The first thing that Karl noticed about the centre of town was how clean it was. There was no sign of battle here, no indication that there had been a last stand to defend this place. So, logically, the majority of the inhabitants must have simply left, or fought to the end in another part of town.

Reluctantly, Karl checked the large stone building nearby, whose doors were left open to the elements, and found that while the interior was a bit messy, there was no sign of a battle here either. So, either they left in advance, or the attack happened at night when nobody was at work.

If the battle did take place at night and made it past the perimeter security that every village should have, it would make sense that there was very little to see in the streets. The Goblins would have invaded homes, and by the time that the alarm was raised, most of the town would have been killed in their sleep.

The government building still had power to the computers, so Karl whistled to catch Dana's attention and gestured for her to come inside.

"Do you know how to work this? I've never seen that operating system before." He asked.

"Oh, no problem. We used the same one at school. It's even still logged in. I wonder why their computers don't have a time-out feature when you're gone too long?" She asked.

She tapped a few keys and then clicked on the home button and smiled.

"It looks like they did leave us a message. There is a text file in the middle of the home screen."

[Dearest explorers and salvage teams. The residents of this village intend to return within thirty days of the posting of this notice, making the town's property ineligible for salvage. A surprise Goblin attack with the threat of ongoing invasions forced us to evacuate to safe point Alpha, as designated on the government maps for this location, and once the region is deemed safe and the Elites have finished their work, we will return.

Mayor Dingwall.]

"That's dated this morning. We were likely already gathered for the morning briefing when this was posted, but I think that a lot of the blood we saw was a fair bit older than that." Karl noted.

Dana thought about the timing of the message and its implications, and then looked back outside.

"They said that it was likely there would be continued attacks. We only found a handful of stragglers, plus whatever Goblins Hawk killed inside the houses. That doesn't really constitute an ongoing threat, does it? I think that tonight they are likely to come back again, looking for survivors and loot."

"I think that you're right. They are going to come back, not just the small scouting squad that they left here, but a whole Goblin tribe looking for supplies. The book I read on monster biology says that they don't like being outside during the day if they can avoid it, so it will probably be after dark.

That gives us about seven hours before they might start to arrive, assuming they attack with the twilight. But what can we do to fortify and prepare for them?

This building is solid stone, with a stone roof, so it's not too bad. We could lock all the shutters and wait here, or we could barricade this place and return to it after we hunt Goblins in the town.

They won't be expecting someone to be hunting them while they're scavenging for food." Karl suggested.

"The problem with that is I can't see in the dark. Maybe you can, but I definitely can't. I would be working blind, and I'm not a close combat fighter, so I can't really stay behind alone with my skills." Dana reminded him.

"Why don't you create a huge fog bank that hides the entire town? It will make the Goblins easier to hunt one at a time, so I can send Hawk to ambush any of them he finds out in the open, and then we can fight whichever ones manage to make it here.

They won't realize their companions are under attack right away if they can't see them, and the shouting won't lead them straight to us, so we can fight them in smaller groups.

Unless there is a better building here in town, but it looks like the rest of them are mostly made of wood, and I wouldn't trust that the Goblins won't burn them down to get us out if they're desperate."

"Alright, that plan works. I will start building the fog now, since it lasts until I want it to dispel. Once it hides the whole village, we should be a little more safe. How well can Hawk see through the fog?" Dana asked.

"Keep it closer to the ground and it's fine. If you can see for ten metres in the fog, that means that if it ends at ten metres in the air, Hawk can see through it just fine. Even five metres off the ground should be enough to blind the Goblins and still leave them visible from the air."

It was a devastating advantage to attacking from above, and the Goblins wouldn't be expecting a monster attack on their raiding party. Not many monsters would attack Goblins, as they weren't edible. They would only attack if their territory was invaded, or the Goblins made the mistake of getting greedy and targeting them.

"We should prepare a fire as well. Lanterns, something that will allow us to light the room so that we can see properly around the entrance once the fighting starts. The power might go out at any time if they're attacking, Goblins are pretty smart, so some torches would be a good idea." Dana added.

"There is an auto repair shop just down the street. I will get a bunch of oil and rags, then tie them around branches. That will work for torches to light the area, but I will look for an oil lantern as well. I'm not sure that they will have one here, but they were pretty common in the mines."