by JK Galioto
Jack refused to let that happen. He leapt at Gooch, shoving him to the ground, and took the knife blow meant for Gooch’s throat in his shoulder. The leather tunic absorbed some of the damage, but Jack felt new pain erupt from the attack. He landed on top of Gooch, who seemed to be finally shrugging off the stun effect. As he lay prone in a freshly formed pool of elf and orc blood, Jack was happy to see that his distraction had bought Gooch enough time to recover his wits, grab his shield, and return to the fray.
The orc still only had his long knife, and Gooch strategically placed his body between the orc and his recently fumbled two-handed sword. It turned out that the orc hadn’t spent time training with the knife, and it showed. Gooch easily blocked Umak’s attacks with his shield while he slashed with his weapon. Gooch so far had invested into defense, which was the only reason he was still alive. However, it also meant he had to rely on his poor-quality weapon and prodigious strength. Given the orc’s heavy scale armor, which seemed remarkably effective against his longsword, this was no small task. Immovable object meet immovable object.
Jack rolled to his side with a pained groan, getting to his feet directly behind a goblin focusing on Maebh, who had thankfully returned to the fight after Umak’s brutal kick, although one arm was clearly broken and hung limply at her side. “Don’t you turn your back on me!” Jack screamed as he performed a double thrust into the back of the goblin, dropping it instantly. Maebh gave a nod of appreciation before she turned to help her fellow prisoners against the remaining goblins.
Turning back to Gooch, he saw the orc perform a shove attack and take a shallow cut on his arm as he did so. He threw Gooch back ten feet, allowing him to reclaim his two-handed sword. Bleeding from multiple cuts, gone was the cocky grin; he now looked eager to finish the fight. Gooch and the orc faced off against each other again, Gooch playing mostly defense and the orc playing mostly offense. His friend was getting better at blocking and parrying, although the level difference between the two combatants made it difficult for Gooch to block and parry every attack.
If Gooch was defense, then Jack became offense, darting in and out of the fight and striking when opportunities presented themselves. Gooch and Jack worked beautifully together, Gooch covering Jack with his Protector perk when he had a misstep or was too slow to back up, and Jack making the orc pay anytime he tried to take a bigger swing on Gooch. The bonus from “Danny Boy” had long since passed; all three of the contestants were bone weary, their attacks falling with increasing slowness.
The halflings had finally finished off their goblin guards and formed a circle around the three combatants. Jack wondered why they didn’t join in to help finish off the orc. Was it some sort of honor code? Or were they just too tired? Glancing at them, he realized most of them were bleeding from multiple cuts and looked like they could barely stand. A number of the halflings were on the ground, dead or dying.
Jack feared that if they didn’t make a move soon, he or Gooch would eventually slip up and that would be the end of them all. He slowly circled away from Gooch to flank the large orc. If the orc decided to focus on Jack, he was most likely dead, but he had to try something. Once he was on the other side of the orc, he used his Feign Injury perk, stumbling down to one knee and pretending to pass out. Bluff check don’t fail me now! The orc glanced at Jack, lying on the ground seemingly comatose, and turned his full attention toward Gooch.
“One down, one to go,” he spewed, his fetid breath dispensing over Gooch. The orc redoubled his efforts, welcoming the end of the stalemate and ready to end the fight quickly. He landed a couple of blows on Gooch while deftly positioning himself well outside the reach of Gooch’s weapon, causing Gooch’s health to drop to nearly zero. But before Umak could reset his footing and attempt a finishing blow, the now sadistically smiling orc looked down between his legs in complete surprise to see Jack smiling beneath him, blades poised to strike.
“Miss me, sweetie?” Jack said with a wink as he jabbed his weapons deep into the orc’s nether regions, changing him from a bass to a falsetto with one quick twist. This was too much for the orc, who finally had the decency to die, crumbling to the ground on top of Jack.
