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 accident, 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.
Did this world have shrinks? I might need to find one that would believe all the bullshit I had been through.
I let myself stare at the dark-haired goddess for another moment or two before I turned and led the way down the passage. I didn’t even bother looking at the map this time since I knew the left room was blocked off. I was more concerned about the pit trap and figuring out how the hell we were going to get past it.
“There should be a room here,” Mahini muttered from behind me.
“It’s blocked,” I said without turning around. “Don’t worry about it.”
There was a brief pause followed by what I assumed was Mahini digging at the wall. “What? How did you...? You didn’t even stop to look.”
“I’m a god,” I said with a shrug. “I keep reminding you.”
“Of course,” she sighed. “Sorry, Great One. It is hard to get used to.”
“You haven’t run into many walking gods?” I snickered.
“I’ve heard rumors of men and women who claim they are divine, and some even manage to create cults around themselves, but their reigns never last long. They are mostly charlatans.”
“I’m the real deal,” I laughed softly.
“I know, Great One,” the dark-haired beauty whispered. “I have seen you do the impossible. I believe you.”
The pitfall trap was only a few feet from one of the ceiling supports, and I spotted the silvery string running the width of the tunnel when it caught the light of Mahini’s torch.
“There you are, you little bastard,” I growled at the string, and I swung my sword down to cleave the trip-wire in two.
The string snapped with a low twang that echoed in the tunnel. Mahini gasped behind me and came up to my side.
“What was--” she began.
I placed a finger to my lips and placed my right foot on the false floor. I leaned back so that nearly all of my weight was in my other leg and very carefully started applying pressure. The floor was springing underfoot, and after barely putting any weight on it, the whole thing collapsed. I stumbled slightly, but Mahini grabbed me because she thought I was about to fall.
“How did you…” she breathed.
“I love seeing the surprise on your beautiful face,” I snickered as I moved to reveal more of the pit. “Let’s see what we have to work with here...”
I’d already seen part of the trap, but now that I wasn’t fixated on Mahini’s broken body, I could see that there was a gaping hole in the floor that spanned the width of the tunnel and extended about six feet across. It was about ten or eleven feet deep, and the spikes at the bottom were as thick as my legs, and about two feet long.
“That could have killed us,” the raven-haired beauty said. “It’s lucky you saw the wire.”
Luck had nothing to do with it.
“We’re gonna have to jump it,” I said as I sheathed my sword. “Unless we want to spend the next three days digging through that other cave-in, it’s the only way to the big bad boss.”
I retreated back down the passage a few yards before I turned and faced the pit once more. After giving my muscles a little shake, I sprinted for the gap. My stomach sank like a rock in the water when I made the leap, and I held my breath until I felt solid ground beneath me again.
“Toss me the torch!” I called over to Mahini.
The flaming stick soared through the air perfectly, and I caught it easily. The warrior woman drew back until she was a dark figure just outside of the torchlight, and I knew she was getting ready for her leap.
Giggling pierced the silence, and when I whirled around to check the passage, I found three goblins waiting for me.
They actually seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to see them, so I was able to drop the torch and draw my sword just in time to block a spear thrust at my face.
“We’ve got company!” I roared as I kicked at the goblin coming in on my right and dropped the torch.
The spear-goblin cackled and drew back its weapon. The other two surged into the newly-made gap and swung their shortswords at me at the same time. The spear-goblin made another thrust at my face over the heads of its companions.
I lifted my left arm to catch one of the daggers on my vambrace while I deflected the second dagger with my sword. Then I dropped to one knee to avoid the spear and threw all of my weight into my left arm. When the goblin staggered back, I drew my dagger and plunged the blade into the creature’s thigh. It screamed, and I swung my sword at the spear-goblin, but the little bastard leaped back and out of my range.
The clashing sound of metal on metal rang out to my right, and I glanced over as Mahini blocked an attack from the other dagger-goblin. She had that under control, so I turned my focus back to my two enemies.
