I was back in the rainforest. Just me, my dad, and Mom. They’d asked me if I would like to take part in the eradication of the sapient goblins. There would be no judgment if I didn’t go.
“I want to go, Mom,” I had told them. “Not just to defend our home… if I even care enough to do that. But I don’t want to run. I want to go at the heart of the matter, and see things for myself. And then I’ll kill them myself.”
It had taken some convincing, but my mom could scarcely say no to me in the best of days, and my dad would always eventually, if reluctantly, follow.
Which was why I now found myself treading through the wilderness, in search of my green and slimy prey. Wait, I haven’t decided if they’re prey yet! …But they probably are, if I’m being honest. I know that my mom isn’t the bigoted sort, and the reasoning makes sense. I knew firsthand just how vividly magic can affect one's perceptions and thoughts, but the goblins were different than the common monsters that could use magic. They didn’t have a repository, the mana was in their blood, and there was no way to contain or limit exposure. I was just admittedly… projecting a little, with my prior protestations. Oops.
I’m still absolutely certain there’s at least one exception though, and I’ll go find them someday!
“Oh hey look, a tiger!” I spotted one of the striped animals stalking us through the foliage. I begged my parents to let me fight it solo and not interfere, because I still wanted a better sense for how much stronger I now was with my new magical addition.
“Okay Haell, but be careful,” my dad reminded.
“Show us what you can do!” Mom tapped the demonic horns on my helm.
“Okay!” I grinned and ran off into battle. The tiger noticed my approach and pounced. It got a faceful of fire to its face for the trouble, unable to even land the attack it intended. A shallow slash followed, and the tiger turned and snapped its jaws in response. It wasn’t even close to touching me, and another spray of fire crashed over it.
I retreated into the trees as the animal chased after me in its rage. I made use of the fire to go after its face and interfere with its vision. I led it around and used my sword to deny its movements.
We went through a whole circuit around the forest, and I took a few painful cuts, but nothing I couldn’t power through. The worst wounds of the fight came when the tiger rushed at me, heedless of my blade as it bit into its face. The animal decided to trade the last vestiges of its life in exchange for maiming my left arm.
I screamed and jumped away. The tiger walked after, limping, but I gave it no further chances for a surprise. A sustained stream of flames shot towards it, further burning its already charred and broken body. The animal could no longer dodge the attack, and it collapsed with a final haunting roar.
“Mom! I did it!” Not that I hadn’t taken a tiger by myself before, but this fight went much more smoothly, except for the end when I forgot how desperate a cornered animal may become. Humans included.
“Haell! Are you okay!?” Mom quickly rushed over to my side and began casting. I lowered her wand and the flecks of light dissipated.
“I… I’ll do it,” I said and took out my nature wand. I looked at the forest around me, still on fire in some places, but it made it easy to get into the proper headspace.
Of the beauty of nature. The involved quiet, and the encompassing peace among the constant struggle.
~~~
Nature was dying. The forest was being destroyed by the goblins that we’d found, just happily chopping down trees and burning the logs for no apparent reason. The torches they carried were used on each other just as much as they were used against the environment and those who lived in it.
The chaos was almost too much to process. They preyed on each other, and any who showed weakness were tortured, so that new and stronger goblins may be born from their suffering. I understood that their abilities stemmed from this sort of carnage, but they also enjoyed it so fucking much.
Turning away from the cacophony of blood and agony, I noticed that some of the plantlife here were just a little darker, a little more gnarled and twisted than I was used to. Some were withering, dying. The very presence of the goblins was twisting the world into a wicked visage.
“Hail, goblins!” I spoke in a clear, authoritative voice. They already pissed me off, but I came here to know of them, and to decide for myself whether they deserved to be eradicated or not.
The only responses I got were malicious grunts and groans, uncaring for neither the tone nor content of my words.
No, that’s not it… “They don’t understand Varyalan?”
“They can,” Mom corrected, casually putting an earthen bullet through three of the charging creatures, “but rarely do they ever bother to learn a language. And they never have anything good to say, even when they do.”
“Huh.” I observed them some more, killing the few gobbers that tried to make it to me with my sword. They truly exemplified how Mutations were not created equal, I was just better with them in every way with presumably the same levels. Their rusted and ill-maintained weapons were easily swatted aside, only able to briefly overpower me sometimes by instinctively using their wicked mana, and rapturing their own muscles in the process. They had very little in the way of defense beyond that reckless offense. My sword bit deeply into entire lines of them, with an ease that wasn’t there even with my usual lower-leveled prey, perhaps only superior to that of a horned rabbit. But they just kept going, uncaring, even as their guts fell out of their insides.
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I answered their wish in kind, slaughtering, dismembering, and butchering them limb from limb to reveal more of the organs within, and to water the forest with their blood so that they may atone for all the young trees they’d destroyed.
I blinked, took a step back, and reevaluated myself. My parents were in front of me, holding back the worst of the tide.
No, no, no. I’m still supposed to be evaluating. When did I decide they were irredeemable?
That surge of malice from myself earlier was a taste of wicked mana, far less obvious than other forms of magic, but even more dangerous to the psyche. And that was how goblins lived, every second of every day? Worse, even, as their connection to the mana was far far more insidious and direct.
