Chapter 2 - A Leg to Stand On

If the System was to be believed, I couldn’t die unless I was the last living member of my tribe. Unfortunately, I was currently the only member of my tribe. I hadn’t played many fantasy games, but I knew goblins were generally bottom of the barrel in terms of individual power level. Looking at my scrawny arms and absent legs, I saw no reason why that trend might deviate here. The first order of business was getting out of this hot, dry prairie and finding some goblins to pump those numbers up before some wildcat made a meal of me. To do that, I had to be mobile. Unfortunately, I was also ambulatorily deficient. Which was a fancy way of saying Lieutenant Dan, you ain’t got no legs.

In one direction across the fields, I could see a tree line. But that was miles away, and the idea of dragging myself across that much open ground sounded like suicide. I doubted I was about to get a third chance if I bought the farm within an hour of reincarnation. Speaking of farms, I was going to have to figure out agriculture, which was a big blind spot. Surely there must be someone in this world who already understood it. Maybe even the goblins, themselves.

There were a few scraggly trees closer to my location. So, as the sun climbed in the sky, I started crawling my way over the grass and rocks, stone stabby kept close. I doubt it would do me much good if I were attacked, but it was better than my stubby, dull claws.

There was a surprising amount of strength in my new goblin limbs, despite their apparent scrawniness. I had a lot of upper body strength as a human from being in the rowing team in college, both before the accident and after rehab, and from rolling a wheelchair through NuEarth. But I’d have still been exhausted long before I got to the roots of the gnarled, spindly deadwood tree. I pushed myself up to the trunk, but that’s as far as I got. I tried and tried to haul myself up the trunk to some of the live branches and couldn’t manage it. I sagged back down to the roots to think.

My prosthetics before had been top of the line, 3D-printed carbon fiber blades that I was going to use to bounce around the surface of the moon. Well, if goblins were a thing, I doubted anyone in this world had heard of carbon fiber, let alone additive manufacturing.

The dead branches along the grass were twisted, gnarled, sap-covered things half-ready to snap. More tinder than wood, at this point. But they were the only thing within reach. I dragged myself around, tossing all I could find to a central location. By the time I made a circuit around the tree, I had about a dozen sticks. None of which were suitable. I dragged myself back to the pile and sighed, considering. High-grade medical devices, these weren’t. But I wasn’t making high-grade medical devices. I was using the Goblin Technology Tree. Rapid iterations, impractical means, and lowered safety. Pretty much every engineer’s dream, when you think about it.

I took my stone knife and used it to peel down some of the bark from the old tree . It came off in long, thin strips that were tough enough that I couldn’t break them by pulling them. Though, I also just wasn’t very strong. I selected the two straightest sticks I had. One was reasonably straight but twisted like a corkscrew. The other had a bumpy knob at the bottom that looked a bit like a shoe, and I hoped would offer some stability. I tugged them close and tugged up the simple hide wrap that protected my goblin modesty. With the bark, I lashed each of the sticks to my legs. The bark still had a little sap on the inside, and it helped act as an adhesive that bound the whole thing together far better than I felt it should have. Achieve practical results through impractical means, methods, and materials.

I selected the third-sturdiest stick to use as a cane. I’d had to use one to learn to walk again after the accident, and luckily this new body seemed to have kept my muscle-memory from the old, freshly-exploded body. By pushing off one of the larger roots and steadying myself, I was able to take a few tentative steps with the cane.

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“Hot Christmas!” I said. “It’s working!”

I took two more steps before my left leg snapped and my face planted itself in the dirt.

the system reminded me.

“Owww…” I muttered with a face full of dirt.

Progress!

I rolled over and looked at the damage. My left prosthetic had snapped cleanly in two. There’d be no fixing it. I set to the task of peeling back the bark so I could swap it for a new one, but stopped when I heard a howl in the distance. And then I started peeling faster.

The bark came away, and I bound two of the smaller sticks together before binding the pair of them where the first stick had broken. Again, it seemed to hold better than I thought it should, so again, with a bit more urgency, I strapped the bundle to my thigh and climbed to my, erm, sticky-stilts, again. This time, I spread the weight across two canes, rather than one single cane. I made a quick circuit around the tree to make sure there’d be no more breakage, and then set off toward the tree line.

It wasn’t long before I heard the howl again, closer this time. I hesitated to put on too much speed, lest I break these primitive prosthetics and leave myself a sitting duck. But I could feel the wind blowing past me, carrying my scent deep into the prairie.

Goblins aren’t large creatures—or, at least, this goblin wasn’t. Even with the stilts, I was maybe a meter tall. The grass rising on either side of the narrow trail was like the walls of a canyon, except that anything might lurk within and burst out at any moment.

I thought back to media containing goblins. They were always shown as devious, dangerous creatures to be dispatched by the main characters early on in their journey to prepare them for tougher foes. They attacked in swarms, ate rotten meat, and served dark lords, all that jazz. But at that moment, a lone goblin seemed quite the vulnerable creature. If goblins were real here, what other fanciful creatures existed? Trolls? Ogres? Chupacabras?

All of the above, knowing my luck. I limped faster, flinching every time one of my improvised legs creaked underneath me. I didn’t know much about Goblins, but I got the distinct impression that I was a forest creature. The trees shouted safety to me. I just wish they’d shout it from a little closer. I felt like a tiny puppet scurrying around. Huffing and puffing with exertion, the tree line started to grow overhead.

Something startled a flock of birds in the grass behind me, and the howling came again, even closer, this time. I froze, looking back, and raising one of the improvised canes. Sweat ran down my little goblin body. Nothing appeared, and I willed my shaking stumps to move. I had to get to the woods.

As I reached the scrubby brush before the tree line, I heard a growling behind me, and turned to see some sort of large canine with red fur, four eyes and fangs the size of my index finger emerge from the tall grass. I stared at it. It stared at me, drool dripping down its chops. Thick claws dug at the turf beneath its paws. It lowered its head, ready to charge.

One cane would have to do. I pulled back with my right hand and sent the stick spinning toward the monster. It must not have ever encountered a goblin using a, what was it the system had named it? A spinning smacky, before. It watched the lazy arc of the oncoming projectile with confusion right up until the knobby end of the stick thumped into its forehead, right between the eyes.

It yelped in pain, falling over and scrabbling against the ground. I turned and hobbled my way away, as fast as I could. The yelps behind me turned to growls of fury, but I had reached the treeline.

I heard the snuffling and scrabbling behind me.

“Stay away!” I ordered. “Bad dog!”

My voice was high, tinny like an old-fashioned radio broadcaster. I felt like I should be advertising soap flakes. Not exactly intimidating. Clifford didn’t think so either. He lunged at me, just as my right leg gave out with a snap.

I fell to the ground, losing my other cane as it was snatched out of my hand by a red, furry comet streaking overhead. Rolling onto my back, I pushed up and watched the wild dog snap the branch between its teeth. It padded toward me. I reached about for something, anything that I could use in my defense. The only thing quick-to-hand was a rotten fruit on the ground. I picked up the bulbous, foul-smelling thing and recoiled. Maybe a direct hit would overwhelm its senses and frighten it off. I pulled it back for a throw right as the dog lunged. A small window appeared at the corner of my vision.

The fruit sailed out of my hand. This time, the dog knew what was coming. He opened his jaws and clamped down on the fruit before it could hit him. Then, there was a bright flash, a wave of pressure, and I found myself airborne with ringing ears.