Project: TheirWorld - Chapter 020 - Part 1

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The Gobos and the Ghost

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TheirWorld

As the darkness enveloped her, she pulled out a torch from her inventory and set it ablaze. The cavern air was chilly, and the fire was warm. The light of the torch bounced off the damn, rocky walls of the cave, bringing them to life. She knew what she didn’t need. She didn’t need the spirit that haunted her to appear right now.

Remembering her character sheet, she paused to look at her status, and saw that her [Fear of the Depths] had already kicked in. Lucky for her, the -5% on all stats was basically meaningless in the tutorial - though she wondered how often it would affect her in the main game. Now that she was thinking about it, caverns were some of her favorite places in RPGs. Too late now, she supposed, stepping deeper into the cavern. She wasn’t really afraid of caves; she was afraid of being submerged in water. That they put the two together into one trait seemed rather silly to her.

Echoing sounds and flickering light appeared as she turned down the neck of the tunnel. Guin blew out her torch and stuck it back in her inventory. She re-cast [Spirit Armor] to make sure it didn’t expire any time soon, and entered fox form.

Sneaking around the bend, she saw what appeared to be the camp of some kind of bipedal creatures; goblins, most like. They were short with squashed faces that had long noses and ears that were wide like a bat’s. They were chittering back and forth in some language Guin didn’t know - and the fact that it wasn’t translated meant that it might not have even been real.

There were three of them in a little rounded alcove, all gathered around a sad excuse of a fire. Two big ones with clubs swung over their shoulders seemed to be pacing back and forth in front of the passageways leading in and out. There was another smaller one with a bow and a small quiver filled with arrows.

Frowning, Guin assessed the situation carefully. She had never taken on more than one enemy before - and she had never fought with these guys before. It was easy to imagine that they were slower than the beast-types though - especially the bigger ones. If she acted fast enough, she could at least use her [Backstab] ability to take down one of the big guys, assuming that their health wasn’t astronomical.

If she did it that way, right as the big one went by, she wouldn’t need to use [Fox Form] to catch him. She morphed back into her human form, and continued to watch, looking out for other pathers that might come by. If she could tell that one quickly, she could enter fox form to quickly maul the archer, and get rid of the group's apparent main DPS. After that, she probably wouldn’t have a problem fighting toe-to-toe with the final one. Dying wasn’t a problem here - but she had already discovered that becoming overwhelmed could become a real issue.

Leaning as flat against the wall as she could, she drew her dagger, activating [Backstab] as she waited for the big one to walk passed - and as he did, Guin jumped on him, stabbing the dagger into the back of the monster’s shoulder. Failing to hit where she wanted to, she cursed. She had miscalculated the reactions that her own child-like body had, even though the monsters weren’t much bigger than she was. The creature cried out a warning, and tried to grab at her with it’s bulky arm. Trying to compensate for her failure, she dragged the dagger out so that it would cause significant bleeding, and as it went to smash it’s back against the wall to get at her, she recast [Backstab], gripped the dagger tight, and stabbed at it again - this time, she was successful with a crit in the correct spot, killing it with a painful cry. Of course, with that commotion going on, the other two in the room weren’t sitting quietly. The archer had started shooting at her, while the second big one tromped towards her. She used the felled one as a shield until it fell forward. Guin took advantage of the physical shield while she still had it and cast [Fox Form], lunging at the archer’s throat the minute her paws touched the ground. The brainless AI struggled as she tore at his throat with her teeth. As the second big one swung his club towards her, she jumped, and ricocheted off the wall. Transforming into a human again, she used a final [Backstab] on the archer, ending his pitiful life even though she missed his neck and the dagger had just pierced his shoulder. Not letting the miss perturb her, she stood and faced the last of them, who looked like he was attacking her in slow motion.

Feeling like it was better for her to run at him than try to take him head on, as soon as his club missed her head, she started at him, then fox formed and pulled back to dart around him. She attempted to trip him, but had little to no success. He may have faltered a little, but not enough to have caused anything. Guin tsked as she bit at his legs, trying to whittle away his HP. It was easy to dodge his swinging club. Dulled pain or no, she didn’t want to get hit by that thing. She dodged a few more times, then fox-shifted as the cooldown hit, using the extra speed boost and the monster’s confusion to run up his back and human form, straddling his head between her legs and executing [Backstab]. Thrusting her dagger in the base of his neck, the beast wailed loudly, and grabbed her by the leg, pulling her off him. It threw her into the wall of the cave with quite a bit of force - It hurt! The monster roared at her, and she slammed her hands against her ears. Dazed, it took her a moment to remember that she was in battle. By the time she looked up, it was already charging at her. Scrambling up quick as she could with her fresh injuries, she tried to move of it’s path.

The next moment, she was gaping at it as it ran head first into the rock wall that she had just peeled herself off of. While thoughts of how stupid the AI was sped through her head, she took advantage of the situation, grabbing her her dagger and rushing at it’s exposed back. It only took her two more stabs to kill the thing.

As it stopped moving, she fell to the ground, huffing to catch her breath. She sat down next to the fire, and tiredly pulled out some bread and water as the corpses around her her popped into treasure chests. Guin got up and went through the treasure chests left by the head Gobos. Each had two tokens and about the same average coin drop as the Beedants and Moarbits. Though slightly disappointed, when went back to her fire she stole.

Of course, spirit which haunted her seemed to think that this moment, as she contemplated her kills, was the best time to talk to her. “Artfully done,” it said. “Though that last one was a bit of a struggle. Should I have helped?”

Guin heart froze over. Gulping down the bread that she was chewing on, she asked, “Who are you?”

“I?” went the voice in her left ear. Something brushed her face as the voice came to her right ear, “I am truth. I am life. I am… All that which is and isn’t. Here you find me, there you find me. You find me in babies. You find me in the old. You find me in the fire. You find me in the dark. I am immortal, but I am not alive; not really.”

“I highly doubt a god would choose to follow me around,” she said, unimpressed and irritated at the riddle.

The voice laughed...