He woke up the goblins, who seemed to quite enjoy sleeping in. They made grumpy hissing noises at him, but he finally got them up by throwing them some deer bones to chew on.

As they chomped and gnawed on the bones, Adrian handed one of the goblins its club. He moved the club out so that the goblin was in something resembling a combat pose. Adrian drew his own sword, and he placed the blade gently against the club, creating a rough x-shape.

Adrian tapped his sword gently against the goblin’s club. “Spar me.”

It tilted its head at him. Adrian took his sword, as gently as possible, and tapped the flat of it against the goblin’s shell.

“Understand?” he asked.

The goblin smiled, and before Adrian knew what was happening, the goblin lunged at his leg and slammed its club so hard against his knee armor that he staggered backward.

He swung his sword, slapping the flat of it hard against the goblin’s soft belly.

Your skill in Swordsmanship has increased by 0.1 It is now 50.5.

The goblin came at him again, but this time Adrian batted the club away with his sword, deflecting the blow entirely.

The goblin snarled, and tossed its club at Adrian.

He tucked his head down, and the blunt weapon crashed into his helmet. There was a loud thunk, and the bruised part of his head exploded with lancing pain.

“No throwing!” He shouted. “Easy…”

It took him another 30 minutes, and several more too-painful thumps to the head and knees, but he eventually taught all the goblins to pull their punches. Soon he was sparring all four at once, and their hits to his knees were only mildly uncomfortable.

His Monster Taming skill was still low, which he could feel. Even though he was able to get the goblins to spar, he had to spend more effort keeping them under control than he did actually sparring. Each goblin that wasn’t sparring him would just wander off, and sometimes the one that was sparring him would forget to pull his punches, which gave Adrian some fresh bruises.

After two hours, Adrian was so exhausted he could barely lift his sword, but his Swordsmanship skill was up to 51.3. He resolved to spar as much as possible from here on out, hoping to become somewhat skilled with the sword by the time he reached Antia.

The routine went on over the next several days, though Adrian started to go on the hunt with the goblins, learning whatever he could from them.

They spent the journey to Antia hunting, cooking, eating, sleeping, and sparring.

The forest gave way to barren fields with sparse trees, and the goblins moved with increasing unease in the light of the sun. The sea was visible again, though Adrian kept strategically between the path and the coastline, not wanting to hit any highly trafficked areas while still travelling with his “tamed” goblins. He hadn’t actually seen anyone though.

On his third morning in Antium, he came across his first sign of civilization: A rotting wooden house. The windows were completely gone, and most of the wood was completely rotted through. He had to really squint to even imagine what the house might have looked like before it had rotted away. Two entire walls were just gone, and trees were growing in what would have been the living area or bedrooms--not that there were any interior walls left to demarcate individual rooms.

The goblins didn’t take any notice of the house, and when Adrian tried to rummage through it to find something useful, the goblins hissed impatiently at him. They didn’t like stopping unless it was to sleep or to eat, and his taming skill was too low to fight them on that.

He came across more abandoned buildings later that day. One abandoned house wasn’t so bad, but dozens was another thing entirely. At one point he came across what looked like it had been an entire row of houses and shops. There were broken stones in addition to wood, indicating more advanced construction techniques--not that it helped the houses from falling apart. These buildings looked like they had been left to rot for decades, maybe even over a century.

The gnome had said this world was “stagnant” and that he needed to fix that. Was he in some kind of post-apocalyptic fantasy world? Were there simply no cities? Was he supposed to somehow rebuild civilization?

He put those thoughts out of his mind. He’d find out what he was supposed to do, and he’d do it. He wouldn’t throw away this second chance, even if the second chance was in a world much shittier than the one he’d been born in.

On the bright side, by the evening of the fourth day, Adrian’s skill set was looking much less sad than when he’d fought the first group of turtle goblins:

Swordsmanship: 56.9

Anatomy 54.2

Red Magic: 50.1

Mining: 50.2

Coppersmithing: 50

Bartering: 50

Cooking: 57.3

Stealth: 51.3

Monster Taming 28.4

Well, at least some of the skills were looking less sad. Going hunting had given him a lot of chances to increase his Stealth skill, which had been making very little progress since he’d tamed the goblins.

