Benjamin Vryce

Benjamin released his grip and stood up, spitting the blood and flesh from his mouth as he did. He took a moment to assess the scene. Honor and Stomper’s mount were gone, Tik was also nowhere to be seen. Everyone else looked ok, tired and battered, but ok.

He closed his eyes and felt his core. This beast had let out a huge amount of essence when it died. His rotating core gathered it in, and the small piece of his mind he had partitioned off compressed it into the core. There was some bleed off when he cycled essence through his channels, but much of it returned to the core as well. He would have to start running a trickle through himself all the time. There were likely to be more benefits than boosted strength and recovery. He would just have to wait until they were less busy.

Having assessed that his friends were ok and that his core cycle was still working properly he turned to Jade. She had put them all in danger with her little stunt and he was pissed.

“What the hell was that, Jade?” he asked, walking over to tower above the leather clad blonde. Tok growled and made a move in his direction, but Ice cut him off. Tok was eight feet tall and thick with muscle, but the draft horse sized she wolf didn’t flinch. Baring her sabretooth fangs at the ogre, she was almost daring him to try something.

“Relax Vice. It all worked out, didn’t it?” she asked, getting his name wrong. “We got way more power from that thing than any of the little ones anyway.” She continued, defending her actions.

“It’s, Vryce. And the Power is called essence,” He said wearily. “Look Jade, there are worse things here than that, thing, ok. The Erlking told me some of what to expect, the bugs and the lizards…their just food for the locals. We need to avoid pointless fights so we can close the tear in the fabric of the universe.” He tried to explain, as calmly as possible.

“Ok, Vice. I hear you, but what the hell would want to eat those bugs and this giant slimy?” she asked, as a rhythmic thumping began to reverberate through the air. Benjamin paled a little when he realized what that noise was. Reaching out he grabbed Jade up in a bear hug and shouted.

“Into the house, now! No arguments, Jade, put that ogre away or we are all going to die.” He said as he hoofed it back to the small white marble tower. He dismissed the remaining wolves as he went, he knew they could be quiet but they were too big.

Jade didn’t argue nearly as much as Benjamin feared. It seemed like even she was able to grasp when a situation was important. Tok had moved forward when he grabbed her, but she dismissed him back to her soul before he could make a commotion. He rushed back inside, Jade in his arms and dove into the pile of armored eggs.

“What the fu…” Jade started to say before he put his hand over her mouth, shushing her.

He didn’t have to say anything to the goblins, when he dove into the organic mush and armored egg pile, they followed suit. Covering themselves, and looking towards the door. Benjamin looked outside too, as the thumping sound grew louder and louder.

The sun had fully set now. Benjamin couldn’t see as well as the goblins, but by channeling essence into his eyes the night lit up. He could now see as clearly as if the sun were out, though at a cost in essence drain. He now had the best view in the party as the locals landed just outside the house.

There were three of them, coming down on insectoid wings. They looked a lot like a giant praying mantis from earth. A little smaller than a normal human, they stood on four legs and had large scythe like forelimbs. Large mandibles and multifaceted eyes, making them look even more like a giant version of the insects on earth.

These creatures weren’t monsters however. They wore additional chitin armor over their natural blue carapace. Benjamin thought it looked like it was made from a variety of the local bugs, stitched together into overlapping plates. They chittered to one another, in what he could only assume was speech of some kind, walking/ flying around the clearing.

They didn’t spend too much time looking around, before coming back to the giant salamander. As civilized as the use of language and them wearing clothes might have seemed, there was nothing civilized about the way they tore into the salamander’s carcass. They ripped into it with their scythe like forelimbs, burying their heads deep into the cuts and chewing the flesh away.

As they ate, more thumping sounded from the sky. The mantis men didn’t stop their feast, if anything the noise goaded them to eat faster. Their meal ended when two new mantis men dropped from the sky. These had red carapace, and the armor they wore all matched. These were a little larger than a normal human, making them noticeably larger than the first to arrive.

As they landed, they brought their scythed arms down on two of the feeding mantises. Cleaving the heads from their bodies. The final blue mantis, tried to take one final bite of the salamander before fleeing. That moment of hesitation cost it its life, when one of the newcomers gave a wing assisted leap over the salamander to remove its head as well.

Benjamin and his companions watched as the red mantis gathered the heads into a sack, and flew away, leaving the carcass untouched. He waited until the thumping sound of wings faded out before releasing his hold over Jade’s mouth. Only then did he realize how he had been holding her.

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Her back was pressed firmly against his chest. He had one hand around her waist, clutching her closer to him, and the other pressed over her mouth. He realized how awkward they must look when he caught Grace’s eyes, staring at them. Jade must have caught the look too, because she wiggled herself against Benjamin’s body suggestively, before rolling away from him. There was a smirk on her face as she looked at the goblin girl.

Benjamin let out a mental groan. Why, why oh why, he wasn’t a haram protagonist in some isekai novel. They were all teenaged boys with way too much life experience. He was an adult in his mid-thirties who had been transported to a new and dangerous world, where he had a new body that provided him with endless stamina and… he shook his head, thinking like that could spiral out of control very quickly.

