Born a Monster

Chapter 16: Born A Monster, Chapter 16 – I am Goat

Born A Monster

Chapter 16

I am Goat

Arranged around the base of the water bucket were twelve fungus cakes. Or rather, there used to be. To say they fell on the cakes and they were gone – they vanished like cookies left out in an orphanage.

Even sprinting, by the time I’d reached the barrel, someone had dunked his head in. Goblins were struggling and pushing each other, and about a fourth of the water was ending up on the floor.

My skills at elbowing my fellows out of the way were lacking, and I only got two double-handfuls of water that day.

By observing others, I learned which corner of the cavern was used as a toilet. I slept as far away from that as I could.

.....

They called me Goat, because I was always chewing on grass. Grass was no fit meal for goblins, but my pride and my hunger demanded I eat something.

I considered weaving the grasses into clothing, but none of my fellows seemed to have such skills. They danced, and joked, and made rhymes, and played games with ever-changing rules using stones.

Everyone important had a stick, and they kept the point sharp. Remembering my incident earlier, I kept my knife in my inventory.

Our guards changed twice a day, so at about twenty set just to guard our cavern. There were at least two other broodcaves, so sixty guards total. So, roughly three in twenty of each goblin nest was spent just taking care of the youths.

And, in their negligent way, the adults did take care of us. The cruelest, meanest, and fastest growing among us got the daily rations of food and water, and they kept the rest of us away from the entrance during foraging time.

The well-fed ones grew taller, and were eventually sorted into the next broodcave.

Likewise, smaller vicious members of the tribe were sorted in from other caverns as they grew.

Those who couldn’t get enough nutrition or water eventually fell ill, and were taken with the daily sick call. Sometimes the sick returned, but more often they did not.

My only chance to wander the caves was when assigned a work detail, usually picking up feces into sacks and leaving those sacks at the pig farm I had noticed earlier. This detail didn’t include a chance to wash my hands, so eventually I learned how to rub them together until little balls of waste fell off them.

It should come as no surprise that disease and dysentery were rife in the caverns. Those who fell so ill they couldn’t move on their own were taken away and did not return. I had a few evolutions flagged to help with that, but there wasn’t enough biomass to actually develop them.

Once every three or four days, we were marched out to a stream. I filled up my water capacity, ate algae while pretending to chase fish, and got pushed into the water – a lot.

For I was Goat, the one that ate things that food eats. Least among the goblins, picked on even by those smaller than myself. They knew I’d fight back if attacked or grabbed, but mostly they restricted themselves to guerilla tactics that wouldn’t provoke a fight.

They threatened, they mocked, but usually I only got in scuffles where the sharpened sticks were deliberately left aside. I like to think that I held my own, or gave better than I got. But yes, my opponents were children.

Two weeks in, we were mustered for combat again.

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As one who slept closest to the middens, I was toward the back of the group, and got no new equipment.

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We were ushered out a new entrance, one on the other side of the nest. We were herded toward the smoke plumes in the southeast. The human fishing colony of Seacrest.

I auto-foraged when I could get toward the front of the group, and made certain not to fall enough behind to come to the attention of the drovers. I noticed many things of interest on our march there, but none of immediate import.

We hit two farms full of grains ripening in their fields. I crammed my inventory full of ears of rye.

Anyone who has heard the songs knows we didn’t stop there. We plundered livestock, tools, cookware – we would have plundered the family, if they hadn’t run off before we got to the house.

We were at the houses when the town militia arrived, dogs leading the way.

Dogs are a terror to goblins; a trained dog can pull a man down. Goblins weigh less, and are less sure on their feet. I was able to grab a poorly made spear that someone else dropped in our flight.

We were pelted by the elements as we ran, mostly earth and water. It is said that goblins will sometimes set fire to crops, but the fires behind us were of human make, bolts of power flung carelessly into the night after us.

Honestly, there were casualties, but compared to what the centaurs did to us, it was very light. We lost more goblins running away than we did in the initial clash.

It was clear who had powers like Fleet of Foot, because we survived easily. Those in the back – they took their chances. Any who fell were left behind.

The larger goblins, the adults, seemed happy with the night’s raid, and their joy infected the youth. By the time we were back at the nest, there were champions who stood triumphant on the piles of dog corpses.

It was returning my spear to the armory that I got in trouble.

A brute grabbed my chin in his hand, and looked directly into my face.

“Hey, Gutter. Look at this kid’s eyes.”

“Heh, we don’t have to beat him for his eyes to turn black.” He scratched his armpit, perhaps to emphasize his point.

“I think the shaman needs to see this kid.”

“I think you just don’t want to clean weapons.”

“And I think your father munched on turds and your momma used her tongue to fish between his teeth for the morsels.” To me he said, “Sit there.”

I sat by the weapons and a dirty rag, and started cleaning weapons while they exchanged insults, carelessly hurling weapons into a pile.

I had to check my System to assure myself the stats on Efficient Cleaner hadn’t changed; I did as many weapons as the other two combined.

