Rebuilding Science in a Magic World

I'm just standing here taking in the fact that the remaining three goblins are groveling on the ground before me.  Of course, that's thanks to the leader goblin pushing them down.  Although it seems like they've stopped fighting it now.  Oh, the leader is tilting his head up.

"Derin zerb-zernak." The goblin leader says.

"Uhhh.  I don't understand."  I reply.  My voice has a deep gravelly tone to it now, and I'm slightly surprised by my own voice.

"Derin zaka."  The goblin leader says while tilting his head further up.

I've got no clue what it's saying.  I take a step forward.  The goblin faces the ground again.

"Naka. Naka!"  The goblin leader yells.

I still have absolutely no idea what's going on.  Well, I've got two options here.  First, just kill them.  Second, try to work through what is going on, and spare them.  The goblin leader seems pretty scared.  Well, I did bring some dried imp meat up with me to eat later.  I slowly back into my doorway, and grab the meat, and toss it over to the goblins.

"Goru den."  The goblin says, looking up to me, then the food.

I step back a little and watch them.  After a minute or so, the goblin gives it a taste, and after determining that it's edible, he splits it with the other goblins, and all three rapidly eat all of it.  I don't want to drop my weapon or anything, but I'll sit down at least to appear less threatening.  We both just sit and look at each other for a while.  After a few minutes, the goblin leader goes to stand up, so I do as well.

He takes a hesitant step towards the inside of the cave, so I step back towards it as well.  Eventually, I'm standing in the opening I made in my wall, and he's only a few steps ahead of me.  I hold my spear towards him, and he stops moving again.

He points past me and says, "Naka doru."

Of course, I have no idea what that means, so I just shake my head no, and gesture with the spear towards him.  He takes a few steps back, and I wait for a little bit.  We both stand there, and then he eventually points at me, and then towards the outside.

"Deru den-unar gora."  He says, pointing to me, then him, then outside.

I look at him for a while, before stepping forward a little.  He and his goblins walk out of the cave, and then stand even further out from the entrance.  I close the opening behind me before eventually following them out.  I'm doubtful that they'd ambush me given their behavior, but just in case, I'm carefully treading forward.  When I make it out of the cave, the goblin points again to me and him, and then down the mountainside.  

The goblins lead the way down the mountainside.  Initially the path we follow is similar to the way I've headed down in the past to where I harvested the Lion Root, but after a short while we start heading in a different direction.  The whole process is kind of surreal considering a bit ago I intended to kill them if I could.

The trip is taking a long time.  We keep heading further and further down the mountainside, and the biomes continue shifting.  The alpine gives way to a more mild temperate forest, then even further down, we enter a rainforest.  The slope of the terrain has been steadily decreasing this whole time, and now we're barely even headed down hill.  I hope we're getting close to wherever we're headed.

Evidently, we weren't that close because we've been traveling for hours now.  Although more than half of that was the initial descent to the lower altitudes.  Now the majority of the time is actually navigating the rainforest, with its thick underbrush.  I was initially a little worried about wildlife, but I haven't seen much.  Maybe it's because we're making a lot of noise?  Either way, I'm happy that for the most part, all I've heard have been either small animals or birds.

Soon, we come across a stream running through the forest, and the goblins begin following it, with me close behind.  At this point, I'm quite a ways from home, and I don't think I'll be going back up by tonight considering how long we've been traveling.  As I'm thinking that the goblins stop.

The head goblin yells out, "Goru dekata!  Goru dekata derin!"

I still have no idea what he's saying, but he steps forward with the other goblins through the underbrush, so I follow him.  We've entered a clearing in the forest.  As I look around, from underneath piles of branches, some goblins scramble out.  As I'm looking about, one of the goblins we travelled with goes over to one of the piles of branches and goes into it.

The rest of the goblins all come up to the head goblin, and keep nervously looking at me as they stand around.  Once it seems like no more goblins are coming, the head goblin begins talking again.  As he talks, I start counting the goblins.  Twenty two in total, not counting the one that went into a brush pile.  I pretty much tune out what the head goblin says at this point, as none of it makes much sense to me, but he gestures to me throughout his speech a few times, and the goblins look at me then back to him.  It makes me a little nervous, so I re-adjust my grip on my spear, just in case.

After he stops his speech, the other goblins all kneel down before me, which at this point is making me feel very self conscious.  After a few moments, they all get back up, and go back to their brush piles and crawl in.  The head goblin leads me over to a slightly larger one, and puffs his chest out, and points into it before crawling in.  I clearly won't fit in, but I can at least peek down in.  I put my head down through where the goblin crawled in.

On the inside, it at least looks more well maintained than the outside appears.  It's actually deeper than the brush pile would make you think, as he's dug down into the floor, and cleaned up the ceiling of any errant branches or leaves, so it somewhat resembles a small room.  Although there isn't much other than a leaf pile that I presume is his bed.

After I pull my head back out, I stand for a bit before the head goblin comes out of his presumable home.  A few goblins are nervously peeking out from their own homes while I stand there.  I mean, they honestly have a good reason to be terrified of me, I did eviscerate a goblin only a few hours ago, and my mana is fully recharged, so I could do it again, but I'd probably fall to their numbers if they all tried to fight me.  I don't intend to fight if I don't have to though.

When the head goblin comes back out, he yells out, "Peku denden!"

All the goblins come back out of their homes, and start getting into groups.  Once they do, they all head out in different directions out into the rainforest.  The head goblin gives me a toothy grin, and waves for me to follow him, and we head out into the forest.

As it turns out, we're hunting for food apparently.  Meat food.  I'm completely unfamiliar with the wildlife, so I'm basically useless when it comes to hunting down here.  The head goblin shows off his fireball skill a few times, taking down birds from up on branches.  I carry them as he continues about his hunting.  At one point we actually come out onto a beach, and walk along the forest line.  I'm intrigued by what I presume is the ocean nearby, but I follow the goblin close to the tree line instead of investigating.  If he's avoiding the water, there might be a good reason for it.

After gathering a few birds, we start heading back the way we came, and I'm lucky enough that a somewhat large bird runs out from a bush as we move through it.  I miss with my spear, but as it tries to run behind me, quick reflexes result in a successful earth spike impaling it.  Of course, a lot of the body has been brutally destroyed by the spike, but some of it is salvageable at least.  I gather what I can as we return to the clearing in the forest.

When we get back, I see around half the goblins from before are standing around a dark spot on the ground, and some have piled loose wood into the spot.  On the ground nearby there are a few birds and a small lizard.  The head goblin goes up to the pile and uses a fireball to start a fire on the wood, and the goblins begin skewering their kills, and some of ours, and start cooking.  Well, at least I'll seemingly have something for dinner tonight.