"Building his house?" Arad looked at the owner, and Jack approached, "Newly married, I guess?"
"No, he's been married for a while and lived alone. His house got damaged last week in a storm. So he decided to build a new one and use the chance to make it a bit bigger to accommodate the children."
"A storm strong enough to break a house. The other building in the village must be quite sturdy. I didn't see anyone of them that is damaged." Jack looked around with a smile.
"His house was poorly built." The owner replied, and looked at Arad, "Want to rent some rooms?"
"Yeah, two rooms would do it," Arad replied with a smile and left Jack to haggle for them with Lydia. He then took Aella and went out.
"Where are we going?" Aella asked looking around and seeing Arad looking at Village gate.
"I want to go check the surrounding of the village," Arad replied and looked at the road, "Then goblins might leave traces on the ground."
They walked outside the village and into the forest edge. Arad kept looking at the ground look for footprints while Aella inspect the bushes for any broken branches or the like.
"Aella, come take a look at this," Arad called her, staring at the ground while sweating.
"Arad, what is it," Aella rushed to his side and froze in place staring at the ground. "All of those?" She gasped.
"Small and barefoot prints. Looking at the marks left, I can assume they all had long toenails, so those don't belong to human children." Arad growled.
"Goblin footprints, what are they doing this close to the village? I thought they won't attack," Aella looked deeper into the forest, and then found larger footprints that looked to belong to an adult.
"They also have hobgoblins, a lot of them," Aella looked at Arad.
"If it wasn't a small bunch of goblins dancing here, we can assume there are hundreds of them outside, probably even more if this was a mere scouting squad." Arad turned around, "I think we should get Jack here and see what he has to say."
Aella looked at Arad, "We should inform the village. The goblins might be planning to attack it soon."
Arad thought for a second, "No, we will inform them at the last possible moment." He looked at Aella, "With their cheif attitude, I'm sure he will ask us to leave if we told him the goblins are about to attack the city. He might even blame us for it,"
"You're right, so we let the village die?" Aella looked back at the footprints.
"No, we need the people to see the goblins for themselves and convince the chief to evacuate the village." Arad and Aella headed back to the inn and brought Jack and Lydia to look at the footprints.
"Holy cow, what in the nine hells of the abyss?" Jack gasped, "A goblin nest of around forty goblin only send three to four as scouts."
"If there were only a hundred goblins here, we're looking at a thousand strong nests. This isn't even a goblin stampede. It's an invasion." Lydia grabbed the hilt of her sword.
"If the quest was right and a goblin king was born. It's better for us to retreat and mobilize a small army to clear the forest." Lydia looked at Arad, "But you won't agree, right?"
"I can always rampage inside their nest and burn it to ash," Arad smiled.
"You can't do that." Aella stared at Arad, "The goblins might be keeping elvish hostages as slaves. We need to save them first."
"Aella is right. We can't attack from the front door as they will use the slaves as meat shields. They knew we humans hate attacking our own." Jack added and looked at Arad, "We can't dig from underground either, since we don't know how stable the goblin nest is if it houses all those numbers."
"Can't you sneak inside?" Lydia looked at Jack.
"I can't even with invisibility, those bastards have a sharp sense of smell," Jack replied, and tapped his cloak, becoming invisible and then visible again. "We need another plan,"
"I shouldn't be able to teleport into their nest if I can't see its insides," Arad looked at Jack, "Can't we find a back door?"
"We need to find the nest first. Otherwise, we can't put any strategy." Lydia looked at Jack.
"No, we can plan one thing," Jack looked at Arad, "Poisonous gas. It can kill goblins in about a minute or two, take about five minutes to affect humans, and about ten minutes to affect adult elves."
"Rejected," Lydia stared at him, "It's too risky, and we don't know if the elves inside are healthy enough to withstand it."
"I understand," Arad looked at the forest, "Let's head back and think of a better way, we attack at dawn."
"I agree, we can't leave the hostages in there for longer," Lydia looked at Arad, "I wish we could attack now without risking their lives,"
"We can't attack without a plan, we would only send them to the grave." Arad cracked his neck, "I will fly over the forest at night and scout the forest,"
"I will come with you," Aella stepped forward, "Me as well," Jack also wanted to go, it will help to have a first-hand look.
"It's not like I can see at night, but I will come as well," Lydia approached as well.
Arad smiled, "You and Jack can share those glasses."
Jack nodded, "As long as you can hover in one place so we can look."
***
Later that night, Arad flew above the forest with everyone, looking for the goblin nest.
"I figured out a plan," Jack said with a smile, "We will find a way to sneak inside and grab the hostages, running as fast as we can," He looked at Arad's head, "And would leave you there to burn the whole place to the ground,"
Arad smiled, "Like the last goblin nest,"
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