I yanked my dagger free from the dagger-goblin and silenced its pained cries by plunging the blade through its eye. Black ooze sprayed the tunnel and stained the armor covering my arm. I parried another spear thrust with my sword and cut the goblin’s left hand off with my dagger. It dropped the spear and gasped, so I picked up the crusty weapon and turned the weapon on its master. The goblin’s cries dropped to a gurgle when the spear filled its throat.
Fuck yeah. I was becoming a total badass.
The warrior woman’s battle was already over, and she was cleaning her blade on the goblin she had just killed. Clumps of ooze slid off nicely, but the sword was still stained with dark blood.
“Just think how satisfying it’ll be to shine it back up again,” I said as the raven-haired woman made a disgusted face.
Mahini made no comment as she retrieved the torch from the ground. The thing was still burning happily, so at least we didn’t have to leap across the pit again. The warrior woman lit the torches on the walls nearby and then gestured for me to lead the way.
The tunnel twisted and turned like a snake. I checked the map whenever Mahini paused to light the wall torches, and when we finally came to it, I created a new save point.
“Which way should we go?” I asked Mahini as I looked down each path. The rooms were about the same size on the map, so I imagined they would hold the same number of enemies if any. “I don’t have a preference.”
The warrior woman stared down each path for a few minutes before jerking her head toward the left. “This one first.”
I wondered what her reason was, but she turned and headed down the tunnel before I could ask. I shrugged, tightened my grip on my two blades, and then trotted after her.
The torchlight danced on the walls as we continued along the curving path, and I could see hints of greenish flecks once in a while. It must have been what was left of the waves of copper Mahini had mentioned before. The jagged edges of the rocks in the wall told the mine’s history, and I had to wonder just how many years the mine had been in production. How long did it take to carve out this much rock with just an iron pick? It must have taken dozens of years to get as far in as we stood.
Shuffling ahead pulled me from my thoughts, and Mahini placed a finger to her lips when I caught her eye. She poked her head around the bend only to yank it back a second later. A rock exploded against the wall right where her face had been, and the impact was followed by the cackling of goblins.
These little fuckers were going to start throwing rocks now?
“Isn’t it way past your bedtimes?” I taunted the little beasts, and another rock sailed into the wall. “I think someone needs a time-out!”
I raced around the corner and ducked as another rock came sailing at me. It smashed against the wall, and I was able to angle toward the group of eight smaller goblins. They were clustered together at the far end of the room with a small pile of rocks at their feet. Only the two closest to the tunnel had their weapons drawn, and these two surged forward to meet me in the middle of the room.
One of the daggers clashed with my sword, and the other smashed against the armor of my left leg. I growled as the metal pinched against my thigh. The armor had held up in the battles so far, but it could only take so much abuse. I threw all of my weight against my sword, and the goblin staggered back.
The two goblins bellowed at me and sprang forward once again. Their timing was bad, and as I blocked the one on the left, a large rock smashed the head of the one on the right. The rock didn’t kill the goblin, and as it swayed on the spot, I shoved my dagger into its neck.
I finished off the other goblin with a sword to the gut, and as the black ooze splashed around my feet, I charged at the rock throwers. Mahini was already hacking and slashing at them, and she narrowly dodged a rock hurled in her direction right before I pounced on the thrower and slashed my sword across its face.
The next goblin picked up a rock, but instead of throwing it, he smashed it against the armor of my right shoulder. The impact dented the metal and caused me to drop my sword.
“Asshole!” I snarled in pain and drove my dagger up through the roof of its mouth, and I got an oozy shower as a reward.
Mahini killed the last of the goblins with a slice across its stomach before making her way over to me.
“The little shit caved in my shoulder,” I growled as I glared at the dent in my armor.
I wasn’t about to let that be the attempt I saved over.
Chime.
