The zombie plants just kept coming and coming, shambling towards the group from the surrounding darkness and muttering their weird insults, goblin heads cursing, teeth chattering. After a while, the group got into a rhythm, learning how to effectively dodge and block common strikes and slashing out or kicking or sending their rabid hellhound after the enemy when the time was right.
For Craig and his goblin friends, it was the best kind of training; hard enough to keep them on their toes and constantly having to adapt to the battle, but easy enough so that they weren’t overwhelmed. For Pete, Sam, and Coop, however, these were easy pickings. Pete found that it was easy enough to bat away the enemy attacks or use his boots to kick the rolling goblin heads. Even when a few new types of enemies appeared, he still found them ridiculously easy to deal with.
It became monotonous, but Pete used the time to rack up some proficiencies and invent new and slightly less tedious ways of dispatching enemies.
>> STAMINA PROFICIENCY +1
>> BLADED WEAPONRY PROFICIENCY +1
>> DODGE PROFICIENCY +1
Two new types of enemies provided a little sport, mainly because, instead of boasting dead goblin heads that hung from their limbs like moldy fruit, these shuffling crimes against nature actually punched out with the goblin heads, wearing them on the ends of whipping tendrils like boxing gloves. The goblin heads would, of course, hurl insults and chomp their rotten teeth as their gruesome heads were thrust forward by the strange plants.
One variety even periodically launched the head once it reached its endpoint and then, after a few seconds, sprouted another. In the intervening period, the vine looked a little like a snake swallowing a possum, and the plant was particularly vulnerable during its ‘reloading’ phase. This being the case, it was easy enough for Pete to dodge the initial attack, wait for the plant to start squeezing another head through its limb, and then lunge forward with the machete and cut the thing down with a few well-placed strokes.
With his increased stats, Pete found that he didn’t tire anywhere near as easily as he had in his pre-apocalypse life. But the boredom was starting to get to him as the zombie plants just kept coming and coming.
“How many more of these bastards are we gonna have to kill?!” he barked, kicking his boot out and driving back one of the zombie plants before swinging in with the machete.
[Nero] Unlike other enemies, Blightfruit Shamblers are not known to retreat. In fact, I posit that they are utterly unable to comprehend the concept of retreat altogether. So, they will simply keep coming and coming until the last of their number has been slaughtered.
“Why the fuck would anyone design creatures like this? It’s not like they’re any good at fighting and, if they just keep coming until you kill them, there can’t be too many around.”
[Nero] On the contrary, Pete. Think about how many goblins die in the Dominion Ultrimax Contest each season. If but a fraction of those are turned into Shamblers, their numbers would still be considerable. As to the purpose behind their creation, Professor Gribbix Rotstem is something of a puzzling individual. It is difficult to ascertain exactly why he has chosen this project as his life’s work and, while he has released a detailed treatise on the nature of the purpose of ‘vile grafting,’ it was deemed by almost all who read it to be utter gibberish. At one point in the manuscript, there is a particularly enticing recipe for Tagliatelle al Ragù as well as detailed instructions on how to disassemble and reassemble a device commonly used throughout the Dominion to toast bread.
“He’s a nutbag then?”
[Nero] In some ways, he is a brilliant scientist and one of the finest minds in goblin science, such as it is. But he does lean towards the esoteric and has been known to give sanity a wide berth for long periods of time, yes.
Pete saw something up ahead that immediately caught his attention, not because it looked any different from the half dozen Shamblers shuffling towards him, but because the other plants seemed to move away from it as it slowly trudged forward. Goblin heads that would usually be shouting bloody murder or cursing Pete’s grandmother were strangely silent, even bowing their heads as the curious plant shuffled towards him.
He was about to say something to the others when he caught sight of the wizened old face embedded in the middle of the vine. It was a goblin, of course, but with white orbs for eyes and bright purple markings carved onto the flesh of his face. Pete wondered whether this was all part of the process of being reborn or if the aged goblin had been some kind of seer or witch doctor in his earlier life.
