Blood for Power: A LitRPG Apocalypse

An hour passed by with us stuck in the well. Nobody else had entered the courtyard since we’d arrived, but it was difficult to gauge how long it would take for the goblins to give up their search. Still, we couldn’t stay here much longer. The sun was climbing higher, and eventually someone was going to want to use this well for its intended purpose.

To stave off boredom, Hugo and I passed the time by talking in companion chat. Which inevitably lead to the same topic that was always close to Hugo’s mind.

Hugo: So where do you want to eat after this?

Lucas: You think the city has restaurants?

Hugo: Why not? It’s a big place. We’re still only on the outer edge. If there are merchant shops further inwards, then restaurants aren’t a big stretch.

Hugo was setting himself up for disappointment. Given their environment, their food source was obvious.

Lucas: Did you see a lot of farmland or livestock outside of the city?

Hugo: No, why… oh no.

Lucas: That’s right. If they eat anything, it’ll be the bugs from the wasteland.

He didn’t feel like talking about food after that, and we both fell silent.

After a bit more time, my legs were starting to cramp up, and the bird was getting restless.

Hugo: I could send more scouts to check things out?

Lucas: No, they would’ve seen you summon them. They’ll likely have someone watching the sky now.

Hugo: So what’s the plan?

Lucas: If it was close to sunset, I’d say we leave when it's dark. My cloak would obscure us, but we can’t wait that long. It’s early morning. This city is going to wake up soon, and we don’t know how the other inhabitants will react to our presence.

Hugo: I say we just go for it now. Sneak to the center of the city and find the silver elevator to get back to the apartment.

It was a compelling argument. I was tired of hiding, and it had been some time since we’d heard anything.

I pulled myself up and peered over the edge of the well.

The courtyard was empty. So far, so good.

We climbed out and were about to leave when one of the house doors opened. A male goblin stepped out wearing a suit with a bowler hat. He was whistling a cheery tune until he spotted us.

Our eyes met. Hugo and I froze. He didn’t look like a threat, but what if he tried to call for help? I wasn’t sure if I could silence him in time, so I waited to see what he would do.

Slowly and without turning around, the goblin closed the door behind him.

“Why don’t you go back inside and pretend you never saw us,” I said to him.

The goblin shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Sounds like we’ve got a problem then,” Hugo said.

Archer materialized beside us and drew her bow.

“Not necessarily,” said the goblin. “I just came out here for a little peace and quiet. Alerting somebody to your presence would disrupt that.”

He took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and walked over to a bench on the other side of the courtyard. Archer tracked him with her bow, but he paid her no mind as he sat down.

I got the impression that he just wanted us to leave quietly, but this was the first goblin that we’d met that hadn’t attacked or ignored us. Curiosity got the better of me, and so I had to ask, “you don’t seem to care as much about our presence as the other Goblintown folk. Why is that?”

The goblin eyed the packet in his hand as if having second thoughts.

“We’re not in Goblintown,” he said. “I don’t live there anymore. This is Ormond Street. It’s part of an unincorporated district that nobody else has managed to fully claim yet.”

I had no idea what that meant, but he turned away from us like he was done with the conversation. Not wanting to push our luck, we decided to leave.

“I wouldn’t go out there if I were you,” the goblin said.

“Why is that?” Hugo asked.

“They’ll have set up checkpoints to block all the main routes of escape. They’ll catch you if you try to leave. This area is dense with a lot of hiding places. They can’t search it all, so it’s more efficient for them if they just wait for you to make a mistake.”

Lucas: Looks like we’ll have to wait till nightfall after all. I can use my Umbral cloak to hide us in the darkness. Oh, and put Archer away. It’s unnerving the goblin.

Archer dematerialized, and we went to sit beside the goblin.

“I heard another voice from your house. Is that going to be a problem?” I asked the goblin.

“No, I told the wife that I was going out to collect some water from the well. She won’t expect me back for at least an hour. I’m Gren, by the way.”

We introduced ourselves and I was about to ask him about if he knew anything about the spirit killer device when suddenly his house door flew open. A female goblin holding a baby barged outside. Gren muttered a curse under his breath.

She saw us sitting on the bench and her face twisted with anger. “Oh my god. I sent you out for water and this is what you’re doing? Making friends with humans?” Before he could explain, her eyes grew suspicious. “Wait, are these the murderers everyone has been looking for? What are you doing just sitting there? Turn them in to the elders.”

Gren shook his head. “I’m not doing that.”

“But we could use the reward money,” she pleaded. “We could get back what we lost.”

“I already gave them my word.”

“Pft! Your word? You have no honor,” she snarled. “You know my mother was right about you!”

She stomped back into the house and slammed the door behind her.

“Yeah, well maybe my brother was right about you, Colleen!” Gren yelled back.

Hugo and I glanced at each other. Both of us wanted to leave and take our chances with the goblins that had weapons. But we weren’t sure if that would make things worse. So we just awkwardly sat there.

