“Go gold coin, I choose you!”

Frey shouted as he let go of one of his gold coins, flinging it with a flash towards one of the three kobolds, gaining all three of their attention as they turned to follow the coins’ trajectory. Frey used the opportunity to jump forward and gut one kobold, pulling it out sideways with a gush of green blood. It fell down with a surprised look on its face, surprised and confused on why it was falling before morphing into a face of horrendous pain.

Of the two kobolds left, only one shook themselves out of their self-indulgent greed, turning back to focus on Frey. Aiming for the one still locked on the coin, Frey lashed forward with an outstretched arm, just barely reaching to pierce the back of the kobold, whom flinched at the pain, then yelled out gutturally as Frey pulled the spear out downwards, destroying its spine and killing the kobold quickly.

The last kobold took a wary stance, staring with narrowed, slitted eyes at Frey’s spear. Frey staring back with an easy smile, facing his body so that only his side was visible, pulling his spear behind his body and raising his arm, flashing his hand as he gestured for the kobold to come, looking cocky as hell while he sounded just as cocky. Looking like one of those kung-fu guys.

“Come”

The kobold didn’t take the provocation, satisfied with staying alert and ready for anything, waiting for Frey to make the first move. Something that made Frey’s smile falter, as he whined out a whimpering.

“Come on”

The kobold still did not react, continuing to stare with focused eyes on Frey, body still and ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Frey frowning at the display, pouting as he glanced up, up towards the kobolds lantern hanging above its head.

“Hey, nice lantern, would be a shame if- aha!”

Frey tried, using the element of surprise to take the kobold off-guard, swiping with his spear in a long arch from the right, easily cutting through the tunnel’s walls as the spear continued on towards the kobold, who-

The kobold took a fast step in and grabbed the spear by its shaft near Freys’ hand, avoiding the impossibly sharp, long point whilst stopping the momentum with its deviously strong and small body. Frey’s voice getting caught in his throat by the display, staring in disbelief down on the kobold, the kobold staring up at Frey with a newly formed smile. A wicked smile.

It raised its club and swung down quickly, Frey jerking his spear hand back, pulling the kobold towards him as he took his own step forward. The club came down, down on Freya head with a thwack, but not with force to crack, as only the bottom of the club hit him, having starved its moment by getting in close.

The kobold reacted, dropping its own hold on the spear to punch Frey in the gut, using its claws to dig in. But missing, only glancing off his stomach as Frey groggily took yet another step forward, hugging the kobold in a tight embrace, also letting go of the spear.

Frey’s surprising movement and weight overwhelmed the kobold, toppling it backwards with a force strong enough to push out air from its monstrous lungs. Frey tightened his grip around the kobold, then shifted his body around the kobold to move seamlessly into an impossible chokehold with its head underneath his armpit. The kobold gasped soundlessly at the move, taking an invaluable second to think and comprehend its new situation. But once it did, it immediately tried clubbing Frey, ineffectively as its position and smaller body made the blows barely noticeable and its already too dwindled air supply had already weakend it noticeably.

Realising its predicament, it dropped its club and started clawing Frey instead, using them to great effect to pull and shred skin, creating modern art on Frey’s forearm. Frey groaned from the pain, but didn’t falter for even a millisecond, holding his chokehold tighter and tighter. Tighter until the kobold grew weaker and- pop. Its neck cracked and it fell limp in Frey’s tight grip.

Immediately realizing it, Frey pushed it aside and fell back on his back, staring up at the darkened ceiling with a head spinning a million times a second, a bump sure to form on his forehead.

“Why is it always the head?”

He whispered out meekly, feeling his stomach protest at the suddenness of his voice. Groaning weakly whilst pushing a tired hand to his head, cursing the gods for their stupid cosmic jokes.

“Why not the knee? Then I’d be able to stop adventuring with a good conscience at least”

The dark tunnel didn’t respond to his complaining, staying awfully silent, if not for the small sound of blood spilling onto the floor.

“Or who am I kidding? I wouldn’t stop adventuring even if I lost both of my knees.”

A smile crept to his face, even with the throbbing pain in his head, and the slow crawl of burning creeping to the surface from his forearms. A smile fading as the adrenaline did too, pain being far too annoying to feel joy in.

Groaning with a grandpa’s hand on his back, he pushed himself shakily up on his feet, looking around for his spear. Then eyed the kobolds, lazily deciding that they must not have anything good on them, not because he was lazy or in pain or anything.