His gains in Monster Taming were still coming fairly fast, but the slowdown was already noticeable. Even though he’d increased his core skills significantly in just a few days, he knew these were all still basically beginner gains. As he drew closer to 100 in any given skill, he knew it would take much more work to progress. He wasn’t positive that 100 was the hard cap for a skill, but he had to assume there was a finite limit to how good anyone could get in any given skill. In the tutorial, his skills of 80 had felt very proficient, and he couldn’t really imagine going much higher than 100.

He got his first glimpse of Antia in the evening, just as the sun was nearing the horizon. Antia, which was indeed a city, was on a rocky hill jutting out from the sea. The hill was covered in domed buildings, towering lighthouses, and dark obelisks. The largest dome of the skyline looked like some kind of temple, towering over all the surrounding buildings. Only the obelisks were taller than the temple, though the spindly obelisks were like slender fingers to the temple’s impressive body. The fading sun was hitting the temple just right, and the temple looked like it was glowing gold, with perfectly defined shadows cutting across it from the obelisks. The other buildings looked striking as well in the golden bronze sunset, stretching as far as Adrian could see away from the sea.

More important than the city itself was the fact that it wasn’t falling apart. Even from this far out, he saw that the city was very much alive.

There were dozens—maybe even hundreds—of ships in the sea around Antia. Most had tall sails, but some sported many rows of long oars. There was an extensive dock covering most of the city’s coastline, and many ships were docked. He spotted one ship whose sails were just now being brought down. He couldn’t quite make out the people as more than little specks, but he saw one of the largest sails suddenly fall down and go slack.

Antia didn’t have any buildings as tall as modern skyscrapers, but what it lacked in verticality, it made up for in sprawl. The city sat on many different hills, and each hill for as far as he could see was covered in buildings. Away from the center—from the beautiful golden-bronze domes and obelisks—the buildings looked like smaller houses, rarely more than two stories high. They looked a lot like the buildings which had been abandoned. Had all of these decaying buildings he’d passed by once been part of Antia? Why had they been abandoned?

He brought his attention back to his goal, the golden-bronze city on the sea. It would be his refuge from this monster-ridden forest. He’d learn Coppersmithing Red Magic in Antia, the two skills he was most excited to start working toward. He gazed in wonder, drinking in the sight. If this wasn’t the capital, then he couldn’t even fathom how beautiful–

One of the goblins walked in front of him, blocked his view of the city, and squatted down. It took a huge, steaming shit right in front of him.

He slapped it on the back with the flat of his sword, and all the other goblins cackled.

“You little bastard,” he shouted at it.

Between Adrian and Antia was a valley shrouded in mist. The mist extended all the way out to the sea, and if he squinted it looked like there was no clear dividing line between sea and mist. Adrian had never seen mist like this except for early in the morning, yet it would be dark in just an hour or two. The mist-cloaked valley stretched on for miles, acting as a foreboding barrier between his current position and his goal of reaching Antia.

He led the goblins down the valley. They slowed down, looking more and more often over their shoulders as they traversed deeper into the valley and the mist.

As the mist grew thicker, the goblins stopped entirely.

“Come on,” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just some fog. We’re going through.”

They shook their heads, and pointed back the way they had come from.

Adrian puffed himself up, pointed his sword toward the grey wall of fog, and slammed his fist down onto his helmet. “You follow! I lead!”

Your skill in Monster Taming has increased by 0.2. It is now 28.6.

Their long ears went flat, and they started to follow him, though they definitely didn’t like it. They entered the mist, and a chill cut into Adrian’s bones. He now realized why the goblins didn’t want to go in here, but he told himself that he couldn’t turn back after forcing them forward.

Soon he could see only twenty or thirty feet in front of him. Everything beyond that was swallowed up by the haze. The sun, which had been a radiant golden disc shimmering above Antia, was now just a choked-out little white circle, barely penetrating the fog.

