by Logan Jacobs
“T-t-that might be best,” she stuttered.
I examined her face in the torchlight and could tell she was tortured by indecision. Every instinct must have been screaming at her to avenge her fallen comrades and to defend the town by killing every last goblin she could find, but the terrors she had lived through were haunting her every step in these tunnels, and I couldn’t help but think she just wanted to kill the leader and get out as quickly as possible.
“Don’t worry,” I finally said as I turned toward the room on the left. “I will protect you. You are mine, and I won’t let anything happen to you, Mahini. Do you believe in me?”
“Yes… Great One.” The desert warrior nodded and seemed to push all of her feelings behind that stoic mask of hers. She was terrified, but she was ready to fight at my side anyway.
I was absolutely in love with her, and after we killed all these goblins and avenged her family, I was sure she’d be in love with me, too.
The tunnel was barely five feet in length before it opened up into a large room. I didn’t get to look around too much because standing at the back wall of the room was a group of seven goblins with their weapons drawn. They didn’t seem to anticipate us bursting in on them, and they all wore the same startled expressions when the room filled with light from the torches.
“Hey, guys!” I called out with a little wave.
One of the goblins at the back narrowed its eyes at me and lifted its hand. It was holding some kind of pale blue ball, and I barely got a good look at it before the goblin hurled it in my direction. I ducked, and the air chilled as the ball sailed over my head and exploded against the wall behind me. Then I glanced back to see literal ice forming from the spot of impact.
That motherfucker could use magic.
“Watch out!” I yelled to Mahini.
The shaman hurled another ice ball at the desert warrior, and the magic smashed against the torch in her hand. The flame snuffed out, and I could just barely see glittering shards shatter in all directions. Several were embedded in Mahini’s beautiful face, and her shriek of agony was more than I could handle.
Chime.
I should have known that magic wasn’t solely used by humans, but I didn’t think that goblins were smart enough to be able to use it. They seemed like stupid little greedy bitches that would sooner run than fight. Of course this was the third time we would be attempting this mission, and so far none of the goblins had turned tail when they saw us.
Taking out the sorcerer had been easy enough once all of his cronies were dead, but his only magic seemed to be summoning me. He hadn’t hurled any ice balls at me or anything. It wouldn’t be too difficult to figure out how to kill the shaman, even if it took me a few dozen attempts, but he was too dangerous to let live.
We killed the two sets of guards like we had done it a thousand times already, and then, before heading down the tunnel, I created a new save point at the intersection. I probably should have done it sooner than this, but I didn’t anticipate having to deal with goblin shamans. I was ready this time, and if the bastard managed to hurt us again, I would be that much closer to taking its life.
After eliminating the bear trap and the small group of goblins, we practically flew through the tunnels until we reached the intersection. I didn’t ask Mahini about the rooms this time, but when I took a step toward the left room, she let out a gasp.
“Shouldn’t we continue on first?” she asked. Her eyes were quivering with fear, and I remember that the last time we had stood still for a while. She wasn’t mentally ready to jump in. “The large room should be just up ahead.”
“There’s a magic user in here,” I said and pointed with my sword down the left path. “We can’t let it live.”
Her brow furrowed with confusion, but she didn’t say another word. She took a deep breath before stepping to my side. Her strength in overcoming her fear was admirable, and it only made me love her more.
I made a new save point as I led the way into the room. As before, the goblins were lined up against the far wall with their weapons drawn and the stupidly surprised looks on their faces. They must have been planning to ambush us, and they didn’t think we’d just walk into the room.
“That back one with the feathers in his hair uses magic,” I told Mahini as I pointed out the shaman. “It hurls chunks of ice.”
As if to emphasize my words, the shaman threw one of its ice balls at the torch in Mahini’s hand, but I brought my armored arm up just in time to deflect the shards that had struck the beautiful woman in the last attempt.
“What--but how?” Mahini breathed.
“I’m a god, remember?” I winked before turning to my enemies, and I let out a roar as I pounced on the nearest one.
It took about a dozen attempts to clear out the left room. My main issue was that the shaman ice-user was able to maneuver better in the open space than it had in the small tunnel, and its aim was much better. Not once did it freeze its companions, but I was always able to prevent it from striking Mahini, though most of the ice balls were very close calls. I ended up killing him by picking up a rock from the tunnel before I walked in the room and then hurling it at his face as soon as he saw me. First couple of times I missed and just restarted, but the first time I hit him, the blow knocked him senseless for a few moments, and I was able to sprint across the room and murder him before he could get his first ice-ball spell off.
Fucking shamans couldn’t magic away a rock to the face.
The smaller goblins were easy to destroy once the ice-shaman was killed. Before long the floor was covered in black sludge and the air was filled with the stench of dead goblins and blood. Once we’d finished murdering them, Mahini retrieved her torch and lit it from one on the wall before we returned to the intersection so we could look at the map. It showed another pocket opposite the room with the shaman, but the tunnel ahead seemed to be caved in.
“One less thing to worry about, I guess,” I said with a shrug.
