The plan seemed to be going well so far, or at least Azura thought so. He had been a little uneasy at how natural it had felt to shift into a draconic form, but in hindsight shouldn’t really have been surprised. Either way the goblins hadn’t seemed to suspect him. Still it was one thing to fool goblins who were on the lower end of intelligent monsters, and another to fool whatever else came to inspect them. At least he didn’t have to hide his nerves, this was a tense situation for all involved.
He had said the human was a gift to their overlord, in hopes of peaceful cooperation. He hoped that was something a monster would do. Basically just asking for the commander not to take them over, and that they will fight willingly instead. That’s what he would do in a situation like this anyway, being controlled was a big no no for him.
A growl pulled his attention, and he was surprised to see a drake. He was not expecting an actual dragon kin to be under the commodores control, yet there it was. A shock drake stood well away from him with what he assumed to be the commander beside it. The shock drake was roughly the same size as the frost one from his trials, but instead of gleaming white it was blue, with arcs of electricity running just below its scales causing them to shimmer. Despite the majestic sight he found his eyes drawn to the commander instead. It was a goblin lord. Not a common sight, it was taller than an average human at over 6 ft, but not so tall that you couldn’t find a person with the same height. Aside from that it wore majestic red robes, and a golden crown on its head.
To his surprise when the goblin lord opened its mouth it wasn’t grunts that came out, but rather the same language most humans used. “Do you speak in human tongues gift bringer?” He wasn’t sure if he should or not. It was a weird thing for a monster commander to ask. Very few monsters could speak human language, and the ones who could were often considered priority targets. In this case despite his ally not being able to understand the conversation he decided to pretend he didn’t.
He tilted his head in confusion. And growled indicating he didn’t understand. The goblin lord frowned, but didn’t seem surprised. “Very well, I’ll continue to speak for the benefit of our guest, but I’ll make sure to respond as normal at the same time.” As promised the mana fluctuations said the same as his words did. He was curious to see if the lord could and would try to trip them up by saying different things with both.
Part of him considered attacking now. They were surrounded by monsters, but no more than they would be once they were inside the base, but they didn’t know how strong the commander was. He decided it was best to wait and see. “So it’s my understanding you brought this gift to me in hopes of fighting without being controlled right?” The goblin lord seemed oddly smug, like it knew something he didn’t. He’d be lying if he said that didn’t worry him, but there was nothing he could do but follow through at this point. He grunted in confirmation.
“Well Then, I’d be more than happy to oblige, except for 1 thing. This human had a partner. I remember the 2 of them brazenly crossing my territory.” The goblin lord frowned. “They left quite the path of destruction, so needless to say I would love to have some vengeance, ideally on the full set.” Luckily they had planned for this. He growled and fluctuated his mana wildly before stilling it completely.
“My ‘partner’ died in the pools of rebirth.” Credit where it’s due, he hadn’t known Jackson was a solid actor. The man looked genuinely upset, and more than a little spiteful of the situation he found himself in. He knew the man was perfectly calm, but even then he would almost bet he was seconds away from an emotional outburst. Their story hadn’t quite added up there, but monsters hated the pools, so maye calling them a hated enemy wouldn’t be considered incorrect.
It frowned. “That’s a shame, but more than that, that leaves me at an impasse. Just 1 human isn’t really enough of a gift to consider your request, however I will take the human in exchange for allowing you to leave without being controlled.” That wasn’t ideal. He obviously wouldn’t do that, but if the lord tried to control him the jig would be up and they’d have to fight then and there. He growled, not to say anything especially, but more to show his frustration before he unleashed a good chunk of his mana as pressure.
The goblin lord sank to its knees, but they were instantly beset on all sides by powerful monsters. Nobody moved, and he took that chance to issue his statement for all the monsters there to understand. He made it clear he wanted to fight strong humans, but would die on his own. He wasn’t a recourse to be tossed aside. He hadn’t really wanted to go this route, because the lord would without a doubt want to test his mettle, and if he didn’t put on enough of a show then Jackson would be in a very bad spot. Especially rough, was the fact most of his magic was off limits. The amount of monsters that could use magic the way humans do probably numbered in the single digits.
“Oh, you want a chance to prove yourself do you?” The lord recovered rather well from the pressure forcing it to its knees. He felt a little uncomfortable thinking of it as an it now that it had spoken human language, but he couldn’t afford to think of these things as people. It would slow him down whenever the fight did break out. Either way the lord was back on its feet looking regal aside from a small bit of dirt on its surprisingly nice pants. “Very well, I shall allow you to test your mettle.
