Heading over to Gaian, I still had a small hitch in my stride, while holding the the troll core far away from me as I didn't want its evil glowing energy to get any more ideas about jumping back into me. Looking over at the bear, last night's exertions seemed to have caused him to take a turn for the worse. Yeah, his brown pelt being matted down by the rain certainly didn't give him an upbeat look, but his laying on his side and panting was much more worrisome to me. It didn't look like he had ripped open the skin that had been seared back together but I had no idea how his internals were doing. I feared that the troll core was his only hope. If I could find a way to transfer the regeneration energy over to him, even if it only worked at a ten percent efficiency on what it had done for the monster it came from, it should have him back up on his feet in moments.

Of course, if the evil of the little marble managed to take him over then his being healed would no doubt quickly end up with my journey to find answers about what happened to the rest of my old world strangled in its cradle. So how fortunate I was to have a native guide that had generously agreed to help me find a solution to our problems.

Looking at the smaller green monster staked into the ground next to the bear, his eyes looked to be darting between me and the bear as I approached. No, I wouldn't say they were looking at me… They seemed to be focusing on the green and yellow core that I was holding away from me before darting back to the muzzle sitting two feet from its face. The canines of the bear that were exposed looked to be almost as long as the goblin’s face. The naked threat of ending up in the bear’s belly should have been holding the entirety of the monster’s attention, but still, he would tear his face away from the jaws just mere feet away to stare hungrily at the core I was holding.

Looking down at the broken bows that were holding the monster to the ground, I could only be thankful that they had brought enough material that I hadn't had to dirty my own supplies to hold him down. While the bow staves may have been crap, the sinew that made up the string seemed to be remarkably strong. When the butt of my spear had hit him and sent him off to dreamland for the second time in such a short while, I was worried I might have killed him, but when no tempest formed above his body I realized he had survived the blow to the skull. I quickly started restraining him, but before I started cutting the rope I had brought with me, I luckily glanced over at one of the bows and had a flash of inspiration. It had already been broken in half when the club I had thrown had hit it while it had been under tension from his fellow trying to shoot me. Cutting the string in the middle had garnered me both two stakes and the rope to restrain the monster all at once.

After tying the ropes to each of his wrists while he was still unconscious, I had hammered the broken half of the bow stave into the ground with my spear haft, before pulling his other arm out to full extension and repeating the process. Hobbling over to the second bow that his fellow archer had thrown at me I had then snapped the small bow in two and then again after cutting the string. I restrained his legs at full extension leaving no slack in any of the ropes for him to gain any leverage to work the stakes out of the wet ground. I had a nervous moment when the rain woke him up and while I had secured the rope to the leg I hadn't staked it down yet.

Luckily Gaian had been standing right there and seemed to understand that leaving him alive was more beneficial than ending its life. With more intelligence than I would have given a bear credit for before my journey to this new world, he laid his massive paw onto the goblin’s chest and lowered his muzzle to growl threateningly. Whether it was from the paw or the massive canines inches from its eyes the goblin had immediately gone limp again and I had hammered the last stake into the ground.

With the lines then taunt and no slack for the goblin to pull up either the bear wasn't as trusting in my work as I was. Or his injuries had finally caught up and overcome the adrenaline that was keeping him going and he had walked a few steps into the grass and laid down on his side staring at the goblin while continuing to softly panting. With the dark of night just getting started and the rain continuing to pour down. I had left him between the goblin and the path to freedom and focused on harvesting and cleaning up the campgrounds. Now that light was coming through the clouds and I had finally gotten myself patched up, it was time to finally see what I could get out of a living native.

If you had asked me just three days ago my thoughts on torture I would have said I was against it except for the most extreme circumstances. I wasn't a bleeding heart who thought that it wouldn't work because the media had been pushing down that narrative for ages now. The examples they used for it not working were ridiculous. My main opposition to it was that I thought we needed to be better than it and I thought giving the government that kind of tool was just asking for it to be turned on you. So while the father in me would no doubt want to forgive a cop for beating up a child rapist to find where he had hidden the kid. The intellectual knew that letting it go was just braiding the noose that would eventually be placed on everyone’s necks.

