by Simon Archer
What was harder than the precise channeling of invisible explosions for controlled, subtle demolition? Precise channeling while working through leather boots. Like dry leather and lightning, these old boots blocked my connection to the ground, forcing me to push three times the magic through them than I wanted to for the same levels of my hands. If it weren’t for all of the hot ash and smoldering flames, I’d have taken them off. This kung fu master hadn’t quite reached that level of enlightenment to block out pain just yet.
Like a tango with the devil, if the devil was also part man-child, I danced around the pyromancing goblin, rupturing the floor beneath us strategically as I hopped from spot to spot. Silver linings; with the boots resisting my magic, it was a lot easier to be subtle without overdoing it on accident.
All the while, I shifted around the goblins still on the stage, kicking them off to the side and out of my way. The flaming goblin, seeing through my shenanigans, jumped over each of their unconscious bodies and retained his footing.
“Oh darn, Leytati, you clever fiend!” I shouted over to him. “I never expected that the rival of my opponent would be so clever. Far too clever for this smoothskin, I tell ya! What is a poor ol’ non-elf like me supposed to do against someone so agile and virile?”
“Suffer and die!” Leytati commanded, proving to me how well my plan was going to work.
My luck, however, had run out, though, and I tripped over myself, landing on my back in a fresh patch of hot ash searing against my back. Leytati, the dramatic goblin that he had shown himself to be, jumped into the air to throw a fiery People’s Elbow aimed right for my chest. Not one to participate in fake wrestling, I rolled out of the way, seething through the burning ash to get out of the way as he crashed down on my head. He cracked through the platform ground, planting his elbow firmly in the blackened wood as he landed on his side.
As I stood up from my combat role, I enacted my cunning, witty, elaborate, and thrilling ruse with one final, powerful, and deadly maneuver to complete the scheme: pushing against the stage with my toe to give it the oomph it needed to tip over on its own. Leytati, caught in the repercussions of his own actions, fell along with his half of the stage, flailing about and screaming like a banshee as he crashed against the floor of the crypt. My side still remained strong enough to stand on its own, securing the victory for me by a final ring out.
The deafening sound of the goblins roaring praises thronged through the tomb walls, echoing against itself to drown out any other noise. The mixture of the spectacle I’d made, along with copious amounts of alcohol now flowing through every bloodstream, had turned the goblin horde into a raving mob. Even my omni-tongue couldn’t translate even half of the slurred words they threw at each other, the other half of their speech being mostly vomit. Like any good wrestler, I threw my hands up in the air to bask in the moment, making the booming voices rise even higher.
Before I dropped my guard, I saw Leytati out of the corner of my eye, climbing up the stripped pieces of the scaffolding below the battle stage, hands ablaze with murderous intent. He’d glided up the side of the blackened wooden pieces like a damn spider, coming up to the stage with a blade in hand made of pure, flickering fire.
Without thinking, I threw out my hand, channeling my magic through my arm, and latched onto the fire goblin’s neck. For a moment, like a lit stove, his flesh burned against my own, the magmaskin eating away quickly at my health with the flames.
In a wave of hushes and whispers, the cheering crowd lost all of its vigor and mood, slowly growing quiet as they watched us wage this final battle.
The magic poured out of me and into him, just like the goblins before, though his magic pushed back against me in turn. With an aggressive final push, I strong-armed my way past the defenses to flood his body with magic, eating away at it. Apparently, the recharge of my vampiric power had finished, and I was feeding away at him.
The next moment came with a cooling glow, coating my hand with soothing relief. I worried that I’d burned off the nerves in my palms already until I saw the reddish hue fade away from the skin around the goblin’s neck, spreading the regular green through the head and upper chest of the sore loser.
I loved this vampire ability. It was slow as two snails arguing over where to go to dinner, but suppressing magical abilities while it did its business was more than enough to make up for that. As long as I had planned out the time and worked up the nerve, pesky passive powers were my bitch.
