Delvers LLC: Adventure Capital

by Blaise Corvin

  He tucked the stone knife into his belt and bent down to wake up Tony. The kid obviously had one hell of a story to tell, and Henry had some heartfelt thanks to give.

  Henry decided that just a raise definitely wouldn’t be enough for Tony. He had to do something else for the young man, like build him a small tank or something. Maybe an especially big bomb? Henry began planning new war machines he could build as he gently shook Aodh awake.

  ***

  Aodh stood awkwardly as Henry stared off into space, muttering to himself. Aodh had been awake for a while and Henry had even dug Aodh’s last grenade out of the rubble at the mouth of the cave. The explosive weapon hung from his belt now, and Aodh’s life was so crazy now that it didn’t even worry him that much.

  He shook his head and wondered if he would ever be anything like Henry. Did the Asian man ever feel like a fake adventurer? Aodh doubted it. In fact, he wondered if Henry even considered himself an adventurer. The man had already fashioned a crude weapon out of stone and just standing there, he looked more dangerous than the dead monsters partially buried in rubble. The thought was profound to Aodh, that his employer looked more deadly just loafing around than purpose-built killing machines that most people lived in fear of.

  Henry had said that he had to review his new magic before they set out, whatever that meant. He’d probably gotten even more powerful. Aodh had felt embarrassed when the man had thanked him for saving both of their lives. The fact that he’d been sincere made it even more embarrassing. Aodh hadn’t done anything heroic. He’d just been trying to stay alive. Anyone would have done what he did.

  Eventually, Henry’s eyes focused again and he nodded. “Okay, Tony. I’m not at my best, but I think we have some options available now if we run into trouble. We need to get the hell out of here, though. Based on what you heard and saw these cocksuckers,” he said, pointing at the dead monsters, “are cannibals. Killing these things might have just attracted more of them, and I really don’t want to be tangling with a bunch of freaky, pissed off cat-lizard things right now. What did you say they were called?”

  “What, you mean the spiny cats? They’re Spiny Naked Tailed Fierce Cat De—”

  “Okay, never mind. Forget I asked.”

  “But that’s what they’re called. You said you wanted to know the names and—”

  “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” said Henry.

  Aodh hated when the man did that, ask a question then get frustrated with the answer. It was one of Henry’s most irritating habits, but the young man held his tongue. Instead, he asked, “What now?”

  “Now we head deeper into this cave and hope we can find water and a way out. I could dig us out of the front of the cave, but it’d probably be suicide. We need to move our asses and cause another cave in on the way too or these freaky things will be on our tail.”

  “I understand. What should I do?”

  “Take this; the light will last for about a day. This way you don’t need to use your flashlight,” Henry said and handed Aodh a new glow stone. “Also, play with your magic while we walk. We could probably use a bit of luck right now.”

  Aodh silently agreed and began following Henry deeper into the cave. After only a few minutes, it became obvious that they were heading into a vast subterranean system. True to his word, Henry collapsed the tunnel behind them. The sound was so loud it made Aodh’s bones jostle. He sincerely hoped they were alone in the cave system. If not, something had to have heard that.

  Unfortunately, a few minutes later, his predication proved accurate. He and Henry were walking, carefully placing their feet to avoid twisting an ankle, their glow stones providing just enough illumination to do so. Suddenly, Henry held out a hand to signal a stop and put his finger to his lips. He cocked his head, obviously listening, and Aodh suddenly remembered that Henry had enhanced sense.

  After a few seconds, Henry hissed and wrapped his glow stone in a rag before shoving it into his pocket. He shuffled over to Aodh and whispered, “Stow your light the way I just did. Hurry!”

  “What’s going on?” Aodh whispered back.

  Henry’s voice was quiet but grim. “Some assholes I’ve run into before. I recognize the language and the voices. Goblins.”

  Aodh hastily put away his light. Spindly cave demons, or goblins, could be very, very dangerous! Now he understood Henry’s reaction. However, as the cave was plunged into darkness again, Aodh wondered if his employer actually had a plan or not.

