Dissonance 9 – Creatures

The savage goblin was a hideous thing. His head was large, almost bulbous, and covered in various warts that gave him a sickly look. The yellow colour of his slit-pupiled eyes only added to that impression. Those eyes went wide as Eldred charged out of the woods.

Closing the distance in a blink, Eldred was upon the goblin before he could get out more than the beginnings of a squeal. His axe cut through one of the long ears of the creature, took a corner of the wide jaw, and then sunk into the small body of the savage being. Though the gut of the humanoid was bloated, the upper chest was oddly thin, the muscles wiry. Bones snapped and were cleaved.

The axe came to a stop halfway through the goblin’s chest. Life left the semi-sapient monster before the pain could register. Eldred wouldn’t pretend he cared much about the life of the goblin. An ugly thing that would kill when it had the chance, ending that existence weighed nothing on his conscience. That being said, the driven man had enough practical mercy in him to not want to see the goblin suffer. It was an unseemly sight and it would raise a ruckus.

A green corpse dropped to the floor. Crooked, yellow teeth formed a final expression of surprise.

Stepping into the cave was somewhat concerning. It was dark, exceedingly so. It reeked of piss and rotting meat. Goblins were incredibly resilient when it came to disease, so their living conditions could be less than stellar without drawbacks.

The cave complex appeared to be enormous. Eldred advanced carefully, visibility decreasing step by step. He let his nose guide him. The reek grew stronger in one direction. That was the path he avoided. If the goblins actually lived in their own filth, he would find that out last.

“Disgusting,” he could practically hear Nyx mutter. His banshee didn’t actually manifest, not even as a voice. For the moment, they had the element of surprise.

Though the goblins seemed to have no concept of proper ventilation, the natural layout of the cave provided some mercies. Moonlight fell through a hole in the ceiling, bringing with it the scent of the surrounding forest. What could have been a gorgeous sight was marred by the totems made of human and animal bones scattered around the place. The most offensive part of the decor was a ring of blood smeared on the surface of a crystal situated right beneath the moonlight pillar. What should have sparkled in the silver was instead brown and red, caked with layers of viscera and ichor.

A shaman was in the process of adding a fresh layer at that moment, dashing between a pile of organs and the stone. Three other goblins were tearing the flesh off the bones of the deer the organs had been removed from. They ate the chunks with fur and all, only stopping when they realized the foreign presence in the room.

Eldred’s superhuman speed outclassed the goblins by too much. The first of the trio was beheaded before they could do more than jump to their feet. The second pulled a knife, clearly stolen judging by the quality of the metal, from his loincloth. Confident in his superior physical abilities, Eldred lunged, seizing the goblin’s wrist with his offhand. Immediately, he went into a spin, tossing one goblin into another.

The shaman, a female goblin as Eldred only now realized, began to chant. The blood and viscera on her hands began to glow. Veins in the eyes of the two surviving goblins popped, adding red marbling to the sickly yellow of their irises.

Nyx manifested by Eldred’s side. A half-twirling swing of her arm concentrated moisture in the air into a sphere the size of a golf ball, which was promptly launched at the shaman. It had more force to it than its size would imply, the surface of the water hardened by magic and speed. Slamming into the female goblin’s face, it broke her already crooked nose and made her stumble back.

Despite the ice in his veins, Eldred moved swiftly. Again, his superior speed allowed him a quick and easy kill. His axe split the skull of one goblin. The other screamed in horror. The cave answered with a multitude of their own screeches.

‘Here they come,’ Eldred thought as he dispatched the third of the previously feasting goblins.

The green menace came pouring out of adjacent arms of the cave. They were all screams and charges but universally stopped more than three metres away from Eldred. “Bravado and infectious diseases,” Nyx remarked, disdain and sadness mixing in her voice. “A craven species.”

The female shaman had somewhat recovered by now. Her eyes drifted over her amassing pool of allies. There were almost two dozen goblins now forming a wall of bodies in front of Eldred, armed with anything from sharpened sticks to swords simply too large for them.

Nyx’s analysis held true. Despite their number, they were simply too cowardly to attack. They knew that whoever went first would die on Eldred’s axe. The weapon shone red, covered in the blood of their kin. Then, it burned.

Eldred hadn’t just stood there, letting his enemies gather up. He had focused his Core into a purpose. It had taken him an uncomfortably long time, but he finally managed it.

Seeing the axe’s head ignite had the goblins collectively back away. They were entirely uncertain on what this actually meant and, to be fair to them, Eldred was right there with them. He hadn’t tested this out before.