Leytati pushed away from me, pressing his lava palms on my face. The magical suppression was just as slow as the drain, apparently. As he wiggled out of my grip, I could feel myself getting weaker, the investment of my magic in his body leaving with him. Even my head felt lighter, like it was hollowing out with the magic flow as well.
Looking at my magic vitals for something that would explain this, I saw that the value for the total magic changed. It had been split into two different numbers, one above the other, and as the bottom increased, the top score decreased. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the bottom total correlated to the magic I was pouring out, and the top was how much I had left. Except it wasn’t draining just the magic, but the amount my reserve could even hold.
That was the big risk of this ability, then. If something interrupted me before I finished, I could lose all of this magic. I either had to stop early and take my losses or see it through and hope I didn’t detach before I finished. Always a drawback with morally ambiguous powers, right? Damn it. I’d already drained too much magic to quit now. No amount of fire was going to stop me from burning away at all of his magic.
With all the willpower I had left, I placed my thumb against the side of his neck, choking his windpipe as I crawled my fingers back into a better grip. My second hand latched onto the other side to secure the grip tightly, regaining my focus and strength. The hobgoblin fire-boxer slapped my arms, spreading burns across my skin. I must have looked like a leper at this point, but I had too much adrenaline pumping through me to care. This was a natural fury, I guess, though that sentiment didn’t reflect on my health. These flames still hammered me, and this war of attrition was coming to a head.
The red of Leytati’s skin faded more and more, and the fire of his burning hands died out more and more, burning less against me with every inch that regained the normal tone. His face, on the other hand, was turning blue, the oxygen no longer making it into his lungs or up from his heart into his brain. The slaps turned into light taps and slowly turned into nothing. I’d only gotten stronger, crushing his larynx in my fingers with the pain.
Finally, as the red had faded away from the last fingertip, all of the magic that was inside of him snapped back through the channels of my body, revitalizing me like cold water to the face and pure cocaine in the nose. With my work done and my powers increased, I let go of him, watching him fall back to the stone floor below where he belonged, motionless.
And the crowd went wild.
22
Getting down from the arena platform was a challenge, considering that it was a few dozen feet up in the air. Now that the initial adrenaline was wearing off, my suffering health was starting to hit me like a pelt of bricks. Muscles all over my body cramped one at a time, filling me with pain and agony like that time I tried to work out all day at the gym. That was stupidly painful, and so was this.
The goblins were still roaring at my crazy victory over the onslaught of goblins sent to fight against me. Gak’Nak was right, though. They were mostly pushovers. If I’d had full use of my magic, this would have been over even faster. Still, though, I proved myself better than the other goblins, and they weren’t going to argue about my succession anymore. Not that I particularly wanted to be a chieftain of goblins in the future, but this many allies so early in my journey was nothing to sniff at.
“You did it!” Hikki jumped into my arms just as I’d touched against the ground, covering my face with kisses. “You are amazing. I knew you could! I knew it, I knew it, I knew
it! I am so proud of you, husband! Who knew your hands were so strong?” she leaned in to whisper in my ear, giggling all the while. “I did. I knew that. Too bad Leytati didn’t enjoy it as much as I did.”
“Yeah, um,” I carried Hikki along as we talked, “I’m going to go check if I killed him or not. Just in case.”
“First, we have to deal with you!” Hikki demanded, touching my face and the burns on it. “Look at all of these burns! That waste of food and air went too far! I cannot believe you’re not screaming right now!”
“Screaming did cross my mind,” I chuckled, “but that would have shown weakness, and I got every impression that’s generally frowned upon around here.”
“Do not be so reckless!” Hikki’s hands over my burns were soothing and cooling, almost unnaturally so, as they ran across every wound on me. “Please tell me that this will not be a regular occurrence with you, Jeremiah.”
“Um…” I made it over to Leytati’s body. “Hey, look, Leytati! I’mma check to see if he’s still alive. One second.”
