“Run!” George cried, taking off as fast as his little bunny legs would carry him. So much for rocking out with his cock out, I guess.
Instead of trying to be brave, I ran after him. The goblins were so close, I could practically fill their breath on the back of my neck. Hell, if I hadn’t been hasted, they’d have already caught me.
“Stop, human! We just want to talk!” the lead one called, and he sounded way closer than I he should have been. “We love to serve man!”
“Yeah, we have some great recipes we’d love to share with you!” another one cried as I moved past some scraggily, thorny bushes that tugged unhelpfully at my coat.
I was jerked roughly to a stop by a snag, and as I bent to try to untangle it, George disappeared through the bushes, leaving me along with the goblin trio. Fuck.
Before I could free myself, something that felt suspiciously like a body check from Marty McSorely flung me forward, tearing me free of the brush and sending me sprawling on the hard-packed earth. Pain shot through me as my health decreased by nearly ten percent.
I ignored it as I scrambled to my feet while keeping one hand on the bone handle of my scythe. While I’d been down, the three goblins had moved to encircle me. I only had a few moments to escape, but I was done running. At least, I was done running while I had nearly full health. If I could take one or two down, I could make an opening, and well, start running again.
“You want some of this?” I cried, smacking my chest with my palm. “Well, come get some! I’ll turn you to chop suey, fried rice, and sixteen other Chinese food dishes!”
“Oh, we can make human fried rice,” the goblin on my left said, eyeing me like I was a piece of meat at a butcher’s shop.
“Excellent, idea!” the middle goblin said, his eyes twinkling as he licked his lips with a long black serpentine tongue.
As a surge of fear shot through me because they actually seemed like they were going to eat me, I pushed it down and decided I was going to fuck up these goblins with extreme prejudice. Without even thinking about it, I widened my stance and brought up my scythe, mimicking the stance I’d used in Titan Gate. While, I’d always preferred daggers because most of my rogue’s moves relied on them, there had been a PVP season where scythes and axes were extremely overpowered.
During that time, I’d tried to remain competitive with daggers, but at the end of the day, using them meant I had to work twice as hard for half as much so I’d eventually joined the dark side and gotten myself a scythe. I’d had to completely respec my character to take advantage of it, but by the end of the season, I was holding my own with the weapon.
Laughter I couldn’t stop spilled from my lips as the goblins edged closer. I was ready to take them on. Sure, I might die, but I was far from helpless. I had awesome stats, a good weapon, and memories from a million battles in Titan Gate. I was ready to rock out with my cock out.
“Why’s he laughing?” the right goblin said. “Doesn’t he realize we mean to kill and eat him?”
“People are weird,” the middle goblin said, shrugging his bony green shoulders.
“Yeah, he’s just trying to scare us,” the left goblin added before lunging at me. “I fear no human!”
The goblin’s thrust was nearly perfect, but unfortunately, his small arms combined with his short sword, meant he’d barely reach me on a good day.
I stepped back, creating space between us and prepared to bring up my scythe in the same way I’d often done in Titan Gate. As I visualized my disarming technique, my body swung to mimic the movement.
The blade of my scythe whipped up, catching the goblin’s wrist and slicing through it like it was made of moldy cheese. Blood splattered across the ground between us as the creature’s hand went flying in one direction while his sword careened past me.
I followed up on the move, utilizing the second move in my three stage combo and driving the butt of the scythe into his stomach, causing him to buckle forward. As he did, I brought the scythe’s heavy blade down on the back of his neck.
Hot, sticky blood sprayed across my face as the goblin’s head hit the ground and rolled across the space between us, his body slumped into a heap.
The other goblins stood there stunned as their compatriot exploded into iridescent shards. My experience bar rose by a full twenty-five percent, and as it did, I roared in triumph.
“Feel the wrath of Kahn!” I cried, whipping my scythe around at the remaining goblins like a whirlwind. The point sunk clanged off the left goblin’s shield, throwing him backward in a spray of sparks. As his back hit the hard-packed earth, the middle goblin leapt at me, swinging his sword wildly.
