It wasn’t uncommon for a lone bugbear or orc to take command of a goblin tribe. It wasn’t difficult. They just challenged the leader and killed him. Then they promised the tribe riches, food or loot and generally they were made chief. Was that what had happened here? Something more intelligent had taken over? Or had they simply found the cabin abandoned and built up the goblin village around it?
“That seems like a lot of goblins,” Charlena whispered to him.
Jace nodded. “Too many for us to take in a frontal assault. Plus, I think someone else might be leading them.”
“Something else,” she gave him a worried look. “Like what?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “An orc, a bugbear, heck, it could even be an ogre.”
Charlena went pale. “An ogre? Aren’t they like… really big and mean?”
“Ogres aren’t all big and mean.” He smiled. “They have layers.”
“Layers?” Charlena asked dubiously.
Jace shook his head. “Never mind. The point is, we need to do some recon before we attack.”
“Darn it!” Charlena said. “I’m going to need to go soon.”
Jace looked around and realized it had gotten dark at some point. With his Cat-Vision, he hadn’t even noticed.
“Can we wait until tomorrow to attack them?” she asked hopefully.
“Of course,” he told her.
“Great!” she said and leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Then realizing what she had done, she blushed. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow after school.”
And with that, she faced away leaving Jace alone. Well, almost alone. He looked down at Luna. “You’re still with me, right girl?”
“Yes.”
Jace started walking back towards where the trail had first met the river. He was nearly there when the ground gave way beneath him and he was falling.
Chapter 30
After falling for what seemed like a minute but was in reality probably only a few seconds, Jace hit the ground with bone jarring force. He felt Luna land gingerly on top of him before hopping off and coming around to sniff his face.
You take 10 falling damage.
You are Stunned for 30 seconds.
“Summoner okay?” the cat asked him.
Since he was stunned, Jace couldn’t speak. In fact, he couldn’t do anything physical. Remembering their telepathic link, he replied. “I’ll be okay. Just stunned for a bit.”
Luna sat down near his head. Effectively paralyzed, Jace could only lay there at the bottom of what he guessed was a pit. He had ended up face down so for the moment, his view consisted of the dirt floor.
Jace cursed his luck. Of all the things, he had fallen into a pit trap. A pit dug by goblins no less? He’d gotten so used to Mordred’s detect traps ability, he hardly gave traps a thought any longer. He needed to hit rogue level 5 before he’d get that ability. It couldn’t come quick enough in his mind.
A thought occurred to him then. The goblins in this area should be low level. They shouldn’t even be digging pits! Then again, they also shouldn’t be building log cabins either. Was there some other higher level monster running the tribe? That possibility was looking more and more likely.
You are no longer Stunned.
After what seemed like an eternity, Jace could move again. His health was already starting to regenerate and he felt the all too familiar pain that accompanied it. Jace felt like every bone in his body had been broken and were now putting themselves back together. Along with the pain, Jace still felt that nagging sensation that seemed to be drawing him towards the village.
Standing up, Jace looked around the pit, because it was definitely a pit. It was too square shaped to be some random random sinkhole. That meant, the goblins really had dug it and there was most likely a more intelligent and probably higher level monster leading them.
Jace didn’t like that idea at all. A tribe of goblins would be hard enough for the two of them to handle. If there was some other boss, one that was showing how to make traps and fortify their village, then this quest just got much more complicated - and dangerous.
Luna suddenly hissed and Jace looked up to see two goblin heads poking over the side of the pit.
“Hey,” said one of them. “Dat not deer or pig, dat human!”
“Hoo-mon?” said the other as it squinted down. “Dey good eatin?”
“Me not know,” the first shot back.
“We kill it?” the second one asked.
“Um,” the first one looked doubtful. “We need ask Big Cheese!”
“Yah,” agreed the other. “Not kill without Big Cheese.”
Big Cheese? Was that the name of the leader? What kind of monster had a name of Big Cheese? Or was that just how the goblins pronounced it.
“I want to speak to Big Cheese!” Jace called up to him.
“Ah!” screamed the first one. “It speaks! It speaks!”
“Hoo-mons speak?” asked the second one, wide-eyed. “Maybe it not hoo-mon. Maybe it baby ogre?”
The first squinted down at him. “Nah. Too ugly to be ogre.”
“You shuddup!” yelled the first. “You not talk Big Cheese.”
“Not less Big Cheese want talk you!” nodded the second.
The two goblins looked at each other. Almost in unison they said. “We tell Big Cheese.”
As quickly as they had appeared, the goblins disappeared from view and Jace was left alone. “Hey! Let me out! I want to speak with Big Cheese!”
There was no reply. Jace wasn’t sure what to do. Not that there was much he could do. If the creatures came back and killed him, his body would most likely be irretrievable. If they took him into the village to see this “Big Cheese” monster and he died in the village, his body would definitely be irretrievable. Either prospect didn’t sound appealing.
He looked around for anything he could try and throw his rope around but found nothing. He started to panic. He couldn’t afford to lose all of his money and items - especially the rapier he’d gotten from Crystalburrow. Jace knew he wouldn’t be finding anything like that any time soon.
