Chapter 12 The Nest.
Freedom, who cares?!
To the beast who’ll gnaw on your bones it won’t matter.
To the storms and earthquakes it won’t matter.
The hunt for freedom is a threat to your very survival.
Brave the elements not to be free of them, but to know your limit.
Only the dead are truly free.
Tonisha, the Lady of Ventures.
{26} Mayan (December) the 5th
“That should be enough chief, let’s smoke it!” Lezere pats the heap of branches we piled on the cave’s entrance. I nod and attach the flame in my hand to the oily patch in the wet woodpile. Soon, smoke fills up the maze-like cave.
After less than five minutes we hear them panic. A horde of goblins leaves through their emergency exits scattering around in the snowy forest. “If you want to eliminate a goblin’s nest, you go after their brood mother.” Lezere leads us toward one of the entrances. “She can’t leave her nest. Once we kill her, they’ll all run away and eventually die on their own.”
“I haven’t seen any female goblin before,” Kolag notes with a hint of curiosity. “I’d like for you to enlighten me on the matter honored huntress.”
“That’s because they’re rare, and larger too,” Lezere explains, proud of her knowledge. “A single female is born every ten thousand males. A single female can give birth to thousands more of this pest. Goblins are very protective of them, they won’t let them fight. This isn’t the first time I’ve hunted one of these.”
“They sound like ants…” Sina says quietly, almost a murmur.
“Ants? Ha! I like that kitten! We're crushing them like ants!” Lezere exposes her sharp teeth with a wild grin.
Sina shakes her head and begins one of the speeches in her nasal voice. “You don’t understand! Ants or bees have a similar hierarchy structure. There’s a queen deep inside the nest. She gives birth to the other ants. While the soldier and worker ants leave the nest to fetch food…”
“Gra… I didn’t know that, ants! Let’s crash a green ant brood mother then!” Lezere grinds her teeth.
“Won’t the goblins come back soon? They’ll see nothing is happening won’t they?” Purson asks hesitantly, fidgeting with his arming sword.
Lezere clacks her teeth. “They are not smart, they fear large smoke and fire. We have about a thousand breaths. We squash the brood mother and get out before they come back, it’s easy!”
“But what if we can’t kill her on time?” Sina asks.
“Then we die. Careful there!” Lezere stops Janara from stepping on a small pressure plate of a primitive bone trap, partially covered by a frozen goblin corpse. “You don’t want to die too soon.”
Janara gulps and nods, moving back behind Purson.
Lezere leads us slowly in the dark tunnel. “Revissor” Sina says and a light ball appears. With the light, we spot multiple half-eaten goblin corpses strewn around the hall. Some seem to have died due to hunger, cold, wounds, and maybe even disease. It explains the bugs buzzing around despite the cold, though I've never seen bugs like that before, blue and white.
As for the smoke itself, there isn’t much of it. This cave is way too deep, and we can barely smell it by now.
“Save your mana.” I note in disgust. “We might have to fight our way out of here.”
“We won’t get to fight if we step on one of these traps." Sina sniffs. "Don’t worry Marisha. I know what I’m doing and what my limits are. I can keep this light for half an hour.”
Due to the light, it only take Lezere a short minute of walking and warning us of traps. She crouches and points at a small hole near the ground. “There it is! We tie a rope and send in the little one,” she looks at Sina. “You have to kill the female goblin, we’ll wait here and guard. Once you kill her tug the rope and we’ll pull you out.”
“No one mentioned anything about this!” Sina clenches her dagger-like short sword as she eyes the small tunnel with horror etched on her flushed face.
“Are you afraid kitten?!” Lezere gets closer to Sina's face biting the air in front of her nose. “I did that when I was six, you toothless kitten! A goblin brood mother is a defenseless child-bearing creature. It’s easier to kill her than slaughtering sheep. She can’t move, and can’t fight. Stab her throat or her heart with that little fang of yours. Just find her chamber within a thousand breaths!”
“All goblins look the same, how do I know who is the brood mother?” Sina asks taking a few steps back from the intimidating half-orc.
“She’s fat and big, hard to miss. We’re wasting time!” Lezere ties the rope around Sina’s waist.
“Yes, but how would I identify her?!” Sina repeats the question looking at the rope around her waist as if it is a snake that's come to life.
