Aaron gave his status screen one final check to make sure everything was okay now:
Status: Name: Aaron Species: Human Sex: Male Age: 16 Level: 6 Perks: 'Chosen One' Titles: None Points: 0 Attributes: Strength: 6 Dexterity: 5 Intelligence: 14 Charisma: 3 Luck: 4 Faith: 2 Destiny: 11 Energies: Energy Current Max Regen / minute Health 50 50 0.5 Mana 90 90 0.9 Stamina 45 45 0.45 Status effects: Classes: Effect Duration Class Level Haremest 6
With their patching up complete, both Aaron and Rita had decided to take the chief up on his offer and sleep over, since Mara had not yet returned and night had already fallen.
The chief provided two rooms for them after asking whether or not they wanted to share one or not. This was actually a great relief to Aaron. He was really tired and doubted his ability to get a good night’s rest if he ended up having to share a bed with a pretty girl like Rita.
Aaron and Rita had to discard their current outfits, the gaping tears and cuts, and blood stained material, rendering them unusable. Aaron felt like the inhabitants of this world must go through an awful lot of clothing. It seemed like ever since he got here, his life has just been in constant danger. It’s a wonder it had taken this long to get a level in ‘Plot armour’, that damn skill must be working overtime for him to still be standing here after all.
After washing up and saying their good-night’s, the pair retired to their respective rooms. Aaron sunk into the comfortable bed, just about ready to pass out. It’s a wonder what a human being can get used to. Several days ago, this bed would have given him a hard time. It would be too cheap, too hard, too uncomfortable. Now, however, it was a great bed. In that it was great because it was an actual friggin bed!
He had been sleeping on a combination of hay, dirt and wooden benches ever since he got to this world. He missed his own bed. He missed his carefree life. He missed his family.
Honestly he had so much to deal with ever since he arrived in Exia, that he had simply not had the time to put any thoughts towards his family. They must be really sad. Unless the system transported his entire body away, not just made him a new one, they would have found his dead body a while ago.
Actually the alternative of transporting his body away would be worse for them. They would not know what had happened to him, he would just be missing. They would spend years agonising over it without any closure instead of being able to get over him. He really hoped that wasn’t the case.
He did his very best to forget about his family, to put the thoughts out of his mind. There was simply no point. He didn’t even have a clear goal in this world and if he did, it would end up being some mammoth task like defeat the demon king or some shit. That’s just how these things worked. Typically he would have to accomplish something like that before he could return to his own world. Either that or become powerful enough to return on his own.
No matter how you slice it, it would take many years at minimum before he could return and that’s if it was even possible to begin with. So yeah, no point dwelling on his family.
After fighting off his ill feelings for a few more minutes, Aaron finally succumbed to his fatigue.
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The next day Aaron helped Rita make some potions and other healing aids with their new ingredients, while they awaited Mara’s return. The chief had graciously let them borrow his kitchen for all this and Rita had brought with most of her tools and equipment that she used for this sort of work.
Even though Aaron was admittedly not of very much help, he had enjoyed watching Rita work. She basically entered this kind of ‘serious mode’ when doing anything even remotely related to her Herbalist class.
Half a day had passed, when Mara had finally returned.
“You took really long.” Rita scolded her almost immediately, “What did you do, kill every single one of them and their distant cousins or something.”
“Ha Ha. As much fun as that would be, I’m afraid not. No, there were way too many of the buggers. I couldn’t engage them.”
“Then what took so long?”
“There were prisoners. I figured if I didn’t at least try and free them then you would probably be all over my ass.”
“Prisoners, what you mean ALIVE?!”
“Jeez calm down. Yes. And I spent a lot of time skulking around with my more ‘stealthy’ hunter skills, but in the end I couldn’t even get close, there were just too many goblins.”
“How many prisoners?” Rita blurted out as if not even hearing anything else Mara had said.
“There are two woman, probably the one’s the chief was talking about. But I think one of them might already have been dead. The other one wasn’t in much better shape though.”
Rita paused for a moment at that. “Alright. We will leave in fifteen minutes. There’s no telling how long the goblins will keep them around.”
“Huh?” The demon was truly surprised, “What on Exia are you talking about? DIdn’t you hear me? There are way too many goblins. I love fighting as much as the next demon, but you coming with, that would just be suicide.”
“I can’t leave those girls be. So we’re going. That’s an order.”
Aaron had to interject at this point, “Rita, calm down, Mara’s right. You’re basically running towards your death. If you die trying to free those girls, it would make absolutely no difference to them and you’d still be dead.”
