Earth Dies

As the three friends walked the two miles toward where they had last encountered kobolds, they spent most of it complaining about Daniel, his friends, and the unwarranted attack on their house the previous night. By the time they reached the intersection, they were all exhausted and in a killing mood.

"Daniel's lucky he's not here, I would absolutely smash his stupid smug head in with my axe," Bridgette grumbled.

"And I'd cunt-punt Karen so hard she'd be pissing teeth for a week," Alice snapped.

"As much as I want to rain down violence upon our enemies, let's find some kobolds to get that aggression out," Colin tried to say in a tone of moderation.

"Fuck that, let's just stomp our way into Defiance and fucking assault them. I can take Daniel, easily."

"Alice, back me up here. Bridgette, that's a terrible idea. We agreed we need to get stronger and the right way to do that was by killing kobolds. You'll feel better after killing some and then getting a good night's sleep."

Alice sighed, "I suppose he's right. I really want to pay them back, but we did agree now isn't the right time." She patted Bridgette on the shoulder. "I promise we'll go get our revenge soon."

Bridgette kicked a rock, sending it soaring into the corn fields bordering the road. "This fucking sucks. Where are the kobolds at, anyway?"

"They're mostly nocturnal and burrow," Colin explained. "We're probably going to need to start roaming around the fields and look for them."

With a grumble, the trio shouldered their weapons and decided to head north into the corn fields. As they slowly picked their way through the shoulder-high stalks, they could hear the breeze rustling and whispering as the corn waved back and forth. After fifteen minutes of slowly walking through the field, they still hadn't seen anything significant.

"Nothing here," Bridgette whispered back to Colin and Alice. "I'm sure there's got to be some kobolds around somewhere, but all I've seen is some matted down stalks, but I can't tell where they lead."

"I guess let's keep going," Colin suggested. "We're bound to find something."

Bridgette nodded and the trio kept walking forward, spreading out slightly to cover more ground. Suddenly, Alice felt the field under her feet crumble away into thin air and had a brief sensation of falling before hitting her head.

Alice blinked her eyes back open as she heard Bridgette let out a primal roar and felt a spray of liquid splash across her face. She was laying in what looked to be a small underground passage, maybe ten or fifteen feet from where she lay up to where she saw the sunlight streaming down. Bridgette was screaming battle cries and swinging her axe around the room, and she saw another kobold disintegrate into a shower of gore as what looked like an intestine slapped wetly onto the floor of the cavern next to her.

"Get fucked you midget lizards! Choke on a dick and die!" Another kobold met a messy and violent end, sliced into pieces by a greataxe bigger than it was. Colin dropped into the cavern, blasting another kobold with a firebolt and setting a pile of garbage on fire.

Alice struggled to her feet, feeling a little woozy. "Everyone good?" she asked, blinking at her interface as she tried to bring up her party screen. Bridgette and Colin seemed to be in good health, and she'd only lost a little health from her fall, but had what appeared to be a 'Minor Concussion' status ailment flashing at her. Bridgette and Colin finished killing the rest of the kobolds, then walked over and helped her stand from where she sunk back to her knees.

"You okay, A?" Bridgette asked, looking concerned at her friend. "You don't look too stable right now."

"I think so, just got a good bash to the head. The room is spinning a bit. Give me a few minutes and I'll be good, I think. Worst case I can burn a spell to fix it."

Colin threw a few light pebbles around the room, making it as bright as the surface above. The room was approximately fifteen feet by twenty feet, with a small ramp leading up to the opening that Alice had fallen through. Piles of corn and other debris littered two corners of the room and a bunch of refuse gathered in another. It was smelly and contained five dead kobolds, but nothing of value. From what Alice could tell, Bridgette and Colin had taken the kobolds by surprise while Alice was briefly unconscious, and the kobolds didn't stand a chance as they had been asleep at the time.

"Great job guys, sorry I missed the fun, but I did find them for you!" Alice joked. "Now to see if we can repeat this, preferably without getting myself another concussion in the process."

Bridgette nodded, "I know Colin had said they burrowed, but this is great to find proof of it. It gives us some idea of how they're operating, so we can keep an eye out for more burrows as we finish patrolling through these fields."

The trio climbed their way out of the burrow and set back out across the corn field. Over the next four hours, they found three additional burrows, each with between four and six kobolds. The friends were able to sneak down into the burrows and quickly kill the kobolds without any significant damage, which boosted their morale and confidence. As the sun drew low in the sky, Bridgette finally called a halt to their kobold hunting.

"I think we're in pretty good shape. We cleared out four burrows today, didn't really take significant damage aside from A's concussion, and learned a lot. I say we head back, clean up, grab dinner, and hopefully get a good night's sleep tonight. Colin's alarms are probably close to wearing off as well, so we might as well get back before the house has been alone too long."

