The cavern's mouth loomed before us. Dark, ominous, there was absolutely nothing good down there but it was where we were headed regardless.
"Before we do this, I want to make one thing clear. If you think goblins are nothing but tiny, dim witted brutes, think again. Yes, they don't read or write, and you damned sure won't see one compose a symphony, but that just makes them uncultured, uncivilized. Savage, yes, but not stupid. Never stupid."
"Truth is, the tricky little bastards are clever like you wouldn't believe. We step into the dark, it means we're in their world, not ours. Just because we're sneaking in the back doesn't mean the place won't be full of tricks and traps. So if you don't pay attention to even a single other word I say, heed this: Be Careful."
"Yeah. Careful, got it." Eilefindel said, absently tugging her slender, pointed ears as she failed to hide her nervousness. She frowned, eyeing the dark, gaping maw ahead.
There were five of us that had dared to make the journey. Eilefindel was a priestess of the light. Young in elven terms, though for all I knew she could easily be twice my age. Barely out of her novitiate, but one day her power would be the stuff of legends. Self confidence was all she lacked, and taking down the Goblin King would go a long way towards fixing that. Already powerful, another hundred years of experience would make her a force to be reckoned with.
Normally, the dark was as far from her element as you could imagine, but given the right tools, that just made her all the more deadly to the goblins. She was the reason this whole crazy thing was actually going to work, the rest of us just had to get her there safely.
"Someone needs to end them," Sable said as she absently spun a blade between her fingertips. "They're growing bolder every year. It's not just isolated farms and villages. Davenport was the first. It's not going to be the last."
Choking out the last of the words, she slammed the dagger back into its sheathe.
I could still picture the burnt out shells of the houses they'd lit to distract the watch. The shattered faces of the survivors who'd believed themselves safe behind their walls. Wondering if they'd ever see the missing girls again. They wouldn't. Never again. Not unless they were taken too. We'd tried to save them, tried to end it. We'd failed.
Not this time. Not here, not now. Where force had failed, stealth would prevail.
It had to.
Sable had been one of the survivors, and one of the few to confront the menace instead of hiding. Quick on her feet even then (quick enough to avoid being taken, though she was exactly the sort of beautiful young woman that slavers most favored), time and experience had honed her talents into a fine art. Single handedly destroying no less than half a dozen raiding parties and driving off countless others, she had by far the most experience hunting goblins. I knew I'd have to have her on my team. It hadn't been easy. The dusky rogue had been skittish from the first about actually venturing underground.
For a moment, no one spoke. Not until our second elf chose to break the silence.
"Mmmm, I love it when you get all... fierce like that," said Katile as she stood off to the side. The corner of her mouth raised as she stared down at Sable's toned rear.
Sable spun, catching the elf's all too open stare. Snarling softly, one hand dropping to her daggers even as the other tugged at her clothing, trying to hide the pert behind that had caught Katile's attention. A futile effort. However modest and practical her clothing might be, it could do little to hide her obvious charms. Years of free living and struggle had left her lean and slender. Long limbs and taut muscles accentuating curves that could easily have belonged to a soft, lovely courtesan in a different, happier life.
Though it would be a shame to see that lovely behind covered by the long, top-accentuating gowns so popular in softer circles.
"Say that again, trollop," she snarled. "Go on, I dare you. Give me a reason to show you just what fierce means!"
Katile smiled, so supremely confidence in herself, sure that she could handle anything that Sable -or the world, for that matter- could throw at her. She opened her mouth again.
Damn it all, we needed them both!
"Girls," I barked sharply. Commanding as only a knight commander could be, "Enough. You know who we're supposed to be fighting here. We will
Not
do their work for them."
Katile smiled again, but nodded softly and stepped back. It was easy to see why the two never got along. Where Sable was hard and wild, Katile was nothing but soft, luscious curves. A far cry from Sable's woodwise, practical clothing, Katile all but spilled out of her tight gown. Ornate, bordering on absurdly so, it was the sort of dress that just shouldn't work. Tight, strapless, it barely managed to cover her all too generous chest. The high slitted skirts should have been all but impossible to move in, yet somehow she made it work. Traveling, even fighting in garments that should have fallen off at the first sudden movement. Yet all the while, it managed to stay more perfect, more immaculate than Sable's simpler gear.
Magic, obviously. A subtle display of power. One that spoke of her skill, if you paid attention.
Perhaps, too, Sable saw in Katile everything she had lost. Urbane, civilized, and utterly unlike the light elves, her people oh so innately tied to the hustle and bustle of the crowds. Urban beings in a way that Sable had once been and would likely never be again, a crimson elf like Katile must been a particularly painful reminder of the past.
A stark contrast to the pale and fire haired Eilefindel, Katile's skin was a flat shade of red that contrasted sharply with the elf's midnight blue hair. Like so many of her people, Katile's magic was fueled by emotion. Passion and desire, in her case, a fact plainly advertised by her every appearance. Favoring the crowds that only a human city could provide, they had long earned their reputation. Both the good and the bad.
"Oh, you're no fun," she said with a twinkle in her eyes. "But you are right. Let us focus on our true goal. That big old goblin treasure horde."
"Is it not enough that we right a terrible injustice?" Asked the final member of our group.
Tall, loud, and often boisterous, Jaie was a warrior out of legend. Survivor of a thousand battles, mistress of a hundred weapons. Just name a land, and it was likely she had fought there.
Though clearly human, no one knew how old Jaie truly was. Centuries at least, if the legends spoke true. Some said that she had fought Death himself, wresting her soul free from his icy grasp. Others that she had conquered a pantheon of gods and wrested their immortality from them, or had she instead saved them and been granted a boon. None knew.
"I'm sure that a big, strong warrior like you can take care of all that and still have time to take a little... something extra," she slid against Jaie, long fingernails lightly scratching the warriors arm as she ran her fingers along the layers of taut muscle. For a brief instant, Jaie's eyes glazed over, but only for a moment. Shrugging her arm out of the elf's grip, she shot the woman a dark scowl.
The tallest of us, and the strongest, Jaie managed to make raw power and athleticism look
