Delvers LLC: Adventure Capital Page 6

  The creature had already proven to be an expert fighter, and had also been smart enough to avoid Henry’s stone projectiles.

  Henry briefly thought about trying to nail the thing with another rock barrage, but he knew trying to bend down and pick up rocks wouldn’t be the best idea with a wound in his gut. His priorities had just changed. He needed to rest and let his healing do its mojo.

  The wound hurt, and Henry was tired, thirsty, hungry, and probably needed to sleep off all the weird shit he’d just been through with the Dhu. The possibility that a single goblin might do him in was frustrating, but reality was staring him in the face with green skin, pointy ears, no forehead, and sharp teeth.

  Henry decided to take a gamble. The longer he and the goblin stared at each other, the more time the little bastard’s friend had to go get reinforcements. Henry gritted his teeth and held up a hand, triggering a new Light school magic power. He closed his eyes as his palm flashed bright white. Then he took a couple quick steps forward, slashing with his blade at the goblin’s unprotected head.

  He hissed as the damned thing got its long blade up in time to defend. The goblin warrior must have closed its eyes in time to avoid the brunt of the attack. This roided up fucker is good, thought Henry. The goblin wasn’t as strong as the giant lizard woman he’d fought before, but he was still managing to parry Henry’s attacks. Henry wasn’t nearly as strong as he could be, but he still had the strength of at least two or three men with the help of his magic.

  He growled in pain as he shuffled back to avoid the goblin’s glowing dagger. Henry desperately wished he would have been thinking more clearly. If he’d taken the time to draw more strength from the earth, he wouldn’t be having so much trouble. The wound in his gut hurt like hell, and he was afraid if he tried to concentrate, his inhuman opponent would be all over him in a heartbeat.

  He’d made a lot of mistakes before this fight. If he survived this encounter, he wouldn’t make the same mistakes twice. If Jason was around, it wouldn’t have been an issue. Fuck, I need to survive to see Mareen again. Next time if at all possible, he wasn’t going to go toe to toe with a large group a fantasy monsters without Jason’s help, or the Battlewagon, or both.

  Henry warily watched his opponent, skillfully blocking or parrying a few of the goblin’s exploratory attacks, and shuffled backward to simply avoid some of them. He knew the wily creature was trying to make him stumble, or was just waiting for his wound to slow him down.

  It was a good strategy.

  Suddenly, the goblin slapped his chest and the creature began to glow a ruddy orange. He held up his glowing dagger and Henry tensed, but didn’t understand what was happening until it was too late.

  The goblin’s dagger unleashed a jet of flame and Henry barely got his arm up in time to protect his eyes. He could hear the goblin surging forward, so he blindly lashed out with his sword.

  The goblin blocked it with his own blade and bowled Henry over onto the ground. By luck, Henry managed to grab the goblin’s arm with the dagger, and spent a few endless seconds wrestling with the enemy warrior. Christ, so heavy and strong!

  Whatever the goblin warrior had done to start glowing had obviously made him faster and stronger. Henry knew he was probably going to die. He’d been complacent and hadn’t been thinking straight. He’d been arrogant, thinking these goblins would be like the things he and Jason had beaten with sharpened sticks in Tolstey. He’d paid for underestimating his enemy, and vowed that if he lived, it would never happen again.

  As Henry grappled with the goblin, he grew frustrated with his armor. Not only was he not as strong as he could be, his armor was interfering with his life and death struggle, too. The goblin’s face suddenly lunged forward, trying to snap Henry’s nose in his sharp teeth. Henry snarled as he head butted the dangerous fighter in the face, making the goblin growl in pain. This fucker’s breath is rank.

  Henry wished he had access to his metal magic. As the goblin’s dagger inched closer to his throat, straining against Henry’s slightly inferior strength, the Delvers LLC leader began reaching for his metal magic anyway, knowing it would kill him. If he was going to die anyway, he might at least be able to save Tony. Henry warily watched the goblin, ready to head butt the bastard if he tried to bite him again when suddenly the creature went limp and his eyes went totally black.