I turned and created a new save as I led the way toward the big room where we thought the leader would be. I kept my eyes peeled for any kind of glittering on the floor that might indicate another bear trap. If the leader really was this close, I would expect all kinds of nasty traps just waiting to catch us unawares.
“Oh no,” Mahini breathed from behind me. “This is bad…”
I looked up from the floor where I was watching for traps and saw what she meant. Where the next set of supports was supposed to be was a wall of rock and earth. It looked as if the goblins had forced the roof to collapse in order to block the quickest path to the large room.
“Well, it looks like we were right about the big room being where the leader is,” I said as I touched the earth wall. Some dirt and loose rocks rattled to the floor, but digging through it would be impossible. “We’ll just have to go the long way around, I guess.”
“Look out!” Mahini cried.
A small army had filled the tunnel while Mahini and I were looking at the wall of collapsed earth. I did a quick tally and counted fourteen little bastards. The creatures backed away from the firelight, but a grunt from one of the larger ones at the back kept them from fleeing altogether. The goblins sneered and giggled at us as they feinted to try to get us to make the first move.
I didn’t have to be told twice.
“Bring it on, bitches!” I laughed as I lunged at them.
The air filled with the sounds of clashing metal and the shrieks of the goblins as they scattered away from my attacks. Two fell to my sword in a shower of black sludge and agonized shrieking before I came across a new kind of goblin. This one was a bit larger than the others, and the sword in its hand was broader than my own.
When I lopped off the creature’s right arm, the black sludge oozing out of the wound didn’t seem to faze the goblin in the slightest. It merely plucked the sword from its missing arm and swung at me with its left. I managed to parry the attack, but I stumbled back in surprise.
“What the
fuck?” If my arm was suddenly chopped off, I would be on the ground in agony.
“Grrrroaggh!” the beast roared as it lunged for me again, and it didn’t seem to matter that blood was oozing from the gaping hole where its arm used to be.
I dodged and parried to my best ability, but the weight of the goblin’s blows and my own armor were quickly making me tired.
I might have cheated my way through winning all these fights by reloading, and I had gotten way better at fighting by sparring with Mahini, but I still had the fitness of a call-center desk jockey that played a ton of video games in his spare time.
Mahini must have sensed my failing strength because she was suddenly there. While I kept the one-armed goblin busy with my sword, she slipped beneath my arm and thrust her own blade into the goblin’s belly. I expected a guttural cry of agony, but the beast merely roared some more and put more weight into its sword.
“Seriously, what the fuck kinda drugs is this asshole on?” I growled.
Mahini let out her own grunt and threw more of her weight against her sword. The goblin let out another growl that slowly faded to a groan of death. As the tension of its sword faded, I turned and deposited the body against the wall.
There was no time for celebration because the tunnel was still filled with enemies.
Three more of the smaller goblins fell to my sword with blood oozing all over the place. But then I came across another one of the unfeeling brutes. It reminded me of something called a berserker, which was usually a style of fighting in classic RPGs. The user would usually get so royally pissed off that it could no longer feel any pain. In some games the effect would prevent the user from dying at all. Thankfully that wasn’t the case with these assholes.
But that didn’t mean they were easy to kill.
The berserker was flanked by a pair of smaller goblins, and when I parried the big guy, the two smaller ones darted in with their daggers. The attacks bounced off of my armor with a shriek of metal on metal, but it was enough to make me stumble back a few steps.
Mahini was too busy with her own swarm to help me this time.
I swung my sword at one of the dagger goblins and blocked another blow from the berserker with my dagger. The force of the blow caused my teeth to chatter, but at least I stopped it from cleaving me in two. I threw all of my weight against my dagger arm and threw the berserker back, and then I shoved my sword through the right dagger-goblin’s face. Black sludge and grayish brain matter surged out from the wound as the goblin’s body went completely limp. I was just barely able to bring my dagger up to block the other dagger-goblin’s attack.
Which left me wide open for the berserker.
The blow landed at the base of my neck, and I barely felt the pain before I pulled at my power.
Chime.
The goblins had to have come from the tunnel that looked like it was caved in. We had already cleared out every other place they could have been hiding.
“That’s a dead end,” I told Mahini as I made my way to the tunnel opposite the room with the shaman.
“How do you know?” she questioned. “We haven’t even checked.”
“Just trust me, it’s blocked,” I assured her.
The map showed that the tunnel curved away after a set of supports, but the actual tunnel just seemed to end. As I got closer, I saw that there was a large hole hidden behind the right support beam that the goblins must have used.
“The little bastards,” I muttered as I sheathed my two weapons. “They dug out a secret passage that we never would have seen.”
“But you knew it was there,” Mahini breathed in awe. “Will you never cease to amaze me, Great One?”
“I haven’t even made love to you yet.” I winked at her and then ducked into the goblin-made tunnel before she could respond.
The narrow passage was a tight squeeze for me, and my armor scraped noisily against the sides, but it was only a short U-shaped curve that literally dug around the cave-in. Once I was out the other side, I turned to help the blushing Mahini through, and I made a new save point before we continued along the tunnel.
It led to an even larger room than the one we were just in, and I caught a glimpse of a few boxes near the back of the room before the roaring of the berserkers drew my focus away.
