Roxyreads

I know I've already got the 'gore' tag up, but this chapter may include content that is disturbing to some readers. Just giving y'all fair warning.

I look at my equipped skills laid out in the menu tucked into the corner of my vision. Its nothing amazing, but together these might just be enough.

Through the tightly packed leaves, I stare at the goblin approaching, dagger held between my teeth. It sniffs the air as it steps closer and examines the tree, peering up, ostensibly to see if I’ve climbed into the branches.

My hand whips back and an empty potion bottle flies past it as its eyes are averted, shattering against a distant tree trunk and drawing the attention of its fellows away. I wait until it turns and before it can run to follow them, I reach out and pull it into the brush with me. The smell of sweat and filth is overpowering but I choke back my gag reflex and tighten my grip.

Blade in one hand pressed at its neck and the other covering its mouth; I clumsily go about trying to slit its throat but it thrashes too hard, trying to snap at my fingers pressed over its lips.

Everything was going swimmingly up until this exact moment.

“Shit… shit shit shit shit!”

The knife scores a jagged wound from its throat down over its chest as it elbows me in the ribs, trying to scream out through my fingers. A struggle ensues and the both of us go tumbling backwards over the short incline into the muddy basin of the creekbed.

Being the one at the back when our tumble started I take the brunt of the pain from the landing, but only I have the good fortune of keeping hold of my weapon, so I’ll call it a win.

Almost on instinct I use the momentum to roll back onto my feet, dagger clenched in hand. The goblin does much the same a few feet away before trying to call for help from the rest of the group that’s been stalking me; it only manages a pitiful set of gurgles and its throat spills a terrible cascade of blue-green blood.

“I can’t run. One at a time, I can take them stealthily one at a time… even if I can’t completely lose them, I can still win with hit and run tactics.”

Even with it bleeding and unable to call for help, it’s a dangerous foe, looking at it I can just tell instinctively that if I let my guard down he’ll put me in the ground.

I grit my teeth and tackle it to the ground, actually that might be a generous word for what happens.

I put everything I could into shoving the bleeding goblin to the ground and get met with a surprising amount of resistance.

It feels like running into a wall.

I manage to shove it over only because of the loose footing afforded by the mud and my advantage in weight class and even then as I try to bring the dagger down on it, it catches my hand with its own. When I try slamming a southpaw punch into its face it catches that too and just like that I’ve almost completely lost control of the grapple.

Its knee slams into my chest with an audible crunch, knocking the air from my lungs and sending a sharp ache through my body.

“Fuck, I think that broke something…”

[Hp 123/192]

I’m quickly finding that I’m just not strong enough to overpower it and unless I change up my approach, it will get free, get it’s buddies and kill me.

For some reason that thought hits me hard.

It’ll kill me.

My hands are slick with it’s blue-green blood mixing with my own red from the long and thorny path I took to get here, none of this has felt all that real before this moment. I’ve sort of been separating myself from the situation, putting all of the worst thoughts into a little box in the back of my head and tucking it away.

The dam breaks and all of those emotions flood out at once.

“FUCK THAT!”

I rear back my head and slam a headbutt down, my forehead meets its nose with a familiar sounding crunch of breaking bone and based on the loud gurgling, it’d be screaming if it could.

The shock is enough to loosen its grip enough to push the dagger down into its chest, the blade faces resistance slipping through its rough leathery skin but slides right through it’s ribs.

The goblin stares at me for a moment, body spasming before the light fades from its eyes like a lantern going out. The solid red glow giving way to whites and hazel colored eyes devoid of any life.

It stops moving.

Something thick, black, and foul smelling wells up when I pull my knife out of the killing wound but I'm in no state to examine it closely.

I sit there panting on top of the corpse and barely resist the urge to scream triumphantly. This one is a runt compared to that first motherfucker that started this chase.

I hear a chiming in my head that I assume is that menu trying to get my attention, but push it down, I don’t have time to deal with that right now.

[Muting non-essential alerts]

A dry branch snaps and I jump, turning my head just in time to see a goblin loose a knocked arrow, it whizzes past my face, the edge of it slicing open my cheek in a painful near miss.

Of course, I start running again… but I’ve added something new to the rotation of running and hiding.

Killing.

The longer this goes on, the better I seem to get.

I haven’t opened the menu, mostly because I don’t have the spare time to, but I’m willing to bet my skills are levelling up or something.

It takes longer for the goblins to notice me now, it’s easier to take down the weaker ones, and ultimately I feel my stamina takes less time to recover, but it’s not like I have a stopwatch to check.

I’ve taken down four of them counting that first rumble in the creek bed, the rest falling to slit throats and broken heads when they had the misfortune of breaking away from the group during their hunt for me.

Now I’m aiming for my fifth.

