[Interludes Vol. 1.5] In which we meet Mint, a goblin with a mission.(1/2)

~~** Interlude | Mint **~~

I've been playing this VRMMORPG for as long as I can remember, I knew all the races and factions inside and out and had raised nearly a dozen characters to the counter stop. However, I had only heard snippets of the so-called Bloodmaw Goblin Tribe in all of my playthroughs. In the beginning of almost every main story quest, when first encountering goblins, a certain NPC named Yx is met, who wanders the world looking for the last remaining Bloodmaw Goblin, hoping to find them in order revive the lost tribe.

Yx would appear whenever a quest took you to one of the many goblin factions around the world, whether for negotiation or subjugation, continually lamenting about how not a single goblin they had come across contained the origin blood of the Creator.

There were speculations on some forums that there would likely be a payoff to doing the questline in a future expansion of the game. Maybe Yx would finally locate the last Bloodmaw Goblin or some hidden tribe and it would lead to a new playable race opening up? I admit to being excited about the idea since I loved the worldbuilding lore and the difficult magic system that required detailed learning of the Rune connection system for creating and using magic.

I never would have thought that while exploring the game's world randomly one day, in an effort to be the first player to report one-hundred percent map completion, that I would stumble across them. The last remaining Bloodmaw—An NPC named Ark Wyze.

It didn't make sense to me at first. Ark Wyze?

The name Wyze was unmistakable to anyone who had ever played a magician-class character.

Salondra Wyze, one of the most powerful mage NPCs in the game and the only Tower Master to have reached the ninth circle in the last one-thousand years… there was a book in the private library in her mansion which spoke of her once having a son who met his end as an adventurer.

No traces of him or his party were ever found.

If Ark Wyze was her missing son, why was he a goblin and not a human? Salondra was known for her active hatred towards the uncivilized races, whom she considered to be a blight and plague upon the world—and to which goblins were at the forefront.

The look on the face of the last Bloodmaw Goblin was etched in sorrow.

"Why have you sought me out, Adventurer?"

Engaging with the NPC, there were two dialogue choices to answer with. The first was to say that you were here to take the head of the last Bloodmaw and prevent the resurrection of the tribe that Yx was aiming for. The second was the exact opposite, offering to help restore the Bloodmaw tribe back to its once legendary greatness through any means necessary.

Naturally, I wanted the secret storyline I had found to continue onwards, so I chose the second option.

"I would have chosen the first option, Adventurer."

Huh? Did the NPC know I had a different selection available?

"No matter. For you to have found me, it can only mean that damnable thing, Yx, eventually will, as well."

He knew Yx? The story was starting to get good!

"I no longer have the strength to witness losing my loved ones yet again. I can feel the age seeped into my bones, Adventurer, and I know that I'm nearing my end. Since you aren't here to kill me, would you like to listen to an old goblin's story? I would say old man, but I've long since lost my humanity…"

Holy crap! Am I going to get to hear the backstory of the Bloodmaw Tribe straight from the source at last!?

I quickly chose that I wanted to listen to his tale and was invited to follow him to a nearby cave. Upon entering, it was an absolutely unremarkable cave with nothing in it… that was, until his hand glowed and the wall opened in front of us, turning into a long passageway.

"Just a little bit further…" the NPC spoke.

When we reached the end of the passageway, I saw an amazing sight. A single elaborate cavern expanded into view. It looked like a small palatial mansion!

"Surprising, isn't it? I tried to reconstruct it from the original, but it has been so long, I'm sure I've forgotten more than a few of the details…"

An option came up to ask about the original.

"When I was a lad, I wanted to be an adventurer and see the world. I never would have expected that on my first goblin subjugation quest that I would be captured and made to be breeding stock for them."

A small mirthful chuckle exited the mouth of the NPC.

"Given the choices being to breed them or die, I hope you can understand that as a youth full of life, I wasn't exactly looking forward to letting it end prematurely. Still, I couldn't have known that it was my destiny to be part of something as great as the Bloodmaw Tribe. That's not to say I didn't have my points of contention with them. I had many, and we clashed often due to how different our societies were. But do not for a moment believe that the Bloodmaw Tribe wasn't civilized—They were! It's just a matter of perspective, you see…"

He gestured with his hand all about the room.

"Dak. In the language of the Bloodmaw, it meant Husband. To them, that's exactly what I was. The one and only male to be used by the remnants of the Bloodmaw Tribe after a subjugation had wiped out all but a hidden few females protected by a single elder goblin known as the Old One a year earlier. Hells, how she hated me! Ha ha ha! This room once belonged entirely to me, and I called it the Breeding Room. My task back then was each night to put a child in the belly of one of the fourteen goblins who were of age to repopulate the tribe. I had only thought of how to escape at first, but… things changed rather quickly for me."

The goblin NPC walked over to a section of the room that had a number of pillars with various items situated on top of each of them.

"When my first daughter was born, thoughts of escaping had all but left my mind. I named her Diana Artemis, and she was a paragon of what it meant to be a Bloodmaw Goblin. She was the future hope and Guardian of the tribe… but that didn't matter one iota to me. Even though she was born a full goblin in appearance, I never once saw her as such. She was my daughter… as human to me as she was goblin to them. Ah, I should touch on it briefly, that I was originally a human."

He held his hands out and turned them over, showing off his green skin.

"I chose to become like this only after I lost everyone. Before this I wasn't half-bad in appearance as a human. Now where was I? Oh yes, my first daughter, Diana…"

He pointed to the pillar in the middle, at what appeared to be the severed claw of a bear.

"Would you believe that she was hardly a month old and hunted down a bear? It wasn't by herself, but it hardly made a difference… she was mostly responsible for its death, and she was someone I was immensely proud of. You see, my fourth daughter, Button, was in the process of being born at that time, and she thought it would be nice for us to have a feast for her arrival. Say… do you like mushrooms, Adventurer?"

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