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There was a staff there. A divine instrument sent to this land long, long ago, when the gods had occupied themselves with war games. Any who took it in hand could wield it as a “hero unit,” protecting Order against evil.
But all that was now far in the past.
Long had the staff slept that bore the Earth Mother’s name. Ten years ago and more, it had been wielded to drive back the evil and death encroaching upon the capital, but even that had been only for an instant.
The Earth Mother’s staff had been sealed away in the deepest reaches of an ancient shrine—ancient ruins—to safeguard the Four-Cornered World.
This burgeoning power was enough to destroy anybody. The fate of the world of people was not decided by the gods: This was one of the golden rules the gods had set upon watching over the Four-Cornered World.
And so the Earth Mother’s staff went to sleep.
Nothing, however, impinged upon its holiness, not even when the forces of Chaos came to establish themselves in the shrine.
“GOROGB…”
“GOBB! GRBB.”
Nothing so lowly as a goblin would even be allowed to touch the staff. Goblins, however, did not wonder why they couldn’t touch the staff but only grew angry about it.
Which was, in its own way, a stroke of good fortune. If they could have touched it, the ensuing calamity would have been terrible indeed.
“GBBR?”
So what happened was no doubt because a goblin, flush with impatience, had jumped onto the altar.
It started with a pebble.
The goblin would never have spotted it clicking as it fell from the wall. Goblins, on the whole, are not blind—but they pay very little attention to what they see. A goblin, with his minimal passive perception, would have struggled to notice such a thing at all.
Although perhaps he would have noticed the wall shivering after the pebble fell…
“GRGB?!”
So what if he did? What could something as lowly as a goblin do about it?
The first one died when the wall came crashing outward. Even the other goblins noticed this, and for a second, they hesitated between guffawing at their idiotic comrade and running away.
“Four goblins! I mean, three! Weapons, uh… Argh! Look for yourself!!”
“GOROGBB?!?!!!?”
The delay was critical.
No sooner had the words been spoken than one goblin found an arrow going clean through the roof of his mouth and out the back of his head.
The other goblins were enraged, though they didn’t spare a glance at the tumbling corpse.
An elf!
An elf woman!
Let’s drag her down and make her weep!!
Their brains filled with the sweet fragrance of that feminine flesh—a most convenient distraction. The goblins charged forward. What was one female? They could beat her into submission with their clubs. Even if it cost a few of their lives.
“GROG! GOOROGB!!”
“GOBBGR!!”
This was why goblins never rose to be any more than what they were.
“That’s one…!”
“GOOB?!”
A scruffy-looking man emerged from behind the elf and flung the sword he held in his right hand. His aim was true, piercing the throat of one goblin; the creature fell back, clawing at his neck.
Goblin Slayer jumped forward, kicking the corpse out of the way and pulling his sword out of it almost in a single movement.
Two left. No problems. One of them came at him from the side; he rebuffed the creature with his shield.
“GROGB?!”
“Hrm…!” Without hesitating a moment, he rolled forward. Another goblin had used his companion’s attack as a distraction, a chance to leap at Goblin Slayer.
A rusty sword scraped along the stone, and the two goblins tumbled headlong into each other.
Goblin Slayer was not going to give them time to start squabbling about it. This was a decisive opportunity.
“Eeeeyyaaahhhh!”
With a screech, a massive figure slammed its tail into one of the goblins’ heads, meanwhile smashing the other’s spine with the heel of its foot. When you come right down to it, there’s no better weapon than sufficient mass combined with sufficient speed.
The battle didn’t even last a full turn. All the goblins that had taken up residence in the chamber were annihilated.
The adventurers landed with puffs of dust. They were followed by a small figure scrambling out of the wall. “Gods! Tunnel won’t break through the wall, I says! So combine it with Weathering, he says! Who does that?!”
“I thought it would be the fastest way.” Goblin Slayer’s reply to the griping dwarf was concise.
Dwarf Shaman replied that Ruta would be very happy—which wasn’t quite a compliment and wasn’t quite a complaint.
It had been very much the sort of solution one might have expected from a follower of the god who always sought a faster, better result. It would also have been impossible if they hadn’t already known about the layout of these particular ruins. There is, after all, a reason that most adventurers in most places start at the entrance to a dungeon.
“And?” asked Lizard Priest, who was busy finishing off the goblin he had stepped on. “Where is the famous staff?”
“I doubt the goblins have taken it. It must be nearby.” Goblin Slayer’s helmet turned this way and that until his gaze found the altar.
There upon it was a staff carved with the image of a familiar winged woman. At first glance, it could almost have appeared to be a dilapidated stick of metal—except it was anything but. To still exist after all these countless ages proved that it was no ordinary staff. One did not have to know about its magical properties or miraculous capabilities to see that much; one needed only to observe the materials.
Time had not conquered the metal nor cracked its surface. This must be adamantite.
“There it is,” was all Goblin Slayer said and immediately reached for it.
“Hold it,” someone said, pressing back his filthy gauntlet. A delicate arm reached out and took the staff. It was High Elf Archer. “If you touched this thing with those hands, I’ll bet the Earth Mother wouldn’t have been happy!”
“I see.” Goblin Slayer grunted.
Lizard Priest’s eyes rolled merrily in his head. “I daresay none of us are worthy of this instrument.”
“Because this is a weapon that can only be used by the Earth Mother’s believers, ain’t it?” Dwarf Shaman was tossing some candies to the swiftly closing hole to show his gratitude.
It was hardly unusual for adventurers to be left tearing their hair out when they discovered at the end of a lengthy quest that the magic item they’d obtained was, say, an ax that only dwarves could use.