A group of five goblins rushed in from a nearby set of stairs, their blades already drawn and a war cry on their lips.
On the opposing side, a pack of three Wargs were followed closely by two archer goblins, one of which immediately took aim at William's exposed flank.
The arrow shot forth like a missile, tearing through the air towards William, who was feeding a goblin the business end of his sword.
As it neared William, however, a large red blur shot forth and stood in its path. Karlach took the arrow to her shoulder, the force behind it causing her to fall back a single step before she glared hatefully at the goblin who fired it.
Karlach's body began to heat up, and she let out a primal roar as she stomped the ground with enough force to create a foot-shaped crater, launching herself towards the Wargs and goblins with reckless abandon that barbarians are known for.
The first to reach her was a Warg which Karlach dispatched by grabbing its head and smashing it on the blade of the axe until wet noises sounded and the beast stopped thrashing.
She picks up the axe and performs a spin to gain momentum before lifting it over her head and throwing the battle-axe at another Warg, cutting deep into its neck to the point that it was essentially being held up by a strand of sinew and twitching muscle rather than the spine.
A few arrows suddenly pierced her shoulder and her thigh causing her steaming blood to pour in ruby rivers her head snapped right her fiery gaze sending deathly chills down the spines of the goblins who shot her.
"Y... You don't scare us, red bitch!" The one on the left managed to spit out, preparing to lift his bow and fire another shot when Karlach leaped towards him and grabbed him by his neck.
"Aaaaaaaahhhhhgggggghhh!" He cried and thrashed helplessly as Karlach's burning flesh charred his own.
Karlach sneered before slamming the goblin into the ground with enough force to create a goblin print, a blood-filled goblin print.
The other goblin screamed in terror as it fumbled for a blade it could use, but Karlach sent a powerful kick to face of the goblin sending it flying in the direction of a schoolhouse where it crashed through a wall and disappeared in the darkness beyond.
Karlach reared up and with primal barbarian fury let out a scream, the machine that replaced her heart pumping with infernal purpose, but suddenly her instincts flashed warnings and she spun back towards the schoolhouse.
Thunk!
A meaty but powerful footstep echoes out from the shadow inside, followed closely by two more sets of similar footsteps.
CRUNCH!
The sound of meat, bones, and sinew snapping under powerful jaws fills the settlement, and from the darkness three powerful ogres appear, one of whom is wearing some kind of diadem or crown and has a strange intelligence that defies his barbarous nature as an ogre.
One of the ogres behind the intelligent one was chewing on the remains of the goblin Karlach had kicked into the schoolhouse, half its body hanging out of the ogres mouth amidst a line of blood and saliva.
The third was clutching its club as it took glances at the goblin, clearly wondering if it should just take it, but its expression shifted to joy when it looked outside the schoolhouse.
"Oi, look at all the food!"
SLAP!
The crown-wearing ogre slapped the back of his subordinates' head.
"Food later, we need to deal with some intruders!" The intelligent ogre turned to Karlach and to William and then to Halsin, each of whom had several bodies surrounding them.
The intelligent ogre paused and seemed to go deep into thought, the gears turning in his head inevitably coming to a singular conclusion.
These people are dangerous!
Halsin grabbed one of the last remaining goblin wrists with thorny vines and pulled him into a tight spin that brought him before William, who had the Widower raised over his head.
Shing!
The goblin's vision flipped upside down as his head was severed at the neck, and he could see his own headless corpse crash before William twitching wildly for a few seconds as the nerves sent pain signals to a brain that was no longer present.
The final goblin staggered in place before attempting to flee the battle; he did not make it far before an arrow struck him in the back of the neck and out the front.
He fell in front of the club-wielding ogre and bled out helplessly only for the ogre to grab the arrow shaft like an eating utensil and begin eating the goblin that could only flail and cry weakly as darkness and teeth closed in around it.
CRUNCH!
CRUNCH!
Blood leaks in copious amounts from the ogre's mouth, leaving no illusions of the fate of the goblin.
The intelligent ogre standing in the middle of his two brute companions stepped forward with his hands raised in a placating manor.
His eyes swept between William, Halsin, Karlach, and even the shadow where Astarion had been before his eyes landed back on William, something about him giving off an aura of leadership.
"Easy there, friend. I have a proposal that may interest you!" The ogre speaks, somehow sounding less like a brute and more like an intellectual bodybuilder with a heavy voice.
William stepped forward, flanked by Halsin and Karlach, while Astarion knocked an arrow of lightning he had taken from one of the goblin archers.
The intelligent ogre stopped a few feet away from his companions and waited.
William looked to Halsin and Karlach and nodded before whispering in a voice too low for ogre ears to hear that if they attacked, they should go all out, kill them without mercy.
William approached with slow but steady steps, sheathing the Widower to come off as less of a threat but subconsciously prepared to use the fire bolt cantrip.
With an expression that was both intelligent and incredibly patient, the ogre fixed William with its gaze. Then, without warning, the ogre clapped its massive hands together, abruptly ending the tense atmosphere.
"I would like to come to an... Arrangement... If you would be so inclined to hear a humble ogre out!"
He gestures around him to the blood bath of goblin and Warg corps with his massive hands.
"As you can clearly see, you have slain our charges, and we would receive no payment for our work due to their deaths, as we were technically sent here to guard them."
William looks around at the carnage and nods.