Removing his hand from his back, he saw it slick with blood, his and others, crusted and new.

“I really need to get a new shirt. Or some armour. I would even go so low as to wear leather armour.”

Next, he searched for his gold and grunted as he picked it up. Telling himself sweet nothings, telling himself that he was doing great, that the pain would go away, that he didn’t have to worry bout notin.

The sound of something heavy hitting the stone floor immediately caught his attention, turning around with his spear at the ready, pain immediately forgotten.

To his surprise, but more confusion, he saw nothing. He knew he had heard something, something heavy falling onto the stony ground. But whatever it was, it wasn’t there. Looking around, he shuffled towards one of the dead kobolds, pulling it up into a sitting position and awkwardly undressing its lantern-backpack. As it fell down on the ground, Frey pulled off his own bag and dressed himself, painfully, with the kobold-backpack-lantern-thingy, its woodenly backdrop scraping awfully painful against his sore body.

The lantern, though, gave sufficient light without blinding him, a delightful addition to his already growing collection, of, stuff?

Ignoring his wandering thoughts, Frey let his bag stay by the ground and, slowly, moved towards where he’d heard the sound. Lantern giving him a certain radius of light from where he could see, far enough to react if something came rushing, far enough to use his spear, but not far enough to see more than a jumps distance away. He knew for he was an expert at eye-measuring things.

But after only walking for a few steps, something came within sight, something that made Frey’s eyes glitter with greed, a smile spreading like a blooming flower, spear forgotten as he plunged forward with a mighty leap.

“Treasuuuuure!”

He shouted with glee, practically rubbing his scruffy face on the smooth wooden-irony surface. Smiling like a dork high on cocaine. Or ahem, high on stuff.

Shaking his thoughts away from drugs, he gave the chest his absolute attention as he, slowly, lifted the lid. Slowly revealing a bronze bowl? It appeared to be a bowl. Lifting it up a little, Frey tried to decipher exactly what he was looking at. Turning it around, he saw what appeared to be leather straps within the bowl, shaped as if straps on a helmet-

“YYYEEEEET!”

He quickly threw the bronze helmet away, listening for the wondrous noise of bronze clattering further and further away, then glaring up towards the ceiling, closing one fist and pointing it upwards before shouting.

“Damn you god! I already told you I don’t want a goddamn ugly helmet! Give me something glorious instead! I’d even accept magical spandex!”

Shaking his fist angrily for a few seconds, staring in silence as he waited for an answer, but getting none. With a frown, he glared down at the chest instead. Glare turning to wonder as he saw health potions, a plethora of health potions, so many that he couldn’t hold them all with only two mortal hands.

Looking back up, he pushed his two hands together in a gesture like a prayer and shouted.

“I was too hasty in my judgement. I salute you for this wondrous gift!”

Grabbing one, he uncorked it and downed its content, basking in the glory of the coldness, feeling the swelling and bolting in his head ease to nothing, and his stinging forearms turning normal. He breathed out for a long moment, sounding like a man getting the first shot of whiskey after a long time being outdoors.

Turning back to the dead kobolds and picking up his bag, he decided to keep their lantern-backpack and strapped his bag to it. Finding it a little awkward but doable, strapped in such a way that it could be easily removed before a fight. Then, he stuffed all the health potions into his bag, stuffing them without a care in the world, or rather, with no sort of planning or space-management, just stuffing.

The boring stuff out of the way, Frey continued on his path, walking straight and past the dead kobolds. Stopping, pondering, wondering if he was walking the right direction or if he was walking backwards. Shaking his head as an answer, of course he was walking the right direction, he couldn’t be wrong.

He told himself, walking in the wrong direction.

After having walked until he came upon other dead kobolds, kobolds deaded from him, he walked back in the right direction, humming to songs forgotten. A rhythm that might or might not be right was walked too, kicking away loose pebbles as he trodled forward. Arm holding his spear that swung from side to side while the other held the lantern-backpack snug to his back.

He walked for what could have been hours, minutes, or maybe even days, though his loud stomach probably only meant it was time for supper. Sitting down and unstrapping his backpack, he went about unpacking and bringing out his food. A sizeable piece of loaf with what appeared to be dried jerky, which he devoured with a satisfying hum after each bite.

Finishing, he grabbed a few crackers and pondered if he should also go to sleep or not, but decided against it. Finding himself strangely rejuvenated, even after having walked for, god knows how long. He patted his bag and heard a satisfying clinking sound.