  Henry blinked in surprise and looked over the dead goblin’s shoulder. Tony stood above them both, pulling his horse head dagger from the creature’s back. He’s stabbed it right through its armor and somehow instantly killed it. Tony looked dazed.

  With a grunt of effort, Henry pushed the dead goblin off himself and looked around. All the other goblins were dead. Tony had killed them all. The young adventurer’s broken staff lay on the ground a few feet away. It looked like the kid had even fought one of the creatures that had been wounded on the ground...and won. Henry was impressed and happy to be alive. He was curious about what Tony had done, but figured it would have to wait till later.

  “Good job, kid. Now we need to hurry. We don’t have much time.” Henry gingerly squatted down and grabbed two dead goblins by the ankles. “Grab a goblin and follow me. Pick up your light if you have to.” Aodh nodded and followed while dragging his own dead goblin.

  Henry dragged his burden about ten yards back the way they’d come from, then turned around and retraced his steps a few yards before stopping. The pain in his gut was getting worse as he kept moving around, but Henry ignored it. He held his hand to the cave wall and began channeling magic, making a small tunnel of his own. He slowly walked forward, ignoring his growing pain, and began hollowing out a small room.

  “Tony, go grab all the other goblins and drag them up the cave first. Get blood everywhere. Make everything look confusing. Then drag all their bodies in here except one of the smallest ones.” Tony nodded and immediately left to his task. Henry smiled. Tony had saved his life, and the kid was becoming increasingly more reliable.

  With a shake of his head, Henry got back to work. He knew there wasn’t much more time, and he still had a lot to do. He was injured now. If a single goblin could almost do him in, he’d hate to see what all the reinforcements would be like.

  Weight of Stone

  Aodh watched Henry in concern as the man reclined on his back with his knees up and applied pressure to his wounded stomach. He knew Henry was tough, but everything they’d just been through had to be taking its toll. Aodh was worried about Henry, and also very aware of the fact that if the man suddenly keeled over, they’d both be stuck in a room made of solid stone.

  After all but one of the goblin bodies had been pulled into the room, Henry had dragged the last goblin corpse further down the tunnel and dumped it. Then he’d helped Aodh ensure they’d grabbed everything the dead goblins had dropped. That done, Henry had thrown a few large handfuls of gravel everywhere outside and sealed up their little room, creating a new wall covering where the entrance had been with several inches of stone that blended in with the cave outside.

  The goblin bodies lined one wall. Aodh had been doing the grisly job of going through the creatures’ weapons, armor, and belongings. The room was being lit by the glow sticks the goblins had had, and the glow stones that Henry had created earlier in the day. It was dim, but was enough light for Aodh to see by.

  He made stacks of weapons, gear, and other things he looted off the bodies. Once he was done, he turned to Henry and began saying, “Okay, we have food and water sort—”

  Henry waved his hand down and hissed, “Shh!” He looked like he was listening. “You can talk, but keep it to a whisper,” he said softly.

  “I found some water in stone bottles,” said Aodh. It looks clean, or at least I don’t think it will get us sick, but I’m not sure. There is food too, dried meat and hardtack. There isn’t much. It was probably only for emergencies.

  “The pile of weapons is over there,” Aodh whispered, pointing, “and I found some other things too, like containers with more gl
owing fungus stuff.”

  “Good job and thank you,” Henry said. “Can you bring me the dagger that the big bastard shanked me with?” Aodh nodded and fetched the weapon from where he’d put it off to the side, secure in its sheath.

  After Henry accepted the weapon and began examining it, Aodh carefully avoided looking at Henry’s stomach and asked, “Are you going to be okay? What are we doing? Why did we drag the bodies?”

  Henry cocked his head first, obviously listening again before he whispered in reply. “I think I’m going to be okay, but it will take time.” He pulled the dagger from its sheath, and the blade stayed dull for several moments before suddenly glowing. It had accepted its new owner. Aodh could feel the heat from where he was standing.

