Chapter 12

  A Number Of Vicious Scars

  The crowd had gone silent at that statement. One of the elderly goblins stepped forward, her voice a harsh rasp, and said, “We were sent out to look for a place to build a new one. Even without bringin’ in folk what ain’t goblin-kin, I ain’t sure how our return will be perceived by the Burrow Lord.”

  Nik was stunned. Burrow Lord? I’ve lived my life where the only contact I’ve had with others has been with goblins, and I’ve never heard of a lord. He closed his mouth, which he’d apparently let drop open for a couple of heartbeats, and said, “What other options do you have, for yourselves or your wounded? As for us, we’ve been through a lot at the hands of adventurers, but the burrows have always been places of safety. I wish to ask your lord how we might find the same thing. I accept whatever risks that involves.”

  The other elders gathered close to the one who’d spoken as they deliberated their response. When they finally separated, the first goblin raised her voice again and said, “I, Elder Pliegs, will lead you to the burrow—and to the Burrow Lord.”

  Several in the crowd wore their displeasure plainly on their faces, but none of them voiced their dissent. Good, we won’t have to argue the point any further, we just have to convince the goblin lord to help us on our way. Maybe even teach us a thing or two, thought Nik.

  “Thank you, Elder Pliegs,” he replied before he returned his attention to the rest of the small crowd. “We will rest for a few moments, and then we will return with you to your home.”

  The adventurer’s body had already sunk when Nik went to retrieve his spear. A tiny bag on the ground, the only evidence they’d been there at all. Nik picked up his victory prize and stored it without checking its contents. His chest was heavier even than the thoughts on his mind.

  He walked away to a small clustering of trees, and away from all the noise of the goblin clan, to speak more privately with Pearl. “I know that there are things we haven’t gotten to discuss, or talk about at all really. And that’s mostly on me, and I…” He had started to ramble before being cut off by a very small, very tight hug. That was all it took for him to break. The tears he failed to hold back blurred his vision as he accepted her embrace.

  “I’m so scared, Pearl, all of the time. I can’t steady my hands or get my breaths to pull in enough air. I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m barely hanging on,” he admitted to her, and as if on cue his body shuddered.

  His hands shook like the castle he once called home. Tears stung the slash across his cheek.

  “I am here, Nik. It is okay to be frightened, but you are not alone anymore. This world is a scary place to be small like we are. You don’t hesitate, though. You are not a coward. As much as you might feel weak, these goblins are free because of you. Think of the leaves if it helps you maintain control of these physical symptoms that ail you, but do not think that you are the same kobold you were when you left your home. Now, let’s go talk to a lord.” She offered him a playful wink as she pulled back to give him some space.

  That was when he noticed Ryan’s tiny claws stretched inches wide across the side of his neck. Ryan was trying to hug him, too. These weeks have been the most terrifying experience imaginable, but she’s right. I’m not alone anymore. I still don’t understand this fear, this panic, but it is the shadow that haunts me. If only I could chase it away with Candlelight; Nik chuckled to himself at the thought, wiped at his watery eyes, and said, “Thank you, Pearl. I will do my best to remember that.”

  He would just wait until his cheeks were dry before returning to the others. He needed to be strong and fierce in front of the goblins, or at least, he felt that it was important to be viewed that way by them. Once there was no longer any outward sign of his emotional and psychological turmoil, Nik stepped out from the copse and approached Elder Pliegs.

  “We are ready to travel, when your people are. How far is it to the burrow?” he asked.

  “We’re ready now, and it ain’t far. We were just about there when the adventurers attacked us. Ironically ‘nuff, it was when we were teachin’ the young ones about the dangers of bein’ up top,” the goblin elder replied.

  Nik could already feel his anger rising again, and took a deep breath. Am I protective of goblins specifically, or am I angered by them attacking the weak? he wondered as he noticed his emotional reaction.

  “Lead on and we’ll follow,” he said as he motioned for the elderly goblin to guide the way. This trip was shorter than I expected, Nik thought. As they travelled south, the sun had only moved about the length of one of his claws before their group came to a stop.

  Then Pliegs turned to Nik and Pearl to say, “This is as far as we can take you, least the way you are. You and your friend must be blinded before travelin’ through the entrance.”