Chapter 33
It took Gooch a few seconds to extricate Jack from the orc’s lifeless body. Jack was fully covered in Umak’s blood, guts, and feces, and Jack immediately rolled onto his side, retching up his venison breakfast. He heaved until nothing came out, then heaved some more. Once he was done vomiting, Gooch picked Jack up and carried him away from the orc’s corpse and its odor, allowing Jack to breathe in fresh—for a mining pit—air. He surveyed the gruesome aftermath of the battle: goblin, hobgoblin, and halfling bodies were strewn about everywhere, their lifeless corpses reminding Jack of how close he and Gooch had come to the same fate.
Jack had a number of notifications blinking furiously for him to review, but he ignored them for now, standing up and looking for Maebh. He breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her leaning against another halfling, her threadbare clothes hanging loosely on her exhausted frame. She glanced up as Jack and Gooch made their way over, leaning on each other for support. When she saw them, she ran over to hug Jack, who kneeled to properly receive it. She had tears streaming down her face as she gestured for Gooch to bend lower, and she gave him a one-armed hug as well. Gooch’s cheeks reddened as she clung to him.
“Not to spoil the moment, but we need to talk,” Jack said loudly in the halfling language, motioning for the halflings to gather closer. Given the victory, Jack thought there would be cheering or at least excitement, but as the halflings crowded closer to him, all he could sense was the overwhelming feeling of fatigue. He tried to think about what they had been through in this hellhole and softened his voice and tone. “I have many questions for all of you, but let’s begin with the immediate need. Many of you are hurt and some may not make it through the night without help. You,” Jack said, pointing at the older grey-haired halfling that had spoken for the group of halflings that were with Maebh, “can you check the area for any halflings that are still alive and bring them over here? We have a couple doses of healing moss still available, and I have some echinacea that we can use on the ones gravely wounded. I will also be able to use my healing magic as my spell points replenish as well. No one else need die.”
The older halfling gave a grunt of acknowledgment, moving close to Jack and grasping his forearm with his small hand. “Me name is Connor. I am in yer debt, Jack, and in the debt of yer large friend. If there is anything I can do to repay that debt, you need but ask.” He stared from Jack to Gooch a moment longer before grabbing a few of his mates and moving off to check the halflings on the ground.
“What’d he say?” Gooch asked. Jack had forgotten that Gooch couldn’t understand. “He said his name is Connor and he’s in our debt. I asked the halflings to round up their injured for us to heal as best we can. Maebh,” Jack continued, switching back to the halfling language, “can you take a few of the halflings with some strength left and search the huts for any healing supplies? Bandages, salves, healing potions, healing moss—anything that could help. Bring them to my friend Gooch and he will help patch them up.” Giving a nod, Maebh rounded up a few of the halflings and went to search the three remaining huts.
There were still about twenty halflings standing around Jack. “Can any of you tell me how often they rotate the guards? Are there guards on patrol that could be coming back?” Jack asked, looking around at the group. The youngest halfling of the group moved closer to Jack. He looked to be the youngest of the bunch with a shock of bright red hair that somehow managed to shine despite the gloomy soot-covered surroundings. “Me name is Peter Pickalodian, but everyone calls me Peter Pickle.” His bright blue eyes twinkled as he continued, “They usually send in a fresh contingent of hobs once a month, but the dumb orc and goblins are more or less permanent residents. The hobs that we killed arrived about a week ago. There also was a group of five or so goblins that Umak sent up to the surface a few
days ago to scout for an intruder, along with the normal goblins that patrol the cave above.”
Peter had a smile that was contagious, although his accent was stronger than the others and hard to understand. Jack found himself grinning as he replied, “Nice to meet you, Peter Pickle. I believe we already found that patrol on the surface, and we took care of the ones in the cave above. I think we can safely rest for the time being, but to be safe, could you organize a few of your mates to patrol the opening to the pit area? Is there another way into the pit beyond the one up there?” Jack asked, pointing to the top of the cliff.