“We are going this way. Careful, they are throwing rocks and shit.” I marched down the path to the left room, and made sure to duck when the first rock was hurled in my direction. Mahini let out a little gasp from behind me, but I was already charging into the group of rock-throwing fuckers. The two with weapons drawn fell quickly enough, and when the little bastard picked up the rock to bash my shoulder guard, I sliced his hand off with my sword. The way his hand spiraled through the air spraying blood all over the place was morbidly satisfying.
The group didn’t stand a chance, and I created a new save point before I returned the dropped torch to Mahini.
“Easy, right?” I asked my warrior woman.
“Yes…” she said as she glanced at the group of goblins I’d killed before she could really even walk into the room.
“On to the next battle.” I grabbed my sword, and we headed out of the room once more.
Only to be met with another group of goblins at the intersection.
There were six little bastards standing in a line with two more standing behind them. These two sneered when they saw us, and the one on the right lifted a sword that looked like it was coated in some kind of green slime. The other lifted a long pale rod that made the air crackle when it was swung.
Great. More shamans.
“Bring it on!” I shouted as I rushed the line.
The first goblin fell easily to my sword, and its blood coated the next beast in the line. I stopped its attack with my sword and drove my dagger through its face. I then turned to the shaman with the slimy green sword and swung my own sword at it. The beast dodged and swung at me, and when I blocked with my dagger, my blade started to disintegrate.
“What the--” I exclaimed and dropped my dagger in alarm as the whole thing started smoking. “This guy has some kind of acid bullshit on his blade!”
I don’t know if the acid-goblin could understand me, but its sneer got even wider when I shouted at Mahini. It swung its sword at me, and I shuffled backward to avoid the attack. Blocking would result in a melted blade, so how the fuck was I supposed to kill it?
A ball of ice smashed into my left arm, and when I looked down in surprise, the acid-sword sliced across my right thigh. The armor melted as quickly as the dagger had, and the searing pain of the acid started eating away at my flesh and muscle.
Well, fuck.
Chime.
“This is gonna be a bitch,” I said to Mahini before handing her the dropped torch again.
“A bitch?” Mahini echoed with a puzzled look.
“We’ve got company waiting for us back there,” I told her as I pointed to the exit. “Another one of those ice-shamans, and one that has some kind of acid magic or something.”
“But how--” The desert warrior cut herself off. “You’re a god. Right.”
“Now you are getting it.” I grinned before I led the way to the intersection where our new friends were waiting to meet us.
It took us more attempts than the two rooms on the left half of the mine combined. The two shamans worked very well together with the ice bastard hurling his snowballs from a distance and the acid guy melting everything his sword touched. Even when we managed to whittle the room down to just the two shamans, it only made the battle more difficult. The ice guy would just freeze us if we got too close, and the acid guy would disarm us by melting our blades.
If I could somehow get the ice guy to freeze his acid buddy, that might turn the battle in our favor. But since the acid could melt metal, what was to say it couldn’t melt ice as well? There was only one way to find out, but getting the bastards to do what I wanted was tricky.
The first time I tried it got me far too close to the acid guy and his blade melted through my armor like it was made of butter.
Chime.
The second time one of the little goblins got in the line of fire instead, and the acid guy slipped up behind me when my back was turned.
Chime.
The third time Mahini had killed the ice guy because I had forgotten to tell her about my plan. Whoops.
Chime.
Seven more attempts, and we had made some progress. It always came down to the acid guy in the end, and when he was disarmed, he got his hands on Mahini. I thought his weapon was the source of his magic, but it turned out he could summon the acid wherever he needed, and her shrieks of agony were probably going to haunt my dreams from then on.
Chime.
“Okay, there are two shamans in here,” I told Mahini for the hundredth time. Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t question how I knew, and I went on. “The guy on the right can use acid, and the one on the left is another ice guy. We need to get the ice guy to freeze the acid guy.”
“Is it just the shamans?” she asked.
“Six little guys, too,” I replied. “I’m going to deal with the two shamans, so I need you to take care of the little guys for me. Move to the right of me. If you get the one with the weird eye to stand on the left of the one with the underbite, they’ll take care of each other for you. Once they are dead, move behind me and then cover my left flank. The ice shaman is going to toss a globe at you, so you’ll need to roll back behind me and then spring back up and jump back to my left side.”
