Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Help!

My alarm is ringing. I have to get up for class! I have to get up for my part-time job as a tutor. Come on. Get up. Wake up.

My eyes open. Instead of my bed in W City in my apartment, I’m lying on a stone floor. A rough stone floor. A cave.

Ooooh, my head! Someone get me an aspirin. Did I take all the healing potions yet?

No, I still have one. I’m going to take it. Otherwise, I won’t be able to focus.

[HP restored. Maximum life restored. Skills almost normal. But you are in trouble.]

Tell me something I don’t know, System!

A grunt nearby. Someone gets in my face. Then, a pair of outsized yellow eyes stare at me, as if either trying to figure me out or drive me insane with the staring. Those are goblin eyes. I try and lift my head and my paws. A chain clanks. I lunge forward with my head and it’s as if my air is cut off. That’s my second clue that I’m chained up. How horrible! I hate goblins.

The guttural voice is a goblin voice. And, as background music, other goblins’ voices carry on frenetic conversations. These guys talk fast, which you would not expect.

System, i’m going out on a limb here, but did I get captured by goblins?

[I am afraid so. Although you fought valiantly, a tamed beast is too tempting a prize for them to pass up. It is, however, the only prize they made off with, apart from a few baubles.]

I take a deep breath, and wish I hadn’t. The cave stench is overpowering.

So, none of my friends are in this undesirable situation?

[No. They fought to save you, and the Lammermoors and Riddlehoevens did as well.]

System shows me a cut scene from the game, in 8K resolution graphics. In the scene, my family and the Lammermoors battle their hardest to drive the goblins from the hallowed halls of the Lammermoor mansion. And the Lammermoor and Riddlehoeven guards and servants fight well, too. Tomas and his friend can be seen in the melee, both screaming and attacking.

However, down the hall, I can see my own ears and limp body being carried on a wave of goblins, spirited away. Kaline points and shouts. Then, she straight up blasts the goblins, and the burst of energy fills the image.

My head still throbs from the memory as much as the lumps on the head that I took. Poor Kaline. She doesn’t know…

Wait. I have telepathy now, thanks to these goblin creeps.

[KALINE. I’m here. Well, I don’t know where “here” is! But I’m alive. PLEASE respond.]

Seconds tick by, and the goblin pokes my face with a grimy, greasy finger. Hasn’t he or she ever heard the saying, “Look, don’t touch?” Or how about “Let sleeping tigers lie?”

The goblin utters a string of words that sound like gears grinding together. No question, Goblinish is hardly a romantic-sounding language.

I flick my ears, shake my head, and shrug my shoulders. The universal sign for “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

Frustrated, he or she makes a disgusted sound and flicks something at me.

OW!

The lash of a leather whip lands lightly, and I scoot back as fast as I can, headache or no. Just my luck, I back into more goblins, who cluster too close for me to slip between them. I can tell this because it feels like I backed into a knobby-kneed wall.

The goblin who spoke to me wields a leather bullwhip with one hand and gestures emphatically with the other, pointing at me and yelling. Hardly a cure for my headache.

In answer, I roar in my best “get away from me” voice.

Don’t these morons know anything? If they want to tame me, they have to transfer the bond from Kaline to one of them. Maybe I got lucky and was kidnapped by goblins without a clue. Do they even have tamed beasts here?

A loud screech pierces the air and makes my fur stand up.

A dark raven-like bird towers over me, all shadows and gloom. Magic swirls around it. This is not Gussie. This is the Bird of Doom.

But, naif that I am, I can’t resist trying to make friends, or at least stave off an enemy. [Some of my best friends are birds. Well, one, anyway.]

Bird of Doom just gives me the thousand-yard Death Stare. Even in the dark, claustrophobic cave, its beak stands out, cruel and sharp.

Just continuing with the niceties, I sniff the bird. Of everything in this cave, it smells the least repulsive. It smells of feathers and nuts and seeds and exotic crunchy fruits.

Aha!

[Do you like exotic crunchy fruits?]

Bird of Doom swivels its head, tilting it to stare at me quizzically. [Why?]

Aha. Now we’re getting somewhere. And the voice is male.

[I happen to have one I can’t eat. Do you want it?]

Confused, Bird of Doom cocks his head. [Where?]

[Hidden from the goblins. But you can have it. If you want.]

Bird of Doom salivates. [Giv’me.]

[On the way.]

And somehow I pull the exotic crunchy fruit out of my storage, wherever that is. It’s like a vault I can access from anywhere. I see my Special Inventory List display in my mind. The exotic crunchy fruit moves from the list to Bird of Doom and is absorbed somehow.

With a flap and flutter, Bird of Doom puffs out his feathers. Maybe I’ve made a friend…

[More?]

I want to lie, but I can’t. Trust is currency with criminal types. [I have one more and that’s it. You can have that too, whenever you want.]

[NOW.]

This is good. I’m making an ally. Accessing my special items, I send the exotic crunchy fruit to my avian ally.

I continue the conversation. [Do you have a name?]

[Good.]

[Your name is “Good”?]

The bird clicks his beak at my obtuseness. [No. Fruit good. More?]

[Sorry. I don’t have any more.]

That doesn’t deter my new comrade. [You will?]

[You help me get out of here and I’ll make sure you have all the exotic crunchy fruits you can eat. I promise. Now, what is your name?]

The bird pauses for such a long time that he seems to turn into an obsidian bird statue.

[Dag. Name Dag.]

[Dag. I am Blaze. The goblins stole me from my tamer. Are we close to a big mansion with elves?]

Dag fluffs his feathers. [Not know. Only know cave.]

Okay. Dag isn’t much help there. I need to know where I am in relation to the mansion. But one thing at a time. If I don’t get this chain off my neck, I might choke.

[Do you know where the key to my chain is?]

I rattle my chain, and the goblin that put it on me comes back. He or she sticks a big, bulbous nose in my face. Another stream of harsh-sounding words.

Dag shakes head and lifts his wings in the avian version of a shrug. [No.]

[Next question. Can you understand their language?]

Dag shakes his head.

Oh, System, what is the goblin saying now?

[The goblin, Bykt, is trying to tame you. He does not know that for him to be your master, he has to transfer the bond from Kaline to you.]

Relief floods through me. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Maybe I should act like he has tamed me? Worth a try!

Bowing my head, I pretend to be as humble as possible before the goblin, Bykt by name, and I even (ugh) lick his hand. My mouth now feels like something died in it.

Bykt sounds less grumpy now. I notice that he is slime green. Although not exactly friendly and cooperative, he manages to look civil. At the very least, he doesn’t seem as if he wants to eat me.

I try telepathy. [Hello?]

Bykt either ignores me or can’t communicate telepathically with me. Instead, actions speak louder than words. He points to my paws, then spreads his hands.

Oh. Does he want me to create Shooting Stars for him?

Cautiously, I pour my energy into the stone floor of the cave. A golden spot appears, and then spreads outwards, growing until it becomes a golden circle of stars around me.

The goblin’s big yellow eyes look like they might fall out of his head. He jumps up and down, ecstatic. Who knew he would be so easily pleased?

Sill happy, Bykt unclips the chain from a ring in the stone floor and yanks my chain forward as he moves toward a dark, ominous opening in the cavern.

Where are we going? What’s next?

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