Jun had always lived a rough life. When he was a young goblin, his surprising intellect and yellow-tinted skin had set him apart from his contemporaries and made him a target for picking on. The one that kept him going was his relationship with the elder of his people. Although his people had been cast underground by the other goblins, the goblin elder had never complained, instead he had only started scheming. All the warriors of their village had been taken for their powers, and so the only people left were the women and children. The elder had taken a liking to Jun and had taught him the art of rituals. They were incredibly hard to put together and were often incredibly expensive, but if used properly could one day propel his people back into prominence.

When he came of age, the elder finally revealed his full plan to Jun. If they could create a ritual which could draw in the natural light and energies of the world, they could condense it down into a physical form during the gathering and harness it to get revenge on the other clans. Jun and the elder worked together everyday on the plans for the ritual, spending years designing the ritual circles and gathering the resources needed. As the goblin clan got used to living in the caves, they had assembled a fighting force again and had got the help of their clansmen for the blood.

Eventually time reached the cave goblin elder, and it became increasingly apparent he didn’t have long left to live. For hundreds of years he had protected the clan from the threats of the forest, but his power waned. Jun realised he would have to be the one to lead his people back to the surface. The elder did not resist when Jun performed the ritual of assimilation. Instead, he waited patiently until his last breath. The power Jun had gained was only a fraction of what the elder had held, but it was enough to take control of the rest of his people until he could complete the ritual.

Under his leadership, the cave goblins had dropped slowly in number and skill, but that didn’t matter to him. If he could just wait until the next gathering, the ritual would take place and he could solve all of his people's problems. He expected that eventually a forecasting or scrying ability may detect his people, and an envoy would be sent out from the nomad goblin tribe to stop him. He had designed a special ritual just to subdue any goblins sent from outside of his tribe. Despite suffering casualties, he had captured the bastard.

He had known something was wrong as he had completed the preparatory ritual, but it was too late for him to back down. He didn’t expect there to be another creature accompanying the nomad goblin, but his elite guard would have to handle it. He heard the sounds of the fighting as he started the final ritual. He saw the weird pink fleshy creature go flying overhead riding on one of the members of his elite guard, but was too busy concentrating to even pay attention. As he raised up the ritual dagger and began the final mantra. All the hardship he had suffered to get to this point played through his mind as he began the chant. The pain he felt as he saw his people’s towns razed to the ground and the horror in his mind as he watched how his people were torn apart. It was all worth it for this moment. He would finally set his people free.

The lights flashed bright, the sound loud as he screamed the final chant. He felt his face crack as a heavy metal object hit it. He felt the dagger gifted to him by the elder slip out of his hand and fly into the distance. His eyes widened as he felt the ritual break and concentrated power started feasting on the surrounding area. He felt a pit in his stomach drop as he realised what was about to happen.

Lucas quickly finished off the final armoured goblin as the flow of blood carried on growing. What had started off being a slow trickle of blood had twisted into a flowing vortex of blood flowing all around him, all centred on the small hole in the middle of the room. The vicious force of the whirlpool would likely tear apart any creatures that were pulled into the current. Lucas frowned as the vortex continued to grow. The amount of blood being produced did not surprise him, he knew that if all the moss was letting out blood, there could be hundreds of gallons of blood contained within those tunnels, but there should be nothing causing it to swirl about so violently. Lucas turned and saw the yellow goblin standing back on his feet.

Lucas stared at the yellow goblin. Something had changed in his movements. Where the goblin used to move erratically, it had started moving in a much more slow and deliberate manner. Lucas tried using his Identify skill.

Jun, The Yellow Goblin

Current Tier: None (1/6 Aspects)

Corruption: 100%

Attributes: ???

Skills:???

Lucas looked around nervously, searching for alternative exits. He knew little about this unknown world, but he was willing to bet that it's not a good thing for a creature to gain a 100% corruption. The only way out of this room was going to be through that creature.

Lucas slowly circled the creature blocking the stairs. It looked blankly at him, making no move to attack or defend. The whirlpool had reached the edges of the platform, and in the background Lucas could hear the noise of scraping stone as the vortex of blood slowly shredded the platform. Lucas couldn’t help but be reminded of the trope where the climactic ultimate battle where the protagonist fought against the big bad, evil guy in a giant ring of fire, and felt sweat roll down his face.

Lucas made the first move and charged at Jun. Lucas sliced forward with his knife, but as soon as Lucas got close enough to land a blow, Lucas heard a whispered voice say “Stop.” Lucas staggered as soon as he heard the word, the power in the voice causing his body to lock up. The goblin moved during the opening, punching him in the stomach. Lucas doubled over as the wind was knocked out of him, leaving him open. He produced the second goblin body he had stored and tried to block some of the attack, but it was torn away from him and thrown into the whirlpool. Lucas backed off whilst the goblin dealt with the corpses littering the floor, not letting the opportunity to regain his breath be wasted.

