"WAK UP BATYYYYYZZZZ!!!!!!" cried Gob into the next cavern at the top of his lungs.
SCREEEEEEEEEEECH! SCREEEEEECH! SCREEEECH! SCREEEEECH! SCREEEEECH!
Ten beady red glowing eyes snapped open this time, accompanied by the same echoing ear piercing panicked screeches, as five bats careened and flapped around the cavern.
This cavern was about the same height as the previous one, but much wider. The flat path that had been built through it zig-zagged to pass around a wide stalagmite in the centre of the space. There were multiple piles of the ancient powdery bat dung in this cavern, many more than the five from the bats that were here.
"Don't get cocky" Kylie called from the cave mouth "initiative shouldn't be your crutch"
"wot iz kruch?" he asked looking at her.
"Look out!" she called and pointed behind him.
Like last time the bats were at the top of the cave, and two had located him and were plunging downwards at extreme speed. Gob turned to them taking the time to assess. Both bats threw out their wings in sync, pulling up at the last moment, talons outstretched. Gob realised he would only be able to hit one of them due to them being on opposite sides of him. He had thought that with two claw attacks he would be able to get them both. He hadn't thought about the fact that one might be out of range.
wel, mibby i find ot how good mi stonehyde is den, he thought.
So, he drew back and
STCHAK! THUNK.
Killed one. Followed by
Schllllikkk…
SCREEEEECH!
Aaaaaarrrrggghhhh!
"DAT HERT!" he yelled, angrily.
The wet sound of razor sharp talons slashing through tough skin, a victorious screech, and a pained cry from Gob as one of the very few creatures capable of slashing open subterranean stonehide taught Gob his next lesson in how initiative works.
POP!
##### ####### #####
"WOT WOZ DAT POP?" he yelled to Kylie, wincing.
"YOU JUST HAD A NEW SKILL EMERGE CALLED MULTIFITA. BATTLE MANY ENEMIES TOGETHER FOR (XENEMIES) STAT POINT MULTIPLIER."
The bat wheeled around at the top of the cavern for another dive just as the other three bats also tucked their wings in to plunge towards him.
With an impressive gout of black blood spraying from the gash in his side, Gob rolled sideways out of their trajectories and then jumped off the flat pathway and ran over to position his back against the central stalagmite.
He snarled through the pain of his gash, glancing at it quickly. It was three parallel tears in his stoney skin. They were deep, and they were bleeding. A lot. Nothing vital seemed to be disabled though. He could still use both his arms and so he called out with a much gusto as he could,
"COM GIT ME NOW BATTYZ!"
Two of them swooped towards him instantly. While the bat's talons were very dangerous, their behaviour seemed very predictable, diving and pulling up the same way each attack. Having an idea, Gob scrambled up onto a higher ridge on the stalagmite,
"GREAT IDEA GOB, USE YOUR ENVIRONMENT, TAKE THE HIGH GROUND!" Kylie cheered him on.
He launched himself towards the closest bat, getting into range for his twoclors. He stchacked it on the snout, then twisted and reached for the second bat slashing across its wings just as it flung them wide. Gobs claws raked down the leathery skin with a
rerrrrrrrripppp!
before he fell hard on the rocky ground. The bat he had stchacked first was dead. The second one, with the ripped wing, had crashed to the floor, screeching and shrieking in anger pain. It flailed pitifully, but couldn't take to the air again with its damaged wing. Gob saw it struggle to get up and hobble towards him, just as he felt a searing slash across his back, then a vice like grip dig into his right shoulder.
One of the bats had attacked him from behind, and a second bat had grabbed his shoulder in a pincer grip to wrench him up into the air. The beast that slashed him whirled back around and swiped again at his leg, also gripping it in razor sharp talons, so that now he was strung between the two. Gripped by shoulder and leg, he was jerked around painfully in mid air as they shrieked at each other and fought over him like a prize.
Gob turned his head to the side and used his miteybite to crunch down hard on the bats leg, feeling a satisfying
Crack!
