The Monster Hunter Guild -- Goblin Invaders from Araguay

[Durbs]

Noremu's eyes widen as he sees the group rushing toward them. He curses under his breath; surely the entire forest had heard this man's scream!

What made matters worse, however, was something he saw out of the corner of his eye: a brief flash of red. Goblin red. Normeu's spirit dropped instantaneously. Goblin red in a place like this meant only one thing: scouts.

As they approach, Noremu glares at the approaching group, giving the first man a look of extreme annoyance in his eyes. "You idiot!" Noremu says quietly, yet burning with rage. "Do you have any idea what you've just done!?" With a flick of his wrist, Resmu materializes nearby and lands on his arm. "Resmu, I need you to find where that scout went. We'll need to eliminate him quickly if we're to keep the element of surprise." Resmu flies off.

Noremu returns his attention to the group in front of him. Giving their leader an admittedly harsh whack with his staff, he spins around and moves to wake the group as quickly as possible. "Nicholas! Keith! We have a situation!"

[Dokurider]

"What's going on?" Nicholas demands, lumbering out of of his tent. As he stumbles out of the tent, he sees Noremu releasing Resmu. He was still not entirely sure what's going on, but he could sense the danger in the air. He knew instant action was demanded. He called Antigone over while he strapped his quiver on and clutched his bow. Quickly leaping on the chocobo, he charged after the familiar.

As he followed the bird's path, he can see what he was chasing after: a goblin scout. Despite it's headstart and skillfully clamoring over the roots and uneven terrain, the chocobo caught up to him with ease. Fast enough in fact to get in front of him and route him. Surprised at chocobo and rider appearing in front of him and seeing an icy arrow notching, it started running to the side.  Nicholas quickly drew his bow and shot the goblin, easily hitting his mark now that he wasn't riding. Despite letting out a pathetic cry, it still didn't go down, still trying to run away in vain. It clutched at the mercilessly cold arrow stuck in it's chest, sucking his life away. Nicholas' next shot pierced the scout's back, finally dropping him and ending the chase.

Nicholas rode up to the goblin and quickly dismounted. He knew the scouting party this goblin was apart of couldn't be very far away and finding a corpse with arrows in it was a dead giveaway of humans. He had to grab the body and hide it. Despite the goblin's small stature, the creature was deceptively heavy. He still managed to drape the body over the back of the chocobo before leaping on himself. Securing the corpse as best as he can, he rode off back to camp.

"What a way to start a morning." he thought as he headed back to camp. He was pissed at whoever was screaming just now, but it would have to wait. "Everyone get up.", he called out as he re entered the camp site, "Pack everything up quickly. We have to leave. Now." He knew that scout would be missed, but as long as they don't actually see humans, they might avoid completely tipping off the goblin camp. Still, it was a desperate attempt at salvaging the element of surprise he was hoping for and he knew it. Meanwhile, looming in the distance, the approaching chatter of goblins could be heard.

[Dokurider]

As everyone was hurriedly packing the tents up, Keith spoke up. "Nicholas, you gonna hide that body right? Let me and these rangers here find a place to dump the body while you get everyone else to safety. Just leave me the chocobo."

Nicholas paused to think for a moment before approving. "Just make sure you and Antigone make it back."

He lept off the chocobo to help pack everything up. Promptly, Keith mounted the corpse bearing chocobo and started heading off to the east. "You rangers know a good spot to dump a body, right? C'mon follow me guys."

Before they could blubber out an answer, Keith was already off. "HEY! WAIT UP!" the loudmouthed ranger yelled after him while running after them, apparently not learning his lesson at all. Both Keith and rangers disappeared into the thick of the surrounding wood. Meanwhile, everyone had finished hastily packing and ran off in a separate path, with Nicholas, Quint, and Jim packing the tents.

[Dokurider]

"DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHERE YOU'RE GOING?" the ranger continued to sound off on Keith, who finally slowed down and let them catch up to him. Keith seemed oddly content with the ranger yelling at him and made no attempt to make him quiet down despite being counterproductive to hiding a body from the goblin scouts, who were very likely on their trail now.