  Goblins, Redux

  Henry exerted a tiny bit of magic and his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Normal night vision didn’t work if there was no light at all, but he’d figured out how to use darkness magic abilities to reverse light-based night vision. He decided to call it darksight. The best part about it was it wouldn’t impede his normal vision, so a flash of light wouldn’t blind him like if he’d been using standard low-light vision.

  Tony clung to Henry’s clothing from behind, the young adventurer had refused to be left behind. Henry had needed to admit the young man had had a point. All by himself and especially without any light, the kid would have been all but helpless. With Henry, at least he’d be close by and could even help if necessary. If at all possible, Henry planned to act by himself, though. The odds of sneaking by the goblins ahead weren’t great. Henry would probably have to destroy them.

  The tunnel they were in was not very wide, and even Aodh could probably hear the goblins ahead of them now. With his enhanced vision, Henry was starting to notice telltale signs of long-term inhabitation.

  He really, really hated goblins. When he’d encountered them before, he’d thought the cave just reeked, now that he was in another goblin cave, he realized it was just how the little bastards smelled.

  Henry mentally went through his list of new abilities as he walked. He hadn’t realized how heavily he’d been leaning on his metal magic, but he felt naked without it. The fact the only weapon he had was his stone knife didn’t help. If he made something bigger it would be too brittle and not very useful. He briefly thought about adding more material to the stone to make it denser, but he wasn’t sure if it’d work and he wasn’t willing to bet his life on it. The knife would have to be good enough.

  Still, Henry had to admit he was in a hell of a better position than he had been when fighting the goblins during his first day on Ludus. Now he was wearing armor, he had magic, he wasn’t armed with sharpened sticks, and more importantly, he had precious experience. He wasn’t just a freaked out dude on an alien planet, he was a professional monster hunter now.

  Henry smiled as he rounded a bend, moving slowly. However, his face fell and he muttered a quick, “Oh fuck.” The tunnel moved on fairly straight ahead, and about fifty yards away, a group of nearly a dozen goblins were slowly approaching. A few of the creatures held poles with glowing fungus on the ends, too dim for a human to see by very well, but apparently enough for the vicious creatures. The goblin at the front of the procession held a small candle.

  Light from the candle danced along the walls, casting weird shadows in its tiny pool of light. The yellow flame contrasted weirdly with the off-green glowing lichen. None of the light sources extended very far, but they were enough to give a more sinister appearance to the small stalactites on the ceiling.

  Henry briefly wondered why the creatures weren’t carrying torches, but soon realized that the materials to make them might be rare in the caves. Plus, there might be limits to oxygen. He wasn’t sure.

  While these goblins were cousins to the ones he’d run into before, they were obviously not the same. For one, these ones were more muscular. Most of them also wore armor and real clothes, too. They also had better weapons and seemed overall less primitive. Henry had caught glimpses of bronze blades and spear tips. Perhaps worse of all, the creatures were talking softly, but were obviously alert. They’d probably heard some of the racket Henry had made further up the cave system.

  Henry gently pushed Tony back and retreated around the corner
. That is a lot of goblins, he thought. He rubbed his thumb across the handle of his stone knife while thinking. Time was definitely limited to come up with a plan, but he was pretty sure the goblins hadn’t seen him. They had also been moving slowly enough he had a few minutes to consider his options before acting.

  He briefly remembered Jason’s moral issue with killing the first goblin when they’d arrived on Ludus. It felt like a lifetime ago. Henry shook his head and narrowed his eyes. It wasn’t like him to trip down memory lane, but he knew why the memory had surfaced. If he attacked these creatures, he’d basically be killing them in their home without provocation.

  Then again, he was about 99.9% sure that if he just walked up to them and said hello, they wouldn’t be friendly. They’d probably be happy to eat him. It was either them or him. He mentally shrugged his shoulders and planned some creative murder.