  Two of the other elders stepped forward with strips of cloth to act as blindfolds for the non-goblins. Though they made no motion to blind Ryan, or even to reach for him, he climbed into Nik’s hood to hide himself when they drew close. Scratchy cloth that caught on his scales was pulled tightly over his eyes. It tugged on his feathers a bit painfully before he adjusted it. Nik felt a hand slide into his own, and then it pulled him gently forward.

  There was no snap, grind or thudding sound; no audible sign that an entrance had been opened before the scent of damp earth flooded his nose. He found himself being walked down a declined path. Footsteps on soft dirt created a whispering roar—the echoing movement of a hundred-legged beast as the crowd moved together through the tunnel. The sound shifted and returned to normal as they passed at what might have been branches of the tunnel.

  Nik used this time to finally look at the system. It was an odd thing to look at the boxes of text while blinded.

  The system had rewarded him 100 XP for each of the adventurers he had slain. He had also not only completed his quest to save the goblins, but he had raised three more skills to level 2 during the fight. Dirty Fighting, Shield, and Trapper each had gone up to level 2. Wind had gone up to 3 and Spear to 4. With everything together, he had climbed up to 370 XP out of 400 to the next level up, and he’d gotten 5 copper coins.

  Nik sighed because of course there was the smaller text, again. This time it said,

  Wow, that rocked.

  You let someone fall to their waiting death a second time?

  Have you tried getting good instead?

  The next thing he had to look at was the bag of loot that sat in his inventory from after he had killed the human adventurer. The system opened up another box in front of his inventory screen.

  Would you like to open this bag of loot now?

  Please select yes or no

  I can’t think of anything that could go wrong, he thought before picking, yes.

  Studded Leathers have been placed in your inventory

  1 gold coin has been placed in your inventory

  Behind the cloth that covered them, Nik’s eyes opened to the size of a bramblestag beetle. This is gonna be a great thing to look at with Pearl later, he thought, smiling broadly as he was guided along on his descent.

  After what felt like hundreds of steps the ground leveled out. Gentle echoes gave way to the trickling dance of a small stream of water that fell to a waiting pool below. Conversation and the playful laughter of children rose through the noise, before being hushed at their arrival. The hushing didn’t impact much as the noises of the burrow increased to an almost hive-like hum.

  “You may remove the eye-coverin’ now,” Elder Pliegs directed.

  Nik removed the strip of cloth and his eyes went wide once more. His awed expression has been a common one. After everything he has gone through, that is no small blessing, Pearl thought as she watched his reaction. Then she turned to see what had earned his wonderment.

  “This is… nothing like what I expected a burrow to be,” he said.

  Before them lay a sprawling metropolis of carved stone and clay. Open doorways with rounded roofs protruded from earthen walls. Cobbled-stone streets cut between large clay spheres, stacked one on top of the other in a chain that reached to the ceiling of their cavernous burrow. Spiraling staircases wrapped around the spheres, leading to each of the many spheres’ doors, and a web of bridges connected them all to each other.

  The outer ring of the hollowed dome was the water supply that made their city into an island. From there channels flowed inward through crops of vegetables and grain. There was no wasted space here.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  The goblins in the castle never let it slip that their burrows had been anything so magnificent, he had thought. Nik had been so overcome by the wondrous sights that he nearly hadn’t noticed it, the great truth buried beneath the surface. Even with all of their homes towering to the ceilings, there’s not enough room. There are too many of them, he thought. Pearl voiced it at the same time as he’d thought it, though they had focused on different aspects of the same issue.

  “Nik, the farms are too small. They can’t feed everyone with this little,” she’d whispered into his ear. “This is why the clan we rescued was looking for a place to make a new burrow,” he replied.

  What had at first been a great masterpiece of architecture on the grandest scale he could imagine, suddenly felt to him like a single room with no windows. The city was choking itself, squeezing in vain to hold the population that flooded its roads and bridges. This was almost more of an anthill than a city.

  Their conversation was interrupted as armed goblins came forward to meet them. One member of their squad was, to Nik’s surprise, even in height with his own. They’re built almost like a dwarf with the size of a kobold, he thought before realizing he wasn’t sure he’d never actually seen a dwarf. This was the one that called out to them.

  “Elder, what reasonin’ did you use to justify bringin’ top landers to Brekk?”

  The question was left unanswered as the guard caught sight of the injured warriors. Their apparent leader switched moods in an instant, shouting, “Lowerguards, get the wounded to the healers immediately. Upperguards get our guests to the holdin’ cells, and Pliegs follow me to explain your situation to Lord Cril.”

