Battle Admin System 11

11 - Stab and Move

“Do you see now?” Solo asked. “This is my gift to you, Moonstrider! Great power for yourself. Am I not the greatest?”

“You had no idea this was a part of my inheritance.”

“Does it matter?” Solo let out a metallic chuckle. “All I know is legends can pass through. I sensed that just like I sensed you. So, here we are.”

She might’ve sensed more than just legendary challenges and creatures. She could’ve also sensed the Moonstrider link. I can’t say if it is or isn’t a coincidence she stalked me, after all.

Lillea grimaced, feeling disturbed. The magic in the air dissipated after she stopped reading the old text.

She pressed both hands against the doors and felt them give. With a harder shove, the doors parted and scraped against the frame above and below.

They stopped suddenly and left a thin bar of darkness Lillea couldn’t see through. Her vision was fine in the lightless atrium. But the darkness behind the doors was deeper and more ancient.

A breeze blew by her face carrying air so old it was untraceable to her perception. She also felt her senses flare strangely. Like she was receiving a warning. Her skin prickled. And her breath quickened.

I’m  going to die.

Lillea jerked back.

The doors slammed shut.

Nothing happened. No monsters. No traps. Nothing. But Lillea fell and scrambled away from the door and huddled against the corner. She hugged her knees and stayed put. Time slipped by like a dream. She found herself stirring awake in the same spot. She had no idea if she fainted or not.

One memory stood out. An evaluation of sorts. The strange space called the Hall of Admins left her with an impression. Level 300.

She could brave the hall only then. Lillea was unsure if she would. Level 300 had to be the bare minimum. The feeling of death and despair in the Hall of Admins suggested way higher levels were needed.

But her mind was a treacherous thing.

I can reach Level 300 in two and a half months if I push myself harder than ever before. My dwarven commission will be finished then. I’ll have the system points to purchase the last skill for my build.

Then she could hide away from the church and continue her power climb in the Hall of Admins. The plan fitted perfectly in her mind. Nevermind the logical failure points to come. All her mind wanted was a goal to sprint toward.

“We need to go,” Lillea said more for herself than Solo. “My goblins… I need to get to my goblins.”

Solo agreed. The haughty attitude was gone from the demon. They both wanted out.

So they dove into the shadow domain again, fought off the push, and resurfaced into a new night. Lillea reoriented herself based on the stars. She sprinted north. Hard.

She wanted to tell herself she was running to rescue her goblins. But that might not be all true, unfortunately.

The Hall of Admins scared her. And because it scared her, she had no choice but to grow stronger and vanquish the challenge it posed. And take the great power within.

It was hers by right as the last Moonstrider in all the lands. She had to do it. For the sake of her climb to the top. And for the sake of her sacred duty. At the very least, she would return with a stronger Shadow Step.

Shadow Step leveled up from 32 to 45!

But that was a concern for the future. Right now, Lillea had to put aside her solo journey and wear the mantle of a giant goblin queen. Pruz, Sleek, and twenty other goblins had the tasks of spying, sabotaging, and stabbing bandits.

Hopefully, they’d cut their losses and run away. Their mission was supposed to last two weeks at most. That extended to a month. Enough time for the bandits to harass and kill Lillea’s goblins.

I will be very happy with you all if you did as goblins should and fled. Live to fight another day.

The more Lillea thought about it, the more she figured her goblins would do just that. She could trust her goblins to live up to their base nature and save their green skins.

Maybe that would ruin things between them. But at least they would be out of prolonged danger.

***

“Through the trench! Through the trench! Duck, you wart-covered, toe-jam!” Sleek hissed at the last goblin hobbling in the back.

He could’ve left the straggler, but every fallen goblin was a fallen knife or two. He grabbed the straggler by the ankles and yanked him down before a thunder clap roared overhead.

Forks of lightning blasted the soggy earth. Burning sods flew everywhere and half-buried Sleek and the straggler.

They dug themselves out and followed the narrow trench. Icy slush sloshed up to their knees. Gnarled roots twisted above their bald heads. A bandit spellcaster shouted expletives far behind them before Sleek sniffed the burning charge of another lightning blast.

Sleek smiled. He pointed down a hidden cut to his left. The straggler followed.

They climbed out the trench behind tall ferns with big leaves balancing the snow on their surfaces. The two rounded a thick tree and came around the flank of the lightning bandit.

