A couple of dead goblins on the ground in the middle of the clearing with blood pooled around their bodies showed the fight wasn’t going in the goblins’ favor. A couple of Horizon Dawn people in noob Horizon Dawn gear stood over those goblin bodies with weapons drawn.
"Bastards," I said, reacting on instinct.
I didn't pull out a fireball or a sword or a bow and arrow or anything like that. All I had was my crafting ability, and a group of obliging enemies standing close enough to each other and far enough from the goblins for this to work.
I pulled out a water gem and infused it with fire. My mana drained and the gem was glowing before I had time to think about what I was doing or how stupid it was.
"Shit," Kris said, loud enough that it could be heard in the clearing.
The goblins turned their heads first, no doubt wondering if there was fresh trouble heading their way, and then the Horizon Dawn pricks turned in the direction the goblins were looking.
"Damn it," Keia hissed. "What are you…"
Her eyes went wide as I held up the water gem infused with the fire spell. She'd seen the aftermath of that often enough that she knew exactly what was happening.
“Throw it!" she shouted, apparently not even caring that the Horizon people might overhear her now that she was in close proximity to a crafting gem with dangerously explosive fail state.
I did what the pretty girl asked. I might not have jack shit in terms of actual combat abilities, but I’d gotten pretty good at doing an underhanded grenade toss with these gems. The thing landed in the middle of the Horizon Dawn patrol, but this time their reaction was way different from the last few times this happened.
"Holy shit!"
Presumably the one who shouted was someone who’d been in the last unfortunate group to be destroyed by one of my gems. Their eyes went wide with the sort of look that said they weren’t sure whether they should try to run from the inevitable or soil their armor.
In the end it didn't matter that one of the assholes knew what was coming. There was no way they could get away in time. I’d waited long enough before tossing the gem that no amount of running would save them from getting blown to tiny little bits.
The goblins, at least, seemed to realize what was happening. They hit the deck and covered their heads, looking for all the world like the goblin equivalent of a bunch of troops in an old World War II movie or something. Which would've been kind of comical if it wasn't immediately followed by Keia yanking me down as a small crater was created in the forest floor that sent bits of Horizon Dawn bodies going every which way.
60
Old Friends
The explosion rocked the clearing. Something went whizzing through the air over my head and landed with a loud thunk. I turned in that direction and saw a chunk of armor stuck to a tree.
If Keia hadn’t pulled me down then that armor would’ve hit me. That would’ve hurt. Assuming it didn’t knock me out.
She looked at me with an “I told you so” expression.
“I never said anything,” I said.
“You were thinking annoyed thoughts when I yanked you down,” she said with a smile.
“I might be guilty as charged on that one,” I said.
More stuff plinked down. It sounded like when hail hit the big windows that ran along the length of our level in the arcology, but then stuff started landing with a smack. I looked at something that slammed into a tree next to us and felt sick as I realized I was looking at chunks of Horizon Dawn assholes.
“That’s disgusting,” Kris said, appearing through the underbrush down on her belly.
“You’ll get no disagreement from me on that,” I said.
“They had it coming,” Keia said.
“You’ll also get no disagreement from me on that,” I said.
“Let’s get a look at what damage we just did,” Keia said. “Stay frosty. We might have to take out stragglers.”
I had a feeling she’d be taking out most of the stragglers, but it was nice of her to act like we were contributing. Well, contributing above and beyond that explosion.
Though as I got to my feet it became obvious I’d done all the heavy lifting and there’d be no need for mopping up.
The explosion had knocked out the main group. Which made sense considering I’d tossed the gem right in the middle of them. I wondered how long it’d be before they realized it wasn't a good idea to continue standing grouped together like that while they were out on patrol, whether or not they thought I was in the area.
I wasn’t knocking it that they were still obliging me by creating a convenient target, but I also knew that even idiots like Horizon Dawn weren’t likely to keep that up forever.
The other two, the ones who'd been standing between the two groups looking like a bunch of kittens learning how to hunt while the mama cats watched, hadn’t been close enough to the explosion to get killed for all that they weren’t in nicer gear.
They looked really confused. Though the concussion from the exploding gem might’ve had something to do with that confusion.
My stomach was already turning from the results of the explosion, but seeing what these pricks had been doing before they got blown up was enough to make me want to puke up my guts.
This wasn’t even a fight. No, we’d stumbled across a group of higher skilled guild members watching the lower skilled guild members doing their worst to the goblins and building up their skills in the process. That filled me with a rage that made me glad I’d just blown the assholes up.
Luckily for me, though probably not for them considering what I was about to do to them, the noob assholes doing the attacking were still alive. Dazed, but still alive. I was about to palm another gem when revenge was taken out of my hands.
"Fuck Horizon!" Kris bellowed, barreling out of the underbrush and towards the surviving Horizon people with her two-handed warhammer raised high.
