Delvers LLC: Adventure Capital Read online

  A robed goblin wielding a spear rushed at Aodh, and the young man panicked. He almost held his weapon like a staff, but managed to remember Henry’s past instruction in the nick of time. He kept the pointy end towards the enemy.

  The goblin ran toward him...and stumbled forward, impaling itself on the young adventurer’s spear. The creature’s own spear was too short to reach Aodh, and the weapon clattered to the stone ground as the goblin fell back, fountaining blood.

  Yet another robed goblin lunged at Aodh, but before the young man could even react, Henry ran forward and pummeled the creature to the ground, using the edge of his shield and his club both as brutal weapons.

  Henry whirled and threw a stone at a group of the dark-robed goblins, and the missile broke apart as it flew forward. Henry missed most of them, but a few pieces hit with devastating effect. Splintered bones and severed goblin limbs flew through the cavern as the creatures screamed in pain and terror.

  The goblin on the roof with the ornate staff had continued yelling the entire time, and he suddenly gestured upwards, his guttural language taking on the cadence of a chant, growing shriller. The robed goblins all drew back, warily eyeing the two Terrans. Henry panted and glanced around before saying, “Not that I mind a break, but what do you think this is about?”

  Aodh could only shake his head. He took a step back...and fell down again. His head hit the stone ground and he saw stars.

  The Asian man glanced back before almost casually batted a hissing arrow out of the air with his shield. “Be careful, kid,” Henry growled. “This is a bad place to be falling over.”

  Aodh rapidly blinked, planning to tell Henry it wasn’t like he was trying to keep tripping, but then he looked straight up and gasped. “Above us!” he yelled.

  To his credit, the man from Earth reacted almost instantly. After turning his eyes upwards, Henry ran forward and grabbed Aodh’s arm, yanking the youth with him. He had acted just in the nick of time.

  A giant grey spider landed where the two had just been, its enormous bulk settling impossibly lightly. The nightmarish creature turned its glowing eyes on Aodh, and the young adventurer swallowed, almost peeing himself in fright. I guess it’s not really a spider, he thought.

  The hideous thing had eight legs and eight eyes, but it also sported a couple of tentacles where a spider’s fangs would normally be. Its massive body had one more segment than a spider would have, and the misshapen, bulbous head on top of its body had a mouth full of serrated gray teeth. It moaned softly, the sound making Aodh’s hackles rise.

  Henry reached down to grab a stone, then threw it using his magic. The terrifying creature was large enough that even Henry could hit it...but nothing happened. The stone shattered and didn’t even leave a mark. “Well, that’s new,” Henry panted.

  With growing horror, Aodh realized the monster had what looked like a layer of stone skin. Perhaps it was even made of stone. Henry ran forward and thrust with his spear, but the weapon had almost no effect. Aodh felt growing helplessness and looked around wildly, noticing the goblins all watching from the sidelines as the robed goblin male on the rooftop continue to chant.

  The young adventurer noticed motion out the corner of his eye and dove just in time to avoid a stony tentacle. He rolled away, losing his spear in the process. The knobby, heavy tentacle passed over his head with a rush of air and Aodh managed to dodge a couple of sharply pointed, stomping feet too.

  Henry had not been so lucky. The Asian man yelled as he was borne aloft by a tentacle wrapped around his body, crushing the shield to his chest and pinning one arm. With his other arm, Henry had freed a bronze knife and slammed it into the stone tentacle, bending the blade and rendering it useless. “Henry!” screamed Aodh.

  The terrified young man ran to where he’d lost his spear and felt his heart drop when he saw its splintered shaft. He turned back in time to see Henry snarling in pain, lifting his new, fire enchanted dagger over his head and slamming it into the monstrous appendage that was steadily crushing the life out of him.

  The dagger slammed home and the beast finally stopped its endless muttering to scream in pain. It flung Henry away, and the man somehow maintained his grip on the dagger. The wound on the beast’s tentacle smoked and an acrid cloud of burning stone hung in the air. The hideous monster chased after Henry.

