Playing God

There was a sense of freedom in being resigned to my fate.

The mission had changed from ‘kill gobbos’ to ‘learn what I could before they ate me or stabbed me to death’. I just hoped the latter came before the former, not least because my body disappeared when I died.

I was pretty certain of that. Otherwise, I’d have been knee high in dead Kaelans by the afternoon of the first day.

Besides, it was an added fuck you bonus to the gobbos. You can kill me, boys, but you don’t get to eat me.

My wrist throbbed like hell, a painful reminder they’d already taken a bite.

The sound of a dozen feet echoed down the passage, and a moment later a half-dozen more gobbos arrived.

“Hu-man!” Heh, I’d just realized what they reminded me of: they sounded like Ferengis from Star Trek.

“You kill Gat! We kill you!”

“Eat you and roast you and put you on spikes!” Presumably not in that order.

Four of them grabbed the net in which I was entangled, and I bodily lifted into the air, hanging between them like a low-slung hammock. Very low slung. Short-asses.

We set off down the tunnel, but after a dozen feet, the movement jostled Gat (or whichever dead gobbo it was) off my body. He slipped to the floor where they left him, but progress picked up after that. Lighter load, I supposed.

As they walked, I tried to examine the wound in my wrist by the light of passing torches, but it was too dim to see clearly. I could tell there was a chunk missing. I wondered why it wasn’t bleeding – I mean, it was, but I wondered why I didn’t have the bleeding status, with the drain on my health. Perhaps the steady drip drip drip wasn’t life threatening in the same way the deep wound in my shoulder had been. It hurt a hell of a lot more, though.

The passage wound deeper into the mine. We passed off-shoots and encountered forks; the gobbos didn’t hesitate in their path. Torches were mounted on the wall every thirty paces or so, offering brief patches of brightness, enough for me to examine the net for a few seconds, then dim light, then near-darkness until we reached the next torch. It didn’t faze the goblins; their pace never changed or faltered. They had low-light vision, after all, and were managing just fine.

We passed areas where the gobbos had lived – or, at least, hung out. Piles of blankets and broken wooden crates, with some shifted into arrangements resembling tables and chairs. Bones littered the floor of various sizes – some distinctly human-looking.

These areas stank like fuck—an acrid mix of sweat, rot, and unwashed bodies that clawed at my throat. Scattered remnants of their meals littered the ground: gnawed bones and remnants of some foul stew left to sour in the corners. I had to cover my nose and swallow hard, or risk throwing up over their nice net.

Our little procession came to an abrupt stop.

“What have you there, Assk?”

“Hu-man. Assk capture hu-man.” There was a distinct note of smugness in the goblin’s scratchy voice.

A new goblin walked into view. He looked bigger and meaner than the others, and his armor was noticeably better. He pulled a wickedly-curved knife, and before I could react, he stabbed it into my arm just for the hell of it. Fucker. I glared at him, clutching the wound as blood dripped down over my fingers.

Puncture wound, right arm. Agility -1. Attack -1. Health -3.

Status: Bleeding. Endurance -1. -0.5 Health/min.

Great. Now I was bleeding. But at that rate, there was a good chance it would stop naturally before I bled to death.

“Put hu-man in cage. I go tell Manchee.”

“No! Assk tell Manchee! Assk capture hu-man!”

The goblins hoisted me up and tossed me into a wooden crate, still tangled in the net. They fastened the lid, plunging me into darkness. The air quickly grew stale, and the crate reeked even worse than the gobbos. What was I lying on? Bones shifted beneath me—some still connected, others loose. It felt like most of them formed a ribcage, with bits of flesh and sinew still clinging to the skeleton. The stench of putrefaction made it hard to breathe.

Assk and the vicious goblin argued, their voices growing quieter with distance as they wandered off, presumably to go and tell Manchee – whoever the hell he was.

I sat in my ‘cage’, watching my bleeding status on my info window, and wondering if the prior occupant was dead before he went in, or had been left to starve.

*

It was hard to gauge time in the total darkness of my cramped crate, but it must’ve been at least an hour – maybe two, possibly three – before I heard their voices again, still arguing as they came back up the tunnel.

My bleeding had stopped within minutes, and I’d been static on 22 health ever since. But I hadn’t been idle. I’d managed to wriggle free of the net, and shoved it to the bottom of the crate. If I could just get my fingers around the throat of one more goblin before they killed me, it would be one less to worry about when I next came through this stinking mine.

“Assk take hu-man to Manchee.”

“Tark take hu-man to Manchee.”

“Assk take hu-man to Manchee!”

There was the noise of fist meeting skin, a crunch, and a squeal. Then the voice I’d attributed to Assk came again, this time as a whimper. “Tark take hu-man to Manchee.”

Sounded like the argument had been resolved.

