Gob woke up slowly, groggy and confused. In pain. It was dark. Everything hurt. He closed his eyes again.
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Gob woke up, less groggy, not much less confused. Still in pain Still dark. He sat up, his head was pounding. Hard. His shoulder burned. He lay down and closed his eyes again.
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Gob woke up feeling better. No pounding head. No burning shoulder. He looked at his shoulder. There was a glowing blue lump there. He touched it. Nothing. He poked it. Nothing. He grabbed it and tried to pull it off. Sharp pain shot down his arm and back, and up his neck, so he stopped. It was still dark. He stood up and tried to look around, peering into the darkness, but beyond the very faint glow of the blue lump in his shoulder he couldn't see anything but black. He tapped at the floor. It was flattened rock. Not a cave, but large slabs of cut stone. He took a few tentative steps, his clawed hands held out in front of him. Nothing. He took a few more,
Tchak!
His hands ran into a wall. Also stone. Not entirely flat, the wall had a gentle curve to it. He looked to the left and to the right. Still just black. So he chose left, and keeping a hand against the wall he took a few tentative steps, then a few more. He met no obstacles, so he started walking a bit more confidently. He walked and walked. He walked and walked and walked. All the time following the wall. The wall never changed, the darkness never changed. He stopped and sat down. He was so hungry. He was so lost. He didn't know what to do.
The lump in his shoulder started itching. He scratched at it absently. The blue light throbbed. There was a pang of pain and it felt like the blue shard wriggled under his thick skin. He scratched it again, harder this time, annoyed. It wriggled again.
He smacked it in frustration and it exploded in a shower of blue sparks and crackling electricity, sputtering, flashing white and blue light illuminating the dark cavern in quick bursts before there was a
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzip! crackle! POP!
and a little glowing ball shot out of it.
The ball careened around the space like a demented firefly, colliding with the wall, bouncing off the floor and flying in tight dizzying spirals, followed by zig zags followed by ups and downs, followed by side to sides, then the wall again, the floor again, all the while crackling and popping, sparking, and making another noise that sounded like…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
screemin? thought Gob as he followed its hectic movements dizzily.
The unpredictable ball shot straight up into the void above them until Gob could hardly see it anymore, then came hurtling down again, smashing into the ground at incredible speed, where it lay still at last, the screaming stopped.
"HOLY MOLY!" the ball exclaimed loudly from the floor in a very overexcited, tinkly voice "I wasn’t expecting THAT to happen! What a rush! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" It laughed hysterically.
The more he squinted, the less the glowing thing looked like a ball, and the more it looked like a tiny little creature. Gob had no idea what was happening, but he didn't think it was going to eat him, and he wasn't sure he could eat it, so he just sat there and kept squinting at it. The creature, if that's what it was, was very small, even compared to him. Probably the size of one of his ears.
It looked like one of those 'hoomins', but he was pretty sure they were all bigger than this thing, and didn’t glow in the dark. Also, he didn't quite remember for sure but he didn’t think the 'hoomins' had any wings. He was sure he would have remembered eating them if they had… his mouth watered.
*i eet it? (hunger(4/1))
it no very big, but i iz hungree…
*i krunch it wiv mi foot? (size(3/2)
i cood…
*i tork to it? (literacy(2/8))
wel at leest al of dem is posibl dis time… he thought.
"Oh hi mate, how are you?! What's your name? I'm Kylie!" the little blue fairy tinkled as it calmed down a bit and noticed him staring at it blankly.
It spoke very fast, and it's voice was grating on his ears but Gob thought he understood the words. She took flight again, swooping around the room a few times, talking constantly as she did.
"You look a bit confused. Maybe you just need a friend around to help you out and cheer you up! I'm a neon fairy, and that's what we do! I’m here because…" she paused, hovering, long enough to look at him thoughtfully, "…aaand I don't know why! One minute your day is going along pretty normally and then, then 'POP' the next minute you're flying around in some pitch black hole at the bottom of who knows where… that's fairy life! But I guess now I'm here I must be YOUR neon fairy! Soooooo… lets get the basics out of the way: what's your name?"
Gob noticed as she flew in circles that the room itself was a wide circle with no entries or exits, just a deep featureless hole. He had been walking for hours. In a circle. That just made him cranky.
She stopped flying around when he didn't respond to her. She landed on his shoulder where the glowing lump was, and sat on it.
He thought about eating her again. The tinkly little noise was going to get annoying quickly. And he was hungry. And cranky. But instead he decided to at least try talking to her,
"i iz gob"
There was a pause. She nodded at him encouragingly, her eyes wide, her eyebrows lifted, waiting for more.
