Everything hurts. His legs hurt, his back hurt, his face hurt, his eyes hurt. Life was pain. Existence is pain. He groaned and tried to roll on his back, only to be jolted fully awake by a piercing pain.

[You have sustained piercing damage]

[HP 7/232]

He let out a grunt of pain and then cursed himself for forgetting that there was something. With relief, he noticed that his health had ticked up a bit in the time he had been sleeping, and he wasn’t in immediate danger of dying anymore.

Trying to open his eyes proved to be futile. He felt something moving, but they were still too swollen to open, so he couldn’t see what was stuck in his back. Using his good arm to reach the spot that had hurt him just now, he felt something hard and thin lodged in his back. His hand flared up in a million needle pricks as his raw flesh was pressed against it and his back joined in concert with a red hot flare of pain that radiated up his back into his head when he tried to nudge it, threatening to knock him out anew.

After the pain had subsided to a dull throbbing and his panting of pain had returned to normal shallow breathing, he gently caressed the spot, trying to discern what was stuck inside of him. After some careful and extremely unpleasant experimentation, he was willing to wager a guess that his iron rod was stuck in his back somehow. He wondered for a moment how that had happened, before refocusing on the important issue of survival.

He carefully folded his fingers around the rod so as not to nudge, and let his hand get used to the pain of touching the rusty rough iron, and causing another overwhelming wave of pain. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself against what was about to come. After exhaling and inhaling anew a few times, he gave a sharp pull at the rod, in an attempt to dislodge it.

[You are bleeding]

[HP 6/232]

It took a moment for the pain to subside, and his body to stop feeling like it was about to throw up, so he could register what was happening. He felt warm blood welling up around the rod, and a throbbing pain pushing against it from within him. He quickly gave another pull on the rod, and his screaming out of pain joined the loud clang of iron falling on the stone that resounded throughout the tunnel.

[You are bleeding profusely]

[HP 4/232]

Pulling his wound closed with his claws he tried to blindly stem the bleeding on his slippery skin. After a few failed attempts he managed to find some purchase for his claws where he could press the flesh together to stem the bleeding. Having regained a modicum of mobility with the iron rod dislodged from his back, he moved his legs to his body, pushing his ass up in the air. Then he found grip and pushed down, moving his body scraping forwards over the ground, his limp arm dragging over the ground, his good arm holding the wound closed, and swallowing the grunts of pain that tried to escape his mouth.

[You are bleeding]

[HP 3/232]

Waiting until he had recovered more would have been wiser, but time was of the essence for his survival. So he proceeded with pushing his body over the ground, using his legs to propel him forward. Eventually, something soft was pushed by his scalp, and he let out a sigh of relief.

He considered for a moment not to grab it, but if he waited he would bleed to death right now. However, if he would let go of his wound he would be bleeding heavily and have little time to try this desperate attempt at stopping his bleeding. After deliberating for a moment he made his decision and let go of his wound to grab what he had felt above his head.

[You are bleeding profusely]

[HP 1/232]

The pain that flared up because of the movement was overwhelming, he forced his muscles to grab at it, screaming aloud from the pain with a deep guttural sound, unable to contain his pain. He then finally slammed his hand on the soft rat corpse, willfully suppressing the pain that flared up in his hand at the rough treatment of his open wounds. His hand desperately tried to let go of the pain-causing irritant, and it cost him considerable willpower to battle against the natural reflex. Having found a good hold on the rat corpse, he lifted it towards the wound on his back and slammed it down on the wound, evoking another scream of pain that resounded throughout the sewer.

Pressing the rat corpse against his wound, he felt his good arm trembling with exhaustion, and the pain in his hand growing with each moment, as he kept the pressure on his wound.

With great effort he swung his shoulder up and rolled over his bad shoulder, causing more pain radiating from his chest blinding his mind, screaming out with the pain before landing on his back, the rat corpse between the ground and the wound in his back, putting pressure it.

Completely exhausted by his struggle for survival, gasping for breath after screaming so much, blackness enveloped him.

-------

Sitting on the wooden bench in the mess hall, a mug of ale in her hand, Mereah was glad for the moment of respite after the incredibly messy day. The hour was late, they had missed the evening meal being served and had to suffice with stale bread and cold cuts left over from the day. The ale dulled the pain a bit, and the food-filled the stomach, and that was still better than hardtack.

They had been the first troop to return from their scouting mission, having explored all their allotted regions, finding nothing except that dead goblin and the dead rats. Having given an accurate report to their commander and handing over the ear as proof had granted them a nod of approval. They handed over their wax tablets and were sent to go back to the training compound, so they could clean their uniforms. The summer sun had been setting when they had arrived back at their barracks and staff were exiting the mess hall after dinner service.

They made their way to the well and hauled a bucket up with fresh water, drinking to their heart's content first and then refilling their water flasks with the fresh cool water.