“Hey, if the Shaman don’t want him, let’s pick this kid out of the group again.” Said Gutter.

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Of course, he did.

“Can you light this candle with your mind?” he began.

I did so. It was a small enough feat, one I’d been doing almost three out of four days successfully.

His eyes widened, and my escorts stepped back.

“Over here. This bowl of water. Can you make its surface ripple?”

I slapped the water.

“WITH YOUR MIND! Can you do it with your mind?”

“I’ve no clue how to.” I admitted.

“Try, or I’ll burn you with the candle.” He didn’t seem overly perturbed.

I tried something that would later become my Move Water spell. The water spiraled clockwise, but did not ripple.

“Hmm. I see. Okay. Lift this feather. Imagine a hand made out of wind.”

Big surprise, I wasn’t able to move the feather, even after he burned me. Nor was I able to stack two round stones atop each other.

“Make this seed sprout and grow.” This I accomplished by feeding Nature magic into the seed.

“Of these four scraps of furs, pick the one with the rune engraved on the underside.” That should have been a simple Detect Magic skill check, but I picked the wrong fur.

“Still this tuning fork without touching it.” Another fail.

“Tell me what this poison is made of. Heh-heh. Taste it if you want.”

I sipped it, recognizing the bitter flavor at once. “This is ...” I didn’t know the word for aconite, but I described the flower to him.

“And how do you feel?”

I shrugged. “A small dose like that shouldn’t kill me.”

“This white powder, what is it?”

[Earth Magic discovered! Attunement: 1. 1/20 XP to next level.

You now have 3/3 Earth Mana.]

“That’s sea salt.” I said, not knowing how I recognized it.

And so this went on until well past dawn.

“You sleep over there.” He said. “We’ll see about getting you a blanket or something tomorrow.”

The quilt was made of coarse wool and stuffed with hay, but it was a luxury compared with the cold siltstone floor of the caves.

“I am thinking of a spell. Can you pull the name from my mind and speak its title to me?”

Surprisingly, I could. My experience with thought speech had gotten me used to thoughts that were broadcast.

“Shield Mind.” I told him.

He cast it. “I can see that I’m going to have to start by teaching you the defensive magics.

[Divine Mentalism discovered! Attunement: 1, 1/20 XP to next level.

You now have 3/3 Inner Faith Points.]

Divine Mentalism, I learned, worked off of Inner Faith Points rather than Psi.

But Master was talking, and I had no time to go over the System just then.

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.....

His name was Bliggrindep, or Red Hare, but I was always expected to call him Master. He called me Blackeyes, or just Goat.

Daily lessons in mystic theory and exercises designed to unlock the other elements became my daily fare. We often went out at night to collect various herbs and spices needed for Master’s rituals.

He often struck me for using this time to forage for food, but I was always hungry.

“What did you just do?” he asked, our first night out.

“I just put that clump of grass into my inventory to eat later.”

“Into WHAT?”

“My inventory.” I said. “My System inventory.”

“Most goblins never get the Development Points to unlock that. HEY! You’ve unlocked your first class already, haven’t you?”

“Truthspeaker. It’s a Social class.” I admitted.

He spat. “Worthless class tree, Social classes. Do you have enough development points to unlock Shaman?”

“I already unlocked Shaman.” I said.

“Good boy!” he said. “It’ll take a day or so to finish unlocking, but you’ll be able to make sense of everything I’m saying. Save up your other development points, I’m gonna load you down with basic spells. How many do you have left?”

“Ten.” I said, having expended a few since my last full System status.

“Fool!” he screeched, and hit me with his staff. “I’d feed you to the spore pits myself if you didn’t already have so many mana attunements unlocked. Tell me you raised your Lore statistic, at least.”

“It’s at one.” I said proudly.

“ONE!? Worthless, worthless Goat! Do you have any idea how long you’ll need to apprentice to raise that? Lore is the one statistic above all others that we Shamans need! Resolve is a close second, for your spirit pacts, but LORE IS LIFE!”

He stopped striking me with his staff at that time. I was under a quarter of my hit points.

“Well, find me some mint and two bundles of garlic.” He said. “I was going to teach you about Mystic Training Regimen when we got back anyway. It’s a cultivation method. Slow, but if you do it daily, you’ll see your mana pools expand.”

He began calming after his initial shock, but it never went away.

I cooked, such as the cold cooking of the Goblins could be called such. I harvested fungus in the Spore Pits, which was musty but not unpleasant work. I cleaned, and I learned the basics of compounding various herbs and ground ores.

Oh, and the grinding of ores. Even automated by the System, it is dreary work. I think the pestle I used for that was basalt, but it could have been any black rock, rubbed smooth and infused with pain.

But they were needed for the creation of various dyes and woad, which our adults would need when they went to war.

If you hadn’t grokked to that particular yet, let me say it plainly here. The goblins had been herding their children to war, and saving their adults for a killing blow.

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