‘No time like the present!’ he thought and charged in. The sudden assault had the green tide scatter before him like a small pond that he had dropped a large stone into. Fire in his veins, Eldred felt himself move even faster. Flame on his blade, the axe smoothly bisected a goblin, splitting him (or her, Eldred could barely tell) from shoulder to waist.

The axe left a burning trail in the air. Uncertain greenskins leapt out of the trajectory of the swing. One of the monsters attempted to stab Eldred’s back. Another water bolt threw it back. Without drawing more from him, Nyx lacked the strength to do more than support and intimidate. That was plenty.

Eldred kept his breathing even, using the rhythm of his lungs as the frequency of his Ki-flow. The additional strain he put on himself manifested in a feeling very much alike to sore muscles. He could not maintain this elevated state forever.

Much like his endurance, so too was the number of enemies limited. Lacking any kind of central cohesion, they surrounded him as a loose pack. Each was out for their own survival, only taking cheap shots. That made it supremely easy to pick them off one by one.

The shaman tried to bark an order. “No! Stupid! Stupid! Surround! Stab! Stab!” she barked in an adaptation of the Iridescian language. It seemed the portal had been open long enough that the language of the City of the Interstice had seeped outwards.

When the female goblin began to cast again, Nyx hit her with another water bolt. Whatever the local variant of magic really was, it clearly had too much of a wind-up time to compete with the rapid deployment of Cultivated Ki. The second concussion hit the shaman even worse than that first. She collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Eldred had thinned the herd by more than half by now. The remaining goblins went from fight to flight, seeing another one of their number effortlessly carved open. Eldred ended that greenskin’s life with a heel to the throat. “Will we give chase?” Nyx asked.

“Very little point,” Eldred responded. The goblins were fleeing in different directions. He could catch up to one, but the others would be able to hide and the moment they were out in the forest, they were out of his reach anyhow.

He let the flames on his weapon go out. He inspected the steel as he walked. It was hot to the touch, but not scalding. The flames had consumed all of the gore on the weapon, leaving the metal blackened with ash. If he wanted to keep the weapon, he would need to clean and sharpen it after the mission. Cutting through all that flesh and bone was starting to dull the edge.

“Do you like it?” Nyx spoke to his thoughts.

“Not sure,” he responded truthfully. “It did the job, but I have to commit to every attack and the lack of stabbing or backswings really limits my options.”

“You could add spikes to the tip and side?” Nyx suggested.

“Mhm…” Eldred hummed, uncertain. He stopped next to the downed shaman. She was starting to recover, a process hastened by adrenaline when he put the axe blade to her throat. All wrinkles and crooked teeth, the only reasons why Eldred could identify her as a female were her voice and the difference in her build. The sexual dimorphism in savage goblins was either muted by biology or their poor nutrition. All the same, the presence of tiny tits and the flare of her hips were noted, little as that did to salvage her looks in the driven man’s eyes.

“What want?!” the shaman screeched. “Body? Riches? Knowledge? Will give everything!”

“You stole alchemical supplies, where are they?” Eldred asked, to the repeated, confused blinking of the shaman.

“She is of lesser intellect,” Nyx commented.

“You really don’t like goblins, do you?” Eldred remarked with some amusement.

His banshee managed to sound cute even when she sneered with disgust. “What is there to like in this ugly entity?”

“Fair enough,” Eldred stated, then repeated his question very slowly. “Alchemical – supplies – where?”

“You Ugly!” the shaman declared. Looming over his shoulder, Nyx stared at the shaman with glowing, icy blue eyes. “Ugly gob! Ugo! Ugo has! You find Ugly!” The shaman continued, clearly trying to appease the ghost lady. She failed.

“Where is Ugo?” Eldred asked.

The shaman pointed towards one of the tunnels. “Toothed wheels! There Ugo!”

‘I’m sure that will make sense once I get there,’ the driven man thought, then looked back at the shaman. ‘Should I spare her? She has been useful…’ His eyes drifted to the totems made of bones and the blood-smeared rock. ‘Nah.’

Eldred pulled the knife from its sheathe on his waist, then plunged it into the shaman’s heart. There was a brief look of betrayal on her face, as if she had been entitled to mercy for being moderately useful. She dropped to the ground. Eldred cleaned his knife as best he could on the rags she wore.

“Let’s find this ‘Ugo’ then.” Eldred backed away from the corpses and began his walk.

Now that he was no longer trying to be even slightly stealthy, he conjured a flame. It was weaker than a proper torch, really more of a candle. It was enough, though, and Eldred could keep it up without thinking too much about it.