“It’s all thanks to you, my little sweeties”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He said, sweatly, then pushed his hand into his pocket, pulling up a few gold coins.

“But you guys are still my favorite”

Giving one a little smooch before putting them back into his pocket, tasting irony. Jumping up to his feet and stomping away loudly, whistling on his still unremembered tune, not too bothered.

He looked around as he walked, seeing nothing, using his spear to carve miniature penisis everywhere. Coming up too bends, he peaked them, finding them clear he calmly walked around them. Coming too tunnels that spread out, giving him multiple directions too chose from, he always picked left for he wasn’t stupid. Unless he felt like walking right, which he did sometimes.

Walking until he came to yet another bend, peaking it, quickly going quiet and pulling his head back behind cover. He spotted light, the same light as the kobolds lantern shone. Backpedaling a bit, he removed his lantern-backpack and bag, shoveling within his bag in an attempt to fish out a health potion, finding it hard, annoyingly hard. He got one, only after a few soundless curses and a promise that he’d re-structure his bag.

Pocketing the potion, he sneaked up to the bend and peaked its corner. Looking down the dark tunnel, he scanned it for denizens, not seeing any, feeling a hard sense of déjà vu.

Hiding behind the corner again, he looked around and grabbed a big rock. Peeking the corner again, he slowly raised his arm, and threw it towards the left of the lantern. The rock quickly flew out of eyesight, for he could not see in the dark, and turned to stare at the lantern light instead.

The rock hit the ground and something shifted in the shadows. Frey immediately hid further behind the corner and stared at the shift in the darkness. Spotting nothing, but trusting himself that he had seen something.

He stared, stared and stared. Slowly, very slowly, squatting down to get more comfortable. Still staring.

Staring until it shifted again, and this time, seeing what. A shift of glimmering light from the lantern had exposed it, a slimy kobold, obviously.

Frey hid as much as he could while keeping the very faint silhouette of the kobold within sight. He couldn’t tell if it had seen him or not, but it hadn’t moved, so he counted that in his favor. Then started weighing his options, started thinking.

It didn’t take long for Frey to turn his sight down on his spear, looking at it, slowly lifting it, weighing it within his hand. He looked back up, momentarily in panic as he didn’t immediately spot the kobold, then breathing out as he did. Slowly, he leaned back, arm stretching back, pointing the point of the spear at the silhouette, narrowing his eyes, taking a deep breath. A breath that seemed to be noticed by the kobold, its shadowy silhouette shifting.

Quickly, Frey used his strength, all of it, and let loose, throwing his spear with speed. It flew wobbly, but in the direction he’d wanted it too. Then immediately jumped off, sprinting down towards the kobold, then froze mid-step, realizing with horror what he had just done.

A guttural scream filled the dark tunnel, and Frey shock his horror away, continuing his sprint. It didn’t take long to come close to the scream, spotting the darker blob of the kobold pinned against the wall by what he assumed was his spear. A surprising sight, a delightful sight. Frey smiled even, continuing his sprint as he lifted his arm up, readying a strike as he spotted the darkened blob of the kobolds presumed face. Using his momentum, Frey slammed his fist into the kobolds snout, hearing a satisfying crack that hurt like a motherfucker because it hadn’t come from the kobold, but Frey’s own hand.

His momentum hadn’t stopped though, and carried him straight into the wall, luckily shifting sideways in the last second to slam his shoulder into the wall instead of his head. Still hurting like hell, but less hurtful than his broken hand.

Jumping back, Frey looked around with his broken hand held up, wheezing in pain. Not seeing any other kobolds, he quickly reached his hand down and pulled his potion out, uncorking and downing its sweet contents. Coldness followed by sweet relief from pain, Frey flexed his hand and looked around. The kobold was still shouting in pain, yet sounding wet, as if its nose was full of snot. It seemed too, struggle against something, but hadn’t moved from where it was. Frey assumed his spear held it pinned to the wall, hopefully, and looked back.

Frey looked towards where he’d come from, then towards what Frey assumed to be the kobolds’ own lantern. Noticing it closer than his own lantern-pack, Frey moved and grabbed it, hauling it towards the pinned kobold, wanting to see the monster in all of its glory.

As the lantern’s light revealed the scaly, slimy kobold, Frey whistled at the sight.

“Damn bro, that gotta hurt.”

