I sat there, dazed and lost for an unknown amount of time, with my stomach tightly churning in my chest. My mind was running in circles. I didn’t want to walk down the road of becoming a beast again, and yet I wanted to lash out and hurt something. After what was done to the girls in the other room, I wanted to simply rush over and start beating all the goblins to death, and yet I felt that if I did so, I’d be harming myself as much as them.

I had no proof the females were the masterminds behind the treatment of the girls. If anything, the female goblins seemed almost as if they were nothing more than slaves or servants to the males. In war, once the fighting is over, do we punish the soldiers for following the orders of their leaders? Damned if I knew. I never paid the most attention in History class – I liked the tales of battle and fights and such, but the schools always wrapped them up in dates and numbers and such things to the point where it just became bland trash to confuse the mind and ruin the facts.

Hitler was a bad guy and started a war sometime last century and a lot of folks died. Who cared if the war was in 1902 or 1922? It was early last century, and he did a lot of bad shit. Isn’t that enough for them to make certain we know? Why did they expect us to know the names and dates of every battle in order? What use was such numbers to us? What I would’ve loved to know now is: What the hell did they do with the enemy soldiers after the war was over and Hitler died?

Didn’t everybody just go their own ways and then basically tried to pretend it never happened?

That’s how I kind of remember the story of the US Revolution going. America and England went to war, and when the battle was over, they both went their own ways and said, “Sorry Old Chaps. Let’s pretend it never happened, and we’ll be the best of pals from now on.”

The problem was, we couldn’t really just let the goblin females go. We still needed to deal with the other goblin commanders, which were presumably in the other wings of the building.

I didn’t think it’d be right to kill them, even though I was really wanting to right now, and we couldn’t let them go. The only option that left for them was to keep them as our prisoners for now. Maybe when we met the requirements to access the elevator and leave, we could set them loose. It was the only thing I could imagine doing with them, at the moment.

As I was making up my mind on how to handle the goblins, a DING sounded and a pop-up appeared in front of me.

Congratulations!

Your party has acquired the broken slave-sworn “Flea-bitten Whore!

Due to nefarious actions, you lose 1 SPR!

It was quickly followed by a second Ding, and another pop-up.

Congratulations!

Your party has acquired the broken slave-sworn “Loose-Ass Whore!

Due to nefarious actions, you lose 1 SPR!

And then a third Ding, and yet another pop-up.

Congratulations!

Your party has acquired the broken slave-sworn “Toy-Toy Joy-Toy!

Due to nefarious actions, you lose 1 SPR!

“Isabella! What the hell?” I shouted a thought through the party link and Brandr drew her sword and spun around looking for trouble while the little females huddled near her crouched and whimpered at her sudden actions.

“I claimed them so I could see if we could help them, or if they could help us.” Isabella’s reply was calm and collected in my head.

“You.. You should’ve asked first, and we would’ve discussed what to do,” I told her.

“You’re right, and I’m sorry. I just figured I’d take a burden off you.” Her thoughts actually did sound sorry somehow. I really have to have her teach me how to adjust mine like that sometime. All I knew was really ‘speak in mind’; I didn’t know anything about volume control or pitch or tone or any of that stuff.

“You would have taken these for yourself to deal with them,” Isabella continued, “just to spare us from having to do anything we’d regret doing. I almost made you shoulder the whole burden for Brandr by yourself; I wasn’t going to let you deal with these all alone.

“We needed to learn more about these, and how they can do what they do, so I’m looking into it now. This slave system really is quite amazing. The things you could’ve done to Brandr are astonishing. Now that I can see it better, I’m surprised that you didn’t make hundreds of little alterations to her.”

She paused for a moment, and then her voice came back quietly through the party chat. It sounded almost sad. “These girls have all been leveled up a few times, and they have classes. Flibi is a level five ‘Life Maiden’. Ha!” She barked bitterly in my head. “I don’t think she’s any sort of maiden now, but that’s the name of her class. From her stats, I think she’s probably a priestess of some sort. She has a high spirituality and SP. All the girls do, to be honest.

“Lucy is a level 4 ‘Biogeotic Shaman’, and Toy is a level 2 ‘Mistress of the Dead’. From what I can see and learn through the slave interface, they’ve all been heavily modified already. I think most of the points they earned were simply used to break them further. All of them have had their WIL drained down to almost nothing. I don’t think they have the willpower to fight back from anything anymore.

‘And they’re not ranked like Brandr was. If I remember, she was called a true slave-sworn. These are broken slave-sworns. I didn’t get any drop in spirit for ‘nefarious actions’ when you claimed Brandr, but I lost several points from these – not that it really mattered since I was already in the negatives to begin with. I guess it just means the Gods like me even less than they used to. I really must be an evil demoness.”

I didn’t bother to tell her that I’d lost my last remaining spirituality as well and was now in the negatives as well. Izzy had enough to deal with, looking over the three of the girls. Just dealing with Brandr, and being responsible for her, was hard enough for me. I couldn’t imagine the pressure of having three slaves to sort out all at once.

