Chapter 4: Monstrosities

We all stood in a circle around a big hole - that was dark enough that it could’ve gone down forever - inside the cramped room of the cave where a quarter of Gronan’s body was pressed against the cave ceiling. “We're going down into that?” I asked.

“Yes,” Hazel said and reached into Gronan's bag, taking out a rope.

“Do we have a way to get some light down there?”

“Not a problem,” Gronan pointed his index finger upward. Suddenly, a blinding ball of white light came out of the tip.

My jaw fell open. “Ho- how did you do that?”

He shrugged. “Magic, of course,” He said it so casually as if he did this daily. Hell, with how he acted while making that ball of light appear, maybe he did.

Magic. I didn't like how it sounded in my mind. No, I just crashed into a Caribbean island that has complicated science that the rest of the world doesn't know about yet and these people just don't understand what they are doing.

That was what it had to be, it was the most logical solution possible. Therefore, that was what it had to be.

He motioned his finger downward and the ball fell gracefully through the air, down into the hole. I watched as the walls became illuminated and the ground revealed itself only ten feet or so below us. Just as the light reached the end, though, it blinked out of existence.

Gronan grumbled. “Someone down there has magic, too. They're waiting on us.”

“Let us give them what they want then,” Hazel said, pulling from Gronan’s bag a piece of metal with a screw on the end. She screwed it into the stone ground and attached the rope to it, kicking the rope down into the hole. It hit the ground with a soft thud that echoed upward to us.

“There could be another way in,” Finn suggested. “It'd be better than getting ambushed down there.”

“Do you really think goblins would be smart enough to stay somewhere that had another exit?”

He shrugged. “I didn't think they were smart enough to know magic.”

“Learn something new every day, eh?” Gronan said as he took hold of the rope. “I'll go first, I don't want to be cramped in here anymore.”

He dropped down, the metal holding true to the stone. After a moment, there was a tap on the stone as his feet touched the bottom.

“Who goes next?” Finn asked.

“I think I'll go last,” I said, feeling my palms grow sweaty. We were dropping down into a dark hole where creatures called goblins were using science they called magic. There was no way this didn't end in disaster.

“I will go,” Hazel said and dropped down into the hole. Finn went in right after her. I was the only one left not down there.

I took a deep breath as I grabbed the rope. I hadn't heard the sounds of their deaths yet, so it didn't seem that they were ambushed. Or the goblins were just waiting for us all to come down, not wanting one of us to get away.

What the hell am I doing, just the other day I was delivering for Dallas!

Delivering for Dallas. A sudden feeling of something pressing into me, crushing me, came to me and I wanted to be down there in the abyss more than up here with myself. I sat on the hard ground and scooted myself to the hole. My legs made it and dangled over the abyss. I closed my eyes, feeling my blood rushing with adrenaline, and pushed myself off the ledge. I fell only a few feet but it felt like a century before the rope stopped me. I slowly slid down the rough rope, its coarse texture hurting my hands. Finally, my feet touched the stone bottom.

A big hand touched my shoulder and I jumped from it before I realized it was Gronan. “Glad to see we all survived our first obstacle,” Gronan said with a chuckle.

“Where do we go?” I asked.

“Follow my footsteps,” Finn said.

We all carefully walked toward his steps. I felt like at any moment something would jump out at me or I'd slam into a wall. But nothing happened except that after several steps, Finn told us to stop.

“We’re out of the hallway,” Finn said. “It’s hard to really see anything.” The sound of movement came from all around us and I instantly heard everyone readying their weapons. “Be ready for anything,” Gronan said gravely.

There was the sound of someone snapping their fingers and the room became alight from torches surrounding the tops of the walls. We were in an arena-like stage, with goblins surrounding us, all of them sitting on stone benches cut out of the walls, the only thing on our level being a metal door and two goblins standing next to it. Just above the door stood the only goblin not wearing leather rags but a white fox coat, the stuffed head placed upon the creature's head like a hood. Along with it, it wore several golden rings and three golden necklaces, each of them with various symbols and styles, clearly stolen from different people.

These goblins all looked a lot like the goblins from the fairy tales I had been told as a kid: short, a green tint to their skin, red irises, gnarled fingers, and long, elf-like ears.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Makes sense, these are those same fairy-tale goblins after all.

The world became blurry and the text that appeared in front of me confirmed it:

Goblins:

Many think they are dumb from long-ago fairy tales but they are actually quite close to humans in intelligence. Don’t let these conniving creatures get one up on you.

The fox skin wearing one's face was twisted into a smile and he had his hands raised in a welcoming gesture. “Why,” his voice was gravelly, yet still had a high-pitched voice like a child. “Hello, intruders, we were expecting you. How were your travels?”

“We aren't here to talk,” Finn said, flipping the handle of a dagger in his hand over and over. “We came here on a contract to attain all of the jewelry you guys stole, so give it to us or pay the consequence.”

The leader goblin put down his hands and put them behind his back. “Well, if you want to talk business so soon, we'll give you the jewelry back. But,” the goblin took one hand from his back and put his hand close to his mouth. “You should know metal is our food source,” He took one of the rings off of his finger with his teeth before squeezing down, breaking the ring into pieces, and began to chew on it. “So they will have to come at a heavy price,” He said, metal bits still in his mouth.

I felt myself grimace at the sight. This was definitely not in my fairy tales.

“They could be your children for all I care,” Finn answered back, clearly disturbed at the sight too. “You stole them, we need them back. And we aren't paying for them.”

