Lucas paced between the corpses of the goblins. He needed to come up with a plan, and he needed to do it before he was discovered. He could try to climb back through the tunnel and escape, but he wouldn’t be in a favourable situation. He would either have to hide in the ritual chamber, or go out into the jungle and explore. If he went into the jungle alone, with no idea of where he needs to be, there would be no chance of survival. The options that gave him the best chance to survive this situation would be to either rescue Bart and then try to escape or to form some type of deal with the goblins. He didn’t know if the goblins would even discuss things with him, so for now that would be far too risky of an option to rely on.

That meant his only current option would be to rescue Bart. If these caves were as complex as Bart said they were, then things weren’t looking good, but Lucas wasn’t willing to give up that easily. He would have to exploit the goblin’s weaknesses to even the playing field. He had a couple advantages he could rely on. The goblins didn’t know he was in there, and they also didn’t know what he would do to survive. He had known enough lowlifes in his old life to see their weakness. They were lazy. They didn’t report when the patrol was 10 minutes late; they didn’t check to see if the person invading their home had any allies; they didn’t check the battleground to see if he left anything behind. In a straight fight they could easily tear him apart, but he wouldn’t let this be a straight fight.

Lucas stopped pacing and stepped over the corpses, deeper into the caves. He suspected the goblins would avoid this area until someone else had to clean up the bodies to avoid doing it themselves, so for now he could move in relative safety. The cave he was in was larger than he would expect, four metres tall and four metres wide, with the sides being sharp and jagged. Lucas noticed unlike the cave he entered through, there was no moss of any kind. The floor occasionally sharply dipped inwards, almost creating a natural staircase within the cave. As he got deeper and deeper into the cave, he heard shrieks emerge from the caverns ahead. He walked and walked until he got to a bend in the cave, beyond which lay 5 more tunnels, and a small room in which four goblins shouted over a small campfire where a large animal leg slowly dripped fat as it cooked. The echoey nature of the caves up until this point had obscured their conversation, but now he could hear clearly what they were arguing about.

“I’m the one who shot it, so I get the largest chunk of meat!”

“Piss off Barry, I’m the one who tracked it, so I get the largest chunk.”

“Larry, I’m the one who noticed the tracks in the first place, so it’s mine.”

“Harry, no one cares who noticed the tracks. Me shooting it with a bow was the important part.”

“Why don’t we just each get an equal share of the food?”

The other three goblins looked at the one who spoke up, and shouted in unison, “Shut up, Steven!”

Steven stood up and walked over towards the cave entrance Lucas was standing behind. Lucas gripped the knife in one hand and the pan in the other hand, waiting for him to discover him, but the goblin who was named Steven stopped on the other side of the cave entrance, watching the other 3 goblins with anger in his eyes. Lucas stopped for a moment and thought. In his world, goblins had always had a reputation for their overwhelming greed and low intellect. Perhaps the same thing rang true here.

Lucas whispered as quietly as he can, “They are distracted, if you get your sword and take them out then you can have all the meat.”

Instead of jumping with surprise or alerting the other goblins, the hunched over figure seemed to consider his words for a moment, then drew his short sword. He hid it behind his back and casually approached the other goblins. None of them even seemed to notice him, and before they knew what was happening, the one who was named Barry had a sword sticking through his chest. The other 2 goblins looked at him with a mixture of anger and fear. Larry snatched the carving knife and tried to make a swing for Steven, but got cut down by the sword. Harry put his arms up in a pleading gesture and started begging, but Steven ignored him and stabbed him as well. As soon as he did this, a look of pure glee spread across his face and he ran over to the meat and started ripping it off of the skewer and shoving it into his mouth. Lucas watched with interest throughout the whole fight, if it could even be called that. Lucas stealthily snuck up behind the hungry figure and smashed his frying pan into the side of its head.

Lucas splashed water on the creature's face. It coughed and sputtered as it re-awoke, struggling in place. Its hands and feet had been bound with the loincloths of its brethren and had one stuffed into his mouth. Lucas stood over the starved creature, staring at it with a completely neutral face. He held the remnants of the spit roasted meat in one hand and the knife in the other.