“She has big green tits!” The half-orc grabs the flighty gnome and pulls her toward the small tunnel.
Sina fights back with everything she’s got other than her magic. “Get your filthy paws off me you boar! I’ll hit you with my magic! I never agreed to this!”
The longer we spend on this the lower our chances… “I’ll get in there too,” I offer. I take off my heavy fur coat with a shiver, the bite of the sheer cold is nearly unbearable. “It’ll go faster that way.”
“Sure you can fit in there, chief?” Lezere lets Sina go.
“Are you saying I’m fat?” I raise an eyebrow at her and tie another rope around my waist. “Come on Sina. The sooner we get this done, the better our chances of getting out of this alive.”
Sina gulps and nods. The moment she stops fighting, Lezere shoves the screaming gnome into the small hole. Lezere chuckles, pushing Sina’s butt with her boot.
Without a word, I lay down to crawl into the small tunnel.
It’s very tight in here, clearly meant for goblins to move through. I can still fit somehow, barely. If I crawl and bend in the right ways. Lezere’s way of pushing me in isn’t helpful.
By the time I manage to crawl inside, I lose sight of Sina and her light, her rope is lost in the darkness of the narrow tunnel.
I keep moving in the black, listening to my heartbeats and clenching the gem pouch at my waist.
“Fotyr”
Why did I volunteer for this?! I collapse the mana pattern and remove my flame. I keep crawling forward blindly, twisting my body and pushing myself forward with my legs. My hands fumble in the darkness, the touch of the muddied cold earth against my skin and clothes is clammy. I wince each time the local bug life crawls over my skin.
I hate bugs… Don’t light a fire… you don’t want to see these things… and there’s little to no air here anyway…
I’ve been through worse… bear with it… at least it’s not rats like I’ve had for years… or men who want to… no! I’m not in that place anymore!
Looks like I’ve gained some weight with the good food at the tower… that’s actually good after five years of starvation… but now I wish I could lose some… Argh, I’m stuck! This is so… I want to cry… what was I thinking?!
Sina wasn’t going anywhere… I couldn’t have them waste time like that…
Push… ah… there we go… I sigh in relief when I manage to release my hips from the tunnel’s curve.
This place is a complicated dark maze, and the rope around my waist is my only way out. I keep making sure I don’t lose it while moving around these tunnels. Yet there is no sign of a bigger room, or a large goblin with ‘big green tits’.
I keep crawling in darkness, and time crawls alongside me. I know we don’t have long. I have to find it!
I feel the tug from the rope around my waist, it drags me backward slowly. Apparently, time is up. I get stuck in one of the tunnel’s sharp turns, and the tugging rope hurts me. Lezere tugs too hard and the tunnel’s dirt under me splits open. I fall into the crack with a yelp.
I find myself in a dimly lit room. I spot the female goblin. She is much larger than the other goblins, and a head taller than me. She is also overly obese, rolls of grotesque flesh cover her body. This amount of fat would make anyone immobile.
But she’s currently dead, covered with root-shaped scars on her green skin. I have no clue what makes scars like this, it has to be Sina's magic. Not only the brood mother, but the room is also crowded with what looks like an endless amount of dead goblin babies, each of them the size of my palm.
Holding onto the tugging rope, I climb up back to the tunnel. Now that I can crawl forward instead of backward, I somehow make my way out of there. I use Lezere’s tugs to help myself out of the dark maze.
“By the boneless breath! Come out of there chief!” I hear Lezere when I finally see the dim light of the exit.
I crawl out and realize we’re in trouble. Both sides of the elongated cave are swarmed by hundreds of goblins, all of them rushing forward with their bone made spears.
Kolag is holding one side on his own. His tall armored figure is enough to fill the passage as he hacks repeatedly into the green horde. Yet a few goblins manage to squeeze through the gaps around and between his armored legs. Luckily they’re dumb enough to try and stab him from behind.
Purson and Janara are holding the other side. Lezere drops the rope and switches places with Purson at the front. Purson retreats, covered in dirty bleeding scratches and a deep scarlet hole below his left knee. Janara’s steady stream of acid makes the situation a little better. The goblins stumble back, they fear the pain the sizzling liquid brings with it.
“Sina! Blind them!” I shout as I put on my coat.
“I already did that! It’s why we’re still alive! I’m out of mana! I used it all on the brood mother!” The gnome shouts in a panic.