The goblins looked at her in terror, but that terror only lasted for as long as it took for Kris’s hammer to come down on the head of one of the Horizon Dawn people who was just starting to blink and look around with something other than dazed confusion.
The hammer slammed into the asshole’s head and it squashed like a watermelon. I winced. That was gratuitously violent, but about par for the course compared to all the other gratuitously violent stuff I’d seen since starting this game.
That shit was bound to give someone PTSD at some point as realistic as it all was. I wondered how long it was going to be before the first lawsuits started coming along accusing Lotus of creating psychological damage with their hyperrealistic gore.
"Gross," I said.
The second Horizon noob managed to pull their sword out and slammed it yp to block Kris’s hammer as she whirled it around and targeted them, but the sheer momentum of the two-handed warhammer combined with Kris’s fury was far greater than any stopping power the sword could provide.
The Horizon prick took a hit to the shoulder which sent him spinning around. But not before he managed to get a shot at Kris’s shoulder which caused her to bellow in rage as one hand dropped the warhammer.
That might’ve put a cramp in the fight, but that shot to her shoulder was enough to enrage her. A red glow surrounded her, looking for all the world like a character charging up in an anime or something, and she wheeled that warhammer, usually designed for two-handed use, around with her working arm and slammed it into the Horizon noob a second and a third time, until their body started to decompose and disappear in midair where they stood rather than falling to the ground and decomposing like one might expect.
A glow sparkled across Kris’s shoulder knitting up the wound there as she stared around the clearing with murder in her eyes. I guess all that healing practicing she and Keia had been doing paid off.
I walked up and touched Kris on the shoulder, and almost had my head taken off as she wheeled around and stopped just short of slamming the hammer into my head.
"Easy there,” I said. "I'm pretty sure
you got’em.”
Kris stood there for a moment looking like a vengeful mountain of a God brought to life, her shoulders heaving, then she laughed and let her hammer drop. Her face split into a grin as she looked down at the damage she’d caused.
"I guess I did get them, didn't I?"
"You should probably start gathering those chests," I said. "I'm not sure where their respawn point is out here, but it's probably close enough that they can get here pretty quick."
"It's over at the entrance to the raid dungeon quarry,” Keia said. “The respawn point is supposed to be surrounded by nasty monsters since, y’know, it’s supposed to be a raid dungeon, but they cleared out the area so thoroughly that they can safely respawn there to their heart’s content.”
"Right," I said. "All the more reason to get the hell out of here while the getting's good. They’re gonna raise the alarm and bring a world of hurt down on us.”
"You've convinced me," Kris said.
“I told you this was a bad idea,” Keia said.
“Was it?” I said, jerking my head towards the sheer rock wall and the goblins standing there looking astonished that they’d been saved.
Keia looked to the goblins who still cowered against the wall. I wondered why they were cowering, but then it hit me exactly what was going on. They saw humans and they thought we were there to kill them just the same as those Horizon Dawn sons of bitches.
Which, given the experience the poor things had no doubt had ever since Horizon Dawn came into their world, made a sad and twisted sort of sense. Player characters appearing had upended the world as they knew it even if that world had only technically come into existence a couple of months ago. From the goblins’ point of view, their world had been a going concern for eternity, and now a bunch of strangers were coming along to screw it up.
So it was only natural they’d be a little timorous around more obvious player character humans. They had no way of knowing we weren’t like the usual Horizon Dawn assholes.
"We're here to help," I said. "We need to get out of here. Those assholes are going to be back, and they’ll bring reinforcements.”
The goblins stared at the three of us. Then looked to each other. They said a few short words in a language I couldn't quite follow.
Finally the goblins turned to us. One of them stepped forward from behind two that’d been between it and the Horizon people, then between it and me. The goblin looked up at me, then to Kris. The thing smiled.
"You!" it said.
"Yes, me," I said, feeling a bit confused. "What do…"
Then something struck me about the goblin. Or rather the goblin struck me. It leapt at me in something I thought was an attack at first, but it's not like I had any way to defend myself even if I was under attack. Then tiny arms wrapped around me and I realized the motion was something that felt familiar in addition to the goblin looking familiar. It pulled back and grinned up at me after it’d finished using me as an improvised jungle gym.
"You!" I said. “Kris! It’s Rezzik! The goblin we saved the first day we were in the game!”
“I seem to recall I was the one who did most of the saving,” Keia muttered.
"No shit?" Kris asked.
"No shit!" I said. "I'd recognize that hug anywhere! Too many claws attached to it. How have you been?"
It struck me just how ridiculous it was to be talking to a goblin like we were old friends. We’d only met the one time, and the little guy had been fleeing in terror from a bunch of Horizon Dawn assholes chasing after it. Not exactly the kind of situation that was good for sitting down and getting to know someone.
Though I figured that also meant this was the second time we’d saved this particular goblin from a bunch of Horizon Dawn assholes chasing after it, and this time around I was the one who’d done the saving instead of sitting back and letting Keia do all the real work then somehow getting the faction bonus at the end.