He had been physically outmatched, and he knew he would need to fight dirty to stand a chance. Lucas took out his pan and waited for the goblin to approach him. As soon as it got within striking distance, he lunged forward with his knife whilst holding his pan to shield his stomach and private parts. The goblin easily sidestepped his awkward lunge, punching in Lucas’s knee. He buckled as he lost his balance and fell onto his other knee. The goblin landed two punches on his face, breaking his nose before Lucas fell onto his back. The goblin climbed onto Lucas to continue his onslaught, but Lucas threw him off using his body’s strength. Lucas stood up and realised how much of the platform had been destroyed by the vortex of blood. If he didn’t hurry, there wouldn’t be anywhere for him to run. He charged at the goblin, pulling out another corpse and throwing it at Jun. Jun caught the goblin corpse and tossed it to the side as Lucas tried to slide tackle the goblin. Once again the goblin sidestepped the kick but failed to notice the frying pan until it hit him square in the jaw. Lucas heard a satisfying thwack as he pushed on the offensive, stabbing at the dazed goblin. It raised its arm up as Lucas pushed with his knife and the blade lodged in the goblin’s forearm. The goblin backed off, clutching at its mangled arm.

Lucas dashed towards the goblin, but another command quickly halted his progress. Lucas took the final corpse out of his inventory and hurled it up above the goblin. In the split second the goblin was distracted, Lucas threw the pan at the goblin and managed a glancing blow, diving in after the pan. Lucas went for the blade stuck in the goblin’s arm, but it had slid between 2 chunks of bone. Jun used the opening to smash his knee into Lucas’s head and pushed him onto his back. Lucas tried to push the goblin off of him, but the goblin had locked onto him and was pounding away at his chest. Lucas used his teeth and tore at the goblin’s ear, the pain giving him enough time to throw the goblin off. Lucas was on the verge of passing out as he pushed himself off of the ground. His body was screaming at him but he knew if he stopped he would die. Lucas reached into his inventory to find more ammo, but he had left was his half eaten omelette. Lucas pulled it out as the goblin charged at him. In a final desperate attempt, Lucas lobbed it at the goblin. It landed straight on the face of Jun, blocking his view for just a second. Lucas lashed out with his leg and kicked the goblin in the temple. Lucas watched the goblin’s eyes roll back in its head and moved in. He grabbed its leg and tossed it into the vortex.

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The goblin’s form was visible for only a second in the whirlpool before it seemed to vanish. Lucas saw the other half of his omelette get destroyed by the whirlpool. Lucas sighed as he went over to Bart and dragged him off of the altar. Lucas tried slapped him and his eyes flashed open. Bart jumped up, looking around whilst muttering to himself about enemies. Lucas waved him down and said,

“You’ve been out for the past five or so hours. Something happened in the cave whilst I was climbing through the tunnel and you were gone by the time I got through. I managed to stop the ritual and take out the chief, but I’m pretty sure he broke all of my ribs.”

Bart raised an eyebrow. “How did you manage to do that?”

“Mostly luck, but I would also say a bit of skill.” Lucas laughed as he realised he had survived. He then remembered he broke his ribs and doubled over in pain, “Healing Salve please.”

Bart approached and pulled a small glass vial out of his inventory. “For broken bones, you’re going to need something a bit more potent than some salve. Open up your mouth.”

Lucas felt Bart hold his tongue as he poured the contents of the vial down his throat. Lucas waited for the warm tingling sensation felt when he applied healing salve, but instead dropped to his knees as he felt his entire body catch on fire. It felt like he had just stepped on a needle, but instead of being in just 1 point it was every square centimetre of his skin. Two minutes later, the pain stopped. Lucas tried speaking, but as soon as he did, he felt a large blob force itself out of his throat. He coughed up large chunks of red and brown blood and blood clots.

Bart slapped him on the back, helping him cough up the bits stuck in the back of his throat. “There there, it’s always traumatic drinking a pain obliterator for the first time. I didn’t think you would have internal bleeding, I still remember my first experience with it.”

“A pain obliterator?” Lucas scraped bits of clotted blood off of his tongue. “Why the hell would anyone make a medicine and name it a pain obliterator?”

“It obliterates the pain, along with any injury. Why wouldn’t it be called a pain obliterator?”

