Chapter 27

Rain stumbled to his feet exhausted, each footstep leaving a blood red mark in the grass.

He turned around looking for enemies but none appeared. He was alone. Looking up at the domed cavern ceiling overhead he realized he must be in the center of the cavern. It seemed the jungle stopped at the center and was replaced by a wide field of grass.

The clearing did not appear uninhabited. A cluster of Goblin tents was at one end verging on the tree line. At the other end was a long barn like building crudely made from wood. In the center was a cluster of wooden buildings.

He began walking toward the buildings in the center. He figured if he wanted to kill the leader of the tribe then now would likely be a good time as it seemed that what remained of the Goblins and Half-goblins were out hunting for him in the jungle.

As he neared he began to hear voices. A deeper voice along with a scratchy female voice that sounded somehow unnatural and awkward.

He slunk up to one of the buildings leaving a trail of blood in his wake and ducked to peek through one of the glassless windows.

A back faced him, a very muscular back, one leaning back in a chair. Five uneven horns protruded from its head, bull horns. A horse-like mane of hair ran down its neck.

Rain didn’t have any difficulty recognizing a Minotaur when he saw one having killed and eaten one recently, though the mutated horns and angular ears poking from the sides of its head were new.

“This creature, you say it came from some lake a few floors down?” said the Goblin-minotaur with a predictably deep voice.

“Yessss. The ancestral memories are fragmented but the description fits and I know no other creature which might pass as it. I know something terrible was done at that lake. I know the ancestors dreaded a return of what was put down there,” said the scratchy female voice.

Rain couldn’t see much else due to the angle so the owner of the voice was out of view.

“It seems unlikely a monster would return from over a thousand years ago, still it is just another monster, nothing to worry about.”

“My witch’s memories say otherwise. They feared these things like no other, especially their ruler, their king. This may sound insane and beyond belief to you, and I would not speak of this knowledge to any other, but to stop these things monsters and levelers fought together on the same side.“

“Bullshit. That did not happen. Not possible.”

“It’s true, though it is hard to imagine a situation desperate enough where that would have come about. Just speaking of such a thing would anger any monster who heard it in this era so I will not repeat this outside of this room.”

“Faulty memories, it’s happened before, not everything survives the generations intact.”

“The most traumatic memories do, and this one scarred generations of Gobbos.”

“Fine. I’ll humour you. We have a resurrected, or whatever, monster from an age past running around in our cavern. Theoretically, it’s pretty strong. Isn’t this a good thing?”

“ ... I don’t follow.”

The Minotaur leant forward. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? We want strong monsters to grow our power, we capture this beast and have the regular Gobbos breed with it, they fill it with halves or themselves pop out a few halves, and they’re on our side. Hell, if it’s as scary as you make it out to be then we’ll be unstoppable. We’ll be able to take over the dungeon and then we can conquer the surface. It can all be ours, we can take everything.”

The scratchy voice hissed in annoyance. “We can barely keep what we have, look what happened to the Harpy Queen, she escaped and lives on the cavern ceiling forming her own faction with her daughters, a perpetual thorn in our side forever demanding more influence. A monster like this would surely be uncontrollable and its spawn chaotic. Far from ideal.”

“You don’t know that. Our Cavebear half-breeds are placid, unless you do something to anger them, but no ones stupid enough to do such a thing. Besides, if it turns out to be a problem we can always just kill them. Remember the Slime-gobbo disaster? Same thing.”

“Yes, I remember, and if I ever see a tentacle again it will be too soon.” There was a rustling sound of movement. “This thing is not like other monsters Cairn. It is something from a more savage era when rivers of blood were the norm. A time when few tribal monsters could speak as the ancestral memories were not as developed as they are today. We would likely be doing the dungeon, no the world, a service by ensuring it does not leave our cavern alive.”

“Pah, fuck the world. This is an opportunity to seize power like never before. Hell, I’ll fuck a few kids into it myself if it’s female.”

“Bah, I’ve had enough of this idiotic Minotaur bravado.”

