[Gottlieb]
Life is… confusing.
One knows how to live life, on a base level, breathing, eating, sleeping and so on. There are base, innate urges that drive one to follow these patterns, even if a person’s will might actually be trimmed against such things for whatever reasons they might have. But what comes after that?
It is undefined.
There is one unified sense that all creatures in possession of awareness feel, and that is a desire to feel complete. Whether that completion arises from the achievement of a state of ultimate, luxurious comfort and simplicity or from the climbing of the highest, most dangerous peak available to the avenues of both body and soul varies from person to person. This is why it is so difficult often to give advice in regards to meaning to others. We hold our own final aim in regards to the word ‘purpose’ to be the one, true aim that all living creatures should strive for. Yet, given these differences, we often fail to understand, in our well intentioned passing along of our own life lessons, that they do not apply to the school of existence another person is undergoing.
Other people have a different curriculum, a different goal. It might not even be a grand goal that is self-defined, as oftentimes we don’t choose our final goals so much as we are guided towards them by the powers that be. We think we do when we sit down and wonder about what we want to have at the end of our lives, but is the choice truly ours to make?
A person who had a violent, chaotic childhood — should they escape the clutches of the demon of pattern — will most certainly strive for the complete opposite when they break free. A person who grows up in abject poverty — should they escape the maw of the beast — will certainly strive for a total rejection of this state in their future life.
As such, their grand goals for life, their aspirations, and their big dreams are not so much their own as one might think. Dreams and life goals are passed on; they are generationally inherited, much the same as generational trauma is, for with each passing of the curse of a damaged environment — family or otherwise — so too is passed along the escape from this unique threat.
Everyone carries their own curse, and everyone carries their own blessing, yet both are given to us at birth, created by the generations of those who came before, carrying the same loads on their own backs.
It is up to each individual to free themselves from their own curse, or to fail to do so and then pass it on to those who come after, putting the weight on their shoulders instead.
It is such a curious system that the heavens have designed, isn’t it?
Gottlieb stands there with crossed arms, looking at the goblin that floats there in mid-air, suspended in anti-gravity like a fish that can never swim against the currents holding it in place.
“Help!” calls a voice from his side. Gottlieb looks down at Blauhausen, the ooze, who is pointing up at the out of reach goblin who has been suspended here for a little while now.
Gottlieb lifts his gaze, looking at the flailing harpy, who can’t make heads or tails of the situation and who is also drifting around, unable to control her direction in what was likely a rescue mission of sorts between them, which had gone sour for a variety of reasons. One of which might be the naga, Schwarzwasser, who had been doing her best to stop them from freeing the goblin from captivity, who now also drifts lost in anti-gravity, another being Braungrube, the minotaur, who had been doing his best to help the effort in counter — but minotaurs aren’t built to be in space.
He stands there, watching the very unique disaster and spectacle, as they all float around as a result of a chain reaction of events that had led them here.
A hand tugs on his arm. “Please,” asks Blauhausen. He looks down, staring into the helmet that is full of a pair of large, yellow eyes that are close to crying.
Gottlieb sighs, the defender of humanity having been bested, and lightly taps with his boot against the floor paneling, rising up into the air. He reaches out, grabbing hold of a squawking, kicking bird’s leg with one arm and the minotaur’s shoulder with another. Braungrube yanks on Schwarzwasser’s snake tail, receiving a loud, violent hiss in response as they all cluster.
“Hit the ceiling and you’ll float back down to the floor,” explains Gottlieb as they rise. The three of them oblige and then fly back down to the floor paneling, where they’re caught by the ooze, who is latched onto the grates below.
Gottlieb looks at the goblin, who stares at him.
“Real dick move, sabotaging the gun, Grun,” says Gottlieb, crossing his arms. “I was counting on you.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She narrows her eyes. “You were using me.”
“Correct, that’s what I just said,” remarks Gottlieb. “But I phrased it better.”
Grunheide points at herself. “I’m a goblin. I’m not going to sit here and help you destroy my people!”
Gottlieb tilts his head. “You’ve never even met them, Grun,” he says. “You’re more my people than you are theirs. You were born here on the station.”
“The same thing counts for you and humans!” she argues.
He looks up towards the ceiling, holding his hand against it to stop himself from crashing against it, before looking back down at her. “If you mean this world’s humans, yeah, you’re right, Grun,” admits Gottlieb. “I’ve never met a single one of them.”
“So why?! It’s so unfair!” she barks, taking a swipe at him but missing because her arms are far too short — hence her problem of suspension to begin with.
“This place was made to protect humanity specifically, Grun,” explains Gottlieb. “I hear you, but it’s not a flexible rule. Kai isn’t going to budge on that.”
She snarls her teeth at him. “Then you better just kill me now, because I’m not going to apologize,” she warns, flailing around with her sharp claws in a fruitless effort to get at him.
A loud clapping sound reverberates around the room as his outstretched hand grabs one of hers, a series of sharp claws digging into his skin.
