Taylor spends the first few hours of the night thinking about his further plans, but eventually, unconsciousness takes his mind.
Suddenly, the black nothingness is replaced with flashing images and memories. At first, the images of the old house he used to live with his parents. Old, but comforting and beautiful. The images slowly move towards the frontal door of the house. The door suddenly slams open inside, and everything around takes a bright red coloring. Inside the house, there are dead soldiers, forests on fire, exploding tanks. These are the memories of the horrible days Taylor had to endure in Afghanistan years ago. The calmness of his mind is overtaken with anger and fear, and the images start shaking. All of a sudden, everything disappears into nothingness again. Just a cold, ever-present black void. It feels like hours, days, months pass, as Taylor's mind drifts through it. He feels calm and at peace.
Through this void, he starts seeing a small bead of light. Small, miserable, but warming. Taylor wants to touch it, embrace it, feel it. The image flashes and he suddenly stands in gray, barren wasteland, spreading miles across. And in the middle of it stand 3 large black towers, almost reaching into the skies. The image flashes, and then he stands on top of one of the towers, as he could see the wasteland around him. His attention shifts from the view to the form in front of him: a purple spherical mass, humming and spinning around itself, held in a large skeletal arm. Peaking through the mass, Taylor sees a deformed human face, horrible, but grinning. It stares right into his eyes, which causes immediate fear and danger in his heart. A cold sweat starts dripping down his back, as all of a sudden...
*THUMP*
All of the images fade, and Taylor wakes up from his sleep, back in reality. The howling and the savage sound of the wind, stronger than before, and the sound of thunder woke him up, but he was not aware of how long he had slept. Not having enough time to think, he instinctively bags his makeshift bedsheet of suit fabric, picks up his sword and starts rapidly making his way down the previous path.
-"This is not good, a storm so high in the mountains will cause landslides... I need to find a cave or some sort of shelter, but I can't go back to that monster. There is only one way out - down."
The path wasn't narrow per say, it was around 3 meters to the edge of the cliff, but it was still something to be concerned about in this heavy wind, so Taylor keeps his shoulder close to the mountain wall.
The visibility was even worse than before - he could see around 2 meters in front of him. Leaving his last shelter place 50 or so meters behind, there is another thunderous noise in the distance, which causes the mountain wall to shake. Taylor immediately puts his back against the wall in case of a landslide. A minute or so passes without an issue, and he continues to make his way down.
After 15 or so minutes, Taylor hears the faint clapping of wings. He goes prone into the snow and covers himself with white pieces of suit fabric. 20 or so seconds pass, as he notices a quite large white-skinned winged creature dives past him down below. He couldn't take a good look at it, but the cover he took seemed to work. The least he wants right now is to attract any unnecessary attention.
He stands up, packs back the fabric, cleans himself from snow and continues further down.
And again, there is a burst of light and a deafening thunderous sound, as a thunderbolt hits the side of the mountain he is closest to. The same moment Taylor pushes his back against the wall, as a large landslide is falling on the pathway from above. A couple of moments pass, as the landslides impacts with the stone path, making bits and pieces of stone to fall off with it, narrowing it even more. Taylor was caught in this mess, but, thankfully, managed to keep himself from sliding off the cliff. A moment of silence passes, as he crawls out of the snow, freezing cold. He quickly cleans himself up, and, seeing that parts of the stone path collapsed, he uses his sword to keep ensuring that the path in front of him is stable.
Starting to feel exhausted from the cold, Taylor keeps pushing forward. Eventually, he starts seeing an entrance to some sort of a cave on the side of the path. He ducks inside and behind the closest rock. The wind howling outside, but feeling safe, Taylor takes a deep breath. He made it to relative safety.
-"Now, this seems to lead somewhere further into the mountain. Maybe I'm lucky enough to find an abandoned fireplace or something, or is it going to be another monster?"- he thought to himself.
For it being relatively dark in the cave, Taylor takes a few minute break for his eyes to adjust the darkness. After that, he starts moving further in, whilst keeping close to the wall.
This cavern was not as big as the one he woke up in, it's around 6ft wide and 7ft tall, so Taylor, being 5,6ft tall, could almost touch the ceiling. As the light of the outside starts slowly disappearing behind him, he starts seeing another light ahead. This time, not sunlight, but something else.
Being unaware of what it is, Taylor ducks low and starts quietly approaching it. A couple of moments pass, as he starts seeing what seems to be a firelight.
-"A camp?... No, a torch!" -he noticed it as he got closer.
-"It's lit up, so it must mean somebody or something has been around here not too long ago. I should be careful extra careful for now" -he thinks to himself while tightening his grip on the sword.
