Those green bastards threw me into a goddamn prison. At least they didn't decide on eating me straight from the hunt. Maybe I was too skinny for them and they wanted me to put some weight on first. If that's the case they could at least leave me something to eat.
The cell itself wasn't that bad, to be fair. I even had a cellmate, although he was the silent kind. He lay in the corner in a fetal position and did not move a single muscle. That was actually because he did not have any muscles, only bones at this point and not all of them by the looks of it. Some must have been taken by rats or whatever the hell is the equivalent in this world.
As for furniture, I had a bed and a bucket. The bucket was essential as this was the only place where I could do the you-know-what. Luckily I didn't really feel like it as the only thing in my stomach was that potion and that thing hopefully got fully absorbed.
Unluckily, there was absolutely no light in the general vicinity of the cell. At least I understood why those goblins wore their glasses. They live in almost absolute darkness so the sun must be really bad for their eyes. That was something to remember in case I ever met another goblin in the wild.
That is, if I ever got to be outside again. At that moment it didn't really look very likely.
I paced around my cell slowly as I got more and more used to seeing in the dark. The only sounds were the echo of my footsteps and an occasional mumble from a goblin passing by the prison. I thought about possible routes out, but right now I couldn't even get out of this simple cell. There were no windows as this place was excavated from a mountain wall. The only way outside was through the cell doors and they were closed for good. I tried them, trust me.
As I was on my sixtieth lap of grand prix of the cell, I heard a bunch of keys clunking together and then one of them entered a lock of the doors to the prison. Two clicks later and the doors swung open. Multiple quick footsteps sounded and grew closer with each passing second. Someone was coming and doing it rather fast.
"Hey Alea, you there?"
I asked, but my question remained ignored.
"C'mon Alea, don't leave me on read like that."
Still, the only sound I could hear were the pairs of boots coming closer and closer.
"Well fuck you too then."
She'd been a chatty bitch right up until I needed her quiet, and now that I had questions she'd gone silent. Funny timing
The marching stopped. No one was in front of my cell door but I heard a neighboring one being opened and something, or rather someone being thrown to the ground. As soon as the body hit the floor, the doors slammed and the marching resumed. This time however there was an accompanying sound of someone screaming something and hitting the closed metal doors.
Their voice sounded different than what I heard so far. It seemed too low to be coming from a goblin of a standard size. I wondered if one of the big ones got themselves into some trouble and ended up here. I moved closer to the wall and listened closely.
The screaming stopped as soon as the prison doors were closed. The being on the other end of the wall moved for a bit and seemed to lie on the hard bed near the wall. By the sound that the bed made I could tell that whoever was on the other side certainly wasn't the size of the bare-ass goblin that carried me here. It was a relief but I still didn't know who got thrown here with me.
I moved from the wall to sit on my bed to think a bit, but as soon as I plopped down, the voice from the other cell spoke again. Some gibberish and guttural sounds that sounded exactly like the goblins speak.
"Well, I don't know what you're trying to say, but good for you or I'm sorry that happened, or whatever."
Goddammit Alea, you could have at least implanted some basic language knowledge into me or something.
"Oh, ya speak common?"
"The wha- I mean, yeah, I do."
Well fuck me, finally someone I could speak to in this world. And they sounded pretty human, or at least the size of a human. Their voice, although low, already told me that I was talking to a 'she'.
"What ya got in here for mate? Stole some and got caught with the five fingers discount?"
"Nah, these little green shits ambushed me in the forest, knocked me out and brought me here."
"Well ain't ya one unlucky bastard."
"Don't even tell me."
Not even one full day on this planet and people already could tell luck was not on my side. I swore that every skill point I would get, I would invest right into luck if that was possible. No health, no stamina or whatever else there was, luck and nothing else.
"How about you? You stole an apple from a kid or something?"
"A what? Never mind. No, I mean, not exactly. I didn't steal anything from a kid, I have some honor, I'll have ya know. I stole some chips and tried to cash them in. Some clerk twat saw through me and I got got."
