We quickly stacked up on either side of the cave, I looked at Mark in front of me while pulling my NVGs down in front of my eyes. I got tapped on the shoulder signifying that Rob behind me was ready, I quickly reached up and tapped Mark.
Mark nodded to Fabian and James on the other side before quickly pushing into the cave. We silently made our way through the mouth of the cave clearing it and stamping out small fires.
"*Stchk* Clear!" James whispered as I looked around the cave entrance.
"*Stchk* Copy that, push to the corridor," I replied moving toward the soft orange glow.
We regrouped by the opening before Mark led us around the corner and we snuffed out torches along the way. Shadows danced across the wall up ahead before three goblins wandered into view, promptly getting shot by Mark and Rob their blood splatting on the wall behind them.
Continuing to push past the corpses we rounded the corner to a large room filled with human remains, the smell of rotting flesh overpowered my nose. We quickly moved to leave the room, but the sound of goblins laughing drawing closer to us, forced us to hold position.
The goblins that stepped into the room were instantly shot by Fabian and me before even realizing we were there.
"*Stchk* Let's move," I whispered before moving forward again to the next opening.
Pushing into the next room we found ourselves in what I assumed was the goblin's sleeping area. Several goblins were led down fast asleep in various groups throughout the room.
"*Stchk* Kill them, before they wake up," I ordered while moving towards the first group sleeping.
"*Stchk* Copy that," Mark responded.
The room fell silent before several suppressed shots sounded and the few goblins that were left began to wake up but were quickly shot.
"Clear," James said moving towards the next corridor.
"Copy that," I replied moving in behind Rob who tapped Mark on the shoulder as we passed.
Approaching the next bend in the corridor James held up his fist, and we all halted with our rifles raised. The faint noises of goblins shouting and drums banging could be heard, James moved to the corner and peered his head around the corner before coming back into cover.
"*Stchk* The next room is a large hall with a large chair at the back, roughly 60 hostiles, only a couple of torches around the edges so it is minimal light," James reported, keeping his rifle pointed at the bend.
"Copy that, this is likely the last room but keep your eyes open and remember, slow is smooth, smooth is fast," I said, before nodding toward James.
Standing up we moved around the bend and burst into the room rifles spitting lead into the goblins, James split left and Mark split right, clearing the corners and the rest of us fanned out down the middle pushing forward, killing all of the goblins that came into view. The goblins were quickly culled and we had reached the large chair at the end.
Suddenly a larger goblin-like creature holding a wooden staff stepped out from behind the chair, its bone jewellery rattling as it moved. Instantly we opened fire on the creature but our rounds were caught by a semi-transparent barrier and dropped to the ground harmlessly.
"Shit!" Mark shouted before rapidly backing up like the rest of us.
The creature smiled before raising its staff and slamming it into the ground releasing a shockwave of air, that pushed us further back.
"Fuck! It's got a magic barrier," I shouted before grabbing a grenade from my vest, pulling the pin, and throwing it at the feet of the creature.
The grenade exploded and the force of the shock wave caused the creature to lose concentration temporarily before regaining it and repairing the barrier. Realizing that the creature needed constant concentration to keep the barrier stable, Mark threw a flashbang.
"Flash out!" Mark shouted, and I shielded my eyes as did the rest of my team.
As soon as I heard the bang I moved my arm and shot at the creature. The unimpeded shots hit the creature and its green blood sprayed out onto the wall behind it before it slumped to its knees and fell over face first seeming dead. Slowly approaching the creature I shot it four more times in the head to be certain it was dead.
"Holy fuck! What the hell was that thing?" Mark shouted.
[Identifying. Confirmed, it is a Hobgoblin shaman.] The robotic voice of the system rang out in the cave.
"Well, that answers that question then," I said while looking at the corpse of the hobgoblin.
"We're going to have a lot more problems if we keep running into magic-using beings," Fabian commented walking over.
"Yeah we will but I believe there is only so much kinetic energy a barrier can take before it fails, the first volley of shots we took at the shaman caused a crack in the barrier," Rob said looking pensively at the corpse.
"That, or make the caster lose concentration," Mark added.
"Let's worry about that later," I said, "first let's look around for any other rooms."
"Copy that," Bravo team replied.
Searching around the rest of the room more thoroughly we didn't find anything till we looked behind the throne.
"Hey, I got bodies over here, they seem fairly fresh," James shouted, everyone now converging on his position.
"They look like adventurers, check for guild cards," I said, looking down at the partly dismembered corpses of men and women.
"Found them," Rob said while holding up 10 cards.
"The rest of the room is clear there are no other rooms or passageways, the only thing we will have to worry about is a returning party of hunters," I said looking toward the entrance.
"Rob set security with Mark on that corridor," I ordered, "The rest of us can cut out the magic stones from these goblins."
Mark and Rob hustled to the entrance of the room and stood watch while me, Fabian, and James took out our combat knives and started to gut the goblins looking for the magic stones that we could sell for money.
The first goblin that I started to gut was almost unrecognisable as its head had caved after it had been headshot. Cutting open its chest a foul odour came from the body as I dug through its torso pulling out a glowing blue diamond.
"So this is a mana gem," I said passing the gem between my hands and gauging its weight, "If this is a normal goblins mana gem then how big is the Hobgoblins?"
Standing up I walked over to its corpse, I repeated the gutting process and pulled out a mana gem about double the size and was purple in colour.
"That has a lot more weight to it," I grunted as I lifted the mana gem away from the hobgoblin's open chest.