“FOOL!” shouts the goblin-king.

I do not like him.

Snarling my long teeth, I throw a fistful of birdseed at his feet. “PICKINGS!” I shout, ushering the challenge of our people.

Shocked murmurs float around the palace court, coming from the brothers and sisters, who sit on the many gnarled roots. The roots of the forest make up the palace of the goblin-king.

- He is unworthy to be called so.

I point a long, crooked claw at him. “I challenge you to pickings!” I cry.

The fat goblin scoffs.

Physically, I am superior. I am young. I am strong. He is old and content with his spoiling. It bodes ill for our tribe.

“Sky-light ate brothers of hill-bump!” I point at him. “Sky-light will eat us too!” I proclaim.

He waves me off, getting up from his throne and stepping onto the birdseed. “Lies!”

“Truth!” I argue, raising my voice. “Wood-mother spoke of it!”

More murmurs come from the members of the court. The word of the wood-mother is held in very high regard here. I finish my argument. “- Unfit! Sky-light will come to us. Sky-light is angry!” Two dozen yellow, beady eyes following my finger. “- Because of you! Pickings!” I repeat, restating my challenge to take the throne with clear intent. “Wood-mother demands it.”

The members of the court rise to their feet. Each standing member signifies their approval, their vote, for my challenge.

Of the twelve members of the court, all twelve rise to their feet.

I narrow my eyes. He has no choice now, but to accept my challenge. To deny it would be to defy the will of the wood-mother, of the gods.

The goblin-king looks around at the court and then laughs, sitting down again, he kicks the birdseed back my way and waves for his guards.

“Dungeon,” he says, looking at me gleefully as two champions, twice my size, come to drag me away to the underground. The members of the council protest. He points at them all. “Dungeon.”

More guards come from the sides of the court and drag all of us away.

“One death a day,” orders the goblin-king. He points at me as I am pulled towards the door, leading down to the deep-dark. “You last.”

The door closes behind myself and I am carried into the void, into the dungeon, along with twelve others.

Wood-mother forgive me.

- I have failed.

It is dark.

…What is that noise?

My skin prickles.

It is as if the darkness were whispering to me. My hair stands on end. The air smells of strong-water.

Despite being underground for hours now, everything suddenly goes bright.

The world shakes with a resounding quake. A deafening roar blasts through the halls, as if a great-red-lizard were here in the dungeon, in the underground, screaming for its brood.

The walls crumble.

- A quake?

Everything is bright. So bright. The sun is shining through the soil, through the rock.

Impossible.

[Battle complete]

(Gottlieb) has killed:

(Goblin Guardsman{LVL 4})(Goblin Guardsman{LVL 3})(Goblin Guardsman{LVL 3})(Goblin Guardsman{LVL 5})(Goblin Guardsman{LVL 2})(Goblin Guardsman{LVL 3})(Goblin Guardsman{LVL 4})(Goblin Shaman{LVL 5})(Goblin Assassin{LVL 6})(Goblin Merchant{LVL 1})(Goblin Waterkeeper{LVL 1})(Goblin King{LVL 10})(Goblin Baker{LVL 1})(Goblin Hunter{LVL 1})(Goblin Woodworker{LVL 7})…

You got [240/240] EXP ! *+~- [LEVEL UP!] -~+* You are now level 6! You got [310/310] EXP ! *+~- [LEVEL UP!] -~+* You are now level 7! You got [39/475] EXP ! [You have {2} attribute points to apply] [You have {1} ability points to apply]

Gottlieb whistles, admiring the beauty of the blast. It’s a majestic view from up so high. A ripple escapes the impact-site, flowing out and over the world like a wave, born from a stone, thrown into a pond. The landscape that it runs over lifts and shakes, as if it were disturbed water. Smoke rises into the air, debris flying for kilometres, chasing after the shockwave.

He notices that the new crater, next to the old one, looks kind of like a pair of eyes.

Gottlieb smirks, aiming the gun higher. Two or three more and he can make it look like a dick.

The screen fades away.

[Reprimand issued]

Orbital Gunner Gottlieb - Inappropriate workplace behavior

Context: (Misuse of installation capacities to promote sexual misconduct, procrastinating during work hours)

- Notifying the captain

“Oh, come on!” argues Gottlieb. How did Kai even know what he was going to do?

Kai does not respond.

Gottlieb sighs and shakes his head, turning towards the menus that have appeared before himself.

