Once again, my first warning that something had gone wrong was the kill notifications.
Goblin [Child Snatcher] (Boss, Goblin Hillfort) killed Guard Dog - Lv. 2. You have gained experience from XP sharing!
Goblin [Child Snatcher] (Boss, Goblin Hillfort) killed Hound - Lv. 1. You have gained experience from XP sharing!
What!! Again with the dogs? I liked dogs! I considered myself a dog person, even! Besides, killing a dog was like the most mustache-twirlingly evil thing you could do, and my dog kill count was now sitting at three within the past week. It was lucky I didn’t need to sleep anymore, because that would’ve kept me up at night.
That said, my canicide concerns were probably less important than the fact that the leaf-heist had gone off the rails. It was supposed to be a quick, quiet, and clean job, the theft going unnoticed until the morning or even until the next merchant riverboat passed through to collect the last of Presdjees’ harvest. No one was supposed to get hurt — human or canine or especially goblin.
The frustrating thing was, there wasn’t anything I could do. I still had only recovered about a tenth of my azoth pool after my frenzy of work on the third floor - nowhere near enough to whip up some kind of super-mutant rescue force to send after Nar-shesh. I just had to sit here and wait to find out what had happened.
At least, since the heist team were all now my minions, I’d know if any of them died. Not who, though — to the system, they were all just Goblin. One more indignity to throw on the pile.
I wouldn’t be left to stew in my own anxiety for long before something else interrupted me, though. Specifically, it was Pacifica trying to get my attention. “Persephone, are you there?” She’d wandered to the edge of the spike pit and was speaking into the darkness, which I thought was kind of cute — she was doing her best to talk in my actual physical direction.
“Yeah, what’s up?” I said.
“Where am I supposed to sleep?” she asked. “Your goblins are all…” She gestured behind her vaguely.
“Nocturnal?”
“Yeah,” she said, and yawned. “It’s really late.”
The goblins had mostly been sleeping rough on the stone floors of my cavern, using their fur half-cloaks as pillows or blankets and huddling together for warmth. It occurred to me that this was not conducive to good sleep, and would no doubt soon begin to damage operational effectiveness. I hadn’t recovered enough azoth to raise an army of mutants, or to do any substantial dungeon remodelling, but I might have enough to do another experiment with conjuring matter. In one of the dormitory caves, currently empty, I swept the floor clean of dust with a pulse of my domain and began to create…
To creaaaaaaate…
Nothing, because I realized that I didn’t actually know how mattresses worked. Like, there’s springs? I think? But also there’s feathers? And it’s all in a fabric casing obviously. Is there some kind of internal framework? What even is memory foam made of, is it plastic? That didn’t seem right. I missed Wikipedia.
“Hey, Pacifica,” I said, real casual-like.
“Still here,” she said dryly, not having moved from her former position — and, I now realized, not having ever gotten an answer to her question, as I’d gotten distracted.
“How would you describe your usual sleeping situation? Like, what’s your bed made of, and stuff,” I asked.
“Um…it’s a bed? It’s like…” She gestured vaguely with her hands. “Like a rectangular frame, with wooden slats along the bottom, and a mattress of cloth stuffed with straw?”
That didn’t sound very comfortable. “How thick is the mattress?” I asked.
She held her fingers maybe two inches apart. “Ehhh, about so?”
“That doesn’t sound very comfortable,” I said, out loud this time.
Pacifica shrugged. “People will stack two or three mattresses atop each other,” she said. “If they have the money for it.” Left unsaid but obvious was the implication that her family did not.
Well, I figured I could do a little better than that. “Sit tight,” I said to Pacifica. “I’m gonna try something.”
Just imagine how much stronger my goblins would be compared to the humans if I could consistently put a [Well-Rested] buff on them! Yeah, this was definitely a worthwhile use of my time. I totally wasn’t just burying myself in a new, stupid, complicated project to distract myself because I was worried about Nar-shesh.
Mattresses!! Let’s go!