The group was split up with six of the little guys flanking a berserker and coming after each of us. We fought as hard as we could, but the two groups quickly overpowered us. Mahini went down first, as one of the big fuckers tore her head off with his sword, but I followed three seconds later as the smaller fucks shoved too many spears into my gut to block.
Chime.
“We need to stick together in this room,” I said to Mahini as I led the way down the longer path. She didn’t even question my orders. “There are two big guys that can’t feel pain, and they’re a bitch to take down.”
This fight was extremely difficult, and it took another fourty or so attempts before I was able to dance around Mahini, defend her at all angles from the various attacks, and yell simple orders at her mid-combat that allowed her to help me win. The goblins tried to surround us, but we stood back to back and hacked the little bastards into pieces. When their blood was soaking into the ground, we faced the two berserkers like a single unit. Mahini killed the first by just taking off its head, and when she had the second one impaled on her sword, I swooped in and sliced my dagger across its throat, spraying us both in black sludge.
“Good job,” I said after the last berserker’s body fell to the ground. “You followed my orders perfectly.”
“I can’t believe we just killed all these monsters,” she panted as she fell to her knees. “When I first saw them… I figured we would be killed instantly.”
“Naw… Remember, you are with me, and I won’t let anything hurt you.” I sheathed my dagger and stepped around the carnage to investigate the three boxes. One of them was empty, and the second was filled with rotting meat that made me gag, but the third one was filled with lumps of green rock.
“Copper ore!” Mahini gasped as she came to stand at my shoulder.
“I thought copper was orange-ish.” I picked up one of the rocks and turned it in the faint torchlight. “Not green.”
“When it is smelted it turns orange,” Mahini explained as she picked up another rock. “This room is one of the older pockets so no copper remains in the walls. As we go further, you will see the green waves.”
I shrugged and sheathed my sword and picked up the crate of green copper-rocks. It was about ten pounds or so, and probably wouldn’t amount to much once it was smelted down. But I had a feeling that even this small crate would bring tears of joy to the eyes of the townspeople.
We backtracked to the junction spot, and I placed the crate of copper ore in the tunnel leading to the exit. I then turned to face down the right path and took a deep breath as I created a new save point.
Halfway there.
Chapter 8
I led the way down the right path of the mine while consulting the map every few steps. Another room was supposed to be on the left between two sets of supports, and I could only assume there would be more goblins inside waiting for us, but when we came to the spot, we found another wall of earth.
“Why would they block this spot?” I asked as I touched the loosely packed dirt. The tunnel was too narrow for another ambush like before, and this room was so close to the entrance that it would have been a good hiding spot for the inner guards. “Do you think there could be chests of copper inside?”
Mahini stepped up beside me but didn’t touch the wall. “I don’t know. I’m not as familiar with the mine as Elrin and the men are. Maybe they can come in and dig through it once we defeat the goblins.”
It didn’t make any sense. The other cave-in was to keep us from taking the shortest route to the leader. The map showed that this room didn’t lead anywhere, so they had no real reason for blocking it off. Or maybe they didn’t? Maybe this particular cave-in was just an acci
dent, and I was thinking too much into it.
Whatever. I had bigger fish to fry.
Mahini led the way this time, and I trotted to catch up to her. There must have been goblins up ahead, but they weren’t making any sounds. Our footsteps and the light clinking of my armor filled the echoing tunnel and made every hair on the back of my neck stand up.
These little devils really knew how to amp up the tension.
The echoing closeness continued for another ten feet or so, and Mahini paused to light the torches along the way as she had before. My heart was pounding along with my spidey-sense, and I was just about to warn the warrior woman to be very careful when she stumbled. I looked down to see what she had tripped over, and my heart leaped into my throat.
A trip-wire. Another trap.
Before I could reach out and grab her, Mahini fell to the ground, which immediately gave way beneath her. The screams that split the air chilled me worse than the shaman from earlier, and when it abruptly went silent I almost didn’t want to see why. I needed to know what danger laid in the hole Mahini had uncovered, but every nerve in my body shouted for me to just respawn.
I took a deep breath, swallowed past the lump in my throat, and looked into the pit. The torch Mahini had dropped gave me just enough light to see the beautiful woman laying there spread-eagle with massive wooden spikes piercing her body. Her helmet had fallen off, and her black hair was falling away from the terror-filled expression on her face.
Chime.
For a long moment, I just stared at Mahini beside me. She was alive and well, and her blue eyes filled with the fire of the battle. When I didn’t move, the warrior woman turned to me with a puzzled expression.
“What is it, Great One?” she asked.
I shook my head to get rid of the image of her recent death. “Nothing. I’m just glad you’re here, Mahini. I’m having a good time with you.”
“Thank you, Great One.” Her smile was accompanied by her furrowed brow as if she didn’t understand why I was suddenly complimenting her. My deaths were easy to come to terms with since I knew that my pain was brief, and even my companions would not suffer permanently in the end, but seeing their deaths over and over was going to have some kind of impact on my mental status sooner or later, even if I could just restart.
