“The concentration of dragonblood differs from goblin to goblin. Those with a higher concentration can be distinguished from those with a lower concentration by the size of their noses, the number of wrinkles in their faces and the overall size of their bodies. As with most races, bigger body comes with higher physical strength, thus making these three qualities what decides the goblin’s social standing in the goblin society. The only deviation to this rule are the shamans.

The process of goblin becoming a shaman is not clear to us, but in all cases they’ve been found to differ from other goblins by some type of mutation, possibly stemming from the dragon bloodline somehow reacting with the other side of goblins’ heritage. What this other side is, or why it causes the goblins to mutate, we have not been able to determine.”

- The Beginning of Goblins: Miracle or a joke, by Gm. A.R. Elfhart

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“KRIEK!”

The caretaker goblin screeched again, this time louder, as if not happy with how none of them seemed to understand what it wanted them to do. Slowly, the not anymore so small goblins started to make their way towards the adult goblin and seeing this, the caretaker started to make his way out of the room. Alex and Mira shared a quick look, before joining the end of the line that had formed.

The caretaker led them out of the room into a cave corridor, with the biggest goblins from their group being in the front of the line, right behind the caretaker, and the size of goblins getting progressively smaller down the line, ending in them.

Now that they were in a line, it was easy to see that there was about twenty of them that had been together in that room. It was kinda hard to make accurate guesses on their heights, as there was really nothing Alex or Mira could use as a point of reference, but if the caretaker was about 130 cm tall, then the biggest of their group was about 125 cm. Alex and Mira themselves were at around 105 cm, looking to be just crossing the 5-year-old threshold in human years, with Alex being slightly taller than Mira.

The corridor was not that long, maybe 20 meters, with the room they had eaten and slept in being right at the end of it.

Out of the corridor, they came into a huge circular room, with different sizes of tunnels leading into every direction. They could see the glowing eyes of goblins all around them and on one side of the room there was a stage built with wood and animal hides. On that stage was one wooden chair, no, a wooden throne, with one goblin sitting on it and another standing next to it. Behind the throne, the wall was covered in hides of various animals.

The goblin sitting on the throne was clad with animal pelts and decorated with all kinds of teeth, where as the one standing next to it was mostly covered with bones and feathers of all kinds looking like a shaman or a witchdoctor, holding a bowl of something in its hands. Alex and Mira could tell that the one sitting on the throne was probably the chieftain of their clan, tribe or whatever it was called, and that it was huge by goblin standards, being taller than the one standing next to it even while sitting down.

They followed the caretaker onto the stage where they turned their focus onto the chieftain and the shaman next to it, as the caretaker slipped into the crowd of goblins watching from the sidelines.

No one said anything, or let out any kind of sound, as the shaman walked up to the biggest one in their line and pressed its finger, which it had dipped in the bowl that it carried, onto the middle of the goblin’s forehead. The shaman stood there for a while, as if waiting for something to happen, before moving onto the next goblin in line. This repeated a couple of times without anything happening, but then on the 6^th goblin something did.

 After the shaman had retracted its finger the point where it had marked the goblins forehead started to glow with a very dim blue light. Alex and Mira did not know what it was about that particular goblin that made the mark glow, but seeing the shaman jumping from leg to leg doing a happy dance, it seemed to be a good thing.

After that it seemed like the shaman either wanted to hurry and find another goblin with a glowing mark or it just wanted to get back to the one goblin with a glowing mark as fast as it could. Either way, it started going through the line at a much faster pace, not stopping to check if the mark reacted or not, and as it got to the end of the line, the shaman just smacked both Alex and Mira almost at the same time with its hand dipped in that mysterious substance, before starting to make its way back to the chieftain’s side.

Alex and Mira gave each other a quick side-glance and were surprised to find a glowing mark on each other’s foreheads. This seemed to have also come as a surprise to the shaman that had found its place again on the right side of the chieftain, if its almost ecstatic face was anything to go by.

As they were waiting for what happens next, the goblins on the sideline let out a chorus of screeches as they rushed to the stage. The big ones from their group were swept away by a group of big goblins and the small ones from their group were swept away by small goblins, each clearly knowing what to do. The group of smallest goblins was going to also drag Alex and Mira with them, but seeing the glowing marks on their foreheads, they left them where they were.

After the different groups of goblins retreated from the stage, who were left were Alex and Mira, together with the chieftain, the shaman and the one other goblin with a glowing mark.

