The group heading towards us is leaving behind about a dozen and a half goblin bodies, cleaning the blood off their weapons as they walk. Two of them are wearing long black cloaks, with hoods that cover their faces and long black blades that peek out from their sleeves. The other two, however, I had seen just the night before. The woman leading the group is the same one that was with Daniel last night on the cliff. She is of average height, dressed in black leather armor, and armed with a spear several feet taller than she is. Her eyes are full of annoyance, and it’s easy to tell Merrick is the source of it, as she is glaring at him while she approaches.
I quickly turn my gaze to the man behind her wearing a bright smile and jogging straight towards me.
It takes me a few seconds to calm down after realizing that the fighting is done, and I am temporarily safe for the first time since arriving here.
Merrick’s crazy-ass plan worked. Was he communicating with these people? How did they know to time the attack with the shaman and her guards checking on us? Why is Daniel on a strike team less than a week after arriving here?
Daniel has on none of his clothes from Earth. He’s decked out head to toe in black leather armor with plates of black metal attached over his vital areas and a bandolier that holds inch-long pointed metal cylinders. He’s wearing metal gauntlets that cover up to his elbows, with a warhammer covered in red blood hanging in his right hand.
What the hell? He’s taken to this place well.
“Ray!” He exclaims as he gets near. “I was shocked when I saw you last night! And Stella too!” Daniel pulls me into an embrace, which I return. “When the goblins attacked us that night, I was only able to get away with a few people.” His face turns somber before he speaks again. “I led them through the forest for over a day. We were fighting off a pack of wolves when one of House Baradia’s scouts found us.” He points over to one of the two cloaked figures, who gives a friendly wave back.
“It’s good to see you too, Daniel. I was knocked out when fleeing into the woods and woke up here with Stella and two others, but they were taken by the goblins and haven’t come back.” I say while gesturing to Stella. “Have you seen anyone else?”
Daniel shakes his head. “No, besides you two, Molly, Marisa, Jean, and Cassian are the only bus passengers I’m aware of.”
More people I never bothered to learn the names of. At least some of us survived. I hope Clark and Duncan made it out.
“I hope the rest made it out alright.” I say before I am interrupted by a shout.
“Sister!” Merrick excitedly shouts towards the black-haired woman with the spear. “It’s so nice of you to come visit me here. I was just getting acquainted with my new neighbors, Stella and Ray!” He points to each of us as he says our names.
Merrick's sister glares at him before speaking, her voice filled with irritation. “Don’t give me that shit, Merrick. If it wasn’t for the initiates, I would have left you to rot in this godforsaken goblin camp.”
She walks straight up to him and continues scolding her brother. “You left four days ago without a word to anybody! All you left was a note saying that you would be “making friends” with a new goblin tribe you scouted.” She’s looking straight into his eyes as he slumps his shoulders and his expression turns dejected.
Ah, she must be an older sister.
“What a nice family reunion, eh?” says someone from right next to me, less than two feet away.
I involuntarily jump and turn towards them, fight or flight kicking back in as I hadn’t felt anyone other than Daniel next to me. It’s one of the two cloaked figures, who is standing less than five feet away and has his hood pulled down, revealing his face. How did he get so close to me, and without my spatial senses noticing him? I had it active this whole time, and I never even noticed him move.
I calm down and take a good look at the man.
He is… an elf! I would recognize those pointy ears anywhere! He’s not nearly as handsome as he should be, though. Aren’t all elves supposed to be beautiful?The ‘elf’ has short white hair with a crooked nose and sunken cheeks. He also appears to be in his mid-twenties, but it's hard to say, as I've never met an elf before. He’s roughly as tall as me, with emerald green eyes that I can tell are scanning me, trying to figure out what I’m capable of.
My [Mana Sense] picks up just a tiny bit of mana coming from the man. It’s reaching towards my sternum. I feel the mana trying to ‘take’ something from me, so I use my own to reinforce that area and push back against it. As soon as I resist, the other man pulls his mana back into his body. He’s pushing his mana outside his body. Why didn't I think of that? Can I do that too?
“What was that? Can you teach me that? It felt like you were trying to read me or something.” I say as I feel a new notification from my [Mana Shaping] gaining a level.
