The Three-kin tribe was devastated these days after the death of Krog the Gore-Splatter, the previous Warden of the castle. Skitter was calmly but sadly walking through the silent corridors of the place. Watching and listening, and missing Krog`s routine walks and his giant bone thumping on the floor.
He scavenged the place for any useful items this weird structure had. One of the small rooms, filled with wooden and metal bits, spoiled meat and white dust, a kitchen mallet was one of the best things he could find, but obviously for him it was just a small hammer. A very good hammer actually.
Once in a while he would meet up with other squads, getting any news or supplies from them and generally chatting. Set up camp, cook rats and other meat they could find in the rooms.
It was nice.
But at some day, a new guy arrived. He didn`t introduce himself, and only moved into the largest room in the place, Warden`s previous place. Of course, none of the tribe members agreed. Everyone wanted their own peaceful sleeping room, a pile of bones to lay on and roof so high it was like the night sky.
The new goblin was sadly too strong for either Skitter, his friends or even the squad of Hunters to defeat him. That thing was different. He had....white hair on his face and the cleanest blade they ever saw.
So, after a few days, no one dared to come through the doors to his room. He became the new Warden of the place. And whenever someone met at the entrance and any noise came from the inside, they silently agreed.
"NINIMII G`THA...KRAA" you enter, you die.
And Skitter went back to salvaging scraps. And he even managed to find a piece of cloth, already made into pants. Which was so rare here, most tribe members had only a scrap over their hips to cover the shlong ,maybe a bit over their chest. But for the legs - maybe 2 had something like that.
Skitter overjoyed immediately dropped his belongings and started to get into his new clothes.
And when he was done he grabbed his mallet and bag of metal scraps. But it wasn`t on the ground.
Skitter confused looked around. Nothing.
"Thrak nib?" where thing?
He blinked extensively where his beautiful mallet was.
And after a few tries he saw something. A small green puddle.
Tsk
A slight click of a tongue came from above. It wasn`t from a goblin nor rats nor bats. It was a sound of someone who just messed up his nice relaxing weekend.
------------
Voro walked the hall - again.
4th time through the same place. It. was . SO . boring .
The first round was alright. A few goblins, new sights, some excitement , and few minor injuries. Not bad.
Second similar, but better since he knew the spots, knew where the goblins might be and could kill them all without a problem.
Third time is....bad. Voro thought he heard something coming, and it was rats. and rats. and one goblin.
And now he just wAnders the hall alone. Every single room is wide open and cleaned. Goblin bodies stashed away and their stuff put on a nice pile.
At this point he set up a small campfire with the use of some government issued lighters he had in the backpack and ate the amazingly prepared - rice and chicken.
Dry but at least warm meal at this damp cold stone palace.
"They couldn`t get anything from my place, couldn`t they" Voro scoffed at the quality of his meal. But ate the whole thing anyways.
This is the 2nd day he was here, wondering the halls, 40 something hours since he got here.
The walls only shake every now and then, slowly getting more common and more dangerous. It will take some more time to cause any structure damage, Voro was safe for a while.
And used that peaceful mindset to find a better place to sleep than a kitchen shelf. So he grabbed a goblin body, extinguished the fire with it and went back to walking.
One of the rooms seemed like a warehouse - barrels, chests and large wardrobes. Some items like racks and weapon holders were empty or destroyed, making the whole place a mess with bits of wood and scraps of metal on the floor. But - it was a large room even with them. And the door was mostly intact. Perfect space to rest.
Voro laid down his stuff and went for a chest near the door, to make a primitive blockade. It was heavy enough to block a goblin, but not heavy enough for Voro`s upgraded strength o have problems.
Screeeech
The chest moved slowly on the floor with a very high pitch sound.
Screeeeeech
Thump
One of the corners sank down. It sounded like wood breaking under the weight. Voro looked at the ground and saw the wood under the chest broken, a small place where stone was replaced by a square piece of wood painted gray.
'mmmm. nice' He pushed the chest the other way and broke the panel fully.
Inside was a small note and a ring tied to it.
Voro grabbed it and tried to read it. But even if the paper wasn`t crumbling in his hands, the letters were unknown to him. And barely visible.
'Shame' as the dust fell to the floor and he moved on to the ring attached to it. Since the thing was metal, it didn`t crumble although so much dust came off of it it might as well have been.
After dusting it off and polishing with goblin cloth he put it on his finger. Cold and a bit tight, bit it fit him pretty nicely. A reddish jewel in the middle shined a little at him
[Item found : Serrated Band - rank D]
[Description : A treasure of the Hold`s great artisan masked as jewelery. It was made for those who make death and for those who unmake life]
[Effect : Increases Durability of blades and tools held in the same hand]
Voro read the description carefully and was quickly satisfied. It was a simple thing, but as a man working with knives and butchery tools, having them break and chip less was a very nice touch. If it works on the sharpness of the blade too, it would be even better
'Very well, less work for me'
The pop-up closed and Voro got back to barricading the door and finally- sleeping.
-----
A small rock woke him up by falling on his face.
Voro got up from his sleeping bag leisurely and stretched out. By the surrounding sound, the castle was beginning to crumble again. It was time to leave.
As he got his things together and ready to leave, the ceiling reminded him to hurry and dropped a large wooden beam at his feet.
'I`m up, I`m up' Voro said as he kicked through the door to not waste time moving the chest again. He went straight to the larges door in the vicinity- the end of the hall and the supposed boss room.
As the ceiling collapsed behind him, he closed the double wooden panels behind him.
"HRUUOOOO?" the goblin in the middle was sitting facing away from Voro.
But the sound it made was.....civilized.
Question - who`s there. Even if Voro didn`t understand the word, the tone was almost human.
"Hi" Voro said calmly and grabbed his knives tightly.