“But how--”
“The one with the torn ear swings his dagger way too much,” I continued on without letting her finish. “So, just knock it out of his hand and stab him in the face or something. The other three will just need a little back and forth before you can get your sword through them. Drop the torch, you are going to need both hands. Understand?”
“Yes, Great One.” Her eyes were wide, but she gave a hearty nod anyway as she dropped the torch.
The moment we stepped out of the tunnel, the ice shaman hurled a ball of ice at us. I dodged it easily and shouldered my way past the smaller goblins lined up in front of him. I swung my sword at the shaman, but it blocked with its rod of ice. At least it couldn’t melt my blade like the acid guy, and I was able to shove the ice shaman further into the room.
As I anticipated, the acid shaman rushed to the ice asshole’s defense. He was closing in rapidly on my right, and when he was within striking distance, I leaped away from the ice shaman.
“Grrrragh!” the acid goblin bellowed as he shifted to avoid colliding with his friend.
“Oh, come on!” I laughed. “I bet he wanted a hug!”
The sound of clashing metal rang from the entrance where Mahini was battling the smaller goblins. I didn’t dare look back to check her body count in case the acid guy sprang at me. I kept all my weight on the balls of my feet and bounced my focus between the two shamans. They stood close enough together that any attack would get me too close to the acid goblin, but I had to keep them occupied to buy Mahini some time.
“Come and get me!” I yelled as I lunged for the acid shaman’s left side.
It shifted to meet me halfway, and I danced around its slimy green blade. The shaman let out another bellow of outrage and came barreling toward me. The ice goblin hurled a ball of ice in my direction at the same time, and I tried to line up the acid guy with the shot. The ball of ice hit the ground an instant before the acid shaman reached it.
“Could you be a worse shot, man?” I asked the ice shaman. He roared some response and hurled another ball at me. “Not at me! At him!”
I danced around the acid shaman as he came charging at me, and when he blundered past I brought my armored elbow down on his right shoulder. The goblin let out a shriek as the sword clattered to the ground. The slime on the blade made it slide easily across the room.
But I knew that the goblin didn’t need a weapon to spit acid at me. He roared as he turned and came in for another charge. The ice shaman readied another ice ball, and when he hurled it, I held my ground. At the very last second, I rolled out of the way.
The acid goblin let out a strangled cry just before the ice froze its chest. I sprang to my feet and plunged my sword through the statue, and I let out a whoop as the whole thing shattered.
The ice shaman had another ice ball ready, but Mahini swooped in and drove her sword through the back of its neck. Black ooze sprayed the ground between us as the ice shaman slumped to the ground.
Fucking finally.
“Good job,” I said as I smiled at the warrior woman.
“You… are amazing, Great One,” she whispered, and her mouth hung open as she stared at me.
“Team effort,” I snickered, “but, yeah. You are starting to understand my greatness.”
“Yes…” she whispered even softer, but I just played it cool, turned away from her, cleaned my sword on the ice goblin’s leather armor, and made my way over to the acid goblin’s blade which was no longer covered in green slime. It looked like a knight’s blade in terms of its shape, but it was crafted with a much shorter blade to suit the goblins, and when I picked it up, it was like holding a wisp of cloud.
I tapped the blade to check its stats and could hardly believe what I was seeing.
Durability - 73%
Weight - 0.2lbs
Quality - High
Magical Aspect - Feathering
Magical Ability - None
I didn’t need a definition to know what feathering meant. The sword was longer and bulkier than my dagger, and yet it weighed less. I swung the blade a few times and found that it was no different from swinging my arm. Then I laughed and held it on my finger like Jax always did to test its balance.
“Mahini, check this out,” I said and handed the sword out for her.
She sheathed her own sword before taking the light one, and her eyes sparkled like the stars when she held it. “It’s like it’s made of air.”