Suddenly he thought of a desperate plan, but he needed to be fast. He used his hands to dig a small hole in the button of the pit.
Next, he removed his rapier, the rat fang dagger and his coins and placed them in the hole. Then, he placed the jerkin he’d gotten from the mayor and the bracers from Charlena into his shallow hole. Those were the most important items he had, and he quickly piled dirt on them and patted them down. After covering them up, he smoothed out the dirt the best he could to make it look as natural as possible.
If one of the goblins came down and searched, they’d probably find it and they’d be able to take it since it wasn’t on his body. He would just have to take that chance since the alternative involved him losing it as well. At least this way, he had a chance.
He equipped his old tattered jerkin, so it didn’t look obvious that he had taken off some of his equipment. He also equipped his original dagger. It was battered but was better than not having any weapon.
There was a commotion above him, and several goblin heads appeared over the lip of the pit.
“Yah,” said a goblin he hadn’t seen before. It had some sort of pattern painted on its face and wore a feather headdress. “Dat a hoo-mon. Big Cheese say bring him.”
Jace heard muttering between the goblins and then they retreated, and a thin pine trunk was lowered down into the pit. The branches had been hacked away after a few inches but there were enough of them that they could be used to climb up. Seeing no real alternative and wanting to keep the goblins from climbing down and finding his loot, he grabbed Luna and climbed up.
“Oh,” said one. “Cat! Good eatin!”
“No!” said the goblin in the headdress. “Take to Big Cheese. Him decide.”
Jace relaxed. He had been about to blast the cat-eating goblin in the face with a Flame Bolt. He wasn’t about to let them hurt Luna. And they certainly couldn’t eat
her. Even if they killed her, she’d fade away.
Reaching the top, he was immediately seized by several goblins and his hands were bound by roughly made rope. They tried to grab Luna but she darted away with feline grace and ran into the woods.
“Let it go,” the painted goblin barked. “We have hoo-mon. We take to Big Cheese.”
The goblin with the headdress, which Jace’s HUD identified as Forest Goblin Shaman, led them back towards the village. Four other goblins surrounded him as they walked, occasionally prodding him with a spear. While he walked, Jace could once again feel the pulling sensation getting stronger, the closer he got to the goblin settlement.
Before he knew it, they had reached the village and he was ceremoniously marched through the makeshift gate. Goblins gathered around to watch him as they paraded Jace up the hill. When they reached the log cabin, they stopped and did a special knock on the door. Jace raised an eyebrow. Was that ‘Shave and a Haircut’?
Before Jace had time to think about it, the door opened. The goblins behind him prodded him forward with their spear tips and he had no choice but to step into the log cabin. He would have entered anyway since whatever the pulling sensation was, it was coming from inside.
Stepping inside was like leaving the goblin village behind and stepping into a completely different area. The inside of the smoke filled room was draped with silks and other expensive cloth, giving it an exotic look. On the floor were carpets and pillows that no goblin had made and in the center was what looked like a home-made hookah.
Lounging around the room in various states of undress were what Jace guessed were goblin women. Jace could only tell they were female because of their, in some cases very large, breasts. Most of them had long hair, but not necessarily and longer than the bushy manes some of the males sported.
His attention was drawn to a large, human sized chair on the far end of the cabin. Like the rest of the items in this room, it was most likely stolen from a caravan. But it wasn’t the chair that grabbed his attention. It was the creature that sat on it.
Seated on the chair was what appeared to be a normal goblin. And while it looked like any other goblin, it was wearing what Jace guessed was a child’s navy silk bathrobe. On the goblin’s fingers were gold rings, many of them jeweled, and around its neck were a dozen thin golden chains. On the goblin’s head was what appeared to be a crudely hammered crown. In all his years of playing the game, he had never seen anything so ridiculous.
“Oh Great Big Cheese!” said the shaman, bowing low to the goblin in the chair. “I bring the talking hoo-mon as you ordered!”
The “Big Cheese” sat in his chair holding a long tube from the hookah. He looked Jace over, mumbling something quietly to himself. Then he took a long draw from the hookah before dropping the tube and hopping to his feet.
As the goblin leader approached him, Jace continued to hear the thing mutter softy to itself. He also noticed something else. The goblin leader was the source of the pulling sensation. The thing he felt drawn to.
Big Cheese walked over to him, stopping in front of him to look Jace up and down. “Hmmm.” The goblin leader then slowly walked around him, continuing to look him up and down. “Mmm..hmm.”
The leader made a complete circuit around Jace before coming to a halt in front of him. The little goblin turned to regard him.
“So,” the Big Cheese said. “You’re the human who can speak goblin, huh?” The goblin leader looked at him expectantly. Just under his breath, he heard the goblin mutter. “Tell us.”
He wasn’t sure what the muttering was about. Was the goblin leader saying it under his breath so only Jace would hear? Was that some message to him, telling him this goblin was a player too?
Jace had already put two and two together. Given everything he was seeing in this room, the log cabin and spiked walls goblins shouldn’t be able to build, Jace knew this goblin had to be a player. He couldn’t think of any other rational explanation for the strange things he was seeing.
“Yes, I’m a player like you,” he told the goblin.