He stood defiantly in front of Jackson when the lord reached out to grab the man. He made it clear that the man would only be given over if his proposal was accepted. The lord growled, and for a second he worried perhaps he had made a mistake, but the lord turned and walked back. As soon as the lord had made it 40 ft away A giant man shaped monster walked into the vacated area. It was an orc. An 8ft mass of green muscle. To sharp teeth came out from its bottom jaw, and rested over his upper lip, and a giant wooden club rested in its hand. A line of short brown hair rested on the top of its otherwise shaved head.
He was relieved beyond belief. He had thought for sure the shock drake was going to be his opponent, but a measly orc? He could handle that without issue even as handicapped as he was now. No weapons, and no standard magic left him with few options aside from sheer aggression, but against an orc that should be plenty.There wasn’t any signal to begin the fight so he wasn’t sure if it was ok for him to attack, but luckily the orc took the initiative and swung its giant club at him. He ducked under the horizontal swing and leapt at his opponent. The orc surprised him by turning gracefully in order to dodge his lunge. He landed on all 4s, and slid shifting around to once more face his opponent before coming to a complete stop.
That wasn’t what he had expected. The attack and the dodge had been completely different, night and day even. Something wasn’t right, but with so many other monsters around he couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Even clairvoyance was too dangerous to use here. Especially given how sensitive to magic monsters were. Especially when they were specifically watching him. Which unfortunately meant he’d have to figure out the trick without it. The orc charged him with reckless abandon, swinging its club around randomly. He considered using his tail to trip the orc up, but decided not to put any appendages at risk until he knew what was going on with the 2 completely different fighting styles.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
He gave ground, picking up a rock as he backed up. It was a solid rock, roughly the size of his hand. That would do. He threw the rock full force at the orcs eye, and once again it dodged the attack with minimal movement. Its attacks were sloppy and wasteful beyond belief, but the way that it avoided his attacks implied years of training. Unfortunately he wasn’t going to figure out the mystery by giving ground all day. He went in for a punch, but caught himself and switched it to a claw swipe mid swing. Rather than block or dodge the orc swung its club making use of its greater range.
That was what he was hoping for. Much closer to the brute then before he jumped into the swing catching it before it could build up any real force. He quickly snapped the club in 2, and then jumped back to dodge the orc’s other arm trying to grab him. It was a blessing and a curse that monsters didn’t really fight like humans did. Their fighting styles were usually much more simple, relying on natural weapons, which made them easy to predict, on the other hand it meant that he had to be careful how he fought. Punches and kicks would definitely make him look suspicious, and of course any of his equipment was also a definite no go.
Still with the club broken the orc should be a simple opponent. Except the orc was standing completely different from before, it was poised in a defensive stance, looking almost like… martial arts? Not like any he had ever seen though, and he’d never heard of monsters developing anything like that either. His thoughts were broken when the orc decided that he wasn’t going to go on the offensive, and so took it upon itself to start the battle anew. The forms were different from any martial arts he had ever encountered, but not any less dangerous. As a small mercy due to the orc’s top heavy body kicks wouldn’t be very effective so he only had to watch for the arms. On the flip side though, those arms could turn a boulder to dust in a single strike.
Well, wasn’t that lovely, his opponent was fighting more like a human than he had anticipated, but he couldn’t afford to do the same. Even assuming that nothing weird was going on and this just happened to be an orc that learned some forms of martial arts he still couldn’t pretend to have done the same. The odds of finding 1 were low, but 2? He’d go so far as to say it was impossible, and even if it was he doubted that’s what was going on here.
He decided to go all in on his monster persona, and once there was another lull in their fast paced combat, he growled and released his mana in an attempt to rile up the monster. Something like ‘you fight like a human!’ The response caught him off guard though. Something like ‘I fight as my master commands.’ That was all kinds of bad. He had a suspicion, but if it really was the commander that was getting it to fight like that, then that meant every monster in the army could fight like that, and that was very not good.
Killing the commander just became even more important. His initial estimates for damages would be way off if the monsters were capable of fighting like that. Afterall the longer it took the adventurers to take out the bulk of the force the more the rest of the army could rain chaos upon the town. Or at least that was his first thought, but then he remembered the wild swing, and its clumsy footing until it switched to defense. That wasn’t something that would happen even if they were just taught defensive martial arts.
