by Simon Archer
With no confidence that this was a possibility, I channeled some magic into my fingers, pointing them out like finger guns at the green monster man. I couldn’t put a lot of magic into the strike, but I could try to magnify and condense it to a single point. Maybe it would pierce through the defenses better, like a bullet or an arrow. I was going for the kill shot.
The magic released, shooting out from my finger in a straight line of black energy, burning a hole straight through Gojobo’s leg as it spiraled down to the stone floor. That stopped in his tracks, bringing him down to the floor as he cried out in pain from the purplish wound. I hadn’t the time to revel in my discovery while another opportunity had arisen like this, so I shot another beam, though this one had come out red instead of black, creating a glowing hole in his shoulder. With a better aim, I aimed for his head, hoping to end this early.
My luck had apparently run out since the blue laser that hadn’t drilled through his head like I was expecting. It left a crispy, bluish wound with sizzling mist coming off of it, but it had apparently stopped at the skull. Still, that had to have hurt. More importantly, that had to have whittled down more of his health.
Which it did! Only a little over one hundred health points left, and he was going to be dead as a doornail. And my little laser trick barely cost anything in terms of magic, so it was bonuses all around. I tried again for the forehead shot, hoping the next laser would finish the job for me, and the other goblins would back off when they saw that their leader was dead.
Except, the lasers didn’t finish the job off, ending right at the skull again with a green laser that created green boils on his forehead, like the worst acne I’d ever seen. It seemed my lasers switched through the magical elements for every shot, which would have been both tricky and helpful, depending on the scenario.
However, despite all their magic qualities, the lasers didn’t account for my cocky attitude, as the holes in Gojobo’s leg and arm were not enough to stop him from moving fully, and the amount he’d slowed down was still scary enough to spell my certain doom if I’d gotten caught in another hit. His forehead wounds had also done very little damage, only managing to piss him off more than anything else. It seemed that these lasers refused to cut through bone, only capable of inflicting flesh wounds.
As the warlord of goblins swung over, under, and between my strikes, his return blows forced me to jump around, turning and twisting myself in every direction my body allowed me to. Everything I jumped off, the ground, the walls with their funerary inlets, the stone coffins, Gojobo’s swings pulverized to dust. He had seen that I had come up with a new trick and wasn’t giving me another opportunity to use it again, giving me no room to breathe or prepare another spell. Unfortunately for him, preparing these lasers was a quick matter, and I was getting more shots into his flesh at every interval.
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Gojobo’s health had recovered more than halfway back up to full, out of the blue, as the green on the goblin’s face turned to a pinkish-red. The veins in his neck, in his arms and legs, all had swelled with an increased flow of blood, and he was getting visibly bigger in his musculature. That asshole had somehow activated some kind of second wind ability I didn’t see and was ready for the second round of fights.
Just as I started to jump with a little lightning boost, I realized that I’d also run out of magic and was about to tap into my own health again. My salvaging had officially gone dry, and I was running on fumes. With Gojobo’s hammer lifted over his head, his concave nose popping back out to full view. I had figured that I was going to die here and did everything I could to brace for the impact. This hit was going to kill me anyway, so I tried to focus my health into magic and my magic into some kind of defense in my bones to keep me from turning into a pancake.
After a few silent moments of failing to turn my magic into defense, I realized that I was feeling perfectly fine. Though, I could have died so swiftly that I hadn’t even noticed my death. As I looked at my hands, I realized that this wasn’t the case. My chest, legs, everything was perfectly healthy, or rather still at what they were before I thought I was going to die in the previous few moments.
Looking back at Gojobo and, more specifically, his health, I saw it quickly drain back down to nothing, the numbers dwindling to a big, fat zero. The hammer raised above him fell to the ground, splitting the ground with fissures like a lightning strike. The veins and muscles that had swelled were now deflating back to normal, and a huge gout of blood waterfalled out of his mouth and onto his chest. The wounds I’d been poking in him also spilled out with blood as he collapsed, lying dead. His stat screen switched from the regular display to the lootable corpse one, and I finally knew that I’d won the match.