Another thunderclap and release of lightning exploded the slushy trench. It was a lightning beam, too. All of his concentration was on maintaining the powerful spell.

Sleek and the straggler put knives through his back. A full second hadn’t passed before the goblins shivved the spellcaster more times than human eyes could track.

Male goblins were four feet tall on a good day. They were the weakest among the talking races. They were supposedly the dumbest, too.

Sleek wouldn’t disagree with any of that. I am weak and dumb! But guess what I got? Blood on my knives and breath in my lungs.

Two goblins could take-on a human if they had the jump on him. They needed two because some humans didn’t go down even with two dozen stab wounds in a second. So it helped to have a buddy to reach fifty stabs in the blink of an eye.

More blood was on the ground than inside the lightning bandit’s body. He dropped dead.

Sleek and his stabby buddy gave each other crooked smiles while relishing another kill. The levels went up, too. Simple skills, really. Most male goblins had them unless they were stuck foraging or mining.

You won’t catch me doing loser work. I’m a battle goblin. I have the skills!

Skills for speed, illusions, poisons, camouflage, trickery, and stabbing things with a knife or a short sword. Durability skills were the hardest for goblins to acquire. Solid magic skills were out of reach, too. Those were for the matriarchs.

Sleek didn’t mind. He liked painting his box red. He believed in being the best at what he did. Or be better than that low-nose, Pruz!

Oafish human footsteps sounded from the frozen thickets on a hill above. Sleek pulled his stabby buddy to flee behind some big leaves in the opposite direction.

The hobble to his buddy’s legs was getting worse. They both knew they should abandon the straggler and let the stronger male run away.

Sleek punched his buddy in the gut and cussed under his breath before throwing him onto his shoulders. It was faster to move this way. The punch to the straggler’s gut made Sleek feel better for having to carry the burden. Every bounce dug his shoulder into the straggler’s gut, too, just to let the lesson sink in.

His stabby buddy bucked suddenly. He moved with all the nimbleness of a proper goblin and rolled off Sleek’s shoulder. He even kicked Sleek in the back while somersaulting.

Sleek rolled through the snow and mud, cold and angry. And a little impressed. But he had no time to catch his stabby buddy and berate him when a fireball as big as a goblin crashed down.

The attack landed in front of his stabby-buddy and blew the goblin to burning smithereens. The fireball’s reach sent Sleek flying while giving him some good burns. But he could still bear his knives and draw air.

Still alive, waste heads. Sleek ran off with a crazed smile on his face. His stabby buddy’s sacrifice wasn’t the first nor would it be the last. Now that he was running at top agility, he shifted speed and became a green blur kicking snow behind him.

Arrows sank behind his heels. Fireballs exploded off to the side after he juked his pursuers’ aim. Magic crescents sliced through the vegetation in broad waves.

What was low for humans would’ve split Sleek’s upper half from his lower half if a crescent hit. He redirected and lunged up the trunk of a wide tree. He ran across its surface while casting an illusion.

His fake twin jumped down early. The real Sleek launched farther and harder while mostly camouflaged.

A blue beam pierced through the fake. Sleek held in the howl of laughter that wanted to come out. It felt good cheating humans of another goblin death.

***

Sleek returned to their camp. It was a sorry place. They lost three more goblins after three days of being close to flawless. He looked around at the twelve that remained. No Pruz. They lost him three days ago.

Sleek worked his jaw open and shut, waiting for Pruz to berate him or bemoan their sorry state. The silence hung over them like a pile of goblin bones picked clean.

He grinned with his fangs out. “They’d never seen goblins like us, aye?”

He walked around their camp. No tents. No fire. They had light cloaks they could wear with weak heat enchantments. Their gear was buried off to the side. They were running light on bombs, poisons, caltrops, garrote wire, and spare knives.

Their food supply had gone out a while ago, but they couldn’t spend the energy on hunting the monsters of these parts. Too large. Too difficult to takedown without max effort.

Other than Sleek, these goblins were commoners. Sleek was their single adventurer, but Sleek didn’t think much of the ranks.

The matriarchs can have their ranks. I’ll keep stabbing my way up the levels.

Sleek once heard the higher the rank, the more likely a goblin could squeeze miracles out of thin air. The more likely they could become greater than fodder.

