Tect had a bad feeling seeing the state of the two other elders, having a meeting with them was a rare occurrence normally, and the combination of their appearance and the suddenness of the meeting was quite telling. "Two of the children who work in the overseer's home overhead a conversation between the overseer and a slaver. The overseer is retiring and has plans to sell all of us at auction come spring. You've spent your whole life here so you may not know this but this is actually one of the better places to end up. Other humans treat goblins much worse, Elder Bokar started his life as a research subject in a human university, not many goblins survived going there, and there are many places worse." The male elder to Tect's left is silently crying, he can't speak but he makes occasional squeaking sounds as he sobs. "We have discussed it before, but we were never able to work out a way to escape the camp, but we think we can escape during transport in the spring. We need you to make us lock picks and knives while you work for the smith. Can you do it?" Tect is torn, the old smith has helped him and his people a lot, and if this fails the old smith may be implicated. "I need to think about this, the old man has been good to me, and his gifts benefit the whole tribe. If we do this we have to kill all of the witnesses or he may hang for helping us. I can't repay his kindness like that." The female elder gave a half smile, "We understand Tect, we are all grateful to the old smith. Think on this and let us know, we have until spring."
Tect left feeling conflicted, truly he viewed himself as the worst chieftain in Darh Clan history, and now when he had a chance to do his duty he couldn't. The old man may be human but he never treated Tect any differently than he treated anyone else, Tect considered the old man to be his family just as much as he did the other goblins. Tect didn't sleep well for the next few days but in the end he couldn't risk getting the old man involved. When he told the elders his decision they agreed and formed a new plan. The goblins who worked the fields would collect flint and the goblins who worked in the stables would attempt to collect horseshoe nails.
As fall transitioned into winter the goblins plan was going quite well and they had stockpiled quite a lot of flint, nails were accumulating at a slower pace but they still had all winter to collect those so it seemed like things would be prepared come spring. Unfortunately it would be a long winter for the whole town.
Early in winter as a light snow dusted the ground two travelling salesman rode in with a wagon full of goods. Nadteifelt is not on a major trading route and usually the towns merchants had to travel to larger towns or cities to trade for goods so having merchants arrive in town was a rare occurrence. It didn't take long for the townsfolk to flock to the merchants, especially after learning about how low the merchants prices were. The merchants quickly sold quite a lot of their merchandise, and it looked like with another day or two they would likely sell out. That night at the tavern the merchants treated the local drinkers to quite a few rounds, the townsfolk were more than happy to drink back some of their money. In the early hours of the morning the two merchants left town, only the goblin who worked the stables was aware of their departure. When the townsfolk awoke and found out they had left they found it quite odd but since no one was dead or had been robbed they thought nothing of it.
Two days later a few men started developing a rash, they didn't think much of it and got some ointment from the town doctor, their biggest worry was not the rash but what their wives would think. It wasn't to long after that the men began to show other symptoms, first came pustules to accompany the rash then a burning fever. of the men who were sick, eight in total, three died in the second week of the sickness, and two others suffered damage to their brain from the high fever. By the time the remaining three began to improve other townsfolk showed signs of the illness. The nearest city Gribadir was a round trip of nearly 20 days no one could leave as the sickness would take them midway through the trip, and the town priest could only do basic healing spells and was unable to cure this illness so the townsfolk had to endure and hope for the best. Thanks to the help of the town doctor and priest nearly fifty percent of the townsfolk survived, only the very old, very young, or the sickly died. The goblins did not fair so well, with most of them being malnourished, nearly 75 percent died. As Tect held the hand of the female elder Nagt, she passed him a very dry, very thin animal hide, "Take this Tect, if our people gain their freedom this map will show you a safe place where our people can live in peace. Long before I became a slave my mother and father led a clan deep in the Darh Mountains, We had a legend about our ancestral home, a place deep in the mountains heart, we searched for years but never found it. Maybe you can, but if you can't take everyone as deep as you can, if you can find an old clan cave leave it. If the humans found it once they will find it again. Please free them Tect." a tear rolls down her cheek as the dim light fades from her eyes. Tect unrolls the hide it only has a few sentences and roughly drawn picture. The picture shows a mountain with a small cave at the base, in front of the mountains stands a guide stone and a small pond. The words read, "In mountain's heart where dragon's lie, Eternal Spring the Heart provides, no man or elf shall dare to tread, where goblin warriors struck them dead. Long from now in darkest gloom, when none are left to sweep our tombs, the drums of war in spring will sound, a new Goblin King shall wear the crown. The gate flung wide, the masses surge, once more they come to purge, refugees who once betrayed shall call our names, request our aid. Curse unbroken the world shall fall, refugees have damned us all." Tect read this twice, he had no clue what the hell any of it meant, but it was important enough for the elder to carry it for nearly 40 years so he rolled it back up, shut the elders eyes, kissed her forehead, and left.
Nagt was one of the last to die, no goblin younger than 8 or older than 25 survived, as the goblins mourned so did the humans, for once in their lives every human and every goblin could understand how the other felt. During the late mid winter do to the loss of so many and the amount of food that the sick had consumed to fight the illness, the food stores began to get low. The already underfed goblins were facing starvation while the humans became thinner and thinner. The once bustling town was more like a ghost town now, many families had no one left who could hunt or worse they were trying to take care of people who were damaged by the fever and now had the minds of children or were paralyzed. The overseer was one such person, his workers continued to come to work and do their jobs, the overseers wife would still pay them but this was all out of habit, many were simply lost in though and worry, doing what they always did simply leant them some small comfort of normalcy.
Tect left the slave pen for the first time since the illness began after almost 6weeks. He immediately went to the old smiths home. The smith's daughter Julia answered the door, she immediately burst in to tears and hugged Tect. Tect had met her in the past and while she took after the old man and treated him well he never expected this kind affection from her. "Tect, Im so glad you're ok. Father has been beside himself with worry. Please come in." Julia ushered Tect into the house and took him to the living room where the old man sat in a rocking chair by the fire watching his grandson play. His eyes were sunken and his skin hung. Tect could still see the thick muscle years of forge work had created but clearly the old man had not faired well in the last 6 weeks. "Tect, my boy!" the old smith jumped up as soon as he saw Tect and wrapped him in a hug. "What the hell is going on here." thought Tect. Though truly puzzled by the recent hugging, he had to admit it was nice to know they cared so much about him. The old man released the hug rather quickly, "Sorry bout that. Just was worried is all, couldn't help myself. How's things with you and your people? the old man looked worried. "We've had our run of the sickness, we have about 450 people left. None of the children or elders made it." Tect cast his gaze down in sadness and shame. The old man sighed and sat back in his chair, "I'm sorry to hear that Tect. I wish I had good news to give you to cheer you up, but im afraid things are only going to get worse for your people now."