  The guards split into organized groups as they separated the group according to their orders, leaving the majority of the clan standing huddled in the street. Nik found himself thinking, I don’t want to leave them behind, as he and Pearl were guided to a short dome.

  Outwardly, the building was smaller than the others, but the only one he’d noticed that had a door attached to its opening. The door opened inward to reveal a staircase leading even further down. The sound of chains clinked with shifting movement as they neared the bottom steps. The room opened up before them to the sight of barred half-empty prison cells, into one of which they were then deposited.

  “You’ll be waitin’ here for a time, strangers. Lord Cril will likely send a summon for you shortly,” said one of the upperguards, who moved to stand guard at the entrance after the others left.

  “At least we are not chained,” Pearl said.

  Nik let out a small chuckle and said, “Well, yes, there’s that. That and the fact that you could fly through the gap of the bars without any care in the world.” His face didn’t hold its humored expression for long, though, as darker thoughts returned.

  There are surely goblins starving here, and little in the way of help or hope that I could have to offer.

  The occupied cells in their new accommodations held prisoners that varied wildly in appearance, from a mild-looking goblin who was caught up in reading a thick tome, to their completely unhinged neighbor who was babbling at the vacant corner of his cell.

  Nik’s mouth turned up ever so slightly at the sight of the goblin talking to the corner. It wasn’t out of any kind of cruelty or judgment, but rather out of a surprising kinship that he felt.

  “This must have been how Wuttsit saw me when I talked to Bonesy,” he said.

  “I do not think that I want to know, so I am not going to ask,” Pearl replied.

  “We cope in whatever ways we can, even if it’s by talking to something that doesn’t talk back, or by collecting things that we think look pretty. Being honest with myself, I was lost long before I ever left the place I called home.”

  “You have never talked much about it, your little castle. I think I do want to know afterall. Would you like to tell me what your castle was like?”

  “It was lonely, cold, and often empty. I found ways to keep myself distracted, though. There was a goblin named Wuttsit, who would trade with me. We weren’t friends, he said so more than once, but he was kind most of the time. He’s gone now, killed by an adventurer. For all I know the whole castle is gone. The day I left, parts of the floor were falling into an underground chasm. That day is like a brand, burned into me, like the fire I see in my dreams.”

  “I’m sorry, Nik, I couldn’t imagine seeing something like that happen in the hollow.”

  “The shadow of the Black Tower falls where it will, we just need to keep moving until we find somewhere that the shadow can’t reach,” he said.

  “That and we learn to fight in the dark, the candlelight might come in handy for that,” she said in turn.

  Pearl gave him the space to contemplate on that for a while.

  Is my whole life going to be nothing but fighting, he thought.

  After a period of silence, the guard shifted at his post and cleared his throat. In his slow and mellow cadence, he said, “It ain’t my place to ask questions of you, but what you were doin’ with my injured kin?”

  “We rescued them from a group of adventurers, but we were too late to save them all,” Nik said.

  “If that’s the truth of things, then I suspect the Burrow Lord might let you leave,” he said cheerily, as though the prospect of them otherwise being held prisoner was merely the less desirable outcome.

  “It’s the truth. If your lord is just, then we should be free to leave, at the very least,” Nik said.

  “That will be up for them to decide. You invited yourself to their mercy and judgment when you entered our lands.”

  The door opened at the top of the staircase, creaking in time to punctuate the upperguard’s statement. The rest of the upperguards had returned with the anticipated summons. Then having taken positions around Nik and Pearl, the guards walked them to the largest structure on the ground floor.

  Like most of the other buildings in the burrow, this one had no door at its large entrance. The crowds that gathered near the opening stepped aside at the urging of the guards as the non-goblin visitors were led inside. The interior was a maze of curved hallways and stairs that led both up and down to more of the same. Their path led them on a winding path to the spherical core of the dome. Everything within the room ahead was hollowed out, save for the dais at the far side. The steps led down from the doorway to a flattened base, for those that sought an audience with the Burrow Lord to be seen from above. Stairs along the side walls curled forward, rising to either side of the protrusion where their judge was seated.

  She looked strong for a goblin, the durability of her tight sleeves tested by any movement of her biceps. Nik was struck most by the sight of her face. It was young but bore a number of vicious scars.

  He thought, does she only rule by strength as her appearance might suggest, or also by wisdom?

