Chapter 43
Frank and Dontil made their way through the increasingly morbid complex. Goblins occasionally stopped them along the way, usually in groups of two or three. The human scout made the decision to put his rifle away and use the sword he had picked up earlier. It was nothing terribly remarkable, psychometry revealing it to be a normal mass produced sword. But it was in excellent condition and would serve Frank's purpose as he and Dontil cut their way through every room searching for survivors. Luck wasn't with them in that regard. Any goblins they found up to this point were already dead, some of them long since decomposed. Frank was still puzzled by the hotel-like nature of the rooms here. Perhaps he had been mistaken about this place? Leaving aside the way the goblins discarded their torture victims like trash, there wasn't any place for the dead here.
Frank supposed it was possible that each structure in the greater complex was meant to be a separate specialized building, but why had the goblins come to this specific one? Was it just because they wanted to be comfortable as they abused their victims? Or was there some other reason?
They came upon a dead end hallway and thought to loop back. They must have reached one of the inner walls of the mound judging by the rough direction their route had taken them. Frank took a moment to rest, leaning against the wall to massage his legs.
Frank kept his eyes and ears peeled, his back to the wall while he let [Total Invisibility] run through its cooldown. He and Dontil had been searching for what felt like too long a time, but now that they'd reached a wall, Frank had a rough idea of where to go next. There was a larger hallway about fifteen feet back that had a sign carved into the stone wall. Frank couldn't read it, and Dontil claimed it was Elvish. Beyond that, he couldn't figure it out since he couldn't read Elvish either. The goblin just knew it wasn't Orgrauma, which left only one obvious origin for the script on the sign.
That being said, Dontil wasn't going to leave any stone unturned or door unlocked. The goblin staggered onwards, single-minded in his purpose. Frank had an uneasy feeling about his new ally. The potion was having an effect on him, to the point that when Frank went to bandage the goblin's arm he realized his wound was far deeper than it seemed at first glance. Dontil should not have been able to use that arm without immense pain, but the potion allowed him to shrug it off. Frank hoped they could clear this place soon out soon, or at least find Vinta so Dontil could leave. Even if Dontil left, Frank was determined to kill every single fallen goblin responsible for making this place into the slaughterhouse it had become.
That was when he heard it, first a small vibrating feeling that gave Frank pause, almost like it wasn't real. It was the impression of something unsettling, unnatural. Then he heard the scratching against the wall that made his hair stand on end. He kept looking ahead down the hall, there was no possible way it could come through the solid stone wall behind him, it was safe. He had to keep telling himself that. Until he decided to tempt fate. He swallowed hard and gently put his ear to the wall. The scratching noise continued for too long, then he heard something else. A faint, eerie whisper. If he didn't know what telepathy sounded like in practice, he would have sworn he was hearing it in his head. When he focused on the noise, the words were clear-cut gibberish, but words nonetheless.
"Sahnfeil... Brantomor...hyabrino" Frank pulled his ear back, sucking in air through painfully clenched teeth. The voice sounded like it was facing him, whispering into his ear. The bone chilling scratching a constant companion throughout, it was as if nails on a chalkboard had a voice, caked in dust and hoarse from repetition.
Frank's stomach knotted up once again. When did combat start to feel less scary than whatever the hell this was? He quickly teleported down the hall and went to catch up with Dontil, who was bashing open a locked door.
Frank held his sword ready, nodding to Dontil. The goblin quickly kicked the door open then charged in, shield up. The room inside was large, the ceiling high and curved. Further in there was a platform, before which ten goblins were sitting. They were posed as if they were praying or chanting, and they hadn't heard the pair burst through the door.
'What the fuck? Are they in a trance or something? Dontil damn near blew the door off it's hinges... Wait a sec." Frank realized the goblins mouths were moving, and he couldn't hear them. As he and Dontil approached, Frank realized he could see a shimmering haze in the air where a row of pillars sat in the center of the room. There was magic at play here. And he had a good idea of who was casting it.
A heavily disfigured goblin stood in front of the platform, holding a gnarled staff thick with wicked barbs along the top, most of them shiny with fresh blood. His white and green robes were dark along the bottom, painted in the lifeblood of numerous victims. The source of the blood, and seemingly the target of whatever chant they were leading, was clear from where Frank and Dontil stood. A grisly ring of true goblins were tied together hand to foot, their entrails leading out of their bodies and bleeding into the center of the circle they formed.
