Looking down at my arms and hands, I realized I was covered in blood from my impromptu butchery, so I started looking around the room for a way to get cleaned up. Giving it a once over the first thing I noticed was that there were three possible exits (or avenues of attack from anyone who might have heard the commotion), not two. In addition to the two I had seen the last goblins had split up to make there escape, there was also another tunnel maybe fifteen feet to the right of where our packs lay.
Now that my eyes were better adjusted I saw that the glow was coming from both spores coming off of some mushrooms hanging on the wall, and a slightly luminecent short grass or lichen that was growing along the edges of the room. I’m guessing the reason it wasn’t everywhere was because the gobin’s kept churning up the middle of the room while waiting for their next victims. I wondered if that was something they did while they weren’t waiting for intrepid adventures to wander in or if this was like a dungeon from a game where they were just following a script to give us a better chance.
Looking to the wall between the two tunnels that had been fleeing too directly across from where our packs lay I saw water streaming down the side to slowly flow down both of the tunnels. Not even an inch deep, it seemed like the caves had good drainage lower down. Heading over I dug my arms into the water and started scrubbing them, noting it was cool, but without the frigidness that would indicate it was coming from snow melt. Staring up the wall to the seam it was coming out of I hoped that meant it was being filtered by the earth, but decided to run it through my own before adding it to our drinking supply just to be on the safe side. At least it was crystal clear which meant I knew goblins hadn’t managed to foul it.
Watching the water flow down the tunnels now red with blood, I hoped I wasn’t alerting any goblins further on to our presence. As often as they seemed to fight amongst themselves, hopefully any further down would just think it was from a if they even noticed it at all. Scrubbing my blades as clean as I could, I found a cleanish spot on my shirt to dry them off on so they wouldn’t rust before returning my knife and club to their respective spots on my belt. Washing off the cores I had gathered I started walking back over to the children to see what I could learn.
Walking past the bear I saw that he was taking a moment to rest in the middle of the room, recovering from several wounds the spear wielding goblin had managed to inflict. There were a couple of deep gashes in his left flank that were still oozing blood, but they were slowly closing. Asking him if he was able to heal himself, I was surprised when he indicated yes. That was followed up by several questions as to why he was letting his regeneration do the work, I’m not sure I was able to understand all of his reasoning, but the gist of it was. He was a) saving mana in case we were attacked, b) improving his regeneration skill, and c) he seemed to think it was making him stronger, or encouraging his hide to get thicker. The last one took several questions to figure out so I’m not sure if that was really what he was going for, but after talking it over with him, I decided to hold off on having him heal the scratches on my back.
They were bothering me, but nothing that was going to be debilitating, and I could feel that the bleeding had already stopped. Although I was going to need to try and repair the shirt later, part of me wondered if I should try and figure out a way to combine the two leather chest pieces the bashers had been wearing. No, I was better off giving them to the kids. While they had handled themselves well enough, they had only had to face four of the easiest goblins and until I had a better idea of their capabilities I should armor them up first. I would see what I could do with the next batch we ran into. Somehow I was sure there would be another batch of enemies in here.
Looking over to the three kids, I could see the two older ones were still trying to calm Lotus down. She wasn’t screaming anymore but even though Sienna was still trying to hold onto her tightly, she had managed to get an arm loose and was swinging it wildly around. Walking over to them swiftly, I took the younger one from her and wrapped her in a bear hug while slowly humming a lullaby, rocking her back and forth. While she tried to do everything she could to bite, kick, and scratch me. I wasn’t so far removed from the toddler years when I had to calm my own kids down from a tantrum when they tried their best to disfigure me.
With one hand holding her head so she couldn’t get her teeth into me, the other important part was just holding her close enough she couldn’t get the leverage for a big enough kick. Rocking her back and forth, it was important to hold her firmly enough she couldn’t get loose to hurt herself or me, while at the same time loosely enough she didn’t feel trapped. Looking at her sister, she was looking wild in the eyes but seemed happy enough to have someone else dealing with the problem for now. Remembering how I had felt every time I had been invaded by the killing exp, I wondered if they were experiencing the same problems. Gesturing to her I started to exaggerate my breathing pattern, indicating she should follow along. It took her a while to get the picture, eventually, she started following along and began to calm down. Whether that was because it was actually solving the problem or if it just distracted her enough from the problems her sister was having until I figured out a better way to communicate I doubted I would ever know.