  He was holding a decent amount of strength from the earth, and he was much tougher than an average human, but he didn’t have his metal skin armor. His bronze breastplate was better than nothing, but he wasn’t willing to fight nearly a dozen scrappy fighters in close quarters without cheating like crazy. He wished he had a machine gun.

  The thought gave him an idea.

  He looked at his idea from multiple angles as he retreated back the way he’d come, pulling Tony along with him. Henry knew he had shitty control with earth magic, but also had loads of power now. Also, he had terrible aim with chucking rocks, but he was effectively in a tunnel. He could probably kill the goblins, but most of them were wearing armor. In order to really mow them down, his attack would have to use a lot of power and probably be hypersonic.

  It was going to make a lot of noise. Noise attracted attention.

  So what he needed was a way to hide. Henry quickly put his hand to the wall and concentrated before releasing some magic. He hummed in appreciation when the rock wall seemed to bend inwards, reacting to his will. Yes, he could carve a room out of the cave wall. It wasn’t something he would probably have been able to do before his last level up, but now he practically felt like he was brimming with raw power.

  Henry held out a hand and exerted more magic, the effort creating a tightness in his gut. With less noise than he would have thought possible, barely enough to hear over the distant muttering of the goblins, the depression bowed out level with the rest of the wall again. With another minor flex of magic, Henry made the portion of wall look the same as on either side of it, blending in like it’d never been modified.

  He glance at Tony, the young man seemed scared but resolute, glancing around in the dark and looking nervously in the direction of the goblins. The boy didn’t say anything, didn’t make any noise, and didn’t move. Kid’s got spine, Henry thought approvingly. He patted Tony on the shoulder, and the young man was startled at first, but then silently nodded. Tony seemed to understand that Henry was trying to reassure him.

  Henry knew he had a choice now. He could probably craft a room, get inside, close it off with Tony, and wait for the goblin patrol to pass by. Then he could either leave behind them, or wait for the patrol to eventually go back to where they’d come from.

  However, neither of those options was all that attractive. One left enemies behind them, and one just meant they’d have more enemies ahead of them. Plus, they needed food and water, and Henry needed weapons.

  A preemptive strike seemed to be the only logical course of action. Henry mentally sighed. He really didn’t like killing, didn’t like violence, but sometimes there was no other good choice.

  He pulled Tony back again and began picking up fairly large stones to cradle in one arm. After heading back another few yards, he whispered in Tony’s ear, “I’m going to put them down, but I need your help to kill them all. After I yell ‘light,’ throw your glow stone forward and help me deal with them.”

  “What you mean?” Aodh’s whisper was full of stress. Henry figured the increasingly loud goblin muttering was part of it. “Deal with them?”

  “You’ll understand, trust me.” Henry tried smiling but let it drop when he realized that Tony couldn’t see him in the dark. The Asian adventurer shrugged and used a bit of magic to modify each stone. He added a small hollow in the center of each that would cause them to crumble into bullet-sized fragments as soon as enough force was exerted on them. The process was pretty easy and only took a moment to get each stone ready. Henry was ready to go in plenty of time. “Hug the wall and get low,” he whispered.

  He and Aodh hunkered down and didn’t have to wait long. In another couple minutes, he could see the light from the goblins’ candle and glowing fungus coming around the bend in the tunnel. Henry smiled grimly, his adrenaline spiking, wondering if he might die. If he did, he hoped Mareen could find happiness. He shook his head and dispelled images of his beautiful wife from his mind. Instead, he intentionally suppressed his adrenaline as best he could and let his thoughts grow cold. There was killing to do, and it was best done without emotion.

  Just like taking out the garbage.

  The goblins rounded the bend ahead and Henry waited. He needed all of them to be fully in the tunnel ahead before he acted. He tried to stay completely still against the wall and hoped the creatures wouldn’t spot him. He didn’t know how good their vision was. Without his own vision enhancements, Henry might have seen some points of light ahead, but not much else. In fact, that was probably all Aodh was currently seeing.