“I’m going to remove the loin cloth from your mouth. If you shout, I’m going to slit your throat.” Lucas held the meat under the goblin’s nose. “If you stay quiet, I will give you some more of the meat. Do you understand?”

The greasy creature wiggled and nodded furiously whilst staring at the meat. Lucas carefully removed the loincloth from the goblin’s mouth whilst making sure none of his fingers were anywhere near the mouth. The creature stared at the meat and then looked up at the tall figure pleadingly. Lucas tossed a small chunk of the meat into the goblin’s mouth and it wolfed it down.

“Did you see a dark green goblin come through here?”

“Boss brought one through around an hour ago. He told us to stay here and make sure no one else came through. He seemed real angry. I think he was taking him to main hall.”

Lucas nodded and tossed another chunk of meat at the figure. “Where is the main hall?”

The goblin flicked its head over towards one of the doors. Lucas looked at the door and noticed that whilst all the other chambers either seemed to go upwards or downwards, that door seemed to go straight.

“One last question, what is the ritual that your boss is planning?”

The goblin looked confused. “I don’t know nothing about no rituals but boss has been going on about a plan that will let him get revenge on the folk above.” Lucas smiled at the goblin.

“Thank you for your help, I appreciate it.” As he said this, he brought up the knife and stabbed it into the goblin’s throat. He didn’t enjoy killing creatures, but if he left that goblin alive, it would have most likely cost him his life. Lucas went over to each goblin and thought about putting it into his inventory. He had been so caught up in the mayhem that he had almost forgotten that he had access to his inventory. After he had finished collecting them all within his inventory, he felt a slight weight press down on him. It seemed that he can’t just carry an infinite amount of weight by putting it in his inventory. It was good that he had learnt this lesson now and not when he tried fitting a giant boulder in his inventory. He can only imagine how that would’ve gone.

Lucas left the small room and headed towards the tunnel to the main hall. He looked back at the remnants of the cave he was currently in, seeing only a few bloodstains and a burnt out campfire. Lucas heard hollering coming from the tunnel entrance as soon as he entered. He realised it wasn't a tunnel, but instead was a carved staircase leading upwards. Lucas quickly scaled the staircase taking it 3 steps at a time and within less than a minute found himself within the opening to a massive underground cavern. This place had to be at least half a kilometre from one to the other, and the ceiling rose up around fifty metres. The cavern was filled with stalactites and stalagmites that spanned up to 10 metres long. Along the walls were small huts carved into the walls, hundreds of which lined the outer wall of the cavern, yet they all seemed to be empty.

Lucas entered the giant cavern as quietly as he could, making sure there were no goblins watching him. It was disconcerting to him to see such a large underground settlement; he didn’t know how anyone could handle being down here with no sunlight for so long, but then thought about the malnourished grey bodies of the cave goblins and realised that they were suffering the effects of their habitat. Lucas slowly approached one of the large stalagmites and peaked around it. Beforehand the large rocky outcroppings had blocked his view of the centre of the room, but now he could see it. Hundreds of goblins sat around small rocks piled with roadkill corpses and cups of what looked like piss lined up towards a small half broken wooden table that a deformed yellow goblin sat behind, attempting to look regal. Lucas was unsure of what to think of the makeshift attempt at a feast, but at least it gave him a solid idea of who the leader was. If he could quickly and silently take out the leader and rescue Bart, then they could probably slip away amongst the chaos, or at least die trying. Lucas realised this would be the perfect time to try using his Identify skill on a creature from afar.

Yellow Goblin

Current Tier: None (1/6 Aspects)

Corruption: ???

Attributes: ???

Skills: ???

Well, that wasn’t particularly helpful. Lucas noticed that the creature had one more aspect than him, whatever that meant. He doubted it would be good news, but it’s not like there is anything he could do about it. Lucas paced around the rocks as all the goblins cheered and feasted upon the corpses of small rodents. There was nothing he could do right now except for sit and watch the event unfold. If he wanted to get this right, he would need to strike at the perfect moment. For now, he would just sit back and watch. Lucas found a nice comfortable position between the jagged rocks and watched the feast.

