Chapter 26

The goblins hadn’t seen him yet, a fact Luke fully planned to use to his advantage. He might not have had an actual stealth skill, but his agility was higher than their perception, and that had to count for something. That combined with the fact that he was up on the balcony and had a bit of cover from the railing made him think he had good odds of getting the jump on them.

No doubt the goblins knew he was there, somewhere. He had too much XP to avoid being noticed, but they probably wouldn’t know exactly where. The goblins spread out into a loose semicircle, crossbows held at the ready. A seventh goblin followed in behind them, this one holding what appeared to be a mutant, roided out version of a crossbow, so big that it looked ridiculous in the goblin’s arms. There were two bows stacked on top of each other and even from across the chamber, he could see that the bolts were three times thicker than standard.

Before Luke could close in, there was a thump. He paused and cocked his head to the side, unsure what he was hearing. Another thump echoed through the cavern. The goblins were looking around now too. One of them said something and pointed. In unison, the rest turned their crossbows in the same direction.

Thump. Thump. Thump thump.

Luke didn’t have an angle on whatever the goblins were looking at, but he knew. The door was still locked, but he’d only replaced one hinge pin. The proto-goblings were pummeling it from the inside, and it was giving way.

The thump turned into a squeal as metal dragged across stone. Seconds later, the first proto-gobling bounced into view. It was running at speed, directly towards the group of goblins on the ground floor. The one with the mutant crossbow snapped out something, and two goblins shot it. Immediately, the proto-gobling flopped down onto the floor, nothing more than a pile of loose skin and pus-like fluid.

That did not seem to calm the goblins down though, and Luke had no trouble imagining why. If one of those little rubber ball bouncing fucks was loose, the rest would be right behind it. Sure enough, not two seconds later four more came into view. They closed in on the goblins at a full sprint, heedless and uncaring of their losses as the goblins shot them.

Dozens more came pouring out into the cavern and the goblins shrieked in fear. The one with the huge crossbow started bellowing over the noise, but it was rapidly losing control of the situation, and it looked like it knew it. Soon enough, the goblin was resorting to smacking its minions to get their attention and yelling directly into their ears.

Far too slowly, the goblins formed up and started backing out of the cave. In Luke’s opinion, that was the best possible tactic for them, since it allowed them to concentrate their fire in a single direction instead of having proto-goblings coming at them from every which way. He honestly wished them the best in slaughtering the miniature goblins, if only because he would eventually need to make his way out of the large chamber himself.

He was just lucky that with a more immediate target available to fixate on, the proto-goblings didn’t go exploring. Instead they hurled themselves at the goblins in waves and died just as quickly. Judging by the screams Luke heard though, he didn’t think the goblins were having it all their own way.

Luke retreated to one of the rooms behind him and put his back to the wall. Never before had he regretted not taking one of those swords from his brother’s workshop, but now he needed something sharp and durable. The best he could do was pull out his folding knife and try to sharpen the table legs into points, which was at least easy enough to accomplish. He doubted they’d last through a hundred bouncy boys, but if he was lucky the goblins would thin those numbers considerably before they were overrun.

His only regret was all the XP he was missing out on. There were probably enough monsters there to level him up again, but he doubted he’d survive it if he dropped into the middle of that brawl. Luke would happily settle for the proto-goblings slaughtering their kids, which was kind of a weird thought, but whatever. The toothy bouncy balls were vicious, but uncoordinated. If they wiped out the goblins, Luke wouldn’t have to worry about being hunted anymore.

Sadly, he doubted that would be the case. Seven goblins had killed at least thirty of them already, and even though they were retreating, he doubted it would be the last he’d see of them. For now though, the plan was simple: wait for the goblins to bait the proto-goblings out of the cavern, then head in a different direction.

One thing he’d learned over the last few days was that Grimshard goblins were the ones least likely to have a melee weapon. It seemed like they specialized in ranged attacks, which was not to say none of the other flavors ever had a crossbow, just that Grimshards almost always did. That sucked right now because he would love to get another one of those short swords that he’d briefly used if he was going to be fighting proto-goblings.

The noise died down out in the main cavern and Luke peeked out to check on the situation. It looked like the coast was clear, and he cautiously dropped down to the main floor. When nothing jumped out to attack him, he laughed quietly and shook his head. Even if he didn’t kill any more goblins on his way out, he’d still consider it a job well done.