  Henry is going to die. The sudden realization gave Aodh a chill. He knew he was right, too. The seemingly unflappable man had been through a lot. He didn’t have access to his normal magical power and he was untrained in his new power. He was dazed, injured, and being chased by a giant, invulnerable creature that looked like it could eat a yucka pack beast and still be hungry.

  Henry wasn’t going to make it, and if he was brought down, Aodh was definitely going to die. In the past, all of this reality might have left the shepherd-turned-adventurer frozen with indecision or fear, but not anymore. He’d faced down a terrifying, ancient light weapon and he’d spoken to the Dhu. Aodh had survived time and again when he should have died.

  Giving up was not an option, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do. What he really needed was some kind of powerful magical attack. Aodh only had his useless luck magic. He felt a burning, aching rage at the injustice of the situation. If Jason were here, he could have already teleported up and cut the monster’s—

  Use your dagger, stupid! The voice of Aodh’s orb controller, Gellab Smith, cut through his frustration like a knife. There was no mistaking that he’d clearly heard her, it was as though she was shouting in his ear. He could almost imagine her standing nearby with her hands gripping her feathery hair in frustration.

  Aodh owlishly pulled his horse head dagger from behind his back and regarded the blade before narrowing his eyes. Yes, the weapon made him nervous, but he still remembered what it had done to the dangerous goblin that had almost killed Henry. He wasn’t sure why he’d forgotten about it or what was going on with his orb, but he knew what he had to do.

  The young man ran forward; his Fideli eyes narrowed in concentration. The terrifying spider monster was looming over Henry, about to strike again. Aodh leapt up and used his free hand to grab onto protrusions or cracks in the creature’s stony carapace to help pull himself up. Once on the creature’s back, he ran forward, and jumped forward with his whole body weight, thrusting at the back of the monster’s head.

  Improbably, the bronze blade slid forward with barely any resistance at all. Just like the last time he’d killed with it, the whole weapon turned black, and this time Aodh couldn’t pretend he hadn’t seen it. The hilt pulsed in his hand, and he felt more than heard a strange sound, almost like satisfied whispering.

  Black tendrils radiated out from the puncture wound, shooting out all over the monster’s body. The creature screamed, bucking backward. Aodh retrieved his dagger and ran back down the way he’d come, jumping to the cavern floor and rolling away from the stomping, thrashing, arachnid monstrosity.

  Aodh got up in time to see the creature fall, frothy foam oozing from the side of its mouth. Henry was groaning about ten feet in front of the giant dead thing, leveraging himself upright. Aodh ran forward to help him up. The nearby, howling robed goblin had not ceased his chanting the entire time. Now the figure was pointing his ornate staff at Henry, shrilling spitting and screaming in its harsh tongue.

  Once he was upright, Henry shook his head and shouted, “Will someone shut that motherfucker up?” He pulled a throwing axe from the back of his belt and hurled it at the robed goblin on the nearby roof.

  The weapon flew end over end like a homing missile, smashing right through the robed goblin’s chest. His macabre staff fell to the street as he gargled and thrashed in death throes, eventually falling off the roof. Absolute silence range for several moments, all the surrounding goblins staring at the Terran and the former farm boy.

  Henry picked up a rock and gingerly leaned against a stone outcropping. Aodh protectively placed himself between the injured man and the majority of the goblins. He
felt terrified, but resolute. His free hand trembled, but the hand holding his dangerous, mysterious dagger was rock solid.

  Behind him, Henry wheezed a laugh. “I really wasn’t expecting to make that throw,” he chuckled, panting. “If we survive this, Jason will be a lot more likely to believe you just killed a giant, fucked-up-looking spider demon thing with a little dagger than me throwing something and actually hitting my target."

  Henry continued to breathily chuckle, but Aodh had bronze-hard focus. They’d come this far now, he was going to help Henry get back to Mareen. The young man felt his shoulders and arms tense. He was still scared, but now he had a purpose, and more importantly, he had discovered that he had some power of his own.

  Aodh glared at the surrounding goblins over the dull orange, wavy blade of his dagger and wondered if he would have to turn the weapon black again.