The strange figure seemed to possess a certain aura, a palpable sense of profundity that even Pete could sense. It might have been the years of gaming, watching every conceivable sci-fi and fantasy franchise, or just his innate human desire for the magical, but he instantly recognized the figure as a wise-old-man archetype. Either the elderly goblin was going to dispense gnomic wisdom from his place within the shambling tree, or he was going to cure Pete. Either way, it was something different, and the way he felt at that moment, anything different was good.
The Shamblers to either side of the old goblin accompanied the strange tree, shuffling alongside it but not attacking Pete or even making a move to attack any of the others in his crew. A quick look to his left and right confirmed to Pete that he’d wandered away from the rest of the group anyway, and they were all off fighting against more of the Shamblers elsewhere.
Pete stood, not at all worried as the old figure looked up at him from its place within the tree. It was the first time he could remember feeling like he was actually in control of the situation because his fighting ability was so far above the enemy. Even with the four Shamblers on either side of the creepy old goblin tree, Pete was still confident he could destroy the plants, likely without even having to use his berserker abilities.
As the creepy tree moved closer, he saw that the old goblin’s head was much larger than a normal specimen and seemed to be swollen at the rear, as though its brain was too large for its head. It reminded Pete of the aliens encountered in the first original Star Trek show, back when humans all assumed that aliens would need massive heads to store their superior brains.
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He held the machete to one side, still ready to fight if this thing started spewing acid or spawning smaller enemies or something. The goblin’s milky white eyes regarded him, and Pete saw that the figure’s lips were shut, and not by choice either. The lips had been sewn together with coarse thread, and whoever had done the job hadn’t been too fussy about straight lines or neatness.
There were livid sores at the sides of the stitching here and there, and dark green stains suggested that the sores had been weeping when the old boy was still alive. The goblin’s nose was pierced with two tarnished earrings that seemed to be two old Belch Bucks that had been crudely cut and then wedged against each nostril.
Close up, the strange angular sigils marked in vivid purple on the old goblin’s cheeks seemed to writhe and shimmer, as though they were living things. Pete felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and his stomach started to churn as the white orbs slowly spun inside the old goblin’s head.
The milky eyes lowered, and Pete saw two mystical markings painted on the eyeballs using the same strange paint that was on the goblin’s cheeks. These were spiral marks, though, with a couple of angry-looking spikes at the center. Like the sigils on the goblin’s cheek, they gave off an eerie light and seemed to shimmer and shake restlessly.
“Hooman child!”
The voice that spoke was dry as a desert and strained at the edges as though it might fail at any moment. Purple spit bubbled between the goblin’s lips as he spoke, forced out between the gaps where the sewing allowed a little breath to pass through.
“Heed my words, hooman!”
The eyes wiggled in their sockets, spit bubbled, and the old goblin head shook as the figure spoke, while the air around Pete seemed to thicken slightly. He gripped the handle of the machete a little tighter.
“I’m listening,” he replied, his words sounding far off in his own ears.
“Listening! Listening! Listening!”
The goblin heads in the surrounding Shamblers repeated the word in hushed tones as though reciting some holy liturgy. The old shaman figure nodded, his head extending outwards from the stalk of the plant.
“I see the future in your eyes, darkling hooman. I see the death of a thousand suns, the fall of a million kingdoms, an empire torn asunder by a single word. I see wealth beyond measure, poverty unending, death and ash and suffering without relent.”
Pete watched, mesmerized, as two small hands emerged from below the old goblin’s head. They weren’t goblin hands but seemed to come directly from the plant, twin limbs with claw-like thorns at the end of them. The total effect made the goblin look a little like Kuato from Total Recall, a mutant creature with an oversized head and tiny hands melded into a larger being.
The little claw hands seemed to be positioned in a begging posture, held palm up as the old goblin continued.
“I see the future clearly, hooman child,” the old man continued. “And for the low, low price of just five thousand Belch Bucks, I can reveal all to you.”
Pete blinked, wondering whether he’d just heard that correctly.
“Sorry? Did you just ask me for money?”
“Just five thousand and the future will be laid bare for you, hooman child.”
Still completely taken aback by the scene, Pete shook his head, trying to reason through what he was hearing.