The thing looked up at me and grinned. "You saved me! You saved me again!"
I blinked at that, and then felt a little weird. After all, what was I expecting? Broken English from the thing?
I figured that was yet another example of vicious stereotypes about goblins that I was unconsciously perpetuating. Then I thought about how ridiculous it was that I was getting upset with myself for stereotyping a fictional creature.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to play along with the fictional creature. Not when these fictional creatures had saved my bacon more than once since that first rescue on our first day.
Not to mention the more time I spent around these NPCs the more I was starting to think of them as living and breathing creatures and not as code meant to look like living and breathing creatures.
I really had to ask Trelor how intelligent the artificial intelligences in this game actually were.
"I guess we did save you," I said. "So you're welcome?"
"Come with us," the goblin said, looking to its two companions.
Rezzik’s companions looked less than pleased at the idea of bringing a couple of humans along with them wherever they were going. Not that I could blame them. No, if they'd had a bunch of humans doing nothing but trying to kill them then it made sense that they’d be gun shy about inviting three more humans to join them on a retreat from Horizon held territory. Even though they were fantasy creatures in a fantasy computer game who had no idea what guns were so gun shy might not be the best choice of words.
Though I found myself wondering if there was a way I could make long range firearms happen with the clever application of some Spellcrafting. I’d already figured out a way to craft grenades in this world, after all. Though I figured the jury was still out on whether or not that was something that would be taken out in a future patch once the devs realized what I was doing.
Then again if Trelor was there to stop them from patching it out, just like he’d gone to bat for the potions I’d made, who knew what was possible?
"We were actually on our way to one of the mines," I said. “I don’t suppose you three were headed in that direction?”
That elicited hisses from the goblins traveling with Rezzik. This time they looked openly hostile and reached for the weapons they'd lowered when it became clear we weren't going to try and kill them.
It seemed they’d changed their minds about our intentions once I made it clear we were going to the mines. Given the number of goblins who’d been slaughtered at those mines I couldn’t blame them.
I held my hands up, though I was well aware that holding my hands up wasn’t going to do a damn bit of good to stop them if they decided they were going to rough us up.
All I could do was hope Kris and Keia would be able to stop them before they got too far into turning me into a living pincushion.
“I promise you we’re not going there to kill goblins. We need access to a forge,” I said. "Horizon Dawn won't let us use the one in town and I really need access to crafting facilities. The ones in the ring mines were the only others in the area that came to mind.”
The two heavily armed goblins exchanged glances. There was something to those glances that had a glimmer of hope rising in me. Like they knew something and didn’t want to let it on to the humans.
“Do you have access to a forge? It doesn’t even have to be in the mines. It’d actually be better if it wasn’t in the mines so we don’t have to worry about a Horizon Dawn patrol taking us out while I’m in the middle of crafting some expensive shit.”
Maybe they had a forge, and maybe they didn’t. At the very least I figured it didn’t hurt to make conversation that avoided the subject of the mines. A conversation about crafting was a conversation that wouldn't potentially result in me getting poked and prodded by some very nasty looking goblin swords.
Those things might be comically undersized, built to fit goblin sized hands, but I figured that wouldn't make them hurt any less once they were forcefully introduced to my internal organs.
A comically undersized goblin sword, after
all, was about the size of a nice big kitchen knife, the weapon of choice of crazed slashers since time immemorial in horror movies. Not to mention I’d seen the results when the goblins went to work on Torian.
"Come with us," Rezzik said, glaring at the other two like he was challenging them to say something. "We can help you. I promise! I’ll pay you back."
The two as yet unnamed goblins stared blankly at me. I was a little worried. These goblins looked like they had no love for humans. They seemed like they’d be more than happy to poke us with their weapons given half a chance. Whatever mojo I’d worked with the goblin guards in town clearly didn’t extend to whatever faction they were a part of.
It was the sound of someone, or rather a large party of someones, crashing through the woods that decided things. I looked to Keia and Kris. Their eyes went wide. Whoever was crashing through the woods, they were close enough for me and Kris to hear.
That meant we were all in potentially deep shit. Goblin and human alike.
"Whoever we just killed must’ve told another patrol we were out here," Keia said. "We need to go. Now."
61
Escape to the Underground
Rezzik turned to the other two goblins who were dragging their feet glaring at us and barked out a couple of words in that language I didn’t recognize. Whatever he said, it was enough to get them to put their weapons back in their scabbards.
“We’re going now,” Rezzik said. “You should come with us. This area is full of enemies.”
One of the goblins turned and ran a hand along the sheer rock wall they’d been up against. The rock face rumbled and a moment later it pulled up revealing a secret passage that led down into a creepy dark cave.
My eyebrows shot up. They'd been so close and yet so far from safety the entire time they were under attack from Horizon Dawn.
It made sense that the goblins would have a way to get around this area that didn’t involve traveling on the surface. There had to be some way for them to keep returning to the mines Horizon was continually clearing.
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