by Simon Archer
Still, never hurt to look, just in case this was going to end in a fight:
Takatak Chief Gak’Nak, goblinoid Lv 50
Health: 25000 Magic: 1000
Armor: 150 Aegis: 150
Abilities: Pack Leader, Warlord, Crusher, Bloodfrenzy
Pack Leader: Standing as the strongest, there are none who stand in his way when he leads from the front. The greater his army, the greater his own prowess.
+50 to health, armor, aegis, and damage for every goblin within 30 meters.
+20 to all stats for any goblin within 30 meters.
+immunity to mind-altering effects as long as 10 goblins are near
Warlord: He’s earned enough of a following to insight fear in his enemies, and passionate loyalty from his underlings.
+immunity to mind control for all goblins with 30 meters
+100% attack speed for all goblins within 30 meters
+advanced combat maneuvers for all goblins within 30 meters
Crusher: Bones are pulverized, innards are smashed, and nothing survives the swings from his mighty bludgeon. His strikes are an unstoppable force.
+300% damage for slamming attacks
+30% chance to hemorrhage target on a successful strike.
Bloodfrenzy: In the heat of battle, his fury only grows stronger. The more he bleeds and kills, the stronger he becomes.
+500 health for every enemy slain
+3% increase in all stats for every 1% missing health
Alright, so fighting wasn’t happening. Not only did he get stronger with every goblin within about one hundred feet of himself, but he also made each of those goblins stronger just by being around him. What was worse was that these stat screens didn’t reflect all of the crazy bonuses from the special abilities, only the base scores from all the different additions from the attributes. The health displayed up there was the minimum health that he had. He most likely was even stronger than that.
Kinda wished I still had my Fury ability ready. Or more magic salvage available. Or better animals to shapeshift into from Feral Forms. Really, just about any advantage would have sufficed. Not that it would have made much of a difference, but the increased defense from Fury would have at least let me live long enough to rethink my life choices. Everything else would have just made me feel better.
“Who are these smoothskins?” Gak’Nak called out like a warhorn made out of a mountainside. “Why are they before me? And where is Gojobo? Why does this smoothskin have Gojobo’s maul?”
“This smoothskin killed Gojobo,” the hunterguard commander from before told the chief. “He speaks in our tongue and faced your son in single combat.”
“Is that right?” The fat goblin warlord stroked his chin. “Tell me your name, smoothskin.”
“Jeremiah,” I looked up at him.
“Know your place, smoothskin!” The hobgoblin next to me grabbed the back of my head to throw it at the ground, but I stopped myself with my hands.
“Peace, hunter.” Gak’Nak raised a hand to command the hunterguard to step away from me, allowing me to kneel upright again. “You may stand, Jeremiah. Tell me why you have come here, Jeremiah.”
“Teleportation spell gone wrong,” I answered. “Just here by chance.”
“What is Grosrove doing, sending their soldiers out with magic spells?” Gak’Nak continued to question me, though an obvious misunderstanding had come about.
“What?” I blurted out, looking down at my tunic. “Oh, this is off of a dead body. My pajamas were eaten. I’m not associated with Grosrove.”
“Then tell me where you are from, Jeremiah.” The chief stepped across the beams leading down to our platform.
“A place called Earth.” I found myself compelled to answer all of the questions without any regard for myself. Was I under some kind of effect? “It’s not a part of this world.”
“Lies, my lord,” the hunterguard from before called out from behind me. “These are only ridiculous lies. He wants to save his smooth skin from your wrath, so he’s spinning up a good tale to distract you.”
“You’d think he’d have done a better job telling it, then.” Gak’Nak stomped his last step onto the platform we were on, shaking the wood below all of us. “I do not find myself entertained, Jeremiah from Earth. Tell me why you killed my son.”
“He attacked us first.” I looked up at the giant goblin. It wasn’t fear that I was feeling, or any sort of magic effect. I could somehow tell that. Whatever this feeling was, it seemed to be more like instinct. “It was obvious that he and his men outmatched us, and we didn’t want to fight him outright. I had previously thought to attempt a surprise attack on him later as a way of evening the odds.”