Noticing her brother was following along with the breathing exercises I was happy when the frantic looks finally left the older one’s eyes. When both of them had calmed down enough, I gestured to the Sienna to go into my pack. Miming eating and pointing to Lotus, I eventually managed to get the point across and she pulled out several packages until I saw she had managed to find the dry fruit. Nodding to that one, she pulled out a piece and eventually we managed to get it into her mouth without anyone being bit. That finally seemed to do the trick as the intense flavor of it finally broke through her tantrum enough to calm her down. As she started chewing, I set her down gently and let her run back to her sister so she could escape the embrace of the strange man she had only met less than a day ago.
Taking a piece for myself, I slowly began to chew it before offering some to each of the older siblings, hesitantly they both took their own pieces. I held back a laugh after I noticed their eyes widen as they first tasted it before quickly stuffing the whole piece into their mouths. Putting the pouch away to their obvious disappointment, I promised they could have some later. I only managed to dry about fifteen pounds that I hadn’t mixed into the pemmican, it sounds like a lot, but between the five of us it would be easy to eat a pound a day and I had no idea how long we were going to be in this dungeon. Sure if this was a video game with the graveyard a short distance away I would have no problem throwing our bodies endlessly into the fight, and while we might have a healer we weren’t going to be running from room to room chaining kills to get to the boss as fast as we could. Having wiped more times than I could count even with friends I could trust, with the PUG nature of our group, and no respawns available; I had no desire to go faster than we had to.
Speaking of which, with Lotus calmed down it was time to see what some native humans thought of the magical little rocks that goblins seemed to think were so special. Holding out the four I had gathered, I saw the children’s eyes open wide in shock. At first, I took it to mean they thought I was just showing them to brag, but after several gestures, I finally managed to get the point across that they could take them. This set off a flurry of discussions between the older two, with even little Lotus chiming in every once in a while. As they continued to grow more and more intense in their debates, I let them go for the most part, only bothering to shush them whenever their voices grew louder enough I feared they might start echoing down the caves and announce our presence to the rest of the monsters.
Eventually Gaian wandered over to lay down and watch the excitement, taking the opportunity to sit down myself, I leaned back against him gently so as not to break open the scabs on my back. As it continued to go on I wondered at how long it was taking for them to discuss it, there were only four to choose from… But thinking back to how I had agonized over my own builds when it was only gaming, I settled in for the long haul. I wasn’t going to rush them, this was real life and I had no idea how this worked. Maybe they had been expecting their parents to make the choice for them, or maybe they were expected to try and gain their own. Perhaps the cores were reserved for the nobility and they never expected to receive one. With no idea how their culture treated magic, I hoped I wasn’t making a mistake and putting them on a KoS list. It would suck to finally escape the dungeon only to be killed or imprisoned the first time we finally made it back to civilization.
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Not that I didn’t think we needed the power up to survive, but if cores were strictly regulated on the outside world then that was just a new can of worms we were going to have to deal with after we survived this tribulation. It would make sense, I thought to myself as I continued along that line the hamster had spun out. After all, what kind of leaders would actually want children with superpowers running around his city? While it might make sense in a tv series, as strictly as we try to regulate law abiding citizens’ ability to defend themselves, there is no way a leader back home would trust a child with the ability to form a fireball out of nothing. I have to wonder if they even allow adults to run around with powers here. However with monsters everywhere, maybe they are more sensible about the population having the ability to defend themselves.
Snorting slightly at the thought of a sensible politician, I had to hold myself back from laughing out loud as the thought just seemed too foreign of a concept to take seriously.
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It took about an hour for the conversations to finally wind down and they walked back over to me. Several times I thought to go start filtering water, but every time I made a move to get up, they had stopped talking and stared at me. Not wanting to rush them into a decision they weren’t sure of, I eventually just gave up and focused on my meditations, trying to get back to my soul vision without having to follow the invading exp down. Several times I thought I might have had it, only to find myself staring at my navel when I opened my eyes. I thought I was feeling the goblin core I had glued back together powered up and ready to go, but I was hesitant to activate it without an outlet to unleash it on.
Taking it to be some version of mighty blow, I had only managed one tremendous punch when I had first put it together. But I had no desire to explode another corpse for no purpose, right no I was figuring I would just have to try and unleash it at the start of the next battle, then go from there. I hadn’t exhausted myself the first time, so that seemed like a safe enough experiment. After talking it over with the bear, he seemed to agree. He said even after the dragon had taken all of his mana he hadn’t been weakened to the point he couldn’t use his natural strength to fight. Also, healing had to be way more mana intensive than a mighty blow, so he doubted I only had one of them in me before going OOM, what kind of damage it might cause to my unenhanced body from multiple uses was another question entirely, but he thought he would be able to heal me up when it became necessary.