For some reason Rita couldn’t seem to face Aaron, but she responded rather coldly, “I’m sorry Aaron, I’ve made up my mind. I don’t expect you to come with on such a dangerous mission, that would be incredibly selfish of me. If I’m not back in three days then you can assume me dead and I will bequeath all my belongings to you.”
Aaron was left stunned. Just what the fuck is she thinking? Why is she being suicidal. No matter how much she felt for those girls, they are not her family or anything, there just isn’t a reason to go this far.
Dammit! She was going to go off and die along with Mara, the goblins would certainly be claiming her amulet after all. He was going to be left alone in this world again. That had not worked out very well for him the first time around.
Plus, he did not feel like starting his harem over from scratch. Shit! “Wait up. I’ll come with you.”
Now- she looked at him, and quite shocked at that, “What? No, there is no reason for you to do that. This is just my own selfishness, but if you come with me, you’ll probably end up dying. And then that would be on me for having dragged you into this. How am I supposed to deal with that.”
Aaron simply responded matter of factly, “Oh, and would it not be selfish of you to expect me to stay here and wait for the small chance that you might return alive, while you go off to die. Yeah, I think not. If you’re going, I’m going.”
Aaron could see her become visibly angry, too the point where it looked like she was even clenching her jaw shut in frustration. She eventually relented, “Fine! Just don’t blame me when you die.” Aaron of course really hoped that wouldn’t happen. He hoped that his level two plot armour would be enough to somehow survive this madness.
It was rather unnerving though. True, he had not known her for very long, but he had never seen her like this before.
Rita made some preparations before they set out, loading up both Aaron and herself with her most powerful potions and explained to Aaron what each of them did. The most notable of which was a powerful rejuvenation potion that on its own was apparently worth a small fortune. Rita had said it could heal someone like him back to full health, mana and stamina in seconds and could last for as long several minutes.
With their preparations ready, Rita had each of them drink a stamina potion that had a very lengthy duration, so that they could basically run most of the distance to the goblin camp without getting tired. And then they set off.
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It was not supposed to go like this.
Aaron of course wasn’t really sure how it was supposed to go, not even in his head.
But just- not like this!
Aaron was fumbling with a health potion and pouring it down Rita’s throat, even sprinkling a bit of it on her head wound. Rita had taken a nasty blow to the head from a club and was now lying on the ground, unconscious.
Mara had done her best to hold off all the goblins, shredding them one after another, in a incredibly violent dance of blood and death. Even now she fought with everything she had. But there were just far too many goblins.
Honestly, Mara could probably have fought better, killed even more goblins, if she did not have to spend so much effort keeping the two of them alive. Rita had taken down a dozen goblins on her own while Mara kept them at bay. Her archery skills had really impressed him in the end, but even that had been but a drop in the ocean compared to the wave after wave of goblins that chased them as they had to continuously fall back.
Aaron himself had been almost completely useless in this fight so far, aside from watching Rita’s back and it would seem he had failed that task as well, otherwise he wouldn’t be leaning over her like this right now.
The worst part of it, was that they never even made it to the damn goblin camp. It would seem that some scout had spotted them long before and instead of wait to be attacked at their base, they had elected to meet the three of them head on instead. The result of the clash, well, suffice to say it had not gone well for them.
“Aaron! Take Rita and run! I’m almost out of mana.” Mara yelled at him as she added another four corpses to the fields.
Shit! Aaron picked up a still unconscious Rita in a princess carry, he had recently drank a strong stamina potion in order to keep up with the fighting, so this much wasn’t too difficult for him. He started running in the opposite direction of the goblin camp with Rita in hand. His health was still busy recovering from the health potion he had drunk a short while ago. He ignored his bleeding status, based on advice that Rita had given out at the start of all of this.
She had said that in the middle of a fight he should ignore any bleed status effects unless they were really serious. The health potions they had available to them were more than strong enough to counter the bleed damage and the reduction in effectiveness the bleed status caused on health potions. That was another thing he had not known about. In any case even if he dealt with the bleed status in the middle of a fight, he would likely just get another one soon after, rendering it a bit pointless.
Aaron ran as fast as he could, while carrying Rita’s weight. He could tell some of the goblins were following him. He ran and ran. He had to veer sharply to the left when he came to a fairly steep cliff. Running along the embankments edge now instead, the goblins chasing him were able to gain a fair amount of ground.
