I woke to a sharp whistle.

  "Another danger whistle!" Iris called out to the wagon. Nearly everyone had been asleep after the trouble with the umber hounds. I wasn't sure how long it had been since then. When our wagon rumbled to a stop Valkin pulled the door open and jumped out with all of us just behind him. I glanced at Iris as she took up her knife and hid behind a box again before I shut the door behind me.

  It wasn't quite dawn yet and I could tell from looking at my friends that it had to have been quite cold. The first thing that touched my nose was the scent of blood as well as the strong smell of mixed spices. I summoned my axe from my ring and placed its comfortable weight on my shoulder as the eight of us quickly made our way to the lead wagon to see what was going on. It didn't take long for us to see why we stopped.

  The road had narrowed where parts of the trees had overgrown the trail. Wedged between two of the trees was a large carriage as long as one of our wagons knocked on its side. Broken glass, blends of spices, and dried plants were mixed in with the snow, covering up the scent of the reasonably recent bodies of the previous owners. Three human bodies were lying in the snow and two trails of blood led into the woods. The trees looked thicker in this area than they had been the last time we stopped, which made it difficult to see very far into the woods from here. I couldn't hear the presence of anything else in the immediate area though which made me feel like it was probably safe for the moment.

  Piper was already on one knee examining the corpses while Korr'tak watched her from a distance. He turned and looked back at us as we approached him through the snow. "You heard my whistle," he said simply before turning back to continue watching Piper.

  Valkin's group stopped to talk to Korr'tak while we approached Piper and the corpses by the overturned carriage. "Goblins," she said to us without even turning around. "The bodies here are probably from yesterday, this group was only a day ahead of us according to the manifest there," she said pointing to an open book sitting on one of the nearby crates that had fallen out of the carriage.

  "How many people were in the wagon?" Maxwell asked.

  "Five, three here, which leaves those," she said gesturing toward the blood trails. "These three are the men, which means those two would have been the women according to the manifest." My hackles rose at the implication she was making.

  "Are you sure they're goblins? There aren't supposed to be goblins on this road." Aria asked.

  She sighed. "Unfortunately. These stab wounds were made with dull rusted weapons and that arrow there is obviously goblin-made. After fighting them on the sixteenth floor of the Fallow dungeon, I know what the wounds they inflict look like."

  ("A day might be recent enough for us to rescue them,") Luna said to all of us.

  Sighing and shaking her head Piper stood up from the corpse. "Maybe, but after how difficult it was to get everyone to agree on rescuing Korr'tak, do you think they'll be enthusiastic about sending anyone on another rescue mission today?"

  "What if Helena went now? Before anyone stops her," Maxwell asked.

  Piper took a sly peek at the other hunter group. "We still need to clear the road of this carriage, maybe clear a few of the trees from the road too. Helena could use that time to investigate those blood trails. If anyone's still alive, those trails of blood should take you right to them. Some of the merchants will want to poke around the carriage anyway, see what's salvageable. What do I say if the other group asks?"

  "They found out about Helena last night," Maxwell said. "Shouldn't be too hard for them to figure out why we would send her alone."

  "How did they react to that?" Piper asked.

  "Fine for the most part. Valkin is pretty wary of me now, the others don't seem as bothered," I replied for Maxwell.

  "What do you think, Helena? Do you want to go?" Maxwell asked.

  I glanced at Luna who gave me a nod. Comfortable knowing that she was okay with the idea, I nodded in return. "I'll go, cover for me."

  ("I know goblins shouldn't be a threat to you, but be careful,") Luna said.

  I pulled her into a sideways hug and I kissed her cheek. "I'll be back soon. Don't let the scavengers take all of their wares in case they're still alive."

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  ("Okay, we'll make sure to set everything to the side 'for inspection' before we let anyone take anything.") Luna said to us.

  "I'll talk with Valkin about setting up a perimeter while you slip away," Maxwell said under his breath. At this stage, some of the braver merchants were peeking out of their windows to get an idea of what was happening.

  Without saying anything else I followed one of the blood trails into the woods. Once I was out of sight, I kneeled in the snow to get a better sense of the scent. Two scents, clouded by the disgusting stench of the goblins. The monsters never bathed so they always smelled rancid and sweaty. The two women smelled like spices, one smelled of herbs and plants while the other smelled more like seeds, nuts, and fruit. They were both adults, but one of them was older, likely the other's mother. Both scents were so strong I would be able to track them even in my human form easily.

  I stood up and began to walk faster through the snow. The goblins were usually noisy. After tracking them so much in the dungeon I wouldn't have any trouble picking out some of their sounds when I got closer. Right now it was better if I hurried rather than tried to maintain stealth. Goblins were not difficult for me to kill relative to the other monsters I've fought. I put away my axe and decided I would rather use my claws for this. I would need to be careful around the hostages but I would be fine even if I was forced to use only my fists.

  On a whim, I decided to try something out as I followed the scent trail. Rather than shifting fully, I tried to only shift my head to see how long I could maintain that. At first my neck felt very uncomfortable until I adjusted the straps of my armor a little to give me more room there. Like this, I could better take advantage of my umber hound senses without changing my silhouette too much. If I could master this partial shifting I might be able to get away with passing as a beastkin, though my eyes would still be a problem. Even just maintaining my wolf-like ears would be a huge benefit though. The only issue was that it took a lot of concentration to hold it like this, hopefully that would pass with experience. It kind of felt like sucking in your gut and holding it there. Doable, but you need to maintain some focus on it.