"Chips? What kind of chips? Wouldn't it be wiser to go for the gold or something?"
"Why d'ya think I went for the chips and not the till, mate? Gold's gold. Everyone's got gold. These green bastards practically shit it. Chips mean somethin'. Ya can cash them in the casino."
Had my ears been blessed? Had I really heard the most beautiful word the human language ever conceived? A casino. Here, in this city full of green little monsters. From that moment on I knew that I had made the right choice going to this world. A single happy shiver ran through my body. I knew that I had to get there as soon as I could.
"Ya there mate? Ya fainted or sum?"
"Nah, I'm good, I'm good. Tell me something, do you know anything about this place?"
"This? It's a shithole is all I can tell ya. Some prison, but I haven't been here yet."
"And the city? I don't even really know where I am."
"Well damn mate, were ya born yesterday or sum? This is Grakhtul, the capital of the Western Goblin Communion. They must have hit ya real good if ya couldn't remember that."
Yeah, they hit me really good, with a 3X multiplier.
"I guess, I was unconscious for most of the road and when I woke up I was a bit preoccupied with stealing a potion from a goblin that was carrying me, you know."
"Well damn, so ya do have some sticky fingers on ya hand. Maybe I'll have some use for ya in the future."
"Yeah, but maybe first we should, you know, get out of here."
"Chill mate, you'll be here for like three days, they'll starve ya a bit and let ya go on your merry own way."
"Really, they won't eat us or something?"
"What kind of fucked up stories were ya mamma telling you to bed as a kid mate? No they won't eat us. They don't eat humans or other thinking folks. If they even thought about starting that the Lodge would wipe them off the map mate."
Wait a goddamn minute, Alea told me I'd be eaten. Sakhia just told me that was never going to happen. One of them was wrong, and only one of them had been in my head since I died. I waited for her to say something. She didn't.
"Mate, I haven't even asked your name yet. So what did your parents curse you with?"
"Kai. My name's Kai. How about you? They named you after a crime or something?"
"Ain't ya a snarky little man. I'm Sakhia, good to meet you mate."
As our conversation was getting good, I heard the marching sound coming from outside the prison again. We stopped talking to listen more closely. Again, they opened the door and rhythmically moved closer and closer through the hallway.
"Ya think they got another one?"
"Shh, let me listen."
The goblin boots were striking the ground with bigger force than before. There were either more of them or they were heavier. They grew closer and closer and I could hear some goblin talk.
"What are they saying?"
"Some about who will talk I think."
Suddenly, right in front of my cell a group of a dozen goblins of various sizes stood firmly. There was a big one among them, but this one seemed to at least have some fashion sense and he wore some pants. Among them I also saw the fancy one. The one that rode on that beetle-like bug. He seemed a bit aggravated and kept barking what sounded like short orders. He pointed at another smaller goblin and then at me. The goblin indicated spoke up.
"You, humie, you step."
I looked at him like you would look at a child that's learning his first words - with contempt that's reserved for creatures below you. He told me to step and since I was by the doors, I assumed that he meant to say step away. So I moved two steps and yet another goblin started fiddling with his keys. He found the one he was looking for and opened the door to my cell. The commander-in-green barked an order again.
The massive goblin leaned over the entrance as he stepped into my cell. One step and he was right in front of me.
"Well, aren't you a big boy?"
He grabbed me with his hand and threw me over his shoulder. I felt like a princess in distress being rescued by a knight in shining armor. As he was stepping out of the cell, he positioned himself in a way that would ensure I would hit my head on the wall. That fucker wasn't as stupid as he looked.
As we marched out, I heard Sakhia laugh at my misfortune and say:
"See ya 'round man. Ya didn't kill any of 'em so they probably are escorting you out of the city."
Well, shit.
As we stepped out of the prison I could see the faint lights of the city once again. Most of it was still shrouded in the dark, but an occasional flicker of a light source illuminated the stone. In the distance I could see the entrance that we took earlier today, as a small amount of natural light was coming through, highlighting the broad stairway into the city itself. It looked like we were going the other way.