As if the fuckers weren’t fast enough! Dammit! Aaron could hear them getting closer and closer. There was no choice, he could not outrun them, especially not while carrying Rita, probably not even without. He had to face them now, or he would soon find a blade in his back. He just hoped that he was far enough away from the main fight, that he would only have to deal with the few goblins that were chasing him.
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When it sounded like they were basically on top of him, Aaron dropped Rita and spun around. He surged forward towards two goblins that were only a few steps behind. One of them, ‘goblin A’, was alarmed by his sudden actions and jumped backwards.
Aaron dove recklessly for the other, ‘goblin B’, with his dagger. No matter how suicidal, he needed to finish this as quickly as possible, before he drew the attention of any more goblins. He really hoped these were the only two that had followed him, even with just them, his chances of winning were already so slim.
Aaron managed to catch goblin B by surprise, it already having its own forward running momentum after all. So even though it did try to dodge out the way, it still received a nasty cut slicing deep through its right arm. Goblin B squealed in pain and dropped its weapon, no longer having strength enough in the arm to maintain its grip on it.
Aaron wanted to press the advantage and finish goblin B off, but was instead forced to dodge out the way of a sudden attack from goblin A. Goblin A had recovered from its initial surprise and already launched an assault. Aaron was forced back, swing after swing, even taking one or two small cuts in the process, as goblin A attacked relentlessly and aggressively.
Aaron focused hard, waiting for a chance. And then it came. Goblin A over extended himself on the last missed swing, and lost his footing for a moment. This was a good thing, as Aaron had come dangerously close to the cliff edge while he had been so focused on evading goblin A’s sword. Aaron lunged forward, grabbing ahold of goblin A’s weapon arm, thus keeping it out of play for a moment. He raised his own dagger, ready to put an end to the little monster.
Alas, it was not meant to be. Perhaps goblin B had realised how dire his friends situation was, as he had elected to air tackle Aarons face, even though he was not currently wielding any weapons, save for his not very impressive claws.
The force with which goblin B had come flying through the air and ramming into Aarons head, had caused Aaron to stumble backwards while trying to pull the goblin off his face. Goblin B had elected to hang onto his head for dear life, perhaps in the hope of blinding Aaron and giving goblin A a chance to make a move. Aaron had not wanted to stab the goblin hanging onto his head, lest he miss it and headshot himself.
Aaron suddenly had a strange and familiar feeling. His right foot hand sunk down much further than it should have. It should have found ground a while ago, but it did not.
Aaron’s world started spinning around. Fuck! First stairs and now he was going to die going over a fucking cliff! He should have been granted the fucking ‘cliff hanger’ class instead!
Aaron and the goblin that was no longer clinging to his face were both brutally tumbling down the steep slope. What little Aaron could make out amidst the sprays of dirt and gravel, sweat and blood, was that the steep slope, was about to turn into a dead drop, in the most literal sense. Not that it mattered to him in the slightest, he was simply unable to right himself as he rolled down the ‘hill’.
Just before he reached the edge of the cliff, he noticed a lone tree that was growing near the edge. This tree quickly grew larger as Aaron tumbled towards it. The last thing he saw were it’s green leaves and dark brown bark, up close and personal.
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Rita slowly opened her eyes. Her head hurt. It felt dazed and confused.
Sitting up, from the hard dirt ground she had been lying on, she took stock of her surroundings. As her head and vision cleared, she realised night had fallen and she was stuck inside a cage. A prison made of some kind of wood or bamboo bars, tied together in various places. Despite the simplistic materials used, it looked sturdy.
Hers was not the only cage. To her right was an empty cage and to her left was another cage, this one containing a woman. The woman was curled up on the hard ground, in an almost fetal position. She was completely naked and covered in scratches, bruises and dirt. Her hair was also caked in dirt and a little dried blood.
“Hey are you okay?” An obviously stupid question. There was little doubt what the goblins had been keeping her around for. What they must have all done to her by now.
The woman’s eyes shifted, only her eyes. They seemed to recognise Rita for the first time.
“What’s your name, are you from Goran village?” Rita carried on goading her, but the woman did not say a word. Eventually she simply closed her eyes and elected to outright ignore Rita instead.
Rita slumped back down, uncertain what to do next. Her amulet was missing, they had probably taken it, she would not be able to contact Mara like this. Even if she could, she doubted Mara had recovered enough mana to be able to do any meaningful fighting, let alone materialise. She could tell by the position of the sun that not much time had passed since fighting with the goblins.
And Aaron. Oh gods, Aaron. She had no doubt that he had been killed, he did not seem like the type that would ever abandon her otherwise.
