Lady Lightheart was a noble and refined elf. She had spent centuries training and preparing to deal with her races enemies. Enemies which now included a insane maniac called Bob. Lady Lightheart looked at the fuming prince Connor and spoke out

  “We retreat get on your griffin my prince”

  “Retreat are you mad we were just shamelessly attacked by that mud person. Are we to retreat from a blink?”

  “We lost my prince Bob is back with his troops and the rest of our forces are too far out to reach us before he reaches his forts. We are not strong enough to attack his forts. Meanwhile our so called human allies have no army no fort we can use as a base. Which means Bob can come back and attack us at night if we are not careful. ”

  Connor paled “But surely we have 47 griffin left surely we can lay waste to a mere 10,000 human serf scum and Bob.”

  “My prince no we can not. The humans have a shields for our arrows and while flying over their heads and dropping stones might work on goblins it will not work here. Bob bow has a insane range and he might have enchanted arrows. If he can cast float on them that would be bad for us. What you need to understand my prince is that when Bob started off killing the goblins he attacked the smaller villages first to gain skills and levels. Then he went after the smaller orc camps and larger goblin towns.

  My prince think about it. Last night he ambushed us and more than likely gained new skills or maybe a title. If we fail again he could gain a few new skills with the experience of killing us. When that happens will he be content to stay in the human lands or will he come looking for us in our kingdom. Bob is not some stage villain who rushes in he will slaughter the smaller elf villages grow in strength and only then attack our cities. ”

  Barney was quite happy his old enemy Ron cronies were mostly dead. With the end of the slave trade with all the slavers dead by Bob or his men's hands the ex slaves had gone looking for people to blame. The nobles had guards but the ex knights Ron had trained mostly had charisma skills. They also technically had a combat class so if you killed them the amount of experience you gained was not small. Barney tried not to smile at the thought of some of his old enemies being thorn limb from limb.

  Looking up Barney saw Flow who looked happy standing next to a man who did not. Barney recognised him as Felix a minor noble. Spit was flying from Felix mouth “I know it was you who ordered your family to sell the land next to Bob's. It is not worthless you sold me worthless land”

  “Now now at the time I sold it. I mean at the time my family sold you that land was nowhere near Bob's land.” Felix looked ready to explode “You knew bob was going to take the land near him. Your building forts in your own land take back the land you sold me.”

  Flow smiled “Of course we will buy it at CURRENT market value”

  Barney winked at Flow “My dear how about I put you in contact with Bob he can assist you in dealing with any bandits you might have.”

  Flow nodded “Of course of course once you have assured us all that the rumours Bob attacked and killed hundreds of elves are all lies.”

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  Barney's smiled and for a instant his face seemed to change into that of a skull.

  “My dear as you know I am a paladin and do not lie. Now while I have not been in as much contact with Bob as I might have I will swear to the best of my knowledge Bob has had no dealing with the elves”

  Flow blinked “Wait how much contact exactly have you had with Bob over the last few months?”

  “Why none I had to organise the new recruits. I did not speak to or even ask my lieutenants what Bob was doing. After all I know what kind of man Bob is I knew he would do what I wanted him to do. Now to put to rest any of your doubts I am prepared to swear that my men are all honourable. Also I can swear that Bob has no intention at this time of attacking the elves at this time.”

  Felix turned red “You you your. You stayed away from Bob so you could lie under oath”

  “Of course not lying implies telling a falsehood. As a paladin I can not tell a lie.”

  Flow nodded “That is why you stayed away from Bob's plans you can come here and say you know nothing and any truth spell will confirm that.”

  Barney smiled “You know Ron used to do that to me all the time. That is his line lying implies a falsehood I guess you can teach a old dog new tricks. I will have to look up the actual line and use it when you put me under truth spells for the court cases.”

  Goodgoblin looked around at his fellow chiefs “How many of you levelled up?” Seeing their smiling faces Goodgoblin heart dropped “You understand that you got as much experience as surviving a battle by merely avoiding being murdered by Bob. It was a good thing the elves were around otherwise Bob would have killed the lot of us. Now when the elves arrive let me do the talking. Bob killed a lot of them last night and they might be wanting to get us involved.

  We wait to see how things play out you hear me? This is important any clan or village that steps out of line will be hunted down by all of us. You will all swear this now or I will have you cooked alive. ”

  Goodgoblin looked at the quivering goblin chiefs and then looked at the ones who were not quivering. “We can discuss this in a week if Bob makes another move and is unsuccessful but survives we can ask for double what the elves are offering now. I will not stop you making a move but hear me. A week if any of you make a move before that I will make you watch us cooking your family and force feed you their meat before cooking you and feeding you to the rats.” The goblin leaders paled as they looked at the evil light that was in Goodgoblins eyes.

  Goodgoblin grinned “Well its time send her in then.”

  Lady Lightheart was dressed in silver armour and towered over the goblins the sense of danger cause many to pale. She glared at Goodgoblin “You know elves have excellent hearing?”

  “Yes I do that is why I let you near when I was giving out instructions. No need for you to stay longer than needed. We will wait until you and Bob are actually fighting and if it looks like your going to win we will offer you our services. After all its worth you paying death benefits for a thousand goblins rather than losing one elf.”

  Lady Lightheart looked at Goodgoblin “Your smart for a goblin. I will be back in a week or so. If we decide to pursue this you will be given triple per dead goblin.”

  Lady Lightheart walked off and Goodgoblin cursed “Triple this is bad news. How many elves died pushing Bob back last night?”

  Bob looked at the poison he was putting in a spring and hid. The earlier poisons he had put in the spring took around a day to work the latest one he was using would take a hour. The elves would take to the sky on their flying horses only to have the flying horse die of a sudden heart attack. Bob would have liked to have whistled at one of the cute female elves as the elves flew away but the elves had sharp hearing.

  Looking at the elves flying Bob wondered why they thought he was going to attack them with his bow and arrows again. They were prepared for that kind of attack but Bob was also a alchemist. If they forgot then Bob was quite happy to remind them by poisoning them all to death.

  It was just a shame he could not have given them the explosive diarrhoea poison. It would have been funny watching a flying horse and rider literally shit out their internal organs. Bob sighed maybe next time.