The sun shining through my eyelids wakes me up.
My head throbs, as does my shoulder wound.
Fuck! The attack! I was running into the forest when it all went black.
I open my eyes and sit up from the cold, hard ground that I’m lying down on.
I’m currently in a cage. It's made from wooden poles and tied together with what looks like a rope made of natural fibers. The area inside is maybe five feet by five feet, and the bars are about a foot apart, too small to squeeze through.
I still have all my clothes on. That’s good. My hoodie is soaked in blood from all of my wounds, mostly the shoulder, though. My jeans and shoes are covered in dirt, like I was dragged for a while.
I look around, outside the cage, and what I see shocks me.
I’m in the middle of a goblin camp. It’s built up against a vertical cliff wall and has a semicircle of wooden logs sticking up out of the ground, forming a wall with both ends against the cliff. The wooden wall has two gates on it, each about a third from either end, with worn-down paths leading from them to a cave entrance in the cliff wall. They are constantly coming in and out of the cave, mostly bringing supplies in, while those leaving are usually in small groups heading out of the camp.
Goblins are everywhere. There have to be at least fifty of them in the camp, doing various tasks. On the left side of the camp, small groups of three or four would bring fresh kills from outside to workers who would butcher them, drying the meat and tanning the skins after. Several with bows were shooting at deer skulls on top of spikes, snarling and pointing to each other when they managed to land a hit.
On the right side of the camp is a small wooden shack, more of just a roof with four pillars in the corners to hold it up, filled with sleeping goblins. Next to it is a hole in the ground that goblins are getting water from, mostly filling wooden buckets.
There are more of the large goblins, too. They walk around screeching at the smaller ones, sometimes hitting or pushing them around. The small ones seem angry at this but never retaliate.
Is this some height-based hierarchy? Probably just strength.
What the fuck? Why did they kidnap me? Why not just kill all of us? I guess this is better than being dead.
I look to my right, seeing even more cages lined up. I’m in the far left one, and I can see a long line, at least ten stretching out. I can only see four other captives, however. All of our cells are lined up against the wooden wall opposite of the cave entrance, between the two wooden gates. This gives us a perfect view of the entire camp and the entire camp a perfect view of us.
Two cells past me is… Stella! She looks fine, other than being unconscious. Her chest is rising and lowering steadily, so she must be breathing. In the two cells past her are two more bus passengers, both of them fairly elderly.
The old man in the cell next to Stella looks rough. He's bleeding quite badly based on the pool under him. I doubt he will make it. It doesn’t look good for him.
Just past him is an old lady, looking about the same. She has a bloody head wound and is also unconscious.
This is horrible. We were basically handed to these goblins! What the hell could we have done? Less than twelve hours after getting abducted here, we are attacked and kidnapped by an army of goblins? Is this what my life is now? One awful event after another?
The man in the cell next to me is not familiar, however.
He is also lying down in nothing but rough-looking underwear, unconscious, and looks to be sleeping peacefully. Small wounds and bruises cover his skin, which is pale with a light gray tone to it. He’s fairly handsome, with jet-black lips, hair, and nails, both fingernails and toenails.
Is he sick? He wasn’t on the bus, that's for sure. I would have remembered anyone who looks like that. Should I wake him up? No. He could be more dangerous than the goblins for all I know.
I need to make a game plan before some goblin comes over and sees I’m awake. I should start with my [System] notifications.
I find out that I don’t need to say “[System],”thinking it is enough.
[You have slain multiple creatures]
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[Level 10 forest goblin]
[You have leveled up to level 3]
[Level 10 forest goblin]
[Level 19 forest hobgoblin]
[You have leveled up to level 4]
[You have leveled up to level 5]
[Ray Alder] lvl 5
Race
[Human]
Active Skills
[Developing]
Passive Skills
[Mana Sense] lvl 2
Traits
[Adaptive Affinity]
Affinities
[Space]
Well, things are at least looking better there. Still not showing me anything that helpful. I never realized that it told me my race is human. Does that mean there are non-humans here as well? Maybe the guy in the cell next to me isn’t human. Hmm, something else to consider, I guess.
All the goblins are ignoring us, for now, so I decide to check the [Quest]s. At least they can tell me how long I was out for.
Primary Quest
Leave the island of First Landing.
Time remaining
[364 days 2 hours 53 minutes 34 seconds]
Completion Reward: Continued survival, ???, ???, ???
Punishment for failure: Instant death
Secondary Quest
Survive one day.
Time remaining
[2 hours 53 minutes 34 seconds]
Completion Reward: Full development of one active skill
Punishment for failure: No punishment required
I was out for around six hours, and the secondary [Quest] is almost over. That’s one thing to look forward to. I’m fairly confident I will survive the next three hours, so I should do something with my time. I don’t think I can go back to sleep. I’ll try to feel my mana again. Maybe I can get another level in [Mana Sense].
I sit down on the dirt floor, folding my legs crisscross, and start to meditate.
It takes me a few minutes to get into the headspace where I can feel my mana, but it’s faster than before.
I can still feel each pulse of mana coming from my heart each time it beats. They are much stronger now, like over ten times more mana in each wave. It’s hard to tell with how small the amount was, but it’s far more now.
My body has also absorbed much more mana than I remember it having. My mana amount must have increased while I was passed out, and my body spent the whole time absorbing it.
Whereas before my mana was barely reaching my chest, now it was reaching all the way to my hands and feet. Most of my body seemed fully saturated with mana, only my extremities absorbing more.
What will happen when my body finishes absorbing it all? Will it stop producing it? Or will it store it somewhere else?
So many questions and not a goddamn peep from the [System].
I continue to watch the mana waves spread out from my heart, focusing on how my body absorbs it in an attempt to learn how to move it or do anything with it.
I feel my passive skill gain a level as I continue to use it, sensing mana to the best of my ability.
None of my attempts to move mana work. It’s too alien of a feeling to get any sort of instinctual understanding. I keep trying. There is nothing else to do.
A few hours later, I am pulled from my meditation with a jab to my ribs.
“Oof, fuck.” I let out a cry involuntarily as my eyes shoot open.
Standing outside my cell is one of the big goblins, a hobgoblin if I assume right. He was the one who poked me with his spear. After I look at him, he steps back, and a new goblin takes his place.
This one is even taller, probably around five and a half feet, and covered in animal skins below the neck. It’s wearing a deerskull on top of its head, and in between the skull's eye sockets is a glowing red gem.
It leans forward to get a better look at me, presumably, and I can smell its putrid breath from several feet away.
My [Mana Sense] tells me that the gem on the skull definitely has mana in it. Or something to do with mana, maybe.
After it’s done examining me, it backs up to its four hobgoblin guards and moves to the next cell.
It skips past the guy next to me and Stella, stopping at the cage of the old man. The new goblin then shrieks and points at the unconscious man.
The gem on its head glows brighter as the bars of the cell bend themselves out of the way, letting two hobgoblins drag the man out of his cell. They all head back to the cave, quickly disappearing from view.
With nothing else to do and a little under an hour until my active skill finishes developing, I go back to watching my mana fill up.
I finally open my eyes again as the [Quest] finishes.
[You have completed a secondary quest.]
Survive one day.
[Reward]
Full development of one active skill
[You have gained an active skill.]
[Space Control]