He eventually passes the torch, which is hanging on the wall and hits a large wooden double door, which is blocking his way further. The door doesn't seem to have a doorknob, and it appears to be old and poorly made.
Taylor quietly tries pushing on the door, but it doesn't seem to budge. He then backs away around 15ft into the shadows, takes a small stone and throws it at the door. With an echoing impact, the stone hits the door and falls to the ground. Taylor patiently waits a couple of moments.
Then, the door starts slowly shifting and opening outward. And appearing from it is a small humanoid, green-skinned creature, in a set of old and ragged leather armor and with a shortsword drawn in his hand.
-"A...goblin? I've seen these creatures in fantasy movies and novels, but here? I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering the latest events, but...Alright, think. What am I going to get if I attack it? It's smaller than me, and it doesn't seem to notice me, so I can do it quick and silent. But if there are more inside, how am I going to go about it? Kill all of them? Or, maybe, talk with them, if they will even understand me..."
The goblin looks around the door and slowly starts heading back inside. At this moment, Taylor rushes forward to him without hesitation. Hearing the running sounds, the goblinoid creature turns around the check the source of the noise and notices Taylor running towards him, but it was too late. Davidson had already shortened the distance between them down to hand's reach, and the goblin's neck is snapped, as he falls down to the ground, lifeless.
-"Well, I didn't expect him to have the reaction time of a turtle. He didn't seem particularly smart either. Perhaps I could benefit from checking inside. Maybe, I can find some food, water, resources. This chocolate bar won't last me long." - thinks Taylor, as he pulls out the chocolate bar and takes a bite, still feeling hungry from not being able to eat due to the storm.
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Taking a bite of 1/3 of the chocolate bar, Taylor looks inside the door, stepping over the dead goblin's body. He could see a set of 2 torches on the side of the wall that were lighting up the cavern that was leading further down. Beside one of the torches there was a small wooden table with a wooden chair, and on the table, there was a small metal mug and a piece of half-eaten bread. Taylor pulls the goblin inside the room and closes the door behind him. Waiting a moment to see if anyone else is coming, he starts patting the goblin down without remorse. After all, he had killed a lot of people back in his days, and right now it is necessary to survive.
Eventually, Taylor finds a small leather pouch on the goblin's belt, which he takes and puts on the table. Untying the string holding it shut, he looks inside and finds 2 small shining silver-colored coins alongside with 12 extra copper-colored coins.
-"Coins? I'm guessing this is the local currency. And I can now be sure that this is not our world. I've studied history back in the day, and nowhere have I seen these kinds of engravings...And this language is quite unfamiliar to me. Either way, this might come in handy" - as he puts the coins in his pocket.
-"And a dagger? Looks rusty, but seems functional. I know how to use a military knife, so this is probably the closest thing I can find right now. Better off with this than a sword for now". -thinks Taylor as he continues searching the goblin.
Ugly-looking and smelly, the goblin didn't seem to have a lot on him. A shortsword, a dagger, and some coins. Taylor leaves his old shortsword on the table while holding the newly-obtained dagger in his right hand. Taking the half-eaten smelly bread with him, he continues further down the cave.
The silence of the place is not disturbed by Taylor, as he is taking slow and silent steps. Back in the day, he had multiple missions where his team had to do recon and blend into the enemy's lines, so keeping quiet and being decisive is familiar to him.
He passes multiple sets of torches, and after around 2-3 minutes he starts hearing multiple voices. He stops in the shadows and waits.
The sources of the voices seemed to be coming from around the corner of the cavern, around 20 or so feet away from Taylor. Trying to listen to the conversation, he didn't seem to understand a single word, and it sounded like multiple children speaking to each other. Taylor slowly proceeds further towards the sounds.
He makes it to the corner of the wall, where there is a small outcrop to the right, but the path still continues further in front of him. The outcrop seems to be where the voices are coming from.
Keeping himself in the darkness, he peeks around the corner and sees the image of 4 humanoids, looking similar to the one he had encountered. They are sitting around a campfire, and 2 of them seem to be tearing into pieces of raw bloodied meat. Taylor notices a small dead and butchered beast behind them, that he doesn't seem to recognize the nature of.
Being as unpleasant as it is, Taylor stays completely calm and doesn't flinch. There is a torch on the side of the outcropping, so he knows that if he tries passing further down, he would be seen by these creatures. So, he stays at the corner of the wall and waits.
15 or so minutes pass, as one of the creatures stands up after finishing his meal and starts heading in Taylor's direction. The other 3 seem to stay put and continue their conversation.
Taylor slowly backs off 10 or so feet back and waits silently in the shadows. The creature turns around the corner of the outcropping and keeps heading his direction. Being 5 or so feet away from Taylor, he doesn't seem to notice any danger.