Only I hadn’t quite done so purposefully. He was rearing for another stage of fighting and had gained back a lot of his health, it seemed, before all of this dying happened unexpectedly. Looking over the corpse, I tried to figure out what exactly killed him since it wasn’t from any spell that I’d cast at the last minute.
As I felt the parts of ribs, which were more like rocks stuffed into a bag, I realized that judging from the level of internal damage, along with the presence of blood in cough, suggested that his internal injuries had been quite extensive, most likely from the concussive blast that separated him from the other goblins. These injuries were exacerbated by the attempted boost of adrenaline Gojobo had planned to use as a last resort, which seemed to have pressured all the fractures and hemorrhaged organs into full breaks and ruptures, killing him almost instantly.
Okay, then. Thanks, brain. Or whatever skill I had that gave me that level of insight into his injuries. I’d have assumed the ‘doctor’ skill was at play there. I probably wouldn’t have guessed any of that for quite some time looking it over. Since I was still probably low in my doctor level comparative to a trained or higher level professional, I didn’t have any of the lingo, only the general knowledge, and there probably wasn’t much I could have done to perform any miracle surgeries.
After waiting a hot second, I realized that I wasn’t going to level up anytime soon, even though I’d just killed an opponent seven times over my own level. I would have thought that I’d have leveled up ridiculously from that. It would have worked if I was doing it in any other system like this. I’d have gained ten levels, at least. Not that I was bitter or anything. Whatever, I had stuff to do at the moment.
I tried to pick up the maul, just to see if I could, since it would have been a sweet weapon to have. Surprisingly enough, the weight of the huge hammer wasn’t nearly what I thought it would have been. Yeah, it was still hefty, but not the two-ton immovable raw steel slab I was expecting to lift. More like what I imagined a spear should weigh.
Huh. Maybe I was getting a lot stronger than I thought I was. Granted, this was a spear weighing in comparison to my old strength levels on Earth. I was in no way a strong man back then, so I wouldn’t have been able to just throw a polearm around. Just like with that hypothetical weapon, this weapon was just as weighty and tiring.
After a few practice swings with it, I carried it over to the other room where Delilah and Bodo were, almost forgetting that I was still in the middle of a fight. As I ran into the room, I saw the developing situation. From the time I’d knocked Gojobo away to now, seven more of the big hunterguard goblins had come up to fight alongside their brothers. I couldn’t tell any of them apart, but I had seen four big, dead goblins on the ground, assuming that those were the first four from before.
The seven new ones were holding both Delilah and Bodo, the pugilist post-poltergeist by the limbs from four hunterguards and another three keeping a tight net around the yeti. As the seven looked up to me, and my people along with them, they saw that I now possessed the weapon that was once the chief’s son’s martial implement of choice.
“Lower your weapons and release my comrades,” I commanded them, “We want no further trouble, but we will kill anyone who tries to halt our escape any further. I
will not ask twice.”
“What are you doing?” Delilah whispered over to me violently. “These brutes only speak goblin! They can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“Is Gojobo dead?” one of the hunterguard goblins detaining Bodo asked me.
“You can check the dead body yourself.” I directed my head back toward the room I’d just entered from. “I know he’s the best fighter among you all. Even with your numbers, you won’t survive against me.”
That last line was a bluff. It was going to be awhile before my magical salvage recharged and my magic came back to full power. I hoped that they didn’t ask for any proof of my killing intent that I didn’t actually have.
“Are you pretending to talk to him?” Delilah looked to the hunter who spoke to me and then back to me. “Are you actually talking? Do you have the omni-tongue?”
“Take him to the Warchief!” another of the hunterguard shouted to the rest. “A few of you, gather Gojobo’s body to feed to the wargs. Let the chieftain decide what to do with these smoothskins.”