He straightened up, making it clear he no longer planned to fight before turning towards the goblin king. ‘If I’m just fighting you anyway, why not just fight yourself?” Still even if the commander could only control 1 monster at a time like a puppet, that still made him dangerous. Not to mention that meant the lord itself had those skills, and that brought a lot of things into question.
“Oh? You figured that out already? Perhaps it would be best not to rob one of the few intelligent monsters I’ve met of their will. Follow me then, I’m sure we can arrange a fair contract.” He followed without hesitation grabbing Jackson on the way, but he was in turmoil on the inside. Since when did monsters use contracts? This was just too much. A regular monster speaking a human tongue he could believe. A monster knowing martial arts was a bit harder, but he could still believe it might happen once. A monster knowing how to make binding contracts though? That was a hard sell on its own. Combined with the other 2 he was immediately suspicious. Something wasn’t right here, and he was going to figure out what.
***
Azura had not expected the inside of the goblin lord’s cave to be so… extravagant. There were plush couches, and many silk and gold decorations. It looked like a standard parlor, or living room one might find in a noble's home. Granted the silk being many different colors, and the lack of any distinct theme, it was clear that they had managed to put this together with scraps, but even still, this was far beyond something monsters could or even would normally do.
“Welcome to my home. It’s a bit garish I’m afraid, but unfortunately this is all I was able to get my hands on.” Monsters didn’t really think in those terms, so the mana was more like ‘I don’t like it.’ In reference to the room. He wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so he chose not to. “Now that we’re in a more private venue, I suppose you’ll be more willing to speak. Won’t you lizard.” No mana was released. He tilted his head and indicated that he didn’t understand. The goblin lord rolled his eyes. “Enough with this pathetic ruse, speak or I’ll summon every monster under my control.” The look in the goblin’s eyes made it clear that was no empty threat.
He grit his teeth. How had the goblin known? His disguise was perfect. Or at the very least near enough that it shou;dn’t be pegged so easily. “How did you know?” He didn’t know how much the goblin knew. It was quite possible he had been pegged for being able to speak, but not for being a human in the first place. He’d have to move much more carefully now that his plan was falling apart. Thankfully Jackson remained quiet, the last thing he needed was to have to cover for both of them in a situation like this.
“I didn’t, but in case you worry you were fooled I absolutely would have killed you if you didn’t speak.” He had known the killing intent was real, but to think the goblin would kill potential allies simply because of a suspicion. “As for why I suspected, Well you’re like me right? A human that was turned into a monster?”
He leaned into the surprise at the revelation to sell his next line. “There were more than just me?!” Well he said that, but he wasn’t sure he believed the goblin. Though he was sure at the very least the goblin believed it to be true. It was one thing to be born half dragon, but it was another to become a monster later. Surely something like that wasn’t actually possible. Or at the very least not without years of study, and countless experiments to achieve that goal, and surely there would have been some news of such a project. With the exception of undead, humans and monsters were completely different physiologically. So it’s not even like it was a branch of research that wouldn’t require many test subjects.
“I’ll admit, I never expected to run into another either, but your reaction to my minions stance was too quick, no normal monster would have figured it out that quickly. The only way was if you knew enough about martial arts to recognize it.” He had admittedly not really thought that through, he had gotten cocky because he had figured out the trick, but he hadn’t taken the time to think about why they were doing it, or how the lord had known anything of martial arts either.
“Just how did you end up this way?” He needed more info. Finding out the goblin lord had been a human, didn’t necessarily mean they weren’t bad. He needed to know if they still had to take him out of the picture or not. He had some reservations about killing people, but not enough to stop him from saving that town.
The goblin grimaced. Whatever left him this way obviously wasn’t a pleasant memory. “I don’t know exactly, a lot of my memories are indistinct. I remember rage, rage unlike anything I had ever felt before. I was seething in bitter regret over something, and then before I knew it I had woken up, but I wasn’t the man I used to be. I wasn’t what you see before you either, I was a regular goblin, a mere beast. I didn’t let that stop me though. Thanks to my life as a human I had many skills that monsters don’t, and over time I was able to get to the level you now see before you.” The goblin droned on and on about his history, and how he got to where he was now. Azura was speechless. Since when did people just give him the info he wanted.