“You’re kidding, right? This is just a grift. You’re trying to sting me for cash right here in the middle of all this shit?”
The little hands stretched out to Pete. “Alright, three thousand,” the goblin said. “You won’t get everything for that price, but at least I can tell you when and where you’ll die. Throw in another two hundred and I’ll even tell you what you eat for your last meal.”
Pete began backing away, raising his machete.
“Unbelievable! I thought you were gonna tell me I was the chosen one or something. Like, I’m here to free your people from slavery or some shit like that.”
The old goblin tilted his head to one side. “You can be the chosen one if you want. For just two thousand, I’ll make you the best chosen one that ever existed! You can be the new High Baron ascendent, the lord of all the Dominion. Females of your species will throw themselves at your feet, and all the other hooman males will envy your greatness.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” Pete said, shaking his head and turning away.
“Alright, you’ve twisted my arm. One thousand, and you’ll get it quick and nasty, but I can still tell you how you die. Or, if you’re interested in something a little more exotic, I can divulge the secrets of the universe by eavesdropping on the fates themselves.”
“Nero,” Pete asked. “Can this loon actually tell the future, or is he just as shit as he seems?”
[Nero] I very much doubt this individual can divine the future, Pete. He seems to have taken on the guise of a goblin shaman, but the markings you see on his face and eyes have no real significance to the goblin people. He has simply used a highly toxic paint, which causes nausea and even hallucinations. Goblin charlatans and tricksters are known to use such tricks to bamboozle tourists.
“Right, and you didn’t think to warn me?”
[Nero] I did not wish to deprive you of such an interesting cultural exchange. Goblin shysters are an integral part of their society, and this experience may prove to be invaluable in the future. It is an important lesson to learn with the goblin folk: that the truth is not nearly as interesting to them as a lie.
>> ACHIEVEMENT: Street Smarts!
Congratulations! You just avoided being hustled by a goblin shyster. Sure, he might have painted a pretty picture of your heroic future, but he would also have lightened your purse considerably, and, in a game where money is everything, that’s coin you can’t afford to lose!
ACHIEVEMENT REWARDS: Perception proficiency +1, the knowledge that you didn’t get hoodwinked…this time.
[Nero] There, see! The System agrees.
Pete rolled his eyes and kept walking away from the old man, shaking his head. He was done with this nonsense and sick and tired of killing Shamblers. Pete decided that he’d let Craig and the others sort them out while he went back and grabbed some more food.
“Oi!” the old man shouted. “Don’t you walk away from me, hooman!”
Pete spun around, noting that the stitches that had held his lips shut a moment earlier were now hanging loosely to either side of his mouth, and the milky eyes had been replaced by yellow orbs that were very much alive. Now that Pete considered the figure again, he soon realized that the Shambler the figure was attached to wasn’t real but was some kind of constructed facsimile.
The surrounding Shamblers that had been just as mesmerized by the act seemed to realize at the same moment that the figure wasn’t what he pretended to be. Whatever instinctual, goblin hind-brain memory they possessed, which told them to offer deference to a shaman of their people, quickly faded, giving way to dull, animal rage.
All at once, the zombie plants turned on the false shaman, lashing out at his constructed tree with tentacles while the many heads attached to their limbs began spitting curses.
“Mucking mucky muck!”
“Yous got a face like a butthole!”
“I is gonna bite yous nose off, ya mucky muck!”
Suddenly surrounded, the aged figure retreated inside the fake plant, his head popping backward and dropping away to reveal a dark hole where it had been a moment earlier. Above the din of goblin curses and the sound of the Shamblers destroying the fabricated tree, Pete could hear the pitter-patter of small feet slapping against the concrete, and he just caught sight of a short figure fleeing into the night.
Sam came walking over, frowning as she looked over at the Shamblers attacking what was left of the false plant.
“The hell happened here?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Long story.”
The hellhound came trotting up next to her, eyes violently red, teeth bared. Sam nodded towards the wolf.
“You mind if I let him get some more XP?”
Pete grinned. “Go for it.”
Somewhere in the distance, hidden by the night, he imagined the fake shaman running, likely already planning his next scheme.