“No,” replies Gottlieb, shaking his head. “I am,” he corrects, looking at the confused monster — or person, depending on who you ask. “I’m sorry, Grun,” apologizes Gottlieb.
“…What?” she asks, looking at him in marked confusion.
“The gun will never be used to help anything except humanity,” he emphasizes, feeling her glare and claws both tighten. “But I will help you help the goblins some other way.”
It’s quiet for a moment, as she studies him. “…Really?” she asks.
He nods. “The ones who aren’t killing people, yeah,” he concedes. “We’ll figure something out.”
Grunheide looks him over cautiously, clearly not trusting him. “Why?” she asks. “I’ve betrayed you.”
“Eh,” shrugs Gottlieb, indifferent. “Did you forget the whole week I spent trying to get to Kai’s core so I could take a whizz on it?” asks the man. “We have a fun work ethic here,” says Gottlieb, looking down at a security door below them. “Besides,” he starts, looking back at the goblin. “I need your help with something.”
----------------------------------------
[Azimuth] Orc, Female, True Hero Location: The Human Capital, Streets
Ash rains down around her as she runs, her metal boots clanking against the stones. Azimuth sprints, stopping for a second to catch her breath, her hand stabilizing herself against a wooden beam as she looks behind herself at the empty ashland that was the sight of the skirmish. There’s nothing left of the street except a pristinely melted, mirrored surface of smoldering stone.
Her gaze turns back forward, looking up towards the castle on the hill. Plumes of smoke rise from many of the windows, with flames burning brightly in the night.
*Bak… Bak…* clucks something next to her.
Azimuth turns her head, looking at a chicken in a cage on a farmer’s stall, and then looks around herself. She reaches over, pulling the pin out of its lock, letting the door swing open. “Good luck,” she says, nodding to it before turning to run to the castle.
The chicken nods back.
Azimuth stops, blinking and looking back behind herself at the chicken, which pecks around at the stones, thinking they’re seeds — because, well, chickens are dumb.
Must’ve been her imagination.
The orc slaps her face, running back home at full tilt. These monsters down here — this was all just a distraction!
----------------------------------------
[High King Meridian] Human, Male, High King Location: The Human Capital, Castle
The old man continues to walk down the hallway, black blood striking the marble floors ahead of him in a long streak, as a sharp knife cuts along the length of a gray, clawed arm from its elbow to its wrist, rendering it useless.
There’s a shriek a second later, before the sound of a body hitting the floor comes to ear.
He walks onward, going with the best pace a body of his age can manage, and a second later the elf returns to his side, looking around the castle corridors.
“Good thing you’re here,” he says. “An old man like myself would have never made it otherwise,” says Meridian, knowingly, as they approach a large door, manned by two very dead guards. He opens it himself, stepping inside.
Metal rattles and clamors as the soldiers inside ready themselves for another incursion. “My lord!” cries a voice in relief as he enters, the elf shutting the door behind them. Meridian looks at the room full of soldiers.
“Why are all these men here?” he asks.
The captain of the guard salutes. “We’re been ordered to protect the chief counsel, my liege.”
Meridian scoffs, looking at the men around the large table, before pointing over his shoulder. “All of you, get the hell out of here and clean out my castle. Now.”
"Yes, my lord!” replies the captain, undoing the formation and taking the several dozen soldiers out of the room with him, as Meridian and the elf approach the table of nobles, who shift uncomfortably in their chairs as he stands at the table, looking at them all one by one.
“What’s the news?” asks Meridian, putting that to the side. If the gods hadn’t wanted them to be here, they wouldn’t be here right now.
“M- my liege,” says the minister of the interior. “There is news of a border incursion to the north-east,” he explains.
Meridian looks at him. “They really did it?” he asks. “They invaded us?” he asks, looking at their neighbors on the map.
The man shakes his head. “N… no, my liege,” admits the advisor. “One of our patrols crossed the border by mistake. There was an escalation,” he explains.
Meridian cuts him off, lifting a hand. “The gods themselves drew a literal three-man deep line between our nation’s borders in the world,” he explains, pointing at the map. “As if we were children fighting in a sandbox,” says the king. “You mean to tell me that our men disregarded that? By mistake?”
The minister raises his hands. “What has resulted is a full on invasion, my liege. It seems that they were simply waiting for a provocation to c-”
“Idiot!” barks Meridian, slamming his hands against the table. “Is this attack their doing?” he asks, pointing over his shoulders to the doors, receiving no answer in response. He pinches the bridge of his nose, staring down at the map.
“It would seem that some of the ousted noble families from the rebellion are trying to reclaim the throne,” explains his minister of war. “They’re leveraging our neighbors against us.”
“They aren’t all dead?” asks Meridian. “After all of the purges?”
“Distant cousins’ cousins claim to hold a title,” replies the man. “The legitimacy is debatable in court, but it is enough for them to believe it themselves.”
So it’s finally come to pass.
Meridian looks down at the map. “The world is ending, isn’t it?” asks the old man, shaking his head. His ministers do not have a response. But the world does, in the form of screaming and metal clashing outside the doors.