My victim slumped to the floor, taken completely unaware while he was busy pissing against a tree.

  I'd never seen a goblin, only having heard them described as ugly overgrown babies. The System message confirmed that my victim was indeed a goblin, and 'overgrown baby' turned out to be a fairly apt description. I'd have thrown in a few extra adjectives, like 'discoloured' and 'warped'. Also, the description I'd heard hadn't mentioned the smell. It turned out goblin piss smelt bad. Heck, goblins smelt bad. Especially goblins that had lowered their loincloth in order to piss.

  Also, it very definitely was a 'he'. I'd now seen even more of the monster that I'd never wanted to see. Was there a Skill to unsee things?

  I held my breath as I searched the corpse. Alas, I couldn't close my eyes, too, because that would have made the search rather inefficient. Not that the goblin turned out to be carrying much; just a sling and a few pebbles tucked into his loincloth. Yet, the sling must have come from somewhere. This wasn't a dungeon; equipment didn't just appear out of thin air. It was made from leather of some sort, a simple pouch with a belt attached to either side. A simple construction, but one with a corollary; the leather had been cut. The edges were too smooth to have been torn. My examination of the corpse revealed that goblins didn't have claws. If the sling was goblin-made, the maker must have a blade of some sort.

  The fact that the goblin appeared to be a sentry implied that more goblins were nearby. The fact that this goblin was alone meant that, hopefully, not too many other goblins were nearby. Finally, the fact that this one went down in a single blow, and hadn't seen me despite apparently being on sentry duty, implied they weren't too strong. Yes, I'd been at a distance, and hadn't seen him either until he gave himself away, but hopefully the others wouldn't be hiding.

  Searching out the rest of the goblins would be risky, but given my position, I wasn't going to survive without taking risks. The trick was to balance the risks with the rewards. I could get myself a knife. Maybe even water-skins or a sack. Likely enough experience for another level, too; that single goblin had bestowed me with triple the experience of a horned rabbit, albeit with the increase coming from an [Expert Stealth] bonus. It was worth taking a look at what this sentry was protecting.

  I continued past the sentry's tree, once again being careful to tread lightly. The trees swiftly gave way to a small clearing, in which a bunch of goblins had built a... a...

  I wasn't quite sure of the appropriate word, but it sure as hell wasn't 'village'.

  Unfastened strips of wood lent against each other, pieces of leather hanging over them, forming what could charitably be described as 'shelters', although I doubted they'd actually offer much shelter. There were a dozen of them scattered throughout the clearing. I counted twenty goblins outside, with the possibility of more hiding where I couldn't see them. Rather more than I was hoping.

  None of them seemed to be carrying weapons, with the exception of a couple that were messily carving up a boar with knives that looked more like short-swords in their small hands. While I wasn't clear on all the details of how to dress game, I was pretty sure the first step was supposed to be to drain their blood, but these goblins hadn't bothered. Most of the blood seemed to have ended up over them, their loincloths dyed red. A campfire burnt in the centre of the clearing—the goblins having mastered that art, at least—with some meat on skewers roasting over it.

  The goblins that weren't butchering or cooking were mostly standing around or shuffling slowly around the camp, gibbering to each other. Was it a language? It certainly didn't sound like there were any words in there, but there was obviously some small amount of intelligence and cooperation going on in this settlement.

  Now, how would I go about destroying it?

  Using the sling was out of the question. Without a Skill, I'd never hit anything with it. Maybe, if I had a few days to practise beforehand, then yes, but I didn't. I'd never used a sling before in my life. I'd be more likely to brain myself with a rock than my target.

  I could throw the pebbles myself, but as well as not being confident about my aim, I also had doubts about how hard I could throw them. I wasn't convinced I could take out a goblin with one hit.

  Running in and engaging in a melee would get me surrounded in short order. I'd die soon after. They may be weak and stupid, but that didn't mean I wanted to face twenty or more at once.

  Hmm...

  I took one of my pebbles and threw it at a tree at the edge of the clearing, making sure to stay out of sight. A few goblins looked over at the noise, but none seemed sufficiently curious to investigate. After a few seconds, they returned to their shuffling and gibbering.

  I threw another stone.

  This time, a couple of goblins peeled away from the group to investigate, so I threw another stone further away, drawing them away from the village. They fell for the bait, the pair both facing away from me as they investigated the bush in which the final pebble had landed. With a rock in each hand, I brought one down on each head.

  And to think that I'd called that twenty-five experience a drop in the ocean... I stared at my Status in disbelief at how close that had left me to the next level.