“But Gendrinach here,” the goblin placed the same hand he'd eaten off of onto the shoulder of a goblin next to him. “Worked so hard to get them, if you want them, you pay our price.”

I saw Finn's dagger-wielding hand flick out and the blur of the object sore through the air, going right past the goblin leader. I watched as the leader's face became stunned and a small trickle of crimson began to ooze out of his cheek. His hand slowly went to his cheek, smearing the blood before he looked down at his hand. He looked back up at us with his once again twisted smile. “You. Pay. Our. Price.”

Another dagger materialized in Finn’s hand.

“Don't,” Hazel said, putting an arm out toward him. “Fine, we shall pay the price. What do you have in mind?”

The goblin let out a soft, high-pitched laugh that almost made me chuckle. As intimidating as all of these goblins surrounding us were, I couldn't help but feel like I was surrounded by a bunch of little kids.

And the kids in Lord of the Flies were brutal.

I felt my humor fade as the fragmented memory of that book came to mind.

“They come to pay the price!” The leader called. “Ayaa!”

“AYAA!” The rest of the goblins yelled back.

The two goblins on our level walked to the door, their faces looking terrified as they each took their own side of the door. Pulling on the silver knocker and opening the double doors up. Quickly, the two goblins each jumped onto the arena wall where goblins were bending down, their arms out. The two goblins grabbed hold of their arms and were pulled out of the stone pit.

“Come on out, Adranock!” the leader yelled, his arms up wide.

The arena fell silent, all of us, even the goblins, staring into the dark entrance of whatever was inside. At first, I squinted to see what was in there and saw an outline that drew goosebumps onto my flesh.

Surely, I'm not seeing this right.

But then it crawled on all six hands out of the shadow, revealing the monstrosity. The thing was an amalgamation of other living organisms, the head of what seemed to be a tiger attached to three male, human torsos that were all sown together, six human arms equally spaced between each other, falcon talons replacing the fingers, and a massive tale with a pointed, spear-like end of some creature I had never seen before.

I gulped, fear making my limbs tingle.

“By Goddess, what is this unholy creation?” Granon mumbled, gripping his battle-axe in two hands.

The creature looked at us wildly before locking eyes with me. At that moment, the world slowed to a stop as it became blurred and text appeared in front of me:

Adranock:

An undead centipede, created through the powers of necromancy to be a fierce opponent to any that oppose it.

The world came back to me and once again I was staring before the reanimated amalgamation of death. Before the thing could move, an arrow flew over its head before another one sunk deep into its neck, causing its legs to buckle. As it turned toward Hazel, growling at her, I gripped my short sword and charged at it, my blade pointed toward the middle of its torsos. With every step, I felt the sword wobble in my hands and I was sure it’d fall right out of my hands.

With a little luck though, I managed to plunge my sword directly into its flesh, down to the hilt. The beast screeched in a cat-like, yet, almost human, scream that made a chill go up my back. I pulled my sword out of the rotten flesh with ease, just before it got onto its hind legs, its grotesque body towering over me. Black ooze poured onto the ground from the wound I had just made.

As its body began to come back down, a dagger came out of seemingly nowhere, sinking into where the heart would be in one of its torsos. I jumped back just before it touched back down onto the ground. One of its taloned hands shot toward me. I didn't step back enough and felt the razor-like claw barely graze my chest, ripping another massive hole into my bloodied, white shirt. It felt like we had already dealt enough damage to slow a bear but this thing acted like we had just tickled it.

Another arrow sunk into its body and I swung my sword toward its face but the creature easily dodged it. Now that I was actually wielding a sword, I didn’t understand how anyone could fight with one.

It motioned to jump at me but then Gronan appeared behind the creature. Just when the big man went to swing, however, the creature's sharp tail went toward him. In that split second, I saw it rip right through his side and blood spurt out. I didn't wait to see the aftermath, I swung my sword again at the creature as its talons came for me. My sword struck the creature's arm, slicing right through. The black ooze squirted out into my eyes. It stung and smelled worse than anything I’d ever experienced in my life. Before I had time to clear it, I felt one of its claws tear through my arm. The force sent me backward and I tripped, falling onto my back with a hard thud. I rubbed the ooze out of my eyes only to see the creature in the air with another arrow and dagger sticking out of its neck.

Adranock landed on top of me, its claws hitting my chest and knocking the wind out of me as its incredible weight crushed me into the stone. I gasped, trying to recover any bit of air but found my lungs unable to cooperate. I watched in terror as the creature's large, sharp, toothy mouth came down toward my head. I threw my arm out, knowing it wouldn't stop it.

At that moment, I felt an intense, almost incapacitating heat hit me. Time seemed to slow and in that instant, I saw a bright, blue light glowing onto the creature. Its open maw was so close to me, its jaws surely strong enough to rip my arm clean off with one bite. The heat was so intense and I felt my body burst into excruciating pain. Only I couldn't scream, I couldn't do anything. Because this was only a second, no, an eighth of a second.

And then my chest burst into a column of blue, blazing flame that slammed into the creature. Instead of lighting the creature on fire, however, it pierced straight through the creature's neck. It lasted for only an instant before the column disappeared at once, revealing a massive, charred hole. In that same moment, the pain dissipated and the creature reared back in terror. It sputtered one last time and then every attached part of its body went limp.

I wasn’t able to move. Every part of my body felt as if it had just been through the most intense training possible. Instead, I watched in horror as the now-dead monstrosity crashed down onto me once again.