~Mazoga~

Eight bounced off the wall with a resounding thud, bounced a few more times on the ground, and then rolled across the hard, cold stone floor, coming to rest near the trash bin. Scuttle stood outside the doorway, awaiting his master’s next order as he listened to the cowardly Banthua rush to hide. The bug was half the size of his fist and had intelligent eyes on the for-end of its chitinous body. If one looked closely, they would see a preternatural reddish tinge to its body. Mazoga invested some very rare materials into his creation and was pleased with the results. As far as assistants go, the cockroach was the leagues beyond any skimpy dressed nitwit he’d had pre-ascension. Lilly had been close to Scuttle’s level, but she’d spilled his coffee twice. Stupid bitch. Will she come to Baherune as a player? She wouldn’t file harassment claims here.

Mazoga forced a few deep breaths. Things had not gone according to plan. The damned order initiates had failed him. He gripped the pedestal top hard enough that his joints popped. Despite the setback, he thought, routines have to be followed. In a somewhat surprising display of self-control, Mazoga retrieved Eight, placed him on the pedestal, and completed his normal sanctuary routine before joining Scuttle at the door.

“How did this escape me for the last 20 years?” Mazoga asked. Scuttle knew better than to respond and shuffled alongside his master as he talked to himself. “Damned Deepirons. A god being bested by NPCs. Advanced NPCs for certain, but still fucking NPCs! I want that soul!” His hand reached for his packet of Big League Chew, patting where his jeans pocket would have been several times before the current reality asserted itself again.

As he strode into his laboratory, he opened a cage, not caring which one. The small animal known as a reni was like what he had called a house cat before ascending. This one was a long-haired variant, it’s orange and white fur made it seem larger than it was. He enjoyed the hairless variety. As a Goblin, he felt he related to them more. Mazoga appreciated them as test subjects. Unlike cats, who could be playful and engage in recreational activity, reni focused solely on the hunt. They had no time for distractions or fun.

The more ways that he could enhance these specimens, the stronger his forces would be. He’d always considered himself more of a cat person than a dog one. Even as a child, he’d conducted experiments on them. As a child, one of his first scientific accomplishments was the realization that animals can’t breathe underwater. Fluffy, his elderly neighbor’s cat, had offered to assist him in his quest for knowledge. He’d lasted a whole two minutes before expiring. He’d also learned to wear long sleeves when working. Luckily, he had explained the scratches away as something he’d gotten rolling around on a playground. After that, he’d used bailing wire from his dad’s garage to hold his experiments steady. Cats weren’t strong enough to break that, no matter how much they struggled.

Mazoga prepped his workstation. He’d always done his best thinking while distracted by a mindless project. Mazoga completed a mental checklist: forceps, retractor, scalpel, curette, scissors, trocar, clamps, and trays. As he arranged his tools and other supplies, the reni made its way towards the exit door. Mazoga still marveled at its silent movement and again remembered why he’d chosen it as the Banthua’s progenitor.

Just as the reni thought it had found its escape, and hope blossomed in its mind, Mazoga levitated it onto the workbench with a flick of his wrist. No bailing wire anymore. With another flick, he had it secured to the workbench with thick leather straps and picked up his syringe of paralytic. He smiled as he injected the animal. This was a special concoction of his. It would remove the ability to move yet keep the Reni awake, aware, and able to feel. He could have learned so much more from Fluffy here in Baherune with his current tools. Sighing in remembrance of his loss, he refocused his mind on the task at hand. Mazoga felt a tingle run up his spine as the creature’s pupils dilated as its brain registered the danger. His lips curled up as he picked up the scalpel and lost himself in his work.

As he worked, his thoughts went back to what he had observed through Eight. The boy had dispatched his agents of the Order with relative ease. He’d only been able to keep up with his movement during the battle because of the magical nature of Eight’s scrying. Luck had been on Mazoga’s side as the battle had taken place outdoors, and the one known as Thorben was unaware he was being observed. Had he activated any active, or passive, anti detection skills, spells, or equipment, then Mazoga would have less information to work with.

A small squirt of blood splashed onto his cheek. Oops nicked an artery. He clamped it to prevent premature extermination. A snicker escaped his mouth as stabilized the experiment with a quick healing spell. All the others had laughed at him when he had chosen to be a goblin healer. Goblins should be rangers, they said. Nobody plays a goblin race. Those are monsters. Their condescending laughter washed over him. It used to drive him into a fit of rage, where they would laugh as they egged it on. Well, who’s laughing now? Not Natalia.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He finished flaying the animal that he had denied the loss of consciousness, placed the hide in a tray, and resumed his pondering. The strength of the boy’s soul was impressive. He had grand plans for it. Based on what he had seen, it would provide substantial gifts for many of his experiments. It might be harvestable to craft equipment that would be worthy of a demigod like his son. He reveled in the daydreams of the carnage they could cause on their father and son expeditions.