“Isn’t it great?” I grinned and took the blade from her again. “I wonder how the light weight affects the performance of the sword.”
I swung the feather blade around a few more times before I decided to exchange it with mine. The sheath for the new sword had been destroyed with the shattering of the acid goblin, so I just removed my other sword and placed it carefully on the ground. I might not need it for the rest of the mine-clearing mission, but I wanted to make sure it was in a safe place so I could return it to Jax.
While Mahini trotted back to the left room to grab the torch, I made a new save since I really didn’t want to have to go through all of that again. I led the way to the opposite tunnel once Mahini returned, and I prayed that the group we had fought had been hiding here. I knew we could handle another battle, but I was getting sick of the stench of goblin blood filling my nose.
My instinct was correct, and the only things of interest in the room were a set of crates and a small chest. There were some furs laid out for sleeping spots as with all the other rooms, but they were so filthy that nobody would want to use them for anything.
“There are coins here,” Mahini said from beside a set of crates and a small chest. “Some more copper ore, too.”
The chest looked like something straight out of an RPG. It was made of wood and was flat on all sides. Its corners were covered in plates of dark metal, and it had an intricate metal pattern on the lid that reminded me of a tic-tac-toe board. The handles were small loops and there was a metal loop where a lock could be placed to keep the chest secure. The whole thing was about a foot long and maybe eight or ten inches wide.
I didn’t know the worth of copper coins in this world, but from the bland look on Mahini’s face, it didn’t seem like the small chest would make us rich beyond belief.
“Leave it for now,” I said as I made my way back through the tunnel. “We’ll come back and grab it on the way out.”
“Yes, Great One.” Mahini picked up the torch once more, and the two of us headed back to the intersection.
The next room on the map was the big room deeper inside the mine, and my heart was pounding with the thought of the battle reaching its climax.
We stumbled across two pairs of goblins as we traveled through the twisting tunnel, but they didn’t stand much of a chance against two skilled sword fighters. Mahini lit the torches along the way, and after about five minutes of walking, we came to another intersection.
A pair of guard goblins roared when they saw us and came charging forward with their spears down like lances at a joust. I swatted my feather blade at the right spear and was delighted to find that the sword’s light weight didn’t impact its ability to parry. As the goblin staggered from the deflection, I charged in and plunged my curved dagger into its chest.
Mahini’s target laid dead at her feet, and the tanned warrior flicked her sword to clean off some of the black sludge like a total badass. She saw me looking at her and gave me a nod, but then I puckered my lips and blew her a kiss, and she fought against a smile.
The entrance to the larger room was blocked off by a crudely-made wooden door. There was no handle or hinges, and scrapes along the ground on the left showed that it was frequently moved out of the way.
“That’s where the cave-in is,” Mahini said and pointed her sword down the left path.
“I’m interested in what’s over here.” I pointed down the right path. “That tunnel isn’t on the map. Let’s go explore.”
Her gaze was puzzled, but she had no answer to give, so I made a new save point, and then I led the way down the right path. The walls here were even rougher than the rest of the mine and looked more like the tunnel had been dug out with claws rather than picks, which made me think this path had been made by the goblins and not the miners.
The tunnel ended in a small room filled with crates of food, animal skins, and some shiny rocks that were definitely not copper. A single goblin was rifling through the animal skins, and it turned around with a shriek when we walked in.
I cut the top half of it’s skull off with a flick of my feather sword, and its blood seeped into the skins it had been looking through.
“Just a storage room,” I said as I wiped my blade on one of the skins. “This poor guy didn’t even have a sword.”
We backtracked to the door and shoved it out of the way. The wood screamed as it scraped against the ground, and I expected goblins to pour out of the room to kill us. Nothing happened, and when I peeked beyond the door, I saw another waiting for us about five feet away.
“Do they really think a door is gonna keep us out?” I asked as we shoved our weight against the second door.
Like the outer door, there were no hinges or a track that the inner door rested on, so the whole thing fell into the room and landed with a crash. The growls and cackles of goblins filled the air as we stepped closer, but it was all drowned out by a deep bellow.