Somehow the followers of Lord Hieras had found another way to surprise Frank, furthering his resolve to make sure they never found a foothold in his world. This was more than torture, this was some sort of ritual murder. Frank wasn't sure what the magic in front of them did, and before Dontil could charge in, he urged him to wait for Frank to investigate.
Frank didn't need to be told twice to hurry, if any of these people were alive and somehow able to be stabilized, every second counted. He followed the haze and found that as he approached the pillars there was a light like the one on the wind essence stone coming from the pillars. More accurately, from some strange symbols carved into the sides of the pillar. Frank wasn't sure what to make of it, but it seemed like the majority of the flashing symbols only visible in his [supernatural sense] were concentrated on the other side of the hazy wall. Were those meant to be controls? Or were they somehow powering functions of the field?
In the end, Frank decided to simply take his sword and scratch lines through the symbols. If the symbols were broken, would the magic break down? Frank could only guess, but his guess seemed to pay off. Shortly after finishing the scratches through the symbols, the field broke down. Then the horror really began.
As soon as the field went down, Frank and Dontil could hear the chanting of the fallen goblins and their robed priest. But over that, they heard screaming. Loud, pained, gut wrenching wailing erupted from the stage where the true goblins were tied up in agony. Whatever they were doing to their victims, they sounded like they were still alive somehow. Then, as quickly as the sickening sounds had started, they quieted down to a dull echo bouncing around the room.
What the hell was going on? Was that noise a reaction to the field going down? Or were they too late, the ritual over already?
Frank wasn't the only one confused, the robed goblin looked to his sides before he turned around to face the intruders. He quickly yelled and shouted to his companions. They got up, weapons in hand. Many of them held painful looking serrated blades, one had a brutal hammer that ended in a pyramid shape on one end. Two of the nine goblins held vicious looking short whips with a mess of terrifying barbs on the end that Frank faintly remembered was called a cat o nine tails.
Whatever those goblins were doing before, their weapons were meant to inflict maximum pain and look as brutal and intimidating as possible. Frank was quickly charged by two of the goblins with blades. The bastards were fast, but Frank was able to keep up. He parried their strikes and got clean hits in return. This alone might not have saved Frank, but luckily he had an edge. The poison coating his blade quickly took effect and slowed the goblins down, enough that he was able to finish them quickly after.
Dontil was surrounded, backing away as he batted back strikes to his shield. Frank saw a couple more goblins break away from Dontil to rush Frank, and when they were almost in front of the human, he was gone in the blink of an eye. He teleported behind one of the goblins with a bladed whip and ran him through with his sword. His next target was the one that posed the biggest threat to Dontil, the goblin with the large hammer. The last thing he needed was for Dontil's shield to break and expose him to further danger.
Frank quickly sliced the goblin's arm as he readied a big swing, then took a few quick cuts at some of the other goblins nearby. The more of them that got poisoned, the easier this fight would become. Frank managed to sneak in one more vital blow to another goblin before the rest could adjust for his flanking maneuver. He teleported behind the two goblins who had initially broken away to fight him, he was ready to impale one of them when the robed goblin began loudly chanting. Frank was distracted by the sudden noise, which gave his opponent a moment to deflect the scout's fatal blow. Instead of being stabbed through, the goblin took a cut across the chest.
Frank grunted with annoyance. These two were wise to his game plan, he had to kill them quickly. Luckily, the goblin who just avoided death was already wincing from the pain of the paralysis poison and losing control of his sword arm. He backed off and waited for an opening. The robed goblin's chanting reached a crescendo, emitting sparks of red light from around his body that flew out and sought his allies.
Quickly, Frank noticed something had changed. The remaining goblins had those sadistic smiles splitting their faces, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see the goblins that he had poisoned earlier to take pressure off of Dontil were now back in fighting form. In fact, they seemed to be better than before. The goblins facing him were also affected, they swung faster, hit harder, and were lighter on their feet. Frank quickly realized as more goblins decided to surround him that he had made a classic mistake that anyone who had ever played a role playing game knew not to make. He ignored the caster! Always take out the magic users first!
Frank was using all of his concentration to fight back not only the goblins in front of him, but the two extra who had joined from his side. He was in a situation he wasn't suited to, on the defensive and in plain view of multiple enemies. Every other movement he made was a block or dodge and he needed his eyes to fight back all four opponents, so he couldn't take the extra moment to pick a spot to teleport!