  “Step forward, now, strangers,” said the goblin lord in a commanding voice that was higher in pitch than would have matched her physique.

  Nik obeyed without hesitation and Pearl left his shoulder to do a mid-air bow. Nik belatedly followed after Pearl’s example, and gave an awkward bow. When he righted himself, he could see that the Burrow Lord had stood from her seat and stepped to the edge of her lofty dais.

  “I am Burrow Lord Cril. I have already been given your names and an account of the events that led you here. I was also told that you demanded to be brought here. So, would you see yourselves as heroes, or are you trespassers, forcin’ your will on the weak? You may answer now”

  Nik let in a slow breath, and said, “We are only trying to survive and looking for a place to call home. I have visited a faery hollow, but I did not belong there. I had heard of your burrows, but I know that they are home only to goblinfolk. I came to you in the hopes that you, who live in a place of safety, would offer me guidance in finding a place where we might have the same.”

  “So, you claim to be in search of safety, and yet, you interfere in goblin business. Explain why you did so, and why I should offer you anythin’ but the edge of a spear.”

  “I heard the screams of your people. We removed the threat to their lives and brought your wounded to be healed. I wouldn’t stand by while the weak suffer. As for why you should help me rather than kill me, I would be a loyal friend and ally. If I had a place where my friends and I could be safe, I would fight to have whoever was in charge create a trading post for your people.”

  “I’m sorry, little kobold, but to put it simply, you aren’t strong enough,” stated Lord Cril.

  Nik’s already burning chest filled with a roaring flame, and he could no longer hold back as he shouted, “Then I will find the strength! I won’t abandon my friends, just like I couldn't abandon your people. I will gain whatever skill I need to do it, raise myself to any level.”

  Lord Cril held up her hand, a command for silence. “Learn whatever skill, raise yourself to any level? What exactly are you sayin’?”

  “Do not say it, Nik. Not if we do not trust her,” Pearl advised

  “We are in her realm already. I decided to trust her when I chose to come here,” Nik said to his companion. Then, he turned to address Lord Cril, and said, “I have gained access to the adventurer’s system. I can learn new skills and level up through quests and combat. I have fought to survive against enemies that should have killed me, but I am still here. I will keep fighting as long as I have to until I find what I am looking for.”

  “That, among other things, will be tested. The clan elders that you arrived with have stated that you did come to their rescue. If you are found less than truthful about the rest, or too weak to hold up to our tests, then you will die. I find myself hopin’ you speak true. I might be rootin’ for you while you are bein’ put to the test, too. You will return to the prison to await your trials. Upperguards, take them away, the elders and I have much to discuss. Oh, and Nik, do try to stay alive, strong allies are always welcome to me.”

  Nik was pushed along by his guards before he could respond. Pearl, as loyal as she had ever been, stayed at his side. They were returned to their cell as commanded, to sit and wait for whatever trials the Burrow Lord had in store.

  * * *

  Ash still clung to the corners of the alleyways of Graywater as a reminder of the flames that had burned away a swathe of the Emberwoods. The streets smelled of smoke, even after the time since the fire had lessened its potency. His whole team had been training like it was a full-time job; they had already gone up to level 4 and were now on the cusp of level 5. He had decided to let everyone take a break and hang out around town. Sir BlackDagger was just enjoying a bottle of spiced cider when the portal arch opened to animate a player respawn in the town square. The elven adventurer had arrived in the middle of shouting a furious rant. Sir BlackDagger took his helmet off to make sure he’d heard the arriving player correctly.

  “That little Kobold laid a freaking trap! I’m gonna kill it. I’m gonna go back and kill that little jerk. And I won’t be quick about it either!” said the elf.

  Eric shot to his feet; the glass bottle shattered in his hand. He moved like a bullet to the center of the respawn arch and held himself back from seizing the elf’s collar with both fists.

  “Little kobold, dark green with a red cloak?”

  “Yeah, he ruined our haul of goblins and set a trap for us.”

  “I’m going to need every detail from you,” Sir BlackDagger demanded. He spent the next 10 minutes listening to a play-by-play retelling of this whole party being taken apart by a single low-power mob. This is unbelievable, there is no way this is the same kobold that made me fall in the castle.

  The arch lit up again, and they moved aside as a warrior appeared through the light, shirtless and holding two swords. He screamed, “Are you kidding me? That scaled, little bloody runt beat me! And where’s my bloody armor?”