The largest goblin we’d seen so far was seated at the far end of the room on a throne draped in animal skins. A two-handed sword leaned against the left side of the throne, and the goblin sat in a lounged position. It clearly wasn’t concerned about the two armed humans that had just busted down its door.
There were ten other goblins in the room. Four of them were the massive berserker types, four others were the smaller goblins, and the last two were most likely shamans if the ice in their hands was anything to go by. Two of the smaller goblins had crossbows, and my mind flashed back to the fight with the kobolds from the day before.
Well… shit. This wasn’t going to be easy.
The lead goblin asked some kind of question, but I had no idea what it was saying. When we didn’t react, the leader waved its long-fingered hand, and the rest of the goblins in the room rushed forward.
I managed to duck a chunk of ice hurled at my head, but my dodge took me into the path of two of the berserker goblins. I swung my feather sword at the one on the left and leaped out of the way as the right berserker brought his blade down like a club.
A crossbow bolt glanced off of the armor protecting my shoulder and clattered to the ground behind me. One of the smaller goblins slipped into the space between the berserkers and jabbed his sword at me, but I knocked it aside with my new feather blade and then stabbed it in the throat with my dagger. Another chunk of ice smashed over my head as the berserker on the right bellowed into my ear.
Then they were all on top of me.
It was all overwhelming, and no amount of slashing with my sword and dagger seemed to do anything. I was sprayed with blood from one of the berserkers, but the bastard just kept coming. Clanging filled my ears as a blow landed on my helmet, and I blacked out.
Chime.
I didn’t bother going down the path leading to the storage room this time. I wasn’t at all concerned about the lone goblin waiting there, and even if it came up behind us and grabbed a spear from one of the guards, I figured it would be such an easy kill compared to the four brutes waiting beyond the two crude doors.
Mahini and I shoved the doors out of the way again, and when the lead goblin started speaking, I listened carefully. I still didn’t understand the language, but I thought I could pick out individual words this time.
“Grrragh apf eergl?” it asked.
“I wish we had a translator right about now,” I said as the leader waved his hand.
The second attempt was just as overwhelming as the first. Mahini tried to keep her position by my side, but with the two berserkers closing in on me and the ice shaman hurling its frozen balls, we were quickly separated and defeated once more.
Chime.
Three more attempts, and I was getting the hang of defending myself against the berserker brutes, but that’s all I was able to do. Whenever I tried to go on the offensive, the two of them would turn into a solid wall of muscle and spinning blades, and even if I severed an arm or a leg, they just kept coming. The smaller sword goblin and the crossbow goblin were always right where they needed to be, and although I managed to kill the sword goblin on the fifth attempt, the ice shaman retaliated and smashed me in the face with a ball of ice.
Chime.
When I respawned in front of the doors, I headed down the goblin-made path to the storage area. What if I didn’t kill the lone goblin? What if I got the beast to teach me its tongue? I doubted the leader would actually listen to a reasonable conversation, but I might be able to confuse the son of a bitch by speaking its own language at it.
“Guard the tunnel,” I said to Mahini as the lone storage goblin snarled at me.
She looked confused but did as I asked while I smacked the little goblin upside the head with the back of my armored hand. The strike dazed the creature, and I was able to knock it to the ground with ease. I placed my arm under its chin and placed my dagger against its stomach.
When someone wanted to learn a new language in my world, they could just take courses online or visit a country where the language was spoken. Those kinds of resources weren’t available in this world, and I had never tried to learn a language without having some kind of translator or dictionary to use.
This was going to be interesting.
“Dagger,” I growled at the goblin and pressed the tip of the blade just a little closer to the beast’s gut.
Its beady black eyes widened slightly and it snarled a string of goblin curses at me.
“You’re not listening to me,” I said to it. I pressed the dagger closer. “Dagger.”
“What are you doing, Great One?” Mahini asked from the doorway. “You should just kill it.”