  The last of the procession of goblins was almost in the tunnel and Henry tensed to move. It looked like there was a straggler hanging back, though. He figured it would only be a few more second before he could get all of them at once. Narrowing his eyes, he clutched a stone in a white knuckled grip.

  Aodh sneezed.

  Henry wasn’t sure who was more surprised, him or the goblins, but he was the first to act. He jumped up and threw his first stone, dumping a significant amount of earth magic into immediately accelerating the projectile. The shockwave from the magic hitting the stones broke them into bits, rocketing the projectiles down the tunnel at hypersonic speeds. The sharp whip-crack of the sonic booms cracked down the tunnel in each direction, echoing with violence.

  As usual, Henry’s aim was terrible, but this time it didn’t matter. He threw one projectile after another, and when he missed, the stones just ricocheted off the walls, in some cases breaking apart other bits of rock or demolishing stalactites, adding to the sheer volume of deadly missiles pelting the goblins. One after another the creatures went down. A few managed to take a handful of steps forward, their armor blocking some of Henry’s attacks, but eventually they fell too.

  Henry quietly cursed. He was pretty sure that at least one of the creatures had gotten away. Either way, they still had a job to do. He had to make sure all the goblins were dead. “Light!” he hollered.

  Tony threw his glow stone forward and turned on his magic flashlight, too. The boy ran forward behind Henry. “I’m sorry!” the young adventurer panted. “It just kind of came out!”

  “Don’t worry about it, kid,” Henry snarled. “Just don’t do it again. I won’t kick your ass unless you make the same mistake twice.” Henry punctuated his last sentence by savagely stabbing a downed goblin in the throat with his stone knife. The creature’s mangled body wouldn’t even support its weight, but the armored warrior still glared daggers at Henry as it died. Henry’s heart just grew colder. Just taking out the trash. He heard a sharp whacking sound from behind him as Aodh brought his bronze-shod staff down on goblin’s head. The kid had experience at this sort of thing now.

  Henry quickly stowed his stone knife and picked up a goblin’s bronze sword, ensuring the creatures on the ground were all dead. He absently noted they were all male again. Unlike humans and the other races on Ludus, goblins seemed to have a male-centric warrior caste, at least Henry assumed so.

  He could hear a goblin screaming in the distance and softly cursed. One had gotten away and would be going for reinforcements. Henry was distracted as he thought
about the escaped goblin, and it almost cost him his life.

  One of the last goblins, a big, scarred, mean looking bastard jumped up, swinging a sword. He must have been playing possum from the start, the creature didn’t have a scratch on his body. Henry hissed, caught completely off guard. He managed to block the goblin’s sword swing, but the scrappy warrior managed to slam the dagger in its other hand into Henry’s stomach, right underneath the bottom of his bronze armor.

  Henry felt numb at first, then heat and cold at once. He didn’t feel pain right away, but he could feel things cutting and tearing when the goblin yanked the dagger out of his gut and jumped back. “Henry!” Tony screamed.

  Henry gritted his teeth and narrowed his eyes. Pain was starting to set in. He was tough, but fighting would be a bad idea. He really didn’t want his guts to fall out from moving too fast. His healing ability had limits, and he didn’t want to test them again. When a horned demon wolf had munched on his leg, it’d been bad enough.

  How in the fuck did that thing gig me so bad? Henry thought. The goblin grinned, displaying sharp teeth. It barked something in its guttural language and waved its dagger mockingly. That explains it, thought Henry. The dagger was some sort of reddish material and glowed softly in the dim light. The goblin was also bigger than the others, not much shorter than Henry, and wore a headdress of some kind.

  As the goblin and Henry stared each other down, Henry noted a few of the other goblins on the ground were still alive, but he didn’t allow himself to be distracted. Arrogance and lack of focus was why he had a hole in his stomach in the first place.

  The goblin wasn’t just taller than the others, he was also more muscular. He wore armor made of bone, bronze, and some kind of chitin. The goblin’s sword was a fairly standard bronze weapon, and held a wicked, glittering edge. The goblin wore shin and wrist armor made of the same chitinous material that edged his armor.