I drifted in the nothingness of unconsciousness and even in that state between being and not being I still could feel the pain coming from my head. I wondered what the hell hit me. Did a goblin sneak up behind me when I was picking up a rock and hit me with their whole body? Did something else fall from the sky like I did? Or maybe that that four-foot-in-heels goddess already decided it was my time to go.
The nothingness I was in got disturbed when Alea interrupted my unscheduled nap.
【YOU ARE RECKLESS KAI】
"You don't have to tell me that. That's one of my best features, beside my smile of course."
【YOUR TEETH ARE SLIGHTLY CROOKED KAI】
【YOUR SMILE IS, AT BEST】
【A V E R A G E】
"If you keep dragging me down, I'll be hit with emotional damage and lose that last point of health."
【I AM NOT HERE TO DO THAT】
【I AM HERE TO CONTINUE YOUR INTRODUCTION】
【DO YOU KNOW WHY YOU HAVE BEEN HIT?】
"I don't know, a green twat snuck up behind me or something? You tell me, I went to sleep pretty quickly."
【YOU HAVE DONE THAT YOURSELF KAI】
"What? What do you mean? I reached for the stone and broke my back or something?"
【NO KAI, YOU HAVE LOST YOUR GAMBLE】
【YOU DID NOT LET ME FINISH EXPLAINING YOUR CLASS BACK THEN】
【DO YOU WISH ME TO EXPLAIN HOW YOUR CLASS WORKS?】
"I mean, I don't have anything better to do right now."
【YOUR CLASS DOES NOT BET WITHOUT ASSURANCE】
【WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE OFFERED IN EXCHANGE FOR A LOSING BET?】
【YOUR HEALTH KAI】
【YOU ARE BETTING AGAINST YOUR OWN HEALTH】
I listened to what Alea was describing to me and it made perfect sense. If I wanted to gamble, I always had to pay for it in some way. For a simple slot pull, I had to put a couple of bucks in the machine. Here I had to pay with my own blood.
"Well damn, you should have told me that before you allowed me to fight these goblins."
【IF YOU DID NOT SKIP THE INTRODUCTION YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT IT】
"If I didn't skip the introduction this little shit might have killed me with his spear."
【HE WOULD NOT】
【WHEN WE ARE TALKING, THE PASSAGE OF TIME IS SLOWED】
"Okay, I guess. That's another thing you should have told me before. Is there anything else I should know, that you 'accidentally' forgot to tell me about?"
【I DO NOT HAVE ACCIDENTS KAI】
【THERE IS HOWEVER SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT】
【WHEN YOU REACH LEVEL TWO, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO PICK A PASSIVE SKILL - Glass Jaw, Iron Gut】
【WITH YOUR TEMPERAMENT, I SUGGEST YOU PICK IT】
"Okay, I'll see what it does when I get there. Right now I believe we have a more pressing issue on our hands, my dear."
【YES WE DO】
【YOU ARE ON THE VERGE OF DEATH】
"Yeah, I've gathered. So what do we do about that? Can you patch me up? Give me a false sense of hope or something? Shit, I'll take a Band-Aid at this point."
【I CANNOT】
【I AM NOT A NURSE】
"Fantastic. Truly. So what exactly can you do for me here, Alea? Maybe teleport me again or something."
【YOU WERE NOT TELEPORTED HERE, YOU WERE RESURRECTED AND PUT IN THE SAME BODY TO SAVE ON RESOURCES】
【RIGHT NOW I CAN TELL YOU WHAT YOUR OPTIONS ARE】
【OPTION ONE - FIND AND CONSUME A HEALTH POTION】
【OPTION TWO - EAT SOMETHING】
【OPTION THREE - FIND A HEALER】
"That's good to know. So not only are you useless, you're also stingy. And let me get this straight - you want me to find a potion. I have no clue what that could even look like. Are we talking about a standard red potion with a massive plus sign on the bottle, or do they have something else here?"
【IT'S MAROON】
"What the fuck even is 'maroon'?"
【YOU ARE NOT COLOR BLIND, I HAVE CHECKED THAT, YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT MAROON LOOKS LIKE】
"Forget about it. What about eating? What am I even supposed to eat here? Dirt mixed with crunchy rocks sprinkled on top? As far as I remember, I'm in the middle of the forest. Do you want me to hunt something or should I eat a goblin?"
【YOU ARE NO LONGER IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST】
"Wait, what do you mean? Then where am I?"
【YOU ARE CURRENTLY BEING TRANSPORTED BY THE GOBLINS】
【YOU ARE THEIR GAME】
【THEY HAVE HUNTED YOU AND THE MOST LIKELY OUTCOME IS THAT YOU WILL BE EATEN】
"No I'm fucking not! I've been a source of nourishment for millennia, I'm not going to be food again!"
I looked around the void. I looked hard and for a long time, but this time the void did not want to stare back at me. I put all my strength into moving my right arm. At first a finger, then all five of them and finally a hand. I stretched my fingers and curled them back into a fist again and again and the forearm finally responded with the whole arm following soon after. Then I did the same with my left arm and when I regained control I started pounding on my legs just to get the slightest feeling of them. It worked and a few moments later I was thrashing around the void like an overgrown toddler.
I had to wake up and I had to do it in any way possible and it seemed to be working.
