It took him over an hour to reach the entrance to the mine. He watered and fed the packhorse, then he reached into his satchel and put on the turtle goblin helm. He kept his sword in hand while his pickaxes stayed stashed away. He hoped the helmet would work on these goblins in the mine, but if it didn’t he was ready to fight, even if it was fighting just long enough to get himself the hell out of the mine.

His packhorse let out a nervous neigh as they entered the mine. It was Deja Vu from when his turtle goblins told him not to enter the mist.

He wouldn’t turn back now though. He’d found a huge possible advantage here: He could recruit turtle goblins to mine for him. He was already getting the bonus of not paying another 50% tax, but he’d be able to greatly multiply his labor...if he could make the little bastards listen to him again. It was a bigger risk, but the payoff was potentially too huge to ignore.

He tugged on the reins. “Come on, girl,” he whispered. “I’ll keep you safe.”

If he didn’t keep the horse safe, he’d have to work as a slave until he paid back the cost of the horse.

He lit a torch and held it in his free hand. After ten or so minutes, he found a thick vein of copper ore, and he balanced the torch on the ground. Because of his mining skill, he knew how to find veins of ore, and he recognized what copper looked like. He’d never have been able to do this on Earth, but the mining skill had given him this knowledge and muscle memory.

He swung his pickaxe into the wall. The ore was a deep, dark green, and it fell to the ground in thick chunks the size of his fists. Elrick took two swings at a time, then turned toward the darkness beyond, waiting to see if all the noise he was making had attracted the attention of any goblins.

Nothing came for some time, and after an hour or two, he’d filled each pack on the saddlepack halfway full with ore.

He started to let his guard down, swinging away and pulverizing the ore as best he could before dumping it into the packs.

Then his horse neighed and took a step back. Elrick dropped his pickaxe, raised his sword, and snatched the torch up off the ground.

He held the torch out toward the darkness, and he pointed his sword forward.

He waited.

The horse huffed again, but Elrick focused fully on the darkness before him, and on the way the flame danced along the edges of the mine, until the darkness swallowed up the light.

Movement caught his eye. He held his ground even as his legs urged him to run. He held the torch up closer to his face. His turtle goblin helmet needed to be visible to them.

The goblins stopped short of him, just far enough that he could only see their vague outlines in the darkness.

Elrick swatted his sword against the wall. A metallic clink echoed loudly through the cave, and the goblins jumped back a step or two. He waved the torch back and forth.

“Obey me,” he said, forcing his voice deeper.

One goblin hissed and stepped forward.

This goblin was taller than the others. It must have been a leader of some kind. It slammed its sword against the wall, mimicking Elrick’s move. Oh, it had a sword. It really was the leader. The others stayed behind him, not daring to raise their spiked clubs.

It was challenging him. Elrick had so much to gain if he won, and there was no guarantee he could outrun them in this darkness. He had to fight now.

The advantage should be his. He was bigger, taller, stronger. His weapon was better. He was covered in armor. His armor might not have been so great against hammers or clubs, but against this sword it would offer him some real protection. The downside, of course, was that if he got hit where there was no armor, he wouldn’t just get a nasty bruise. The sword would slice right into his body.

What advantage did the goblin leader have? For one, it seemed to be adapted to this darkness. The goblins navigated through the mine with no light. Elrick would have to fight with a torch in one hand, or risk putting it down and losing his light entirely.

Then again, maybe the goblins were so well adapted to the darkness that the torchlight would be like looking into the sun for them. It might blind them.

He couldn’t count on that. He just needed to fight well and take the leader down decisively, proving to the rest that they should follow him.

The goblin approached him. Elrick squeezed his sword until his forearm bulged. Adrenaline flowed into his veins.

The goblin growled. No, it was a snort. It sounded like it was–

It spit. It had sucked all the mucus through its nose, and before Elrick could even register what had happened, his torch went out. Snuffed out by goblin snot.

Total blackness swallowed him.

He turned and ran.

Maybe if the little bastard just had a club he’d have held his ground. He could have taken a hit or two to find out where the thing was, then jab his sword right into it.

But not when the thing had a sword, and Elrick could only assume serious night vision capabilities if the goblin had consciously spat out the torch. The sword goblin would go straight for his exposed flesh with its sword, and Elrick would have no hope of blocking or parrying or counter-attacking. So he ran.

He ran straight into a wall. He fell to the ground. The wall—which he realized was actually his horse—huffed and started to run. One of the shoed hooves crashed down just inches from his ear. That would have killed him had it hit his skull, helmet or no.

The torch flared up ever so slightly as it hit the ground–the goblin spit apparently hadn’t extinguish the flame entirely–he had just enough light to see the gleaming bronze point of the goblin’s sword jabbing toward his exposed torso, where the ribcage of his bone armor didn’t reach down to.

Elrick rolled, and the sword hit the ribs of his bone armor. The force hit him hard, and part of the blade cut cold into his skin. The bone armor ribs held the sword back enough that it didn’t sink deep into him. The pain was just enough to piss him off.

As he’d rolled, air had stoked the torch a little bit more, and light flared enough now that Elrick saw clearly–for a few feet at least. The goblin jabbed at him again, but this time Elrick dodged clean. His own sword was in his hand, but he’d lost his grip on it while rolling, and he’d picked it back up the wrong way so that the blade was facing backward. He punched with the hilt of the sword, not having time to bring the blade around. The blunt bronze hilt cracked the turtle goblin right between its eyes. It staggered backward, and that’s when Elrick had time to get the blade around.

He thrust forward, going full offense. He aimed for the soft flesh just under the goblin’s carapace, and his sword sunk right through. It went deep, all the way in until he felt it meet the inside of the shell on the thing’s back.

The goblin leader spit again—blood this time—all over Elrick’s face and eyes. He held his sword in. He twisted it. More goblin blood hit his face. The goblin’s sword cut into his thigh. Elrick screamed and twisted his weapon more, skewering the goblin’s insides. He pulled his sword out and jabbed another hole into the horrible little thing.

The goblin’s sword, which had been slicing into his leg, dropped to the ground.

Elrick looked down just long enough to see it was just a shallow cut on his leg. His definition of a “shallow cut” had changed since he’d come to Antium. In his old life, a shallow cut would have been a paper cut. In his new life, it meant that the entire outer layer of skin was slashed open and gushing blood, but at least he couldn’t quite see the bone, and none of his muscle had been cut into.

He growled and spit onto the slain leader’s corpse. He pulled out his skinning knife and started to saw away at the corpse. It took him two or three minutes to separate the shell from the body. Then he cut off the dreadlocks.

The former followers of the dead leader stared at him as he worked. He could barely see them in the dying torchlight, but he saw the glossy whites of their unblinking eyes.

He punched a hole into the shell with his pickaxe, then threaded the hair through. He took off the old leader’s shell from his head and threw it down, then strapped the new one to his head.

“Obey me,” he growled.

They obeyed.