“Hey. Nar-shesh,” I said weakly. “Nar-shesh…”
“Yeah, what?” he grunted, helping Harig heft a palisade log into place. “You sound weird, what’s going on?”
“‘S another human…” I said. “And I sssspenallmyazoth. M’gonna go lay down until everything stops spinning. Go get her for me. But don’t kill her… ‘sjust a kid…”
Mission objective and rules of engagement thus set, I retreated to my core-body. Having no eyes, I couldn’t close them, and being [Immobile] I couldn’t lay down, but I did my best to shut out the world that was wheeling dizzyingly around me. Nausea had been bad enough back when I only had one point of view; with omnidirectional awareness of a huge area, it was infinitely worse. My status bar indicated that I was experiencing a debuff called [Azoth Exhaustion]; as I watched my inadvertently-emptied azoth meter refill with glacial slowness, I could only hope it wore off soon.
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Nar-shesh muttered a steady stream of curses under his breath as he moved stealthily through the woods. If it wasn’t one damn thing these days, it was two others. Persephone had worked herself to exhaustion without telling anyone, for some godforsaken reason — a child knew not to spend their azoth pool empty — and now there was another human wandering around her forest.
Fighting against his fear and irritation, though, was a sense of wonder and excitement at the sheer power he now wielded. He’d felt it somewhat as they’d toiled to raise the wall of sharpened logs — he was stronger, had more stamina. It wasn’t like he could suddenly lift a log by himself — each one was still a three- or four-goblin carry — but it was noticeably easier.
Strength and stamina had never been the Mother’s gifts to goblinkind, though. They were scurriers, skulkers, eyes in the night. As Nar-shesh crept closer to the human child, he began to truly understand what being level 10 meant. His joints moved like they’d been oiled; his limbs sang with explosive speed. His steps were silent, but he could hear the human’s ragged breathing like she was right in front of him, even from twenty feet away.
Persephone hadn’t given him any guidance about where in the woods, specifically, the human was, but it hadn’t been hard to find her. She was coming to them, after all. Nar-shesh had heard her before he’d seen her, chasing Striga through the woods towards Persephone’s barrow-mound. He’d wanted to demand that the mutated owl stop and help him capture the human, as she’d flown right over his head, but he wasn’t sure she understood the goblin language and also he was trying to be sneaky so he couldn’t exactly go literally barking up a tree to get her attention.
Whatever. Wasn’t like he needed her help, the way this was going. The human was making her own fumbling attempt at stealth, slowly and painstakingly leaf-crunching and branch-cracking her way up the hill. Sneaking up on her in turn had been laughably easy.
Nar-shesh decided to get this over with. A few steps’ silent run-up and he hit a tree, clambering up its side in smooth, continuous motion. Circulating his azoth, he activated [Ambusher] and kicked off the trunk. The skill propelled him across yards of open air to land directly in the girl’s blind spot. There was no way to conceal the sound of his landing, of course, but it didn’t matter. Nar-shesh hit the ground, rolled, and sprung upright. His flint knife, dungeon-sharpened, appeared in his hand like magic. Arcs of black mist, invisible to anyone but him, marked potential trajectories for a [Backstab]. He could feel his skill-strike accelerating, fatal momentum building within the blade, as he traced his arm along one such arc. Before the human girl could even turn to see what the noise had been, a single bead of blood welled up where the edge of his stone knife was pressed to her throat.
“Don’t move,” Nar-shesh said. His menacing growl was almost cool-sounding enough to make up for the indignity of the fact that he had to reach up to put the knife to her neck. It was bullshit how tall humans were. She had a foot of height on him and she wasn’t even full-grown yet! With his free hand, he disarmed her of the oddly-shaped metal shortclub she bore. It was surprisingly heavy: he might have been tugged off-balance by its weight before his level-up. He prodded her with it, urging her forward. “Let’s you and me take a walk together, huh? Someone wants to meet you.”
The girl didn’t say anything as they walked in an awkward embrace up the hill towards the goblin camp. Nar-shesh was worried that she might make a break for it or try to overpower him, but she was meek as could be. When her shoulders started to shake, he instinctively tightened his grip on her, thinking she was about to make a break for it. Then she let out a noise that was unmistakably a choked sob.
Nar-shesh didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just kept shuffling her up the hill.
The moment they reached the top, a system notification dinged in Nar-shesh’s mind.
Achievement Unlocked!
Child Snatcher
Condition: [Monsters] only. Capture a live human child and bring it back to a dungeon, lair, or other [Monster] zone.
Gained [Child Snatcher].
+10 xp
Skill Gained!
[Child Snatcher]
Prerequisites: [Monster]
Cost: -
Duration: Permanent
Keywords: Title
This monster preys on the weak and vulnerable. The fates that await its victims, once spirited away to its lair, are too horrible to describe. Increased grapple chance against weaker targets. Decreased mobility penalty while grappling weaker targets.