Her heart felt heavy, so heavy. She was tired, she just wanted to lay down and die right now.
There was suddenly a shuffling and creaking sound coming from the cage door. Rita looked up to see that it had been opened, and a goblin was entering, while a few others waited outside the cage.
Rita looked on in horror at the intimidating figure that was looming over her. It was the single biggest goblin she had ever seen in her life, not that she had seen all that many. But this one. This one was as big as a full grown man and extremely muscular. He also had several large scars across his body.
Rita stared at the goblin dumbly, she could scarcely believe her eyes. The goblin took a step forward and before Rita even knew what had happened, a powerful backhand struck the side of her face.
Blunt force damage sustained: -19 health
Author warning!
The following several paragraphs contain some minor rapey elements. If this bothers you, you can simply skip over it. Following the end of DANGER marker, is a one liner that sums up what happened at a very 'high level'.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ START OF DANGER
Rita’s world was spinning, her head was buzzing. She could taste the blood filling her mouth. She wasn’t entirely sure but it felt like she had lost a tooth or two.
All of a sudden, a powerful hand pinned her to the ground, it was wrapped around her neck, pressing down hard, strangling her. Rita couldn’t breath, she struggled. She used both her hands to try and free her neck, but the arm holding it in place was far too strong. Her vision was blurry and she was gasping for air.
She realised too late that a large hand had already been shoved into her pants. With its palm over her mound, it shoved a finger inside of her. A sharp nail cut her on its way in, as the finger was forced inside of her.
Rita even in her semi-conscious state, managed to clamp down with her legs to keep the finger that was violating her from progressing any deeper. The goblin suddenly pulled it out violently, its nail also cutting her on the way out.
The hand that was choking her also let up and she gasped for air, in a coughing fit. She could only barely make out, through a haze of water eyes, the goblin raising his fingers to his pointy nose and giving them a deep appreciative sniff.
He then smiled sadistically down at her and said, “You- mine. I come back.”
He simply left after that and the other goblins tied the cage shut once more.
Rita curled up into a ball and placed her hand onto her crotch.
It hurt.
It hurt in so many ways.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ END OF DANGER
Brief DANGER one liner about what happened:
She got slapped around a bit and felt up a bit. The big goblin left with a promise to return and finish the job.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ END OF DANGER
As tears were forming in her eyes, she looked around. There were so many goblins all about. Many of them seemed to be eyeing her hungrily, yet they made no move. The large goblin must be their leader, and he had likely ‘claimed’ her, otherwise she would surely have been raped by a bunch of them already.
She cursed her fate. The leader would return and then she would lose her virginity to some monster raping her. He even seemed like he genuinely hated humans and would probably be incredibly cruel to her. He would make her suffer, she knew it. And then when he was done with her, assuming she was still alive, she would no doubt be passed around and raped by a hundred more goblins.
Tears were flowing freely down her face now. She absolutely did not want that, she truly wished she could just die. Even if the death was painful and slow it would still be better.
Rita was startled by the sound of a cage being unbound. She panicked, scrambling to the far corner of her cage. She quickly noticed however, that it was not her cage being opened.
Three regular sized goblins entered her neighbours cage. They were not wearing their signature loin cloths that goblins typically wear. They were naked and most of them already had erections. The woman lying on the ground didn’t even stir, she simply lay still in her fetal position.
When one of goblins rolled her over onto her back and spread her legs, she offered absolutely no resistance. Even as the first goblin climbed on top of her and started grunting with every one of his thrusts, she remained motionless.
Rita watched in horror as the scene unfolded, she felt nauseous. The woman’s eyes were vacant, her body was limp. It was as if she was already dead. Rescue? What foolishness. This woman had already been ‘killed’, there was nothing left of her to rescue.
Rita turned away from the sight and buried her head in her knees. She wanted to call out, to shout to them to stop and leave the woman alone. But she did no such thing. She sobbed into her own lap as softly as she could manage. She did not want to draw their attention to herself. She was too afraid.
Rita cried, she cursed her own selfishness, her own weakness. She had been too weak to stop Dianna from killing people, from torturing that girl. She had done nothing.
And now? Now, once again she was too weak to do anything. Now she once more did nothing. Honestly. The fate that awaited her, all the suffering that was soon coming her way. She deserved all of it. She hated herself right now, more than anything. She would take her punishment and then she would eventually die. And that would be the end of it, the scales balanced.
