Chapter 27: Enemies At The Gate

The waiting was its own kind of torture. Time moved strangely in the tower. A minute could feel like an hour when you were holding your breath, and an hour could vanish when you were running. Kael’s legs ached from being bent and still. His back protested every time he shifted slightly. Dust clung to his throat. Somewhere outside, something scraped against stone, and both of them froze until the sound faded. Kael kept his eyes on the map, forcing himself to be the kind of still that didn’t invite attention.

Only a few seconds later, Kael looked up, as if he was able to see the ceiling.

John’s head snapped toward him immediately, the movement sharp and silent. “What?”

Kael’s nostrils flared subtly. He didn’t need to exaggerate the sniffing, but he did anyway.

“Humans, they’re coming over, two of them, seems like a team… they’re in for a nasty surprise,” Kael said.

John’s mouth tightened. He didn’t ask how Kael knew. He didn’t argue. He didn’t even joke. The tower didn’t leave much room for disbelief when the consequences were teeth.

Just as he was watching his map and faking the fact that he was ’sniffing the air for clues’ a sudden crash and thud echoed, then several of the red dots began surging out of the underground parking lot. It wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t a trickle. It was a sudden burst, like someone had kicked a hornet’s nest. Dots spilled outward fast, fast enough that Kael’s eyes had to refocus to track them. The noise came right after, like the sound had been waiting behind the map.

The sound of screams and running, then something loud exploding outside echoed. The explosion wasn’t just loud, it was violent, the kind of sound that made the shelf behind the storage room door tremble a fraction. Dust drifted down. Kael and John held still for a beat, listening. The screams weren’t goblin screams. They were human screams, sharp with panic and surprise and pain.

“Aren’t you glad you didn’t go out early,” Kael teased with a smile.

John couldn’t reply and simply listened in horror.

Suddenly Kael stood up and pushed open the door, it made noise but not like the one happening outside the building. He moved fast but controlled, pushing just enough to create a gap. The storage room smelled even worse from the sudden airflow, stale rot mixing with fresher dust from the mart outside. The darkness beyond the door felt wider, less trapped, but also far more dangerous.

“Are you crazy! Why are you going out now when they are alerted?” John hissed, leaning in with his voice tight, like he was afraid sound itself would bite him.

“Now is our best chance, a lot of them left the parking lot chasing after the two humans. We won’t have a better chance than now!” Kael said, not raising his voice, but making the words firm enough to cut through John’s fear.

John hesitated, just long enough for Kael to feel the tension in the pause. Then John’s shoulders dropped a fraction, not because he was relaxed, but because he was committing. “Fuck, you’re right, lead the way! Don’t get us killed man!”

Kael didn’t worry much about the enemies up ahead more than John betraying him. After all he had to listen to John’s own advice, don’t trust anyone especially someone promising something for free like a Hidden Piece.

So, he nodded, grabbed his crowbar and moved from under the half collapsed mart. He kept the crowbar low, not because it would help against a hundred goblins, but because it gave his hands something to do besides shake. His hammer was heavier, louder, harder to move in tight spaces. The crowbar was quick, and quick mattered here.

Once they were at the entrance of the parking lot a powerful smell assaulted their noses. It hit like a wall, thick enough that Kael almost gagged, not from weakness, but because the air itself felt contaminated. Goblin’s piss and feces all over the place along with the smell of rotting flesh. Maybe old victims, human perhaps, but it wouldn’t rot from one day… maybe other goblins that died to each other while fighting. There was also smoke, greasy and sharp, clinging to the back of the throat. The kind of smoke that made your eyes water without tears, the kind that made you feel dirty just breathing it.

At the entrance of the parking lot there was a large barrel where several piles of clothes and wood, rotting even, was lit aflame, and inside the parkinglot where it was supposed to be dark an dreary, there were torches and what looked like makeshift braziers spread all over the parking lot for light. The light was uneven, throwing shadows that moved in wrong ways, shadows that made pillars look like bodies and bodies look like piles. The torches flickered, the flames weak and dirty, and the braziers popped occasionally, sending sparks into the air like tiny warning signs.

Kael frowned, he didn’t notice any hatch from that quick glance, though he was confused on why the goblins didn’t just suffocate from the amount of smoke the braziers made. Perhaps the ventilation was still working. The thought made his eyes narrow. If the ventilation was still working, it meant the tower hadn’t completely killed the building. It meant there were still paths inside it that weren’t just rubble. It meant there was still structure, still design, still purpose. That always made things worse, because purpose meant traps.

“Where’s the hatch you saw?” Kael hissed low.

“Right behind that pillar, it’s a vent on a wall,” John said, and his voice carried that impatient certainty again, like he was trying to convince himself as much as Kael.

Kael peeked from the entrance of the parking lot, there were a few pillars supporting the whole place, and indeed, there was a half removed on one of the walls, barely being held with one screw. Even from a distance, Kael could see how loose it was, how it hung wrong, how it was just waiting to fall. The idea of it clattering in this place made his stomach drop. A sound like that wouldn’t just alert a goblin. It would announce them.

Looking at the dark parking lot, there were still several inattentive goblins, munching on what looked like yesterday’s leftovers, in this case, human flesh and bodies. Some were even being roasted on the braziers. The sight was the kind of thing that tried to crawl into Kael’s head and make a home there. He forced himself to see it clinically. Flesh was flesh. Bodies were bodies. If he let himself react like a human, he would make a human mistake. John looked like he wanted to retch, but he swallowed it down hard.

Kael thought about the distance they needed to cover to reach the exit. If they sprinted, they’ll make it to the vent, but that will definitely alert the few goblins left on the floor and they’ll have to climb up paths they don’t know while avoiding being chopped to pieces by an angry mob of goblins. His mind ran through it like a cruel little calculation. Sprint equals noise. Noise equals eyes. Eyes equals pursuit. Pursuit equals death, most likely not fast, not clean. He could feel the weight of the decision pressing down, not dramatic, not heroic, just ugly necessity.

Suddenly a brave idea propped into his head. One where he needed a tool he brought with him to use.

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