I came to slowly, with none of my traditional wariness. I knew something was wrong from the moment I opened my eyes, precisely because I opened my eyes. Normally I awoke with my eyes closed, so I could assess my situation before anyone knew I was awake like a sensible person. Being so foolish said a lot about my current condition, none of it good.

But I didn’t feel bad. I felt great, the best I ever had, in fact. So why were my habits off?

The reason came to me in a flash of insight, a flash of insight that felt suspiciously like slamming my head into a wall while trying to sit up. I lay back on the dirt floor, staring at the ceiling and contemplating the forming bruise on my forehead.

I was far faster than I had been before. Difficult to say by exactly how much, but by enough that trying to sit up straight had sent me several feet too far and smacked my head against a wall.

Not the best omen for my future, but far from the worst. To start with, it meant that the elixir had done its job and granted me the supernatural powers that would allow me to survive. Hopefully I’d be able to get used to it in time, I’d just have to be more careful and deliberate with my actions until then.

No, the real problem was that their was a wall to run into in the first place, cause there sure as hell hadn’t been one there when I blacked out. The dirt floor helped confirm my theory, after all, there was quite frankly no way that any human, pretentious bastards that they were, would allow something as plain as dirt to furnish a religious altar.

I sat up, carefully this time, and looked around. My surroundings were thankfully familiar, but not as familiar as I might like. Specifically, it bore the dirt floors and walls that I recognized from countless night raids on human cellars, but it wasn’t any cellar I’d been in before.

It was pretty easy to tell, because although the structural elements were virtually identical the furnishings certainly weren’t. Where a normal human cellar would be packed with food for the winter, complete with roots dangling from the ceiling to conserve storage space, and maybe a barrel or two of booze if you were really lucky, this one just had big ol boxes full of gods know what and religious paraphernalia littered about the place like leaves in autumn.

I probably hadn’t been moved far then. The question was why I had been moved at all. If a human had found me I would certainly be dead, which begged the question of exactly what was going on here.

That became more clear when I finally tried to move my legs and realized they were firmly bound with a fricken ribbon of all things, as were my arms. Well that was inconvenient. And embarrassing. In my defense, my senses were so sensitive at this point that my own clothes felt abrasive on my skin, making the smooth ribbons difficult to discern in comparison.

It did clarify my situation a bit. I’d been captured, but not the humans hadn’t killed me. Strange. I didn’t know what value a lone goblin had… unless they didn’t know that? I could count the number of lone goblins I’d ever even heard of on one hand. One hand with no fingers, in case that was unclear, because that lone goblin was me.

They probably thought there was some good info to torture out of me, and I really needed to get out of here before that happened. I’d already tortured myself enough, I didn’t need a human to do it to me again. Especially once they found that there was no tribe or horde behind me, and I could be safely disposed of.

So I did what any good goblin would and took my teeth to my bonds with all the enthusiasm of a rabid badger. Inside of half a minute I’d… accomplished nothing. Well, I had made the ribbons significantly more slobbery than they had been a minute ago, but there wasn’t so much as a loose thread to show for my hard work.

I snarled at the infernal ribbons. Why did humans need even their ropes to be fancy and over-designed? I bit down on the ribbon again and ground away at it with my teeth and pulled at it as hard as I could.

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

I froze. That voice… I shot a glance over my shoulder, and immediately resumed yanking at the knots frantically.

A familiar face scowled and the adventurer it belonged to stepped forward. I hissed in pain as something finally broke.

My tooth, not the ribbon. The hell they make this shit out of!?

I gave up on the damn ribbons and brought my hands down pressing my palms against the floor and pushing off the ground. I dove for the door, only for a boot to catch me straight in the gut.

I landed a dozen feet away, curled up in ball around my bruised stomach. No, I had to move. I forced myself to roll over and get my hands under me, but the boot came down again before I could move, crushing me into the floor.

“I don’t know why you thought you could get away with this, you little bastard, but you’re lucky to still be alive… not that you can expect to stay that way for much longer.”

I flailed with all my strength, but all a goblin’s strength meant little to the adventurer. He just leaned into it, grinding his foot into my back and lowering himself enough that his cloak brushed against the floor. Stupid ponce, wearing a cloak indoors. I grabbed the trailing edge, twisted it around my fist, and yanked.

The human tumbled to the ground and I threw myself forwards as best I could. I still couldn’t walk with my feet tied, but I pushed off with both legs simultaneously before passing of the weight to my arms in an awkward imitation of how a dog or horse might move.