The path continued as a small, packed dirt road. On either side were fallow fields. They looked like they hadn’t been plowed or sowed in many seasons.

Adrian stopped when he saw piles of bones on the fields. He gripped his sword. What if these were like the skeletons from the tutorial, but they just slept in piles? What if the whole pile sprang to life, and an army of skeletons rushed him down? He’d barely survived against three skeletons when he’d been at 80.0 in several skills and had Green Magic. If that whole pile of bones woke up—even with his turtle goblins helping—it would be a death sentence.

Even if they were simply dead people, a pile of bones was not something you wanted to see when surrounded by an eerie mist, protected only by a pack of goblins and a crappy sword that he could barely use properly.

The decaying buildings and rubble he’d passed by suddenly became more menacing as he looked on at the pile of bones.

“They probably died years ago,” Adrian said, more to himself than to the goblins. “Whoever or whatever piled them up should be long gone by now.”

The goblins looked up at him skeptically. How much did they really understand when he spoke?

They walked on toward Antia. He couldn’t see the city at all anymore from so deep in the mist, but he knew it was just down the path. He only needed to keep walking, and eventually he’d reach it.

The goblins started to growl, and Adrian noticed faint lights in the distance. The fog all but choked the lights out, but they were definitely there.

“Maybe it’s the city already,” Adrian said. It felt too soon, but maybe?

The goblins shook their heads, and pointed backward.

“No,” Adrian hissed. “Forward.”

Your skill in Monster Taming has increased by 0.2. It is now 28.8.

They followed him, but they nearly hid behind him as he led the way. He was their leader after all.

As he neared one of the lights, the mist died off almost entirely. The light was a hovering orb of pink luminescence, and it followed a woman holding a mace. It hovered above and around her like a firefly the size of a mango. Its pink light reflected off her leather armor, making her shine pink as pale flowers.

She was fighting a man, but something was wrong with him. His skin fit him too loosely, and his face was like a wet paper bag ready to burst. The woman swung her mace, but the man’s arm flung up to block. The mace cracked into his forearm, and nothing on the swollen face indicated that her target registered even a hint of pain. Even as his arm bent back the wrong way from the impact, he swung his good arm around and grabbed the woman under her helmet, his fingers digging into her neck.

Her mace glowed pink, and she shoved it into the man’s gut as he choked the life out of her.

His skin glowed pink, and then it exploded open. His skin ripped off his body like the skin of a rotten apple, and that’s when Adrian first understood what had been wrong with him all along.

It wasn’t his skin that she had blown off his body. It was someone else’s skin, as if that second suit of skin had controlled the man inside. Free of the burned skin, he fell to the ground. Even under the pink light, it was clear that his skin was grey and dying. His lips parted, and he wheezed. It sounded like “Thank you.” His eyes rolled back into his head, and he stopped moving entirely.

The woman slid her mace into a notch on her belt and grabbed the dead man by the arms. She started to drag him. She looked back over at Adrian and scowled.

“Are you going to help me? We have to burn his body before his skin becomes undead.”

Adrian looked past her. Torches waved in the darkness, and the shadows of men–and things that were not quite men–danced and fought. He’d stumbled into a full-on battle.

He snapped his fingers and pointed, eyeing his goblins. Their ears were pointier than he’d ever seen them. Their eyes wide and full of terror.

“Do it!” he shouted. “Help her!”

They obeyed.

They rushed forward, two goblins grabbing hold of each leg. They dragged the corpse toward the torchlight.

“We’ll cover you,” he told the woman, moving in front of them and drawing his sword.

“So you can fight?” She asked, scowling at him.

“Of course I can.” His voice came out much more confident than he felt.

“Well, thanks for all your help while that thing was choking me out,” she said.

He ignored her jab and focused on her. He realized he could see an overlay of her skills that he’d seen her use so far.

Mace Combat 76.3

Red Magic 42.3

White Magic 76.9

Was the magic she used Red Magic? Could she teach him a spell? Or was it white? It looked...pink. Mixing red and white made pink, was she combining both colors?