The bat let go with a loud shriek, and now freed of the shoulder grip, Gob was swung upside down by his leg, still gripped in the claws of the second bat.
Drawing himself upwards towards the beast, he swung his body forward and used his momentum to fling his claws into it's soft furry belly, feeling a satisfying
slassssssh!
followed by a hot rain of bat innards. It dropped him immediately and they both plummeted towards the cave floor, the bat dead before it hit the ground, and Gob landing painfully and awkwardly on top of the bat whose wing he had torn before with a
CRUNCH.
He was pretty sure he had just killed it by landing on it that hard, but he took a moment to plunge his claws into it anyway just to be sure.
The bat with the bitten leg now seemed wary of sweeping him again, and it flew out of the cavern with a parting
SCREEEEEEEECH!
Gob collapsed on the floor, wincing and gasping for air. Kylie rushed over.
"Gob, what can I do for you? You need to eat to regenerate… eat the bat!"
He groaned. He was lying on top of a creature that tasted like…
"nope." he rasped painfully "ratz is yuk, but dey iz food. BATZ iz not food. i no eet batz or gob'ns. nope not neva. no matta wot."
Kylie rolled her eyes and pointed into the air. With a
Zap!
A haunch of rat appeared.
"I figured this might be a problem," she said primly "so I put some rat into your inventory earlier."
Gob smiled weakly and reached for the rat. He took a bite and chewed.
"kylz yo iz good." he said, and then passed out.
"Yes, I am." she answered.
----------------------------------------
After some time, and the itch and throb of regeneration had brought Gob back to a state of coherence, he pushed himself up. The wound in his side was at least closed, if not healed.
"While I appreciate your determination and drive Gob, we really need to work on a way of you NOT just charging in and getting ripped to shreds all the time." Kylie lectured.
Gob looked around him. There was a lot of blood on the ground. A lot. And mostly his.
The other thing he noticed as he looked around was four bat corpses. They were calling to him. Well, they weren't, but something in them was…
"yoo shood shut yo eyez" he said to Kylie.
"Ew. Be quick." She also covered her ears so she couldn't hear the wet squelching as Gob staggered around, still limping in pain, looting the bats.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
POP!
Loot: 1xgold 1xsilver 1xflintlock musket 2xgold 1xskull of a thousand eyes 1xintangible oddity 3xsilver
He looked at a weird skull with holes all over it.
"deez batz eet weerd fings" he said throwing it away into the cave.
"Don't throw that away!" said Kylie, stealing a look despite herself, you can trade weird stuff like that at the markets in Goblin Town, they love it! The weirder the better!"
With a shrug he walked over and picked it up again.
Not far along, as Kylie had said, the way was blocked by a pile of collapsed rocks and debris.
The stones that formed the tunnel were of the type that dwarves used to build their tunnels, which is to say they were extremely large. It didn’t look just like a small section of tunnel had collapsed, the blockage looked completely impenetrable.
"It's very unusual for a dwarf tunnel to collapse" Kylie commented thoughtfully, "even very old ones are still sturdy after centuries of neglect."
"mibby sumwun brak it?" suggested Gob. He looked at the pile and thought through his options.
*tern bak?
no, i iz shor gobn town iz dat way
*moov roks (strength (3/65))
don fink so…
*serch pile (intelligence (14/10)
He climbed up on the pile and examined it closely, testing out his options by trying unsuccessfully to move some of the rocks as he went.
nope
He scrabbled across to the side wall, then back across to the opposite wall, searching intently, pushing his darksight to its limits to find anything that might help.
Right at the edge of his vision he finally noticed the faintest of inconsistency in texture in a small gap between two of the stones against the side wall of the tunnel. It wasn't much, but it was different enough to be interesting, because it wasn't stone. He looked closer, peering into a tiny little space: it was a black metal ring.
"iz a metal ring!" he exclaimed to Kylie excitedly.
