When I woke up from the spell, it was to the wonderful sensation of déjà vu. There I was, chained up again, this time with twice as many of them looped over me, securing me tightly to the hardwood wall. There was some light creeping in from under the front set of double doors, two shadowed figures sitting next to it, and the way it seemed to stream rather than simply radiate gave me a hint that we were all moving. 

     A sudden lurch confirmed my theory, as did the narrowness of the supposed room. This was a prison cart, no two ways about it. And as I wakened more, I felt a light vibration and a gentle swaying.

     Wherever we were going, we weren’t going there in a hurry.

     Which suited me fine. I felt much better and heartier than before, my massive body well-rested and horns straight and strong. If I could break free again, there’d be no stopping me. I examined the chains that bound me, recognizing them immediately as the same sort that had held me in the chanting room. I frowned and closed my eyes.

     ‘Jeldorain?’ I thought, digging into my soul. The sense of cool liquid was there, but it was accompanied by a guttural grinding. Snoring. That complicated my plan a bit. I was going to see if whatever he did to the chains before, he couldn’t just do that here again.

     But there was something else there. A menu? It hovered, wavy and ethereal, in the center of my being. I reached out to it, and it clarified, showing me what looked very much like a character sheet.

     THORACK, the name field read. On the right-hand side I could see the infernal I inhabited in profile, and underneath my name were a series of statistics and fields.

     I snorted in annoyance. This world, this happening, it was just getting weirder and weirder. But a small part of me was intrigued. If this sheet was me, and this world operated on some sort of game physics, I really would be a champion here.

     And that fit with what the strange man had told me before I took his life.

     There were Attributes. These consisted of Strength 20, Endurance 20, Agility 16, Wits 10, Intelligence 14, and Luck 6. Seemed straight-forward enough. There weren’t any descriptors anywhere to explain the exact effects of these stats, but I felt I had a pretty good idea what each one meant. And anything I didn’t understand now I could learn after I busted out of here.

     After that was a line informing me that I was Level 5, underneath which were Resource Pools. These consisted of 100 Hit Points, 70 Mana Points, and 50 Exertion Points. 

     Beneath these there were Skills, and all of those were divided into two categories—Battle and Civil. I saw that I had an S-rank in Whips and Scourges, no doubt a gift from my infernal host. There were a series of special attacks and abilities lists after the S-rank, but the C-ranks I held in all other melee weapons had no abilities attached to them at all. It made me wonder what a D-rank might look like.

     I examined the special abilities in my S-Rank. At present I had Whirlwind Attack, Disarm, and Swing. The first cost 20 exertion to attack all enemies in range in a circle around me, which seemed useful enough. For 10 exertion, the Disarm allowed me to attempt to snag and acquire a weapon from an enemy’s hand, which sounded amazing. And the Swing option allowed me to snag a protruding overhead ledge or object and use it to swing over the ground in a 180-degree arc. It all sounded very Indiana Jones, and I was quite satisfied with it.

     Ultimately it all came down to one thing — after busting out of here, I was going to have to get a long, barbed whip. Something to lay down some real heavy damage with.

     I couldn’t wait to see how they were going to keep me from going back home. An icy shiver ran through me, and Jeldorain shimmered into existence, taking the place of the previous character sheet.

     I sense your confusion. All will be explained later. Open your eyes and observe. If we do not escape soon, I think we never will.

     Opening my eyes, I looked again through the dimness of my prison, observing the door and the figures next to it.

     An image bubbled up from inside me. My infernal form tearing through the chains, ripping off their heads and stuffing them up their rears.

     ‘Can you unmagic the chains again and let me out of here?’ I asked him.

     My mana points are too few, and we haven’t yet had a dedicated rest. This one is all on you, master strategist and grand champion.

     I grinned and chuckled. Grand champion indeed.

     “Hey, you, shut it.”

     Standing from their chairs, I could now see my guards. They were two armored humanoids, their chainmail armor glistening under the weak light, the metallic shimmer cold and unforgiving. And though the leather leggings spoke of a lower standing on the totem pole, the firm and professional grip they had on their hefty maces told me that they’d not fall easily in a fight. 

     I wondered how I’d made such an impressive observation, and Jeldorain chortled within me.

     Didn’t matter. The stern expressions on their faces were enough to send a chill down the spine of any mere mortal. Those were the eyes of men who liked to play with their catch before they sliced their throats.

     But I was no ordinary being. And from the sounds of things they needed to keep me alive. 

     Their eyes held a wary gleam, telling me they knew I knew it too.

     Their chests bore an emblem, crudely drawn and poorly detailed. A well-muscled goblin, atop a giant wolf, encased in a flaming sphere.

     The Goblin Empire, oh grand one, Jeldorain informed me. I couldn’t see him, but I swore he was sneering. My right hand opened and closed, desperately itching to hold something with which to brain my guards. I growled. There was nothing I could do, yet I had to do something. I rattled my chains and bellowed. Their hands went to the weapons at their sides, their eyes widening.

     “Boo,” I said, chuckling. There had to be a way here, and I had the feeling that despite their professional acumen, I had them spooked. And why wouldn’t I? I certainly wasn’t something you’d bring home to meet mom and dad. 

     Not any longer. 

     “What’s the matter? Bit off more than you could chew?”