Gob had a very active brain, and internally he had become more and more able to articulate thoughts. He understood words, and though this little blue… thing… was speaking very, very fast and used a lot of words he hadn't heard in the den, he could, more or less, understand her. However his ability to get his own thoughts outside of his head as actual words, as quickly as he thought them, wasn’t something he had got a handle on yet.
So he said nothing.
She inclined her head to the side thoughtfully, flicked her little wings, then tinkled,
"OK, so we may have to work on the conversation part. Hi Gob. Sooooooo what’s a goblin like you doing in a place like this?!”
If Gob hadn't been obviously grimacing before, he certainly was now. He folded his arms huffily just to be sure she got the message.
"What?! Why are you getting cranky?" she tinkled
He held up his claws.
"Oh! Ha!" she tinkled again "Sorry! You’ve got big claws! You're a troll huh… Aren't you kind of little for a troll?"
Gob tried to make his eyes bite her. His lip twitched with the effort of not actually biting her.
"OK OK" she said placating him with calming hand gestures.
“Sorry, sorry. So, ah Gob… the troll… what do you want to do now?"
He knew how to answer this question, no hesitation.
"eet" he said
"Hmmm…" she looked around thoughtfully, "well Gob I'm afraid there's no food anywhere as far as I can see… so, nope, can't help you with that right now!"
"What els—"
Gob grabbed her and stuffed her in his mouth, crunching as the little fairy bones crackled and popped. He couldn't take that tinkly noise any longer.
She tasted like, well nothing really. The wings were crispy.
Bleh he thought.
zzzzzzip! crackle! POP!
She popped out of his shoulder again. He stared at her in confusion, then looked at his shoulder, then back at her, smacking his lips together checking if there wasn't still a trace of her in his mouth.
"Gob! That was horrib—"
Gob stuffed her in his mouth again. He crunched again.
nope, stil yuk, he thought.
zzzzzzip! crackle! POP!
"STOP IT!" she screamed at him, pointing her finger at him and zapping his face with a little bolt of lightning before shooting off to a safer distance to scold him,
"NAUGHTY Gob! You are NOT allowed to eat me!"
Gob shrugged, rubbing his face in annoyance where she had zapped him.
“i no lik yo tinkl noiz”
Kylie looked taken aback,
“My what? My noise? Oh voice? My voice hurts your ears?! So you ate me?! Is that how you treat everybody you meet?!”
Gob nodded, and even smiled a bit, “dat betta. angree noiz. dat tinkl noiz mak me wan puke! stop mak dat tinkl noiz!"
Kylie was speechless, shocked, then suddenly her face collapsed and she started sobbing. Gob watched her, confused. He had never seen anyone sob before. He wasn't sure whether it was worse than the tinkles. He decided it was.
"dat noiz bad to!" he said urgently.
"What? I can't even cry right?!” she blubbered, a mess, “You are a heartless, rude, no good, rotten, mean… troll!"
Gob wasn't sure what to do. He obviously couldn't eat her again, so he clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.
After some time it seemed like she calmed down a bit, so he opened his eyes and took his hands off his ears. She was slumped at the bottom of the stone wall, her posture all deflated.
She sniffled, "You really don't like tinkles? Because my last master liked tinkles. He told me that's what fairies did. He said they tinkled, and did magic things, and generally helped everyone feel better. And so that was my job: to be tinkly, and happy all the time, and do what I'm told." She sniffled again.
Gob shook his head, "no tinkl. no care wot yoo do, but no tinkl. i iz trol."
She thought about this, seemingly recovering slightly. "OK troll, I'll try and stop the tinkles." she said "But I'm warning you, before I was a tinkly fairy I was a sarcastic, mean and quite vindictive teenager. Are you going to be able to deal with that?"
Gob shrugged. At least the noise had stopped.
"Ok," she took a deep breath "glad we got that out in the open early. Phew. Straight up honesty. Painful, but ultimately productive. Now to business. What do you need me to do, and no I don't have any food, and I'm not food. If you try and eat me again I will literally electrocute you. It's a skill I have. I'm a creature of neon and electrical impulse.” Kylie held up a finger and it popped and cracked.
"yoo fite?" Gob thought a fairy that could zap food for him sounded much more promising.
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"Well, yes, a bit…" she said "but… what about progression? Don’t you have hopes and dreams, and aspirations? You know… 'THE LAW OF THE REALM: ALL MAY PROGRESS'… that sort of thing. Wouldn't you rather I help you progress to your highest possible level of power? Like some big OP troll king or something?"
Gob shrugged again. He thought a bit more then he looked hopeful,
"yoo can mak me BIG? lik big trol? Like KRUNCH?" now his eyes were wide and for a moment the perpetual scowl he wore had stretched away.
"Ahhhh..." she frowned, "well… I don't really know yet to be honest. "
Gobs face went back to its usual scowl. wot a fary do if dey no giv yoo meat, no fite, an no mak yoo magiky bigga?
