With a fierce bellow of rage Erassa charged up the steep hillside, eyes fixed on the tiny green figure ahead of her, at least until it crested the top and disappeared from view behind the stony ridge. Erassa let out a guttural curse. This whole country was far too hilly for her tastes. Nothing but miles and miles of steep, rocky hills with deep gulleys and hollows between them. It made it hard to keep one’s bearings, the hills blocking line of sight and echoing noises so it was hard to tell where a given sound came from. By the time she reached the top and stopped, the goblin was nowhere in sight. 

Erassa was a huge, imposing figure of a woman, standing near seven feet tall with broad, strong shoulders and heavily muscled arms and legs. A drunken tavern patron had once joked that one of her ancestors must have been a mountain bear. She could see the resemblance, with her thick, shaggy brown hair worn loose and wild and her fondness for honey and smoked salmon. Not that it had stopped her from smashing a pitcher over his head, of course, she had a bear’s temper too: slow to rouse, but fierce when provoked like it was now. 

Erassa and her party of adventurers were on the trail of a band of goblins. Normally only a nuisance, this band had evidently gotten cocky enough to move from the normal filching and chicken rustling to attacking the villagers too. Three peasant girls had disappeared in the last month, one while picking mushrooms in the forests, one while watching a flock of sheep in the meadow and the third snatched right out of her bed while the family slept. The villager’s complaints to the local lord had finally become irritating enough he’d put a bounty out: five pieces of silver for each goblin ear turned in. Given two ears per goblins and the usual number found in one of their warrens, all in all it made a tempting proposition for a bunch of down-on-their-luck adventurers.

That was assuming one could find the damn goblins! They’d been up in these hills nearly a week now and despite spotting the tiny bastards at least once or twice a day, they hadn’t had much luck catching the goblins who had a knack for disappearing in the hills each time the adventurers got close, pressing deeper and deeper into the rough, wild uplands. 

Erassa bounced the flat of her huge sword against the palm of her free hand, grimacing with frustration. The smart thing, she knew, would be to retrace her steps, abc down the hill and find her companions. They would have an easier time finding the goblin’s tracks…working out which way it went. Just then, the goblin poked its tiny, misshapen head up from behind a rock, halfway down the other side of the hill. It opened a mouth filled with tiny fangs and stuck its long tongue out, tauntingly, at her. So much for the smart thing. With a roar, she raised her blade and charged down after the goblin which turned and ran, squeaking with fright into a valley between this hill and the next. 

As Erass pursued, the valley quickly turned into a gorge, the sides becoming steeper and more narrow as they went. The warrior woman might have worried about that, but at the moment she was lost to her rage, wholly focused on catching up with the tiny goblin ahead of her and taking out the days of frustration on it in some act of gruesome  violence. The fact she’d chased it straight into a trap didn’t sink in until she heard the cries of the goblins above her as they launched their ambush. 

She looked up, just as dozens of the tiny figures hurled down ropes, the ends frayed into large snares. In the tight space of the gorge she couldn’t dodge. Her blade cut or batted aside some, but others fell upon the startled woman, catching her limbs, heads and torso. Excitedly, the goblins swarmed down the lines, rushing for their huge prey. Erassa fought, her rage giving her strength, but for every goblin her blade found or that she smashed against the rock face of the gorge, two more figures leapt upon her. Had the tiny figures carried knives, Erassa’s end would have been swift and bloody, but that was not their intention for the warrior women. 

Instead, the goblins swarmed around, grabbing the cords loosely entangling her and pulled, wrapping up Erassa’s body and limbs. Tiny though they were, the goblins had strength in numbers and Erassa suddenly found herself thrown over as the ropes ensnared her legs. As she fell to the ground in a crash, the goblins swarmed the huge figure. She bucked and kicked, sending tiny goblins flying, but they soon overwhelmed her. Erassa’s arms were wrenched behind her back and tangled up in cords, same as her legs, then she was yanked forward into a tight ball. The goblins kept wrapping until she was reduced to a compact, squirming bundle. As the warrior screamed curses at her foes, one of the goblins straddled her head and leaning over, jammed a short, thick branch into the woman’s mouth. Small cords were tied to either end of it, the free ends of which soon formed the start of a web of cords wrapping the young woman’s head. Erassa chewed the crude bit angrily, still grunting unintelligible curses. 

As the trussed up warrior continued to squirm and struggle, ineffectively, dozens of tiny hands started to roam across her body, stripping away her gear and all her clothing. Her trousers were cut to tatters and ripped away. The leather vest she wore came off, causing a pair of huge round breasts to bounce free. Instantly, they were wrapped up in cord, as tightly as the rest of her body. 

Now the goblins began to haul their prize away. Too huge for them to lift and carry, the goblins place a wooden sledge in front of Erassa. With a mighty heave, they pushed their wrapped captive onto it. Half of their number went in front, taking up ropes to pull while the other half went behind and alongside. Slowly cursing and struggling all the way, Erassa was hauled to the end of the gorge. 

There, to her surprise, she saw it wasn’t the dead end she’d supposed it to be.. Hidden behind a bend in the rock face was the entrance to a cave. And down there, she was sure, was the goblin warren. Helpless, the huge warrior was dragged in the cave, disappearing underground…

***  

“Well, she must have come this way…” Dira said. The elf ranger knelt, studying the ground. “Her tracks are all over it. They go in, but don’t come back out.” She added. 

“Probably got into some trouble…again.” Fio, the party’s wizard muttered snidely. “Well, if we have to drag her huge butt back to the village we can just leave her there.” 

“You were the one complaining we didn’t have a frontline fighter to keep your pert butt intact.” The party’s rogue, Okana, shot back. “Brawn was the determining factor in recruiting, not brains.” 

The trio advanced into the gorge looking for any signs of what had happened to the barbarian warriors. Eventually, Dira raised her hand, bringing them to a half once again. “Something happened…but the grounds are too scuffed to tell what. Looks like something got dragged further down though. Something huge…”  

“Hey…do you hear something?”