Of course, if he did come across any more goblins, he wouldn’t turn down the XP. That would just be dumb. But he wasn’t going to go out of his way to look for them now. What he was going to do was start trying to retrace his steps to get out of the maze of tunnels. Hopefully his memory was as good as he thought it was, otherwise he was going to have a problem.

The first few tunnels were familiar and he made good time. After that, things got frustrating. He was sure he knew where he was going, but every time he got to another intersection, it wasn’t what he expected to find. Worse, the proto-goblings had apparently lost their quarry and were running rabid through the tunnels. Twice he had to stop to fend them off when they caught up to him, and the second time one of his sharpened table legs broke.

“Aw damn it,” Luke swore as he examined the shattered wood. “Two left.”

They weren’t even worth the XP he got for killing them, mostly because he wasn’t properly equipped to do so. Every time he saw one of them, he got more annoyed. Every time one of them went by without noticing him, he was relieved. It was hard to even consider them dangerous when there were only one or two, but there were so many that there was always another one somewhere nearby.

Still, it was just a matter of time until he found his way out. He was sure of it. Any minute now something would click and he’d figure out where he was.

“System,” Luke said. “I think I’m lost.”

* * *

Margl was going to gut the Day Hunter, borrow the Bloodbite shaman to heal it back up, and then gut it again. Then he was going to start cutting off fingers, then limbs. He would gouge out the monster’s eyes, but leave its tongue and its ears so it could hear itself scream.

Perhaps they should have expected it would invade the caves and prepared a better defense, but who could possibly have believed it would be stupid enough to unlock the spawning pit and let the sources just run wild. They’d had to kill half of them already, and it was going to be the work of weeks to round the remaining ones up and shove them back into their hole.

He was busy fuming while he stomped down one of the west tunnels with an escort of four minions. They’d swapped their crossbows for spears, not that he trusted any of them to do more than stick the pointy end forward and hope a source impaled itself on it. As much as it grated to admit it, even to himself, he could use some help from the Bloodbites.

Then he heard a voice, and not a goblin voice. Margl paused and held up a hand. The Day Hunter was nearby, and… talking to itself? He didn’t know who else it could be speaking to. As far as he was aware, it couldn’t speak or even understand the goblin tongue. And there was nothing else in the Grimshard tunnels besides goblins to talk to anyway.

The Day Hunter had gained some more levels. It was probably almost as strong as Margl himself now, but fortunately, it was just one monster. He sent his escort guard forward and they charged into battle. Margl moved in behind them and rounded the corner just in time to see the Day Hunter jumping back and pulling that strange weapon off its back.

It worked the weapon back and forth frantically to block goblin spears, but there was only so much it could do and it was forced to give ground. Soon they’d have it backed into a corner and they’d bleed it out. Margl grinned and shouldered his spear to pull his doublebow off his back.

He sighted the Day Walker down the length of the stock and pulled both triggers. Bolts thicker around than his big toe leaped off the strings to strike the Day Hunter, except somehow the monster dodged! It shouldn’t even have been possible to twist a body like that and keep it unbroken, but somehow it did it.

Then its weapon twisted around and shattered one of his escort’s faces. Margl cursed under his breath while he pulled new bolts from hip quiver. The doublebow was a pain to load, had forced him to put more points than he wanted into strength, but next time he’d hit the Day Hunter for sure. Margl loaded the first bolt in and locked it in place.

A goblin screamed in pain, but Margl ignored it. The whole point of escorts was to stand between him and danger, after all. He finished slipping the second bolt in and whipped the doublebow up, only to jerk back in surprise when he realized the Day Hunter was right in front of him. That arm-thick metal rod was coming straight for his face, and there was nothing he could do to save himself besides sacrifice his doublebow.

That bought him a second, just long enough to leap back and scoop up his spear. He brandished it at the Day Hunter and looked past the monster to coordinate with his escort, only to find that every single one of them was on the ground. One of them was still twitching, but he wasn’t going to be getting back up to help.

It was just Margl left, him against the monster that was slaughtering his tribe. Fear tried to grab him, but he fought free of it with a snarl and hurled himself into the fight. The Day Hunter pushed the spear aside with one hand, its strength monstrous, and brought its weapon up in an underhand swing that caught Margl in the ribs.

His feet left the ground and he landed on his back. It took a second for his brain to catch up, and by the time it did, the Day Hunter was standing over top of him, weapon in hand and face grim.

That was the last thing Margl ever saw.