“So you were planning to kill him either way?” Gak’Nak pointed out.
“It seemed unavoidable,” I admitted. Was it the analyst skill compelling me to speak like this, or something else? I had a host of other skills developing alongside everything else. Maybe one of them had something to do with it? Why would it compel me to tell the truth at a time like this? “We have to get out of here to get to the surface. I need to find someone who can teach me how to control and develop my magic powers.”
“My lord, why do you indulge him?” another hunterguard spoke up from the back. “These are outsiders. Elves, no less! And they have killed your son! The successor! Their crimes are written upon their foreheads! What could you possibly learn from them that we have not seen with our own eyes?”
“It is the chief’s right to decide their fate!” The commanding hunterguard silenced the interrupting one. “He is the authority in all matters of our tribe and the offended party. His word is final.”
“And I am still deciding.” Gak’Nak knelt down, his head still much taller than I would have been standing up, and spoke to me again. “You heard him. You’re an outsider elf who has killed my son, who was to succeed me as chieftain of this tribe. Tell me why I shouldn’t strike you down where you stand. Or do you believe you can kill me instead? Is that your plan to escape?”
“I’d die before I could get one strike in,” I told him, apparently not wanting to hide anything today. “You’re far stronger than I am now. I’m only beginning to study magic. But I need to become stronger than you and everyone here combined if I’m going to kill Grune.”
That last line was met with an uproar of laughter from nearly every goblin that could hear me, a little bit too much for what they were trying to get across, in my opinion. Yes, trying to kill a god wasn’t as easy as tying a knot, or building a house, or moving a mountain, or understanding modern politics, but that was my only option. They didn’t need to rub in how impossible it was with their mocking jeers.
“You want to kill the Sorcerer King?” Gak’Nak wiped a tear from his eye. “The one who beat the Six Rings adventuring party? Six masters of magic, each nearly a god in their own right, and the lot of them didn’t hold a candle to the bastard. That’s the one you want to fight?”
“I’m the only one who can.” I looked him in the eye.
“Is that right?” He stroked his beardless chin.
“I know I killed your son,” I began to plead, “and I’d be a fool to think apologizing even comes close to fixing that. And I know that I have no right to ask you of this, but I need you to let me and Delilah go.”
“What is this elf woman to you?” the big goblin asked, with a strange curiosity. “She’s a strange-looking one, to be sure. Never seen them this pale before. Is she your bride?”
“No, we’re not married,” I quickly corrected. “I found her while trying to get back to the surface. We’ve only known each other for less than a day.”
Seriously, what was happening? Despite every fiber of my being trying to come up with lies to better suit our situation, I couldn’t help but tell this big, green ape the truth about everything. There was almost a sense that it was the smart thing to do, even, which was delusional. I needed to lie my way out of this, but I couldn’t bring myself to utter even
a warped truth. I was immune to curses, so this all had to come from me. But why?
“You know, Jeremiah from Earth,” Gak’Nak bit at his sharp claw of a thumbnail, as if thinking to himself, “there is a special rite, a tradition among the Takatak goblins that goes back generations. It involves this very situation.”
“You can’t be serious, my lord!” the hunterguard closest to me objected before the chief even got to explaining the rite. “He’s an elf! You’d stain the bloodline! Surely you can pick from one of the men of the tribe before you subject us to the dishonor of letting an elf enact the Rite of War Blood.”
“I certainly wouldn’t pick from any goblin who constantly second-guesses my decisions as chief, now, would I?” Gak’Nak gave the goblin a very stern look, like a teacher telling a student to sit down. “Jeremiah, you’ve put me in a predicament here. Gojobo was something of a lifeline for my family dynasty. My other sons had tried to usurp my position and have died in the process, and my wives are no longer capable of bearing children. As such, with Gojobo gone, I am left without a male heir to take on the next seat of the chiefdom.”
“Would the Rite of War Blood fix that?” I asked. “Do you not have any daughters to give you grandchildren? You could get an heir that way. Your subordinate is right, any of the men from your village would be a better choice than the one who killed your successor. You should be furious, and I should be dead right now. Why involve me?”