“KRIEK!”

The chieftain yelled, to which the room full of goblins answered with each goblin letting out a yell of their own, before each of the groups started pouring out of the room and into the tunnels. The shaman also screeched at the three of them and walked down from the stage and started making its way into a tunnel that was right beside the stage. Seeing this Alex, Mira and the one other goblin quickly followed.

The tunnel was just fine for one person, no, one goblin to walk through it, as the ceiling was only about 1,5 meters high, and at the end of it they were met with a room full of all kinds of mystical things. The walls were growing with mushrooms, from black and slimy to the those that shone in every color of rainbow. There were small ledges on the walls that held everything from bird’s feet to dried lizards or organs. Dried plants were hanging from the ceiling, with some that almost seemed to be reaching out for them. All in all, the space was well used considering the room was only about 4 by 5 meters.

As Alex and Mira were studying the room, the shaman had taken out a stone cauldron, in which it poured some kind of black sludge that seemed to be boiling on its own. After that in went an assortment of mushrooms, some glowing others just colorful, couple of dried lizards, a pinch of different kinds of powders, multiple kinds of dried herbs and some moss from the walls, all which seemed to melt into that black sludge. Lastly the shaman took out a black lump that it held over the cauldron, where it burst into flames. Alex and Mira were blinded by the light for just a moment, after which the light disappeared, and the concoction had stilled.

The shaman took out a stone bowl, with which it scooped a bowlful of the concoction from the cauldron, before offering the bowl towards them.

They were deciding what they should do, when the goblin at their side reached forward and snatched the bowl from the shaman’s hand, downing it in one motion, before looking down on them with a sneer on its face.

The shaman took the bowl back from the goblin’s hands and scooped another bowlful from the cauldron, offering it again towards them. Seeing that nothing seemed to happen to the other goblin, Alex took the bowl and downed its content, which was easier than he expected as the concoction didn’t really taste like anything, leaving only a slimy, tingly feeling in its wake. After giving the bowl back to the shaman it scooped the rest of the concoction from the cauldron and offered it to Mira, whish she also downed and seemed just as surprised about the lack of taste as Alex was.

They waited for the shaman to show them what to do next, but instead it just stood there observing them.

It didn’t take long for Alex to notice something wrong, as the tingling from the concoction started to spread from his stomach to the rest of his body.

“Mi-“

Alex tried to warn Mira, but before he could, he felt his muscles stop working as he slumped to the ground.

He saw Mira turn towards him, with a worry clear on her face, before her muscles also stopped responding and she fell right on top of him.

Alex just laid there, wondering what was going on, when suddenly the world started spinning around him. The colors were stretching and coming together, forming new colors, new shapes. Even though he was just lying on the floor, paralyzed, now he was flying through these clouds of color, swimming in them.

Then suddenly all the colors conversed together, leaving him floating in darkness with a pair of gigantic flaming eyes resembling those of a reptilian in front of him.

He couldn’t move his gaze away from those eyes and that’s when he “saw” it. A force that flowed from those eyes towards him and started to slowly take his body apart, as if trying to see how much pain it could inflict him before he died.

First came off the skin, then the muscles, followed by most of the organs.

Alex was left with basically nothing but his heart, brain and his skeleton, when another force swept over him from behind, growing everything back that the eyes had taken. This gave Alex’s mind a respite, thinking that the pain was over, but instead of stopping, the eyes seemed to not want to lose to the other force, so they went at it with a renewed vigor.

His body come apart piece by piece, before being put together again. The skin peeled away in strips; muscles pulled out string by string. The pain never stopped, just moved somewhere else. When ever something came off, the other force from behind him would grow it back the next second over and over again, slightly different each time. Organs moved to different places, bones grew where before there were none and got covered by new muscles and skin.

Just as Alex felt that his mind could not take the pain any longer, the eyes closed, letting the force coming from behind him to heal him one last time, before everything faded away.

Alex opened his eyes, finding himself staring into a pair of golden eyes of about 10-year-old girl, with green skin and a pair of small horns on her forehead.

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Author's blaablaa:

Hi, took a little longer to put this together 'cause the damn school and social life didn't leave me alone to write for you, not that I'll promise to write a chapter everyday anyway, will just post them as they get ready. :P

I'd really like to know what you think about the story's premise, so please do leave a comment even if it's just about the points that you find don't work or need fixing so that I can actually do something about them...

Anyway see you on the next chapter ;)