A muffled screech re-grounded him. The reni was crying out, though the pain kept it from moving around too much. The concoction lasted a couple of hours, showing that his daydreaming had lasted longer than he thought. He administered another syringe and began exposing the brain stem. Unlike when he was creating, he didn’t preserve the integrity of the surrounding neural tissue or muscle. Mazoga’s actions were those of a man relaxing as he explored the complexity of a living body. He couldn’t count the number of times that he’d had breakthroughs during similar explorations. He had to admit that he was even more impressed with the feline creature. Its eyes were wide in panic, and not a small amount of pain, but Mazoga could still see a spark of hope clinging to possible survival. The damned thing still thought it could somehow escape, regrow skin and fur, and live. Maybe I should be a dog person because that is fucking stupid.

There was something about this new soul that intrigued him. It was unique, powerful, and intoxicating. How had it gone 20 years between entering Baherune and activating the HUD? This was an automatic process that took only a few hours to complete. Was this a hacker like him attempting to use some sort of bot or third party software to cheat in Baherune? Could he exploit some sort of glitch before they patched it? Somehow, this soul was much more dense than most. It oozed soul energy. Had one of his former nemeses enhanced themselves? A barrage of questions pounded his brain, causing his hand to clench around the scalpel.

Mazoga could tell that something was off with the boy. Not off as in needing healing, but off as in flawed from the start. The flow of energy wasn’t right. Right before he had introduced Eight to the wall, he’d seen the boy complete the last kill. This should have ended the combat with the mobs, and awarded experience and loot. This had always appeared to his magical senses as a type of exchange that somewhat mimicked the Law of Conservation of Mass, as Aldwin would say. An amount of energy would leave the mobs and temporarily enter the player to be converted to experience and loot. After this, a good chunk of the waste product of the transfigured mob life energy would be dissipate into the air to be reabsorbed by Baherune. Yet after the leader’s defeat, they absorbed the totality of the energy, but there was no release of the waste product. It was as if all the energy was stuck in the player’s soul. Was that why he had passed out? Was his soul broken? What implications did that have for Mazoga’s experiments?

Were my enemies behind this? Had they started their own experiments, and this was a failed one? They had long since given up their meaningless struggle against him. For a while, they had been a source of constant annoyance, but as time passed, Mazoga had learned to avoid them. Eventually, they had assumed he’d give up and moved on. He’d even gotten one for a successful human trial. Mazoga had tried using NPCs for his experiments but had given up on that line of thinking as something with the coding made subpar results inevitable. Players, however, players were amazing test subjects! Natalia had opened his eyes to what was possible with players.

Unfortunately, all his old nemeses were too powerful to overcome now. They had settled into a stalemate of a kind after a while. He’d kept his long-term plans a secret, and they should be unaware of his current activities, so that shouldn’t have changed. Mazoga didn’t think that they had the stomach for it, but maybe they had accepted that testing on animals was tolerable, but couldn’t lead to the same results as human trials.

Another couple of hours passed as he drifted in and out of lucidity while pondering endless questions. Necessity forced him to give up his neural exploration when, in one of his forays into insanity, he had somehow severed the reni’s head. Despite having a high level resurrection spell, he could only use it on players. Liberty Gaming didn’t give a flying fuck if the NPCs died. Bastards. Well, I guess I don’t give a flying fuck either. Am I a bastard too? No, I knew my parents. Too bad I couldn’t bring their corpses here and resurrect them. Disappointed and not wanting to start all over, he tossed the corpse to the Banthua, who scrambled to claim their share, and meandered over to sit on his chair in the room’s corner.

The Order would continue with their mission but he would need to modify their orders. He realized he hadn’t been explicit enough when he told them to finish what they started. Scuttle passed along his message to capture, not kill. He had other resources in the area that would make traveling difficult for the party. Hopefully, this would give the Order sufficient time for the fresh group of agents to catch up to their prey.

“Scuttle! Ensure that the sniveling duke sends out more patrols and encourages them to be more productive,” Mazoga said. “What was his name again? MacGyver? That didn’t sound right. I could use a Swiss Army knife right now. I bet I could out MacGyver anyone with that.” His voice dropped to a mumble.

Scuttle had long since learned when to carry out orders without waiting for his master’s mind to wander back, so he shuffled off to see to it.

“Get me some Big League Chew while you are at it! Grape, none of that original flavor bullshit!” Mazoga yelled, his voice echoing down the tunnel.