Only one problem… they’ve started moving in pairs… all except one. 

A fairly small one, I can only guess the others paired up with individuals they thought were stronger… even so I’d bet it’d be able to kill me in a fair fight.

From the low branches of a tree I watch them filter into a clearing, scanning low and stabbing the underbrush. I clutch the pebble in my left hand and wait for the right moment...

I watch my target break away from the others to scan around the base of my perch, similarly prodding at the brush with a crude and rusty machete… as soon as there’s enough distance between it and the rest… I make my move.

A flick of my wrist and the stone flies off into a distant section of brush, drawing the attention of the bulk of the goblins; those few seconds of distraction are all I need to act.

It’s a bit gruesome and I have no idea how I knew the knot, but that rope my pack came strapped with was long enough for a noose and then some; it’s child’s play cutting and preparing a length.

I lower it down and successfully manage to loop it around the goblin’s neck, jumping down from the branch into the brush and tying off the pre-knotted end on a low branch.

The goblin doesn’t even have time to scream as he’s caught up, eyes bulging, legs kicking, fingers scrabbling at the rope.

I don’t want to watch, but it’s hard not to.

Just when I’m about to turn and leave through the brush opposite of their main search fan, I get a nasty surprise.

A familiar burn-scarred face staring me right in the eyes with a sneer. 

It was all a ruse, they’d sacrificed one of their own to get me… what could I say but, “Oh… fuck.”

I might have a colorful and varied vocabulary, but I’m a fan of the classics.

He kicks me square in my chest, sending me rolling out into the open, fiery lines of pain letting me know I’m on the receiving end of several breaks or fractures. That and the system’s oh so helpful little popup.

[Critical Hit - Status Effect: Broken Rib -30% Max Stamina -50% Stamina Regen]

Laying there I see them approach through my blurred vision, coming out of hiding and paying no care to the dangling corpse of their sacrificial bait as it sways from the branch.

I can hear them laughing in shrill voices as they close in and my first attempt at standing is interrupted by a baseball sized stone impacting the side of my head.

[Critical Hit - Status Effect: Minor Concussion -20% Int, -20% wis, -20% Max Mana]

[ HP 41/192 ]

My vision is full of spots and blotted with blood, my hearing is filled with the sound of my heartbeat like rolling thunder, in a panic I start digging in my bag looking for one of those health potions as I scramble to my feet and start running, but I’m just barely managing a stumbling jog with the stabbing pain in my chest.

Just behind me I hear the mob of goblins following, it’s not a real chase anymore, they’re playing with me… throwing rocks, firing arrows just at my heel as I stumble into a grove of strange evergreens.

It’s only now that I realize there are even more goblins than I thought… emerging from brush, behind stones, and out of nearby crags in the ground... have they been driving me into an ambush this entire time?

The smell of the piney resin carried on the breeze is almost sharp enough to overpower the coppery scent of my own blood.

My hand slippery with blood I grasp a bottle of something red, when I search for the cork I can’t find it.

Looking down, the label is smeared into illegibility but the shape of the bottle is… wrong.

“Shit.”

It’s not a potion, it’s one of those sealed ones.

I don’t have time to go searching again, I draw my dagger and get ready for the worst case scenario. I brandish the knife, still sticky with drying blood, alongside the glass container, making threatening swipes at the closing mob.

More laughter from them as they move in, oddly synchronized, so many glowing red eyes focusing in on me.

[Push Limits Active: +40% to all Attributes for 5:00]

Something wells up inside my chest, my heart pounds, my blood boils, and I can’t help but roar my challenge out to them, more specifically to a familiar face in the crowd who’s sneer hasn’t faltered for a second since the trap was sprung.

“You fuckers want me! Come and get me!”

With nothing left to lose, I throw the bottle of glowing red fluid at the goblin who started this whole episode.

For a moment the world slows down to a crawl as it nears the end of it’s arc, hitting the fucker square in the head and shattering.

It’s contents vaporize instantly on contact with air and what follows is a swelling plume of flames that consumes at least ten of the goblins and roars above the sounds of their screams.

When the flames clear, a few carbonized corpses fall down to the smoldering patch of ground.

Everyone freezes, their laughter stops.

I on the other hand start laughing despite myself, I think I might actually be going a bit manic with all the blood loss and the head injury.

“Ehehehhahahahahah! Bombs! They’re bombs!” 

Suddenly, I feel like I might have a ghost of a chance as long as there aren't too many more surprises.

Roxyreads

Haha! Chapter 3 is here! Within a week of the last one even!

Feeling pretty good about that, though honestly I'm having some trouble keeping up with the early foundations because my brain is like six months ahead thinking about later plot developments. >>;

Either way, hope y'all enjoyed it! I'm gonna try and get chapter 4 out in a timely manner as well.