     A thrill rolled through my body, the thought of juicy raw meat in my mouth. The sensation was so powerful I could taste it, and it was absolutely delectable. Liquid rolled out my mouth, taking a strangely long time to get to the floor. They stared, their weapons now in the air and at the ready.

     “What are you on about, monster?” the one asked. Unlike the other one, this guard's features were barely visible in the dim light, yet I could tell he wasn’t human. The rough texture of his skin, a greenish-yellow hue; it made him look like some alien extra from Star Trek. 

     A hobgoblin, Jeldorain said. I don’t understand why the champion spell would choose someone so uneducated and unknowing, he added.

     ‘Beats me,’ I replied.

     I shook my head to get rid of the slimy saliva flowing from my monstrous maw, feeling the waves of hunger slowly subside and the drooling end.

     The guards stared for a few minutes after, before muttering curses and sitting back down next to the door. All was silence, again, as we bobbed back and forth with the motion of the wagon. I racked my brain, trying to think of a way out of this mess. I was in some sort of gamelike world, but I was bound and powerless, so it might as well have been the county lockup after a wild night of too much drinking.

     Still, it’d be a waste of time just standing about. I spat some last dregs of hunger-spit into the corner. “So where are we off to, dicks?”

     They turned to face me, startled half out of their seats and hands on the hilts of their weapons.

     “No, stay sitting. It’s all good. I get the feeling that there is going to be a lot of time between here and wherever we are going, so we might as well introduce ourselves. Apparently my name is Thorack, even though just yesterday I was Ryan. And you guys, well, you’re the dicks who chained me up and are taking me to who-knows-where to apparently make me into some sort of superhero for your empire. So, I was just curious, where are we going?”

     The human chuckled and took off his helm. I could see him better now, a peachy tan, freckled face, slightly saggy bags under both eyes. Dude was 3 days from retirement, as far as I could tell. He brushed a hand through a mop of trimmed graying hair, the sides sheer cliffs where it’d all been shorn by a straight razor.

     “You’re a funny one, monster,” he said, standing fully now. His legs, I noticed, were cart-worthy, automatically adjusting to the sway and occasional clump of the wagon as we continued to trundle forward. “Don’t smell none-to-noice, but I’d guess it’s none your fault. And cuz I likes ya, I want to gives ya a bit of advice.”

     The cart rumbled on, swaying, while the hobgoblin stood up and took off his own helm, his eyes gleaming brightly over a ruffian smile, wiry black waves marking him as younger than his compatriot. I saw the shine in their eyes, and I knew what was coming.

     Lifting his mace, the guard grinned before he thrust it forward into my stomach. “Shut yer trap,” he said, thrust smashing me again and again with each syllable. Behind him, the hobgoblin’s head turned upward, roaring laughter into the ceiling.

     “I see I gotz a lot to learn,” the hobgoblin said, before turning and punching me in the balls.

     I have to tell you. I saw stars. The pain was enough that I could feel tendrils of Jeldorain’s iciness curl out and, for lack of a better word, drink it in. He shivered in delight, laughing as he did so. I closed my eyes, ready to have words, when a sudden blast rocked the cart on its wheels.

     “What the—”

     A second blast flung all three of us sideways as the cart tipped over, crunching and crackling but retaining enough structural integrity not to bury us alive. The sound of screams and metal on metal filtered in from the outside. 

     And my captors, they were weaponless, helmless, off their feet, and well-confused.

     While I, still chained, was not actually chained to anything. Not anymore. The weight of me, combined with the force of the explosion, had been just enough to tear me and my chains from the walls of the cart.

     Bounding to my feet, I seized the chains hanging from my wrists and lashed out with them. The first one exploded against the side of the wagon, leaving a splintered hole in its wake. A sunny day flashed through, bright with the promise of freedom. The human guard used the moment to grab a crossbow from the floor next to him. I noticed a whole rack of them had fallen and scattered next to where the guards lay. The guard fired a bolt and it hit me in my pec, drawing blood.

     I snarled. Moving into another attack, I thought the special attack Disarm as I swung, moving to fill the space between myself and the guards even as my wound eddied blood down my torso. I wasn’t sure how everything slowed so wildly, but I leaned into it, using that slomo moment to measure the angles at which my captors had fallen, and the distance between myself . . . and their jugulars.

     Likewise, the stretched-out audio of the moment let me catch a distorted idea of what was happening in the world outside of my prison. I could hear the grinding chuff of a horse at a tenth of its regular speed, the immeasurably long twang of two crossbows firing simultaneously. Steel on steel. And chanting. Magic.

     My body trembled slightly. There’d been enough of that stuff today.

     Angling my body into the blow, I judged my next attack and tried to let loose, but found my attack stuck on the crossbow. In an instant, the slow-motion about me ceased. I watched, enraptured, as the end of my chain ensnared the human’s wrist, and I tore his hand from his body.

     Jeldorain applauded within me.

     I spun, swinging again and junking the side of the human’s face. He stuttered words, spitting blood and convulsing where he lay along the edge of the wagon.

     The hobgoblin had recovered, though. I tried to reach into myself and get back that slow motion I’d had just a moment before. It wasn’t coming.

     Didn’t matter. I’d learn about all of that later.

     Scrabbling, the hobgoblin guard made his way to the hole in the wagon wall and pulled himself free of the wreckage.

     The gurgle I heard a second later told me that someone outside had finished him for me.

     I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Especially since I had no idea of their intentions.