“Call it a gamble.” Gak’Nak stood back up. “None of the other men of the tribe were nearly as strong as Gojobo was. The next strongest is a pathetic sort I wouldn’t have scrub Gojobo’s feet, and now he’s the strongest in the tribe by default. My son Gojobo could have taken on any group of five from these warriors with an arm tied behind his back. And yet, you managed to kill him, and on your own, no less. Plus, if I’m to understand you correctly, you’re not done training to be a better mage?”
“I started training less than a day ago.” I stood up onto my feet. “I didn’t actually have any magical powers before then and only got them recently. And I’m not an elf. I’m a human.”
“Tell me what school of magic you have,” he commanded, “you wield Gojobo’s hammer fairly well. You must be a warmage, to fight with magic and weapons in equal measure.”
“I have all of the schools of magic, sir,” I answered truthfully.
“Ha!” The consistently obnoxious hunterguard stepped in front of me, staring me in the eyes to intimidate me. “Now I know you’re a liar. And a fool. There isn’t a master with two schools in all of history. Even us goblins are born with only one of a few schools. Do you think us so stupid that we’d believe something as mad as a ‘mage with every school?’ Perhaps my men are right about you. You said you didn’t even have magic before this, and now you claim to have all of it?”
“It’s specifically because I didn’t have magic beforehand that I could even attempt this,” I pushed the hobgoblin off to the side. “I haven’t lied once in my entire time here.”
Huh. Maybe there was something to that, actually. If I got caught in a lie, then I’d have been dead either way, and some ability, skill, or whatever within me was trying to keep me alive. It may have been even smarter than the conscious me, working an angle that I didn’t know about. Eh, that might have been too much to hope for.
“Then show us,” the doubtful hobgoblin taunted, joined in by a growing crowd of other goblins. “Show us this magic power from every school, if you truly possess it.”
The other rafters, platforms, and spaces between had all filled with goblin spectators, along with most of the spaces in the scaffolding that could fit a goblin. Each joined in the mob chant, demanding my performance. And I’d rested up with enough magic to at least do something flashy. I was more than happy to oblige.
“Alright.”
I held out the maul and caused it to glow with a bright, yellow light. Along with that, Bodo poofed off of my shoulder, teleporting to the maul head and holding onto it. In my other hand, I channeled a swirl of purplish necrosis and sparks of lightning. After that, I gave myself a red outline of thin flames in an aura. That seemed like a sufficient variety of magical abilities to show that I had more than I should. Then, in an instant, I ended all of the flashy effects at once, returning Bodo to my shoulder as I rested the pommel of the maul on the ground again.
“Does that settle it for you?”
All the goblins fell silent, save for the occasional whisper to their neighbors about me and what I was. The hobgoblin who’d questioned me before and all the times previous was still picking his jaw up from the floor. Satisfied that I’d shown that I was legitimate in everything I said, at least everything I said about my magic, I turned back to Gak’Nak.
“Impressive, boy,” the chief congratulated me. “Seems you haven’t been lying after all. Rare to see anyone so honest in the face of death, let alone someone with such potential as you. The Rite of War Blood is yours.”
“So, this Rite of War Blood, what does that entail for me?” I asked him. “How quickly can I finish it and get to the surface?”
“No need,” the big goblin explained. “You’ve already completed the rite. Now, we just need to solve the details. The nitty gritty things, the rituals, the official wordings and judgements, all of that.”
“Okay,” I said, still a little lost, “what else do I need to do to get back to the surface, then? I’d like to get it all done as soon as possible. I’m sure that Delilah is sick of being left out of the conversation for so long.”
“Yes!” Delilah said, sitting cross-legged. “Though I doubt they can understand that I’m complaining about it. Tell them they’re all ugly and fat, Jeremiah, and that I want to go to where the sky is. Say it straight to their faces!”
“Don’t you want to know how the Rite of War Blood works, first?” Gak’Nak asked his leading question. “You should probably understand what you’ve just gotten yourself into, should you not?”