  Suddenly, the goblin woman in ornate clothing that had led them to the village yelled something in goblin language...and got on her knees, bowing towards Aodh. The rest of the goblins quickly followed her example until the entire village was prostrate. The only sound to accompany Aodh's growing confusion was Henry's dark chortle.

  Understanding

  Henry stared at the goblin woman, who stared right back. He felt a bit naked without his armor on, but it had been completely destroyed in the fight with the spider monster and he didn’t have his metal magic to fix it. After the fight, it had made sense to just ditch his armor, especially since parts of it had been cutting into his body.

  That fight had been nasty. He’d been really close to reaching for his metal magic again and basically killing himself before Tony intervened.

  He still hadn’t healed all the way even with his unnatural healing ability. Every movement hurt. He could feel his bones shifting around as his body forced them back into the right places, and he did his best to ignore the sensation.

  The goblin woman muttered something in Gohlis, the goblin language, and gestured. The short, thin young male goblin next to her pushed his glasses up his nose. The glasses themselves had no lenses and were made of sticks, bones, and sinew. He said, “Shaman Hask said she isn’t sure what to think about you two. Especially you.” The goblin pointed at Aodh. “You wielded the pure power of Death and the tribe’s priests agree that you are the return of the Voice.” The goblin translator paused for a second before gushing, “I think they’re right! To think the Voice would be Fideli!”

  Henry’s nose twitched. Every time he thought he couldn’t be surprised by Ludus anymore, he landed in the middle of a goblin society power struggle, resulting in his employee being declared some sort of religious messiah.

  The goblin speaking fluent Luda was not exactly normal, either. The male goblin had introduced himself as Trask. He was on the small side from what Henry could tell, and he suspected he was teenaged for his species, however old that was. How Trask could speak Luda so well was a mystery, as was why he was wearing fake glasses, a button-up shirt made of thin skins, and a pair of crude slacks of the same material. A couple of wide, buckled suspenders of leather completed the bizarre look. Now all he needs is a little hat, thought Henry.

  Henry leaned back and thought about the events that had led them from their battle with the freaky spider demon thing to the goblin shaman’s sitting room. At least now he had a name for her. Shaman Hask truly did lead the village. As soon as they’d met up with Trask, the bespectacled goblin had quickly filled them in on facts that Hask would have had a hard time communicating on her own.

  Shaman Hask led the tribe and was believed to speak for the ancestors. However, the head of the village temple to Memory, or death, held an equal amount power as Hask. The decision to meet the Delvers and escort them through the village had not been popular with Head Priest Bov, the chanting goblin that Henry had killed.

  Henry was still very proud of that throw. He mentally smiled and focused on the conversation again.

  “But I didn’t do anything, I just killed a spider monster,” Aodh argued. “And I’m not Fideli, I’m Terran, well, Ludan.”

  The bespectacled goblin hunched forward, talking with his hands and grew noticeably animated. “No, you don’t understand, Voice. You killed the Devourer! It lived above the village for longer than anyone can remember and only the temple’s head priest could control it. We still had to sacrifice several young to it a year so it could be appeased.

  “Generations of gob-folk have tried to kill the Devourer. Parents that didn’t want to give up their young would organize war bands to free the tribe. The priests never stopped them from fighting. Every time the Devourer was challenged it killed all its attackers and just got hungrier. It proved who had the real power. The tribe shaman speaks for the ancestors, but the priests wielded death, and they followed the head priest. If there was a disagreement that came to fighting, the tribe shaman usually lost...until you came along.”

  “Wait, how did the Devourer come around in the first place?” asked Aodh.

  Jarrek grew somber, his voice hushed. “Voice, the priests met with the Great God Dolos, who announced himself a friend of our god. His covenant with us included control of the Devourer in exchange for our tribe, the Gobskulls, to watch over the god’s relics, keeping them safe from intruders. This was an accord struck between Dolos and Memory, our god.”

  “It is a dungeon isn’t it?” asked Aodh in English.