The prison itself was more on the edge of the city. The further into the city center that green fellow carried me, the more I could smell what this place was like. It wasn't like the cities I was used to, there was no gasoline or smog filling my lungs up, but the smell still wasn't that pleasant. I could smell meat being cooked and all kinds of food being prepared. The sweet smell of fruits seemed to be coming from some shops set up along the way. There was also the sulfurous smell coming from the ravines in the sides of the roads.
On the side of each building, a small amber lantern was firmly attached and was dimly illuminating the surroundings. Barely enough for a human to see, but goblins seemed to thrive in this darkness. As some were passing us by, I could take a look at them, and this time none wore those black glasses. I could see their eyes were as pale as a goth chick's makeup. Pure white with a pupil that took most of the space of the eye. I could feel a shiver every time I met the gaze of one of them.
And as we moved through the city, more and more of those little green bastards came out. Apparently word travels fast in a place built out of one mountain, and word that a humie was being walked through the city on the shoulder of one of the big lads had apparently traveled faster than we were walking. They came out to see. Little ones first, darting from one side of the road to the other, pointing their grubby fingers and saying things I couldn't understand but could absolutely feel the tone of.
The bigger ones soon came out too. They were much more quiet than the kids, whispering among themselves. I wondered what they were saying to each other. Were they wondering how I got myself into a situation like that? Were they admiring how handsome I looked on the shoulder of a big green bastard? It didn't really matter, what mattered right now was for me to find the place Sakhia told me about. The casino.
I tried to visualize how a goblin could set up a casino. Was it as flashy as the ones in Vegas? Or was it more of a shady-place-you-should-avoid type of place. So I looked around. I saw shops filled with various items, from simple clothing to metallurgy, finishing on gold made into all the stuff you could imagine - kitchen utensils, furniture, standard jewelry and full-on armor with precious stones lining the seams.
No wonder Sakhia didn't hit one of those stores, everything here's made out of gold. Materialistic bastards.
I kept looking and looking but I saw nothing other than shops and houses. The casino seemed to be hiding from me and I didn't like it. I would find it, whether it wanted to or not. A couple of steps later I saw a rich looking goblin with what looked like a pair of goblin escorts. He was spinning something in his fingers and I took a closer look. It was a chip. Almost the same as the ones we had on earth. Beautifully round, but with some gold finish on the edge.
I kept looking around like a degenerate searching for his fix. I lifted my head up and saw more colorful lights a couple of blocks down. I instinctively knew what they were there for and what they were attached to. The casino must have been this way. I didn't know where that big buddy was taking me, but I had started preparing a mental map of the surroundings. If I managed to get out of wherever they were taking me, I'd be back here and then go straight to the holy land.
As we moved even further, the city itself seemed to be thinning out. As we moved, more and more buildings seemed to fulfill a different role. They looked sturdier and much less colorful.
The big one's pace changed too. He'd been ambling through the city like he was parading me for others to see and laugh, but now he straightened up, and his steps got even and heavy. The other ones that were following assumed a much more organized position.
We moved up a set of stairs and came to a stop. I lifted myself a bit on his shoulder and saw two giant pillars with enormous doors between them. Of course they were gold-banded, I couldn't expect anything else from those goblins. Two of the big lads stood guard, one on each side, the most decorated goblins I'd seen yet, draped in enough jewelry to drown a man and golden armor that reflected the soft amber light from the lanterns scattered around.
The big goblin that was carrying me shook a bit to adjust my position as we moved once again. The doors were opened and we moved inside. The place smelled heavy of incense and looked like a gold-digger's heaven. Almost everything was made out of pure marble, with soft golden finishes and emeralds larger than me on displays. I don't know to whom these twats brought me, but they must have been the big deal kind of person. We marched and the incense kept irritating my throat. Something sickly sweet was being hidden by it.