Interlude- Karate Goblins
Ylva approached the crest of the sand dune on her belly. She had crawled the last 30 meters already, occasionally stopping to lie still when the creature patrolling back and forth above was facing in her direction. She didn't know how well these creatures could see in the dark, but she did know that there was a small camp of them on the beach just beyond the dunes. The voice had said this camp of goblin creatures appeared to be preparing to depart the island, and she had been watching them converge here for the last two days. This was likely her last chance to leave the island, as they appeared to be in possession of the only boats.
Ylva had initially approached two of the goblins openly, just after she found herself landing in the jungle almost a week past, but that had ended up being the wrong thing to do. Those had stopped by a pool to fill their water skins and didn't seem too dangerous until she had made herself known; that's when Ylva first saw their wide, malicious grins. The little green creatures weren't physically imposing, standing only at a little more than 1 meter in height, but they were nimble and had wicked looking little spears. Their teeth were sharper than the spears they carried though, and probably twice as deadly. In fact, that's how she had discovered that this wasn't just a normal dream. The two goblins had wrestled her to the ground, and one had bitten her shoulder. That bite in the dream had translated to red marks on the skin when she woke up. Her caretaker had noticed the marks while helping her get dressed, and she'd been taken to the hospital twice since; once for the sudden appearance of the marks, and again when they appeared to become infected. In the real world, she was still there in the hospital, as the infection didn't seem to be responding well to treatment. She had become septic. They had induced a coma in the days since, while the doctors scrambled to keep the infection at bay. That had been five days ago, she had been in the dream ever since.
Ylva had discovered something else during that first encounter as well; she was a total badass. Sure, she had initially panicked and screamed when the goblins had grabbed her, pawing and licking at her with their slimy, black tongues, but during the struggle, her kicking had sent one of them flying, smashing its head in on a rock. The remaining goblin had bitten her in response, and when she pushed hard at its forehead with her palm, she heard a crack and felt it give. She lay still for a few moments afterwards, goblin teeth still stuck in her shoulder, dead goblin still attached. That's when she heard the voice for the first time, congratulating her on her success and telling her that she had started on the path towards "mastering the self" or something. She asked what that meant, and discovered that she was basically supposed to be doing martial arts and finding a way off the island. After asking some follow-up questions she had been able to gather that this was some kind of roleplaying game, which was strange, because she didn't really know anything about those besides what she'd seen on TV or online. She understood the idea, but not well enough to dream about it. Especially when she could just skip the game part and just dream about being a ninja.
Climbing and leaping through the trees in the jungle had been a blast, even with the injured shoulder. Ylva had been on the island for almost a week now, ambushing the goblin hunting parties that ranged in groups of two or three as they stalked creatures that looked like saber-toothed capybara. She would follow them until they found their prey, then she would strike while they were spread out and their attention was otherwise occupied. At first using that tactic was just out of caution, but by the time she had started to understand that she could have handled the hunting parties head-on, the wound on her shoulder was festering and she had become persistently lightheaded, and on more than one occasion, it had caused her to lose her footing.
When Ylva reached the crest of the dune she lay flat in the shrubbery, and waited for the goblin sentry to get close enough. They seemed to come in varying shades of green, and this one was the color of seaweed. He was wearing a worn black leather tunic with scattered bone studs and leather wraps on his hands and feet. He carried a spear on his back like the ones used by the hunting parties, but also had a small bow in his hands with an arrow at the ready. Ylva watched the goblin pass the standing torch, scanning the area around the dune as he approached. He made it to the edge of the light where she was concealed, and stood for a moment, looking over the hills of sands and shrubs. All was quiet. Ylva held her breath as she waited for him to turn away. Instead he stuck his arrow in the sand and slung his bow. He then pulled up his tunic and prepared to relieve himself right into the bush Ylva was hiding in. "Absolutely not," she thought to herself, as she grabbed both of the goblin's ankles and yanked. The sentry fell backwards with his little green dick out, making a surprised sound that was cut off when he hit the ground, forcing the air out of his lungs. The jerking motion had caused searing pain in Ylva's shoulder, but she ignored it. Before the sentry had a chance to get his bearings, she had whirled herself around on the ground, still grappling with the goblin-giving the asparagus tip a wide berth- and landed a knee against the side of his head, knocking him out. She hit him with another knee to the head to make sure he wouldn't wake up again, then crawled over to look at the goblin camp below.