GOTTLIEB Level: 7 Experience: 39/475 Class: Orbital Gunner Sub-class: None Race: Human Home: The orbital-weapons platform [Currently moving to continent {5}] STRENGTH: 10 [+] DEXTERITY: 7 [+] INTELLIGENCE: 8 [+] WISDOM: 5 [+] LOVE: 6 [+] LUCK: 9 [+]

Having an easy way to get jacked is pretty neat, honestly. Gottlieb looks down at himself.

But he doesn’t really have anyone to show his newly growing muscles off to, really.

Well, except for Kai.

The man turns to look back at Kai, questioning himself for a very long second.

- He could raise a stat like intelligence or wisdom. Space is a very complicated thing, after all and the machinery of the station is even more complicated. He knows that he isn’t the brightest man and he isn’t even close to being able to understand most of it and maybe if he raises those values, slowly, he’ll become smart enough to stay here by himself, as well as is possible, given the circumstances.

Making the smart choice here could help him survive, it could help him thrive.

Gottlieb nods, having thought about it and lifts his fingers to the window of the menu.

[Raised STRENGTH +2](To 12) {0 Attribute Points remaining}

His shirt bulges a little more and Gottlieb jumps up to his feet, roaring and flexing to Kai.

“Yeeeah!” grunts Gottlieb from the base of his throat, hunching over forward a little and flexing his arms inwardly against his chest. “Bet you’re jealous you don’t have a body now Kai, huh?” he asks smugly, turning and rolling up his sleeve to show it to the camera.

[Reprimand issued]

Orbital Gunner Gottlieb - Self degradation

Context: (Orbital gunner Gottlieb appears to have psychosis)

- Notifying the captain

Suggestion: Immediate supervision and consultation by station psychological staff.

Gottlieb rolls his eyes, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt, which feels a little tighter than before. “Get fucked, Kai,” says Gottlieb, sitting back down on his chair and kicking his feet up. He grabs a nutri-bar from his stack and points at the blank screen with the blue dot above it, with a free finger.

“If I die up here by myself, I’m going to be fucking ripped,” explains Gottlieb.

[Suggestion]

- According to space survival protocols, §7 p.04 Given the additional nutritional requirements, sustaining extremely dense and large muscle mass is detrimental to prolonged survival.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Gottlieb, biting into his condensed bar of ass. “Give me the chicken-lady, Kai,” he says. “- It’s for my mental health,” adds the man, rolling his eyes and swinging his arm back to take an ability.

New Ability - [Low Frequency Pulse]

By forcing the fired particles of the gun to spread out wider before impact, fire a direct, non-lethal shock-wave to an area encompassing 150m without a projectile.

The monitor jumps back to life, the camera panning over the landscape.

The goblin-king is dead.

I rise from the dark dungeon.

Twelve others rise with me, together with the lower guards.

We look around at what remains.

- Gray.

The forest is gone.

The roots are gone.

The goblin-king is gone.

I lift my head.

The sky is torn asunder.

Ash falls like snow, flakes of it land on my face.

Murmurs come.

- The twelve of the council fall to their knees, the guards of the dungeon fall to the ash, all of them fall and face towards me.

A piece of bird-seed falls from the sky, striking against my head, as it falls to my feet.

The prophecy of wood-mother has come to pass.

The goblin-king is dead.

“HAIL THE GOBLIN-KING!” shouts the first of the twelve.

The others repeat his words, all of them facing my way, a crown of ash forms on me.

“- HAIL THE GOBLIN-KING!”

A mage?

Her hand shakes, trembling as the pen hovers above the sheet of paper.

The front door to the tavern opens, people walk inside. The orc chicken-farmer, Azimuth, twitches together, sitting upright in a quick jolt, as her eyes nervously shoot towards the door, which at least twenty people have already walked through, since she got here.

She’s a little jumpy, obviously.

The strangers walk inside, heading towards a table on the other side of the tavern.

Azimuth adjusts her hood, lowering her gaze back down towards her journal, as she continues to write down her thoughts in a crude, shaky handwriting.

“- Did you hear about the war in the west?” asks a voice from another table, breaking through the clamber of the festivities. It’s really a loud, lively place. The brooding gestalt with her shaking hand and hooded head is perhaps more conspicuous here now like this, than if she had come in boisterously loud and proud.

“Aaah, who gives a shit?” replies someone else at that table.

- No. A spell like that, it would have to have been cast by one of the greatest casters in all of the world, a real, through and tested S-rank and even that is stretching it.

Nobody like that would be out there in the back-lands and even less likely is that they would be interested in the fate of a nobody daughter of a chicken-farmer like herself.