Seeing his face fall she said, “Woah there, troll! Before you get cranky again, let's check out your stat's!" She said it like it was just as good as getting big. Gob continued scowling anyway.
how cood dis fary no abot mi statz? he thought mi statz iz mi secrit!
Out loud, he asked, "wot statz?!"
"All of them!" She pointed in the air in front of him. A magical glowing blue box appeared with little sparky crackles and a
POP!
Kylie looked at him happily, expectantly. He shrugged. He didn't know what he was looking at. It was a complex of lines some very very small squiggly shapes all through it. She paused, then looked at the shapes intently, her eyes scanning back and forth across them.
"Hmmm… a congenital archetype divergence resulting in abnormal body development, and emergent spirit and mind anomalies.” She cocked her head to one side thoughtfully and rubbed her little fairy chin, "Well aren't you interesting?"
Gob still had no idea what she was talking about. He pointed at the magical shapes.
“wot dat?”
She scanned the magical shapes some more, and as she did her face seemed to dawn with realisation.
"Oooooh, riiiiight" she said "Your literacy skill is soooo low. Like really low. Like it is literally 2pts. You can't actually read... I'm surprised you can even talk! Oh wait, you can't really talk!"
"i git big?" he asked. His arms were crossed again.
She looked at his stats.
TROLL(spawn)
Quest: FITE. EET. AFFIX ARCHETYPE. GIT OT HOL.
XP 211
SPIRIT 57 will 12 stability>instability 3 connection 3 fear 8 tenacity 9 neuroticism 10 ferocity 12
MAGIC
brightblessing(unaligned):Fairy Familiar
MIND 51 perception 10 memory 7 awareness 9 intelligence 13 literacy 2 introspection 7 initiative 3
BODY 91 heart 3 form 4 gut 5 brain 13 size 3 hunger 6 coordination 5 constitution 4 toughness 5 strength 3 skill:bodifrow 5 trait:trollhide 6 trait:regeneration 12 trait:trollclors 4 trait:teef 3 trait:regenerativegrowth>neurogenesis 10
feeling 1 fate 3 purpose 4 luck 4
Kylie frowned. Then looked thoughtful. Then shrugged.
"Sure… well you have a size stat without a cap… did you know fairies are all, always, 0.3 size, capped? It just isn't fair. Anyway. It's there. You're only size 3 and not capped. I can see that the usual troll ability of regenerative growth has diverged to neurogenesis… which I guess means your brain is growing… but by itself that wouldn't mean you can't increase your size stat, probably just that it won't happen as fast as for a 'normal' troll... so we'll have to work out how, but… it's not impossible for you to get bigger… I don't think."
"HA HA! FARY KYLZ CAN MAK MI GIT BIG?!" he exclaimed.
Her eyes widened in surprise “What did you call me?”
He pointed, a wide grin on his face, “yoo. yoo iz Kylz!”
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Thump-thump. Thump-
Her heart skips a beat. No one has called her ‘Kyles’ since… since… Her mind flips back to a time and a place that seems so far away now. She’s a student. A young teenage girl, just out of school, just finding out what being a young adult is all about. Normality. On a place called Earth. Driving license... Boys… parties… parties! She’s at a party. It’s dim. It’s someone’s dorm room. There's a dull orange lamp in the corner. Cheap dollar store string lights are draped across the ceiling. There's the thump of loud music. Someone's playlist. Way too much bass, like anyone cares. Too many people in a small space, packed and sweaty. But fun! So much fun! Cramped together sitting on beds, chatting, laughing, talking trash. Eating trash. A low coffee table in the middle of the room. Full of bottles, empty plastic cups. Empty bottles. “Have another shot Kyles!” Her friend. Her friends! They all call her Kyles. Feels so good! Life’s good! Drinks the shot. Doesn’t feel right. The room’s moving strangely. The heavy bass thumps like her pulse. Thumps like the ache behind her eyes. Her vision clouds, pulsing. She’s trying to call out but the words won’t come.
Thump-thump! Thump-thump! THUMP-
She slumps. Darkness. Nothing.
A BLINDING FLASH!
She’s lying on her back. No wait, not lying… floating? She jerks her eyes open, dazed, dizzy, confused. There’s a strange feeling on her back. She glances over her blue glowing shoulder. Wings? Wait… glowing? Her whole body is - she’s…. bright blue? Glowing bright blue? What the-
A giant leans over her. He has a magnifying glass. An old man with a long grey beard. He’s the size of a building. She can’t process.
Overload.
She faints.
Darkness.
A precious, missing memory.
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“yoo iz Kylz!” says Gob again. She smiled at him, wiping a tear away from her eye.
“Thank you so much Gob. Yes, yes I IZ Kylz!”