High gloom, p.5
High Gloom, page 5
part #6 of The Bad Guys Series
"The goblins."
"I don't ask."
"Where do you get the, uh, sacrifices?"
"Up the river."
"Where does the river go?"
"South."
"Helpful chap, aren't you."
"If you would be willing to help me home, I could speak to Johann on your behalf, get you into the organization. I would not tell him you stabbed me."
"Bit obvious what I did to you."
"I have a healing potion. I can—”
"What's your name?"
"Rutger."
"Rutger, I'm afraid tonight is not your night."
“I—”
I grabbed the dagger from his leg and slammed it straight into his heart.
He let out a strangled cry, and started tipping backward.
"You are a bad man, Rutger," I said, giving his torso a shove so he fell into the back of the wagon.
I stood up and looked into his eyes.
"You deserve much worse," I said, "but I'm a bit short on time, aren't I?"
His mouth opened and closed a few times.
GG! You’ve killed Rutger (lvl 23 Human Slave Runner).
You’ve earned 5020 xp! What a mighty hero you are.
I ripped his pouches from his belt and slipped them into my bag. Then I did a quick search of the area around the driver's seat. I found a small wooden box with few potions inside. Five red ones, two yellow ones, and one with an oily black liquid inside. I really needed to work on getting an identification spell. Then I picked up the reins and yanked them back. The deer looked back over their shoulders, but came to a stop.
Hopping off, I cut through their harnesses, and then started walking away.
The deer followed me.
"What are you doing?" I asked. "Get out of here."
They didn't listen.
"I'm going back to the night goblins camp," I said. “If you guys follow me, you’ll probably wind up on the fire for them to eat."
One of the deer looked at the other one, then back at me. But they didn't move.
"Whatever," I said, "I don't have time for this. You want to come? Fine, but I'm going into the woods."
I stepped off the road and made my way along in the forest, looking ahead to see if anyone had been following the wagon.
Nothing.
The party, however, was still going.
I stopped at a fallen log and peered at the flames leaping into the sky. I was still about twenty yards from the edge of the clearing. And something moved appeared in my peripheral vision.
I dove to the side, rolling along the ground and coming up with my dagger, ready to fight.
The two deer looked at me.
"You startled me," I hissed, then shook my head. "And I'm talking to deer. Losing my damn mind.
I slipped the dagger away, and then went back to my position kneeling behind a log. The two huge deer got on either side of me, also, apparently, watching the party happening in the clearing. Although one did snatch some moss off the log and have a quick snack.
"Quiet," I snapped.
The snacking deer’s eyes went wide, and he moved back a step.
I wasn’t that worried about being seen. The goblins seemed very intent on their own activities. But I didn’t have a good view of the cage, since there were too many trees and a bonfire in the way. I thought about climbing a tree, get a view from above, but I didn’t know about that path either because I didn’t think the sacrificial victims were going to be above ground for very long. I didn’t see any spot suitable for sacrifices in the clearing. Captain whats-his-name had mentioned that they’d been unable to find the temple or sacrificial site, so it couldn’t be in the clearing where I’d have seen it. The only possibility was down.
Which wasn’t exactly true — it could be somewhere else entirely. There could totally be a different fancy temple out in the woods somewhere. It didn’t seem likely, however, because I didn’t see any means to transport the victims. I didn’t see any means to adequately transport the victims from their cage under the ground either, but it would probably be much easier than getting them to walk any real distance.
I moved forward, slowly, stepping through the trees.
One of the deer bit my cloak and pulled me back.
I looked at him, and he nodded at the ground.
There was a crude snap-trap right where I was about to step. Like a bear-trap, but more home-made and likely to cause tetanus.
“Thanks,” I said.
The deer nodded.
I took a larger step, and paused to looked around for more traps. Then I looked over at the deer again.
“You understood what I said?” I asked.
The deer looked at its buddy, then back at me. Both nodded.
“Okay,” I said, “well, that is certainly unexpected. I need to rescue some people from here, and I don’t think you two are going to like going underground. Are you planning on following me?”
One deer nodded, and the other seemed like it was about to shake its head, but because the first nodded, he had to nod as well.
“How about you wait over to the west,” I said. “Do you know about Raim?”
Head shakes, which I took to mean “no.”
“That’s where I’m going,” I said. “Or, I mean, that’s where I’m going to take the people I’m saving. I’m not heading there right now. It’s where I came from. Most recently.”
The deer just stared at me, and I definitely had a momentary pause to wonder if I was just losing my mind and talking to two deer who were following me for other reasons.
“You guys wait to the west,” I said. “If you see non-goblins coming, maybe try and help them. I mean, if you want.”
One deer looked to the other, who looked back at its friend. It definitely felt like there was an inaudible conversation happening between the two. Then, they both bounded away to the east.
“Thank you,” I whispered into the darkness.