  “Just as I thought,” Henry said quietly. “If this thing had been left inside me much longer to cauterize all the damage, I’m not sure my healing skill would be enough. If it’d been a regular dagger, it wouldn’t have penetrated so easily in the first place, but a regular stab wound would have been worse than I got. This blade burned me enough to keep the wound from bleeding too bad, but didn’t hurt me so badly that I have no chance of healing.”

  Aodh’s blood ran cold as Henry spoke. He didn’t know what he’d do without the honorable, grumpy man.

  Henry gestured toward the cave system outside their room. “I’m listening right now so I’ll know when all our new goblin friends are out there. I’m using my earth sense ability right now and putting more juice into it. I can sense all the little pebbles I threw around in the tunnel out there and I’m hoping I’ll be able to more easily tell how many there are, how fast they’re moving, and other stuff.

  “I couldn’t chance leaving a hole between our room and outside. If I can smell them, they can probably smell me.”

  “Is that why we spread the blood everywhere?”

  “Yeah. It should be extremely confusing for them. It’s also why we dragged that one goblin further down the tunnel. If I’d known it would take this long for these little fucks to reach the party, I would have dragged it even further. The goal is for all of them to rush past our location, further back the way we came in order to look for us.”

  “Why?” Aodh didn’t understand. “Are we going to sneak past? Wouldn’t that be really risky? Why can’t you just tunnel us out of here?”

  Henry grimaced and whispered, “It took a lot out of me to make this room, kid. Just this room probably would have completely done me in before my last level up. I don’t specialize in Earth school magic either so my control is crap. As for what we’re going to do...I have a plan. I’ll let it be a surprise. For now, why don’t you go purify the water? You have a canteen that can do that, right? Just use the magic stone from your flashlight to power it.”

  Aodh had forgotten all about the canteen’s function. He hadn’t really had to ever use it that way since, while traveling, the Delvers members all got the water purified in larger containers. As he set about his task, he gingerly bit into a bit of dried meat. It was tough and gamey, but it was food. At least it had a few leftover scales so Aodh knew he wasn’t eating people or something.

  As soon as the thought cropped up, he remembered the gruesome kitchen in Yanbei Cavern, the ork dungeon he’d explored. He ruthlessly suppressed the memory so he wouldn’t grow nauseous.

  Suddenly Henry waved a hand to get Aodh’s attention and held a finger over his lips to signal for quiet. Aodh nodded and stayed completely still. Henry cocked his head and seemed to be listening, but nothing happened for a moment and his thoughts drifted back to the chaos in the tunnel a few minutes before.

  He’d thought he might die several times as wounded goblins lunged at or attacked him. He’d felt terror for Henry as the man was injured. Aodn hadn’t been able to do anything to help his friend...until he’d killed the goblin boss and discovered the new power of his dagger.

  The attack had been made out of desperation. Aodh’s staff had broken, Henry looked like he was about to die, and the young man had just acted. In hindsight, stabbing the goblin’s armor had probably not been a great idea. However, the blade had slammed into the creature’s back like the armor hadn’t even been there. Then the weapon had grown darker than night for a moment. The goblin had just...died.

  Aodh hadn’t touched or examined the weapon since. He knew something might have happened when he’d cut Henry before, but he didn’t want to talk about the dagger with the man. Aodh hated keeping secrets, and he knew he’d probably still tell Henry eventually, but he felt guilty for cutting his employer’s arm.

  The young man thought he might be imagining things at first, but after a bit more time had passed, he realized he could definitely feel some sort of vibration in the ground. Henry’s eyes were closed and he obviously had all his attention focused on his various senses. Aodh wasn’t sure if the goblins were still approaching, or we right outside their hidden room. He would just have to trust Henry.

  After a while, the vibrations faded, and after what felt like an eternity, Henry blew out a breath and gingerly pushed himself up from the ground. “Okay, Tony,” the man said, hiding his pain, “we need to be quick. They milled around out there for a while, and I’m not sure how much they really bought our little trick. Plus, they were moving really fast.”

  Aodh nodded and followed Henry as he melted the solid rock wall and stepped out into the bloody tunnel again. The way the man from Earth could bend the rock to his will was impressive. Aodh tried not to feel awe. He tried to remember he had his own powers...even if they weren’t as flashy.