“Jeremiah!” Hikki reprimanded my avoidance.
“This is important!” I kicked Leytati’s unconscious body, hearing him groan in pain and proving that he still had his life. “Oh, good. Groans of pain are groans of life.”
“Did you not want to kill him?” Hikki continued touching my burns and wounds one by one. “I can tell you from watching him and Gojobo argue that Leytati was a horrible creature, even for a goblin. He does not deserve your mercy.”
“That’s not exactly why I checked,” I said. “It’s a bit complicated, but to put it mildly, I think I discovered something evil about myself.”
“Evil?” she repeated. “What do you mean? Is it some sort of bloodlust you experienced?”
“Not quite.” I walked the two of us through a crowd of goblins, narrowly avoiding getting barfed on before we broke through. “More strange and dangerous.”
“Does it have something to do with your ears?” Hikki gave them a tug, forcing a wincing grunt out of my mouth. “They were not pointy before.”
“What?” I leaned my head down to reach the hand carrying Hikki’s legs, feeling the slight points in the tips that she had mentioned. My heart skipped a beat. “No, those were not there before. Do you notice anything else different about me?”
“You look ever so slightly green.” She rubbed her thumb against my cheek as if to wipe muck, then scrunched her face to find the muck still there. “Do you not know what has happened to you?”
“Not in particular, no,” I said, thinking back to the fight. “I have some theories. But for now, I need a drink. I’m just glad I didn’t have to fight the whole tribe like those drunks had made it sound like.”
“Well…” Hikki tilted her head, trying to hide a smile and a blush. “That may not be entirely true, Jeremiah. You were challenged by most of the men of the tribe. But…”
“What?” I squinted my eyes. “What did you do?”
“We did not mean any insult by it,” Hikki sheepishly admitted, still obviously so proud of herself. “Delilah and I were worried that you would be overwhelmed by the numbers, even if none of them individually could have fought you. But they had to wait their turn before fighting you, and we came up with an idea to stop them from even coming to the arena.”
“How d'you manage that?” I asked. “From what I heard, everyone was ready to tear me a new one for the favoritism. Don’t tell me you bribed them?”
“No, nothing so dastardly!” Hikki quickly corrected. “It was just a simple drinking contest to pass the time. I helped draw more fighters in, and Delilah ran as one of the contestants.”
“Delilah drank most of them under the table, didn’t she?” I laughed.
“She won, yes,” Hikki smiled, “and the rest of them tried so hard to beat her that half of them drank themselves to sleep. The other half could not see as far out as their hands stretched in front of their face.”
“So all of the goblins I fought were just the ones who didn’t get wasted at your drinking contest ruse,” I mused as I put the dots together. “Very clever. Boy, after that fire-fist bastard, I don’t think I could have done another fight. Oh, god, everything hurts.”
“We saved you some rockcrab!” Hikki pointed me over to a table where the drinking champion sat slumped over the top of it. “Delilah is currently guarding your meal. With her life, she said.”
“Of course, she did.” I walked us the rest of the way over to her, placing Hikki down next to her before sitting down myself. “How are things, Delilah?”
“You’re welcome.” The drunk girl lifted up her black mop of hair. “You owe me, close to, about, maybe, five favors for this.”
“For taking part in a drinking contest?” I argued with a chuckle. “You specifically wanted to go get hammered. How is that a favor to me?”
“I also…” Delilah’s head didn’t quite stay upright, despite her best efforts and strains. “I also protected your food. These vultures wouldn’t stop being vultures. Vultures.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, reaching for my plate of food she guarded. “Thank you for your service--”
“Hey!” The fiercely drunk guardian slapped my hand away. “How do I know you’re not some kind of disguised demon person? Or two of these vulture goblins in a coat? Nice try, you two. Go beg for, go find, go get, go away!”
“Do you really think these goblins are that good at disguises?” I argued more. “Just give me my food. I’m starving.”