I checked over the ground, and started to pick out the traps. They weren’t everywhere, but there were certainly enough to catch someone trying to sneak up from the south. The goblins were clearly defending the road. But since I was looking for them, and I had a high enough detect traps skill, they started to glow, just slightly, enough to be spotted in the darkness.
I got closer and closer, slipping up against the last tree before the clearing, edging around the huge trunk until I had just one eye peering into the bright area beyond.
They were moving the victims from the cage. The miniature goblin things poured out of the stairwell, carrying wooden planks fitted with cuffs. Larger goblins, ones that looked nearly twice the size of the party goblins, came lumbering out amongst the mini-gobs with large clubs and blades. The larger goblinoids had vibrant body paint splashed on them in curious patterns. They were barking orders at the mini goblins, trying to get them organized, which was proving futile.
The big guys opened up the cage and grabbed people one at a time, bringing them out and attaching them to the planks with the manacles. Then the mini-goblins would run the person into the darkness. Rinse and repeat over and over until the cage was empty.
My heart sank when I saw a small person torn from a larger one.
There was a kid there.
I needed to make a move, and fast.
10
Seeing the kid made my rage blossom, and it took all my control not to just start throwing fireballs and ripping out bones. And right under the surface, I could almost feel the power of the corpse king, longing for release. It called to me, promising to give me power if I just let it out to play. That it would cooperate if I would allow it. That we could share this body and become even more powerful working together.
I shook my head, wondering where that came from. Was that just something I’d thought on my own, or were the thoughts of the corpse king slipping through to me?
This wasn’t the time to debate what was happening inside me. Not when there was a little kid in danger. I took a few deep breaths and let the cold air wash over me, tempering my rage enough for me to think.
There were too many goblins to just go in with (figurative) guns blazing. I needed to be smart. I needed a plan. Well , what I needed was to see in the hole, and get a sense of what was happening underground. Were the victims being transported directly to the sacrificial altar, or to a holding cell? That would change things. I paused there, thinking.
“Too much thinking,” I whispered to myself.
I cast shadow step and started sprinting.
The world lost all color as I stepped into the neighboring plane of existence. I could feel entities all around me, watching me, but, for the first time, I felt confident they were only watching. Keeping some distance from me, letting me move through their world without interaction.
I crossed the distance to the stairs in an instant and slid into the darkness, bouncing down a few stairs before I caught myself.
Slipping back into the real world always felt a little odd, like the world was catching up to me, a brief assault on the senses. In that moment, I realized my dependence on the darkness was probably about to bite me in the butt. There were no lights anywhere in the crude stairwell. It looked like it had been hacked out of the stone with handheld tools. There was no attempt to finish the ceiling, and the stairs were each a different size. Regardless of that, the little mini-goblins raced down the stairs at full speed. I spotted the kid shackled to the plank, sobbing uncontrollably.
I chanced a glance over my shoulder. No one was exactly close behind, but I could hear the tromping of the next group of mini-gobbos coming, so I hurried along down the stairs.
I tripped once, but managed to catch myself on the ceiling. Because, you know, goblin height.
The rowdy mini-goblins didn’t seem to notice the noise I’d made, continuing on down the stairs with no regard for their own safety. I struggled to keep up with them without braining myself on the uneven ceiling. There were plenty of jutting bits of stone ready to smash an errant head. It made it impossible to keep track of how far down we were going. Even counting stairs would have been an incredibly rough estimate, given that some steps were about two inches down and some were more than a foot. It was insanity, and once I hit flat ground, I tripped again. Luckily I managed to throw myself to the side of the tunnel. It went straight for about forty or fifty feet before opening up into a room. One I couldn’t see. But the little mini-goblins ran along with their prisoner on the plank, and then disappeared.
I hurried along the tunnel after them, and once I got closer to the room I saw that there were more stairs going down. But unlike the first, which had been a single set taking up the entire width of the tunnel, here was a square shaft with stairs going along each wall with a small landing at each corner. A bit like a spiral staircase, except square. The middle of the shaft had been left open.
I peered over the edge, looking quite a ways down, and saw all the various groups of mini-goblins and their victims running down. I really wished I had a spell that would let me float, because it would be a hell of a lot easier to just jump than try and climb down.
Sigh. If wishes were fishes we’d all do something with fishing, right?
I started down, keeping my back to the wall, hoping that would be enough to keep me out of sight.
The weight of the rock started to loom over me. It didn’t seem to phase the goblins in the slightest, though. Not that I could really see them. I just heard them, yelling at each other and slapping their wide feet against the crudely-cut stairs.
There were occasional openings as we went down, just arches cut into the walls near the landings. A peek here and there just revealed tunnels, nothing inside to denote anything specific. They might have been living quarters, or maybe mines. Or farms. I saw a million possibilities and not a single clue.
Finally, though, we got to a larger opening, a big arch with plenty of carvings all over it. That, apparently, was our stop. The mini-goblins all made the turn without stopping. Well, not all of them — at least two fell off the edge, disappearing into the darkness below. The others continued carrying their loads through the arch and down another hallway, without even the slightest acknowledgement that anything had happened.