Now wasn’t the time, but if they survived this, he would definitely have to ask her for help. First he’d have to show her that he wasn’t a total deadbeat, which he wasn’t doing such a great job of so far.

“How do we stop them?” he asked.

“Kill the lich,” she said.

“Where is the lich, and how do we kill it?” he asked.

Adrian jumped and shook involuntarily every time something moved, like a dog frightened of fireworks. Even with the pink orb lighting their way, he was terrified something might get the jump on them while they dragged a corpse around.

“Neither of us can kill it,” she said, “unless you’ve got something more going on than these little beasts and that ancient sword.”

“I can cook too,” he said, grinning. He’d always heard that girls liked when a guy could cook, not that he’d ever bothered to learn it on Earth. This wasn’t a girl either, this was a woman.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Stay with me. You can help me burn the corpses. The lich is covered. Here, look…”

She extended her hand out toward him. Adrian’s heart started to beat harder. Should he take her hand? He didn’t want her to think he was completely spineless, like one of those “hover hand” guys everyone liked to make fun of online. Guys who were too afraid to actually touch a woman when taking a picture with her, so they just kind of “hovered” their hand an inch–or six–over her shoulder. He grabbed her hand and squeezed.

“Let go!” she snapped.

He pulled away as if a snake had bitten him.

“Idiot,” she said, “Close your eyes.”

He obeyed. As he closed his eyes, the smell of burning flesh hit his nostrils even harder. He heard the sound of metal clashing against metal, and the screams of both men and women, and he heard even worse sounds that came from things that were definitely not human.

Then her soft hands ran across his eyelids, grazing the bridge of his nose. Adrian’s lips parted, and he held his breath.

“Come on,” she snapped. “Your goblins are getting too far ahead of us.”

He opened his eyes, and he could see through the mist. He saw as if it were Noon on a cloudless summer day. There was a pink tint to everything though. She must have cast some kind of spell to enhance his vision through the fog.

An army of skeletons held up tower shields and spears. They formed a wall, a skeletal phalanx.

Dozens of soldiers--though their numbers were much less than the skeletons’-- approached the phalanx with weapons raised. Some had shields, some did not. Behind them was a line of archers. They lobbed arrows past the line of skeletons, but it wasn’t clear what they were aiming at. Adrian couldn’t see past the wall of shields.

A man and woman in leather armor walked forward, past the line of fighters. The man held up both hands, and a column of flame erupted from his palms like a flamethrower. The skeletons pressed their shields together to close off all the gaps. The fire grew, and the woman flicked her wrist. The flames pulled away from the line of shields and into her hand, concentrating together like a miniature sun as the male spellcaster channeled more and more flames into her palm. The sun grew not in size, but in intensity, the light became blinding as the man fed more and more fire into it. Adrian squinted, but didn’t dare close his eyes. He had to see what would happen.

The woman clasped the blinding sun into both hands, her body shaking as she struggled to contain it. She flung the ball of light, lobbing it like a grenade up and over the phalanx wall. It crashed down behind the skeletons. Now Adrian did close his eyes, and even through his eyelids the light blinded him with piercing white intensity that lanced straight through his eyelids and into his brain. He shielded his face with his hands.

When he finally opened his eyes, it was raining bones and shields and spears, and the fighters were charging forward past the shattered wall of shields and mostly ruined skeletons.

The skeletons who had survived the blast rushed to reform the wall, but it was too late. The fighters charged through, and soon maces and shields and swords cut into the bone army.

He focused on the man and the woman who had made the big explosion. The man had 93.5 skill in Red Magic. The woman had 89.2 skill in Blue Magic.

Behind him, his goblins threw the corpse they’d been dragging into the pyre, then looked to him for new orders.

“Follow me,” the woman said, running off without waiting for him.

The goblins stood still, eyes on Adrian.

“Follow her,” he said. They stood still. Only when Adrian ran after her did they grudgingly follow.

Adrian doubted he would have caught up to her, had she not stopped dead in her tracks.

Her mace fell from her hand, and she dropped to her knees.

She stared down at the body in front of her. It was a man with two arrows in his chest. He had a thick beard, and his eyes were wide open in that way only the eyes of the dead can be.