"Well I guess I really don't know, do I?" Keith seemed at a loss. "Well, I'm sure we'll find someplace to ditch the body. In the meantime, can I borrow your knife?"

"WHAT? WHAT DO NEED-" one of his compatriots gave him a sharp nudge. "What do you need my knife for?"

"I left my knife at camp. Just lemme have it."

The ranger was displeased having to do something so trivial while running, but he resigned and handed over a knife to Keith. "I don't know what you think you and your pals are doing, but why are you so intent on hiding this body?" he demanded.

"Well, if the scouts don't actually come back with a body, their tribe won't be completely alarmed when we make our raid on them." Keith answered casually, using the ranger's knife to dig out Nicholas' arrows out of the goblin.

"You were going to attack them? But they'll still be on guard. Do you really think this will make any difference? And why are you digging those arrows out?" The ranger was getting irritated at having to run while Keith had dug the arrows out of the corpse at ease. "And can you pick up the pace, you're on a chocobo, you know."

"We are just trying to salvage our raid that you just ruined because you had to scream at us because we were camping around some royally sanctioned hunk of wood." Keith had put the arrows away and was now ripping the holes that the arrows had made in the body, turning them into gashes. In the distance, loud rustling was constantly following them in the distant background, along with the sounds of the goblin unit in pursuit.

"That's not our problem. We only care about maintaining the aesthetic and health of the World Oak Sanctuary for future generations. What are you doing?"

"You mean keeping the pretty part of Araguay pretty so that you can keep rollin' in money from tourists, right? I'm pretty sure tourists don't like getting mugged and killed by rampant goblins. Here, I'm done with your knife." He threw the bloodied knife back to the ranger, causing him to almost stumble as he juggled the knife about trying to not drop it.

"Answer my question!" the ranger's voice was rising, about to go into shouting mode again. "What are you doing there?!"

"Just getting ready to dump the body." he answered coldly, releasing the body directly into the group, the sudden and unexpected weight knocked all three of them to the ground. "Later assholes!" he cheerfully shouted at them as loudly as possible before darting off to the side at top speed, disappearing into the woods.

"HEY! HEY!! GET BACK HERE!" the ranger was full on yelling now, completely red in the face. "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!! HEY!!!" The ranger's complete disregard for stealth had sealed his fate. As he and his companions were getting up from underneath the goblin, the entire scouting party had closed the distance between them. Bloodied knife still in hand, the conclusion was simple to reach. Finally realizing how this all looks, he and his two companions tried to make a break for it.

[Durbs]

Thankfully noticing the party before it was too late, Noremu moved carefully about, making sure that the group of goblin scouts didn't see him... though it wasn't especially difficult considering the circumstances. The bigger issue at hand, however, was that he had been separated from the group in the confusion.

'Great,' Noremu thought to himself. 'Now what?' Well, at least he knew where the goblin camp was. Deciding to head in that direction and use Resmu as a scout (to keep an eye out for the others to regroup with), Noremu proceeds onward, being extra vigilant now that they were in real goblin territory.

[st4rw4k3r]

        I woke up unexpectedly to the sound of yelling. Jumping out of bed quickly so I may inspect the matter, I poked my head out the tent flap to peer outside. There were unfamiliar people, loud people at that. Noremu summon his familiar, and began yelling for Nicholas and Keith. I grabbed my staff and pulled the tent flap open. The smell of the outdoors assaulted my nose. The sound of more yelling occurred as Nicholas got on his chocobo and rode off after Noremu's familiar. Interesting morning I said out loud to myself, followed by a stretch and more talking to myself. Time for my daily energizer. I cast haste upon myself, the surge of energy pouring into my body woke up every part of me that was still asleep, and pumped life into them. I felt like I was able to do anything! But before too long my energy toned down, and Nicholas was back, with a goblin on his chocobo. Oh my I thought. This can't be good. I promptly headed over to Noremu, or at least where I saw Noremu disappear off to.