A Soldier's Life - 168 - The Green Goblin

Chapter 168

The chasm before us made no sense in its massive scope. I had heard a legionnaire mention the Endless Dark before. “The only thing I know about the Endless Dark is it is where the goblin hordes come from. What is it doing inside a dungeon?”

Raelia was also in awe as she stood dangerously close to the edge. She rasped softly. “It is not inside a dungeon. The dungeon is inside of it. Dungeons are part of the Endless Dark, feeding off the ley lines deep in the earth. We are miles below the surface.”

Maveith couldn’t resist and tossed a rock into the chasm. It bounced along the wall on its descent, creating echoing sounds even over the water cascading on the other side.

“Let’s get back to the dungeon,” I said as I suddenly had a bad feeling. Flickers of lightning appeared deep within the chasm below, and I felt the warm temperature rising. We all gave each other a quick glance, and that was all we needed to spur our run back to the safety of the dungeon.

Shadows from the glowstones bounced around us as our feet scraped the stone in a run. When we reached the end of the passage, there was no curtain of green slime lit by the glowstone. Instead, there was a solid, uneven rock. “Fuck.” I pounded on the wall, and it echoed slightly. The dungeon was trying to seal us out.

I tried to create a box and send the stone to my dimensional space, but the attempt rebounded, causing me to stumble. I bellowed, disoriented, “Maveith! Your hammer.” He understood and swung into the rock with a heavy swing. He broke through a thin rock covering, creating a small access as the green slime tried to cover the hole. I pushed Raelia through first and followed. I didn’t even mind getting covered in the green slime to press through the hole. Maveith crawled after us, and we all turned to watch the green slime cover the gap, breathing heavily.

Wiping and spitting the slime from my face, I was relieved to see the drake was still dead. I had been worried it would have been revived by the dungeon. It seemed like this had all been a trick by the dungeon to kick us out—or probably just me. I speculated it really didn’t like how I won our fights.

Breathing heavily, Maveith asked, “What happened?”

“The dungeon tried to lock us out. I tried to create a door, but it was the same as when I tried to kill a creature without entering the room. My attempt backlashes on me.” I said, still sweating from the heat of the chasm and the adrenaline surging in my veins.

“Dungeons follow rules,” Raelia said while disgustingly cleaning green slime from her hair. She had gone first and gotten the brunt of the slime. She whipped a glob off her hand. “No one knows why. One of those rules is you need to enter a room to fight a creature.”

“What are the rest of the rules?” Maveith’s deep voice intoned as we all calmed. It didn’t appear there was anything pursuing us.

“The ones I remember, you already know. Safe rooms cannot have dungeon creatures in them. Once you enter a room, a monster can pursue you out of it. There is a reward for clearing a room…” Raelia stopped cleaning herself and thought. She held up her hand and seemed to be counting, trying to remember. “Rooms will reset after one day, and if you rest in a corridor between rooms for more than a day, the creatures in any connected rooms can pursue you.”

She hadn’t offer any new information. “Is that all you remember?” I pressed her. Any new knowledge would be welcome.

Raelia nodded. “The dungeons I entered were not as dangerous as this one, and they were more to train us to work as a team when fighting against non-humanoids.” Raelia’s head snapped in alarm to the far entrance, and I swore as I turned. The company men must be back. Instead, I saw a small green goblin sprinting frantically out of the corridor. It stumbled into a role when it noticed the massive earth drake in the chamber’s center. The goblin child was familiar as I had released it to distract the bear. How had it survived for so long?

Maveith’s rumbling voice questioned, “Do you all see a goblin too?”

Horrid screeches of feminine anger followed the goblin out of the corridor. “Harpies,” I warned my group.

“Harpies?” Raelia questioned.

“The goblin must have raced through the last room. It had a pair of harpies in it.” I explained while drawing my blade and rushing to the corridor to meet them. The frail goblin was not a concern. The harpy screams echoed down the corridor as they approached, and my head ached from a discordant cadence of their screams that sounded like a mutilated song. My mind clouded, and it was a strain to remain focused. Claws clicked rapidly on stone as they appeared. I stood at the side of the passage opening and waited.