“You heard me, right?” Sleek stopped in front of everyone. “They’d never seen goblins like us. A whole month. We’d done to them worse than the damn Adventure Guild. Us twenty goblins. When Lady Moonstrider decides to pay us a royal visit, we’ll finish the job for her.”

His bald-headed grunts looked at him like he’d grown a tail. Sleek smiled as if daring them to take Pruz’s spot and tell him off. None did. So Sleek kept going.

“You know what. Next time I see Lady Moonstrider, I’m going to ask her if she had a good stroll and nap in the woods. Nice of her to show her face, though. We were worried we’ll have to save her from trouble after clearing up the bandits. But that’s how it is for us goblins on the ground. We’re born to serve and die.”

Sleek let his smile drop for a second. All the goblins looked at him as if he’d grown taller. Then his smile returned. “Might as well serve and die with style.”

The remaining goblins laughed and jiggered and found their green humor. Half of them were hurt. Bandaged eyes. Mutilated arms. Bad cuts that left them pale and on death’s door. It would be a mercy for them to die from the weather now.

Sleek had a few nicks and burns and sores. But he was brimming with energy. That was all he needed to know he would die a good death tonight. They would all die.

The bandits had them surrounded on all sides  and were closing the noose carefully. The goblins would have the good fortune of their last stand happening during the night. They could make the bandits hurt for their victory.

But the bandits had numbers. Lots of numbers. More than the damn Adventurer Guild had estimated. The current attackers were only a portion of their entire force.

So they unburied the last of their supplies. Every goblin loaded up with their full kit plus extra.

Sleek made sure they could all make a death-dive and take one human each if all else failed. Then he ran off to the side and dug up something he’d been saving.

They’d run out of food. But after knifing over dozens of humans the past couple of weeks, Sleek eventually hit a pot of leprechaun gold. A pouch of jerky. All the goblins ate like it would be their last supper.

The night came. Snow fell. Sleek and his grunts didn’t feel it.

They could feel death breathing down their necks. They could feel their dead friends calling them to join the great gambling den below. But the cold. None of that affected them anymore.

The fear stopped mattering as they waited. Oafish human steps crunched across the snow nearby. Bandits shouted in confusion. Someone began reciting a spell.

Right over Sleek.

He burst out of his foxhole, tossing aside his cloak weighed by stones and piled snow. Two knives flashed under the torchlight. The blades snipped and carved bloody smiles into the spellcaster’s neck.

No time to gloat. Sleek only wanted to move. Move.

He kicked off the spellcaster and slipped by a magic bolt. His knives stuck into another human before Sleek’s body collided and rolled. He ripped his knives out and barely touched down before lunging to the next. Move.

He fell to his knees and bent backwards under a sweeping sword. Arms up, knives out. He sliced the inner thighs near a human’s groin while sliding underneath. Move.

Everything was a blur of torchlight, shouts, human shadows, and goblins scurrying around like crazy. Sleek found space to toss one knife to the other hand and throw out a lit bomb in one smooth motion.

The black powder blast hurled smoldering dirt and tossed three humans off their feet. More bombs exploded all over the area as his green-skinned grunts did the same.

Doing pretty good. It’s about to turn to crooked soon. Sleek tossed another bomb. And another. He dumped them all and exploded humans off their feet while running at top speed. Any second now. The goblin’s bad luck will kill me.

A human with a hammer ran at him with magic shining from the weapon. He slammed down and sent a rumbling wave. Snow hurled upward in a big drift.

Sleek flew through the snow screen like a cannonball and stuck a knife in the hammer bandit’s eye. The warrior was durable, though, so no kill there. But the scream was worth the effort. Sleek had more knives to spare, too. Where is it? Where’s my death?

To Sleek’s left, a goblin fighting off three humans at once took a spear to the chest. To Sleek’s right, a goblin screamed as a strong bandit crushed his head. Then Sleek saw a fireball the size of his own body. It flew straight at him.

Here’s my death. Sleek kicked forward and leaned back. This is going to be such a stupid fail! Oh well! His back hit the ground as he slid with inches to spare under the big fireball. Wait, what?

An explosion rocked the earth. Human screams filled the air. Sleek could barely believe his cruel luck. He had enough time to get back to his feet but no more. The fire human who had killed his stabby buddy stood over him with embers covering his hands.