“It was a test of sorts, and you passed.” The ugly elf says while nodding to himself. “I’m Halon, one of the scouts for House Baradia.” The other, shorter cloaked figure steps out from behind him, also invisible to my spatial sense. “This is my wife, Elsine.”
“I’m Ray. Thanks for the rescue. I thought Merrick was going to get me killed for sure.”
Elsine takes her hood off and smiles at me. She’s a human by the looks of it, with red hair and eyes that are a crimson red, with vertical slits for pupils. Maybe she is a type of human? I need to ask Merrick why he is grey too.
“It’s no problem at all, Ray, and yes, we will teach you what my rude husband just tried to do to you.” She emphasizes the word ‘rude’ while giving her husband the side-eye. “The fact that you were able to sense it, let alone resist it, is an amazing feat. Especially considering you must be low level, no offense.”
“None taken. I’ve been locked in a cage for the last few days, spending my time practicing with Mana.” I reply.
Daniel interrupts our conversation. “Looks like Morah is done with her scolding. Let's group up.” He leads us over to the squabbling siblings.
Morah, Merrick’s sister, is not done scolding him yet, but Daniel does what he does best and takes the lead of the situation. “Not trying to get involved in your family squabbles, but can we get Stella out of her cell?” He says while the angry sister looks at the only person still captive.
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“Yes, yes, sorry, Stella.” Morah says as she walks over and puts her hands on two of the poles. After a few seconds they vanish. There one second, gone the next. No noise or flash of light, and too far for me to feel anything with [Mana Sense].
Stella looks even more surprised, standing at the back of her cell. “Thank you. For everything, I don't know what I would have done if they took me into that cave.” Her voice is shaky, clearly relieved that she has been rescued without getting hurt.
Morah smiles and shakes her head. "Don't worry about it. Leaving you two here,” she says while gesturing to me, “would be like leaving a child in a dragon's den.” She steps back to let Stella leave her former prison.
“Well, now that we are all introduced, let’s clear out the rest of this tribe, yes?” Merrick asks while putting on some simple black-dyed clothes he got from somewhere. “The cave has what you’re looking for, sister,” he adds in a playful tone.
She raises her eyebrows at him, a doubtful expression on her face. “Are you sure? If you are, I might just forgive you for wasting nearly four of my days looking for you.” She states with a slightly hopeful voice.
Merrick points at me and says, “Ask Ray. He saw it too. They were using it as a fighting pit for their evolution trials.”
I take a second to think before answering, “Yeah, it’s pretty deep inside of that cave, in a larger dome-shaped cavern. It was a perfectly cut, circular hole in the floor. The walls are covered in fine engravings, and the floor might have been too. I didn’t check. It was about thirty feet across at its widest and eight feet deep.”
She excitedly nods along as I explain the details of the pit fighting chamber. “Okay, this is good news,” she mumbles while pacing back and forth.
She stops a few seconds later and turns to the group. “New plan. Warren, Cale, Halon, and Merrick are going to escort the initiates back to camp, and the rest of us are going to clear out this cave.”
I look around for the people whose names were mentioned but are not present. I find the other three standing guard at the cave entrance.
Merrick immediately objects. "I found it, so I get a right to clear it, you know the rules.” He declares while straightening his back to stand taller. “Ray also has a right to it, as he entered and shed blood, both his own and that of goblins.” The black-eyed man gives me a wink while continuing his argument. “It could also be a great learning opportunity for the new initiates. How often do you find a tribe this small? There are probably less than a dozen goblins left inside. I’ll take Ray, Stella, that badass-looking guy with the hammer, and…” His gaze is switching between the two scouts, and his tone makes it sound like the most important decision he has ever made. “... Halon.”
Morah lets out a sigh and contemplates for a while before responding. “Fine, but you guys are only clearing out the goblins. I and the others will secure the pit.” She puts her backpack on the ground, takes food and water out, and hands it to us previous captives. “But first, they will eat and rest. We still have plenty of daylight. No need to rush into death.”
Just a few minutes later, most of us are sitting around a fire in the middle of the camp, eating jerky and drinking out of waterskins. I’m already feeling much better, mostly due to not having to worry about being in immediate danger for the first time since arriving on this planet, Helot.