Peter was quick to respond. “That tunnel there,” he said, pointing at a tunnel behind him, “leads to our home.” His bright blue eyes filled with tears that he fought to hold back. “That’s where most of us are from,” he said, turning away, clearly not wanting Jack to see him cry. He picked a few of the halflings that were relatively uninjured to guard the tunnel toward their homeland, then went with another halfling to the ledge far above the pit, where Jack and Gooch had entered.
Jack turned to the remaining halflings, hoping to keep them busy and take their minds off recent events. “Can the rest of you find food and use the campfire to cook something for all of us? The group could use a good meal before sleep.” Jack was met with a flurry of head nods, and in a moment Jack and Gooch were alone, watching the halflings scurry about.
“I really need to learn whatever language you are speaking,” Gooch said.
Checking with Alexa, Jack responded, “The system calls it Common; I hope it’s their version of a common language, as the name implies. The orc and goblins were speaking something called Undercommon.”
“You are going to teach me. Not all of us can get a perk that lets us learn it without any work,” Gooch muttered jealously. Gooch had always been good with languages, something about how they were all derived from math. He could speak several of them fluently.
“Sure thing, but for now, why don’t we try saving these halflings?” After making an exaggerated motion to look at his wrist for a nonexistent watch, Jack declared excitedly, “And after that it will almost be loot o’ clock!”
Jack and Gooch spent the next few hours healing the halflings. Gooch focused on using bandages and their remaining herbal plants to treat them, while Jack, wishing he hadn’t used all of his daily Bardic perks, used his Minor Heal spell and assisted Gooch while he waited for his spell points to replenish. Gooch had seen many injuries throughout his football days and had worked with the trainer during his senior year for college credits, giving him more knowledge in basic first aid than Jack.
While they bandaged and healed the halflings, some of the newly freed prisoners served a meal of what Jack could only call gruel, or maybe slop. It looked like what they ate in the Matrix movies, a mix between oatmeal, cream of wheat, and grits. They eventually found sausages somewhere, which improved the meal greatly, assuming one did not question the meat’s origins. After subsisting on his now exceptionally low supply of deer and mountain lion meat for the past four or five days, along with the occasional hardtack, the meal tasted better than the best pizza from Queenies and Ron’s in Merrill.
He continued to use his meager healing spell to heal the less urgent cases, including sparing some for himself and Gooch. While they waited, they got to know the halflings, a couple of whom tried to teach Gooch the language. A few more of the halflings gathered the bodies of the dead, enemy and friend alike, and put them into the large pit the goblins had been using as a mass grave. Apparently if you left bodies too long, there was a chance they would rise as zombies, because he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Piling wood, coal, and anything else that was flammable into the pit, they lit a fire and watched it burn. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Eventually, everyone found somewhere to lie down and went to sleep, mentally as well as physically exhausted. Jack and Gooch decided they needed to keep an eye on things and divided the night into a two-person watch. Jack lay down next to his friend on a bedroll, deciding to be the bigger man and stay up with Gooch to keep him company. A second later, he was out cold, snoring softly.
Chapter 34
Gooch looked at his friend sleeping and decided he would take both watches. Although he was exhausted, he felt like Jack needed the sleep more. The magic seemed to take something out of him, and after casting twenty or thirty Minor Heals, Jack looked like the walking dead. Thinking about his friend, he’d always known Jack had the potential to do great things, but had never seen it. Every time they would get together for games, in person or virtually, he would wait for Jack to tell him some great news about how he’d invented some new gadget or opened a real business; anything that would allow him to utilize his latent abilities. But sadly, that moment had never come—instead, it was an endless string of meaningless jobs, owning a gaming shop that was basically a nonprofit service organization for the bored youth of Merrill, and playing in a rock band. Since they had been in Rigara, Gooch was witnessing the transformation of his friend from aimless wanderer to a leader with a purpose. If nothing else good came from this mess, the turnaround in his friend was enough to make this almost worth it. It’s too bad it took a potential world-ending apocalypse to give his friend the kick in the ass he so desperately needed.