No, I doubted there were any sane ones among them. I’d give the one good goblin a fucking medal and a kiss on their warty cheek, but I wouldn’t act as if that’s any of the goblins I encounter.
I’ll keep an open eye and an open mind, with the knowledge that all I’ll see is the worst this world has to offer.
Fire mana streamed from a spare wand towards my helmet, just to make sure I was running at full. I walked forward towards my parents who were holding back the worst of the tide of goblins, some among them with Mutations over the level of 10, taller than I was and clearly stronger even if the quality of their Mutations was among the worst for our size. But in a way that can be easily beat.
“You were right, Mom. I don’t see any redeeming qualities here. There never was a chance for negotiation.”
“I wish I wasn’t, Haell. Most people don’t even recognize that they’re sapient.” Her words were punctuated by a thin ray of water. It sliced clean through the bodies of goblins.
I shrugged. “It’s not common knowledge. Even I didn’t know about it. Grandpa’s somehow never mentioned it in his endless rants.” I chuckled. “People don’t want it to be true, I guess. And the goblins aren’t giving them a reason to think otherwise.”
I hefted my sword up and met the crooked blade of a stronger goblin, one with a few Mutations level 10, presumably. I was pushed back, but I merely scoffed and redirected the blow, slicing into my enemy’s neck afterward. The wound was lethal, and I only had to keep the wicked creature away for another few seconds.
“That was a sapient person. With all the richness of thought and imagination that it entails.”
Mom shook her head. “I wouldn't go that far. I don’t even know if ‘sapient’ is an apt description for most. Just that some could communicate and understand.”
I walked ahead, into the fray, and my dad gave me a nod of understanding as cleaved widely and offered some respite to our front lines.
I reached out with my fire mana as the goblins returned, in greater numbers now. There were small embers still scattered throughout the large clearing that they’d made, and I beckoned to those within reach. Soon a fire was burning brightly in the dried remains of the forest, and I merely nudged that independent flame toward our enemies and away from myself. The goblins were damaged in droves, and I kept myself in between my parents, slashing at anyone who closed the gap. I stepped back whenever too many of them had gathered, picking them off individually during my retreat, and giving my parents the opportunity to sweep all those around us.
I took care of the few more cunning ones who tried to circle around and hit us from the back or perhaps cut off our path of retreat. They weren’t that smart in the end as I sent a wave of fire towards them and then hacked them apart after, spreading their entrails over the forest ground.
“Haell.” Dad spoke my name, sharply.
“What?” I snapped. It took a second for me to be shocked at my own tone. “Sorry.”
The man grunted. “Do we need to retreat now?”
I shook my head. I wanted to kill more goblins, and I wasn’t sure how much of that was the wicked mana talking. But for the moment, I didn’t mind indulging in the desire.
A specially large specimen lumbered forward, about as tall as Mom though definitely less bulky. She actually survived a single hit from Dad with her makeshift club, but the following strike chopped her head clean off. More of those even stronger variants came after the first one, and I stayed well enough away from them, knowing that they were two evolutions ahead of me even with a weak level sense. At least, that was true for some Mutations. The theory of level equalescence did not apply to goblins, for some reason. Not that it was a rule followed by all, only a very common and general trend.
I hung further back, using the last reserves of my fire mana to hurt the green menace, and then hunted the more numerous ones trying to box us in. Mom also sniped quite a few of them when I couldn’t keep up.
The atmosphere lightened, and a weight that I didn’t even know was there was suddenly lifted. I grinned and rushed off to battle with even more vigor than before, but my mom grabbed me into a clumsy carry. Both her and Dad broke away into a run, just as things were starting to look on the up and up.
“That’s our cue! We better run!”
“What?” I voiced my confusion, but received no response as we fled. I scanned over our enemies who were still chasing after us with a violent passion. There was a particularly tall goblin among them, about the same height as Mom, carrying a staff with many bags tied to it, and surrounded by a thick miasma. He pointed it at a goblin shorter than I was, the oppressive smoke enveloped him, and then the critter dashed after us with a speed that I had never seen on something so low level before.
Mom waved her staff, and the goblin was tossed away by a strong gust of wind. Its body detonated in mid-air, in a sickening explosion of flesh and bone. The detritus left behind seemed to suck the life out of the plantlife it struck, and the one squirrel that was skewered by a shard of femur.
The goblin mage moved unhurriedly, pointing his staff at me and my mom next. A second passed and then another before my mother took an abrupt left turn. The sudden movement put me off balance, but I still felt the massive chunk of mana that just passed right next to us. My vision caught up a second later, and I saw a bolt of smoky darkness hit an unfortunate tree instead of its rightful target.
The bark both withered and chaotically grew. Roots climbed out of the ground in a way that threatened to make the tree fall, and branches swayed as if with purpose before snapping themselves off.
The scenery blurred as our rapid travel continued. Dad settled in beside us after I’d lost track of him for a short while. I looked back and found that I could no longer see the goblin who wielded magic, nor the place where we did battle.
“This is worse than we thought,” Mom muttered. “There’s a goblin shaman among them.”