The latest hallway was significantly larger, and marginally nicer than any I’d been in so far, as if it had been made by actual quality craftsmen. Or miners. Whatever.
I followed along, again at the side, moving just fast enough to not catch up and not be surprised from behind.
The hallway went maybe a hundred yards into the earth before it opened up into a massive space. The runt goblins sprinted in without pause, just zooming along.
With no other option, I ran along behind them.
There were large columns built on either side of the spot where the hallway opened up, providing a little pomp and decoration to the place. I pushed myself into as small a dark spot as I could, right by a column, and peered into the open cavern.
It was like looking into an airplane hangar. The ceilings soared out of view, though I could make out tips of stalactites poking in here and there. In the middle of the room was a like a pyramid with the pointy bit lopped off. There were stairs on the side facing me, but not on the two other sides I could see. The top was about thirty or so feet high with a large altar made out of a big slab of stone. It was black with blood. In fact, looking at things, it appeared most of the pyramid was black with blood. Very clearly, that was where the sacrifices took place. The victims were being taken around to the far side of the platform, where it appeared they were being laid out. The tiny goblins guys would drop off the victim, still attached to the carrying board, then pick up a new empty board and race that back up to grab a new victim.
As I crouched there in the hallway, the first of the returning runts raced by with its new empty board and promptly collided with an oncoming group. Bodies went flying, careening everywhere. The board with the prisoner attached slammed to the ground, prisoner-side-down so the poor guy hit the stone face-first.
The runts all scrambled to their feet and started yelling at each other for about a heartbeat before devolving into throwing blows. The intense fighting looked somewhere in the realm of hyper-violent toddlers with claws. It was impressive, because I’d rarely seen creatures fight with absolutely no regard for their own well-being. But then again, even with that, they didn’t seem to be inflicting much damage on each other.
One of the larger goblins, the super-sized ones, roared loudly and waded into the melée, swinging his heavy fist like a club. The little guys went flying, smashing into the walls on either side of the tunnel. It seemed a bit much, but it was also effective in stopping the fight.
One of the little guys, however, crashed into the wall above me, and was sliding down. I felt him land on my head and start scrambling around for purchase.
I didn’t have much choice, so I reached up and grabbed the creature, and then twisted his head all the way around until I felt a soft click. Its body went limp in my hands.
GG! You’ve killed a Snoglin (lvl 1 Runt).
You’ve earned 5 xp! What a mighty hero you are.
Huh. Snoglin. That was new. But it felt better, somehow, to know these guys were actually different creatures than goblins. I guess I was worried they were like, goblin children. Though it did make me wonder about goblin children. And parenting. Whatever parenting here might be.
The bigger goblin raged. He threw the little snoglins around until he got them placed back into their separate groups. He yelled at one group, and they grabbed the nearest plank, which happened to still have the sacrificial victim on it, and tried to run him back up the stairs. This made the big goblin angry, so he grabbed the plank, and the full-size adult, with one hand and ripped it from the snoglins. He muttered something at them as he walked back over to the pyramidal structure and the altar. He had no problem whatsoever with the weight.
For a moment, the snoglins watched the big goblin walk away. Then half grabbed the empty plank and sprinted off with it up the stairs.
The rest charged after the big goblin, screaming and yelling at him. The big goblin ignored the snoglins, walking the plank and victim around the pyramidal structure and out of sight.
I had a chance to move without being seen, so I slipped around the column and under the arch into the large cavern, which had to be their sacrificial chambers.
Keeping my back on the rough wall, I moved in a slow crouch, trying to put some distance between myself and the entrance to the cavern. Unlike the stairwells and tunnels, this was still fundamentally a natural formation, with stalactites and stalagmites dripping and being dropped on, respectively. Just a short distance from the pyramid and altar, the flat ground disappeared, and I had to maneuver around an increasingly rough and disconcerting floor.
That’s where I chose to drop the snoglin corpse. I figured it’d be harder to discover there than in the corner of the tunnel. And as I moved, I started to get a sense of what was behind the pyramid — another archway, though smaller, and another tunnel.
The victims were being laid out on their planks behind the pyramid, in a big square. I quickly counted twenty of them. But there were still more on the way down. Small goblins in purple robes walked among the victims, talking to each other quietly, and remarking on whatever interested them. But I was too far away to hear them.
Which meant I needed to get closer. If I tried to sneak all the way around the edge of the cavern, it would take forever. Plus there was always the chance I’d find some hidden hole and disappear into another level below. Or just make a loud noise knocking over a stalagmite. Plenty of possibilities for doom.
Luckily, I had one easy solution to move quickly in the darkness.
Shadow step.
I slipped into the shadow realm, once again surrounded by a bevy of terrifying shadow creatures who watched me lazily. I gave the nearest one a smile, which was not returned, and then sprinted across the cavern, dropping into a slide at the far edge before crashing, a bit, into the wall. As I pulled myself back together, getting my cloak situated around my body, I popped back into reality.
