It was a lot of effort dragging the two heads out of the tunnel. They weren’t that heavy, but they made climbing really difficult.

  The ant head wasn’t too bad, but the centipede was extra difficult. Turned out its pincers had a paralysing venom on it that they had to be careful about. A fact they only found out after Krysa touched it and found her hand was difficult to move. At least she didn’t have any blood circulation to spread it. After that they were a lot more careful.

  It took them longer than it should have for them to realise that they could just use Halmir’s blink to move through.

  “We never tell the others,” said Krysa. Halmir nodded next to her.

  Ratface shrugged. How would they even know?

  They finally made it to the entrance. Ratface shielded her eyes as they adjusted to the seeing the sky again. Abigail was waiting for them.

  The knight looked worried. This was one of the few quests that she physically couldn’t do.

  The giant of a woman was simply too big for the tunnels. The knight didn’t just tower over Ratface but most people they met. In spite of that, Ratface didn’t doubt that if Halmir had grabbed her she would have found a way in. She eyed the delicate runes etched across Abigail’s armour. She’d be a fool to assume that there wasn’t some trick for tunnels layered in those runes.

  Abigail’ s eyes latched onto them when they emerged. Her eyes went to the centipede head and then to Krysa’s hand. She rummaged through her stuff and pulled out a salve which she quickly covered Krysa’s hand with. The elf tried to pretend that this was expected but she couldn’t quite hide the widening of the eyes. Ratface smiled. The glamour made a horrible elf really.

  “I’m surprised you ran into something like this. They’re usually much lower,” said Abigail. She finished applying the salve and went over to the centipede, grabbing onto a pincer and pulling it out. Her gauntlets protected her from the poison, and she began dismantling it.

  “These are useful to alchemists or poisoners. Either way they’ll fetch a high price.”

  “It nearly cost the ultimate price,” said Ratface. She eyed the bug with distaste. It was a good thing she hadn’t let it bite her.

  “It shouldn’t have been so close. We’ll have to go over different styles for fighting monsters again.”

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  Ratface didn’t say anything but inwardly she groaned. After the battle at the Redwood Forest the knight had been pushing as much information and training onto her as she could. It was interesting. If she ever joined a tribe again it’d all come in useful. It was also exhausting.

  The others returned before she had a chance to get out of it. Tiffany and Albert walked out of another tunnel close to their own. Unlike Ratface’s group they did look so dirty and harried. A series of roots came out of the tunnel and dropped another ant down next to them. Fighting a druid in a tunnel surrounded by roots couldn’t have been fun for the poor thing. It had a small crown on it and Ratface snorted. She hadn’t thought a king ant was really a thing. She shouldn’t have compared them to normal creatures. Monsters were only loosely related to them.

  “All done on our end,” said Tiffany. She was leaning heavily on Albert and Ratface reassessed her initial assumption. Using all those roots must have tired her out more than they could.

  “Fantastic, lets head back to Alvinshire and hand in the quest, then we’ll move onto the next town,” said Abigail. She chucked the bugs into the wagon and the rest of them climbed in afterwards. The wagon started to move and Ratface lay down with a sigh.

  They’d been fighting in tunnels for the past few weeks. Before than it had been wading through swamps. Just once she wanted to fight a monster that lived somewhere clean.

  “Why are getting rid of the bugs so important anyway? It’s not like they’re close to the village,” she asked.

  “Spoken like someone from Lurian,” said Abigail, “Most lands don’t have nearly as much safe area underground. Ants may tunnel too deeply and hit into some of the depths. That centipede is from down there. Most of the things consider it lunch.”

  Ratface’s eyes widened and Albert across from her smiled.

  “She makes it sound worse than it is. The swamplands still have a relatively thick layer between them but it’s better to be proactive.”

  “Where I’m from it has a very thin layer. Defending against them was the original purpose of the Knights.”

  Ratface perked up at that. Abigail was surprisingly tight lipped about her past. She climbed over the others to sit next to her in the driver’s seat. The knight smiled at her but didn’t divulge anything else. Ratface changed track.

  “I don’t suppose you heard anything while you were waiting?” she asked.

  “From whom?”

  “Claudette?”

  “Outside of the Redwood, she can’t get in contact. No word of your fellow goblins I’m afraid.”

  Ratface didn’t believe the warlock didn’t have a way to contact Abigail. They were far too enamoured with each other to go so long between talks. That didn’t mean she didn’t believe the lack of news. She slumped into the chair. The reason they were doing all these quests was in case any of the villages had had any goblins suddenly appear. Ratface had been teleported outside of Pinewood, so it wasn’t impossible. They’d done an ever-bigger circle from Redwood in the hope of hearing something. Silence so far.

  “We’ll find them,” said Abigail. Ratface tried to believe her. The other goblins were much younger than her. They weren’t even named yet. She could only hope they’d been as lucky as her to find help. She hoped they hadn’t run into adventurers.

  Ratface shook the fear out of her mind. She’d find them. It was the last job her mother had given her. She wouldn’t disappoint that trust.