I think about how for the next foreseeable future I’m stuck here, and if my friends and family back home miss me, or if any of them also got abducted. Maybe I'll be able to get back sooner than it seems, but for now, I need to get stronger, faster. Speaking of, I should check my notifications. I should have a few.
[You have slain multiple creatures.]
[Level 23 forest hobgoblin]
[You have leveled up to level 7.]
[Level 27 forest hobgoblin]
[You have leveled up to level 8.]
[You have leveled up an active skill.]
[Space Control] lvl 6
I can already feel that my heart is producing slightly more mana, and my body feels stronger as well, like I can hold more mana without bursting.
Daniel breaks me out of my thoughts with questions about our time apart, and I tell him everything that happened, leaving out nothing. Daniel smiles and nods through the whole story, eyes filled with excitement when I recount the two-versus-one pit fight story. The hammer-wielding veteran is surprised that the goblins seemed to treat us somewhat humanely, despite forcing captives to fight to the death.
“What about you? You guys were fighting wolves?” I ask.
“During the goblin raid, after we entered the forest, they had another ambush set up, which must have been what had gotten you and Stella. I led the rest of the group further into the forest, and they chased us for a while but gave up after a few miles, so we stopped for a break shortly after.” Daniel pauses, taking a deep breath. “After moving again, we started hearing howls all around us, and a few hours later, a pack of wolves started following us.
“We lost three people that night. I had run out of bullets and picked up this hammer earlier in the night, so I was down to cracking wolf skulls to stay alive. The rest of us managed to make it through the night and went back to moving through the forest during the day. That night, just before the wolves came back down on us, Elsine and Halon swooped in to save the day, killing all the wolves, and then leading us back to their camp.”
Daniel takes a drink out of his waterskin before continuing. “The rest is pretty straightforward. Morah quickly realized that we were initiates, and when I told her there were more, she geared me up after I agreed. The next day we were out scouting for goblin camps, looking for survivors.” His expression turns thoughtful. “My affinity is [Metal], and the active skill I got is called [Metal Manipulation]. I’ve been trying my best to get good at it, but mana is so fickle. I have a hard time understanding it.”
I nod. “You did good, Daniel. The only thing I was able to do was get myself captured by goblins.”
“I’m shocked you’re holding up so well after everything that happened.” Daniel says while patting my shoulder, “Most people would be a mess, or empty, right now.”
“It didn’t feel real for a while, you know? Like every time I fell asleep, I would wake up back in my bed, in my apartment. But I never did. I always woke up in that cage, cold and hungry, with strange green creatures walking around in front of me. I think it was when they threw me in that pit that I knew I was only going to make it out, make it back to Earth, if I gave this place everything I could muster up.” I say with a serious expression, staring into the fire.
“I knew there was a reason I sat next to you on that bus. You’re a fighter, Ray, just like me, and a hell of a good one at that. That’s what this place does. It separates those who accept their fate from those who would struggle against it, swimming upstream to fight for whatever the hell they want.”
A bit too poetic for me, but he’s right. I won’t let this place get to me. I have to accept that my life is not the same as it once was, and I need to adapt to it, fast.
Daniel grabs a black duffel bag that’s next to him and tosses it to me. “Here, when I saw you last night, your clothes looked pretty ragged, so I brought you some new ones and some basic gear I could find at their camp.”
I open the bag to find a whole set of simple black clothing on top, including socks and boots, surprisingly. I change into them after wiping the blood and grime off myself with a rag and water, not caring if anyone sees. I just want to get clean after days of sitting in my own blood and filth. I feel a little more human after cleaning myself and changing into new clothes. I probably still stink, though.
Next I pull out a black dagger, about fifteen inches long with belt loops on the sheath. It’s skinny and flexible, most likely for finding gaps in plate armor. There are two waterskins, a bundle of dried jerky, a leather belt, and a small pouch with belt loops. I put on the belt, with the dagger and pouch attached.
I turn to my new friend, smiling. “Thank you! The goblins took everything I had. I hope I can get some of it back.”
Daniel shrugs at me. “Maybe, but we should get ready before we go to clear out the rest of those goblins.”
I nod and start to practice with [Space Control].