It’s been two days since Mickey had started to wander through the Red Goblins caverns.

At first, he thought the place was kind of an underground temple. But in fact, it was more of a maze of never ending corridors. Most of those were just long holes dug in the stone, the way they seemed to go were mostly random than plan. They were a lot of crossing between the corridors and they often lead to some big cavern.

Most of the corridors were annoying Mickey, as they dug to allow goblins to use them and they didn’t think of the comfort of taller races. Before his death Mick wasn’t a tall man, measuring 1m67, but now, with his new races, he was 2m12 tall. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t know of this as his sense of measurement was distorted by his body change, or else he would have celebrated it in a way or another. The jumble of corridors wasn’t great for his familiar either, its ability to fly severely diminished. Only his skeletons could walk with ease.

The main use of the corridors seemed to be to allow the occupants to go from one cavern to another, a limited amount of those corridors were big enough to allow Mick to walk with a straight back, and a little number of them were really built by a more technological race. But compared to the Red Goblins, it wasn’t a hard task.

The room was Mick first arrived on Jezoi and fought the little fuckers seemed to be part of an old structure. It had been built long ago by people who weren’t there anymore. And the biggest corridor, the one who would probably lead to the exit, had collapsed. Of course, the Goblins hadn’t bother themselves to dig the way out. No, they had found the place by luck in digging at random and used it as it was.

Along with his wandering, in the maze of corridors going up and down in every direction, Mick had fought and killed a lot more of red goblins. But they were fewer and seemed to have been weaker too. The Champion only get 2 level out of this. He also practiced some of his skills, particularly his Lesser skeleton animation Skill and his Rot Skill. When he remembered the existence of the second one, he tried to use it with no effect on a living goblin, then on the dead body of the same goblin. It made the flesh start to stink, not that the goblin was smelling good beforehand. The smell reminded him the time a power outbreak had caused all the meat in his parent’s fridge to rot, he almost threw up at the moment. But in five minutes all the flesh on the body was gone, living behind a perfectly clean skeleton.

Discovering that he could have done so for the first body he cleaned before raising it as a skeleton, he felt idiotic.

After a bit of time wandering underground, Mick began to feel tired. He used his Personal map Skill to retrace his steps to the only cavern with bedroll he saw. It was the old personal room of the Red Goblin’s Chief.

Putting his three skeletons on guard duty he ate a bit of the food he had stolen in the goblin’s pantry, half burning it in an attempt to cook it with a fireball. He then looked back to his notifications and status.

Skill Night vision had level up!

Your eyes are more able to see in the dark now. Keep walking in the night and go peep on the dark world!

Skill Lesser skeleton animation had level up!

You're better at summoning the gloomy skeletons in the peoples now. Keep raising them, and create your own friends!

Skill Rot had level up!

You can make stuff rot away faster now. Keep accelerating the natural process and get rid of the evidence!

Skill Prehensile tail had level up!

You have a better control of your tail now. Keep practicing with it and you’ll be able to do nice stuff with it!

The notifications were still pretty insulting. What was he’s supposed to do with his tail? ‘I don’t know who write those fucking notifications, but if I meet him one day, I’ll let him know what I think of it.’

Now that he was in some kind of a safe place. The goblins were afraid of him, he had killed all those who had tried to harm him, and the others had fled, terrified, sometimes with a fireball rushing after them. Mick was pretty confident none of the goblins would attack him during his nap - he couldn’t call it a night, he had no idea of the time it was - and the three skeletons he had were standing guards.

He would love to have more minions, but after the level three the skill was really harder to level, simply raising skeletons seemed to be enough anymore. So he tried one other of his Death Skill Tree’s Skill, the Ghost conjuration one.

But the only thing he conjured was disappointing. It was some kind of mist floating in a corner of the room. The thing was useless as it was, unable to interact with anything or to produce the faintest sound. When Mick touched it, he only felt a feeble cold on his hand. But the thing pretending to be a ghost was obeying Mick. It went down or up at command and was even able to condense or disperse itself a bit. At the end, Mick ordered it to disperse itself from the entrance to the room and into the cavern leading to it. It was like the fog in a cheap zombie movie’s grave yard and Mick hopped it could spook a little more the goblins into not attacking him during his rest.

The “morning” came to Mick with the sound of a notification.

Let’s go!

All the Champions have been called on Jezoi, as such the God’s Game has truly started.

Go and find the way to win, making your God proud of you!

Like Marc before him, Mick remembered Arnold telling him that the God’s Game’s victory conditions would be given to the Champions once all of them would be on the planet. But it seemed like it wasn't the case, Arnold had lied to him, or something else was to happen soon. Either situation, Mick didn’t like it, he felt cheated.

But he had other things to do than to wait for another notification.

He ate a bit of badly cooked meat and resumed his search for the exit.

__________

The Red Goblins were afraid, a strange demon was roaming their home and killing all those who had the bravery to stand against him. He was even soiling the dead by raising their skeletons or making their flesh rot away.

For those smart enough to avoid him or too afraid to oppose him, the demon mostly let them ran with a devilish laugh. But at some, he had sent a skeleton to chase them or threw a fireball.

And now he was resting in the chief’s room. Three skeletons were guarding the entrance, but more could wait inside, and the strange bird was nowhere to be seen. More frightening was the strange fog that seemed to ooze in the big cavern from the chief’s room.