“Um, yeah, I guess,” I scratched my head. “I assume it has to do with killing a chief’s son? What special perks do I get?”
“None,” he said, still not enlightening me on anything. “You may have completed the Rite, and in the normal circumstances, you’d already be the next heir, but you’re a special case. You aren’t from the tribe, and you aren’t a goblin. By your own testimony, you’re as foreign as anyone could possibly be. Now, you have to prove to me that, as someone from outside of my family, that you still have a vested interest in protecting my bloodline and my clan even without any blood ties. Especially as an outsider from the Takatak tribe, you’ll have to show to me that you are truly one of us and will always pay your dues to the Takatak when we need you.”
“The Rite of War Blood doesn’t just give me that, huh?” I stroked my chin. “I don’t suppose you already have a solution in mind for--”
“Of course! You can marry my eldest daughter!” he shouted, slapping me on the back. “I thought you’d never ask! You’re doing me a great favor, Jeremiah! Welcome to the family!”
What…?
As I was strong-armed along with Gak’Nak up the ramp to the longhouse, I heard a mix of awkward sighs mixed with quiet snickering. These were not the sounds of a foreigner getting married to the daughter of the leader. They more resembled how one might have reacted to hearing that someone was getting fired, or got cancer. They felt sorry for me. The foreigner. They felt sorry for a foreigner who had to marry Gak’Nak’s eldest daughter.
Just who the hell was she?
18
Gak’Nak hadn’t let go of my arm the whole time he practically carried me along to the inside of the longhouse. Delilah escorted us from behind, and soon everyone was inside. For a hut, it was fairly fancy, with its overhead lanterns, ample bedding, and massive wooden throne, like one I’d have imagined the king of all Vikings would have sat on. To the sides of it were seven small goblin women, presumably Gak’Nak’s wives, who had been attending to cleaning the place. As soon as Gak’Nak
had stepped in, they stopped what they were doing to rush over to him, showering him with kisses and praise while he made his way to his chair to slouch in it. As Gak’Nak attended to his wives, Delilah came up behind me.
“What’s happening?” Delilah whispered, “why are we in the chief’s house now?”
“I’m being married off to the chief’s daughter,” I answered back in a whisper, “that’s his condition for letting us out of here. I suspect there’s more to it than that, but we’ll have to wait and see.”
“Oh.” The revenant gave a ‘stank’ face at the thought of it. “Does that mean he wants you to put a baby in her right away? You made it clear that we have to leave as soon as we can, right? That was part of the negotiation, right?”
“I have no idea.”
“Jeremiah, these are my wives,” Gak’Nak interrupted us as he gestured to the elderly women, “Kiki, Meeka, Newe, Shimbwa, Colikoli, Tinifi, and Go. They will be your mothers-in-law.”
“About that,” I said, still absorbing the situation and its absolute backwards logic. “So, just so we’re all absolutely clear on what’s happened, and not to put too fine a point on it, but you do know that I killed your son, right? Yeah, it was self-defense, but I murdered him. He’s dead because of me. I broke several of his bones. And I’m also an outsider. How is that in any way a candidate for a son-in-law? Furthermore, how is that any candidate for a son-in-law that’s now your only acting male successor, now to be wed to your eldest daughter? Do you see why this is all just a tad confusing? You saw how much of an uproar your tribe was in for this. It’s almost like you’re trying to arrange the most roundabout mob execution in history instead of killing me yourself.”
“It was a complicated decision, Jeremiah.” The chieftain adjusted himself in his chair as his women attended to massaging his massive arms, the seven of them only able to take on parts of the arm with their tiny hands. “If I had simply executed you and chosen someone from the tribe to succeed me, not only would I have accepted a weakling into my own family, bringing shame to my ancestors, but I would have also guaranteed a war between all the families that make up my tribe. As much as I love my people, none of the men would have stood a chance against Gojobo’s strength. The Rite of War Blood hadn’t been enacted since I took over the last chieftain’s spot, and that was ages ago. If I simply picked someone, they would have seen it as favoritism, and that would have led to certain doom for my people. You, on the other hand, are a neutral party. As much as they hate you, they all hate you equally.”