  Still, that was easily resolvable; the bush to which I'd lured the goblins was covered in berries, and it was a simple matter to keep stuffing them into my mouth until my level rolled over.

  Perfect. If I was going to dismantle the rest of the village, I could use more Strength, and if I got an assassination bonus on half of the goblins, I'd get another level in the process.

  The task was helped by the way a couple more of the goblins wandered out of the village to look for their friends, making loud calling howls. Alerted by the noise they were making, I hastily hid myself, sneaking around behind them. Alas, I hadn't lured the first two far enough away from the camp to give me time to take out the new pair, and they saw the two corpses lying on the floor in pools of their own blood.

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  One of the new goblins drop to their knees, poking the corpses. The other one screeched.

  The screech was echoed from the camp behind me.

  Trading speed for a little more volume—the monsters would never be able to hear me over their own noises—I leapt forward and brained the new pair of goblins before diving sideways and circling around the camp.

  Goblin noises spread from the camp in the direction of my assassinations. More screeches sounded from where I'd killed the four goblins, but I ignored them, creeping closer to the camp instead. I was fortunate the goblins were so stupid. Not only were they loudly announcing their movements, but they'd just left the camp half empty, and everyone still in it was facing the direction of the commotion. They were wide open, so I circled around a little further and sprinted in.

  First one down, and with all the screeching, none of the other goblins heard either the impact of rock meeting skull or face meeting dirt. A few more steps, and I'd reached the pair of butchers.

  And that was the only pair of armed goblins disposed of.

  Followed by the cook, who'd still been standing by the campfire.

  Another two, waiting by the treeline, went down, but that was where my one-sided streak ended, because there had been three of them in that group. The survivor heard my attack and spun around. I hastily struck it in the side of the head with one of my rocks, but while stone met flesh with a satisfying crunch, no notification popped up.

  The fallen goblin screamed from the ground, my attack apparently not weakening its voice in the slightest. Another blow ended it, but not before the screeching from the forest had paused for a moment. When it resumed, there was a distinct getting-closer sense to the noise.

  Judging that I didn't have time to get back into the forest unseen, I crouched behind one of the shelters. Goblins came running back into the village, but the foolish creatures headed for the corpses, splitting their group apart once again, and still vocalising loudly enough that I barely had to worry about subtlety. My chosen hiding place was fairly close to the fire, and a goblin stooped down to poke the corpse of the cook.

  He didn't survive the experience.

  A scream from behind me alerted me that I'd been seen, even if I hadn't been heard, but I'd reached the point that I didn't much care. I'd seen the goblins running around. I'd seen one react to a threat. I knew how much force it required to take one down. I'd already halved the population of the camp. I could take the rest without stealth.

  Especially since I was still standing next to the fire, which was surrounded by nice, sharp wooden skewers stuck into the ground. I grabbed one that had no meat on it and greeted the first goblin to approach me by the simple method of ramming it through an eye.

  No stealth bonus, even if I had half-blinded him.

  I may not have known my way around a sling, but my time in the Fluffy Meadows dungeon meant that I knew my way around any sort of long, pointy stick. Two more goblins fell before one of the brighter among them seemed to realise that charging all at once would have a better chance of success than one at a time.

  By that point, I'd killed sixteen goblins in total. My count of twenty had obviously missed a few, because there were still seven of them charging together. A sweep of my improvised spear at leg height snapped it, but sent five of them crashing to the ground. I plunged the shattered remains of my spear into the back of one of them, then used my freed-up hand to punch one of the standing goblins in the face. He went flying backward, but the second standing goblin snarled and leapt at me, mouth wide open and fangs on display.

  That was the point at which a combat Skill would really have shown its worth. Lacking one, the best I could do was a clumsy dodge.

  There'd only been one notification from my previous move. Probably the one I'd stabbed, since I doubted the punch had been strong enough to kill. Indeed, that one was lying unmoving, while the other four were already halfway back to their feet.

  Just enough time to fend off the standing goblin, who was making wild punches of his own, and grab another of the skewers. This one went into the face of the first goblin to get back on two feet. He went straight back down, despite me missing his eye socket and the skewer snapping against his skull.

  The shorter range of the broken spear was perfect for ramming into the chest of the standing goblin. He went down and didn't get back up.

  After that, there were only four remaining. With the remains of the skewer—now little more than a very splintery club—they went down easily.

  And that was the end of the goblin camp.

  Shame not all of the goblins had been home. I'd already met one sentry, however briefly, but it stood to reason there would be more. Even for these dumb creatures, they must have realised there was no point in guarding their camp from only one direction.

  And those sentries were armed with slings, a fact I was reminded of all too painfully when a stone cracked into the side of my face.