  “Yeah,” Henry responded in the same tongue. Jarrek looked confused, but intense. His gleaming eyes let Henry know that the young goblin was interested in languages, but had no clue what they were saying. Excellent.

  Henry switched back to Luda, musing out loud, “So we have completely changed the power structure of the whole place, huh? Well, Tony did,” Henry amended. He had to give credit where credit was due. The huge, freaky spider thing had been about to punch his ticket. He still wasn’t sure what the kid had done, but as Henry’s metal magic was tied up, Tony was potentially more dangerous than he was.

  “Yes, exactly! So now Shaman Hask is the true ruler!”

  “Okay, so that’s all well and good. She told us before we were going to walk through here and be on our way so we wouldn’t kill all of you...gob-folk.” Henry remembered to use the term that the goblins had used for themselves. “So why are we here? We dealt with your little...problem. Can we leave?”

  Jarred quickly turned to Shaman Hask, engaging in a rapid fire back and forth in the harsh goblin language. Henry found the whole thing rather interesting. It had to be stressful for Trask to be translating since Hask understood and even spoke broken Luda. The young goblin seemed to be handling it well, though. Maybe he just doesn’t care, thought Henry.

  Eventually, Trask turned back and cleared his throat, his lips peeling back from a mouth full of teeth. Henry had a hard time reading the young goblin’s inhuman face, but he thought he saw excitement mixed with nervousness. “Shaman Hask has decreed she wants every trace of the god Dolos gone from her tribe and this village. The Great Aodh is the Voice of Memory, and she feels he will approve of this.

  “She wishes to pass all of these relics on to you, but has a request.” Trask licked his lips with a long, pointed tongue. His long green nose twitched and his deep set, dark eyes grew shifty. “Shaman Hask has gotten reports of the collapse down the tunnels you came from. We thought our kin had all perished by your obvious power. But the shaman has seen the enchanted dagger you wear, enchanted with fire. It used to be worn by the village champion, Varca, her mate. His body was never found, nor any others of our tribe. The fact you wear that dagger means you came into contact with them and explains the gob-folk blood all over the cave walls.”

  Trask swallowed, his already green skin growing a shade lighter. “Shaman Hask wishes to suggest a trade. She does not believe that her mate still lives, but her first born left after the alarm was sounded. She wishes to know if there is a chance he lives. If he does or not, she would like the opportunity for our tribe to recover the living, or the bodies of the dead
.”

  “And you said it would be a trade?” prompted Henry.

  “Yes, once this is done, we will show you all the relics of Dolos we have been guarding for so long, including a tribe secret.”

  “But you already told us you were going to give us everything of Dolos, you wanted to be rid of it. How is this any different?” Henry asked.

  Shaman Hask spoke up, growling in Gohlis and slashing her hand through the air. Then in Luda she said, “No, never have without price of life. Old as tribe.”

  Trask pushed his fake glasses up his nose and elaborated, “The inner sanctum is hidden. Its secrets have existed since before the covenant between Memory and Dolos.” He sighed. “All the gob-folk in the tribe will die to the last of us to protect it, well, except me. I’d hide. But you wouldn’t find it without our help in the first place.”

  A few seconds of silence passed while Henry processed that. Suddenly, Tony spoke up in English. “Henry, I think we should help them.”

  Henry blinked and slowly turned to regard Tony. The young man was as serious as always, but he had his shoulders squared. He looked a lot like he did during a fight. Uh oh, thought Henry. “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “Because it’s the right thing to do.”

  That made Henry pause. “You know they might just turn on us if any of their warriors are still alive and we free them, right? The smartest thing for us to do is grab whatever they’ll give us, probably this dungeon’s rewards, and just get the fuck out of dodge.”

  “Yes, I know. It doesn’t matter. I probably know better than you how they are, but leaving all those goblins behind in that cave, in the dark…” Tony shook his head. “It’s not right, not when we have another way. War and fighting is one thing, but we have a chance to do something...I don’t know. A chance. These goblins are talking to us, talking like people. My heart is telling me to do this...and my stomach.”