“Hold on there, greedy!” She pushed the plate of food away from me. “If you’re the real Jeremiah, why are your ears pointy? Jeremiah doesn’t have pointy ears.”
“I’m still trying to figure that out myself,” I admitted, “but I need some brain food to do that. Plus, I just finished a fight with a bunch of goblins and a pyromancer. I’m hungry. Let me eat!”
“That’s just what a demon goblin fake would say!” Delilah pushed my food even further away. “Stay away from this, you thief! I won’t let this food out of my sight until the real Jeremiah gets back!”
“Oh, well, you got me.” I faked an admittance of defeat, much to Hikki’s confusion and Delilah’s smug delight. “But you better tell those two goblins over there to keep to themselves, then. They’ve been bad-mouthing Jeremiah all day. Said something about him being a pasty smoothskin with two weird women around. One of them even said, ‘What kind of man has two women who can’t even hold her own in a fight?’ Can you believe that?”
“What?!” The insulted warrior woman whipped her head around to look for the imaginary culprits. “I’ll kill them myself! You wait right here.”
After a mighty and arduous battle with gravity, Delilah managed to get herself up from the seat at the table to steer her running fall in the direction where she suspected the fake perpetrators waited. I snagged the plate after she’d turned away and got to my meal.
“That was devious of you.” Hikki gave me a look of playful dissatisfaction. “How dare you trick her like that? What will happen if she comes back?”
“With how completely blitzed she is,” I ripped off a piece of rocky chitin to get to the crab meat within, “and how energetic and volatile she is normally, I think she’s going to be occupied for a while.”
“In that case, I hope you enjoy your meal.” The goblin princess hooked herself onto my arm as she snuggled up against me. “You earned it.”
Damn, giant rockcrab that was cooked up for dinner was particularly good. Honestly, it was some of the best stuff I’d ever had. It was seafood without the sea, an odd culinary experience if I said so myself. Very earthy and mineral-heavy. Tasted a lot like iron, now that I was thinking about it, in a good way. Goblins knew how to prepare rockcrab very well.
From then on, Hikki and I people-watched for the rest of the feast, watching as the goblin party-goers enjoyed themselves in their drunken stupor. Like any festival, there was dancing, drinking, merriment, a lot of fights, the whole shebang. Delilah, a
s mentioned previously, won the drinking contest and was an absolute delight for the rest of the night to watch as she moseyed through the crowd of goblins.
She’d made quite an ass of herself nearly everywhere she went, challenging nearly everyone who gave her eye contact. Better yet, she still didn’t know how to speak Goblin, and every conversation ended about two sentences in when she punched the goblin she was speaking to. They followed a general formula, like the one I was watching right now:
“Hey!” Delilah shouted right in the face of the goblin she’d picked out. “Are you the one who said, the one who was saying, are you saying I couldn’t fight because I’m a girl?”
“What do you want, smoothskin?” The goblin backed away, not making any ground with Delilah moving in with every step taken. “Shoo! Go away, crazy giant lady!”
“I don’t know how to speak Green Bitch,” she groaned. “Why can’t you speak Grosrove? It’s like arguing with a chipmunk with you bitches.”
“Shoo!” the goblin slapped the drunk monk across the face. “Bad giant lady! Go away!”
That, and all the subsequent conversations, were about that long before Delilah’s fists started flying. Like a good warrior monk, she won those bouts nearly flawlessly, still at near the peak of her combat ability, if not more so with her unpredictable fighting style, but not without insulting nearly all of goblinkind in the process. It was hysterical. And she was fooling no one with her grumpy attitude. Our new grand champion of drinking and brawling was grinning from ear to ear in every fight.
It was also interesting to say that she was able to get drunk in the first place. As a revenant undead, she had most of the benefits of being alive, but her analyst screen still counted her as an undead. We’d basically confirmed most, if not all, of the basic functions of life most creatures enjoyed were still available to her. Ah, well, it wasn’t a big deal yet. So far, it was all of the benefits with almost none of the drawbacks.