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Shock and adrenaline are powerful things. They can give a mother the strength to lift heavy objects off of their children, it can turn a calm man into a quivering mass, and apparently it can make an idiot ignore the massive ringing of his ears.
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As Alistair walked away from the first thinking being he had killed he noticed the massive pain in his ears. He had not worn hearing protection, fired his rifle many times, and was not suffering from a whirring ringing noise.
Walking back to the trailer keeping an eye on the tunnel entrance Alistair thought to himself about what he had to do next. There were at least 6 other Goblins in his mine. And by the way they had charged him the first time and the way the 3 slingers had chased after him clearly this was going to be a fight with no hope of talking anything out.
“Well, actually what language would they even speak? I guess talking had been out of the question from the start.
wait… thinking of the 3 with the slings why had they been the ones to attack me” he thought. The ones with the spears had been charging me.
This was confusing.
Alistair went up to the loft and brought down all the boxes of .308 he had, and sat on the covered patio refilling his magazines.
“When I first saw them the slingers were attacking something other than me. Perhaps that thing they were fighting would be friendly to me? The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.
… or perhaps not
sometimes the enemy of my enemy is just that much of a bigger bastard.”
Damn.
Alistair considered just driving away, but he dismissed it. This was HIS mine. The business was HIS too, but that got taken away. “Clearly the fact I'm living in a trailer, and was planning to break rocks for a year speaks to my mental state after that betrayal. So no. Fuck it, im NOT losing this too.”
With magazines reloaded, and no movement at the mine entrance Alistair did a quick mental check. He would need light, and maybe armor of some sort?
Turning in place and looking around his trailer he was disappointed to not find a convenient suit of armor laying around. Looking back to the kitchen nook he had an idea.
Alistair stacked up his two plastic cutting boards and duct taped them together, before just duct taping them over his shirt on the center of his chest… with perhaps a few too many loops of duct tape.
Thinking about it, he walked to the closet and tossed on a hoodie.
“These goblins were clearly not stupid if they made tools and carried bandages. Even an idiot would try and stab a target anywhere except the obvious plate attached to their chest… best to hide it.”
Grabbing a small flash light he duct taped that to the front of his rifle too. “Apparently the fans of the AR15 had a point about accessory rails” he thought.
Magazines filled, wearing “armor”, and having a flashlight, Alistair started walking off the mine. He felt a bit like a badass, Rambo ready for war.
… … about 30 seconds later he was jogging back to the trailer to get the ear plugs he forgot, feeling now more like an idiot way over his head.
Back at the mine entrance Alistair turned on the flashlight and swept it back and forth across the main shaft. “Looks empty to me” he thought.
“Better turn it off until I get to the ladder, don't want them knowing I'm coming.”
Turning off the flashlight with a small press to the button on its base, Alistair crept up to the end of the main shaft, slowly taking his time, making as little noise as possible.
He heard shuffling feet, and the occasional impact. It was an odd sound.. The sound of… something hitting… something else….
“Well shit thats no help”
Peering over the edge of the ladder down to the bottom of the shaft, Alistair could see the water down below it wasn't quite up to the level of the mine he had been in, but had clearly flooded all the other levels.
“Okay, so this is good, no goblins in sight, and they cant be anywhere else in the mine unless they can breath underwater”... “oh god i hope goblins cant breath underwater”
Making his way down the ladder with 1 hand while holding the rifle the other he kept it pointed best he could at the entrance to the tunnel he had been in, and where the goblins had come from.
Visibility got worse and worse as he descended, but as it decreased and as his eyes adapted he noticed a dim light coming from the tunnel. As he got to the level of the tunnel, he could see 5 figures. 3 sitting around a small light, and two doing… something by the hole. Their movements coincided with the impact sounds.
“I guess they haven't noticed me yet.”
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
Stepping off the ladder Alistair raised his rifle aimed down the tunnel and turned on his flashlight.
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If you have never turned on a large flashlight in a dark room, I suggest you try it. Better yet see if your local indoor shooting range will shut off all the lights for you, then with eyes adapted to the dark turn them all on and let you try to hit your targets.
In case you cannot see where this is going, let me inform you it will be going quite poorly.
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What felt like the light of a thousand suns blazed across the tunnel.
The sitting goblins flinched.
The standing goblins flinched.
Alistair flinched.
Then he opened fire.
The three sitting goblins grabbed their spears and charged him, stumbling every time the rifle fired. The noise was deafening. The enclosed rock tunnel causing the sound to echo and reflect, each new shot adding to the cacophony.
10 rounds fired, and even in this tight space he had only managed to hit one.
40 feet was far shorter than Alistair realised, and their small stature, and closing distance made them hard to hit. The recoil of the rifle kept his barrel climbing while he needed it to depress it more and more as they closed on him.
Taking a knee the lower height making it easier to air straight at them as they charged. Alistiar took a single breath and holding it kept firing
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
1 down
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
Another down.
One left!
The charging goblin pulled back his spear ready for a thrust, just as a round ripped through its hip, shattering bone. The force of its step pushed the fractured top of the femur and various fragments of hip and torn flesh out of the exit wound in its lower back.
The goblin crashed into Alistair, spear point missing him but the shaft slapping Alistair’s left shoulder. With the rifle’s muzzle in contact with the goblin Alistair fired two more rounds into it, as he tried to push the goblin away from him.
