Realm of Monsters

Stryg spotted the shaman lying on the floor a few dozen feet away. 

Stryg ran towards him, “Over here! On the ground.”

“Cruvor, can you stand? We need your fire magic to get us out of here,” Second Mother said.

Cruvor coughed up blood as he tried to speak. He took a shaky breath, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“What are you saying? We knew this journey would be dangerous, but we succeeded anyway. The monster is dead.” Second Mother assured him, she reached down trying to find his shoulder, “Now get up.”

Cruvor tried to laugh but ended up coughing more, “It was supposed to be easy. They said it’d be easy. Go in, grab the treasure and get out... I was going to be the strongest.”

“Who said that?” Second Mother questioned.

Cruvor was glad they couldn’t see each other. He didn’t want anyone to see his shame. “I heard a pair of goblins from a nearby tribe talking about a secret treasure they had found in a cave. A treasure that would make any who had it the most powerful in all the Ebon Realm.” He blinked away the tears forming in his eyes, his ribs shouted in pain every time he spoke. 

“What are you saying?” Second Mother asked, she had a bad feeling about this.

“They said it was being guarded by a monster during the day. I attacked them while they were off guard. I killed one and made the other tell me where the cave was, before killing him too. My plan was to get the treasure at night and get out. It was so easy.”

“But, what about mother moon?” Second Mother’s eyes opened in dawning realization, “You lied.”

Cruvor coughed, “I needed help getting to the cave. It was the only way to convince you all to come with me, without getting the chief involved.”

“No, that’s impossible!” Stryg shouted. “You said the moon chose you. That, this was a sacred quest. That… That she chose me.”

Cruvor turned towards the voice and spat, “Of course she didn’t choose you. Are you an idiot? I just said you were chosen to get First Mother’s suspicions off my back. Why would Lunae choose a failure of a goblin like you.”

Stryg fell to his knees. It couldn’t be. It had all been a lie. Mother moon hadn’t chosen him, he really was a failure. He looked at his blood covered hands. No, he wasn’t. He had killed the monster. He had at least done that one thing right. “B-but, I killed the beast.”

Cruvor growled, “Stop lying boy. You can’t even win a night challenge.”

Second Mother ignored Stryg’s pathetic attempt at a lie, “Cruvor, why are you telling us now?”

Cruvor sighed, “Because I can’t feel my legs. I’m not getting out of here alive. Nothing matters anymore.”

Stryg looked at Cruvor’s legs. They were twisted in the wrong way, he could see a bone sticking out of his thigh. Wait a second. How could he see anything? If mother moon hadn’t chosen him, then she hadn’t blessed him either. So, why was he the only one who could see in the darkness?

“Wait,” Ostroz spoke up. “Didn’t the monster say something.”

“Is that really important right now? After hearing this miserable excuse of a shaman’s confession?” Second Mother spat at the dying goblin. 

Ostroz shook his head, “She said something. The monster. She said, that we had  made a bunch of noise in ‘our home.’”

“Our home?” Srixa questioned.

A wretched scream echoed through the cave. Stryg whipped around. A lamia slithered out from the tunnels. She stared at her fallen sister before fixing her eyes at the goblins.

“I’ll rip you all apart!” The lamia shouted. Her serpentine tail lunged at one of the goblins, smashing his small body into the floor. 

“There’s another!” Ostroz yelled as he raised his spear.

The others followed suit. But Stryg saw otherwise. There were two more of them. One was still crying over the dead lamia’s body. But it was only a matter of time before they both focused on ending all of the goblins’ existences. Stryg watched as his tribe mates tried attacking their unseen enemy. They stood no chance. He watched as Ostroz brandished his spear in a flurry of strikes. The goblin’s advice flashed through his mind, You do anything to achieve your goal. Stryg only had one goal in mind, only one wish. He wished to live. 

He ran towards the cave walls. His hands grabbed the largest perches and began pulling himself up. He climbed as quickly as he could. The other goblins shouted as they fought the lamia. Stryg heard their cries of war and terror. He remembered Ostroz’s other words, If they can’t stop you, then they don’t matter. If they could see him running away from battle, they would call him a coward, a traitor. Some might even try to kill him. But none of that mattered. He wasn’t going to let himself die in this abyss of death. He’d survive no matter the cost. Fuck the shaman and his damn quest. 

Who would have known that Stryg’s fear of death would propel him to climb faster even when his limbs grew more tired. It only took him two minutes to arrive at the surface. He pulled himself up and over the ledge. He had never been so glad to see trees in his life. His arms felt like jelly, but he didn’t care. All he needed were his legs.

He ran into the woods. He wasn’t sure which way he had come, but as he heard the lamia’s cry in the distance, he didn’t care much at the moment. He just needed to get as far away as possible. Sounds of fauna rang through the trees. He hoped the screams of the lamia would scare off any nearby predators. Stryg kept running, dodging bushes, and jumping past any debris. He couldn’t hear the lamia anymore, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t very far behind either. 

A bola slammed into his legs, wrapping itself over them. Stryg crashed to the floor, his skull banged into a tree trunk. He raised his head in a daze.

“Well, what do we have here?” A masked man covered in an assortment of colored blotches walked up to him. Camouflage, a small part of Stryg’s mind noted. 

The man crouched, “You’re a goblin right? Never seen a blue one before, or is that cyan? I can’t really tell in this moonlight.”

Stryg tried to say “kill yourself,” but it came out as a painful mumble. 

“Can’t talk huh? Figures. Can’t expect much from you savage types. I didn’t even know there were any sylvan tribes near here. I was really only hoping to catch one of the smaller critters on this trip, but today must be my lucky day. Finding a goblin out here by itself is rare. An odd one like you, especially so. You’ll fetch a nice price.” 

The poacher dragged Stryg by the feet. Stryg wanted to fight back, but he was too hurt and tired. He couldn’t even raise his arms. His injured back flared in pain as it scraped across all the small rocks and twigs that were sprawled over the forest’s floor. After a few minutes they stopped. Stryg’s fading mind thanked Lunae that the pain was over, his mind hadn’t been able to focus on much more. His glassy eyes couldn’t make up what he saw next. The creature was enormous.

The poacher stood in front of a centaur. The lower half was coated in grey shaggy hair. His upper half was bare-chested, except for two straps on his shoulders that were connected to a pair of reins. He was covered in old scars. The centaur was gaunt, both his upper and lower rib cages were visible underneath the skin and grey hair, respectively. His hair was unkempt as was his unruly beard. A metal collar wrapped around his neck. His sunken leaf green eyes stared dimly into nothingness. A saddle and an assortment of packs covered his lower back. The poacher rummaged through one of the packs and pulled out an apple. He held the fruit up to the centaur who slowly lowered his head and bit into the fruit.

“Good boy, you waited for me,” The poacher patted the centaur’s side. 

What the fuck am I seeing, Stryg squinted. He had never seen a centaur before.

The poacher turned to him, “Centaur’s old, but he gets the job done. He’s carried me over the entire Realm for the past twenty years. Old reliable.”

The centaur grunted in approval. The poacher grabbed some rope from another pouch, “Vulture Woods can be quite dangerous, so let’s get out of here quickly, yeah?”

He began tying Stryg up. The goblin tried struggling. Yet, the burst of energy he had when running was nowhere to be found. The poacher hauled Stryg up behind the centaur’s saddle, then sat on the saddle himself. 

“I suggest you don’t move too much back there. You’ll fall off,” The poacher warned as he grabbed the centaur’s reins.

But, Stryg wasn’t listening, he was too exhausted to think. He fell asleep without a second thought.