She stared down at the body, mouth agape.

“No…” She muttered. She knew him, Adrian realized. Before he could think of what to say, the man’s skin and muscle ripped off the body, leaving nothing but a bloody skeleton.

“Look out!” Adrian shouted.

It was too late.

The skin whipped around her body. He heard her muffled scream, but it was cut short as the skin snapped shut and whipped over her head. It pulled itself taut, and her neck snapped around to bring her facing Adrian. He saw the holes of the eye sockets pulled tight onto her face, and then the terror and pleading in her eyes. Tears dripped from her eyes onto the skin golem wrapped around her.

“Kill me,” she managed to get out before the skin golem shut tight around her mouth and muffled her voice.

He’d let her down once, and so he wouldn’t fail her again. She wanted him to put her down, but he was going to save her.

“Tear her skin off,” he shouted at the goblins. “Bite if off if you have to. Pretend it’s a deer!”

He decided the thing he was fighting was a skin golem. It wasn’t the woman he was fighting, she was just inside. He’d fight the thing itself, but his goal was to get it off of her, not to kill both her and the golem itself.

He clutched his sword, then he felt little hands grab his shin. He looked down to see the turtle goblins hiding behind his legs.

Dammit.

He raised his sword and rushed forward, just as the skin golem reached down and grabbed the mace.

He didn’t look back to see if the goblins were with him. He’d have to assume they’d follow his example. Adrian feared that if he did look back to see them hiding or cowering or running away, that his own courage would melt away.

He slashed at the golem. It dodged faster than any human could. Just as it moved to counterattack with the mace, a goblin flew up like a rat on steroids. It latched onto the golem’s arm, and it sank its teeth and claws into the bicep and forearm.

Adrian took another swing. He angled his sword to try to flay at the skin golem rather than to cut or stab all the way through into the woman beneath.

His blade hit true, and he sliced a big chunk of skin off the arm. He probably cut the woman’s arm too, but she’d survive.

The golem lunged forward, and its head slammed Adrian’s gut with the force of a cannonball. He had no armor there. The hit blasted the air from his lungs, and as he struggled to suck in more, it was like trying to drink bubble tea through one of those little straws you use to stir coffee with. His helmet slammed against the ground as he wheezed, and then he felt the wet grass against his head.

The helmet rolled into his peripheral vision

All four goblins were tearing and clawing at the skin golem. Blood was everywhere, but the golem’s mace was already high in the air, ready to crush down on Adrian.

As it came down on him, he didn’t have time to roll toward the helmet. He needed those extra few inches to make sure the mace didn’t crush his ribcage in. His lungs still burning, Adrian forced his body to move, and he rolled away just in time for the mace to pulverize the ground beside him.

The goblins pulled with all their strength, and the skin golem fell to its knees. Adrian had never let go of his sword, and now he raised it.

The woman beneath the skin golem met his eyes. He heard her voice for a few heartbeats.

“Cut off my head,” she said, “Do it–” The skin tightened around her mouth again, and then he heard only gagged cries.

It would be easy. She was hunched over as if he were an executioner. One downward slash and she’d be done. He could get the goblins to throw the body into the fire before it took Adrian too. It was the smart thing to do, and she was even begging him to do it.

But it was wrong. He couldn’t let that happen.

“Keep her down!” Adrian ordered, and he moved in beside his loyal goblins.

He took out his skinning knife and started to saw at the skin golem. He worked the arms, wanting to free the woman’s hands. Maybe her magic could destroy the golem like before, if only he could free her–

The goblins’ eyes were all on him. They’d let go of the golem. They stared up at his face as if he’d wounded them. No, they were looking just above his eyes, at where the helmet had been. At where the shell of their leader had sat these past several days. Now it was gone, and he saw in their eyes that he’d betrayed them, that his measly skill in taming was nothing without the helmet.

Just as Adrian finished the last cut and pulled the skin golem’s hand off like a bloody glove, the goblins leapt at him, and the last thing Adrian saw before the goblins clubbed him down was a brilliant flash of pink.