"From the top of the dunes, you look out over the bay. Just off shore, you see two small sailboats that appear to be unoccupied. On the beach there is a loose grouping of rough canvases held up by ropes and sticks surrounding a still burning bonfire."
"How many are in the camp?" Ylva asked.
"Based on the number of shelters and the number of goblins you've killed this week, you estimate no more than 10 are remaining in this camp"
Ylva went to work. Sneaking from tent to tent, she silenced the little green devils, one by one without making a sound. When she approached the final, and largest shelter, she froze as its occupant emerged. It wasn't a goblin, this thing was over two meters tall and heavily muscled. It still had the green skin, but it also sported thick brown hair around its face and arms. In a lot of ways its face looked a lot more human than goblin. It stretched it's back and started twisting its neck around, apparently loosening up. It walked over to one of the supply tents with a mug, looking to refill.
"You recognize this creature as a Hobgoblin, they are bigger, meaner and much stronger than their smaller cousins, though possibly less depraved. Hobgoblins are born to goblin parents, and they are naturally suited to leadership in goblin society. Like their smaller brethren, some do still leave to seek out more civilized company, despite their elevated status."
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Crouching behind a stack of small crates, Ylva watched the Hobgoblin walk the camp. Seeing that he was unarmed, she thought she could probably sneak up and break his neck from behind. But then he noticed the missing sentry on the hill, and started yelling in a language she didn't understand. It was a coarse, tonal language that made everything sound like a curse. He roared when he didn't get a response, then stopped and looked around suspiciously when he was only met with silence. He stalked over to one of the shelters and kicked one of the corpses, then yelled something else, looking around wildly. The Hobgoblin ran back towards his tent and as he ran by, Ylva launched herself over the crates and kicked him in the head. He went down, rolled, then regained his footing. He remained crouched."Don't tell me that you're going to try to kill me," he said, as he looked at Ylva in the firelight. His voice sounded surprisingly sophisticated when speaking her language. "I'm going to boil your bones, girl.""Yes, but it's not personal," Ylva replied, "I need a boat, and you're in my way. Your people attacked me first."
The Hobgoblin jumped forward to strike at her with surprising quickness for his massive size. She reeled as the meaty fist slammed against her cheek. A little dazed, she still managed to use the force of that impact to pivot, spin and jumped to bring her heel around to the side of the creature's head, connecting hard. He staggered backwards, shaking his head. He unsteadily rushed forward to tackle her, but she sidestepped and used his arm to flip him to the ground. She kneeled above his head where it lay. She tried a killing blow at his throat with her fingers outstretched, but only dug into the sand as he rolled to his feet. She scooped that sand and slung it at his eyes. And that created the opening she needed. While the hairy green man threw his arms up to shield his face, Ylva delivered a flying knee to his stomach, doubling him over. She then elbowed him in the back of the neck, severing his spine. He collapsed on the ground.
Ylva didn't stop to check, she could tell by the way he dropped that he was dead. She surveyed the area around the camp, circling the edge of the firelight and gazing into the darkness. When she was satisfied that she was alone, she walked towards the large tent and went inside. She stopped at the tent flap, horrified. A dead man with pointed ears was lying on the ground in a pool of blood, hands and feet bound, his guts hanging out. It looked like he had been here for hours by the state of him, but she didn't really know for sure. Either way there was nothing she could do for him. She looked around the dirty square tent and immediately went to the chest sitting beside a bundle of dirty blankets and furs. It wasn't locked. Inside she found some gold coins, 3 vials of liquid, a silver codpiece- suggestively decorated with a dolphin surfacing for air, and a black medallion.
"In the chest you find 147 gold, 224 Silver and 32 Copper coins. You can identify the potions by smell, taste and appearance. These appear to be potions of healing, at first glance. The codpiece and medallion appear to be magical; you can identify these items by experimenting with them."