His blade tore through my side, sending a jolt of pain through me and reducing my health by another twenty percent. I ignored the blow, and instead of wincing away from it, stepped into it, cutting off his ability to use his weapon because it was embedded in me.
Unfortunately, the move left me too close to use my scythe either, so I did what any well-respecting adventurer would do. I drove my forehead into the bridge of his nose. The blow made stars flash across my eyes, but it stunned the goblin, and as he staggered backward dizzily, I wrenched his short sword free of his grip and tore it from my body, eliciting another five percent damage.
“Die!” I screamed, driving the short sword into the throat of the goblin.
“You have delivered a critical hit!” my HUD said as the goblin staggered backward, clutching his ruined throat as though he could somehow staunch the blood flooding from his ruined neck.
Recalling the way I’d danced and swung the scythe in Titan Gate, I rushed forward, slashing the goblin across the chest before he could counter having his throat impaled. My blow reduced him to a glittering explosion of color, causing my experience bar to increase again. As it filled up, blue lightning exploded from my body.
“Leveled Up!” flashed across my HUD in glowing script, and as the letters burned into my retinas, my health went back to full and my wounds healed instantly.
As I turned toward the last goblin, energy coursing through me, I found him on his feet. Only, instead of looking scared or concerned, he was smiling like the Joker after a good round of bat-torture.
“Do you honestly think you could defeat the goblins so easily?” he asked, his grin spreading wider as he gestured at me. “Do you think you’re the first adventurer we’ve seen? That we were born yesterday?”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure. Sometimes when I played Titan Gate, I entered a sort of fugue where I fought and killed monsters without ever consciously thinking about the whole when and why of it. When that happened, I often pulled off complex moves I couldn’t do when consciously thinking about it because some other part of me was in control. It was sort of like when I was driving somewhere. I’d start the car, back up out of the driveway, and then the next thing I knew, I’d be there.
“It doesn’t matter because you’re about to join your friends!” I replied, taking a step toward him and readying my scythe. As I did, he smirked at me.
“Oh, that’s what you think!” he replied before eliciting an earsplitting whistle. As he did, the bushes around us came alive with goblins. Not just ten or twenty goblins either, but hundreds of goblins, and as their beady, hungry eyes settled on me, the sound of war drums filled my ears. “For the horde!”
“Oh fuck,” I said, swallowing hard as I looked around. While I might have beaten these three guys, there was no way I’d be able to fight off a hundred goblins. At least not at my current level.
“Scared?” the goblin asked, and throaty laughter filled my lips as he turned toward the goblins. “Bring the stew pot!”
Now, if I was a mighty and fearless warrior, I would stand tall and kick ass. I might die, but at least I’d die fighting my hardest. Fortunately, I was a rogue, and none of that bullshit applied to me. Besides, this wasn’t a video game where I got to respawn and try again. No, if I died here, it’d be forever, and there was no way I was letting that happen. Fuck being nobl
e. I wanted to live.
“This is where you die,” the whistling goblin said, moving toward me and smacking his sword against his shield. With every step he took, more goblins appeared out of the bushes and my odds diminished, but that was fine because I had a plan. Not a good plan, mind you, but a plan, nonetheless.
“Pfft, is this all you the goblins you have? I thought things were about to get serious, but clearly you’re still underestimating me,” I said, trying to muster a winning grin as I leaned my scythe against my shoulder and calmly ran a hand through my hair. “Why I could kill at least twice this many goblins while playing the cello and pleasuring all your mothers simultaneously, and I’ll have you know, they’re all very demanding ladies!”
A scream of rage erupted from the horde as they charged me, I took off running toward town with a bazillion goblins chasing me.