“I want to learn how to speak goblin,” I answered as I withdrew the pressure of my dagger. I then brought it back in and tried again. “Dagger.”
“We don’t have time for this, Great One!” the warrior woman protested. “The room we seek is just beyond that door!”
“Humor me,” I shot back.
The goblin spat more curses at me and tried to buck me off.
“Dagger,” I growled again. “Kill.”
“Kill kill,” the goblin spat back. It then growled one of its own words. “Eeergl.”
It sounded like one of the words the goblin leader had said. The little goblin spat the word at me a few more times before it tried to claw at my face. It clearly knew our word for “kill”, and I could only assume its word “eergl” was related.
“That’s a step in the right direction,” I muttered. “Eergl means kill or death or something.”
“Kill, die, eergl!” the goblin roared.
“Very good!” I praised the goblin with a grin. “Now let’s try ‘dagger.’”
Each new word came a little bit faster than the last, but progress was still slower than a glacier moving across the continent. The goblin was not at all pleased at being held against its will and forced to teach us its language, but it also didn’t seem to be in any rush to die. And there was no doubt in my mind that the goblin knew its life was literally on the line. If it took too long to respond or was just being uncooperative, I pressed my dagger to its belly just a little more. Never enough to draw blood, but enough to make the thing spit more curses at me.
Mahini was quick to grow impatient as well. If it wasn’t the goblin snarling at me, it was her insisting that I was wasting time. There was no sun in the mines, and I hadn’t seen any sort of clock in this world that could tell time, so I had no idea how long I actually sat on the goblin as I slowly learned its language.
The first attempt must have lasted for several hours, and I had barely scratched the surface of the language. I had a vocabulary of about ten words, and I couldn’t use any of them in a complete sentence.
Good thing I had all the time in the world to master the art of goblinese.
Chime.
The second round lasted just as long as the first, and although I didn’t learn proper sentence structure, I could at least articulate that my dagger was going to spill goblin blood if the little bastard didn’t cooperate. I won myself another thirty words to my vocabulary bank.
Chime.
I quickly lost count of how many times I respawned and interrogated the storage goblin. There was no reason to half-ass my learning with my powers, and if it meant I could mock the lead goblin in his own language, that was all the incentive I needed.
“Human as fluent as goblin,” the storage goblin snarled after a thousand or so tries. “How learn?”
“Goblin teach human,” I replied with a grin. “Many times human return to learn.”
“Not!” it cried as it struggled beneath me. “Goblin not see human before! Human lies!”
“Human is God of Time,” I growled right back, and the goblin froze and stared at me wide-eyed. “Human unstoppable.”
The little goblin begged for its life, and I almost felt guilty as I jabbed my dagger up into its lungs. It hadn’t been the most patient teacher in the world, but the little guy had taught me so much.
Too bad he never even knew it.
“You can speak their language?” Mahini asked as we backtracked to the door.
“Human beautiful,” I said in the goblin-tongue with a grin. “Male say words female not know.”
Mahini just tilted her head and looked even more confused.
“I said you are beautiful,” I laughed in our shared language. Her cheeks burned a delightful shade of red. “I can flirt with you, and you’ll never know what I say.”
“Honestly…” she muttered. “You are so strange, Great One.”
“You like it,” I snickered.
“Yes…” she pursed her lips. “You have saved me dozens of times, you are clever, you are… nice. I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but I am thankful.”
I wanted to tell her that she’d tried to save my life hundreds of times as well, but she didn’t have those memories, and I didn’t feel like explaining everything to her right now.
I felt like killing the goblin king.
“Let’s do this,” I said as I nodded toward the throne room. “The king is sitting on a throne with two bigger ones, two shamans, and a few little guys. You take out the smaller ones, and protect my flanks, and I’ll take out the two big assholes and then the shamans. Then we’ll kill the king.”
“I will do as you say, Great One.” The black-haired warrior threw her weight against the door when we returned to the intersection, and I summoned my power to create a new save point. Then I joined Mahini at the door.
