The goblin chief rose from his throne shrugged and sounding entirely unimpressed stated “not look like dragonkin, look like man, look like food.”
Realizing I wasn’t getting out of here without a struggle I did what I felt to my best chance at not ending up dead under a sea of goblins. “You look weak! You look unworthy! I challenge for the right to be chief!”
Well, he no longer looked unimpressed, he looked like I had taken a piss on his favorite childhood meal, and he intended to beat the piss back into me against all laws of nature. The rest of the goblins stopped everything they were doing and silently began forming a large circle around us while staring in rapt attention.
“To death” was all he said before charging me driving me back towards the fire. I didn’t have a choice anymore, he’s stronger than me better equipped be nature to kill me. I took the small win that id been able to make this a one on one fight and bent the aether to making me stronger, a better killer than him. I roared in pain as I felt the aether warp me, giving me the chance to fight back. At the last second I grabbed the goblin chief’s shoulders pivoted and slammed him into the fire and coming down on top of him. I didn’t wait and began raining blows onto his head as soon as we landed, I wasn’t a fighter I couldn’t take the chance of the chief regaining his bearing. As I continued raining hits at him and he struggled to block we burned together and as I watched our skins charring I could see how the aether how twisted my will. I wasn’t shaped quite right anymore, I was bigger and felt things weren’t quite shaped the way they had been before. As the pain of the fire threatened to overwhelm me I grabbed at the chief’s throat, squeezed, and felt my claws sink in. Claws were new and explained some of the wrongness my body felt, but I couldn’t think about that all I could think about was crawling and flopping this new awkward body away from the flames. I made it just far enough to not actually be in the fire pit anymore before channeling the last of my will and forcing the aether to stop my burning.
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I breathed in relief as the pain subsided, I didn’t have the energy to care what side effects this casting would have. The shadows grew stronger and the world farther as consciousness was fading away from me. Just before I completely passed out I heard a voice I believe belonged to the white haired goblin starting to chant “Chief Kalder, Chief Kalder, Chief Kalder” a chorus joined and then there was nothing.