  My ear flicked when I heard the first sign of the goblins. It sounded like some kind of argument between two of them. Not an uncommon thing to hear from them in my experience. I dipped into a crouch and closed the shutters of my lantern. Right now I was relying on my umber hound eyesight instead. I took some distance away from the blood trails so I could approach the sounds from a different angle. The blood trails led into the mouth of a cave tunnel and two goblins were fighting with each other around a crudely built fire in front of it. The goblins weren't any better dressed for the cold than they had been in the dungeon, but apart from the fire, they didn't seem to notice or mind.

  I spent a little bit of time looking for other goblins outside of the entrance to make sure I wouldn't be ambushed. Once it was clear there were no others outside, I dashed in while the two were distracted and killed them before they could make more than a garbled squawk. I perked my ears for a moment, listening to see if there was any sign of reinforcements, but after a moment I felt confident I hadn't been detected yet. Not wanting to deal with them, or give myself away yet, I flung the corpses into the snow off to the side of the cave's mouth.

  The cave smelled even worse than the goblins did, purely because the smell of dozens of goblins mixed together in here. It was easy to tune those scents out and focus on the two scents of spices among the filth though, something that's become easier since I've developed my scent tracking skills. There were echoes through the caves but the noises were so far off it made things unclear. Taking some inspiration from the bats that improved my hearing, I clicked my tongue a few times and was able to put together a sense of the layout of the cave system purely from the echoes. It was amazing how much my senses and my ability to interpret them have improved.

  Three paths were ahead, two were dead ends but one of those dead ends had a goblin there waiting to ambush people who walked by. I slipped into the cave while it was still unaware of me and quickly killed it before it could cause me any trouble. The other dead end had some crates or something in it, but I decided it wasn't worth my time to check on it. I continued on the winding path that led to a small chamber. Four goblins were ahead eating some kind of raw meat. I didn't think it was the two people I was coming to save based on the scent of it. It was probably some kind of animal. Something similar to a rabbit maybe. I clicked my tongue another few times but didn't sense any other goblins in the area.

  My tongue clicking had alerted one of the closest goblins to me but that didn't help him when I burst into the chamber and rent his body with my partially transformed claws. Even wearing the armor my claws were larger than my hands, which let me envelop them in a shadowy partial transformation. I wasn't able to kill all of these ones without letting them make noise but I didn't hear any other nearby goblins. Once I was finished I kicked the corpses out of the center of the room to get them out of the walkway.

  Closing my eyes I took in the nearby scents and tried to figure out which way the smells of spices had gone. After a moment I picked up the smell from the tunnel on my right so I turned and headed down that path. Every dozen feet or so I clicked my tongue a few more times to make sure I didn't miss any branches. For whatever reason this path was longer than the others had been. After a while though I started to pick up the sounds of the women I was tracking. One was crying and the other was rattling some kind of metal bars. Both of them are alive.

  I continued to creep up carefully in case there were other goblins hidden in the side tunnels on the way but I couldn't hear any more. Eventually, I could tell the metal door one of the women was trying to pry open was just around another bend so I relaxed my face and allowed it to shift back to my human form. I also pulled out my sword and sheath to put around my waist. I wouldn't be able to use my claws from here on out if I wanted to help them escape without them learning about my umber hound side. Finally, I opened the shutters of my lantern so that I would be able to see better without my umber hound sight.

  The one banging on the bars stopped and I heard her whisper, "I see something, a light is coming."

  I crept around the corner and found the two I had been tracking. Two female beastkin, both had brown canine looking ears and long bushy tails. Both of them had bandaged themselves up with fabric they tore from the younger woman's skirt. Most of the blood that I had seen on the way here wasn't actually theirs, it had dripped off the goblins that had dragged them here, but both of them still had bandaged wounds. The younger one was the one trying to break the metal bars of the makeshift cage that had been embedded in the rock and the older woman was crying in the corner turned away from a partially disassembled corpse lying on a butcher's table on the other side of the bars. This place smelled like rotting meat. These two were being kept here as food.

  "I'm here to rescue you, stand away from the bars," I told them.

  The younger one immediately moved next to her mother and held her while I got to work. I looked over the metal poles and decided that the most likely way of breaking this open would be by putting pressure on the hinges. They were rusty and were the cause of the rattling I heard earlier. The younger one had the right idea, but she wasn't strong enough to put enough force into it. There was also the lock itself but it looked like a large bolt and I didn't have the key for it or any experience with lockpicking so I dismissed that plan before giving it much serious thought.

  I put my hands onto one of the bars of the door and planted my feet. It would be easier to push the bars in probably but I didn't want to risk slamming the metal against them by accident. With a wrenching motion, I pulled the bars back as hard as I could and was surprised by how easily the hinges gave. I nearly landed on my ass because I was expecting it to be harder to do. I pulled the door off of the locked bolt and leaned the barred door against the side of the wall. Then I waved the two out of the cell. They hurriedly exited and stood next to me with slight awe.

  "Let's get the two of you out of here," I said as I led them through the darkness lit only by my glowing purple lantern.

  Hello! Solo mission time! It was nice to write another action-y chapter so soon. Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down in the interpersonal relationship side of stories. Both are fun but it's nice to focus on the action again after so many chapters focusing on character development. I hope you enjoyed reading!

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