Gob reached his claw in a far as he could and got it hooked around the ring but dropped it again. He couldn't get his hand in. Frustrated he drew back his clawed hands and
STCHAK-STCHAK-STCHAK-STCHAK!
pounding the stone with his claws in quick succession, chipping away at the hole.
Before too long the hole was big enough for him to get his whole hand into, and he grabbed the ring and pulled hard on it. Nothing happened. Then he pushed on it to try and free it. Still Nothing. He rattled it in frustration. He pulled his arm out and stuck his face in to try to examine it closer. The ring was actually riveted onto a plank of wood. Then it dawned on him.
"i fink iz a dor handl!" he said
He twisted it right. Nothing. He twisted left, and
Ker-clunk! Creeeeeeeeeeaaaaaakkk!
A wooden door swung open inwards away from them, revealing a black hole where the wood had been.
"Ah-ha!" He said, pulling his hand out and trying to look into the hole. He couldn't see much through there even with his darksite. He straightened up and pointed at the little hole looking pleased with himself and gestured to Kylie.
"kylz, can yoo go in der an hav look?"
Kylie looked unimpressed. "You want me to crawl through your tiny little collapsed stone hole into your cave of doom?"
He nodded enthusiastically.
"You usually say 'please' when you want things done. It's called manners…"
"pleez?" he said. He'd never heard of manners before.
She sighed and flew over to him, gave him a look, then flew into the hole.
She flew out again. Gob looked at her enquiringly.
"It's full of barrels."
He nodded.
"Of dynamite."
He nodded again.
"wot dat?"
"Dynamite blows stuff up."
He nodded some more.
"You light it on fire and it goes KABOOM! and it makes like flame, and fire and explosive destructive death power.
"it mov roks?"
"Seriously? It's probably what put the rocks there in the first place. Sure, it moves rocks, that's what dwarves use it for when they get impatient with their pickaxes. But it might just as likely bring the whole tunnel down on top of us as it will open that passage up."
"OK" Gob nodded "letz blow it up an see wot hapinz."
"Did I adequately describe the part about flame and fire and explosive death power?"
"gobn town dat way" he pointed.
"I can't believe we're even having this chat" she said.
It took some further convincing, but Gob was stubborn and eventually convinced her to go back in and set it up.
She flew out a little while later with a long length of wick in her grasp. They unwound it as far as they could, which was about half the way back to the main shaft, Kylie lecturing all the way about what a bad idea this was.
----------------------------------------
"OK" she said "ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS?"
Gob thought through his options:
*don do it. find anuva way ot. (digging(0/2360))
ha!
*blow it up (luck(1:20))
good enuf fo mi
He nodded.
She sighed. "Alright. I'm going to light it, and then we're going to RUN back to the shaft. Got it? We're going to RUN."
Gob was clear. She had hammered it into him.
"Do you need me to explain again?" she asked.
He shook his head.
"About the fire, and the death?"
He shook his head.
"About the running?"
He shook his head.
She sighed, and with a little crackle from her finger, lit the fuse.
"RUN!" she yelled.
He ran. She flew, fast as her little blue wings could carry her. They ran through the tunnel. They ran through the bat caves.
POP!
########.
They ignored it, because they were running.
Gob threw himself over the side of the shaft and
Stchaked!
his claws into the stone so he was clear of the tunnel. Kylie hovered next to him, curled up in a ball, her hands over her ears in anticipation.
Silence…
silence…
…
"kylz? haz it hapin yet—"
KAAAAAAA-BBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!
The most intense flash, followed by the most intense sound, followed by an intense shockwave that felt like it turned the air into a solid, as well as the most intense shaking of everything Gob had ever felt, burst out of the tunnel above their heads.
Searing heat and roaring bright red and orange gouts of flame erupted of the tunnel entrance, plunging straight across the shaft to assault the stones on the opposite side.
Gigantic chunks of broken rock and debris were flung out of the tunnel, smashing into the shaft walls and tumbling into the void below. The whole shaft rumbled and vibrated as if someone had picked it up and given it a hard shake.