9
I burst from the brush, sprinting as hard as I could. My muscles burned, and my lungs struggled for breath as I poured on all the speed I could muster. What seemed like millions of goblins drumming on drums and crying war cries were right behind me, and as my feet touched down on the grassy knoll that was home to a bazillion bunnies, I spied my goal. The gate.
My heart felt like it was going to burst through my chest, and I knew I didn’t have much gas left in the tank as I pushed myself forward. While there was no stamina bar or anything, I felt like I was going to pass out from exertion. I mean, I wasn’t in the worst shape, but after an adrenaline-fueled sprint through over half a mile of dense brush with a horde of goblins after me, I was pretty sure I was going to die from exhaustion.
As I stumbled on the slick grass, I remembered what Morpheus said to Neo in the Matrix. “Do you think it's air you’re breathing now?”
Of course, I wasn’t actually breathing air. I was a brain in a fucking box, and as such, unless something was drastically wrong back home, my lack of oxygen was all in my head. Hell, I didn’t even have muscles anymore since you need a body to have those. No, I was a brain.
As that realization swept over me, I felt my strength return in a flash. My chest stopped heaving as mind overcame matter, and I poured on speed that would make Usain Bolt jealous. After all, I was pretty sure he didn’t have twenties in strength, dexterity, and constitution.
“Come on you goblins, is that all you’ve got!” I cried, glancing over my shoulder as what seemed like a tidal wave of goblins poured from the trees. They came forth like a thundering wave, sweeping over the plains as the distance between us shortened by the second.
As I pushed myself into max overdrive, I passed through the threshold of the gate just ahead of the goblin horde. As soon as my feet touched the cobblestones, the guards inside reacted. They swept forward like a cross between terminators and ninjas.
Arrows and spears struck the chasing goblins like the fury of an angry god. Before I made it five steps into town, the horde of goblins had broken against the two guards, and with good reason. Every time the guards attacked, goblins were reduced to iridescent shards.
My experience bar lurched upward, granting me five percent as Marth put an arrow between the eyes of the last of the three cache-guarding goblins, but I didn’t get any more experience after that, probably because I hadn’t hit any of the others.
“Thanks,” I called, approaching the guards as the last of the goblins perished under a hail of arrows. The entire battlefield was strewn with items, and what’s more, as I checked my inventory, I realized three Rhuvians had been deposited in my virtual wallet for each of the two goblins I’d killed. Cool. That meant money was placed directly into my inventory when items fell to the ground. That was great because even if I had to flee because a goblin horde was chasing me, I’d still get paid.
A smirk crossed my face as I walked out onto the field to collect the drops. Only as I tried to gather the fallen gear, my hands passed through the steel helmet right in front of me.
“You’re welcome, but why are you trying to take our loot?” Marth asked, watching me carefully while his pal began to gather up all the drops and place them in a giant burlap sack.
“What do you mean?” I asked, confusion filling me as a horrible realization settled over me. Was I not entitled to the drops because the guards had killed all the goblins? What about the one I’d hit, did I at least get a share of his? As my hands passed through the helmet again, I sighed. Evidently not.
“We killed these monsters, therefore we get the drops. That’s how it works. If you want loot, you need to kill the monsters yourself,” Marth replied, shaking his head at me as the last of the loot disappeared into his partner’s burlap sack. I had no idea how it could possibly hold so much stuff, but as he slung it over his shoulder, my inner greedy pig squealed helplessly. No, there had to be a way.
“But I thought we were sharing drops, that’s why I brought them here. I figured I’d do the gathering and you guys would get the kills.” I smiled broadly at the two of them as I approached. “That way you guys can hang back and regen while I gather up all the mobs. It's way faster to kill them in big groups than one at a time, no?”
“I see what you’re doing,” the guard with all the loot replied, glancing at Marth. “Can you believe this guy?”
“It’s a bit ridiculous, eh, Madagascar?” Marth said, shaking his head at me as he approached and put one gloved hand on my shoulder. “You should really ask before you do something like that again. We’re not really supposed to help players hunt. It could be seen as cheating, but since you did go through all the trouble to drag the monsters to us, and we took all the experience, I guess we can let you have some of the loot.”