Suddenly, a hand grabs the creature's small head and pulls it towards it. The creatures gets spun around and gets his mouth heavily blocked by a large hand. And, almost in an instant, his throat gets slit. Taylor silently pulls the body to the shadows and puts it down. The other 3, which were about 15ft away from where this happened, didn't seem to notice anything. Taylor rapidly moves towards the corner again and starts waiting for a better moment.
A couple of minutes again pass, and one of the 3 creatures stands up and goes toward the dead creature behind them to take another piece of meat. The other 2 are talking to each other, one of them is facing towards Taylor and one of them away.
As one of them kneels down near the dead creature, with his back towards the pathway, Taylor had already started his assault. Holding the dagger, he runs over to the one facing away from him and snaps his neck. Seeing this, and having a little bit of time to react, the goblin facing towards Taylor jumps up and unsheathes his sword. With this commotion, the creature at the dead beast also turns around, but having little time to react, gets a quick stab in the throat, falling unconscious. Now there was only 1 goblin and Taylor left, facing each other.
The remaining goblin lunges his sword towards his enemy, but Taylor manages to dodge to the side. Using this opening to strike, he lunges forward with his dagger, but the goblin managed to parry it and launches an immediate counterattack. Unexpected from the speed of this one, Taylor had clearly underestimated the power of these creatures in close combat. The sword managed to cut a wound at Taylor's left arm. Resisting the pain and using this opening, Taylor swiftly strikes the dagger at the goblin's head, which firmly stuck inside the skull. The creature fell to the floor, lifeless.
The pain was sipping in, and blood was dripping down Taylor's arm, but he was not wasting time. He pulls the shirt he was wearing apart and starts wrapping it around his wound. He ties it up firmly and starts quickly rummaging through the dead bodies and the whole place for anything useful. He still was keeping in mind that he has a stimulant left, but he wanted to save it for a completely dire situation. For now, regardless of it being painful, the wound was not lethal and it could heal itself with proper medication.
Calming his mind again, he gathers the things he had found. 2 more silver pieces and 5 copper pieces, alongside with 2 daggers, 4 short swords and around 7ft of rope. He piles the 4 bodies together and takes the 2 daggers with the coins and wraps the rope around his waist.
-"Well, that was unexpected. My recklessness has put me in this situation. If I don't find proper bandages or medication soon, I will catch a disease. And I don't have time for rest right now".
Leaving the outcropping behind him he continues further down the cave.
With the pain getting worse and worse, he stayed calm and silent, whilst making sure he was not leaving a blood trail behind him. He starts noticing that the path is leading down the mountain, which he was hoping for.
Past the outcropping, there were no torches, so he had to slow down and keep close to the wall, not to attract any attention. After an hour or so of not encountering anybody, he notices that on the side of the path there is a large rock. Quickly inspecting it, he notices scratch marks at the bottom of it and clues that lead him to believe that this was purposefully pushed here by somebody or something. And indeed, taking a closer look at the sides of it, he notices that there is an opening in the wall that this rock is blocking.
Hoping to find shelter, Taylor puts down his daggers and, using his stronger arm and the weight of his body, he starts pushing the boulder away. He was pretty well-built, but the wound was making him slower and weaker. But, eventually, he pushes the rock to the side, just enough for him to pass through.
He crouches past it and enters a small, 4ft wide and 4ft tall room, which was too small for him to stand up, so he had to crouch. In this room, he noticed piled on top of each other 2 skeletal bodies: one of them dressed in old ragged black leathers and the other one - in rusty metal plates. As Taylor noticed them, the stench hit him as well.
-"Looks like I'm going to spend some time with you two, I'm sorry for intruding." - he thinks to himself, jokingly.
Crawling fully inside, Taylor unpacks his makeshift bedsheet and sits on it, while taking a short rest. Thinking about his further plans and calculating possibilities, he eyes down the 2 skeletal bodies and sees a small backpack that is underneath them. He pushed himself towards it, pulled away the bodies and started looking through this old, dusted leather backpack. On the inside, he found a rotten apple, a piece of parchment with something written on it that he couldn't understand and a dusted blue robe, that he pulled out and ripped apart for some bandages.
Replacing his bloodied shirt that he used to cover the wound with fresh robe bandages, he takes a couple of minutes in silence and rests. He feels that the wound on his arm is gradually starting to heal itself, in a very rapid and unusual for a human way. Noticing this, he couldn't help but be confused, but grateful for whatever phenomenon this might me. Maybe its the God helping him, although Taylor did not believe in one himself.
10 or so minutes of his rest pass, as Davidson starts hearing multiple quiet footsteps coming his way, alongside with a set of heavy and loud ones. He immediately grabs onto his daggers and waits.