Will felt so foolish, his whole plan depended on him not being noticed. Then he got noticed on the first morning after settling in. He rushed to the corner opposite to the entrance he had used and started digging, the ground underneath was just regular dirt so he managed to get a pretty big hole done in no time. After he figured the hole was deep enough, he grabbed his things and with them laid down in the whole. It was pretty dark under the church, so even if they did find the entrance, they wouldn't be able to see him from the opposite side.
Will waited, the unnerving suspense had his muscles tensed the whole time. He kept a close eye on the crack to see if he could tell if any shadows passed by. He didn't see anything, however he did hear a couple of voice, but he didn't understand what they said. One voice was the woman who had shrieked, and the other was a deep gruff voice. They talked for a while, but nothing came of it. Will still didn't take any chances and waited in the hole the entire morning. He figured it was safe around noon and relaxed, he was sweating and tired from the stress. He had a quick lunch and relaxed for about an hour, before deciding to start his work.
The plan now was to make this his temporary home, so the first thing he did was digging. He dug alongside the edges of the foundation and pushed the dirt against the walls, this would reduce the sound that would come through and fill any cracks. He left the entrance unblocked and continued digging, as he moved more and more dirt to the edges, the middle of the 'room' got low enough for Will to stand comfortably without hitting his head on the floorboard above.
Now that the digging was done, it was already evening, but Will still had much to do. He grabbed some mushrooms from a pouch in his backpack, the pouch itself was very soggy and was starting to smell moldy. He had gathered all the rocks he found while digging into one corner of the room and made pile. He covered the rocks in some old tree bark he had brought from the forest the previous night, and put the mushrooms there. He poured some water from his water skin on the bark to make it damp and soggy. He didn't expect the mushrooms to flourish, but they would at least be kept fresh enough for him to be able to eat them over time.
Will then cut up his backpack thinking he didn't need it anymore, and created a makeshift bed in one of the other corners. Since he had dug for a while, the soil was soft enough not to be too uncomfortable. The sun was already setting, and Will had noticed the noise outside had started fading out. He had taken advantage of the noisy daytime to do all his preparations, it was too risky now to keep working. So instead he laid down in his new bed and chewed on the last of the dried meat. He tried to listen and see if he could find out where in the church people were still staying at after dark. His main focus from now on would be to infiltrate the church from under the floor, but that would require him to find a spot where no one would regularly enter and spot him. Maybe a pantry or a closet, but he would also require to knock the floorboards loose, and that was going to be loud.
He smiled and let out a sigh as he heard the same voice from the previous night singing again, Will felt the exhaustion from today's work in his whole body and quickly fell into a deep slumber.
When Will woke up, he was a bit grumpy. He didn't wake up on his own, there was noise of children screaming and shouting outside. Will rubbed his eyes and stretched his hand to a pile of dried fruits and nuts next to his bed, and grabbed a handful of whatever his hand landed on. He stuffed his mouth and chewed slowly, drank a mouth full of water while chewing and swallowed it all. Now that breakfast was out of the way, he started listening in on the noise. The children were all ushered into the church, and Will heard the large wooden door close behind them. Was the woman going to watch the children, or maybe teach them? Will got curious enough to finally leave his new home.
Will removed the board covering the entrance and looked around. It was still quiet around, he ȧssumed most of the people in the town were off working so he didn't worry too much. He slowly walked around the church trying to find a way in or at least something he could prop up against the wall and climb. To Wills surprise and delight he found a small ladder behind the outhouse, there was also a wooden shovel, which irked Will as he remembered all the digging he did the day before.
Earlier when he had circled around the church, he had noticed voices from the eastern side of the church. He carried the ladder to one of the bigger windows on the eastern side, and quietly propped it up against the wall. Once Will got to the top of the ladder, a huge grin appeared on his face. As he had thought, the woman was some kind of nun from the church, and she was teaching the kids how to read. She had set up some small papers with some letters and pictures on a board, and the children were paying attention to her and nothing else. So Will spent the entire morning watching the class.