“What the hell was that?” Jade asked, saving him from himself. “I could barely see, but it looked like some flying centaur dudes came down to eat the lizard. Then some bigger flying centaur dudes came down and cut their heads off.” she said summing up the encounter nicely.

“If you can’t see, try channeling your essence to your eyes. It took me a while to get the hang of it but…” He was cut off abruptly by Jade’s excited voice.

“Wow, this is awesome. Thanks Vice, why didn’t I think of this.” she said looking around the room. “So, anyway. Why did we hide? They were small fry, we coulda took em.” She finished

Benjamin frowned at her. Had she really picked up on how to channel essence that fast? It was a little scary, if she wasn’t so busy standing in her own way, she would probably be insanely powerful by now. He shuddered at the thought, maybe he should be a little more careful in how he talked to her going forward.

“The Erlking only called them the Hive. He told me he made a handful in different colors and dropped them off here millennia ago. He said once they started breeding, they have been trying to wipe each other out ever since.” He explained, deciding to gloss over the rest of what the Erlking had said. She was too unpredictable to trust with the information right now.

“Got ya, so these ‘hive’ are killing each other over shell color, nothing new there. That still don’t tell me why we were hiding.” She said rolling her eyes. Benjamin debated trying to explain that ‘shell color’ didn’t play into it at all. In the end, he decided he didn’t want to explain alien biology he barely understood to a person who couldn’t even remember his name.

“We were hiding because I didn’t know what to expect. There are, or were, several different kinds of hive. For all we knew there could have been a hundred of them. Most of them are nocturnal though, if we stay hidden at night and only move during the day, we should be safe.” He said, explaining his movement plans at the same time.

“Most of them?” she said, catching onto that last part.

“Yes well, he didn’t want them fighting so he split them up between nocturnal and diurnal varieties. It obviously didn’t work, but at least there should be less bugs with the sun out.”

“Point” she said, scraping the mush off herself as best she could. “We gunna smash these eggs or what? Might get a little essence from em at least.” Her expression hadn’t changed much during the whole conversation, apart from her teasing of Grace.

Benjamin wondered what that said about her, then he wondered if he had any right to question her mental state. As he helped her smash the armored eggs, to syphon off the essence they held. He justified it to himself, thinking that he had already killed the parents so they wouldn’t have survived anyway. He knew deep down it wouldn’t have mattered though. The stronger he got the easier this mission would be, so he needed the essence.

Once that was finished, he and Stomper made a thorough search of the tower. It only had two floors, and the second one was empty. Thinking they would be safer up there he brought the girls up to join them. He then called Honor out to keep watch and settled down with his back to the wall. He didn’t need sleep, but his goblins did, and he wanted to experiment in his void space.

“I’m going to meditate for the rest of the night, Honor, let us know if we are discovered please. The rest of you get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be a long day.” With that, he closed his eyes to enter his void space.

He felt it when Grace lay her head down on his lap, but he didn’t move until he heard her rhythmically breathing in sleep. He gently brushed her hair away from her face, mindful of his claws. He stroked her hair, just like she had done for him, when he had needed it.

“Got a thing for the little Green girlie do ya?” Jade asked him, leaning against the far wall. She had resummoned Tik and Tok, without their armor, and was using them as a pillow.

“It’s, complicated.” He said, looking over to the sleeping form of Stomper. Who had curled up next to the stair opening, axe and shield close to hand.

“Why?” Jade questioned, following his line of sight, “Those two are like brother and sister, and both of them practically worship you anyway. I really don’t see the problem…I mean other than the obvious size and race difference…and the fact that she is technically a piece of your soul” she added helpfully.

“Yea, I know,” Benjamin replied. He had picked up on the fact that Grace and Stomper didn’t have a romantic relationship almost directly after the kissing incident. He just hadn’t said anything about it, partly from embarrassment, and partly because of the points Jade had just raised.

“Grace, and Stomper, just lost their entire clan. They were murdered and their corpses were burnt. We went back to save what we could, but, there were only five, that’s it, just five. I haven’t had the time or the essence to call them all out yet. So, they don’t even know what five are still alive. Out of all their friends and family. Who is coming back, and who is gone forever?” he looked down, stroking Graces fine black hair as he talked.

“Couple that with the fact that she is now bound to me forever, completely at my mercy. It just doesn’t seem like a good idea to take advantage of her situation.” He finished lamely, looking back up to Jade. He thought she looked a little uncomfortable for a second but it passed quickly.

“Alright Vice, your call.” She said, leaning back into the ogres sleeping forms. “I’d tell ya not to wait too long but, she can’t die if you’re alive and if you die…well. I’m gunna go chill in the focus chair for a while, play with this new channeling essence thing.” With that she closed her eyes, and didn’t speak again.

Benjamin sat there alone for a long time, stroking Grace’s hair. Her breathing rhythm had shifted when Jade started speaking, but he pretended not to notice. He continued to stroke her hair, long after her breathing returned to the rhythm of sleep. Then he closed his eyes, and entered his void space.