Gren sighed. “She’s probably going to leave me, you know. Not that I blame her. As if getting exiled from Goblintown wasn’t humiliating enough for us.”

“How did that happen?” asked Hugo.

I threw him a look.

Lucas: Seriously? Don’t encourage him.

Hugo: What? It’s not like we don’t have time. Besides, he might tell us something useful once he’s calmed down. He seems smart.

Lucas: How can you tell?

Hugo. His hat.

I’m never getting out of this conversation.

“It happened a few months ago,” Gren said. “But another way would it be to say that it's been happening my whole life.”

Oh Jesus. It was hard not to roll my eyes.

Hugo encouraged him to continue.

“As you may or may not know. Goblin trades are family trades. You’re born into doing a certain type of work when you grow up. My family were light infantry. I was expected to follow in their footsteps, and I did at first. The night before my first battle, I stayed up all night cleaning and polishing my armor. I guess I thought that the better it looked, the more intimidating I’d be. Stupid me…” he said, trailing off.

“Take your time,” Hugo encouraged.

Gren nodded. “Anyway, when it came time to fight the next morning, half of my team were so hungover they could barely stand up. The battle might’ve still been salvageable if we were against another goblin clan, but we weren’t. It was a group of Grayskins. With no sappers or explosives, it would’ve been a slaughter for us. They hadn’t seen us yet, so I proposed that we quietly retreat before we could be discovered. My commander instead decided to shout, ‘death to Grayskins!’ and charge after them. I did the only thing I could do and ran.”

“You shouldn’t beat yourself up for that,” Hugo said. “Lucas here runs away from fights all the time.”

“It’s not that,” he replied, his voice tight. “When I returned to Goblintown, some others spotted me and branded me a coward before I could say a word. It was my armor, you see. My clean, shiny armor was what gave me away. After that, it was exile or death for desertion. So I took my wife and baby and left.”

I frowned. “But you’re only a few blocks away? That doesn’t seem that far.”

“It’s far enough. I can’t see my brother or parents. I can’t work with any of the goblin crews. I have to go into the human districts to beg for work. The only thing keeping me sane is these.” He held up the packet of cigarettes to us. “You know it’s ironic. They give these to soldiers to help with the stress after a battle. I’ve only been in one battle, that I ran away from, and yet I’m addicted to these things. You guys want one?”

“Sure,” Hugo said.

“No,” I replied for both of us.

“It’s not tobacco. We call it Serenity Leaf. We grow it ourselves. It temporarily removes all negative emotions when you inhale the smoke. You don’t get high off of it. You just feel this kind of calm inner peace.”

Huh, that could be useful. Reluctantly, I took one and put it in my inventory.

*Item Identified!* [Serenity stick] – Ground up and dried Serenity Leaf wrapped in paper for smoking. The inhaled smoke has a psychoactive effect of creating a calm, inner peace.

Gren was about to light one up and then changed his mind.

“This isn’t the time for inner peace,” he muttered. “I know I said it’s dangerous, but you two should take your chances and get out of here.” He stood up. “I gotta go too. I need to be off looking for work before my mother-in-law shows up. Apparently, there are no rules against a goblin in good standing visiting an exile. Not that my family would know that.”

I was worried he might cry. Hugo must have thought the same because he said, “we’ve got money!”

Gren looked at us with hope.

“We’re not a charity,” I said.

He nodded, crestfallen.

Goddamn it.

“But we could do with hiring a guide to help get us out of here,” I said.

Gren agreed and led us out of the courtyard. Then he opened a nearby sewer grate and gestured for us to hop in. Hugo and I shared another concerned look.

“What?” asked Gren. “The goblins avoid the sewers. It’s the fastest way to bypass their checkpoints.”

I took charge and hopped in first. So far, we’d been able to handle everything this place had thrown at us. Why should the sewers be any different?

I landed with a soft splash in water that came up to my ankles. I also decided that breathing through my mouth for this portion of the journey was a wise decision.

Archer jumped down next, with Hugo right behind her, while Gren awkwardly climbed down the ladder rungs. Once he was down with us, he took over as the guide. A task which did not prevent him from continuing to complain about his family.

“Thank god we left before my mother-in-law arrived,” he said. “She never shuts up about how great her late husband was. And this was a goblin who died in his very first battle. Apparently in goblin culture, that’s more honorable than living to fight another day.” He shook his head and snorted. “Corpse piker. What a ridiculous profession. Do you know what they do?”

The question felt rhetorical, and it was clear he needed to get this off his chest, so Hugo and I politely shook our heads.

“A corpse piker hides among the dead bodies of his allies after an initial battle. There they hide and wait until the enemy comes to collect their dead and loot the bodies of the goblins who fell. At which point a corpse piker is meant to go ‘ah hah! I’ve fooled you’ and then stab whoever’s closest before making a run for it.”

“Isn’t that also kind of cowardly?” I asked.

He shrugged. “As long as there’s blood on the blade, nobody cares.”

Hugo: Goblin society is weird.

Lucas: Agreed.