The limits of his experience were shown when an unusually brave goblin came flying out of the darkness. Surprise disrupted the flow of Ki. The cave went dark. Eldred took a step aside. He felt the airflow of the goblin sailing past him. Swinging his leg, he connected with the… leg? of the humanoid monster.

He would have followed that up with a strike, but he had no idea where anything was. Standing still, he listened carefully and attempted to ignite a new flame. The first attempt created a spark, living long enough that he managed to see the goblin again, stalking slowly around him, a stone dagger in his hand. The second attempt showed him that the goblin was again outside his field of view.

Nyx hissed angrily. Eldred whirled around. The third spark showed him his banshee trying and failing to block the goblin from advancing. The stone weapon was thrust forward, aiming for Eldred’s gonads.

The impact hurt. Luckily, the double layer of suit and undergarments took most of the punch out of it and the reinforced cloth didn’t even fray. Vengeful, Eldred pulled out his knife again and stabbed it into the goblin’s neck. The creature gargled, drowning in his own blood until Eldred decided to slit his throat.

“Thank Fate for Iridescia’s technology,” Eldred said and rolled his shoulders. He wasn’t blind to the fact that he had steel and fibre as much to thank for his supremacy over the goblins as he did his Core.

The candle flame was soon reborn and their journey into the tunnel continued. A peculiar, almost rhythmic sound caught Eldred’s attention. He moved in its direction, recognising it as something he had heard in medieval video games often enough. “So these are our ‘toothed wheels’,” he remarked, standing before a wooden gear.

It was the first sign of a larger contraption, utilising a small underground stream that emerged from the cave wall to fill a rudimentary waterwheel which, in turn, powered the contraption. The water was directed towards a basin, while the force was used to grind bones into powder. What they needed bonemeal for, Eldred had no idea.

“This is well constructed,” Nyx remarked, inspecting a leaking segment of the waterwheel. “Despite the poor materials.”

They moved past the waterwheel and into a small chamber filled to the brim with knickknacks. It had that typical goblin chaos to it all, but it was hygienic. “Storage or research lab?” Eldred asked, carefully moving his hand around. He was not reckless enough to approach dry wood with a flame hovering in his hand. ‘Though, could I prevent it from spreading? A question for later.’

The Iridescian crate stood out in the middle of all the other plunder. It was a reflective box made out of high-grade plastic, bright green and cheap to produce. The goblins hadn’t been kind to it, covering it in scratch marks. The seal on the lid, a bag of soil with three shovels overlapping, marked it as definitively having been sold by their employer.

It was only about as large as two shoeboxes. Lifting the lid, Eldred checked the contents. Several of the glass bottles were missing, but more than half were still there. Out of interest, he checked the label. “Organic spell component slurry,” he read the summary. The ingredient list specified the various fantastical beasts that had been blended to achieve the brown fluid. Apparently, the meat industry wasn’t the only thing that was creative in how to deal with waste. “I suppose the locals use blood magic then?”

Shrugging, Eldred put the lid back on. He had decimated the local goblin tribe and located the supplies. That was all his employer had asked for. Since it was such a small load, he decided to take it back with him. It would slow his journey back, but he would rather be known for reliability than not. Plus, since he had left some goblins alive, one of them might have the idea to move the crate in his absence.

Before he absconded with his charge, he decided to ferret around a bit. Perhaps the loot goblins had found something else that was interesting?

The immediate answer to that was no. The second answer to that was still no. For the locals, the tools and utensils that goblins had plundered over time may have been worth something but for Eldred, he could only see things that he could get for one Irid at a supermarket, in a higher quality as well.

On a random whim, Eldred moved aside a barrel lid. What he did not expect to find behind it was an alcove. What he especially did not expect to find behind it was a treasure. A pair of yellow eyes looked up at him, set into a cute, round face and surrounded by a messy cascade of black, blue-streaked hair. A pair of huge, pointy ears extended to both sides. The length of the strands was woven into a braid that disappeared behind her prestigious hips.

She had smooth, green skin, small breasts but a bottom that could have birthed a small army, with nothing but rags to cover her and a bronze gear hanging from her neck. She was less a pear and more a light bulb, at least from Eldred’s perspective. Admittedly, that was skewed. She was pulled together in the alcove, one of her legs on the ground, the other pulled in defensively. Her hands were raised, ready to deal with something being thrown at her. Simultaneously, her face expressed a resigned nervousness. Eldred recognised it as the look of someone who had just accepted that they would get bullied.

Eldred had no intention to do so. In fact, his base male instinct kicked in the second he crossed her gaze. The bags under her eyes told a story. The quiver of her lips wrote his thoughts.

“I’ll protect you,” he promised and extended a hand.