Gooch reflected on the recent events that had culminated in the battle at the prison camp. When Jack’s brother Chad showed up at his house in Minneapolis in full military fatigues, Gooch didn’t know what to expect. After he was told that the army needed his help and Jack’s life depended on it, Gooch left almost immediately. Say what you will about Jack’s erratic lifestyle, he was always there for his friends, and Gooch could do no less. The fate of the world stuff was just icing on the cake.
He had arrived at the portal in Alaska less than eight hours later, through a mixture of planes and helicopters, and was through the portal a few minutes after that. The world on the other side hadn’t looked all that different until he went through the mind-searing “process.” After that, he began hearing a female voice in his head and saw a character sheet in his vision. Weird, wild stuff. While going through the transition process, he’d felt a connection to Jack that sustained him during the worst, most painful parts. Without that bond, Gooch was sure he would be dead.
Fighting the pack of goblin scouts had given him the same adrenaline rush that he always got from football. The stakes were much higher, but it was the contest that cried out to him; his strength and wits versus that of his opponents. He’d fallen into his role as protector quite easily. He had been an offensive lineman in college, and protecting people came naturally to him, especially when it came to his friends. That’s probably why he’d received the Protector perk when transitioning into this world. Thinking of protecting Jack brought up memories of the recent battle, as he stood toe to toe with hobgoblins and a monstrous orc, creatures from myth, legend, and Lord of the Rings.
Back on Earth, knowing right and wrong was hard; there were so many shades of grey, evidenced by the political divides everywhere. But on Rigara, it was much simpler. Gooch was a patient man, and rarely saw the need to raise his voice or get angry. But seeing the poor halflings forced to mine, nearly dead from exhaustion and food deprivation, had caused rage to erupt from the core of his being. He’d eagerly leapt into the fray, feeling no remorse as the first goblin and then a hobgoblin met their bloody ends, and feeling little fear when the orc overseer had stepped up against him, even though he knew he was outclassed. Maybe lack of fear came from his need to protect others, or maybe Jack wasn’t the only one that was a little crazy. When they finally brought that vile creature down, Gooch hadn’t felt joy or elation; rather, he had felt satisfaction, like crossing off a task on his to-do list. Killing that orc and saving the halflings was just another job that needed doing.
Gooch turned from introspection and decided it was time to look through his notifications, which he wanted the entire night to do. He’d consistently felt rushed to choose attributes, perks, and skill bumps, and th
is was his chance to take his time and get it right.
After reading through some of the combat notifications, which he had long ago moved to the background during fights, he dismissed them. He noticed that his Hard as Stone perk was now giving him a bonus of plus five defense, compared to the plus four bonus when he started out. He also noted that each time he used his Protector perk to block a hit on Jack, his stamina went down by five, and he had a ten-second cooldown between uses. He reviewed his skill notifications.
You have learned the first aid skill. You gain a +15 bonus to this skill based on prior experience. You have obtained beginner rank in the first aid skill and may choose one of the following perks:
Combat Medic 1: You can quickly treat wounds during battle. Bandaging or otherwise healing an ally in battle takes 20% less time.
Stabilize 1: You can stabilize a wounded target. Applying first aid to a target will provide a 25% higher chance to remove bleeding and other associated debuffs.
Triage 1: You gain the ability to prioritize the injuries of those hurt in battle. At a glance, you are able to determine which injuries require immediate treatment or can wait for later.
After thinking it over thoroughly and looking through the skill tree, Gooch chose Stabilize 1. Although future items in the skill tree were greyed out, he was hoping he would eventually be able to choose a perk that allowed him to bring someone back from the brink of death. He continued reading his notifications.