I decided to try stuffing the test mattress with down. Down pillows and comforters were supposed to be comfy, right? Hopefully it would hold true here as well. I conveniently had a bunch of down feathers nearby — on Striga — that I could look at for reference when making my own. Down feathers were much simpler than flight feathers, but it still took me almost a minute to make the first one due to the fiddliness of working in such fine detail. They came faster after that, though, especially once I got lazy and started cutting details like the tapering of the shaft, differing lengths of individual strands of down, and the two pores at the base of the quill which I assumed were for the capillary that supplied blood to the feather follicle. These feathers wouldn’t ever need to fit back onto an actual bird, so I ended up with something that looked like a fluffy toilet brush.
I did that several thousand more times, and then got started on the fabric. The whole process didn’t turn out to be very azoth-intensive — I assumed that was because of the relatively small amounts of mass I was creating. Lacking another reference, I did my best imitation of the fabric of Pacifica’s dress for the mattress case. I had no idea what kind of fabric it was or if it would be comfortable or not, but whatever. She’d get what she got.
“Alright, done,” I said, startling Pacifica mid-yawn. “Go check it out.” I gave her directions to the dormitory-cave where I’d created the mattress. She walked in and then stopped, stunned, as soon as she caught sight of it.
“That’s huge!” she exclaimed. Was it? I’d only made it like twin-sized… which might be pretty big by premodern standards, now that I stopped to think about it. “That’s for me?”
“Yup!” I confirmed. “Well, mostly. I was thinking we’d be hotbunking until I can make some more. The goblins will use it during the day shift and you’ll use it during the night shift.”
She’d already thrown herself down on it and immediately let loose a delighted groan. “What is this, is this feathers? It’s so soft,” she said. She was kicking her legs with glee as she rolled back and forth across the bed. “This is the softest thing I’ve ever laid on!”
Hell yeah! First try, baybeeee. That’s the power of Persephone. “I’m glad!” I said, instead of any of that. “Comfortable beds will be one of the bribes I offer to draw people to my dark crusade, so it’s good to have a successful prototype.”
She stiffened a little at that. “I guess I see why Pastor Feverfew says that indulgence in worldly comforts leads the soul astray,” she said.
I snorted. “Sounds like something the haves tell the have-nots to make them feel guilty for wanting better,” I said. “Greed is bad, sure. Selfishness is bad. But it’s not a sin to get a good night’s sleep. Want me to turn the light off?”
She just nodded. It had probably been a little early in our relationship for me to bust out the ironic humor: I got the sense I’d freaked her out. Oh well. A good night’s sleep would hopefully buy me some goodwill. “Goodnight, Pacifica,” I said, withdrawing my azoth from the light-formation.
“Goodnight,” she said, voice small in the darkness.
No sooner was that taken care of, though, than I got another system notification.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Goblin (Minion) - Lv. 10 assisted in killing Lesser Woodland Tatzelwurm - Lv. 9. You have gained experience from XP sharing!
I only had one other level 10 goblin and it was Teekas, which meant that her group had encountered trouble tonight as well. If I’d managed, in my overconfidence, to lose all of my strongest minions tonight, I was going to scream. Can’t just reload from your last autosave on this one, Persephone, you dumb bitch! This is real life!
Fuck!!
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Teekas knew that it might be the pain and blood loss muddling her thinking, but it didn’t look like Abzu was leading them out of the woods. In fact, it looked like they were going deeper.
“Abzu,” she said. “Why are we going deeper into the woods? Because it looks like we’re going deeper.”
“Appearances can be deceiving,” he said. “Wait.” He held a hand out to halt their forward progress. For a moment, there were only the sounds of the forest at night. Abzu cocked his head slightly, like he was listening for something. Even with [Awareness], Teekas couldn’t hear whatever he was hearing. After a while, he dropped his arm, and the other three took an audible gulp of air. “Alright, it’s safe,” he said. “Come on, but stay quiet.”