“I don’t think we’re on the same page,” I clarified, flaring my hands with fiery magic as a cheap but impressive display of my power. “We’re leaving now, and you’re not going to do anything about it.”
“The only way through this part of the territory is through the village,” the commanding hunterguard spoke against me. “If you do not wish to go along with us willingly, you will have to fight every man, woman, and child, along with the chief himself, to escape. We will not harm you or your comrades for now, but many more of our brothers will come here if we are gone for much longer. Moreso, it is easy to tell that you are hurt and weak. You would be a calf to the slaughter. Consider the proposal wisely.”
Damnit, they caught the bluff.
“You may keep your weapons if you wish,” the hunterguard goblin continued. “If you harm anyone from our tribe, your life is forfeit.”
“Don’t try to kill the chief,” another hunterguard, speaking more informally, leaned in to tell us more.
“As long as we can leave peacefully, I won’t go harming anyone else from your tribe,” I assured him.
“That isn’t a request or a threat,” the goblin warrior explained. “It’s survival advice for the next few moments of your life. If you want to survive, you’ll listen. Many haven’t, thinking they’re tough. You can imagine how that turned out.”
“Alright, then,” I said, resting the hammer on my shoulder. “Release my friends from their bonds and we’ll go with you. Lead the way.”
17
“Since when did you have omni-tongue?” Delilah spoke in her classic stage whisper as we followed our escort through the maze of graves and burials. “There isn’t a type of mage that can just use omni-tongue, especially at such a low level of training. Do you have an enchantment you’re not telling me about?”
“It’s related to the analyst ability that I have.” I pointed to my head. “That’s about as far as my knowledge goes on the subject. It’s been giving me random powers ever since I got it from the… wherever I got it from.”
“You didn’t receive it from when you were imbued with magic?” she quietly asked. “I thought you said you didn’t have any magical powers from before you came here.”
“I thought I didn’t,” I defended myself. “Honestly, it confuses the hell out of me. It just kind of showed up and has been getting more powerful with every monster and person I’ve looked at. Apparently, some guy named Galdrin will know more about it.”
“Maybe he can tell you more about your omnimage powers, too,” she said before looking at Bodo. “Your familiar still baffles me. There are so many things wrong with what it is.”
“Really?” I said, trying not to be a little insulted on Bodo’s behalf. “What about him is so strange? He seems perfectly fine for a yeti, as far as I know.”
“That’s part of the strangeness,” she explained. “You said this was supposed to be a wizard’s familiar, right? The familiars that I’ve seen, the ones from party members I’ve traveled with in the past, they aren’t nearly as lifelike as this. They usually appear more like ghosts, manifestations of the will of the wizard, and they’re usually smaller, something like a cat or a bird or a lizard. This is entirely new. Bodo is a living creature. A living, breathing creature with abilities that I can’t even fathom. How did it learn to fight like that? The style, the movements, the instinct, all were highly effective and precise. It almost fought like…”
“Like you?” I finished her sentence.
“Yeah.” She gave Bodo a scratch under the chin as he purred a deep, motorcycle-engine purr. “How did you learn to fight like me, little guy?”
“It must have been from when you possessed me,” I theorized. “I managed to learn a lot about how to get magic channeled through my body that way. Maybe some residual muscle memories stuck around and rubbed off on him somewhere in the process.”
“We’ve got to find some magic expert for you,” she said as she continued to pet my yeti companion. “There’s just so much we’re in the dark about, and it’s… well, honestly, it’s a little terrifying, Jeremiah. What’s going to happen to you?”
“I’m sure you’re worrying too much about that.” I waved off the revenant monk’s concern. “I already survived getting the magic inside of me. It’s all downhill slopes from here. The only thing we have to worry about is what we’re going to have to face once we get out of here.”
