purging the infestation with oil they'd brought from the village, the three returned victorious, taking respite for the night.
In the morning, they would begin moving to the nearest town, to find more information of their surroundings and the whereabouts of their two missing companions.
"You're leaving already?" The militia boy asked as he saw the mercenary packing a sack of supplies; the group had purchased a couple of days' worth of rations for the road.
"Have to, not much time for rest for people like us," Kruber commented as he did some last checkups on his equipment.
"Well, you were amazing, I don't think me or my sister would've survived if you didn't show up," The boy stated gratefully, "If you ever return, you'll always be welcome here."
"I'll take you up on that," The former sergeant stated, as he noticed the sad look on the boy's face, likely due to his imminent departure.
The mercenary had an idea and plucked a feather from his hat's plume.
"You know what this means?" Kruber asked, holding out the feather.
"No," The boy answered curiously, "It's a feather, right?"
"Yep, and in my line of work, they're kind of like a sign of good fortune," The mercenary continued as he handed it to the boy, "For you and your sister."
The boy appeared in awe as he accepted the feather, looking at it as if it were a great treasure.
"Get a move on, Azumgi," Bardin called out from down the road, "We're burning daylight."
"We're not going to wait for long, Lumberfoot," Kerillian added.
"Alright, alright, I'm moving," Kruber said as he caught up to his companions.
"Bye, Mr. Hat Man, see you soon!" The boy called out as the group left.
"Hatumgi?" Bardin commented as they left, "Pretty fitting name for you Azumgi, surprised I never came up with it myself."
"Yeah, go on, have a laugh at old Kruber's expense," The mercenary said as they moved further from the village.
"For what it's worth, I think what you did was rather sweet, Kruber," Kerillian stated.
"Really? You mean that?" Kruber asked, surprised that the elf seemed to be genuinely complimenting him.
"Of course, it's always endearing to see a group of children getting giddy over the smallest of things," Kerillian remarked.
"Well, thank you, I almost tho-" Kruber began before realizing the implication, "Wait, did you just call me a child?"
"I was about to think it went over your head," The elf responded, "Congratulations mayfly, a bit delayed, but better late than never."
"Knew it, I bloody knew it," The mercenary stated as he focused on the road.
"It's going to be a long trek; I think I got just the song for it, drengbarazi!" Bardin announced, starting one of his usual dwarven ballads as the group continued down the path.