Watching them line up in front of me, I stood up. This seemed to be incredibly important to them and I was willing to be as formal as they needed me to be. I had to force myself to remember they had lost their parents or guardians less than twenty-four hours before. I was a strange man who was now the only adult in their lives and I was apparently offering them something thousands of times better than candy so if you looked at it from that point… well I didn’t come off looking good. Ignoring that for now, only the two older children stepped forward, leaving Lotus a couple of steps behind.
As I held out the cores again, both of them looked me straight in the eyes, before getting onto their knees and kowtowing to me three times, repeating a phrase in their own language each time their head touched the floor. My first instinct as an American was to stop them, anything that stank of fealty or them swearing their lives to me seemed like something I should be stopping. But something in their eyes told me this was important to them and the only way they would be willing to take these cores from me was if I let them continue the ceremony.
As they looked expectantly to me I thought about calling over Lotus to have her tell me what to say, but instead decided against it. I would finish the ceremony, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept them swearing their lives to me. I would reply in English so they wouldn’t understand, but if this was something the world was going to accept formally like when I had made the deal with the rabbits, then I was going to leave them a way out. Thinking it over carefully I thought about how I wanted to phrase it before I responded. Despite me taking several minutes to respond, neither of the two children on their knees even so much as fidgeted.
“Sienna and Aspen,” I said speaking as formally as I could, taking a beat so my brain wouldn’t run away faster than my mouth and leave me stammering. “You are welcome to anything of mine you need to grow stronger so you can protect your family. I promised to the world and your parents I would see you safe. The best way I know to do that is to make sure you have the strength you need so that you never have to depend on anyone else. But until you reach that point, know that I will be there for you to lean on. Be it for advice, wealth, or knowledge, I will do my best to provide for you. While I may not have much at the moment, what I have is yours. Take these gifts freely so you may grow in strength and fight against these monsters who would feast on our bones and see your siblings devour your siblings.”
Giving myself a four out of five for dramatic effect, it didn’t seem to be enough, as I had yet to feel anything from the world settle onto me like it had when I had sworn my pack with the rabbits. Remembering that the rabbits had needed blood to seal the other oath, I thought about the ethics of binding children to an agreement sealed in blood. Part of me was revolted as the eldest here was maybe the age of my youngest, but I continued to think about it and finally managed to overcome my self-righteousness. They had already been forced to defend their lives on my watch and this was only the first room. How much worse was this going to get? If they don’t take the magic due to my refusing to complete the ceremony because I find it morally wrong and they end up dead, how was that the better outcome? Are my values really worth more than their lives?
Holding back a sigh, I set the cores gently onto the ground and pulled out my knife. Slicing along my right palm, I flipped the blade around, catching it and holding the handle out to Sienna first. Standing she took the blade and spoke out firmly several lines before slicing her own palm. Passing the blade to her brother she pressed her hand to mine firmly and I finally felt the oath settle on my core. This one was much firmer, but I again felt that if I needed to I could break the chains without suffering any backlash. But I ignored that feeling and let the oath settle around my soul.
Turning to Aspen I watched as he sliced into his hand. I was forced to hold myself back as in his determination to complete the ceremony he went much deeper than a superficial wound. Looking at the way he stared at the flap of skin hanging off I could tell he knew he had made a mistake. But as he held on tightly to the knife I knew he wasn’t going to stop until the ceremony was over. Holding his hand tighter than I did his sister, I did my best to ignore the blood flowing through my fingers as the extra pressure I was exerting didn’t do much to stop the flow of blood.
After he spoke his words and I felt the chain settle down onto my core, I waited until I felt it fully take hold before I released him and called over to the bear to fix the kid’s nervous mistake. At first, he wanted to grab his core but I held him back, if they wanted me to be in charge I was going to make sure that he didn’t pass out when healing was easily available. While the bear stuck his nose into the bloody palm I watched as the flap of skin slowly glued itself back onto his hand. Eventually, the bleeding stopped and he was left without a scar. Hoping he wasn’t disappointed and we would be forced to redo the ceremony, he ignored all of that and practically dove onto the ground to pick up the gold core, while his sister more sedately went after the red one.
But judging from the beaming smile on her face, she was no less happy with what she had received. Getting one of the pouches of dried fruit in lieu of popcorn I settled back into the bear that had returned to his spot to watch the show. I was excited to find out what I could learn when I watched them activate the glowing gems.