Teekas noted, with irritation, that this directive made it difficult for her to ask him any further questions. They continued creeping through the woods, with occasional pauses for Abzu to orient himself or listen for who-knew-what or sniff the air, more or less in silence. As they went, Teekas became more and more sure that her initial thought had been correct. They were definitely going deeper into the forest — towards the demesne at its heart, not away from it. Azoth hung thicker in the air. Vegetation grew larger and stranger. The noises of the forest faded away to an eerie silence.
Suddenly, Abzu stopped. “This should be about it. Everyone keep an eye out.”
“Keep an eye out for what?” Enshunna asked.
“You’ll know it when you see it,” Abzu said curtly, as disinterested as ever in having a lengthy conversation.
Immir-shesh gasped. When she turned to look where he was looking, Teekas gasped too. Abzu hadn’t been lying — she knew it when she saw it. About fifty feet from them, a towering figure loomed among the trees. Green corposant danced along the great crown of its antlers, and its eyes were green flames in the darkness as it stared at them. It was a great buck deer, easily twenty feet tall - a giant, a behemoth. Between its antlers, its status bar read Druidic Deer - Lv. 17.
The great stag snorted, twin plumes of steam coiling in the cold air. Lines of runic light flared green across its body, and the weight of its contempt rolled over them like the tide. Teekas felt small and soiled beneath the great beast’s gaze. She knew in her bones that she was an intruder here. This was the stag’s kingdom — a wild place, a place of beasts, a forest eternal and unchanging that neither axe nor fire would ever touch.
She heard the ding of a system notification.
New Quest Available: The Heart of the Woods
You have glimpsed a sacred thing. Turn back, and trespass no further. This place is not for you.
Objectives:
* Leave.
* Do not return.
Accept quest? Yes/No
“Go ahead and accept that, all of you,” Abzu said. “And then we can finally get out of here.” He turned his head to the side and spat. “Fucking wood demesnes.”
Teekas looked away from the great stag for a moment, tapping the system window to accept the quest. When she looked back up, it was gone, without so much as a broken branch to mark its passing.
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Neraru wasn't really sure what the procedure was for scattering. Nobody had ever clearly explained to her what she was supposed to do, or how she was supposed to just magically know. That was how it went with most things, in her experience.
Lacking clear instructions, she'd decided to just beeline for the boat. Nobody else seemed to be doing that, so she figured it would still be compatible with the goal of splitting up the angry mob since she wasn't going in the same direction as anyone else.
So she ran, limbs flying, cold air searing her lungs, faster than she'd ever run in her life. Being empowered by the realmheart hadn't banished the aches in her back and knees that middle age had brought. She still felt slow, felt stiff, but slow and stiff at level 5 was worlds away from slow and stiff at level 2. It was interesting, what climbing the Chain changed and what it didn't. Neraru had been hoping that it would make her… smarter, or quicker. Show her how to make jokes that people laughed at. Make her prettier, if it had to. Just — something that would fix whatever nameless thing was wrong with her that had made her an awkward, marginal misfit all her life.
It hadn't done that, obviously. She was still the same old Neraru, as the events of the night thus far had amply demonstrated. But the power she’d been given might save her life tonight, so she had that going for her at least.
The angry shouts faded in the distance behind her as she ran, and she did not look back to see if she was being pursued. Looking back slowed you down. Anazet had taught her that on the long march south. She’d been kind to Neraru, and patient with her, and then she’d looked back and it had slowed her down and she’d died. Really, Neraru mused as she ran, it was the ultimate proof that it was good advice. It was still very upsetting, though, and she didn’t want to think about it.
It wasn’t until Neraru had reached the bottom of the hill that she realized she couldn’t very well just stand around next to the boat until everyone else showed up. She’d be right out in the open. If any of the humans saw her, they’d see the boat too. If they saw the boat, they could block the goblins from getting to it — even destroy it. Then they’d have to flee on foot back to the dungeon. Their odds of making it home dropped drastically in that scenario. No, she’d probably better hide nearby until the others showed up. She skidded to a halt and ducked around a corner of a building. One quick glance to make sure she’d escaped pursuit for now was probably alright, right? She poked her head back around the corner. Torches and handheld magelights flowed over the top of the hill, spreading out in search of them, but no one seemed to be specifically chasing her. Good, she could find somewhere to hide.
