Time passed and before Rick and very quickly Rick and the others came across something they had been inwardly and perhaps outwardly for some, afraid of.

  The lake.

  Once the lake was in the sight, they knew they were finally home, well Rick did since for the majority of the group it was their first time coming here but eventually passed the word down that they were basically home, which itself caused some unrest among the group because they were stopped for quite some time now.

  If they were basically home, why weren’t they moving forward? They weren’t complaining, they all just found the situation odd.

  POV Rick

  ‘Should I warn everyone now or wait till we all get to the Village?’

  [Are you aiming to avoid widespread panic by not telling them now?]

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly it. They’re going to all know about the terror sleeping in the lake eventually, but no need to worry them as we make this last stretch until we get to the Village.’

  [Then stick with that choice. It’s likely a good idea not to worry them. Though how do you think the decision you came to recently will be received by the entire group?]

  ‘The decision to continue living this close to the lake huh…yeah some of them might be unhappy about it, but I think it makes sense to stay. Not only would it require a lot of effort to actually move, where would we even go? If we head deeper in the north then we’d be in the fox’s territory, if we head to the west, we’d be much closer to the Orcs, and even though the beasts near the lake in the east are weak, we will need to move far deeper, and plenty of Tier 4s can be found the deeper we go.

  ‘That would essentially be a death sentence for most of the Goblins here. So, it’s either turtling up in the cave and trying to expand the insides without causing a cave in on top of our heads, continuing the status quo and expanding the Village as necessary.

  ‘We can’t run forever Velora, and there’s also the fact I need to head to the lands of the Clans at some point, that’s not something I can put off forever considering the importance of it all. And trying to find somewhere new to live whilst trying to prepare to leave for a significant amount of time doesn’t sound like a fun situation.

  ‘We are better off hunkering down here and growing as much and as we safely as we can. Of course, we still need to be ready in case the Serpent attacks but the only thing we can do there is get stronger. We have to get stronger. Practically nothing else matters until we can be strong enough to stand on our own two feet.’

  [Sounds logical enough.]

  …

  After a few more moments of observing the lake and not seeing the Serpent, Rick finally led the group towards the Village. With the only signs of something moving around the area was the large swath of land that was practically flattened by the underbelly of the Serpent, and there was also the amount of water that spilled over into the banks around the lake.

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  Rick made it to the Village just in time to see Geedi, the Royal Guards, and Jaba leading everyone out of the cave into the Village. Of course, since Rick could see them, then they could all see him. They were all shocked. Especially Geedi. She knew the goal was always to come back with a few Goblins from the Tribes and repeat this process multiple times in the coming months, but there was obviously a lot more than a ‘few’ Goblins following Rick into the Village.

  Of course, the shock in all of their expression only lasted but a moment before it was promptly overtaken by Joy.

  “CHIEEFFFF!!!”

  It was practically screamed out by everyone in the Village as the Goblins closest to Rick left whatever they were doing and ran up towards him.

  It wasn’t hard to guess that Rick was truly loved in the Village.

  A few moments were quickly spent greeting each other and ensuring that everyone was accounted for. The death of the Royal Guard was brought up, and things were put in place for it, then majority of the group got busy with trying to make sure all of the Goblins who came from the plains had somewhere to rest and food to eat.

  Needless to say, a visit to the rabbits, and a few other hunts were quickly carried out so that there was more than enough food for everyone to eat their fill.

  After some time, Rick found himself with Geedi, Jaba, Tars, Sigi, Lagi, Kida, Dran, Wala, and Rogu with the Royal Retrieval team Goblins all sitting in the conference room that Jaba once greeted the Rogu in.

  There were many things to discuss.

  “First things first, we need ensure there is enough places to sleep for everyone here. I know it’s a lot, but I felt we had no choice…”

  After saying that, Rick gave a summary of the events that took place in the Plains, to explain to the others where all of these Goblin had showed up from.

  He continued..

  “That’s why they’re all here. I apologize Dran and Wala, but we need to rapidly move forward our plans to add more housing in the Village, thankfully with the influx of all of these Goblins, you will have plenty of workers available.”

  “Don’t worry about it Chief, we’ll get it done!”

  Dran gave a reassuring thumbs up to go with Wala’s declaration. A gesture he learned from Rick of course.

  “Thank you, we should also ramp up the Rabbit Farm so that it could sustain a group as big as ours…those are the easier things we have to talk about. Let’s move on to the harder ones.

  “As you heard in the story, and most of you got to see or experience firsthand, the monster in the lake showed itself recently. We now know just what type of force we’re dealing with here. It was a monster that could probably easily wipe us all out if it chose to do so. Yet we’re going to continue to remain here.

  “We have nowhere reasonably to go in a short time, and it would bring us far more problems to head somewhere else than it would be remain here. We will stay and we will focus all of our efforts into getting stronger individually and as a group. We can’t run forever.

  “Goblins are strong and the monster living in the lake and the Orcs to the west will come to learn that soon. There will be a lot of intense training in the coming days. We have no idea when the Orcs will attack but I believe they will, but that means we don’t know exactly how much time we have for the group to grow.

  “That is why all training will be intense so that more of you can get stronger in a short period of time. I won’t force anyone to train or to even fight in the war, I’ll do my best to ensure I can shoulder it by myself when it starts.

  “Though there are two groups that won’t apply to.

  “The Royal Guards, and the squads. Geedi. The Royal Guards are weak, too weak to fight in this battle. It is not your fault, but sometimes life isn’t fair. My Royal Guards cannot remain weak so training will be mandatory for you all. In fact, you all will be directly under Rogu. Is that still alright with you Rogu?”

  “Yes My Lord! I will ensure they are quickly befitting of the title of your Royal Guards,”

  “Good. What about you Geedi? Are you alright with that?”

  “Yes Chief!”

  …

  After that, Rick and everyone else spent a few more hours finalizing all of their plans to enact in the short term. The Village will be bursting with action for quite some time, as the preparations for a War began.