“If we get out of here, you mean.” Delilah looked around at all of the hunterguards around us. “This is a lot of hobgoblins.”
“Is that what you call the big ones?” I said, giving the muscled goblins another look. “I knew there had to be something special about them. How do hobgoblins come about? Are they just a different kind of goblin?”
“They’re actually a different part of the life cycle, if I’m remembering right,” Delilah said, “I’m no expert, but I do remember someone smarter than me saying that goblins go through several stages in their full lifespan before finally kicking the bucket. Although that might just be the males. Goblin women might stay the tinier size forever. Goblin men go through a goblin stage, then hobgoblin, hulk-goblin, bear-goblin, and finally blacklord-goblin. Hulk-goblins are often stronger than orcs, though few ever get to that stage. Since goblins are so destructive and violent, they often die well before then. There hadn’t been more than a dozen bear-goblins in the land at once, and no one had seen a blacklord goblin for quite some time in my era. Most people believe that they’re a myth.”
“What about you?” I asked her. “Do you believe they’re a myth?”
“No,” she stated bluntly. “Something you learn quickly in adventuring: there are no myths or rumors, just forgotten truths.”
“Ooh, mysterious,” I commented. “So when we meet the chief, we might be up against a blacklord goblin? Is what you’re saying?”
“Not necessarily.” Delilah huddled a bit closer to me. “That’d be like finding a kingwyrm dragon, but stay on your toes, anyway. Even a hulk-goblin is not something to be taken lightly.”
“Noted,” I said, gathering from context that ‘kingwyrm’ wasn’t just a moniker for show, and a blacklord-goblin was just as fearsome, for me at least.
Our hobgoblin escort led us from the antechamber to the next room, a huge dome with tiered steps like a cone-shaped ziggurat leading to the center. However, instead of dead bodies and burial sarcophagi as the denizens, there was a thriving metropolis of goblins. Whatever set of crypts, tombs, coffins, or the like were obliterated, the rubble used as anchoring weights for scaffolding made from wood. Despite the rather primitive construction of the structures, the goblins had made quite the city of wooden platforms and huts, each connected through bridges and ropes to another.
All the goblins, distracted from their activities by our entrance, turned to watch us with quiet, long glances. There were a few whispers between the ones in the back of the group, something along the lines of ‘stra
ngers,’ ‘outsiders,’ and ‘smoothskins’ being odd-looking and wondering why we were even here. A few of them were curious about where Gojobo was.
In the very likely event that we were being taken to our execution, I noted any and all weaknesses and vital points in the wooden arches and ties, seeing where I could have caused the most chaos if we had to fight our way out of here. I also questioned my willingness to be dragged right into the center of all of this.
Walking onto a rampway, we were guided through the maze of platforms to the large center platform with the equally massive hut on it, more like a longhouse. The hobgoblins stopped at the platform before the ramp leading up to that longhouse, more than likely belonging to the chief, since all of the hobgoblins beside us bowed in its direction while also forcing us on our knees.
Okay, so we were being presented before the chief, but why? Was this an execution? If that was the case, why were we allowed to keep our weapons? Was it a display of strength? A way of saying that I had no chance of winning anyway, so I might as well have kept my weapons on me? But I was holding onto the weapon that used to belong to the chief’s son. Why didn’t they want that back? That should have been the first thing that they grabbed, right, to maintain their pride, or however they wanted to put it? Nothing was adding up.
Stepping out of the hut, dramatically passing through the curtains, was a fat bulk of a goblin, standing nearly seven feet tall, covered in enough hide patches to make a furry quilt. He was bald, like the other goblins, with a crown made from the jawbone of a toothy beast, and carried a log in his hammy fist. Everything about him was twice as thick as the next goblin, from his head and nose to his feet and toes. This had to be the hulk-goblin stage in the life cycle of goblins, or I’d have eaten my tunic. Even without the analyst screen, I knew that this was the chief around here, no question.