“Are you serious?!” Madagascar replied, and it looked like his eyes were going to bug out of his head. “That’s so against the rules.”
“It’s okay,” I said, laying on the modesty. “It’s my mistake, and I understand if you guys have to follow the rules.” I sullenly kicked at a rock on the ground and tried my best to look apologetic. “I won’t do it again.”
Madagascar sighed, looked at Marth who nodded at him, and sighed even louder, which I hadn’t thought was possible. “I guess that goblin horde has been picking off players for a while. It’s probably good that you brought them here to face the righteous fist of justice.” He nodded once and held the bag out to me in a way that suggested it caused him physical pain. “If we considered this a quest, I guess a third would belong to you.”
There was a loud ding and the words, “You have completed a quest,” flashed across my HUD. I glanced at the message as a grin split my face from ear to ear while more words scrawled across my HUD. I stared at them for a moment and smirked.
“Can you speak all commands in the voice of Elizabeth Hurley from now on?” I thought to the HUD, causing the words to vanish.
“By bringing the goblin horde into the hands of the guards, you have made the Town of Silver Gables safe for adventurers. As such, while you gain no experience, you are entitled to a third of the loot,” said a voice that sounded exactly like Elizabeth Hurley when she played Vanessa Kensington in Austin Powers.
A chill ran down my spine, partially from her voice and partially because Madagascar upended his bag of many treasures and dumped a third of the drops onto the ground. As shields, swords, and helmets struck the cobblestones between us, another one hundred Rhuvians were added to my inventory.
Unfortunately, no other items fell out of the bag or were deposited into my inventory. Apparently, aside from the Rhuvians, the goblins only dropped the items they had equipped. It made me wonder if that was how it worked with all monsters. Did they always drop the items they wielded in battle?
Either way, I was pretty happy as I hastily gathered up the items the goblins had dropped. As I touched them, they vanished from my hands and were listed in my inventory window. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a weight gauge turn red as it increased from three percent to fifty-seven percent. I definitely felt a bit more encumbered, but as far as I could tell, there were no obvi
ous negative effects. Still, I was pretty sure if I got too much stuff, I’d be unable to move. That’s how it worked in Titan Gate.
In that game, once your weight gauge was over fifty percent your health and mana regen were decreased by half and once you hit ninety percent, you wouldn’t be able to attack or cast spells. If you hit one hundred percent, you wouldn’t even be able to move.
I had half a mind to sell all the gear as quickly as possible in case being overweight did affect my regen, but if I did, I might miss my chance to check out the cache. With all the goblins dead, the treasure was free for the taking. I wanted to make good on it before they respawned because I was pretty sure my trick with the guards wouldn’t work a second time. Still, I had one thing to do before I rushed back out.
“Hey, Gereng,” I called, walking up to the old man who was busy examining his fingernails like they were the most interesting thing in the world. “Could you renew my haste buff? It seems to be running out.”
The old man glared at me so hard, my clothes actually started smoking, but since it didn’t do any damage, I wasn’t super worried. After a couple seconds of trying to melt me into ash with his eyes, he grumbled loudly and waggled his fingers at me.
Surprisingly, instead of returning my duration back to the half hour mark, it went a little beyond, adding a half hour to the few minutes I had remaining. Well, that was certainly interesting. While I was sure there was a limit to how much haste I could stack at a time, it was nice to know it would stack.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I stepped back outside and made my way back toward the cache. As I did, I pulled out one of the goblin helmets from my inventory and examined it.
“Unidentified item. Identify to reveal hidden stats.” I sighed. Even the goblin’s helmets were unidentified. I’d hoped that they would just be identified since they seemed common, but no such luck. Still, even unidentified, the helmet offered me one armor.
Soulstone: Awakening: A LitRPG novel (World of Ruul Book 1) Page 6