Taking up the evil core with my tongs, I started by holding the core above the restrained creature. I watched as his eyes followed greedily the glowing rock, unblinking and never breaking their hold on it. Determined not to waste the opportunity, I tried to elicit emotions from the captive, as I moved the orb over different points over his body. I knew of three places where the core could grow now and I wanted to find out if that was just the common ones or if there were other spots the orb could be found.
This was a bit of a flawed experiment as a negative reaction wouldn't necessarily mean my operating theory was wrong, it might just mean the goblin savage didn't know any better. Or it could mean that once you have one core you are stuck with it forever and not able to change how it interacts with you or grow another one.
I knew my chances of finding any meaningful answers were basically nil. But I was determined not to waste the chance to gain the slightest bit of knowledge that could help me survive to gain the more important answers about why I had been ripped away from my world. Looking down at the goblin’s face, all I could see was naked hunger as drool dripped down out of its mouth, with its unwavering focus on the magical rock.
Part of me reflected that my actions were that of a villain and that my morality could be compared to a mad scientist. As the thought came through, another one followed that gave me pause. I didn't know the laws of this world. What if they had rules regarding the mutating of monsters? As the hamster started getting ginned up more queries flew from the back of my mind.
What if this was a feudal society and I was in some noble's private hunting ground where goblins were kept weak for his children to grow strong hunting? Was the demon portal throwing through the troll egg a warning to me? A test to see what I was made of? Or was it the ruler of this land or his underling just trying to get rid of what it saw as vermin at a cheap price?
As more questions came flying out, I tried to focus the hamster's mad ramblings on questions that involved the immediate next few moments rather than vague musing on things out of my control. Was this morally okay? I asked myself, Probably not, but like every paver to hell has said to justify doing something wrong. I need this knowledge to survive and I’m okay with the ends justifying the means.
“Was I going to get in trouble doing this or would it come back to haunt me later?” With a whine from Gaian, I realized that I had asked this question out loud. So I replied to his query. “Just going over possible consequences one last time before I do something irrevocable.”
With a snuff that I took for him asking me to expand on possible consequences, I replied. “I mean the worst that happens is we power the midget up and he kills us. I don't plan on taking it that far but my knowledge is minimal at best.” Continuing on I said. “Anything powerful enough to look back in time and see what we are doing probably has the ability to stop me before I act. They definitely would be able to stomp me out, no questions asked. Really all I'm doing is giving the voices in my head the ammunition to laugh at me later and tell me they told me so.”
As the bear rolled his eyes and indicated I should stop stalling and just get on with it. I stopped projecting and just rolled my neck while I got ready for my first serious attempt at monster testing. After all, it wouldn't do to start testing on some poor little bunny when I had a perfectly fine specimen of evil right here in front of me.
Hovering the core over the goblin’s forehead, I waited for any response, resonance, or any indication that there might be something there to respond to the Qi. When I didn't get a visible response from the goblin or feel any tugging from my tongs, I moved down to the area over the stomach where I had found the cores of the bruisers. Once again there was nothing to indicate I was on the right track.
I moved to the most likely location to provoke the goblin or core and held the rock over the heart of the goblin. Where I was surprised to once again find nothing happening. Lowering it down slowly, ready to pull back the second I got a response, I eventually reached the skin. As it touched down, I reflexively jerked back up hastily.
Chuckling at my nervous reaction, I again pressed it down into the skin. Again I found nothing seemed to be happening. I wanted to sit down and ponder why it was going this way, but I still needed to have so much to do and my head was starting to pound. So I forced myself to continue on with the next steps I had already planned out. Looking at the creature's eyes I saw that it was raising its head up in an effort to continue staring at the power source. Again it might be projecting, but all I saw was naked hunger. While not an expert by any means on goblin behavior, if asked later I would honestly say it was wanting me to continue.
Confused because the second I had touched the orb the energy had seemed to dive right into me in an effort to reach my core. I wondered if it wasn't just skin touch and it needed to be grasped in one's hand. Debating internally if I should touch it to my own chest or place it in the goblin's hand. I ended up voting for the goblin again. Yeah the last time I went up against the yellow energy I got a tiny bit of a power up, but I hadn't had parts of me bitten off, had a pounding headache, or was missing a night's sleep.
Looking into the goblin’s eyes as I moved it over to its hands, it seemed both as greedy as ever and also indifferent as if it knew it wouldn't work. Touching it to the green palm that it helpfully left open, I was ready to drop the tongs and stab down with the spear the instant it looked like the monster was trying to hold onto the core and yet again, I got no response from the yellow energy.
