While watching that bastard Eric vanish from my sight, I struggled to stand. The torn shirt on my back had become encrusted with dried blood, rubbing against the now scabbed gashes on my back, causing excruciating pain with every little movement. There was still a disturbing lack of feeling in my hands, now burnt black. Further up my arms, the burning pain remained.

Between the pain, from all my injuries and the imperials raping Ashley and Vara right in front of me, I didn’t get any sleep. How in the world am I going to be able to scout like this, I can hardly move or keep my mind focused? How exactly does Kaitlyn expect me to survive, let alone be able to bring back any useful intel? Maybe this is just a game to them? Am I some kind of sick entertainment? As I was lost in thought, Carl had made his way to my side to help me walk.

Kaitlyn gave the command, and we began to make our way deeper into the forest, towards the rocky cliff hiding the goblins. It took us nearly an hour to find the cave, and once we did Kaitlyn had all the men hide as she made her way to me.

“Take this” she commanded while handing me a small potion vail. “it’s a potion all imperial soldiers carry, it will suppress all pain for 2 hours. That should allow you to act somewhat normally, but it also means you have just 2 hours to finish your job.

“I can’t exactly take it with my hands, captain Kaitlyn”

“right” she laughed as she brought the vail to my lips. A horrid bitter taste assaulted my mouth the moment the liquid touched my tongue, I quickly swallowed the potion.

“You’ll start to feel the effects of the potion within two minutes, once you do the timer is on. If you haven’t returned to us by then, we will assume you failed and died within the cave. If we enter and find you alive, I will not have your hands healed and you’ll spend the rest of your life a crippled test subject for some mage, understood?”

I nodded as I started to feel all the pain vanish, my body was responding once again, I could move, and I should be able to use [stealth] like this. Time isn’t on my side; I need to get moving.  

Kaitlyn stood there, watching coldly as Leo disappeared into the dark cave.

“You’re such a cruel person captain, making promises like that” Carl laughed “So what is the actual plan and why go through all the effort just for a scouting mission?”

“We need as many of the goblins alive for what I have planned, that is the only reason. Having a rogue scout, the goblins for us will make it significantly easier to capture them alive. If we went in with zero information, assuming the guild’s intel was correct and there are 15 goblins, we’d kill half of them just trying to capture them.”

“Ahh, I understand, I understand. But you’re so cold captain, you’re more likely to kill him than heal him ahaha. So, what kind of fun do you have planned for us, with these goblins?”

“They are goblins, what else? We’ll unleash them on a few of the hamlets Leo told us about. Keeping our movements here hidden.”

“Goblin scapegoats, how fun.”

“Besides whatever fun you think we’ll be having; goblins will also attract more adventurers instead of the army. The longer Rhyne is in the dark about our actions here, the better.”

Once I stepped inside the cave, I quickly activated my [stealth] ability to hide from sight. Luckily for me, there isn’t much light here, which makes my [stealth] ability significantly more effective. It should be easy to remain hidden from goblins at my level, but my current lack of fighting ability isn’t exactly reassuring.

It takes me about 5 minutes of walking until I find a large dimly lit cavern. There are 7 goblins sitting in the center of the cavern playing with their weapons. After observing the goblins for a few minutes there is no movement at all, they just sit there fiddling with the weapons they hold, crude wooden clubs.

This is strange, it’s like they are just sitting there waiting as dungeon monsters do. There are also a lot fewer than reported. I pulled my focus away from the goblins and scouted around the room, and then I saw it, a corridor. So, the cave is deeper it’s just hard to notice in this lighting, now that I knew what I was looking for I noticed a total of four corridors beside the one I still stood in. Two at the back and one on each side, which one should I explore first?

I decided to take the left corridor first, it was similar to the one that brought me into the cave, but this one was slowly turning towards the left, leading me deeper. Soon I came to another large open cavern, and cursed, fuck there are another two corridors here as well? There are also double the goblins here, scouting this cave and returning within two hours has just gotten a lot more difficult.

There was a corridor visible on the left side of this cavern and one at the back. I decided to make my way towards the one at the back of the cavern while trying to maintain as much distance from the goblins as possible. They shouldn’t be able to see me in this light, but I seriously do not want to push my luck with 15 goblins while unable to even hold a weapon.

Soon I escape the goblin-filled cavern and start following the corridor forward once again, as I begin to wonder just how many goblins are hiding in this cave? It is far more than the guild reports said. I wonder if Vara was on to something, is this a dungeon? The way the goblins are acting is very similar to how monsters I have seen in dungeons acted, just waiting to kill whatever enters. But the air is wrong, in every dungeon, I have ever been in, the air felt off somehow. But here it’s normal, a little damp and stuffy, but that’s normal for a cave-like this.

I quickly made my way to another open cavern, this one with nearly 25 goblins. I sneak by them as carefully as I can. That’s nearly 50 goblins so far, and this cave still goes deeper. I doubt just 7 imperial soldiers could tackle this many goblins, what will Kaitlyn do to me if I give her this information? I doubt she’ll have my hands healed if they can’t accomplish, whatever it is they are after here, even if the chance was slim to start.

I soon find myself at the entrance to another cavern filled with goblins, this time I count 30. A frown spreads across my face as I look around the room until I notice something hidden behind all the goblins. A white orb, just barely protruding from the wall. As soon as I see it, I can’t take my eyes off it, they are drawn to it, like it’s something I must have.

I hurry back into the corridor, “what the fuck was that?” I quietly ask myself. I nearly gave up stealth and ran straight through the goblin to get to it. I need to get out of here quickly, this cave is far more dangerous than anticipated. I turned to make my way back out of the cave. But as soon as I took a step, I couldn’t take another. Something was telling me I needed to take that orb.

As soon as I came to the decision, I was going to take the orb, I steeled myself. If I was going to do this I would need to keep focused and stay in [stealth], if I lost myself again in the middle of all those goblins I would die. I slowly started to creep into the cavern, watching every step, moving as silently as I possibly could. I decided to focus on the goblins, the less I stared at the orb, the clearer my mind, and the more control I retained over myself.

Soon I passed by the last goblin and approached the orb. Once I stood before it, I reached out my hand to touch it. As I watched my black charred hand reach towards the orb, the uselessness of my hands didn’t even cross my mind, and soon after my hand made contact, the orb started to emit a bright white light.

As soon as the notification popped up, I saw my hand start to disintegrate and fuse into the brightly glowing orb.

I watched the percentage increase, as my body slowly turned dust and merged into the orb. There was nothing I could do; I couldn’t even move. My arms were nearly gone, and I could see a stream of dust coming from my legs as well. “Is this how I am going to die?” I asked myself.

Soon there was almost nothing left. My entire body had disintegrated only to be absorbed into the orb. Only my head remained, and I could see dust coming from my face now, and my vision began to fade, soon there was nothing but black.