"I'm pretty sure we're about two miles from the house, if we go in that direction," Alice pointed. "We may need to cut across one more field, or else we can go link up with the road, and it'll be a little longer to go around."

Bridgette shrugged, "I'm fine either way. How about you two, spells and such still good?"

Colin nodded, "I'm still good, I was relying mostly on firebolt, so I've still got some heavy hitters left if we run into trouble." Alice nodded her agreement.

"Okay, in that case I say we cut straight across the fields on the way to home, get there as quickly as we can, but still move carefully as we go."

The three spaced themselves back out and started walking through the corn fields headed towards Alice's house. They did their best to stay watchful of the ground around them, so they wouldn't trip over any kobold dens, but also for any other threats that might be around. As they got to a gap in the field, Bridgette pointed and said, "There, I think I can just see your house in the distance. Shouldn't be more than thirty more minutes at this pace."

They stepped back into the next row of corn fields, only for Colin to freeze and hiss a warning. "I think I see a den," he whispered and pointed toward what looked like a speed bump of dirt. Bridgette nodded and unslung her greataxe, waving for the other two to spread out around her as she stepped toward it.

To their left, they heard a rustling in the corn stalks and suddenly four kobolds burst out, racing toward Colin and Bridgette. Bridgette let out a shriek of rage, yelling "I'm really angry," and running at the kobolds. As they came into range, she swung her greataxe and cleaved the rightmost kobold in half, showering its neighbor with blood and viscera. A firebolt came whizzing over her shoulder and impacted the next kobold in line, reducing it to a smoking pile of flesh and scales.

The two remaining kobolds both reached Bridgette and stabbed at her, their short swords nicking the angry girl but failing to deal significant damage. They scored small lines of blood on her bare skin, the crimson standing out against her freckles. Bridgette scoffed, "Try harder, noobs."

Alice suddenly got hit in the back by a stone, tumbling forward to the ground and rolling as she hit. Behind her, she could see four more kobolds. "Four more behind us," she shouted as a warning, as more stones came flying from the rear, hitting both her and Colin. They hurt, but not too bad, although she could see a red welt already starting to bruise on her arm.

Bridgette swung her axe again, reducing the third of the front four kobolds to bloody parts in the dirt, and glanced over her shoulder to get a bearing on where the kobolds were standing. "I've got this last, Colin you take those."

"Got it, PEW PEW," Colin shouted, blasting magic missiles towards three of the ones in the back. They all staggered with the impacts, but none went down. Alice pulled out her capsule of lube and flung small drops toward Colin and Bridgette, "Fi's blessing to you both."

The kobolds then struck again. The one next to Bridgette got a solid hit in, stabbing deep in her belly with its sword, rivulets of crimson streaming down her abdomen. "Ugh," Bridgette coughed, spraying blood on the kobold as she did. As she leaned over from the impact and cough, two rocks whizzed through the space her head had just occupied, missing by inches. A third rock hit her in the side, causing her to stagger even further, nearly dropping her axe from the pain of the combined blows.

The final rock from the kobolds whizzed in, this one targeting Alice. It struck her on the calf, causing her leg to buckle in sudden weakness as her leg flared in pain.

Bridgette raised her axe and struck at the kobold in front of her, knocking it to the ground, unconscious and bleeding, before doubling over and coughing blood again. "Fuck, that really hurts," she groaned, nearly crying with the pain before struggling to her feet again.

"B!" Alice screamed in terror. She scrambled to her feet and ran for the other girl, grabbing her arm and shouting, "Heal!"

Thank you, Fi, for the Lusty Spell Prep, Alice thought to herself as she saw Bridgette's health spike back to nearly full, the wounds on her lover's body sealing back up and the barbarian visibly growing stronger with each breath.

Colin blasted another round of missiles at the kobolds, shouting "Pew pew" as he did. This time, the three targeted creatures all succumbed to the impacts and went down in a spray of blood and bodies. The last kobold glanced around and saw all of its companions were dead, and tried to turn to run. Bridgette threw her greataxe overhand, the giant weapon spinning through the intervening space in a flash, and slamming deep into the kobold's torso, driving it to the ground.

The three friends cautiously looked around, ensuring no other threats were around. Silence settled back onto the field, with only the whispering of leaves and the hum of insects to keep the trio company as they dragged the kobold bodies into a pile. Alice quickly healed herself and Colin back up to full, while Bridgette said she was good enough for now. She glanced down wryly at her stomach, where the kobold's dagger had torn her dress away and cut a gaping wound, now healed.

"Fucking kobold. If he's going to try to rearrange my guts, he could at least buy me dinner first." Bridgette sighed. "Let's head back to the farm. I'm ready to be done for the day."