Nar-shesh could only watch, in furious indignity, as his status bar changed to read Goblin [Child Snatcher] - Lv. 10. “Oh, fucking come on!” he snapped, shoving the human to the ground. Kidnap a human child, huh? Human, human, human. He got it, message received — about the only thing higher than humanity on the Great Chain of Being was the gods themselves, and every monster in existence was utterly defined by their relation to their betters. Ten measly minutes of work defending his family and now the most important thing about him, in the world’s eyes, was that he was a [Child Snatcher].
Then, because he didn’t have enough problems, Striga landed in front of him with an angry screech.
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Pacifica had experienced more brushes with death in the past two days than she had in the fifteen years of life that preceded them. When the goblin shoved her to her hands and knees in the dirt and the owl-monster descended from above, she thought for sure that this would be no brush but a true collision. The monster’s allies had captured her, and now they were going to feed her to it.
What she didn't expect, however, was for the goblin to start shouting at the bird, gesticulating angrily. The owl screeched back — Pacifica wasn't sure if they could actually understand each other, but they seemed to be successfully having an argument anyway. They yelled back and forth for a while. The owl made to lunge: the goblin brandished Pacifica's frying pan in a don't fuck with me, I'll fucking do it sort of way.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
The fight was interrupted by a second goblin, a woman this time, who smacked the owl and the goblin man upside the head and then began chastising them both in a rapid-fire flurry of goblin-cant. Amidst her fear and confusion, Pacifica noted that the new goblin had a lot of teeth. Like, a lot of teeth.
Those teeth spread in a smile that was not as reassuring as its wearer had probably intended when the goblin woman picked Pacifica up off the ground, brushing her free of dead leaves and smudges of dirt. She said a few words to Pacifica, slowly and loudly, still with that razor-filled smile, before turning to the first goblin and rattling off another string of irritated orders. After some sniping back and forth, the first goblin rolled his eyes and took Pacifica by the elbow, leading her up to the very peak of the hill. What Pacifica saw there made her jaw drop. A deep circular shaft, twelve feet wide or more, dropped vertically down into the hill. Rectangular pegs of stone jutted from the walls in a spiral, forming a staircase that led out of sight into its depths. How could this- how long had these goblins been here? How had they constructed such a massive earthwork so close to town without anyone knowing about it?
The first goblin, who was still holding her frying-pan, gestured at the hole with it and said something that Pacifica figured was probably “What are you waiting for? Get moving.” Lacking any real alternative, she complied. He followed her, and the second goblin followed him. After a moment, she heard a few hesitant avian noises and the shuffling of feet. Risking a glance back over her shoulder, she saw the owl awkwardly navigating the staircase. Its wingspan must have been too big for it to fly down the shaft, she guessed.
They descended in silence — down, down, and down, more stairs than Pacifica had ever climbed at once in her life. Every half-rotation around the shaft’s diameter, a magelight formation was carved into the wall. In the upper reaches of the shaft, where the sunlight still reached, they were inactive. More than that, they had no receptacle for a spirit stone or any visible connection to a larger power-formation. How were they supposed to work with no source of azoth?
As they descended, an ominous sensation of pressure began to build in Pacifica’s chest. The air felt thick, charged — like a shouting match was about to erupt, or a thunderstorm. A chill ran down her spine, sending the fine hairs on her neck and arms bristling. The midday sun couldn’t reach the bottom of the shaft, but as the four of them passed out of the light, the empty light-arrays ahead of them flickered to life one by one — an impossibility. Pacifica swallowed back another bout of tears. Just what was waiting for her down there?
At the bottom of the shaft, the cold remains of a campfire sat in the center of the floor. Three rough, natural-looking passages stood equidistant around the walls: through them, Pacifica could see only darkness. Taking her by the arm again, the first goblin dragged her towards one of them. Pacifica had to bend and cautiously feel her way through the passage, and at one point scraped her head on its low ceiling. The goblin before her stopped abruptly and she bumped into him. It was pitch-dark at this point, and she fumbled in a panic as she tried to regain her footing before he forcibly set her upright and pressed her against the wall with a hissed stream of goblin invective. She heard an exclamation of surprise from the second goblin, and then a rapid-fire exchange of words between them. She couldn’t see a thing, and the goblin’s arm was like an iron bar holding her in place. What was going on?
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“Whoa! This wasn’t here yesterday,” Teekas exclaimed as she emerged from the passageway.
“Yeah, no fucking kidding,” Nar-shesh said tightly, holding the human in place so she didn’t accidentally fall to her death. Yesterday, this chamber had been a low, level expanse of cave pools and stalagmites, filled with the sounds of water. Today, they stood on a small platform of stone overlooking a cavernous, expansive chamber of black stone dotted with immense pillars. Wicked spikes as tall as a goblin covered every inch of its floor, and its walls were sheer and gripless. The only way to cross it was a series of thin, zigzagging stone bridges that stood high above the spiky floor. Some of the bridges led from pillar to pillar, like lightning jumping between clouds: others crossed great open expanses, like those same lightning bolts seeking the earth. At the far end of the chamber, another passage was faintly visible through the gloom.