At first Lucas was restless and bored by the affair, but as time passed he started noticing details and it felt like a bigger picture was clicking into place. He heard goblins chatter about the ritual after the feast. He heard a drunken ‘whisper’ about how a tribe goblin had been caught and was going to be part of the sacrifice for the ritual. Lucas listened intently for hours, but one thing always felt off. None of the other goblins ever mentioned the yellow goblin. The only time a goblin reacted to his presence was when he commanded them to bring him more food. Lucas kept on watching from his perch, waiting for almost 4 hours before eventually the yellow goblin stood up.

The figure clambered up on top of the small table he was standing on, and his body shone a brighter shade of yellow. The goblins all stopped yelling and stuffing their faces and robotically turned to face the disgusting yellow goblin. Lucas felt his body lock up when the light touched him, only to regain control of it a second later.

Status Effect Resisted

Lucas saw the message for only a second before pushing it away. He quickly returned his view to the scene below, where the yellow goblin spoke. “Today we shall finally rise out of the caves that have confined us for so long and march upon the lands of the arrogant surface dwellers. We shall use the power given to us by the great elder and take what is rightfully ours!”

With another flash of light from the yellow goblin, all the other goblins started clapping. Lucas felt the urge to, but shrugged it off with relative ease. It was probably time for the ritual to take place, which meant he needed to get ready to take action. Lucas slipped out of his hiding spot and headed towards the ramp leading away from the feast. Lucas waited for the yellow goblin to finish taking bows and accepting praise from the people he was controlling, and start heading up the ramp. He was flanked by a group of 4 goblins. Unlike the goblins Lucas had encountered until this point, they all seemed to have well-built physiques along with proper leather armour.

They started moving at a quick march down a tunnel Lucas hadn’t been in before. Lucas carefully followed behind them, making sure he always kept at least 60 feet between him and the group. For what felt like hours, he carefully followed them through winding tunnels, at one point he was pretty sure they made 7 left turns in a row but ended up in a different place than where they had started. After what felt like hours, they ended up in a large room. It was probably the second largest cavern Lucas had been in, second only to the main cavern itself. The yellow goblin signalled to the four guards to stand and watch as he pulled out a small wooden implement and began chanting.

Lucas watched the scene with bated breath as he watched the goblin begin his chant. This made no sense. He had heard the goblins talking about Bart’s sacrifice, yet he was nowhere to be seen. Lucas didn’t know what was going on, but at this point all he could do was wait and see what was going to happen. He had a feeling in his stomach that things were about to go from bad to worse, which impressed him seeing as he didn’t think this could get any worse.

As the goblin finished its ritual, Lucas felt the earth begin to start making a high pitch whining sound, and a bright light shone from the room. The stone began to make an ear-splitting screech as it slowly turned a bright white, shifting into what looked like quartz, but entirely clear. The rest of the rock began moulded slowly into the material as the ear piercing sound got louder and louder. Lucas felt blood trickling out of his ears as the light faded. Lucas realised that the quartz had spread past almost up to where he was currently standing and looked into the completely transparent chamber. It was standing directly on top of the room that Bart and him had found when they first entered the cave, but it looked different now.

The large room now looked almost like a glass beaker with its spherical shape and tubes connecting into it. In the main room, the large ritual circle carved into the floor had expanded outwards, covering the walls in delicate carvings which let off a bright white light. What before was a small hole in the ground, now appeared to be a well with a small skull lying at the bottom. As fascinating as it was to Lucas, he was paying more attention to the body of the goblin he recognised laying in the middle of the room. Bart lay there covered in wounds, breathing shallowly. A spiral staircase leading to a stone platform about five metres up in the air had appeared where the ritual took place. Lucas would have to get down onto that platform and grab Bart before the ritual took place. If the ritual he had just seen was only to set up for the next one, he was concerned about what the effect of that one would end up being. Any ideas of just running away had been extinguished by this show of power from the yellow goblin.

Lucas took his frying pan and knife and braced himself. He was around fifty feet away from the goblins, and with the change of terrain there would be no way he could sneak up on them. If he could get to a chokehold and keep the position, he might be able to make his own in the fight, and maybe, just maybe, not die a horrific death.

