Thank god, these paths aren’t covered in shit. Elijah crawled over the corpse of yet another goblin. He had thought about going back the same way he came from when the path became so tight he barely had space to crawl but he wasn’t even sure he would manage to reach the entrance of the rift after having gone through the jumbled system of tunnels. The growing feeling of claustrophobia wasn’t helping.
With deep and steady breaths, Elijah crawled, crouched, and moved forward only to let out a deep sigh after what felt like hours of confinement. After some point, the number of goblins lessened the further he advanced and Elijah knew he reached the end of the tunnel system when he crawled out into a room that was more spacious than all the others he had been to before.
Chapter Begin
Elijah waited for a few minutes at the tunnel's edge, taking in the whole room before he decided to enter. Dozens of crude beds stood around the cavern, consisting of only a slightly elevated rock formation and small pillow-shaped haystacks. Seems like a sleeping area of some sort. But for whom?
The answer came through the exit on the other side of the room in the form of a group of three tall green monsters. Elijah threw himself to the floor and took cover behind one of the beds, pulling the minions with him and commanding them to do the same. Root and Timber were almost four feet tall and easily hid from the new monsters in the same way Elijah did. It was through sheer luck that the arriving group didn’t notice them and Elijah strained his ears to listen for any reaction to their presence. Instead, the group stood silent, and apart from the occasional grunt, they didn’t let out any noise.
After almost ten minutes of grunts and a few minutes of the loud snoring that followed, Elijah decided to take the risk and peek above the bed. His eyes landed on the laying form of a monster a few stone beds away from him. That must be an Orc, probably. Its whole body was too big for the bed with its arms and legs almost laying on the floor. How can they even sleep on these things? He wondered as his eyes moved to its two companions. They were in similar, uncomfortable positions and lay further away from him.
Elijah threw a last look at the tunnel he came from before he decided to take care of the present monsters. It seemed like the goblins were avoiding these parts of the rift. Taking cover behind the beds, Elijah crawled forward at a snail’s pace. On his way to the first orc, he picked up Root and commanded Timber to keep watch in case the goblins decided to follow contrary to his expectations.
The smell of sweat filled his nose as he was a few feet away from the orc. It turned around a few times, causing Elijah to freeze each time and hoping that the monster wouldn’t wake up. He held his breath during the last few steps to avoid breathing in the horrible odor of the orc and decided to change his body for a swift kill. He had left his mace with Timber as crushing the orc’s head with it was no viable option. Elijah’s right arm turned into a long, deadly spike. Root also changed, its body elongating into the form of a wooden serpent with a set of wickedly sharp teeth.
The minion continued to crawl forward on its own, its limbs turning into four small legs. Elijah almost winced as each step the minion took felt too loud. Fortunately, the orc didn’t let the soft tapping of wood against stone disrupt its sleep. Elijah glanced at the other two and was relieved to see them still asleep.
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Both, Elijah and his minion, stood at the head of the sleeping orc when Elijah ran out of air. He was forced to take another breath and nearly gagged when the stinking warm air around the orc filled his lungs. With a swift motion, Elijah impaled the creature’s throat with his right hand and covered its mouth with his left. His minion’s fangs sank into the green flesh and it ripped out a chunk from the throat. The monster's eyes snapped open and it tried to get up and defend itself, but before it had a chance to do so, another stab through Elijah’s right arm into the heart followed.
Elijah’s eyes shot toward the other two orcs while his minion took another bite from the dead beast’s throat. They looked back at him. And they were angry.
Both orcs leaped up from their resting positions and stormed at Elijah, their enraged roars filling the whole cave. Shit. After seeing those green giants rushing at him with the intent to kill, Elijah pushed the urge to run away aside and used his abilities to throw Root toward the orc on the right. As his serpentine minion flew forward, Elijah turned around and jumped from bed to bed, hurrying toward the mace and Timber.
Root bit into the arm of the orc and kept him busy while the second orc stormed toward Elijah. The distance to the mace was shorter than the distance the orc had to cover to reach Elijah but to gain even more time he shot a few [Wooden Thorns] from his hand toward the incoming monster. Elijah cheered inwardly when one of his thorns actually landed in the monster’s thigh and caused it to stumble over a stone bed, landing face-first on the ground.
Timber, still in a humanoid form, passed by Elijah and reached the dizzy orc before it could get up. The minion smashed one fist after another into the orc’s head and prevented it from getting up while Elijah picked up his mace.
A short glance at Root was enough to know that his minion would be able to deal with the orc. By the time he reached the other orc and Timber, the monster had managed to get up, swiping the minion's feet away and crushing it under its superior weight. Blood flew from several wounds on the orc’s head but it replied to each blow from Timber with mindless violence. Timber’s humanoid body acted as a good enough target for its enraged fists.
Discarding Elijah as a threat proved to be a fatal mistake, though. Before the orc could react to Elijah stepping onto the stone bed in front of him, Elijah’s mace was already squashing the orc’s head against the ground. The tiny bit of consciousness it gripped onto was lost by the second smash.
Timber got up as if nothing happened, the dents in its wooden body filling out at a visible pace. Elijah looked with disgust at the blood dripping from his weapon before he turned to the still ongoing fight.
I’ll absolutely keep that form. Elijah thought as he looked at the serpentine body of Root coiled around the orc’s upper body. The orc was barely able to hit the minion’s slim body but was covered in bruises and bite marks. It bled from numerous wounds and under the restriction of Root, lost its ability to move its arms but Elijah doubted that the orc would be moving around even without Root coiled around it. It was barely alive with all the blood it had already lost during the fight and the only thing it could do was letting out pained cries of desperation.
Elijah took the monster’s life and looked around the room. What a mess. Three dead orcs were lying around, small puddles of blood forming where they lay. He looked down and traced the yellow pungent blood covering his whole arm with his eyes before they rested on his mace.
If not for the approaching grunts of more orcs, he would have thrown up for sure.