Every time I hear the trite phrase that torture doesn't work because a person being tortured will say anything to get it to stop, I want to laugh and reply that yes, yes it will. The problem is that what most people use for examples of why it doesn't work, is the person wasn't looking for answers but to confirm what they were asking. Yes, if you don't ask the right questions then no torture won't get you any reliable information. As I looked down at the being staked into the ground in front of me, I had to wonder if as I continued to explore this new world that I wouldn't someday eventually find myself in this same exact position. There have been very few times in my old world’s history that limits had been placed on one’s leaders, and even then they had only ever been used to protect the citizens of the country while ignoring spies and other unregulated combatants.

I had very little hope that if there was some source of governance other than the monsters that had been sending attacks my way, that there would be little I could do to convince them I was a native. My only hope was that when I got to that point, I knew enough to either make myself unremarkable or ignored, while I found my way around. Or perhaps I could find a way to stand out and be recruited, looking to find a powerful backer to work for. Either way, that was a problem for the future, and for right now I needed to try and find some answers.

The first thing I needed to establish was if there was any way to communicate verbally with the monster held in front of me. I doubted there were any languages from my home on this planet. But if asked a week ago I would have laughed at the thought of actually being able to stand on another planet and breathe without some kind of tool or interface, and yet here I am. So let’s not leave an easy button unpressed just because it's unlikely.

“Do you speak English?” I asked with only the slightest bit of hope in my heart. At its blank stare, I followed it up with several phrases I had still memorized in high school.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Parlez vous Français?

“Habla Español?”

“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” Striking out on any of the three languages I had the barest grasp of I still decided to try other random phrases to see if I could get even a glimpse of recognition in the monster’s eyes, that might tell me if a universal language existed.

“Otearai wa doko?”

“Zhè ge duōshǎo qián?” With no glimmer from the two eastern phrases, I could recall from past trips. I was left with just two phrases left to go in my lexicon

“Civic offic dignus.” When I hadn't gotten anything for the few European phrases in my lexicon, I knew trying the little bit of Latin that I knew probably wasn't going to work either. Also, I thought that while saying that I came, and saw might be true… saying I had conquered might just be a little bit hubristic and too inviting for the universe to come smack me back down to size. So I left that alone and chose a phrase from one of the parts of philosophy I had learned in my younger years. The citizen’s duty is to his dignity. A profound thought that flew right over the head of the loin cloth wearing savage in front of me.

I thought about the companion phrase of “barbaris libertas ethos” but didn't waste my breath on it. I far was more interested in finding answers than showing off my scholastic knowledge to something that would most likely be dead shortly. Placing the troll core on the ground a short distance away I noticed how the monster's eyes stayed glued to it except for quick darts over to look at the bear. While a part of me felt that I should be insulted as my body count so far was much higher than the hulking giant lying on its side. I again kept the thought to myself as every time I had managed to come out on top when going up against a crowd I had the bear as the more obvious threat to pull attention away from me.

Shaking my mesh bag over the prone creature's face, I called for its attention, but the monster just continued to ignore me while maintaining its constant stare at the greater prize. Annoyed, I thought about kicking him but held off on violence for the moment. Enhanced questioning only works if questions and answers can be actually understood. Not wanting to lose track of my most valuable asset, I thought about covering it up with some dirt, as I planned more experiments with it later and didn't want to constantly be walking back and forth through the camp every time I needed the monster's attention.

Taking another tack for the moment I picked up the spear that I had left lying next to Gaian after I had restrained the attacker last night. Lowering the blade slowly to the goblin's face I waited for its eyes to focus on the weapon. When I was sure I had its attention, I tried jangling the bag again over its face. As the goblin finally glanced over to the multitude of regular cores that I was dangling, finally having gotten his attention I was glad to get to a starting point. Setting the longer weapon down, I pulled a core out of the bag, held it out to the captive, and stated “Core.” Repeating my word for the object several times, I was hoping to elicit a sound that would let me know these creatures had some kind of language. The creature had carried a pouch with two of these in it and if it had some value to it surely it had a name for the object.

