The goblin wars

The Shinra soldiers stepped through the portals right after Gil, with two of them received glancing blows from hastily thrown javelins. Thankfully they had enough training that their response to the attack was immediate and aggressive. They sprayed bullets in the general direction of the goblins, trying to suppress them.

The results were mixed; these goblins had never seen guns in their lives and weren’t skittish by default. They didn’t cower like a human might, instead charging wildly into the hail of gunfire while yelling something about killing “these gits.” Half of them were injured by the time that Nessa stepped through the portal and intercepted them, though none were dead.

Six goblins were not much of a threat to three men with assault rifles and a superwoman with biological armor, though Gil winced internally at the ammo wastage. Each of the goblins, though they were only around three or four feet tall, took multiple direct hits to put down. Injuries anywhere non vital just seemed to piss them off.

Not that Gil could complain too badly about the ammo. His own response to the attack had been to get behind cover; at least these guys had decided to establish a beachhead. A much needed one, given the goblins’ instant aggression and remarkable toughness. Nessa could put one down with a single strike of her enlarged spear, so at least Gil knew that adequate force was somewhere between being shot twice at center mass and getting hit with a spear the size of a battering ram. Keilnei also contributed valuable data by letting him know that a clean head shot worked too.

Once the last two members of his team, Farley and Garri, were through the portal, it winked away. They wouldn’t be leaving until they managed this floor, not without using one of his precious doors of light. Gil noticed that Garri kept shooting Farley dirty looks, and filed it away. All he knew of the Admiral was that Garri thought he was an asshole. That was fine as long as they both stayed on task.

Gil healed the Shinra soldiers’ minor wounds with his healing materia, quietly thanking the moon that this world had ambient mana. With that done, he set about surveying the area. Simply put, it was a little bit foggy. The Mist of this world was thin enough that he could still see relatively far, but not all the way to the horizon. He thought through what he could see while the professionals established a perimeter.

Based on the colors of the rocks and the fact that a facsimile of Terra’s old wolf form had been present as an escort NPC, he guessed they were just outside of Snowdrift Cave, where he’d met Noa. Possibly where he’d tossed her into the wilderness after that first meeting. Either way, this was presumably the next part of her story. Get to the Genesis tree. Not complicated.

The complicated part was these goblins. They weren’t the local Gobu Gobu, who had more of a greenish brown complexion, pointed ears, and surprisingly sophisticated metallurgical skills to make their signature nail gloves. These were a lot more like the goblins Gil had brought from Onyxia. Ugly little green bastards with pointy sticks for spears and hanging jowls. That was… weird.

They still seemed to be born of the dungeon, given that one of them had the glow of a random drop. When he “looted” the body, the glow resolved into the form of a large pink capped mushroom he’d seen in Noa and Terra’s camp. They’d roasted a few when he’d joined them for dinner. He tossed it into his backpack and looked around again.

“Alright.” Gil said quietly. His voice carried in the dense fog and he didn’t want excessive company. “We have a mountain to make our way to. Once we have secured our exit at its peak, we will move to the next phase.”

Gil looked around the team, and smiled.

“This probably won’t be as hard as it’s supposed to be.” He said. “Everyone, stay on guard. Nessa, get tall. Hopefully you’ll be able to see the mountain.”

Her ability to see was only partially the point; Gil mostly needed her to be seen. He hopped on Boco’s back, and circled upwards into the air. The mist, as it turned out, was heavy enough to pool near the surface. As he climbed, visibility improved substantially. There was still mist, even fairly high up, but he could see the huge fuckoff mountain with a glowing green speck at its peak pretty easily visible from Boco’s shoulders.

Boco landed on Nessa’s shoulder, his massive talons biting into the living stone armor like a falcon on a leather glove. There they exchanged words, and within a few minutes Nessa had scooped up Gil’s entire retinue and had them nestled in her arms like so many dolls. They moved away quickly, rushing towards the mountain; Gil saw a mass of shadows in the mist and suspected that it was nothing friendly.

Nessa’s tree sized legs ate up the distance between their starting point and the mountain. Even with her arms full, she was able to stride across the distance and skirt around what turned out to be several roaming bands of goblins.

The biggest issue they encountered on their way towards the mountain was probably supposed to be the largest threat along the route: a village of Gobu Gobu hemmed in by naked, spear wielding goblins. From above, Gil picked out a few hundred combatants on each side, though he couldn’t get too close; the Gobu Gobu had Seru possessed goblins on their side that would merrily toss fire blasts at Boco if he dared fly close.

They were dying en masse, and Gil didn’t see any of the glowing golden glow of random drops. It seemed that he needed to kill anything he wanted loot from, and this battle was radically reducing the population of the dungeon. That was money on the table.

“Nessa.” He yelled, circling her head. “Put the guys down on that hill over there. There’s a battle nearby and I want you to take part. Kill everything.”

The Valkyrie grinned wickedly.

“Oh, Gil, I thought you’d never ask. I’ve been looking forward to this all week.” She said, then paused, “With dread. Because of all the tragic loss that’s about to happen to these… people.”

Gil rolled his eyes as Nessa choked out the last word, and continued his orders once they were all safely on the ground.

“Farley.” He said. “You and your men are going to hold this position and stand by to provide aid if Nessa needs it. If anything approaches, deal with it. If she seems to be getting overwhelmed, you’ll need to do a flanking maneuver.”

In a flash of red light, Silky appeared next to them all in her scarlet armor. A pair of glittering green marbles sat snugly in her iron bracer, both the fire materia she’d already had and a Restore materia Gil had taken off of his own bracelet. His mana was still very slowly regenerating after he’d patched up the soldiers, so he decided to let .

“Nessa,” he asked, “Can you get big enough to keep Silky in your hair? If so, she can act as a healer for you while you fight. You should be close enough to invulnerable that way.”

Silky, as usual, seemed slightly bored at the prospect of anything other than food or sex. She didn’t object, however, when a titanic Nessa nestled her in among the tines of her black tiara to serve as handlebars. She seemed quite comfortable with the height, actually,

Gil smiled, watching the kaiju sized woman rush into the goblin flanks. Garri and Keilnei hopped onto Boco beside him, though the former craned her head to watch the carnage.

“I have the weirdest boner right now.” Garri said.

“Technically you don’t.” Keilnei said. “Unless you do, actually. Are you fully human? I don’t know all that much about human biology.”

Keilnei spoke very innocently, but fitting three onto Boco’s back was always a snug fit. Her breasts were casually pressed into Garri’s back. Garri blushed, and mumbled something that probably answered Keilnei’s question. Gil didn’t stop to check; they had scouting to do.

Flying directly to the objective had a few potential drawbacks, but Gil had faith in Boco’s speed. The chocobo was probably among the swiftest mounts he’d ever had the pleasure of owning this early in a test, even before factoring in flight. They weren’t likely to run into anything they couldn’t evade, even if the floor guardian was likely to be a deadly foe. The plan was to circle around, maybe take a few pot shots, and head back if it was something too tough to take down with magic and Keilnei’s rifle.

So color him surprised when a gigantic lion leapt from the peak, unfurled its wings, and swooped down towards Boco with all the speed of a hunting falcon.

••••••••••

This is a poll that contains a small spoiler about where we are going after we finish in the dungeon: Gil will be using the blue soapstone he got from Lillabeth. For now, we are just deciding how big the risk reward ratio is.

https://strawpoll.com/LVyK2OXpQZ0