“Drain the gems then!” I hand her my pouch.
“I can’t! I didn’t open my neck mana-pool!”
I watch wide-eyed as a horde of angry goblins climbs up on Kolag’s armor toppling him over with sheer numbers. They stand on his armor and stab it it repeatedly with their spears, cackling maniacally. “Ritsa!!!”
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Janara!!! Sina you cunt!!!” “No!! Why?!!” I turn my head at Purson’s and Janara’s screams. I expect to see that Sina had found a way out for herself, that she tried to run away through the small hole in the wall. But that is not what happened.
A group of the dark green creatures managed to get past Lezere, and the purple-haired gnome blocks multiple goblins’ spears with her body, defending Janara behind her with her life. The goblins cackle and stab her dead body repeatedly, some are biting into her raw flesh. Purson leaps forward as the goblins reach for Janara.
“Ritsa! Ritsa! Ritsa!”
As if it was an order to charge, Lezere and Purson limp forth clearing a path through the smaller creatures who are now in a disarray.
Janara follows panting heavily, she’s bleeding from multiple wounds on her legs and abdomen. The lower half of her coat and robes have too many holes in them, and the blood is tainting her waist at an alarming rate. “Drink!” I hand her a healing potion. She gulps it down and the wounds close in an instant.
“Come on!” Lezere calls out “Let’s go!”
We run out after her. Kolag is guarding our rear waving his sword at the goblins behind, while Lezere and Purson scythe a path forward suffering multiple wounds in the process. Janara and I add our magic from the middle. I focus on disarming goblins instead of killing them now, I’m very low on mana. Sina is dead. None of us is stranger to death. We have to leave her behind, and this leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
At some point, we reach one of the entrances and the goblins can no longer pincer us in their tunnels. They lick their wounds and retreat, defeated.
*
We walk quietly along the snowy creek. None of us talk. We just lost… a friend? Was she a friend? None of us liked the woman. She was arrogant and thought too much of herself and her knowledge, she always found ways to avoid work or risks. She treated our wounds, but nothing a healing potion couldn’t easily replace… I can’t say I liked her, but her final act was to sacrifice the life she held so dear for one of us.
But I don’t even feel bad, she wasn’t important to me. This is my fault… I pushed her to this… told her she has to risk her life for us… I try and make myself guilty. I should feel guilty! There is a difference between killing a person who threatened my life and pushing a person to die for me, especially if that person was someone who wouldn’t normally risk her life.
I shake my head, I can’t afford such thoughts. At the end, she made her choices. I don't resonate with the terms of honor, bravery, or glory. There is no glory in dying alone in a goblin cave covered by green corpses and shit, but we have to move on.
Wow… I’m way too cold…
Apathy. This is what helped me through all these days of horror. The soldiers toying with me. The slavers doing as they pleased. The death around me in the tower. Apathy is always the answer. None of it has anything to do with me. I have to survive, I have to get stronger and I can’t care for others, and Sina like Phoebe shouldn’t be different.
This is wrong… I should grieve her…
But I don’t feel the need to, yes it’s my fault, but I’m still alive… she isn’t. I have to find my father and siblings… We're quite close to Nurio… I’ll head there tomorrow, we have the time now…
This is wrong… what if Lezere died? Would I treat it the same way?
I do not know the answer for that, nor do I know whether I feel bad about Sina’s death or not. It’s undoubtedly my fault, yet I do my best to remain apathetic. The dreadful silence continues until nightfall.
*
“To Sina! Best kitten I've ever known!” Lezere raises a flask and gulps down the content. “Anyone else wants to drink for the kitten?” She looks around in an attempt to pique our interest.
I take the flask. I have to maintain the appearance that I care, even if I truly do not. “To Sina!” I call out drinking a sip.
The bitter content burns my throat. I enjoy the warm sensation and take another sip, passing on the flask to Purson on my left.
“To Sina, should’ve never have doubted you sister!” The lanky man drinks up and passes the flask to his girlfriend.
Janara holds the small flask and looks into the fire beyond it. The fire cast its mesmerizing light on the flask’s pewter surface. A tear trickles down Janara’s cheek. “To Sina, I’m so sorry…” She breaks into a sniff, covering her mouth as she passes the flask on without drinking.