This time, I could understand what the lead goblin said to us. “Humans come to die?”
“Humans come to kill,” I replied and swung my blades around.
All of the goblins turned their beady little eyes on me, and the leader sat up rigid in his throne.
“How human speak?” it demanded. “Human too stupid!”
“Wow, sticks and stones much?” I asked in my own language before switching back to goblin-tongue. “Male smart. Learn goblin speak. Humans kill goblins.”
I gave Mahini a jerky nod and lunged to the right at the nearest berserker. My little speech was a perfect distraction, and before the brute could lift a finger to defend itself, I lopped its head off with my feather sword. Then I dodged a slash from the second berserker and tripped the sword goblin as it came in with its blade flashing.
The ice shaman hurled an ice ball at me as it had a dozen times before, and I easily leaned my head out of the way. The crossbow goblin fired at me as I expected, and I swatted the bolt out of the air like a fly with my dagger. The berserker tried the same overhead blow that had killed me once before, but I managed to sidestep and knock the sword goblin into its path.
The crunch of the smaller goblin’s bones sounded like a gunshot.
I danced around the remaining berserker and sliced the hands off the crossbow goblin with my feather sword. As it opened its mouth to wail in pain, I drove my dagger through the back of its throat, lifted its impaled body, and tossed it at the shaman. The feather-covered asshold stumbled under the weight of the body I’d tossed, and he crashed to the floor with a scream of surprise.
The berserker came up on my right, and I ducked down low enough to touch my forehead against the ground. His massive blade passed harmlessly over my body, and as it staggered off balance, I brought my dagger up under its ribcage. The blow cut his stomach open from nutsack to ribs, and he screamed something bloodcurdling into my face with his dying breath.
“Goblin breath bad,” I taunted in the goblin tongue. The beast wheezed again, and I yanked my dagger out of his falling body. “Goblin dead.”
I pounced on the shaman as soon as the berserker dropped to the ground, and with a flick of my wrist, its head rolled across the floor spilling black sludge everywhere. Then I raced to the opposite side of the room, leaped onto the other shaman, and drove both of my blades through the top of its head as I landed.
It took me a minute to free my blades again, but Mahini had already gotten rid of the rest of the foot-goblins. All that remained was the leader.
I was expecting the leader to be a spectacular fighter. Why else would it be the leader of all the goblins? I waited for it to bellow in rage, to leap from the throne, and come at me with some epic moves I had never seen before.
Instead, the lead goblin, the largest of the group, was fucking cowering away from me.
“Human strong!” it cried. “Smart and strong and new leader!”
“Are goblins supposed to be cowards?” I asked Mahini.
Her piercing blue eyes were filled with disgust as she looked down her nose at the creature backing away from us. “If they are the last standing, they usually run away.”
“Aww, man!” I groaned. “Here I am hoping for an epic boss battle, and all I get is this cowardly lion?”
Good thing my sword was super light. I didn’t want to waste any more calories dealing with this pathetic creature.
“Not kill!” the goblin begged as it dropped to its knees. “Goblin do as human say! Obedient to new leader!”
Its simpering made me pause. I didn’t trust the coward as far as I could throw it, and I knew I would never want such a cowardly creature by my side even if it was loyal to me.
“What is it saying?” Mahini asked me.
“It says it will obey me,” I murmured back. “But I know it’s lying to me.”
I hadn’t even bothered to raise the sword against this creature, and now I sheathed it entirely.
“On feet!” I snarled in the goblin’s language.
The creature stumbled to its feet, and I almost laughed as relief filled its big black eyes.
“Great One?” Mahini questioned.
“Goblin kill men,” I growled at the goblin. “Men of female. This male not kill goblin.”
I turned to Mahini who looked at me in utter confusion.
“Mahini gets to kill the goblin,” I said to her in our shared language.
The former goblin leader lifted its head toward the desert woman, and its pleading eyes shimmered with hope. It had no idea what I had just said to her.
But this bastard was about to pay at the hands of my woman.