Or so Frank had thought until now. As the thought occurred to him, some small part of him wondered past the panic of combat, did he really need to see where he was going to teleport? He just needed to teleport behind his opponents, pull his handgun and put one between the priest's eyes! He could see from the corner of his eye the wild, frenzied movements of the robed goblin and his macabre staff. Killing him would free things up for Frank, he knew he could fight these goblins without the magic buff they were under the effect of now!
Then one of the goblins called out behind Frank, he didn't know what it said but he knew it was the prelude to another attack. He quickly batted the blade away and kicked at his attacker, he spun back and narrowly deflected a stab from his flank, one that was aimed towards his head, instead carving across his shoulder. The awkward size difference between Frank and the fallen goblins was handy for once since they had to aim upwards to hit Frank's head, while he only had to slash just under chest height to properly decapitate them. At least under ideal circumstances, that is.
Frank's reaction was slowed as he adjusted his movements around the pain in his shoulder, trying to block it out while he fought. Once again another goblin called out, then another, and before Frank could register the footsteps behind him, another goblin broke from Dontil and charged the human's back with reckless abandon. Frank turned his head just in time to see a blade inches away from making its home in his guts. Time slowed to a crawl, and Frank wondered if this was really how it was going to end. His last moments spent in some God forsaken torture house on another world ruled by unrepentant evil, bleeding like a stuck pig while the goblins took turns poking him full of holes.
No. Not today. Not here, not now!
Frank felt the pull, deep inside his body, from his core and then out and around him as his body twisted into the all too familiar feeling of a teleport jump. But where was he going? He hadn't been looking anywhere but at the jagged edge of the sword racing to meet his intestines.
He felt like he was out of his body, watching himself from above and hearing the roar of battle around him, his blood rushing a current through his ears. He was watching his last moments in slow motion. This was so different from when he had faltered fighting Gerald, back then he was stuck in his head and waiting for the fallen human to kill him. Now, he was actively fighting back and about to take what was a certain fatal blow. But he could still feel the urge to teleport rising within his body. He turned his attention to the goblin priest, his blood soaked robes even more gruesome from the front. His despicable yellow were eyes glued to Frank as he waited for the final blow to be struck.
And then the human was gone.
The goblins surrounding Frank looked around to see where he teleported, the priest continued his chanting, but lost the smile he was wearing before.
'Where did the human go?' he wondered.
A muffled bang echoed out into the hall in answer, Frank had teleported behind the priest, pulled his pistol, and killed the robed goblin.
'You have gained 120 spiritual power for killing a goblin haruspex'
'Congratulations, you have upgraded [Teleportation] to Rank C. Level reset to 1, range increased, focused teleport cooldown reduced. You no longer require line of sight to use the basic [Teleportation] skill.'
Frank would have smiled if his heart wasn't ready to burst from his chest. He finally upgraded [Teleport], seeming to skip rank 10 entirely. But why? Frank could think about it later, he had a goblin to save. He took aim at the goblins swarming Dontil, who was visibly weaker than he had been up to now. The fallen that Frank had poisoned earlier were once again having trouble moving normally. Whatever the haruspex was doing before he died, it wasn't helping his friends out anymore. A quick series of trigger pulls resulted in as many dead goblins except for one that Frank put to his knees with a bad shot.
Dontil quickly picked up the slack, decapitating the crippled goblin and making quick work of the rest, save for the goblin with the hammer, who he was still being careful not to fight the same way. Frank waited for the hammer goblin to make a big swing, then took aim and put a hole right through his heart. Frank went to make sure none of the goblins required a double tap as Dontil raced forward to the gruesome stage where the traitors were performing their sick ritual.
When Frank didn't get a response from Dontil and made sure all the goblins were really dead, he turned and walked to Dontil. The goblin was taking labored, wheezing breaths. Frank wanted to make sure he was okay, but he could tell something was off. Dontil's gaze was fixed on one of the broken bodies tied into the ritual circle. He knelt beside a young looking female goblin whose face was frozen in agony, her chest bloodied and poked full of holes. Her hair was a mess, caked in blood and her clothes torn to shreds. If Frank had to guess, she was wounded by the horrific staff the haruspex was wielding. Frank had a question on his mind, one he thought he already knew the answer to. He didn't want to ask it, but he had to.
Frank couldn't bear to watch the display of grief. He turned away and wiped his tears.
He wasn't sure what he was searching for now, feeling strangely numb. He wasn't sure if he wanted to find survivors, medical supplies, or just more enemies to kill. More than anything, he wanted answers.
Why did the goblins have this hellish place set up? What was this place before when the elves ruled? Most importantly, who would he have to kill to find out?