The kobold gnarled in response, spittle of green blood flying out with the gnarl. Then whimpering as it moved, aggravating the opened wound that was its arm pinned to the wall by Frey’s spear. Frey made an “ooooo” sound as he moved closer, the kobold trying to swipe at him, failing, only widening the already wide wound on its arm, closing its bloody green teeth in pain from the movement. Frey merely leaned back a little and moved towards the pinned arms side instead, studying the spear with its mechanism Frey didn’t know it had.

When Frey had thrown the spear, he’d realized too late that, with its power, it probably would just penetrate the kobold, then the wall, then continue on forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and- ahem. But it seems his spear was too smart for that, as it seemed to have a hidden feature, as the point in which it had penetrated the kobold and the wall behind it, it had unfolded a four-way metal contraption that stopped it from going deeper.

Frey poked it, finding it extremely stuck, then started pulling his spear, finding it easily extractable. The kobold didn’t like that though and screamed. Ignoring its pinned arm, it tried to claw Frey with its unwounded arm. Frey easily dodged, letting go of the spear. But the kobold wasn’t ready to miss, slipping from the move and slipping.

The kobold fell, then stopped mid-air, the fall tugging hard on the spear, held aloof by its pierced arm, which made a sloshing sound. The kobold screamed guturly, kicking with its legs as it struggled with pain. The arm then started ripping. Flesh, muscles, sinew and bones slowly, slowly being pulled apart, pulled apart by the weight of itself hanging off of the spear. Slowly, the arm ripped off by its length, from shoulder to fingers, and the kobold fell whimpering onto the ground, gushing out a flood of green blood as Frey stared with an opened mouth and hands covering it.

“Holy fucking shit, that, ugh, that-that didn’t look cool.”

Pulling out his spear with ease, he heard something audibly metallic click, and saw that the four rods that had held the spear in place were gone. Frey looked down on the kobold, an indescribable expression on his face. The kobold lying in a fetal position, slowly groaning, gutturaly, slowly bleeding to death as its maimed arm was splayed out in two meaty parts like a Lovecraftian flower.

He turned around and quickly ran towards his own bag. Coming up to it, he shuffled within and, after some annoying searching pulled out one health potion. Quickly, he ran back and squatted down next to the kobold.

Frey then slowly reached for the kobold, forward as if ready to be struck by a cat. The poor whimpering kobold didn’t protest, face morphed into an expression of pure agony. So after a calming breath, Frey struck forward and pushed the health potion into the kobolds mouth.

Frey watched as the kobold suddenly started shivering, then spotted its arm starting too, reshape itself. The grotesque wound reforming and building itself anew, and within just seconds, a new arm had been born. Frey gawked at the sight, really not ready for something that awesome.

“Holy fucking shit, these health potions are OP.”

The kobold seemed to look around within closed eyelids, slowly moving around, then suddenly opening them and staring up and into Frey’s own eyes. Frey met the kobolds’ eyes as he spoke slowly.

“Hey dude, guy, dudette? Sorry bout the arm, that wasn’t cool of me.”

The kobold looked back on Frey, blinking in incomprehension, not understanding him, or to confused too. Frey didn’t seem to notice, or care, continuing on.

“Seeing that, urg, shit made me feel bad. Yeah ehehe, I’m sorry. I’m not a bad guy.”

Frey then quickly bowed, spear held on his back, looking up with puppy eyes at the quickly blinking kobold. A kobold that looked at Frey with an expression of pure confusion, still holding its healed arm.

Holding the bow for a few seconds, Frey slowly eased himself up to an upright position, looking down at the kobold.

“Yeah, I’m sorry.”

Then swiped with his spear, sloppily cutting off its head and part of its arm. The head thumped once, twice, thrice before rolling to a stop, a face of permanent confusion etched into it. Frey looked at the face and noticed what appeared to be a scar running alongside both of its eyes, then said to it.

“But I don’t trust that you won’t come after me and stab me in the back, so sorry not sorry…”

He waved at the head before stripping off the kobolds lantern-pack with a clammer of wood and moved towards his own bag. Dressing himself while humming slightly, deciding to keep one potion in his pocket at all times. Then walking past the decapitated, scarred kobold and towards adventure, towards his dream, towards bitches!

Rounding yet another corner, he stood in front of an enormous gate, one not too dissimilar to the one he’d entered to get into the tower proper, though not as big. It was lit from light’s unseen and gave him an epic image of the same woman from the enormous gate that now, instead of battling demons, battled a giant, cat?

It looked like a cat, but it looked weird. Maybe it was just the Greek stylized imagery, or Frey’s poor imagination, but he couldn’t shake that it definitely, most definitely, absolutely looked like a giant cat. Maybe it was a poor rendition of a tiger?