That had decreased the contents of the bucket significantly, so they refilled it with water from the well. With fresh water for cleaning they stripped out of their armor and started the process of cleaning their gear with the water. Despite their care not to get the contents of the sewer on them somehow, it had gotten into seemingly every nook and cranny of the armor and clothes.

Quipping some jokes about what a shit job it was, and that this was a dung well expedition and other poop-related jokes they cleaned everything. Eventually when the sky was pitch dark, oil lamp light lit their work, having used several buckets worth of water, but everything was clean. Then went to oil up their gear so it wouldn’t dry out and crack. And only then after everything was taken care of, and they were exhausted, hungry but clean, could they make their way to the mess hall.

And now they were here, enjoying the lukewarm ale and some bread whilst quipping about the work they had done and imagining other shitty missions they would have to perform as fully trained soldiers.

Slowly throughout the evening, the other troops started to enter the mess hall. Exhausted from crawling through the sewers throughout the early day into the evening, and dug into the bread and cold cuts with ravenous hunger. The mess hall started to become livelier as tales were recounted from their expeditions.

One troop had found a smuggler's hideout in the sewers and had spent the evening transporting all the goods, wares, and treasure out of it after they had finished scouting and had reported its existence. The troop leader sheepishly said that in hindsight they should have just kept their mouth shut, as they would have been earlier to return. His troop mates chided him in a friendly manner and everybody had a good laugh at it.

Eventually, deep into the evening, the last troop entered the mess hall, with a victorious look on their exhausted faces. A smile of satisfaction on their faces as they slouched towards the tables before letting their asses fall on the coarse benches.

All faces in the mess hall were pointed to them expectantly, and they seemed to drink in that they were in the center of attention.

“Well, what are you lot grinning so smugly for?” Flut asked with a slight slur in his voice from the ale he had been consuming all evening.

With the silence breached everybody started to fire questions at them, so they first couldn’t get a word in edgewise. After a few moments the leader of the last troop, Pharis, lifted his hands and motioned them for silence. Silence, pregnant with eager anticipation, returned to the mess hall with all eyes fixated upon Pharis’ stocky frame.

Pulling a hand through his brown hair, he stood up with a groan and started to address the trainees before him.

“We found the goblin lair.”

At that simple explanation, it was silent for a moment, before the questions started to pour in. Pharis lifted his hands for silence again.

"Please, I can't answer you like this. Please raise your hand and I'll point to the person who can answer."

Mereah also had questions, lifting her hand with everybody else gathered there, and was picked as first from the sea of raised hands to ask her question. Pharis's brown eyes fixed on her she stood up for her question so the others could hear her properly.

“Did you have to engage the goblins?”

This was the question that was burning on everybody's lips of course, and she was the one that got to ask it. Smiling to herself she sat down again, her moment of attention gone and everybody’s eyes returning to Pharis for his answer.

“No, we did not have to engage them.”

Groans of disappointment washed through the mess hall, as everybody had hoped for a heroic story of their peers battling the ugly goblins emerging victoriously. Pharis waited for it to dissipate before pointing to another trainee with a question, who also stood up.

Mereah saw it was Sefan who had been chosen next to ask a question. She was disappointed that she hadn’t been the one to ask the question that would have led to a heroic telling. She could have used that after this shitty day. Grumpily she tore off a piece of stale bread and started chewing on it.

“How did you find the goblin camp then?” Sefan asked curiously.

“We were scouting our last tunnel marked on our map. Then we spotted a blockade was there in the tunnel consisting of woven trash. We inspected it and noticed smaller tunnels, probably big enough for a goblin to crawl through. We considered breaking through it to see what lay behind, but if an entire goblin tribe would be on the other side, our chances would have been slim.”

Pharis accepted a sloshing mug of ale and a piece of bread that one of his troop mates handed him with a nod in thanks to his mate. Then took a long draft from the mug, before letting out a satisfied sigh and smacking his lips.

Tearing a bite of the bread he started to chew languidly before washing it down with another gulp of ale before he continued his story.

“We decided to cover our lamps and to wait, to see if we could hear something. Bennie there walked away loudly to give them the impression we were leaving.”

Taking another bite from his bread and another mouthful of ale, he took this moment to look at the eyes fixed on him in rapt attention. Swallowing his bread and ale, he put the mug and the bread on the table.

“After what seemed an eternity, we heard them starting to move about. Talking in that weird guttural language of theirs, scurrying about. We then had Bennie come back by letting some light out into his direction and they died down again. We then left with Bennie, them hopefully being none the wiser.”

Encompassing his troop mates in a broad gesture he continued the story, ignoring the raised hands that had gone up.

“We then spent a large portion of the evening I guess, trying to find all the possible exits from their lair we could find. We found only one extra on the other side of the tunnel, only reachable after a three hours hike, but they could have dug a tunnel of their own of course, but more we don’t know, as we weren’t supposed to engage them.”

“And now I'm going to enjoy my meal and then sleep like the dead because I'm exhausted,” Pharis said as he sat down and bit down on his bread, ignoring the questions from the other troops washing over him.