"You want me to hire you?" he asked, his hand still straddling the pommel of the sword in his waist.
"My men here, my less eloquent brethren do not require gold, no, they are much more simple than that, they desire to eat, and I believe you will leave many, many corpses in your wake, and my ogres here will clean up the mess. I only require a thousand gold myself as an intelligent being with aspirations besides when next to fill my belly. I myself require more conventional payment!"
William reaches into his pack and feels around for the satchel where he kept his gold.
He pulls the satchel from his bag and throws it at the intelligent ogres feet.
"It's not a thousand gold, but it's better than nothing. You get the rest when the job is done, and your companions can eat their fill until they burst!"
The intelligent ogres eyes narrowed as he reached for the satchel and tested it's weight in his hand before smiling and looking back at William.
"You have yourself a deal, little Half-Drow. Take this horn and when you have need of our aid, blow into it. We will come to assist shortly."
The intelligent ogre let out a short, sharp whistle, a sound surprisingly controlled for a creature with lungs as large as bellows.
"Right then," he said, clapping his hands once. "You heard the agreement."
Those two brute ogres, upon hearing my words, instantly perked right up.
"Food?" one asked hopefully, wiping goblin blood from his chin with the back of his hand.
"Yes, food," the crowned ogre replied with a sigh that suggested this was a daily conversation.
"Take what you can carry. Don't make a mess of the buildings. We'll leave after."
That was all the encouragement they needed to move forward.
Leading the charge was the club-wielding ogre, who strode forward with a lumbering gait. Its first move was to snatch up a goblin corpse by its ankle, hoisting it onto its shoulder with the ease of a sack filled with grain.
The second brute crouched low, scooping up two bodies at once, one in each massive hand, their heads lolling bonelessly as blood dripped onto the dirt.
CRUNCH.
Neither of the ogres seemed to feel the slightest bit embarrassed.
Karlach observed them with a complex mixture of disgust and a grim sort of approval. Her infernal heart still hammered loudly against her ribs, its rhythm barely masked.
She muttered to herself, "It's efficient, though. Gross, but efficient."
Halsin's face remained as impassive as ever, though his eyes were fixed intently on the ogres. "Nature wastes nothing," he stated softly. "Even brutality serves a purpose, as long as it does not persist indefinitely."
The intelligent ogre paused for just a moment as his companions finished gathering their gruesome haul.
With a low, deliberate bend of his lingering frame, he picked up a goblin corpse from the ground by the collar, his eyes scanning it with the careful scrutiny of a merchant examining a batch of produce.
He muttered something about being too skinny and then proceeded to toss it back onto the table.
He then picked up another cut of meat, nodding his head in a gesture of approval. As soon as he finished, he passed it over to one of the brutal-looking ogres who were standing nearby. "That one," he stated, "really good marbling."
He straightened his posture and then turned back to address William, offering a brief, respectful incline of his head.
Alright, we're going to need to wrap things up for now. When that horn goes off, we'll be right there. Of course, that's assuming we have enough food and gold to spare.
William nodded his head once, indicating his agreement. "There absolutely will."
"Excellent," the ogre chuckled, revealing a surprising amount of teeth. "I find such mutually beneficial relationships to be quite enjoyable."
With that said, he turned his back on the group and then gestured towards the road that led out of the village.
Two of the enormous ogres, their faces twisted into grim expressions, started trudging away, their arms overflowing with the lifeless goblin corpses they had harvested. At random intervals, they would stop and take loud, wet bites out of the corpses as they continued walking.
CRUNCH.
CRUNCH.
The sound of their footsteps grew louder and louder, then seemed to fade into the distance. As they walked, the weight of their movement caused pieces of loose rubble to crumble and break away from the surrounding area.
In a matter of moments, their colossal forms vanished into the night beyond the outskirts of the village, leaving behind only a trail of bloodstains, scattered weapons, and an unsettling silence that suddenly descended upon the battlefield, now devoid of the enemies that once filled it.
The wind seemed to be making its way through the broken and shattered streets adding to the feeling of emptiness.
After a considerable time spent lurking in the darkness, the figure known as Astarion finally emerged from the shadows, slowly lowering his bow.
"Well, that was," he said lightly, his eyes flicking toward the road the ogres had taken, "surprisingly civil."
William let out a slow, deliberate breath, the last lingering sounds of the ogre's heavy footfalls finally fading into the background.
The village seemed to have undergone a dramatic transformation, its once bustling streets now eerily silent, filled with an unsettling stillness. It was as if the screams and the constant movement of goblins had evaporated, leaving behind an atmosphere of profound silence, almost like a battlefield holding its breath.
Straightening up, he wiped away the last trace of blood that remained on the Widower's blade, before carefully sliding it back into its sheath with a soft click that seemed to barely register.
"Alright," William said, his tone remained calm but his voice carried quite clearly through the ruined streets. "Everyone spread out."
Karlach turned her head toward him, her shoulder where the arrow had struck, and then proceeded to swallow a healing potion.
The wound seemed to be beginning to heal already, with a faint warmth radiating outwards from the torn flesh. "Are we ready for the looting now?" she questioned, her voice laced with a crooked grin.
William nodded, confirming, "Alright, it's time to start looting. First things first, we need to check the houses themselves. Anything useful, maybe some weapons or armor, or maybe some potions or scrolls. If it looks like it might be something we can actually use to help us stay alive later, go ahead and grab it."