Will was finally in a constant good mood, he had found a nice routine to his life. Four times a week the nun taught lessons to some of the village children, which meant Will would also watch the lessons through the window. On the other days when he was free, he would fix things in his new home, and also go out to gather odds and ends.It only took Will two weeks to learn very basic writing and reading skills, and was getting a mild grasp on the language the humans spoke. He was like a child, absorbing all the knowledge like a sponge. [Maybe this is a trait of being a Goblin?]Twice a week he would leave the village to the forest outskirts and gather some more mushrooms and hunt smaller prey. He wouldn't bring the meat back to the church, because the smell would probably get noticed. So after every hunt he would skin and dry the meat, and every subsequent time he went back he would bring the meat that was already p
Thus passed the following days, weeks and months.Will had learned a lot in his time here, he was now proficient in reading and writing the human language. He could also understand speech, but since he didn't practice much, he couldn't tell how good he was at speaking it.This made him almost go mad, he had kept silent for so long. Sneaking around without getting noticed or making a sound, not speaking to anyone. If it wasn't for the nun's soothing voice every now and then, Will would probably have gone crazy by now. Even when he was alone in the forest, he couldn't speak to himself in fear of either getting noticed by random humans or scaring off his prey. He had also learned the nun's name was Lina. The kids called her Aunty Lina, and the ȧduŀts called her Sister Lina. She wasn't young, maybe in her mid thirties, but she had a clean ivory face, with almost no wrinkles.Will's routine was as follows: On weekdays he woul
The days grew colder and colder as winter approached, but the village just got more livelier. The streets were flooded with workers busy building new shacks and houses. The market street was bustling with new life and new wares. Most people weren't worried about thieves or pickpockets, which made sense considering the size and age of the village. Tighter communities had lower crime rates in general, besides, there was so much to do so there were plenty of jobs for everyone.Will had kept to himself for the most part. He had gotten bolder though, sneaking into the church's 'classroom' directly instead of watching from the window. Will was afraid of being noticed from the outside since the town was busier now, and he didn't like spending hours in the colSister Lina had moved on from teaching language to teaching history and religion. The religion worshiped a Goddess called the 'Nurturing Mother'. She was tolerant and caring, but
Darkness and screaming, that was all that Will had experienced for what seemed like an eternity. The screaming was unfamiliar, more guttural than what he was used to, and it seemed to be increasing. After a while he realized he was also part of it, he stopped and tried to analyze the situation he was in.[How did I get here?] his thoughts started getting clearer, earlier it was just a blur. He calmed down and tried to move his body, he felt two arms and two legs, and three fingers and toes on each limb. This startled Will, however he soon moved on, he then realized how weak his body was. It wasn't a weakness that came from being intoxicated or knocked out, which is what he thought at first. It was a weakness similar to having been laying in bed for weeks at a time, Will had experienced this once before when he was hospitalized for pneumonia and his muscles had atrophied.Suddenly a rough arm grabbed his neck and p
Will woke up with a slight headache and some dizziness. To his surprise he felt a lot stronger than before. For a split second he thought he was back in his human body, and that everything before was a horrible dream. However that wasn't the case, his surroundings were a lot darker than where he had been feeding, but he could still see quite well. He heard the snoring of his siblings in the same room, there were seven of them and all were male. He slowly walked out of the cave in a cautious manner, but as soon as he came out of the cave entrance and into a wider tunnel, someone grabbed his neck and lifted him off the ground. He struggled for a bit but didn't yell or scream, the ȧduŀt Goblin holding him up was looking at Will carefully. The Goblin showed Will a wry smile then started carrying him further down the tunnel.After following the tunnel and passing several entrances, they reached a similar dome shaped room like the one Will had previously
In the following days Will had gone to the Chiefs room after waking up. Chief didn't seem to mind, and kept teaching Will more words. Will was surprised at the rate he was absorbing information, it was like his brain was a sponge. Chief would also wrestle with Will sometimes and even spar with the sticks. Will was still very small, but to his surprise, only a couple of days passed and his muscles had already grown and he felt much stronger. Will could also stay awake for an entire day instead of falling asleep all the time. [Goblins seem to grow and develop much faster than humans. It's only been a week and a half and I can almost understand Chief, I can even run around half the day without getting tired.]Will came to understand how the Goblins lived after a while longer. They didn't have any kind of tribal structure or any type of government as Will had previously thought. They were anarchists, they helped each other from time to ti
When Will woke up again, he was leaned against the cave entrance alone. Chief had probably just dropped him there before dealing with their catch. He got up and started heading for his room, it was still night so his siblings were probably still sleeping. Will sat down on the ground opposite to where the others were sleeping and started thinking about what happened today.[This can't be how they usually hunt right? It's too inefficient, there has to be something I can do. First of all, they go in large groups. If they went alone or at least in pairs, they could be more stealthy and there would be more hunting groups out there catching more prey. However the reason they go in large groups is probably because their tools are so weak. Those sharpened sticks didn't do anything to the boar's thick hide. Maybe I can do something about that, I don't know how to make bows which would be a lot better, but at least I can make spear tips and knives. Maybe onc
What happened next left Will in disbelief. The other Goblins had charged the boar without any planning or strategy. In addition, they were screaming and yelling their lungs out! The boar was immediately startled and tried charging away, but some of the Goblins had managed to surround it already. Chief was one of them, he was staring it right in the eyes. However the boar continued charging, Chief managed to roll to the side dodging the boar, but the two Goblins next to him got knocked in different directions. The size of the boar compared to the Goblins was huge, it was like a bull compared to a human. One of the Goblins who got knocked away hit a tree trunk, the sound of the spine snapping was loud and made all the other Goblins stop in their tracks.Will walked over to Chief and helped him off the ground, Chief had a huge grin on his face. "Why happy? Boar gone!" Will exclaimed with his still developing Goblin vocabulary. Chief just shook his hea