They pried the lid off my crate, and I looked up to see the vicious goblin who had stabbed me in the arm. Him, I was particularly looking forward to killing. “Hi, Tark.”

“Manchee see hu-man now,” he growled.

“Yes, so I gathered. Are you going to carry me, or do I get to walk?”

He snarled. “Hu-man not so talky when we eat you.”

“Goblin not so snarly when I kill you.”

His fist came down, knuckles wrapped in a leather glove with raised, spikey ridges, and I felt my cheek split, blood gushing down my face.

“Ow! You fucker!”

Blunt force trauma injury, left cheek. -1 Charisma. -3 Health.

Tark grinned, the flickering torch light reflecting off rows of sharp, pointed teeth. “Hu-man get out. Hu-man walk to Manchee.”

“Fine, fine.” It was where I wanted to go, anyway. I was done with this place for now. I wanted to see what defenses they had, and then I wanted the comfort of waking up nude on a hard stone table.

Then all I’d have to do is evade Drakos long enough to make the week-long trip back to the hut, and Lira.

Visions filled my mind of Drakos catching me and killing me in an endless loop of helpless reincarnation. That would be an unpleasant way of spending the next few years. But hopefully the temple was empty, and I could slip out one of the windows before anyone noticed.

Climbing out of my crate wasn’t easy. I couldn’t use my left wrist, my right arm was sore, and my stabbed leg barely took my weight. It all hurt like fuck, and boy was I ever going to enjoy getting my revenge on these little green shits.

The gobbos circled me, each holding a spear with the business end pointed right at me. The message was clear. I was quite happy for them to stab me to death when the time came, but given how sadistic they’d been thus far, they’d probably just pinion me and then start eating.

I followed Tark down the passageway, each step sent jolts of agony through my leg, sharp and unrelenting, a reminder of my current frailty. The dull throb in my wrist intensified with every jolt, and I cradled it to my chest, desperate for any relief, however mild.

A whimpering goblin walked alongside, no spear in his hand, clutching a bruise on his face that matched mine. They all looked the same to me, but logic suggested that one was Assk.

“Manchee! Manchee!” Yark started yipping, just as the passageway opened up into a natural cavern. It was brighter in here, though the light was different – a green, ethereal glow that stretched throughout the space, making the many rocks and stalagmites seem darker. Somewhere there was running water, every surface was slick with damp, and there were large patches of algae enjoying life. That was the source of the green light: a natural bioluminescence, adding to the flickering torchlight.

“Manchee!” the vicious little bastard called again, and there was a scurry of feet as a dozen more goblins encircled us. How many was that now? Sixteen? Seventeen? “We caught hu-man!”

Another goblin appeared from behind some rocks, dressed differently from the others I’d seen. His helm was the top half of a rat’s skull, his armor mostly rags and fur. In his hand was a staff, human-sized and far too big for him, the tip of which was a glowing, jagged crystal. It pulsed, with a white-blue light, and it wasn’t bioluminescence. It sure the hell wasn’t batteries.

It was magic. My first sight of real magic.

Despite my agony, I grinned when I saw him. A little goblin shaman with a magical staff. And I was going to pry it from his cold, dead fingers.

The goblins circled around him like a pack of overexcited dogs, yipping and chattering in their guttural language, arguing over who had captured me, who deserved the credit. I stood still, drawing steadying breaths, gritting my teeth against the radiating pain of my wounds. The shaman shambled closer, his green skin wrinkled with age. The crystal on his staff emanated a steady rhythm of pulsating light, playing merry havoc with my eyes and casting erratic shadows across the cavern walls. I felt a migraine coming on, my head pounding in beat with each pulse. I didn’t know how he could bear it.

Just a few more seconds. I just needed to hang on. I could almost feel his throat in my hands.

I shifted my weight, subtly testing my balance. My legs ached, my body screamed with every injury, but none of that mattered. Not now. The goblins were distracted, unaware of my intent, and the shaman was edging closer with every step. He finally noticed me, and his voice rose in a high-pitched chant. The surrounding goblins quieted, watching us both with eager anticipation.

One more step, and I’d have the chance I needed.

I lunged toward him, fingers of my good hand outstretched, gripping the shaman’s throat and squeezing with all I had. His eyes went wide, and he gave a strangled little glurrk.

“Stop him!” Tark yelled, his voice high with alarm. “Kill him!”

I never believed I’d take him with me. It was never going to be that easy. I was in so much pain, I just craved the comfort of oblivion, and this was both the fastest and the most satisfying way of getting there.

Their spears jabbed into me, and I welcomed them. One stuck my side, another stabbed agonizingly into my leg, but I poured all the strength I had into my one-handed strangle grip.

A spear pierced my back, and my vision filled with darkness.

My last thought was that Tark would have some explaining to do for letting me get this close to their precious shaman.

I hoped the little shit got it in the neck big time.