“Hmmm…” Isabella’s thought was drawn out, as if she was thinking while talking in my thoughts. Dang! That’s intense when you don’t just hear what someone is thinking, but also the not-thought behind the think. Or something like that? Dammit! I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Today’s just been a little too much. It just seems odd that you could hear someone else clearing their thoughts, in your thoughts!

“You know,” Isabella finally said, “I think there might be something to these class titles. I think they might represent what most people would call ‘good’, ‘neutral’, and ‘evil’. With the book I found, there were three choices: ‘Lifebringer’, ‘Painbringer’, and ‘Lifestealer’. A Lifestealer we know is regarded as evil. I’d imagine that a Lifebringer would be good, and a Painbringer is in the middle of those two.

“Same with Brandr’s choices: ‘Guardian’, ‘Warden’, or ‘Nightblade’. We know that a Nightblade is considered evil, and I’d assume that the other choices were good and neutral. I think these girl’s classes are like that. ‘Life Maiden’, ‘Biogeotic Shaman’, and ‘Mistress of the Dead’ seem to follow that same pattern, and from what I can see of their spells it seems to confirm it.

“Flibi can create fruit, create water, and do a minor heal. Lucy can create fruit and grow plants. Toy doesn’t seem like they let her learn any magic. I imagine a Mistress of the Dead probably doesn’t do much in creating life or growing it. She really is nothing but a toy for them, and I don’t think she’ll be anything but a burden to us..”

Isabella’s voice trailed off in my head for a few moments until she whispered, “I’m sorry,” and a DING and pop-up appeared.

WARNING!

Your party has slain its broken slave-sworn “Toy-Toy Joy-Toy!

Due to nefarious actions, you lose 5 SPR!

Congratulations, your party has another Human!

Your party gains 25 Infamy!

You SPR decreases by 1!

Your total Human kills is: 2

You need 8 more kills to unlock the Mass Murderer achievement.

God dammit!

“Isabella!” I yelled aloud and slowly staggered back up to my feet and started towards the back room.

As I was walking towards the room, Isabella came out and around the corner towards us. I was going to yell, shout, and spank her ass, but then I saw how swollen her eyes were and how freely the tears poured down her face. She dashed across the short distance between us, and leapt up into my arms and buried her head into my shoulder. Deep, pitiful wracks of sobs were muffled into my shoulder.

All I could do is wrap my arms around her and make slight shushing sounds. I really couldn’t be upset with her. She’d made a decision that I don’t know if I could’ve. The last girl was spiked to the floor and I don’t even know how we could’ve possibly freed her without causing her a lot more pain and suffering. Hell, she might have even lost her arms or legs if we tried. After all that had happened to her, Isabella was doing her a favor and putting her out of her misery.

If I were to be honest, and was one of those other girls, I’d probably want to be put out of my misery too. Isabella let them live because she thought they could be useful for us, and how could I fault her for that? I wanted to help those girls, but I think they’re gone. Whatever part of a person that makes them a person is broke. As much as I don’t want to admit it, from what I saw earlier, that first girl was nothing more than some sort of human vending machine. Just stick your hand in, rattle it around a few times, and presto! Out pops a banapple!

As it had been, we couldn’t even keep food for the two of us. Now, there was close to twenty little goblins to feed if we didn’t kill them or let them go, and I just couldn’t see allowing either of those things to happen. Sure, there might be some mushrooms now, but I doubted it was enough for a larger group like ours to feed on.

No matter what we chose, we could only do wrong in this case.

If we let the goblins live and kept them as prisoners, we had to keep the two girls and let them live as nothing more than a renewable source of food production. If we killed the girls, then we’d also have to kill the goblins, watch as they starved, or else let them go join our enemies.

Or, I suppose we could just say screw it, kill everything and everyone, and fall completely into the darkness that this world seemed to desire from its residents – but I’d already decided we weren’t going to do that.

Since the goblins were going to live to be our prisoners, the two girls would have to live to help feed them and us. Even the thought of eating a fruit created in the means that those were, made my stomach flip and protest. I think I’d almost rather do as Brandr did and simply eat my own leg.

The more I lived in this world, the more I hated it.

Someday, somehow, it had to change. Everyone talked about how bad the old world was before with terrorists, global warming, food shortages, and the global recession; but I’d trade this hell for that one again in an instant. Even if it was a god who did this, they needed to be stopped. Fucked up was just too fucked up.

Slowly, I sank down to the ground with Isabella in my arms and tried to comfort her. I never should have left her in there alone with the slaves. What had happened was as much on me as it was on her, so I couldn’t really blame the system for holding me responsible for the death and giving me a negative spirituality. We really were about as evil as they come I suppose.

How do you stop becoming a monster, when the whole world is nothing but monsters?

I really don’t know. Advertisement Support "The 8th Day" PayPal Patreon Previous

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Chapter RSS About the author 11 Fictions 221 Posts 25 Threads Darkbringer Follow Author Saturday, December 19, 2015 2:06:57 PM Dark Dream Weaver

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