Awkward, but fast. I was across half the room before the human even knew what was happe-

And then his shin drove into my side with the force of a charging bull, hurling me into the wall. Huh. I guess he did know what was happening.

“Oh, you little shit.” Ah. That was a tone I recognized.

The human’s boot hit me again, but I was already curled up into a protective ball around my more important organs. While painful, this was at least familiar. No funny soul magics, no mocking laughter, just a pissed off guy taking out his anger on someone else. Reminded me of home. Not the best part of home, but hey, I’d take the positives where I could find them.

Much like an angry hob, the adventurer lost enthusiasm after getting in a few solid minutes of kicking. Unlike a hob, he didn’t wander off once he was satisfied, instead continuing to vent in the less violent of angry ranting. Somewhat of a novel experience, most hobs preferred physical discipline, but after a few minutes I was still ready for him to shut up.

His ranting mostly seemed to consist of how much of a worthless thief I was, but I’ll confess I stopped paying attention pretty quick once I realized he wasn’t really going anywhere with this. I wasn’t already dead, so I was probably being kept alive for some purpose.

Not that he couldn’t have easily killed me with his little tantrum, but my new powers were at least good for that much. Not quite enough to let me escape, but my Constitution and Toughness at least kept me alive. I didn’t think much of his beating technique, it was honestly pretty terrible. He hadn’t been trying to kill me, but I could tell from the distances his blows had hurled me that I’d have broken some bones right quick if I’d been my past self. Hell, If I was any less good at taking a beating I might have gotten some internal bleeding Stats or no Stats.

Eventually, after an indeterminate amount of time spent slowly recovering from my bruises and wondering if I could get away with trying my hand at escaping my bonds again, the door opened. The elderly priest stepped through, and frowned down at me.

“Garrett. Why is the goblin up?”

“He isn’t!” The adventurer’s, Garrett’s, voice was defensive, even though the old man couldn’t possibly be as powerful as he was. “Believe me, he isn’t going anywhere with me around. There’s nothing he can try that I can’t beat.”

Yesss, be stupid human. Be very stupid.

The older human shook his head. “Foolishness does not become you.”

Ah. That was why Garrett was deferential. The elder’s years had made him wily. I would have to keep an eye on him.

Garrett just huffed, looking away. “I can handle it.”

The old man just sighed. “Of course you can.” He looked over at me. “But we need to focus on the matter at hand. The goblin.”

Garrett glared down at me. “Damn animal. He could have killed you..”

The elderly priest laughed. “I could have died at many points during my life. Hasn’t happened yet. No use wasting time on could-have-beens when there are more important matters, like the divine energy stolen by this little blighter.”

Garrett snarled at me. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? That power is sacred, and defiled by your blasphemy. A stupid animal scavenging for food and finding divine power…” He shook his head.

Oh, I’d very much known what I was doing, but I wasn’t about to confess to that. I had the impression that my presumed ignorance very much played a role in my continued life.

The priest leaned in. “Tell me, what do you know of the soul?”

Garrett looked askance at the older man. “What do we care about what he knows? We should just kill him and reclaim what we can.”

The priest chuckled. “Setting aside the issue of how ignorant this creature truly is for the moment... well, the power granted to mortals by the gods can be transferred between individuals… most frequently by a death.”

I didn’t like the idea that my newfound power could be taken from me… though I supposed it didn’t make much difference if I was already dead. The real question was why I wasn’t already dead. It would be much simpler to just kill me while I was unconsciou-

Oh. Oh gods. Sacrificial rituals often required conscious subjects, harnessing the pain and suffering to help power themselves.

I scrambled backwards, pressing myself against the wall.

The priest’s smile widened, but he had a cold look in his eyes. “Oh yes, you’ll die soon enough. But not today.”

Garrett opened his mouth, but the priest shushed him with one hand. “You know there are… inefficiencies… in the process. If we kill it now there’s no way we’ll regain what we’ve lost. But…”

Garrett nodded slowly, catching on to what the priest was saying, even if I still had no idea. “The divine gift is a seed...”

“And seeds must grow before the harvest." The priest finished the phrase with the familiarity of scripture. "Cut his bonds and set loose him in the deep woods.” The priest turned to me. “And you… if you kill enough monsters, you might just gain enough strength to survive… or just grant Garrett more power with your own death, of course."

He chuckled with the sound of an indulgent grandpa, but I could hear the malice of the devil in his voice. "Do see if you can prove me wrong.”

His hand lashed out, and even my new speed wasn’t enough to pick up more than a blur before it impacted the side of my head and sent me back into darkness.