Wondering if perhaps the creatures of this world had the same access to the Order and Chaos that I had encountered in my kidnapping that my fellow native Terrans did… that is to say none. If that was true then maybe they weren't able to cut channels into their body. If there were no external channels other than the original one that I had found before I started meddling with the building blocks of the universe, then that meant I was going to have to feed the core to the monster.
I was not happy, to say the least. This represented the best chance for a power up that I had found since I had arrived on this moon. Everyone knows healing is the op magic of any game if you want to go solo. I never understood those who played warriors or rogues and needed to bandage or rest before getting back to it. My favorite characters were druids or shamans, those able to fight toe to toe while having the resources to keep going rather than sit around and wait after every fight. I wanted this healing power and if it was going to go to anyone other than me it would be the bear who had saved my life on multiple occasions.
A tank with unstoppable regeneration would let me snipe and strike down while keeping my own skin in place. While I wouldn't be happy with someone else having the responsibility and being the focus of the pain that came with being hit while controlling the crowd. Gaian had shown that he could discharge those duties admirably, so I would manage to be okay if the regeneration powers had to go to him. But the goblin definitely wasn't going to be getting it.
Wanting to scream and curse my frustrations, I decided on two courses of action that I thought I might have left before trying to dissipate the yellow energy myself. One, I could hold it above the monster's mouth and see if that was close enough to the channels that even my unimproved self had. Two, if that didn't work I could drop it into the monster's mouth, and then the second I saw any change or one minute later, whichever came first. I would just kill it with the spear and retrieve the core from the monster's body. I had already done it once so I had some confidence that I would be successful.
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The only thing that might go bad would be if the entire core dissipated into energy when consumed so it could be integrated into a new shape in its future home. With two probable good outcomes and one possible bad, I decided to ignore what I might not know and just continue my experiments and go for it. The worst that would happen was that I might be destroying a priceless, life saving treasure by wasting it on a perfectly healthy and soon to be dead, basic monster.
Sighing at my last thought, I maneuvered the core over the goblin’s jaws and prayed for some response so I wouldn't have to risk losing the treasure to goblin bile. Looking into its eyes as the monster's jaws reflexively started snapping in their effort to reach the glowing globe. I finally saw the reaction I had been waiting for. The energy in the middle of the core seemed to start streaming off out of it, through cracks in the outer green shell. As it started diving down into the goblin’s mouth the yellow parts of it started to dim and when the glow seemed to have diminished by about a third, I withdrew it to wait and see what would happen, rather than giving the monster the full dose of power that the troll had been granted.
Turning to set the tongs to the side, I found myself being flung head over heels as a massive force bowled into me. Holding onto my spear, I twisted in the air so I wouldn't accidentally break it by jamming the blade into the ground and rolling over it. As I rolled to a stop and found my feet I saw the bear snarling where I once stood and biting at its side.
Looking over to the goblin's hands, I saw that they were free from their bonds, severed by elongated claws two of which it seemed to have launched at me and if it hadn't been for Gaian's quick reaction I would no doubt have a new hole or two in me. Grabbing the spear as I saw the goblin start to sit up in an effort to cut its legs free. I ran forward, driving the spear into the neck of the goblin with such force that I severed the spine and removed the entire thing as the boar stop continued to drive through the body rather than halting my forward momentum.
Stepping back I was prepared for the limbs to keep moving while the body tried to regrow its head, but after a couple of minutes of the blood no longer spurting I concluded that the goblin hadn't gained the troll's regeneration. Whether that was because the regeneration was part of the green energy or because I just hadn't fed the whole core to the goblin. I still didn't have enough info yet to come to a conclusion on that.
Quickly enough the small storm of energy came up off the body. As the majority of it flew into me I didn't even feel the need to try and enter my core to fight it off. I just started my basic breathing pattern and tried to blank my mind. Looking at the small stream to enter the bear, he seemed to be handling it just fine, not even having the urge to roar. As I felt the familiar pressure of the tube that only I seemed to be able to see descended from the sky, I waited for it to start gathering up its part before I swiped a good portion for myself.
Wondering about the logistics of it, it didn't make any sense to me. The amount of power the force from the sky was using to collect this small bit of energy had to be immense. I couldn't even see where it was disappearing off to, creating a tube that long every time something died was insane. Hmmmm I thought to myself, that’s not exactly true when I killed the Terran fish I hadn't felt anything. Not conclusive because maybe they just hadn't been here long enough to acquire what the tubes were looking for.
Wondering what had happened to the mule deer, jackrabbits, and squirrels I had seen as I could only hope that they hadn't become goblin food. I might try going after some squirrel later but part of me doubted it was worth trying to head back to the circle of earth. My future was going to be off in the massive valley ahead and it wasn't worth wasting the calories to just go back and test a theory. Also without a gun, it wasn't going to be as easy to quickly kill a squirrel or rabbit. A deer I may as well forget about it, unless I came across a much better form of bow.
