‘Hold me.’
Those are the words that I spoke to him, back when it happened.
I know that it… I know that it doesn’t make any sense. I know that God obliterated every wall, monument and house from that distant place of impact, all the way to where we stood, as if it was just stray hairs, being blown off of a tabletop. I know that he couldn’t hear me, because of the rumbling of our hearts, the rupturing of our ears and the glory, scorching our eyes. I know that his body, mortal, could offer nothing special to protect me from the light that the walls and foundations of our civilization couldn’t already.
— I still can’t hear or see right, to this day.
But… well… It’s just what I said back then. It’s what I said, as the light pierced down from the heavens, as the quake started, as our lives shook before our very eyes. It’s just the simple, nonsensical thing that my hissing, lizard-brain told me to say in that moment, because it didn’t know what else to say - how else to react. It sounds crazy, I know but…
— He didn’t hear me, I’m sure. But he grabbed me anyway.
The light washed over us all. It tore through the city, shattering the windows of every home and the hearts of every fresh mother, whose soft infants would not survive the pressure of God crushing itself down unto us.
After that, after the two of us were dug out of the rubble that he had protected me from, he asked me to marry him just as randomly as I had spoken to him before and I didn’t even consider saying no.
What clearer a sign could there be that our union was ordained by more than love? God itself told us what was right and we listened.
It’s been fifty years since then and I haven’t regretted my destiny for even an instant. I’m happy. Blessed, even.
— But I can’t really hear or see right anymore. Did I already mention that? I get forgetful these days.
~ Interview with Fruchtis Saft - An elven woman, famous for bearing the largest number of children ever confirmed to belong to one, single family over the span of her life, fifty years after the impact.
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“Now look at what you did,” sighs Gottlieb, looking at the monitor that shows a smoldering scar running across the landscape of the world below. His eyes wander back up towards the gun, which is humming with a silent, prolonged hiss as it cools itself off, venting the produced heat of the blast out into space. “- The gun is going to take ages before it’s ready to shoot again. Ugh,” he says, lifting Grunheide up. “What’s your problem?” The man turns to look at Kai. “Kai. Do we have a brig?” he points a finger at her. “Can we just lock her up for mutiny?”
[Answer]
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- Prisoners are not taken aboard the orbital weapon’s platform.
“Grim,” notes Gottlieb, looking back at Grunheide, who is kicking around, trying to escape his grasp. “You see that?” he asks. “Keep this up and I’m gonna throw you down into the slime pit,” he warns. He turns to look at Kai. “Kai. Why did you let her shoot the gun to begin with? You could have just locked it.”
[Answer]
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- A deal is a deal.
He lifts an eyebrow. “…What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“— Machine god, praise!” says a voice from next to himself. Gottlieb jolts in surprise, looking at the goblin, who he is dangling up in the air. Grunheide hangs there with clasped hands. “Mercy! Mercy for weak, small Grunheide!” she pleas, clenching her eyes tightly shut in fear.
Gottlieb stares at her and then back towards the monitor, before looking back at her. “Kai… did it just talk?”
[Answer]
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- I ask myself the same question about Orbital Gunner Gottlieb very often.
“Kai!” barks the man, loudly kicking the console. Grunheide yells in terror, pulling her body together and covering her head.
[Addendum]
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- Remember that time you licked me and your tongue got stuck?
“Wow, just go ahead and tell her my life story too while you’re at it,” says Gottlieb. “That was a private moment between the two of us,” he finishes, shaking his head. Sure, the rest of the crew had seen this happen too. But they’re dead now, so it was purely their secret and Kai doesn’t need to be yapping about it to the talking goblin. “Why can you talk?” asks Gottlieb, lifting her up to his face.
“The gun!” says Grunheide. “The gun makes Grunheide smart!” she explains in terror. Gottlieb narrows his eyes, thinking for a moment.
When he shoots the gun, he gains levels and then ends up putting his stat-points into strength. Did she level up as well? Has she been using the gun to raise her intelligence or wisdom values?
— This was Kai’s plan all along.
Gottlieb shoots a dirty look back towards the monitor.
Kai does not respond.
“— Only to serve the human-god better!” says Grunheide.
“The human-what now?” asks the man, blinking.
“Look!” says the goblin, carefully opening an eye. “Clever Grunheide!” says the goblin, pointing to the side of the room, to the hatch where the slime was. He hadn’t noticed until now, but the hatch isn’t rattling anymore, which is suspicious. Did the slime that they had trapped there give up on trying to get out? “The goo-eater disturbed the throne of the gods with its loudness,” she says. “So Grunheide quieted it with the dead bodies of the sucky, bitey vampires!”
Gottlieb lifts an eyebrow and then looks back towards Kai. She thinks that they’re… gods? Well. She is a stupid goblin, after all.
Besides —
“- Powerful human-god! Reverent human-god! Spare Grunheide! She will work to serve the divine powers!” she cries. “Do not crush her with your massive, impossibly large arms!”