With the goblin now dead Alistiar looked up to see the other two who were working something at the hole.
With his flashlight now he could see they were stabbing their spears through it, and deflecting spears that were trying to strike at them. However the hole was small enough that it was clear neither side was making any progress.
“Why haven't they turned to me yet?" Alistair thought
He realised the fight had only started maybe 5 or 6 seconds ago, they had not had time to look.
Alistair quickly took aim and fired, he took the first goblin in the back center mass.
Quickly switching targets Alistair aimed at the second, pulled the trigger and
CLICK
“Oh fuck fucK fuCK fUCK FUCK!”
Quickly dropping the mag, Alistair grabbed for the one in his back left pocket, bringing it forward he looked up to see the final goblin turning his head to look at him.
“O shit im not going to have time to seat the mag, charge the bolt, aim, and fire.”
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For those of you who are not familiar with guns, the Fusil Automatique Léger or FAL (pronounced fal, rhymes with pal) is an older battle rifle of french design, and does not lock open its bolt upon firing the last round. This means that when changing a magazine before it is empty involves simply placing a new magazine in the gun. However AFTER firing your last round, the user must change the magazine, then pull back on the charging handle against the recoil spring, compressing it all the way then releasing it to cycle the action, and load a new round into the chamber before it can fire again.
Not a situation one wants to be in when an angry goblin is about to charge you
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Desperately fumbling to seat the new magazine Alistair watched the goblin turn to him and start to run.
…
…
Before a spear from the hole took it in the back.
“Oh… problem solved I guess.”
Alistair finished loading the magazine and racked the bolt. Standing up training the rifle at the hole he called out.
“Hello?... Who is there?”
Thoughts of more goblins went through his head, some goblin civil war seemed a goblin like possibility, which was terrifying.
Silence answered him, followed by a guttural growling noise. The same noise he had previously thought was being made by the water flow tumbling rocks.
More silence.
“I would prefer not to fight”
A head poked through the hole and quickly pulled back.
“Okay was that a freaking baby alligator?” Alistair thought.
…
“No… it… oh for christs sake was that a kobold? Jesus i mined my way into the D&D monster manual”
He could hear more of the growling noises, obviously they were having a conversation. Which was actually an improvement over the goblins. Either he struck a terrifying pose, or they were not instantly hostile. Either was better than the alternative.
The noises stopped and the head popped down again, along with a hand to shield its eyes.
“Oh the light”
Alistiar lowered his rifle so the flashlight was pointed at the floor, so the “kobold?” could see him and the scene better. The kobold took in the scene of carnage, and looked Alistair up and down, then after taking a good look, the head pulled back up the hold and more conversation ensued.
Alistair waited.
“Well I can't leave, and let them come up, and i dont want to get any closer. Clearly they are talking about me, and trying to figure out what to do. I have no clue what to do, so might as well see if they can figure something out.”
About 5 minutes later a different kobold head poked down the hole.
The previous head had been a dark tan color, this new head was more pale, not white, but a light gray tan.
To Alistair's surprise, it spoke to him in English.
“Mage! Why are you here? This is a violation of the pact!”
Alistair was officially confused.
“Uh, okay we got off on the wrong food here, and im going to be honest, im confused. 1st, im not a mage, 2nd i dont know what pact you are talking about, and 3rd “here” is MY mine. I bought it, I own it, it's mine. The better question is WHAT on god's green earth are you? What are they?” pointing at the goblines “and what are all of you doing in my mine!”
Alistair had not meant to get bothered, but really, things had broken into his mine, started trying to kill him and each other, and had the audacity to act like it was his fault.
The kobold just stared at him for a moment, and grunted
“Wait here a moment”
“No that’s…” Alistair thought, "I CLEARLY just saw him grunt, his mouth did NOT move, and yet I clearly heard “Wait here a moment” as if he was speaking English, and he mentioned…mage…”
Alistair was thinking rapidly.
“Okay a lizard with translation magic… 3 possibilities. 1st I'm in a coma, or dying and having one hell of a hallucination. 2nd Thats not a crack in the rock, but a wardrobe in the english countryside, or 3 i tunneled into another world, truck kun not required.
If the first possibility is true, there is nothing I can do about it, so ignore it. If the second possibility is true, don't accept Turkish delight from strange witches, and listen to the lion. If the third possibility is true… um… I guess make due, get gold, don't die.”
With each contingency mapped out and feeling like he had a bit more of a grasp on the situation Alistair waited for what was clearly a kobold mage to return.
The mage kobold climbed down through the hole carefully holding something in his hand, standing on the floor of the tunnel and looking at it he stepped towards me, then back, then raised his hand and asked something of the other kobolds who reached a hand down to grab it and take it out, then hand it back.
The mage kobold turned to Alistair
“We better talk, other worlder, come with me. This will be a long conversation, and I would rather have it in my den, in comfort.”
Not seeing much in the way of a productive alternative Alistair started walking down the tunnel to the mage Kobold who was waiting at the hold.
“What was that thing you were looking at?” Alistair asked while walking.
“Just a compass! Passing it through that hole drove it crazy pointing to the new north. The easiest way to tell this is a world portal.” the mage kobold said pointing to the hole in the rock.
“Okay” Alistair thought “possibility 3 it is”