【YOU ARE DOING GOOD KAI】
The message of encouragement from Alea came with a little two part animation of clapping hands. I actually felt a bit stronger after that. I started thrashing even more eagerly, twisting in ways I had only ever seen in movies my mother told me not to watch. Little by little the void started looking less like a void and more like a dark curtain that veiled the real world.
【WAKE UP KAI】
I felt the air in my nose once again. It wasn't a pleasant smell at all, to be frank. I slowly opened one eye to see what was going on and where I was being taken. The only thing I saw was a pair of green cheeks bigger than my whole head. The thighs above them were like two scarred tree trunks, each one wider than my whole chest. Whatever this thing was, it wasn't the same breed as the ones that ambushed me - this motherfucker was built to fight bears, bear naked. This also meant that not only was I being transported upside down, my face was placed perfectly to experience the freshness of the goblins' butt and the unobstructed visual of his legs.
Where did this one even come from? I only remember being surrounded by the small kind of goblin. Did they have more groups around? I guess that was it, so even if I had managed to get out of their ambush, more would be waiting for me down the forest path.
I moved my head slightly to the side when the thing carrying me adjusted the net I was in. The landscape was much different to what I had seen previously. The dense forest gave way to a rocky expanse with very sparse vegetation that seemed to stretch for hundreds of miles. A few bushes here and there with a single, leafless tree, swinging softly in the wind diversified the grayish-brown mass I kept seeing upside down.
After hanging for God knows how long I heard a quick, repetitive sound, that seemed to me like many relatively small legs skittering and clicking along the ground. As the sound grew closer, I kept hearing a high-pitched voice rhythmically shouting things I couldn't understand.
Finally the thing that was the source of these sounds came into my vision. It was a goddamn goblin riding on what looked like an overgrown beetle with too many legs. The chitin body gleamed in the sun and made the beetle-thing look like it had an iridescent shimmer. Its legs tapped on the ground, one after another without a hint of a pause. The rider on top looked different to the other goblins I saw that day. He looked much more elegant, covered in golden jewelry of all kinds. From small earrings to large piercings on his face. His clothing appeared to be of higher quality, too. It was vibrant and colorful and the golden ornaments glinted as he moved.
They sure love their gold. That fucker looked important. He was probably the one leading the group. I hoped I would be able to repay him for this 'adventure' he sent me on.
As the goblin rider passed me, I moved my head to the other side. Even though the mega goblin carrying me seemed to be an enjoyer of naturalism, he still had a belt around his waist. I saw a large sword attached to it and a smaller bag closer to me. The bag was so full of stuff that it couldn't close properly, so I could quite easily see into what it was hiding. I saw small knives, herbs and some packages. Most importantly, I saw a bottle. It seemed to be red or, as Alea would say, maroon.
I secretly scanned who was following us. A couple of goblins, all walking in pairs. They seemed much more preoccupied with inspecting everything that got into their hands during the hunt.
I fixed my gaze on the bag and its contents. I slowly shifted my right arm to be positioned more towards where my target was. My hand very methodically moved towards the bottle as it slipped through the barely big enough netting. With every move of the large goblin, the bag jostled, slightly rearranging its contents.
I reached the bag with my hand and fiddled with the top of it to get a clean grab of the bottle. With my pinky finger I gently nudged it, so I could grab the neck with two fingers. I got it in my grasp, tightened my hold and lifted. Or at least I tried, because that shit was way too heavy to lift with just two fingers. Why did I even think that I would be able to do it if I could barely lift anything in my previous life.
I stretched my hand even more, but then the goblin must have felt me move as he shook the net, adjusting it for himself. The bag was further away, and so was the potion. I was so close and now I had to start over. However, I noticed that the road we were walking on got pretty rough and my goblin carrier started swaying much more when he moved. My net was moving from left to right with each move.
I started swaying with him, slowly but surely with each swing I was getting closer to the bag and the bottle itself. I kept reaching for the potion and I almost felt it on my fingertips. Just two more swings. I managed to nudge the bottle once more, closer towards me. One more swing. I reached out into the bag and grasped the bottle with my whole hand. I lifted it quickly out of the bag, so that my swing back wouldn't hit it.
I had the bottle. The maroon drink that could hopefully get me back to strength. While still upside down, I slowly opened the potion so as not to make a sound. I placed it close to my mouth and hoped for the best. I tilted it and not a single drop landed anywhere but my mouth. The taste was awful, like the worst kind of medicine that they would give you as a kid. It didn't even feel like a liquid, more like a chalky formula with bits and pieces of herbs of all kinds. I hoped that I would never have to drink this shit again.
At least it worked better than it tasted. Almost immediately I felt a warm feeling rush through my body. Every pain that I felt faded quickly, even an itch that I had disappeared when the warmth reached it. A small red bar once again appeared in the corner of my eye. Perfect 10/10 and felt like it.
As I delighted in the feeling of a health potion, the surroundings quickly changed from a rocky outside to an even more rocky inside. We entered a cave that certainly wasn't natural as the passage was perfectly carved into the stone. We descended step after step and the passage opened, filling with scarce, yellow light.
Everywhere I could look was a vastness I had never seen in my life. A whole city stood in the carved-out remains of the mountain. Hundreds of buildings of various sizes and colors grew. As we were descending the stairs I felt small, truly small.
The deeper we went, the louder the sounds of this place became. I heard goblins shout about something that only they knew about, I heard what sounded like heavy machinery working even deeper with echoes of stone being ground. I saw groups of other goblins pass us on the stairs going out with their own business.
I felt the heartbeat of this place.
How will I even escape from here?