Gottlieb nods. She seems to have a very firm grip on reality.
He can use someone like that here, given that whatever cosmic system governs this world is slowly causing Kai to turn into a huge, overly communicative asshole and himself to change into a raging, beautiful specimen of pure human perfection.
He needs someone in the middle of that, to help keep Kai grounded.
The man looks at her. “Very well!” says Gottlieb, putting on a deep voice. “But do not forget your place ever again,” he warns. “I am the strongest god here.” He nods his head to the monitor. “The machine-god is only a plaything, compared to me.”
Grunheide nods fervently.
- The monitor beeps next to him.
“Shut up, Kai,” barks Gottlieb, not even bothering to read what is inevitably going to be a sassy message. That’s all that Kai ever writes these days.
He sighs, shaking his head and then sets Grunheide down. He points at her side of the console, towards the auxiliary gunner’s chair. “Get a rag and clean up the floor. It stinks like piss in here.” Grunheide nods as fast as she can and then runs off, scampering down the bay.
Gottlieb watches her leave and then sits back down on his chair, looking at the monitor. It looks like she missed the human city there with the blast, mostly. But the shockwave certainly did a number on the outer perimeter of the place.
He rubs the back of his head.
It’s probably fine. It’ll give them an excuse to build more modern infrastructure, right? That stuff was all probably super old anyway.
Gottlieb nods.
Yeah. That checks out.
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[The Goblin-King]
He stands atop the heaps of burning rubble. Stones, large, and wood, smoldering, lay down beneath his ash-coated feet. The debris make up the hill that he stands upon, as he stares out towards the distant horizon.
It has happened very quickly.
Their beginning. The first days of the era of the goblin have begun not with a sunrise or with the morning crowing of a rooster, but rather, with the lighting of fires and the splashing of blood.
The fires will burn the things that do not belong here — The humans and their houses. Then the ash will serve to nourish the soil, the same as will the blood, spilled in quantities of lakes.
Pillars of smoke rise all around him as he watches the goblins of his and the other tribes scouring together everything that there is to collect from their successful assault on the first humans on the way of their pilgrimage. These plundered goods will serve to fuel their push forward towards the next farm, which will then allow them to move to the farm after that.
— Goblins are small creatures that burn hot. They need food regularly and often.
Then, after they work their way through the distant farms, they’ll arrive at the first villages and from there, they’ll cut through them one by one, until they reach the cities.
The sky-light has yet to send them a new omen, but he holds this silence to be a positive sign.
After all, the gods rarely intervene to signal their pleasure. They only do so to signify their distaste and anger.
— No news is good news. They are on the right path.
The goblin-king walks down the heap of smoldering rubble and human bodies, making his way down to lead their push forward now to the next farm, immediately. There is no time for rest or to return to the forests and enjoy their spoils.
Heaven itself is watching them.
They must not disappoint.
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[Gottlieb]
Gottlieb looks over his shoulder, watching as Grunheide meticulously cleans up her side of the console, before returning his focus to the monitor.
The man sucks on his teeth and turns the joystick, zooming around the landscape for anything of interest.
— He stops, the camera focused on a desolate, gray area in the wastelands of the world. Although, these wastes look more gray, like a scorched land would, than a natural desert of any sort.
Scrolling the little wheel inwardly with his thumb, Gottlieb zooms the camera in on what looks like a group of people standing together, back to back, in a tight formation, facing outwardly. They seem to be in some sort of fight of some kind against…
“- Oh, hey,” says Gottlieb. “Look, Kai.” The man points at the monitor. “It looks like somebody knows how to make a full skeleton. Maybe take a page from their book, huh?” he asks, looking at the blue-light above his head.
Kai does not respond.
Gottlieb looks back at the live-stream of what appears to be a group of adventurers, fighting off a massive horde of skeletons that rise out of the landscape continuously. It’s like those people down there had stepped into the midst of a long-forgotten mass grave, filled with the cursed dead.
They’re doing… okay.
But not great.
He tilts his head to the side, watching as they manage to fight off the undead fairly well. But, given the incredible number of the skeletons that seem to endlessly keep rising up from the ground, it might not be enough. They look as if they’re going to get overwhelmed soon.
“Hey, Kai,” says Gottlieb, pressing his finger down on the side-trigger of the joystick, aiming the gun essentially directly at them. “- I think I’m going to - Wait for it…” The gun hums, charging up with an ascending frequency, the metal plates that make up the floor vibrating from the energies moving through its coils.
(Gottlieb) has used: [Low Frequency Pulse]
— The heavy orbital gun fires, releasing a low-impact pulse down towards the planet.
“— Throw them a bone!” finishes Gottlieb, very happy about the line.
Kai does not respond.
The station is quiet.
Gottlieb frowns. The man turns his head, looking over to Grunheide. Seeing him looking her way, she immediately starts laughing, making a show out of it.
Gottlieb nods.
It’s good to have some people with some real work ethic on the station.