The potions were indeed potions of healing. It took drinking two of them for Ylva's wounds to completely heal, but when they did, there were no no signs of infection or even scarring. She felt great again, perfect even, for the for the first time in days. Looking around the tent, she noticed canvas draped over something in a corner. It was a cage. Inside was a large weasel-cat looking thing with a long thick tail. She thought she had seen something like it on the Internet before, but she couldn't remember what it was called. The creature was huddled in on itself like it was trying to hide. "Jeg dør!" Ylva thought to herself, "my heart, what am I supposed to do with you?" She said to the creature, "you poor thing, I'm going to let you out, it's going to be alright." She undid the clasp on the cage and opened the door.
She stepped back from the cage and made some clicking noises to call the animal out. It had looked up when the cage door opened and had quickly moved into a defensive position, ready to pounce if needed, but curled to protect its belly. When it saw that she had given it space, it hesitantly extended its head to sniff the air. Eyes on her, it slowly slinked out of the cage, moving directly towards the pointy eared dead man on the ground. Ylva was sure it was about to start eating him, but instead it rubbed itself against the man's head and neck, making purring sounds. She watched this for a couple of minutes until the creature eventually settled and laid its head on the man's chest with an audible sigh."Now you are breaking my heart," Ylva said.
She left the creature to its former owner and went to raid the rest of the camp. She found some of the capybara meat the goblins had butchered and spitted some for roasting on the fire. She cut some raw bits off and laid it out with a water bowl for the weasel-cat while she sat close by, eating and inspecting the items she found. The codpiece did not offer any actual protection, it was more of a long, bulging belt buckle, but she learned that it allowed the wearer to swim and hold their breath like a dolphin. The black pendant had been carved from some kind of crystal and allowed the wearer to see in complete darkness. She would wear them both.
By the time the sun came up, she had managed to pet the weasel-cat, and it seemed to decide that she was friendly. It lay beside her on the blanket she had spread out on the beach. She didn't know what to make of the thing, it was odd looking, not quite a single kind of animal."I'm sorry, I don't know your name," she said to it, "I am going to call you Loki."Loki did not respond. "I am going to bury your master on the dune Loki, and then load one of those ships," Ylva said. "Then you and I are going to leave this place."
Loki followed Ylva, seeming curious, as she carried his former master up the hill, and watched as she buried him. When the job was complete, he sniffed around the area and kicked more sand over the spot before marking it with his scent. Ylva watched this, and then moved back to the beach when Loki stared up at her afterwards. She loved animals and they had a way of getting to her heart, but she wasn't one to dwell on tragedy. She had struggled for a while, coming to terms with the idea that her body was going to become progressively weaker every day, and that she was going to die young. The idea of death didn't bother her anymore, "life isn't fair, Loki, but we can get things done, and still have fun."Loki did not reply, but he followed her.
Ylva didn't really know how to sail the small boats, but she was able to puzzle out how to make the canvas catch the wind and steer with the tiller. After a little experimenting, she felt like she had the idea and testing anything more than basics in the bay seemed potentially hazardous. She would need more ocean and less land around to compensate for any mistakes. She had replaced her long, torn T-shirt with a leather goblin tunic that she managed to cut into a vest. She didn't have a bra or shoes, and usually didn't bother with them anymore since she wasn't moving around or going out much, so she stripped some canvas and used it to wrap everything in place. She did the same with her feet and hands, remembering some martial arts stuff she had seen on TV. It was tricky to make it feel right, but she managed after a few attempts. She kept her gray sweatpants. She had loaded food and all the water barrels she could find on the boat. Loki had swam after her, moving with ease, using his long tail like an otter, then climbing up the side of the boat like a monkey."Seriously, what are you?" She asked, chuckling at how natural it seemed for him.Loki just licked at the water on his fur, cleaning himself like a cat.
They sailed out of the bay when the sun was high overhead. The sky was clear, and the wind was blowing strong to the northwest. The voice had said that the closest city on the mainland was called Nelsholm, to the North, and that Ylva could learn what to do next at Busty Sherman's Alehouse in the city's 9th ward. Gripping the tiller, feet planted firmly on the deck, body swaying with the motion of the waves, Ylva had never felt more alive.