“You think the heart’s through there now?” Teekas asked, instinctively clinging to the chamber wall as she exited the narrow passage.
“No idea where else it would be,” Nar-shesh said. He tossed his head at the human girl. “She can’t see a thing, damn near walked off the edge just now. How the hell are we supposed to get her across?”
Teekas shrugged. “Hold her hand, I guess.”
“I am not fucking holding her hand.”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby.” She reached out and took Nar-shesh’s hand, then Pacifica’s, and wrapped them around each other. “I’ll hold her other hand, so I don’t bump into you guys and knock us all to our deaths. Now come on, let’s go.”
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Pacifica’s heartbeat was loud in her ears as she cautiously made her way forward through utter darkness. The goblins’ hands were warm in her own as she clung to them tightly. From the echo of her footsteps, and the motion of the chill air, she had the sense that she was in some sort of large open space, but her captors were creeping carefully forwards — or sometimes sideways, or backwards, in no way that made any sense to her — as though one misstep would spell disaster.
She heard the fluttering of wings in the darkness, and a faint chittering. Were there bats down here? She supposed they did like to roost in places like these. A faint gust of wind was her only warning for what happened next.
“Striga! Vyrc hetch nai! Shemmu sa uzu!” The voice boomed from everywhere, the very air around her seeming to shake. It sounded like nothing that had ever come from any human throat. Its angry words stung her ears, writhed like maggots in her brain. “Hetch nai! Chaga losh, diru-” The voice paused, and let out what was very distinctly a nauseated groan. “Diru hessathag,” it finished weakly.
There was a thump from somewhere ahead of them, and the owl let out a series of frustrated chirps. When the voice didn’t respond after a moment, Pacifica heard the clicking of claws on stone and then silence. The two goblins had a short, clipped exchange before tugging her back into motion, at a somewhat brisker pace than before. After a few minutes, they stopped, and the knife-wielding goblin said something in the snappish tone that he’d previously used when talking to the owl. He repeated the last few words, and Pacifica heard the clicking of claws on stone again as the owl presumably did whatever he’d just told it to. They resumed walking forward, and after a few steps he let go of her hand.
The goblin woman reached up to put her hand on Pacifica’s head, steering it downwards with a few gentle words that Pacifica inferred were “Watch your head” or something similar. Hands stretched blindly in front of her, she bent and carefully made her way through what she assumed was another narrow passageway, this one angled sharply downwards. When she reached the bottom, and once again emerged into what felt like an open space, she heard flowing water.
The owl trilled from ahead of her, and Pacifica instinctively tensed, worried as she had been for the past however-long that it might decide to suddenly attack her despite her goblin captors’ attempts to discourage it. No attack came, however. The second, nicer goblin took her hand again, and began leading her forward. They walked for what felt like a long time, through a winding maze of caves. She heard, smelled, tasted water nearby at all times. The air was cool and humid. Some of the chambers they passed through were partially flooded: she gasped the first time she stepped into cold, ankle-deep water without warning. Her socks were miserably sodden for the rest of the trip - not that there was any way she could have avoided that fate, as the goblins led her through several more pools and streams before the end.
The strange pressure and tension she’d felt since descending the staircase grew more urgent the deeper her captors took her. By the end, Pacifica almost felt like her whole body was submerged, so thick was the air — but, despite that, a strange energy was welling up within her, blunting fear and fatigue, making her joints itch. At last, she saw something she hadn’t expected. Light. The same sickly grey-green glow that had come from the magelight arrays along the staircase spilled around a corner from up ahead. Her captors seemed as galvanized by the sight as she was, their steps quickening as they led her to…
Pacifica gasped at a sight out of nightmare. At the center of this chamber, resting on a crude stone altar, was a monstrous, disembodied heart nearly as tall as a man. With every pulse of its diseased-looking flesh, the air throbbed. Her ribs shook with the impact. With a flutter of fear, she realized that her own heart had begun to pound in time with the great abomination.
There was only one thing this could be. Her mother, who in her youth had nurtured frustrated dreams of becoming an adventurer, had sung her to sleep with the sagas of legendary heroes, and the monsters they’d slain. And, too, stories of the foul pits that sheltered the beasts — those cursed domains that birthed plague and catastrophe upon the land, that drank lives like wine and feasted on kingdoms.
The situation in the woods outside Planter’s Bend was much worse than her mother or anyone in town had realized. It wasn’t just bad, it was cataclysmic. The whole colony might be doomed, in fact. This wasn’t a problem of one mutant owl, or a few goblin bandits lurking in the woods. It was much bigger than that.
Deep beneath the earth, surrounded by enemies, Pacifica Blackwater stood alone in the baleful light of a dungeon core.