Kolag inserts his straw into the flask and drains some of the content silently. He passes it back to Lezere who plugs the flask and puts it back inside her leathery belt.
“Some words chief?” Lezere asks me.
“I don’t know what to say…” I mumble quietly. “We’ve all been there, what can I add?”
Apathy. This has nothing to do with me. They’re all my pawns. And that was simply a pawn sacrificed.
I don’t mean that! Is Lezere not a friend? Is Kolag? What about Purson and Janara?! Don’t they care for me? Don’t I care for them?!
Purson and Janara only care about each other. Kolag doesn’t care for me, he only cares about justice and Noxi’s laws. And Lezere… Lezere sees me as the pack-leader for some reason, the moment someone else takes my place she’ll serve that person with the same loyalty.
We’re a poor alliance of common interest, nothing more…
Does it matter?! They’re still my friends! They’re still the closest people I have right now… and Sina shouldn’t have died like that…
The woman was a coward! Of course, she should’ve died like that! That was the best use for her! At least she saved someone like Janara who’s actually useful to us!
“ENOUGH!!!”
To my horror, I realize I just shouted this word aloud just now. Heat washes my face, I get up and leave the small fire pit in embarrassment. It isn’t like me to lose control like that, I always maintained my calm demeanor.
This is perfect… I just showed them how much her death had disturbed me, their loyalty will undoubtedly increase!
They’re friends! Not pawns! Why do I keep thinking of them like pawns?! What is wrong with me?!
*
I can’t sleep at night. I pretend to be comforted by their words when they came to talk to me, when they tell me how this wasn’t my fault.
None of them understand. I don’t care whether it was my fault or not, I care about whether they are my friends or my pawns. Whether I am a heartless monster manipulating them as I please, or a human being who has friends.
After tossing and turning for a while, I get up and go to the tree Kolag leans on. He is the one taking the watch at this hour. “I’ll replace you, go back to sleep.”
“I don’t think I can sleep after today, milady.” I can barely hear his muffled whisper, but it has an echo.
I stand near him quietly, I enjoy this long silence. Unlike the rest of them, Kolag didn’t come to tell me it wasn’t my fault. He knows this was my fault, I can feel the blaming gaze behind his visor.
But whether it was my fault or not doesn’t matter to me, I don’t want to see them as pawns. Whether they are useful or not, I want these people to be my friends. I don’t want to be alone, I’m tired of feeling so lonely and helpless all the time… It’s way too hard.
“I think you should take the leadership of this group Kolag…”
He shifts uncomfortably, his metallic armor creaks as he shifts against the tree. “I don’t think I could’ve done better, milady. As you’ve told me in the past, we make mistakes. Your cause was righteous, Sina’s cause was righteous. She died at the hands of corrupted monsters, this is why we have to cleanse them from this land.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Enlighten me then!”
I avoid looking into his metallic visor. “You were absolutely right when you called me a monster. I didn’t care one bit about Sina, and I still see you all as nothing but my pawns. You all deserve better, you all deserve a leader who cares about you… you Kolag. You care, more than I ever could! It's best if you take my place.”
“I disagree.”
“Trust me! I know myself!”
“You’ve just proved that you don’t know yourself, milady. You came to me and asked me to replace you. You did this because you think we deserve better, it shows that you care.” I can tell he’s smiling smugly behind his metallic helmet. Stupid smug bucket head…
But he has a point, if I truly didn’t care I’d keep up the show, and I’d keep manipulating them to my desires. Then it means that a part of me does care. It’s like I have two brains, a warm one that cares, and a cold one that doesn’t, both of them are active at the same time.
Normally they worked together to keep me afloat, my cold brain kept my physical state safe, and my warm brain kept my emotional state safe. This is the first time they collided so strongly against one another.
“If I may say, milady, you’re extremely mature for your age, am I allowed to ask for the number of blooms you’ve lived through?” Kolag’s question wakes me up from my daze.
“Me? Twenty-six…” I reply without thinking.
“Truly?”
Shit… actually, why do I have to lie about it? They’re already looking up to me for orders, knowing I’m older than I look can only be beneficial…
“Yeah, I’m a half-elf, I’m growing slower than humans. It’s why I still look like I have less than twenty blooms behind me,” I explain tucking my hair behind my ear to show the pointy tip. “How old are you?”