Coming closer to the gate, he noticed the gate was smaller than the one he had ventured in from the outside, and the goblin gate, but still too big to fit him. Not that he was saying he was small, absolutely not. If anything, Frey was on the bigger side of average, totally, very much so, every part of him was, absolutely. But this gate was still a little too big, especially for a normal person. For a normal person, the gate was probably humongous, but to Frey it was only just too big.

Walking up to the gate, he sized it up and down, finding it maybe thrice his size, and made of bronze, he assumed as he hit it twice with his fist. A satisfying gong emanating out from it. Reaching a hand up to his chin, he scratched it, pondering deeply, wondering how he was to go about opening it as he saw no modern security door nearby.

It didn’t take long before a smile came to his lips, bringing out his trusty spear, swinging it almost lazily as it impacted the bronze gate with ease-

The spear shot back with a spark, flying out of Frey’s grasp and into the far wall with a metal bang. The suddenness of his spear shooting away from his hand left Frey leaning back somewhat, arm outstretched backwards with blisters slowly forming on his hand, friction being a very painful thing.

Looking back stupidly, he quickly spotted his spear imbedded in the far wall, metal springs holding it in place. Then turned back to glare angrily at the gate, blowing gently on his blistered hand.

Drinking a potion and having grabbed his spear, he sat down and started to really ponder. Rubbing at his barely bearded chin, staring with deep furrows on his eyebrows, up at the gate. A hum echoed out, another hum, louder than the earlier. A third hum, louder and sounding almost angry. Eyes glaring daggers at the gate.

After failing to hum the gate open, Frey fished around in his pocket and placed his gold coins on the ground, placing them as if an offering to god and bowed while backing with his rump in the air.

“Oh gate-san, humbly accept my offering for safe passage through your splendid form!”

He shouted with gusto, kowtowing before the gate, forehead pressed into the ground as he waited for the gate to open. Waiting for something to happen. Anything. Adjusting his head to get a view of the gate, he noticed that nothing had happened.

“Melon?”

But, nothing.

“Aw comeon”

Frey muttered, immediately pocketing his gold and sitting up, showing the gate his longest finger. Then going back to thinking.

Thinking quickly, he grabbed a nearby rock and chucked it at the gate too little success. Next, he walked up to the nearest wall and started fingering it, no, not like that, fingering- touching- using his palm to gently-harshly drag it over the wall, searching for any hidden compartments, any lever, any button. Finding nothing. He did the same to the floor, but didn’t have the patience to search it all, not because he was lazy but because he had better use for his time.

Sitting down, he stared up at the ceiling, mouth slightly open as he groaned mutely, leaning back on his two arms.

Next, he threw a health potion at the door, regretting it immediately as he did, splashing totally without any effect against the epic bronze door. Cursing his bad luck, Frey started chucking everything he had at the door in an attempt to do anything.

Having thrown everything, except his precious water bottle and health potions, of course, he jumped forward with a warcry, banging his arms against it. Banging and banging, pushing and-

It slowly started opening.

“Oh”

Frey muttered weirdly, immediately calming down, cheeks growing slightly red as he cleared his throat and collected his belongings. Putting everything on and holding his spear at the ready, he splashed some water on his warm cheeks and drank a mouthful before putting it away and facing the gate again. This time, using both of his arms to push on the gate.

Slowly, and very easily, it started opening. A split in the epic painting seemed to form, revealing that it was two gates, not one as Frey had assumed. But as it was far too big for him, or rather, far too big for others, just the right size for him, he could only open one door, but could totally do two if he wanted to.

Now that he thought about it, he really wanted to do that. So, he did, moving towards the seam in the door and pushing both equally, one arm for each gate, looking like a man bringing the big news. As the gate opened more and more, weirdly lightweight for its size, light started shining down upon him, basking him in its glory as he blinked the dots forming in his vision away. Slowly, he emerged like a caterpillar from its cocoon of light, looking like the superman he knew he was. A goofy smile plastered on his face as he felt like the most bad-ass ever, slowly blinking to see more of what he was entering.

His eyes finally adapted to the lighter room and he saw a cat. Still holding the gate open, still with a goofy smile, he stared at the cat, lying on the ground in a position he knew to be a cat-loaf. It stared at him, he stared at it. His goofy smile faded, and he unconsciously let go of the big gate.

He stopped smiling, for he stared at a giant skeleton cat, and he hated cats.