After several minutes of futility, I finally gave up on the process. Either the creature didn't have a language, which belayed everything that I thought I knew about how the universe might work. Even mushrooms can communicate, if these creatures are going to order others about and work together they must have words. If they are going to carry something around in a bag then you would think it has to be important enough to have a name! As I ended my rant in my head, I let no sign of my frustrations show on my face. I didn't know if the goblin just came from such a violent society that my gentle questioning had yet to cause any reaction or if it truly had no word for the object in my hand.

Skipping to my next experiment as actually learning goblinoid was fairly low on my list of tasks, I had just hoped having a word would make my next couple of tests slightly easier. Setting the mesh bag down I picked up my tongs and pulled out a basic core to hold with them. For my next inquiry, I had picked one of the flattest green ones, as the color seemed to be the most common. Both for being carried as currency and being found in their chests; and judging from who had carried what, the flatter cores were the least valuable.

Taking a hold of the rock with my tongs, I lowered it down above the goblins face to see what kind of response I could elicit. Again I was ignored, but at least it hadn't gone back to staring at the more valuable troll core, for now it seemed I still had its attention. Waving the core slowly over the monster's face it still continued to ignore the rock while staring straight into my face, giving no hint as to why the greenskins might think the little glowing rock was valuable. I thought about dropping it into the creature's mouth to get a reaction. As an incredible book I had once read had said, every Idiot eventually finds his melty rock and has to taste it. Now maybe these cores were mine, but while I definitely resembled the type that was chosen to be Idiots, I had no desire to be dumb. I was going to get as much information as I could from a disposable source before trying anything with my friend’s or my own body.

Reaching down to touch the stone to his forehead, again nothing happened. So I moved it over to its left claw, with no indication on whether it had a strong or weak hand as it had been taken out of the fight before it had been able to draw its weapons. I went with the left just based on humanity with nothing better to go on. When it kept its claws closed into a fist to refuse grasping the stone, I picked the spear back up with my left hand and pressed the blade into the meat of its forearm slowly until blood started to well up. When it finally opened up its claws I dropped the core in and removed the spear again waiting for any kind of response.

Yet again nothing was forthcoming. This was starting to get annoying. Picking the stupid glowing rock up with my tongs so as not to give the monster a chance to dig into my flesh I moved it over to its heart and pressed it down. Looking to see if I could get a resonance with the probable location of the creature's own core. When again nothing happened, I tried moving it to its forehead, and the center of its torso. Only to once again find myself striking out, knowing absolutely nothing more than I had before I came over.

Looking at the creature glaring at me, I moved on to my next test. Moving the rock to hover over its mouth, I had to wave the spear threateningly when it kept its maw closed. It seemed to have a base intelligence as it opened up without me having to poke it again. As he swallowed it and looked at me with disdain I waited several minutes to see if I would get any sign that it had caused any changes.

When no glowing apparitions appeared and with the small cut on its arm still dripping blood I gave the core up for loss and was glad I had plenty more on hand. Taking my mesh bag back up I started shaking it above its face and then dumped everything out in a spot the monster's eyes could see to see if it would focus on anyone so I might try to get anything out of it before I resorted to my last choice. It seemed somewhat interested as its eyes ran over the gathered loot but it didn't look at anything specifically so I was forced to gather everything back up into the bag and set it aside. Out of options, I was left with one last experiment before I got down to trying the rocks on myself.

Before I picked the troll core up, I made sure both my ax and bowie knife were loose in their sheaths, while the shaman's dagger was sitting a few feet away. I picked up the spear and held it in my left hand. I thought about getting dressed, but as I was sure my clothes wouldn't be a barrier if the monster got loose from a powerup, so in the end I decided against getting dressed. I would either die or find answers.

Either way, I would rather save my clothes for later.