That fool. He had called her strong. What the hell did he know. Obviously not very much about her. She was the furthest thing from being a strong person. Rita had no idea why now of all times, she thought of Aaron. She wanted to see him again.
Rita was startled be a commotion. A number of goblins outside, were making a ruckus. She noticed one of the goblins pointing to something. He was holding a staff and wearing some kind of shamanistic headdress.
Rita followed the direction he was pointing in, but at first did not see anything. Not at first anyway, but then something shimmered into existence. A boy. He must have cancelled some kind of invisibility skill.
Aaron!
It was Aaron!
Rita could hardly believe her eyes. How was he alive? Why was he here?
The goblins had gathered around Aaron in a circle now. Even the leader had approached him.
“Dumb human!” The leader spoke. “You come, you die!”
Rita’s heart sunk. She would not be able to endure this. That idiot! Why did he come here. He can’t fight, death would be a definite. Dammit!
Aaron looked surprised by the massive talking goblin, but only for a moment. And then it happened.
“KNEEL BEFORE ME!” Aaron shouted in a booming voice, far beyond what his vocal cords should be capable of.
Rita could only watch in shock as in the next moments all the goblins fell to the ground. Some, like the leader, were brought to their knees, some fully prostrated themselves in front of Aaron, others simply fainted. Not a single goblin was left standing and there were at least a couple hundred of them.
When Rita looked over to Aaron her breath was taken away. She too fell to her knees. There were no words to describe it. He was an all encompassing light, a warmth, a safety. He was beautiful, as if the sunlight did not bounce off of him, but instead wrapped around him, embracing its master. There was so much power being exuded, an absolute being. It was like a god had descended to Exia and inhabited his body.
After a few seconds, the effect faded and Rita had to remember to start breathing again. Even though the same old Aaron was still standing there, even though that ‘thing’ had passed, there was no way she could look at him the same way anymore. “What in all of Exia”, she could not keep from mumbling out loud.
She could see Aaron looking around him at the goblins, examining them. Most of them had joined those that were already bowing to him. The few remaining simply, stood frozen in place, visibly shaking.
Only the leader and his shaman remained, getting to their feet. They were arguing. Rita had no idea what the were saying, speaking in their own tongue, but then the leader suddenly pushed the shaman aside.
He pointed accusingly at Aaron and shouted, “False god!”
Aaron just stared at him with a serious expression.
The leader picked up a nearby spear and roared in anger as he threw it at Aaron.
Rita had no idea what Aaron was thinking in that moment, but he made no move to avoid the spear, instead only shouting, “BLASPHEMER!”, again in that impossibly thunderous voice.
Rita watched in horror as the spear flew through the air and impaled Aaron squarely in the chest. It seemed to miss most of his vitals, but was still going to be a fatal wound. The force of the impact even forced Aaron to take a step back as the spear buried itself deeply into his chest.
About half of the goblins looked up at the comotion and stared at Aaron expectantly. Aaron on the other hand never said a word, aside from a grunt at the spears original impact. He then reached over and yanked the spear out of his chest, casting it to the ground, like it were little more than a nuisance.
The gaping hole in his chest closed itself up almost instantly, leaving only slightly pink flesh, as if the wound was never there. The few goblins that had looked up to witness this spectacle immediately buried their heads back in the dirt. Even the shaman prostrated himself now.
Only the leader remained standing, although, only just barely. The fear in his eyes was plainly visible now.
Aaron shouted in a regular voice this time: “Mara! Kill him!”
The leader could only grunt briefly, as a dark green spearhead, came to be sticking out the front of his throat. The spearhead was then retracted, leaving the goblin leader to collapse to the ground drowning in his own blood.
Rita noted that the smiling demon that had appeared behind the once goblin leader, was looking a bit translucent. She probably only had just barely enough mana to maintain her physical form.
“Anyone else wish to challenge me?”
There was of course no reply. None of the goblins dared.
“Very well. Now here me! I am claiming Goran village as my own. An attack on the village is an attack on me.”
The shaman lifted his head from the ground, but remained on his knees. He started talking in the goblins tongue. Some of the goblins turned their head to look at the shaman while he spoke. When finished, he looked back at Aaron, expectantly.
Both Aaron and Rita realised that the shaman was acting as a translator for the many ‘less educated’ goblins.
“Also, I will return here in one days time. If you have not left this land by then, I will erase you from the face of Exia. I will show mercy only this one time.”
Aaron waited for the shaman to finish translating and then pointed a finger at him, saying only one more thing, “You, go release those woman.”