Maveith had pursued the goblin, and I couldn’t yell at him to help me, or I would alert the harpies. The first harpy stumbled into the room, and my blade came down on the back of its neck. I mistimed my swing but severed one of its leathery wings. It screeched in pain, causing a pressing migraine to form in my head. I pivoted around to finish it with another swing when the second harpy plowed into me, feet first.

I was pinned underneath the creature and struggling as I learned more about harpies than I ever wanted to know in the next few seconds. Their legs were massive bird legs with talons, which tried to tear my armor off. It also had long claws on its hands that attempted to reach my exposed face. A grotesque woman’s face with greasy black hair, wild eyes, and sharp teeth hissed and hurled spittle at me. I struggled to hold the heavy creature at bay and protect myself. The claws had too strong a grip on me and this creature was much heavier than it looked.

Strangely, in my struggle, I remembered a curse my comrades used, harpies tits. And yes, the torso of this creature was well-muscled and would be attractive on any buxom human woman.

“Close your eyes!” Raelia yelled. I trusted her because I knew what she was doing.

Heat erupted around me as a wave of fire enveloped me for an instant, blasting the creature away and freeing me. My armor protected me from the worst of it, but my face was blistered, and I smelled burnt hair. I rolled to my feet to see both harpies struggling, their wings in shambles with motes of embers still burning from the fireball. I slashed the one I had crippled with my black blade, ending its pained cries.

The lone remaining harpy was hobbled, its wings shredded, and half its face burned. It’s one good glossy black eye that contained more malice than I could fathom. It throatily tried to scream, but Raelia’s legacy dagger suddenly appeared in its throat, and it grasped at it as it struggled to breathe.

I sneaked a glance at Raelia, who was twenty feet away. I nodded at her, my voice cracked from the dry heat, “Nice throw.” I stepped into the harpy’s reach and stabbed it in the chest, aiming for its heart. I backed away before it could retaliate as it died. My face burned, and I reached for the aether potion but stopped. Best not to waste the treasure and deal with the pain. The only threat was the tiny goblin.

I saw Maveith chasing the goblin around the corpse of the earth drake. The small goblin was bone thin but extremely fast. It definitely had a strong survival instinct. Raelia was concerned at my side, “I am sorry; it was the only thing I could think of to help you.”

“You did the right thing,” my voice creaked out. I think I inhaled some of the fireball as my lungs also burned with my face. The harpy’s claws on her hands would have ripped out my throat if she hadn’t helped me.

It was comical as we both watched the goblin avoid Maveith using the large drake as cover. If Maveith got too close, it would scramble over the drake to the other side, the large scales making excellent hand holds for its tiny, nimble fingers. I didn’t move to help Maveith, and neither did Raelia. I finally said, “It is not a dungeon creature, Maveith. I brought it in here and released it when I fought my first bear.”

Maveith stopped his pursuit and looked at me, his chest heaving from his efforts. The goblin also looked exhausted but studied Raelia and me as well. Even with my red and blistering face, recognition flashed in the goblin’s eyes. That quickly turned to fear, and it bolted to the exit and was descending the stairs to the safe room in a heartbeat.

“Let it go!” I yelled to Maveith. In an odd way, I felt sorry for the creature if it had survived over a week in the dungeon running for its life. My guess was that it ran through a room and pulled the monsters into the next room to fight each other. I walked to Maveith and started to heal my face as my aether recovered.

Maveith was apologetic. “Sorry, I didn’t help with the harpies. I got focused on the goblin.”

I was looking at part of the wall where the green slime covered the exit to the Endless Dark. The slime was no longer a flat surface, which indicated there was now a rack behind it. Had we just passed on a chance to leave the dungeon? How would we have even scaled the chasm, and how far below the surface were we? No, we made the right choice, and whatever was at the bottom of the chasm was not friendly.