“A player,” repeated the goblin. “It wants us to believe it’s a player.” The goblin’s right eye twitched as it spoke. “It thinks it can fool us? Kill us? Force us into a new body?”
Jace shook his head. “No, I can help you.”
“Help us,” the goblin cackled. “Help us? Help the Big Cheese? The Big Enchilada? The Head Honcho? It thinks it can help us?” The goblin looked at him suspiciously then began to shake its head violently. “No! No! No! It wants to kill us! Send us somewhere else! That’s what the players do! They kill us! Over and over and over again!”
Jace tried to back away, but the goblins behind him prodded him with their spears, forcing him to stay in place.
The goblin leader was holding its head in its hands now, rocking back and forth. “They kill us! Force us to jump! One body! Two bodies! A thousand bodies! No more! No, now we stay! No more!”
“I know how to make you human again,” Jace told him. “It worked for me…”
“Lies!” the Big Cheese spat. “Lies from players! Death from players! That’s what players do! Kill us! Kill us over and over!”
“Not anymore!” the creature screamed, it’s eyes wide now, spittle flying from its mouth. “Never again! It won’t kill us!”
Suddenly it straightened, its face a mask of calm once more. “No. No more killing us. Now we kill players and take their loot when their bodies expire.”
Calmly, as if signaling a waiter to stop over at his table, he gestured to the guards. Immediately Jace felt the spears thrust into him. Somewhere not too far away, he heard a cat howl. The goblins stabbed him over and over until his body collapsed and he was in spirit form looking down at his corpse.
You have died.
He looked at the Big Cheese as the goblin climbed back into his makeshift throne and realized the truth. This player was insane.
Shaking his head, he chose the option to respawn.
Chapter 31
Jace gasped as he reappeared in the Sinking Springs graveyard. It was dark out and without the Cat-Vision he received from Luna, the darkness was oppressive. In addition, he was naked except for his loincloth and the cool night air chilled him to the bone.
He quickly resummoned Luna, giving her as much health and mana as he could despite the pain it caused him. As usual, the energy flowed out of him and formed into the familiar shape of an orange tabby cat.
“Summoner die?” the cat asked him when she reappeared.
“Yes. The goblin leader killed me.”
“Bad goblin,” she said angrily.
“Yes, bad goblin,” he smiled and scratched Luna’s head. He remembered back to the goblin’s rantings. He had no idea how long the person had been in the game, leaping from body to body as he was killed, but it must have driven the person insane. “Crazy goblin.”
Thinking about the crazy goblin, Jace remembered his equipment he’d hidden. He needed to get his stuff before one of the goblins found it. “I need to get back to that pit. Do you remember where it was? Can you lead me back to it?”
That cat sat back on its haunches and wrapped its tail around itself. In a very smug tone it replied, “Yes.”
Jace didn’t wait for his mana and health to replenish, they could regenerate on the way. He and Luna ran off towards the goblin village with his familiar in the lead. Without boots, every step hurt as the stones, twigs and sticks dug into his feet. Unfortunately, he had no choice but to endure the pain and kept pace with Luna.
Before long, they had passed the farms and were running down the rocky trail Jace and Charlena had followed earlier. It didn’t take long before Luna slowed and began sniffing. She stopped and looked back at him. “Hole.”
Jace looked closely in front of the cat until he was able to see the dimensions of the pit. He had to admit, it was cleverly hidden. It was no wonder he’d missed it before. He looked over the entire area and found a piece of twine tied to several metal cu
ps. The twine ran across the pit and he guessed the metal cups would make noise when someone fell into the pit. It had probably done the same earlier but he’d been too busy falling to remember it.
Very carefully, he untied the cups from the twine that connected them to the pit and put them in his inventory. Next, he searched the area for a log the goblins had used to get him out of the pit. He didn’t find it and guessed they must have carried it from the village.
Without the goblin’s makeshift ladder, Jace had to search for nearly half an hour before he found a large branch that was adequate. After dragging it to the edge of the pit, he pushed it in and tested it before climbing down.
At the bottom of the pit, Jace dug into the ground and started to panic when he didn’t immediately find them. He expanded digging and finally found them. He spent several minutes digging everything up and placing it in his inventory. Once he had everything, he climbed back up the branch.
Jace walked over to the river and washed off his gear before equipping his breastplate and bracers. They were cold on his skin but he didn’t care. He just felt better having some of his equipment back. He was just glad Charlena wasn’t here because he looked absolutely ridiculous with nothing but a breastplate, bracers and a loincloth.
He shivered and realized he needed to get some more equipment. Of course, the only way to get more equipment was to buy it tomorrow in the village or get it off a monster. Jace glanced back at the hill with the goblin camp and smiled. He had an entire village of monsters. He just needed to figure out how to get a few of them alone.
Looking at the pit below him, he got an idea. He pulled the branch out of the pit and dragged it a few dozen yards away. Next, he used a leafy branch to wipe his tracks away. He found a good hiding spot between the pit and the goblin camp. When he was ready, he took the cups from his inventory and shook them around to make a clanging noise. Now, he just needed to wait.
VEIL Online - Book 1 Page 20