She heard shouting from nearby. Neraru didn’t speak much Ploetz but she recognized “
Uh-oh. Uh-oh! That wasn’t good!
They couldn’t be talking about her, right? She should still find somewhere to hide. Surely it wouldn’t be much longer before Nar-shesh returned, even if no one else made it, and then they could leave. She’d already looked back once, she couldn’t risk it again. When they scattered, it was every goblin for themself. That was the point. It was okay to only look out for herself — it was required, even.
Neraru fidgeted miserably, looking back and forth between the boat and the direction the shouting was coming from. After a moment, with a groan of distress, she scurried toward the shouting.
Part of the mob had cornered Harig against the wall of a building, a little way uphill of her, six or seven of them. Torches and red-orange azoth lit the scene. As she watched, one of them swung at Harig with a hoe. They ducked under it, barely, and then leaped into the air. They seemed to hang there for a moment, azoth swirling around their stone feet, before they came down like a hammer on the human that had attacked them. Neraru had seen [Stonefoot Stomp] crack rock and blast goblins off their feet only a few hours ago: she could only imagine what Harig landing directly on this human would do.
The human reflexively threw up an arm to defend himself, and Harig hit it feet-first. The man’s arm broke with an audible crack as a shockwave rippled out from the point of their collision. But it wasn’t the earthshaking impact it should have been — he didn’t snap in half or burst like a rotten fruit, wasn’t squashed like a bug. None of the other humans were even knocked over — they only staggered a few steps backward, the aura of [Angry Mob] blunting and diffusing the attack. Harig landed anticlimactically on their back with a grunt, looking as surprised and dismayed as Neraru felt.
The next blow caught them in the ribs.
Neraru couldn’t contain a dismayed gasp as she watched the mob move in, raining strikes down on the other goblin. Harig could only curl into a ball, trying to take the blows on their broad back or their limbs rather than their head or their gut. With no ability to fight back, though, it was at best prolonging the inevitable. Neraru knew she needed to do something, and fast. She was moving before she’d even consciously decided what that something was.
It was interesting, what climbing the Chain changed and what it didn’t. Neraru’s favorite of the goblin legends was the story of Kadash Honey-eater and how she’d tamed the golden bees of the Sun. Kadash had climbed a great many levels up the Chain, and her skin was as flawless and impenetrable as jade. She’d allowed the hive to exhaust itself, breaking their stingers on her skin, before claiming their magical honey. Gluttony had been her undoing, however, for as she’d dozed full-bellied amidst the wreckage of the honeycomb the queen of the hive had driven her stinger into Kadash’s eye. The nature of skin and bone was to protect, but the nature of an eye was to see, and the nature of venom was to kill. Gaining levels empowered the body and mind, but it did not change the essential nature of a thing.
Neraru had always thought Kadash deserved what she got, for being so cruel to the bees. They could only sting once and then they died, you know! Whenever she said as much, everyone just told her that wasn’t the point of the story, which was annoying.
In any case, this fact about ascension was why Neraru was reasonably confident that despite the gap in their levels and the increased physical resilience granted by [Angry Mob], it would still hurt when she ran up behind one of the men in the mob, shot her hand between his legs, grabbed his balls through the fabric of his pants, and then yanked downwards as hard as she could. From the way he doubled over and shrieked, her confidence had been justified.
She decided to push the advantage of surprise as far as it would take her. As the man next to her victim turned to see what had happened, she cocked her arm back and socked him in the groin — conveniently at shoulder height for her — as well. The third human clobbered her upside the head with a shovel, though. Stunned, she went toppling at the feet of a fourth human. It was at this point that, in an unexpected moment of clarity among the pain, she remembered she had a knife. She yanked it free from her belt and stabbed the fourth human in the ankle.
As she tried to scramble to her feet, she saw the third human coming for her again, the shovel’s dull edge aimed at her like a spear. Before it could split her face open like just another a clod of earth, Harig tackled the shovel-wielding man’s legs out from under him. “Come on!” they said, grabbing her hand, and ran.