The harpies both yielded major charm affinities. The essences had spiraling smoke inside in a white and blue mix. If you looked at the pattern too long, you start to get dizzy. I handed both to a surprised Raelia. She had possibly saved my life and definitely played the largest role in the victory. She studied my face, which was now mostly healed, “I am sorry you had to waste a healing potion on healing your face.”

I shrugged and didn’t tell her I could heal myself. I looked to the goliath. “Maveith, it is fine. Let us move back to the safe room.” I looked seriously at Raelia, “You are going to have to return to my dimensional space.” She did not appear as reluctant now. Maybe there was a little trust between us?

We slowly descended the long set of stairs as there was a concern the goblin could have drawn the dire boars into the safe room. There was no goblin or boar at the bottom of the stairs. Maveith started to cook while I scouted the boar room to make sure there was no threat. I had recovered enough aether to kill a boar if needed.

Two boars were clearly visible as I approached the dire boar chamber, blocking the entrance while the small goblin huddled, trying to make itself small in the corridor. I was loud in my armor as the resin-infused leather plates had melted and deformed a little from the fireball. They no longer slid against each other seamlessly, creating a rasping sound as I walked. The goblin spun back and forth between the two boars and me, trying to decide on the lesser of the two dangers.

At just over twelve feet away, I didn’t give it a chance to make its decision. I aligned some free space and sent the creature into the dimensional space. I had recovered enough aether, and having something in my dimensional space that could serve as a distraction in the future sounded like a good idea.

I walked back to the safe room, “The goblin is taken care of,” was all I said as I sat down. “After we eat, Raelia,” I told her, and she nodded in understanding.

The meal was mostly all of us speculating on why the dungeon was trying to get rid of us. Raelia thought we had just caught it in expanding its labyrinth and didn’t think the dungeon had enough awareness to target us specifically. She managed to convince Maveith of this even though I was fairly certain the dungeon was targeting me. I think the dungeon thought I was a threat as well as a nuisance.

After storing the goblin, I had to draw out the meal to recover enough aether, but Raelia seemed to think it was due to my reluctance to store her. Raelia finally stood. “Let’s get this over with. If I am trapped inside you for a long time, know that I am not going to be happy when I am let out.”

Raelia drew her two blades. “Put your pack over there.” I pointed to the shelf. “You will want to be unburdened when you come out.” She nodded and did as instructed. She prepared herself and nodded. “You can keep the ranger’s cloak,” I said and pushed her into my space before she could respond.

Maveith seemed sad as I went over to her pack. I took out the thermal stone first since we hadn’t used it to prepare the meal. “Eryk, what are you doing?” Maveith asked.

“Repacking her bag a little bit.” I sorted everything out, and when I had aether, I pulled out food. Maveith understood and started to help. When we left the dungeon, she was going to need food to get back to Bartiradian lands.

Before repacking everything, I made a decision and pulled out a large egg. Maveith was confused, “Is that an egg? It is huge, what is it?”

“This is a griffin egg Maveith.” His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Help me pack it so it is protected with all this food. During the process of packing Raelia’s backpack, I told Maveith the tale of how I acquired a griffin egg.

When we finished, I sent the pack to my space, and Maveith asked, “Do you have any more eggs? Chicken eggs, preferably. I miss omelets.”

I laughed at the large man, “No. That was the only egg I had in my space.” I took a deep breath and held up a major essence with shifting colors. “Can you watch over me as I take this? It is the illusion affinity from the shapeshifters.”

Maveith nodded, “I will watch over you.” We had talked about this before and my unpleasant experience with the apex earth essence. Hopefully, using one of the major essences instead of an apex to unlock my illusion magic wouldn’t be as bad. It felt like the right time to experiment before reconnecting with the company.

The essence dissolved in my mouth, and goosebumps ran across my body. My skin tingled as the electric heat left my stomach and spread across my body. “This is not as bad…” I suddenly vomited, and my muscles clenched. I curled into a ball on the floor and let the process work to its conclusion, trying to block out the pain.