Gob hung on to the wall for dear life, his head tucked between his arms. Kylie hid under him, scrunched up under his chest.
When the heat of the explosion passed, the chunks of rock had all fallen into the depths below, and the rumbling seemed to have subsided, Gob climbed back up into the passage, peeking over the rim tentatively. The rocks were hot to the touch. Smoke billowed out of the tunnel, and Gob coughed and swatted at it trying to see past. Kylie flew up next to him.
There was a ringing in his ears he couldn't clear, and his dark vision seemed to have been temporarily blinded by the bright flash and the powerful flames.
Rrrrrumble. CRASH!
There was an ominous sound from the shaft behind them.
CRASH-SMASH!
Another. Then a
Grrrrrrrrooooooooaaaaaannnnnn!
Like a structure not quite able to hold itself together.
"Gob, we need to move" said Kylie desperately.
CRASH!
"Gob, RUN!!! FASTER!!!!!"
She took off up the tunnel back towards where they had set of the explosion. Gob stumbled as he ran, he could hardly see where they were going, his eyes still half blinded by the explosion and stinging from the smoke, his ears still ringing.
Behind them the shaft was giving way piece by mighty piece. Ahead of them the tunnel rumbled and small chunks of stone and dust shattered by the blast showered down on them from the ceiling.
They got to the epicentre of their explosion to see unrecognisable chaos. It wasn't just the blockage in the tunnel that was gone; the whole tunnel was gone. What was there instead was a blackened stone crater many times the width and height of the original tunnel, but more noticeable even that that was the fact that it had ripped a hole into the side of what looked to be a natural cavern.
Behind them large stones from the tunnel ceiling started to drop to the floor.
"RUN FOR THE CAVE!! SPEED IT UP MATE!!! THE TUNNEL'S FALLING IN!!!" Kylie screamed. They dove blindly for the hole together just as
CRRRRRRAAAAAASSSSSSSHHHHHHH!
the stonework of the passage behind them collapsed forever in a pile of debris, throwing up a great cloud of dust with a
WHUMP!
They weren't going to be going back down that way again.
In the cavern they had thrown themselves into dust was everywhere and they could hardly see a thing in the chaos, but as the rumbling subsided Gob heard another sound.
SSCCCCRREEEEEEEEEEEEECCH!
SCREEEEECH! SCREEEECH!
It was to be coming from above them. Gob looked up, trying to peer through the dust from the collapse to see where they were and what it was they had stumbled into, but he knew that screech by now.
More bats.
As the dust started to settle he could see they were in a natural cavern. The floor was uneven and rocky, and covered by big piles of white powdery bat dung. The dust cleared some more and Gob saw that great stalagmites soared up into the darkness. He looked up, squinting and as his darksight gradually recovered from the flash of the explosion he also saw great stalactites hanging from the ceiling of a cavern far above them. Flying in a chaotic frenzy between the stalagtites up in the top reaches of the cavern were hundreds more of the dark, winged creatures.
"Not agin…" he sighed. "batz iz da worst".
----------------------------------------
GERVAIS.
Gervais had his hat pulled low over his face and his robe tight about him against the cold and the dark and the constant rain. He was alone on the road in the dead of night, having left the warmth of the tavern behind him to make his way quickly back to Azure City. The soldiers and Joss could enjoy their night without him, he had matters to attend to and he needed to be back in his tower to do it.
The ground shook and vibrated for a few moments, and a deep and distant rumble accompanied it.
He paused in his steps and looked up sharply, but just as quickly as it had come, it was gone again with nothing after it to suggest it had ever happened.
The mage narrowed his eyes, raised his staff and thumped it down into a puddle, splashing muddy water on the hem of his cloak. Bright blue shapes appeared in the air around him. He looked at them briefly before shaking his staff to disperse them, plunging the road back into darkness.
Still alive then…He shook his head and laughed to himself as he trudged on.