“I have twenty-three blooms behind me. Forgive me for mistaking your age milady, your appearance is rather misleading.” His echoing voice sounds awkward.
I smile. “I’m used to that, I even use it to my advantage. I prefer if people underestimate me, it makes it easier to pull the rug from underneath them.”
He chuckles. “I hear that. Intrigue and cunning are not my weapons, it’s not something I’m good at. For how long will you stay like that?”
“Like what?”
“Looking younger than you truly are”
"Always... I mean it'll take about four more springs for me to look like I'm in my twenties. I grow up. I only grow slower than other people. Both of my younger half-siblings looked older than me last time I saw them. Pretty sure my lifespan is a little bit longer than the average human too. Is it ok if I ask about the armor?”
He lets out a disgruntled grunt. “Ask.”
“Why can’t you take it off?”
He turns, no longer facing me. “That evil witch is the reason. She infused a demon into my body. If I take the armor or my helmet off, the demon takes over. She called it a lesson in morality, I call it pure evil!”
“I’m sorry… If she called it a lesson, she’s trying to teach you something. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not defending that monster. But maybe if you show her you’ve learned the lesson she’ll take that demon out?”
“And what is the lesson in your opinion?”
“That’s simple, you can’t prevent the deaths around you, and the more you try the more you’re going to hurt yourself. Like being stuck in that plate suit of armor shitting on yourself and eating through a straw just for the sake of not hurting anyone…” I explain coldly.
“You think she means to teach me her twisted ways then? Hmmm…” His helmet tilts downward, he seems to be lost in contemplative thoughts.
“By no means. I already said I’m not defending that monster, I don’t think she did that from the kindness of her heart. She can’t stand you, you represent everything she wishes she could be, yet can’t become. So she’ll look for ways to torture you, to break you, to make you a monster like her. Just to prove to herself that the picture of morality she drew for the world, is the truth.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can’t, that’s just how I see it. It’s an educated guess,” I admit. True, it’s my gut feeling more than anything I know for a fact, but my gut feelings are usually right about people.
"Hrm." He lets out another echoing grunt. We stand in silence for a while. I enjoy this silence and his company. He was right, if I truly didn’t care I wouldn’t come to him and ask him to take over. I don't know how much I cared, but a part of me does care, and that makes me feel better…
*~*~*
Slice of Lore: Adult humans breathes between 12-18 times, to make it simple let’s say 15 times per minute, so 4 seconds per breath.
Fotyr stands for Fire, flame, power, energy, and strength. And It’s a different language from Myrsha.
Each of the 7 basic elements has language of its own. (Yes, I made up over 7 fantasy languages, I’m a little insane.)
In the case of Fotyr, the language might sound familiar to many people since it’s been inspired by Latin and Greek.
Nuriss’ Flame.
Names: Nuriss’ Flame, Flame, Fire Invocation, Candle Hand, Nuriss’ Red Glove.
Element: fire
Sub element: fire
Level: 0
Words: Fotyr
Translation: fire
Patterns: 1
Gestures: an open palm.
Range: self.
Target: self.
Duration: 1 minute.
Effect: The spell will create a flame in the caster palm. The fire is harmless to the caster, but will act as normal fire for anyone else. This doesn’t apply to fire that has separated from this flame as a source.
For example: If the caster lit a torch with this cantrip, that torch will burn the caster like any other normal fire. But if the caster runs the flaming hand in his/her hair, they won’t get burned.
Cost: 1 fire gem.
Altered cost: 1 gem per alteration.
*~*~*
Power level: 1st stage apprentice.
Mana pools status:
Neck-Bridge: formed. max amount of gems drained per day: 66
Fire: open. 4 gems
Gravity: formed. 41 gems
Cantrip known:
Fire: Nuriss’ flame.
Gravity: Lumina’s kinetic burst. Tukado’s repulse. Tukado’s lesser shield. Imari’s minor telekinesis. Leo’s pull. Leo’s Grounding. Alino’s light body. Alino’s heavy body.
Spells known:
Focus capability: 8 patterns
Social status: A neophyte evoker.
Wealth: 58 magical gems. 89 diamonds.
Items: 2 healing potions.
Companions:
Kolag of house Befar
Lezere of the black fang tribe
Janara of Winemaker village.
Purson of Winemaker village.
Injuries and scars: Missing two thirds of the right middle finger.