The orc scratches through the word, scribbling down her next phrase.

‘Divine intervention’.

Of course, she knows that this is even less reasonable. A god wouldn’t care about her in the least, even less than another mortal would. At least she has her mortality in common with them, but there is absolutely nothing connecting her to even the faintest hint of divinity.

Would a god even spare an idle glance towards the lands that she stands on, let alone help her?

Azimuth strikes through the word, lowering her shaking pen to write a new line.

- No. That can’t be it either.

The door opens again and she twitches together, almost knocking over her untouched drink with her roughly bandaged, burnt hand.

The people walk inside, not sparing her a single glance, as before.

It’s perhaps for the best that she leaves, thinks Azimuth, packing her things together. She grabs her mug, emptying her breakfast in one go.

She needs to go hunting if she wants to be able to pay for some real food that can be eaten and not just drunk.

As she leaves, she notices that someone is watching her.

Quickly, she vanishes down an alley.

“Hey!” shouts a sharp voice from behind Azimuth, as she makes her way out of the city, hustling over a busy plaza on her way to the gate. “Thief! Guards! THIEF!” shouts a woman.

Azimuth looks around, trying to find the source of the commotion. She sees it, finding her eyes landing on a woman who is pointing… at her?

She blinks.

The woman is one of her pursuers, she recognizes her, she’s the one who killed her chicken.

“Guards!” yells the woman, crying with large tears welling in her eyes. She stands with low shoulders and slouched head, pointing at Azimuth. “She stole my coin-purse!”

“No I didn’t!” protests Azimuth, looking around herself. Dozens of people warily look her way. The guards are already on their way to her, another one coming from behind herself.

She knows however that her arguing won’t do much good. This is a human city. An orc’s words against a human’s, when human guards are involved, won’t go far. “Come on, let’s have it,” says the guard behind her, grabbing her wrist.

“I don’t have it!” argues Azimuth. “I didn’t do anything, this is a set-up!”

“Yeah, yeah…” sighs the man. The other two come and pat her down, pulling out her journal and pen and rummaging through her empty, tattered bag.

“Nothing here,” says the guard searching her.

“See?!” argues Azimuth.

“Where’d you hide it?” asks the man behind her, twisting her wrist.

“What?! I didn’t!”

“Okay. Come on. Let’s go,” says the guard behind her, pushing her forward. The other guard accompanies her while the third gets the woman’s story. Azimuth sees her flash a smug smile, hiding it with a desperate, saddened face the moment the guard who is interviewing her, turns back to continue his questioning.

“Idiots!” yells a man’s voice, as he runs through the crowd. He’s older and he wears long yellow robes that might have once been white, but they have become stained with time, liquor and rainwater. “She’s divine! By the gods, let her go!” he protests.

The guard escorting them groans and grabs the priestly man. “Today sure is a day,” he mutters to himself. “- Get out of here, you drunk!” he barks, pushing the man in the stained robes away.

“Numb-skull!” yells the old man, frantic as he moves back towards them, stumbling and flailing with his arms. “You’ll kill us all!”

The guard grabs the hilt of the short-sword on his waist.

“Get down,” says Azimuth, turning her head.

“Keep walking,” instructs the guard behind her, twisting her wrists.

“No really,” says Azimuth, sniffing the air.

The hairs on her neck stand on end.

“- GET DOWN!” yells the orc, throwing all of her weight forward to dive into the guard and the frantic man, pulling the other one in behind them.

The sun rises for the second time that day, as a light is born in the sky.

Everything shakes. Everything is bright and a deafening cacophony pulses through the streets, flying their way like the wailing of a maddened banshee, as every single window, on every single building, shatters, as a pulse of energy blasts their way, stemming from the source of divine, holy light, washing over them all.

Her ears rumble, her bones rumble, her heart rumbles.

By the time she rises back up to her disoriented feet, her world spinning to the tune of her ringing ears, all she sees is the joyous priest, grabbing and shaking her.

- The eyes of a hundred fearful people on the plaza, having been watching the unusual drama unfold, stare her way in terror.

A piece of glass falls at her feet.

Gottlieb whistles.

“Hey, Kai, you think they have insurance?” he asks the blue-dot above his head.

Kai does not respond.

Gottlieb rolls his eyes and zooms in on the orc, who is gazing up towards the sky, her dazed and confused eyes are almost lined up well enough to be looking right at him.

- He winks at the screen.

Kai shuts it off.