  He suddenly thought of the mysterious dagger riding in a sheath at his back and felt a chill. He’d deal with that later.

  Henry hadn’t told Aodh to put away his glow stone, so the young man used it for light as they walked back the way they’d come. Henry said, “There is an opening in the tunnel up here that will be perfect.”

  Aodh had no idea but he meant, but he couldn’t focus enough to try figuring it out. The darkness, the danger, his worry about Henry’s injury, all of it was taking a toll.

  A few minutes later, they came to a small room, a natural opening in the tunnel. The cave system had many of these, and this one wasn’t special. About the size of a living room, it sported jagged walls and a few stalactites in the center of the ceiling. The light from Aodh’s glow stone made weird, multi-directional shadows around the space.

  Suddenly, Henry cocked his head and whispered, “Shit. I think they’re heading back. We need to hurry.” The man gingerly walked to a wall, holding a hand to his gut, and began tracing his other hand along paths in the wall only he could feel. “You might want to back up, Tony.”

  Aodh nodded and retreated up the tunnel, but stayed close enough that he could still watch Henry. The man went around the natural room, touching the stone and appearing to concentrate. Then he began heading back towards Aodh. He was breathing heavy and his face looked pale, his jaw clenched.

  When he was almost to Aodh’s position, weird sounds began echoing down the tunnel from the direction the goblins had gone. Faster than Aodh would have thought possible, he could already see movement in the distance.

  “Fuck!” Henry shouted, awkwardly ambling forward. He made it to Aodh’s position and slammed his hand against the wall. A slow rumbling started in the walls, and Aodh suddenly understood what Henry was doing. It was a deliberate cave in.

  Fear warred with unease as he felt more than saw the mass of enemies rushing at them in the darkness. In the distance, a growling roar sounded that was so low and loud, it was felt as much as heard. Aodh’s blood ran cold, the bellow triggering a primal, fight or flight instinct. Whatever had made that sound was something he definitely did not want to meet.

  He saw pinpricks of glowing fungus on sticks in the distance, the goblins were coming. Suddenly, seemingly from nowhere, a huge, canine monster lunged out of the darkness at Henry. The man lashed out with a solid, earth-strength enhanced kick, and the creature was knocked back a few solid yards, rolling agai
nst the wall. When it stopped moving, Aodh heard the terrifying roar again in the distance, but closer.

  “God fucking dammit!” Henry screamed in pain. The man from Earth panted and placed his hand against the wall again. Aodh didn’t know what to do. He could only watch with conflicting emotions as Henry bowed his shoulders and the distant ceiling began to slowly fall. Through the chaos and the falling rock, Aodh could barely make out more movement in the dim light. He felt sick.

  He and Henry took a running shuffle away from the cave in and kept their backs turned so they wouldn’t get a face full of dust. After moving further up the tunnel, Henry created another cave in as well. His voice was satisfied as he said, “There. Now they’re having a very, very bad day.”

  Aodh was quiet for a while as they headed back to their magic-built shelter. “I understand you might have needed to do that,” Aodh said, “but that was wrong.” The young man remembered what it felt like to feel trapped, to feel hopeless in the cave. The goblins were their enemies, but now a larger number of them were probably going to starve to death, or fight the spiny cats in an enclosed space, or any number of unpleasant ways to die.

  He couldn’t help but feel empathy for being trapped in the dark, afraid.

  “Yeah, it’s unpleasant and fucking savage, kid,” Henry growled. “But so are they. Now how about we eat, drink, and I pass out for a while and hope I don’t die in my sleep?”

  Aodh stayed silent as he matched Henry’s slow, shuffling pace back to their shelter. He reflected on his new life. The Fideli-blooded young man loved being an adventurer, it was his dream, but sometimes he felt strong, conflicting emotions. He was glad to be alive, but he couldn’t help that he felt dirty too. Henry had used his power in a clever way, he’d probably saved their lives, but...there were some fates Aodh would literally not even wish on his enemies.