When the goblins had climbed down the staircase, Lucas dashed into the room at full speed. The goblins went up to meet him, but he got onto the staircase before they could climb up into the open area. If he kept his current position, he might stand a chance. The first goblin lunged at him with a spear, but was blocked and took a kick to the face. The sudden blow knocked him off his feet and onto the crystal platform below. Lucas forgot about how powerful the size difference was between him and the goblins. He went for a kick on the second goblin, but hit a shield that materialised from the goblin’s inventory. His foot recoiled reflexively and avoided getting his foot cut off by a sword swing. Lucas leapt back up the staircase, creating a small gap between the attacking goblins and himself.

In his youth Lucas was a fan of roguelike games. It was a desperate struggle between the player and the creator of the game for control. Players used to desperately exploit every mechanic they could to stand even the slightest chance. Whilst Lucas may not have a duplication glitch for his new world, he sure as hell would force all of his enemies to fight him one by one on the stairs.

The goblin with the sword and shield began to close the gap, but as soon as he approached Lucas took a running jump, launching both feet towards the advancing goblin. His feet met the shield, but the momentum of the almost two metre tall figure didn’t stop so easily. Both Lucas and the goblin flew off of the stairs, with Lucas riding the goblin almost like a skateboard. Lucas clocked the recovering spear goblin in the face with his frying pan, breaking his face and knocking him out. As Lucas and his makeshift sled hit the ground, the weight crushed the goblin's chest, carving in his armour and sternum where Lucas had been standing. The landing flung Lucas across the platform, landing in a heap by the edge of the platform. Lucas saw Bart’s unconscious body at the edge of the room whilst one of the two remaining goblins approached him. One wielded a large hammer whilst the other wore 2 large metal gauntlets. Lucas rose to his feet, still brandishing his pan and knife.

The hammer wielding goblin dashed in swinging at his stomach, but Lucas blocked it with his pan. Lucas saw a dent appear in his pan and heard a loud gong. If he kept on blocking attacks from this goblin, he would lose his only means of defence, which would mean almost certain death. Lucas put his pan back in his inventory and gripped his knife. The other goblin seemed to be helping with the ritual for now, dragging Bart’s body towards a small raised dais. Lucas slashed at the hammer goblin, but the goblin ducked under his swing and got in close. Just as it brought it swung its hammer towards his stomach, Lucas summoned one of the goblin corpses in his inventory. The battered goblin corpse materialised between his two hands, and the hammer landed with a dull thwack in the corpse. Lucas kneed the goblin in the stomach and stabbed with his dagger. Lucas tossed the corpse away and turned to the two in the centre of the room.

The two goblins had finished dragging Bart’s body onto the dais. The yellow goblin started chanting as he pulled out a ritual dagger. The words were guttural yet very melodious, spoken in an almost sing-song tone. The chanting raised to a fever pitch, and he raised the ritual dagger up high. The lights in the room all shone flashed brightly, before a loud clang was heard. The face of the yellow goblin was shattered as the pan hit him. His teeth flew out of his mouth and nose was crushed as the bones keeping it together shattered. The unexpected pain caught the yellow goblin off guard as it was about to finish the ritual. The ritual dagger fell out of its hands as it howled in pain, cutting off the final chant early.

Lucas stepped back and went to finish off the goblin with gauntlets. When he made a beeline for the yellow goblin preparing the ritual, it had tried to intercept him, but Lucas had just stepped over him and punched him in the head. Lucas noted that as he walked, the light from the ritual circles shone a blindingly bright white. The room hummed for a second, before Lucas heard what sounded like dripping. He turned to the entrance and saw blood dripping in from the entrance to the surface, along with small chunks of something he couldn’t make out. Lucas tried identifying the material.

Modified Sponge Moss (Tier 0)

This variant of regular moss can absorb up to 50 times its body weight in one liquid. They represent the liquid through the small flowers that bloom in it. This seems to be a particular breed that has been created to release all the liquid contained within it when a certain trigger is met.

Lucas felt his eyes widen. Everything suddenly clicked into place as he remembered his journey down into the cave. As he had his revelation, Lucas turned back towards the cave entrance. What had been a small stream a few seconds ago had turned into a river of blood pouring into the room. There was nothing Lucas could but stare at the whirlpool of blood forming on the cave floor down below him.