There was a scuttling tapping noise and the scrape of a door. Rain slunk around the building and hid behind a poorly made crate. He peeked over the top as the front door opened, a long black spike crept from the door and hooked around it. It took a moment for Rain to realise he was looking at a gargantuan spider leg as several more thin legs slipped through the door and then the body of the creature, a terrifying spider with the top half of a Goblin sticking up where its head might have been. The monster needed to turn its body at an angle to fit its bulbous black abdomen through the door and even then it was a struggle, it got stuck and had to tug itself free. Standing on the grass the bottom of her spider torso must have been six foot off the ground such was her size.

Behind her the Half-minotaur ducked through the door. His dark green fur slashed with black rippled over thick slabs of muscle as he moved, heavy hooves impacting the ground. His face was more squashed than a Minotaur with pointier teeth and long knife ears and orange eyes. The twisted crown of horns on his head gave Rain pause, so did the fact he was massive, standing eight foot tall, larger than any Minotaur Rain had seen before.

Not just a Goblin-minotaur. He thought. An evolved Hobgoblin-minotaur?

The Spider-goblin turned to Cairn. “I’m going to cast a locating spell to see if I can pinpoint the creature and then we are going to gather our strongest, even the Harpy Queen if she can be convinced, and we are going to destroy this intruder into our tribe’s home.”

He sneered but remained silent. The half-spider rolled her fingers and stretched her wrists before cracking her knuckles and forming a complicated sequence of seals with her hands. A large intricate symbol on her spider abdomen began to glow blue and mist started to spill from it. She focused, deep in concentration.

Cairn scratched his balls through his loincloth. He peered around, bored. He yawned. He paused mid yawn however when his eyes alighted on a trail of red through the grass that led to the building they had just come from. He blinked and furrowed his brow.

“Hey.”

“Remain quiet, this is not an easy spell and far from my usual area of expertise. I almost missed that leveler with it this morning. I need to focus.”

“Hey, I see red.”

“What?”

“I see red, on the grass.”

The Spider-goblin paused and the mist began to dissipate. She scowled.

“Just, go look into it, I’m losing my spell with your blabbering.”

The Spider-goblin closed her eyes and the mist resurged.

Cairn sighed and strolled off to investigate.

Rain backed away from the crate and returned to behind the building. He looked up. The building was crude but it did have a roof. He set his claws in the uneven wooden planking and hauled himself up until he clambered atop. Crouched low he made his way across the wooden tiles until he could peer down. The Minotaur was looking at the bloody grass while vaguely scratching his chin.

“Curious.”

His eyes tracked the red following it until they came to the window Rain had hid by to listen in on them.

“Cairn! It’s here! The damn thing is here!” cried a scratchy voice causing Cairn’s eyes to widen.

Too late. Rain dropped from the roof like winged death, his claws outstretched and maw open ready to bite down on the Half-Minotaur’s neck. At the last possible moment the Minotaur caught sight of Rain’s shadow and twisted his head aside. Rain’s teeth latched onto his shoulder. The Minotaur’s arm swept up before he could bite deep and crashed into him. Rain was flung away from the Minotaur with a flap of his skin hanging from his front teeth and went tumbling across the grass.

The Minotaur roared his pain and jerked around to see Rain picking himself up. Blood washed down his shoulder.

“That was good, you almost got me. I can see why you’ve survived with a nasty bite like that. You’d just need to get up close and Bam!” The Minotaur closed his thick fingered fist in front of his chest. “Unsuspecting prey would fall like flies.”

Rain grinned. “Suspecting too.”

“Hmm. Too bad you’re not female, I’d have liked to have some kids with teeth like that. I’ll still enjoy breaking you in for the regular Gobbos however.”

“I’ll pass thanks.”

“You won’t get a choice in the matter. You won’t be the first monster I’ve caught for the tribe, nor will you be the last.”

Rain snorted. “You threaten, but I will devour you.”

Cairn’s nose wrinkled in annoyance.

The Spider-goblin scuttled around the building at this point and came to a stop seeing Rain, a worried look crossed her face.

“Listen, thing that came from the lake, you haven’t fought anything like me before,” boasted Cairn.

“We’ll see. Your Harpy Queen talked big too, but she’s dead now.”

Cairn blinked at him and turned to the Spider-goblin.

She grit her teeth. “I do not think he is lying.”

Cairn turned back to him with a snarl. “You’ll regret that.”

The Spider-goblin began to make seals with her hands and violet fire sparked between her fingers, then a large three foot wide violet fireball bloomed above her glowing spider abdomen and hovered in place.