Lucas opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment the whirlwind of blood suddenly stopped. The blood started churning and formed into a thick ball. In a flash, it turned into a round, bright white gem that hovered above the ground. Bart casually walked over to the ball, not intimidated by the lights display and picked up the thick misty ball. Bart let out a long whistle before tossing the ball over to Lucas. Lucas caught it and identified the ball.

Perfected Aspect Crystal (Epic)

Absorbing this Aspect Crystal grants you a predetermined Unique Perfect Aspect.

Lucas looked up blankly at Bart. “What’s an aspect?”

“I assume you also don’t know what a tier is, so I’m going to explain this from the top. An aspect is a power based on a single aspect of the world. There are 3 main types of aspects: Abstract, Creature and Material. They are fairly straightforward, an abstract aspect would be something like death, a creature aspect would be something like a bear, and a material aspect would be something like iron. There are obviously outliers to the rule, but they are rare enough to not be commonly discussed. Each aspect has its own rarity, which isn’t a direct measure of power. A general rule of thumb the rarer an aspect, the more specific the power it can grant is, which can be useful but also be limiting.”

Lucas’s eyes became vacant, and Bart snapped in his face. “As I was saying, think of aspects like individual threads. When you have all six, you can weave them around each other and create a stronger thread. That is the basic concept of a tier. When you have weaved all six threads into one stronger thread, all the aspects that make up the tier become one power and the cycle begins again. This consumes all six of your aspects and turns them into one aspect of a higher tier, so it can often feel like a setback but it also helps deal with corruption.”

“What is corruption? When I identified the goblin who was performing the ritual before it had a corruption of 100%.”

“You managed to do a good job taking it out, if there were any remains of the goblin you could’ve taken it back to the local monster slaying guild and you would’ve got a decent reward from it. Even though it is called corruption, it can actually be a great help. For me to explain it we will need to go back to the thread analogy. If each aspect is a single thread, not all threads are created equally. If one thread is larger than all of the others, it will be both more powerful but the created thread will be less stable. That is the essential concept of corruption. The less balance between your aspects, the greater your corruption is. At a certain threshold, the changes to your corruption affect your physical and mental form. A creature with an incredibly corrupt bear essence would start to look and think like a bear. Same thing goes for abstract and material aspects. I will always remember when I was taken to the corruption graveyard as a child. You are lucky though, because perfect essences cannot be corrupt. They will regulate themselves to always balance out any corruption and minimise it. If you wanted, you could sell it and probably live comfortably for the rest of your life. On the other hand you could use it and gain a unique aspect. The choice is yours. To activate it, just crush it in your hand.”

Lucas crushed the aspect without thinking twice. He had spent enough time in his previous life taking the easy route and suffering the consequences. For his entire life, he had been taken advantage of by those better off than him. Even though he was only in his early twenties back home on Earth, he already knew he was going to live a boring, dull life. If this would grant him the power to stand up for himself, there was no question in his mind.

ASPECT GAINED

You have gained the Unique Aspect: Perfect Aspect of the Rainbow

Lucas stared at the prompt open in front of him. He had been imagining the ability to shoot lightning out of his hands, or maybe control hordes of undead but instead he seemed to have the ability of rainbows, whatever that even meant. Lucas braced himself, ready for the oncoming surge of pain that came whenever a book character gained some new type of power, but it didn’t come. After a minute of standing there, hands clenched into fists and eyes closed, he cautiously checked his surroundings. He was still in the cave, the only difference was the muffled laughter coming from Bart. Lucas looked down and noticed that his previously plain grey shirt and shorts were now a bright striped rainbow pattern. Lucas blushed and quickly opened his character sheet.

NAME: Lucas Longe

Current Tier: 0 (1/6 aspects)

Corruption: 0%

Attributes:

Strength: 1

Agility: 1

Fortitude: 1

Cunning: 3

Intelligence: 3

Willpower: 1

Skills:

Cooking: Student 3

Mental Manipulation Resistance: Unknown

Identify Untrained 3

Hereditary Bonus: Traveller From The Far Lands

Aspects:

Perfect Aspect of the Rainbow (0% Corruption)

Aspect of the Rainbow (Rare)

A unique aspect with the power of the rainbow. List of current unlocked abilities:

Rainbow Cloak

Rainbow Cloak

A cloak of rainbow light that protects you. Whilst you have the cloak active, you gain the following effects:

You are immune to the effects of poisons and diseases of a tier equal to or lower than your own.

Any clothes you wear are covered in a rainbow pattern. If someone stares at you for over 10 seconds, they hear birds chirping and can hear distant rain.

Small animals are naturally drawn to you.

Lucas felt his eye start twitching as Bart’s stifled laughter burst out into a full roar. Lucas looked down at himself. Soon he was also struggling not to laugh at his colourful new look, and eventually broke down into laughing fits.