The Goblins were wondering what could have done the chief and the shaman to bring upon themselves and all the clan such a catastrophe.

The demon had even plundered their meager meat reserved.

The survivors were the eldest of the clan, the youngest, the wounded and the women. As they were too weak to fight or forbidden to do so. The Goblins had no concept of gender equality, had forced their female to stay home to tend to the children.

They had gathered themselves in one of the biggest caverns, near the entry of their lair, and were wondering what to do.

Should they try to appease the demon? They had no idea of what he might want to leave them.

Should they run away in the wilderness? In the state of their clan, it was the same as collective suicide.

Should they fight? Some argued that if they were to all attack at the same time they would definitely win. But they were quickly silenced.

Another possibility could be to pledge themselves to the demon and hope for him to protect them as part of his people. But they didn’t think a being so powerful would accept such frail followers.

__________

The fear hadn’t leave Milian since she awoke anew in the dark room. The small lights had died.

It was dark, and even if she had good eyes, she couldn’t see in the complete dark of the room. But the smell was there, the smell of shit, the smell of blood and a faint smell of rot. Those were the component of the smell of death. She was in a dark room with dead bodies. Her nightmare was still a reality.

She didn’t hear anything and concluded she was alone in the room. The demonic kobold had left the room. And he had left her here to die.

She was certainly going to die here. Alone. Far from her clan, her family, that kind goblin that seemed to be nice to her.

But she hadn’t been raped by the goblins of the Gark tribe. That was good right? Once dead and in front of her ancestor, she would at least be able to tell them she didn’t die soiled by the enemy.

But no. If she died like that, she would be laughed upon by her ancestors. She had to at least try to find a way out of here.

She couldn’t let herself die here. But she was so afraid, so alone, so hungry and thirsty. Her situation was a lost cause. She was lost.

No!

She mustn’t let those emotion get to her. She had to fight.

She would find the way out.

She would go back to her clan.

She would make her family proud.

And she would talk to that nice goblin.

Or she would die trying, and not lamenting herself.

She walked forward, her hands in front of her. And when she found a wall she kept walking, a hand on it and the other in front. She would find the way out, hopefully before dying of thirst.

__________

When he walked outside of the room he had slept in, Mickey was greeted by a surprising view.

There was light in the room. And those light illuminated a strange scenery.

Three little red goblins were prostrating themselves in front of him.

Each one had a little pile of things gathered in front of them. Like offering. The one on the left was offering weapons, the one in the middle presented jewels and clothes, and the one on the right had a cooked meat on a plate.

Mick was first taken aback by the situation. But he seemed came to the conclusion that the goblins were offering him gifts in the hope he would not kill them, and maybe leave the place.

Well, too bad for them, he didn’t know where to find the way out. His Personal map could greatly help him to it, as it allows him to know map the area and avoid returning where he had already searched.

Anyway, he would gladly accept the offerings. He first ordered each of his skeletons to stand behind each of the goblins. Making sure they would not run away. Then he walked to the goblin on the left and examine the weapons.

They were only crude iron daggers and wooden spears. It seemed like the only swords the tribe had were still with the deads in the temple. He didn’t bother himself with those things, his claws were already sharper than the dagger and his fireballs could reach further and probably hit stronger than the spears.

The middle pile, with the jewels, was even more disappointing at first. It was a mass of bones collars or bracelet. Rummaging a bit through it Mick found a nice ring that seemed to be made of silver. The goblins musted had found it somewhere else, because Mickey seriously doubted they could make something like that. The ring couldn’t fit at his fingers, so he put it in his storage, for later use. He also grabbed the nicest piece of cloth and tied it around his waist. He was tired of being in the nude all the time. The others were mere ragged to be burned in his eyes, but they were still better quality than was were wearing the three goblins.

The thought of collecting all the jewels and the weapons in his storage to keep them as souvenir crossed his mind. But he reasoned himself, they would be completely useless and would waste place.

Looking at the last offering, Mick smiled. The meat looked cooked with better skills than his own. He grabbed it and ate it while examining the goblins. The meat wasn’t really good, but it tasted better than the half raw half burned meat he had for his last two meal.

The three little goblins were shivering in front of him. Looking closely at their form and their clothes - not just the state of them this time - the half draconic half devil saw they were female goblins.

He reached down to the one on the right, the nearest to him right now, and raised her head with his hand. She was not bad looking, for a goblin. Her face could have passed for a bland one on a human body, but she had teeth so crooked Mick felt shivers on his spine. He cast her aside and she ran away with a scream. He let her go with a small laugh.

The goblin in the middle was a bit uglier but not too unsavory to repeal the Champion. And most important, her teeth weren’t as crooked as the first one. Mick patted her on the head and forced her back in her prostrating position.

When he looked at the third goblin woman, Mick was flabbergasted by the view. She was beautiful, with delicate traits, a plump mouth, two round eyes and even some cute freckles. But she had such a big nose, it was almost frightening. She had a nose worthy of those Gallic men in the comic Astérix and Obélix. It was kind of hypnotizing. But it made her a no go for his plan and he cast her aside, like the first she ran away.

Having made his choice, the red goblins’ bane motioned the little woman to follow him as he returned to the room he had slept in. Reluctantly she went after him, more scared of what he could do to her if she refused than what she knew was going to happen.