Looking over at the bear I saw that the claw the goblin had shot out had only grazed him and didn't seem to actually cut through his tough hide. Thankful for small favors I walked over to give it a closer look. As I got near him and he turned to face me I said. “Thank you, brother, I don't know why I was dumb enough to turn my back on the little monster for even a second after juicing it up. But thank you for having my back.”
As he turned and pressed his head into my side in what I could only assume was an acknowledgment of my giving him his rightful due. I found myself being hit with a feeling of repulsion. I don't like the position I am finding myself in. When you are a father, you are the one supposed to be taking the hits so your family doesn't. When problems come up you deal with them quietly, never letting the family know how bad things are because it's your job to shield them from the ugly and let them be happy. If you need to work an extra day or pick up a second job to make ends meet, that's just what you do. I didn't like being the one not picking up the check for the choices I was making.
I thought about it some more while I was rubbing his ears. I really didn't like the fact that he kept getting hurt, but he also wasn't my child. He made that choice on his own, either because he felt he owed me for helping him because he felt I was the best choice he had of making it in this world, or just because he was a pure soul and felt it was his duty. Speaking to him like an equal, I straight up asked him. “Did you do that because you felt you owed me? Because if that's the case, you’ve more than paid your debt.”
With a gentle backward swipe of his paw, he sent me tumbling backward. Rolling over and picking myself back up I looked back at him. He wasn't snarling or acting mad, so apparently, he had just seen all of the times I had rapped myself on the head and this was just his way of trying to knock the stupid out of me.
“Okay, okay, I’ll stop bringing it up.” I backpedaled from my previous statement with the alacrity of a politician. “You're the bear, you're the tank, you take the hits. I’ve got it… I'm just not used to being the useless dps that constantly needs to be rescued. After we get you the regeneration, we're going to have to look for a healing skill for me. I can't have my brain atrophy from the lack of exercise, with being reduced to poking monsters with pointy objects.” I said as a way of apology for questioning his ability to do the job he had chosen for himself.
Looking down at the dead body, I rolled it with the tip of my spear. Finally clean and not wanting to waste more soap if I didn't have to, I sliced a vertical cut through the sternum with the blade of my spear. Maneuvering the blade under the heart, I cut it free and flicked it out, happy when I saw a brown glow shining up from the body. With a flick of my spear, I sent it into the grass still wet from the rain, bending down I quickly wiped it clear of the sticky red blood with some grass that I had torn out.
Not feeling a hunger coming from it, I risked picking it up with my fingers, holding it up to the light of the sky. I examined it more closely. It seemed to be made up of layers with the lights of it running around in a corkscrew before returning back to the middle. As I looked at a part that I was calling the top of the flattish stone, it looked like that, near the apex of the corkscrew, before it started heading back down was a small bur coming off.
Whether this was from the yellow power infecting it or what it used to send its claws shooting out and it had always been there, just biding its time I still didn't have enough information to lock myself into a theory yet. I was glad to see that whatever power that it had drained from the yellow Qi wasn’t enough to infect this core, either it was because it hadn’t drawn enough into it or because it hadn’t been formed with it as the base. Either way, I was going to take the win and the loot.
Setting my spear down for now I added the brown core to the now half-full bag of loot and left the troll core where it lay for the moment. Trusting that Gaian wasn't dumb enough to eat it. Dragging the goblin’s body over to the pile of corpses I tossed it on, grateful that they hadn't come to life to attack me again. I knew I had plans to burn the original corpses, but with the amount of flesh sitting in front of me, it would take several mid-sized trees to burn it all to ash. Especially after the amount of water that had dumped down on us last night.
Sighing, I thought about heading back to my tent and just letting myself fall down and let the blissfulness of unconsciousness take over for a little bit. But with the lingering chance of concussion and the pounding source of responsibility urging me to take care of the rest of my camp chores, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Knowing that I wasn't going to be able to keep a camp here. I started working on my list of crap that I needed to take care of before nightfall came again.
Securing the drinking water was the most important task, while cleaning all of my clothes that had been damaged and covered in blood, was probably going to be the most annoying. I had no idea how much a bear needed to drink in a given day, but I was going to need three to four quarts. While the kayak had gathered a lot into the bottom of it, in reality, it was probably only a week's worth, and while I had no idea how regular those storms were. I only had the ability to save a total of nine gallons for later use, and I was going to continue to need some of it for cooking and cleaning purposes as well.
After I took care of those basic housekeeping tasks I was going to have to decide if I was moving… or hunting for more goblins to drain the yellow Qi into.