CHAPTER 3 — “The Goblin’s Tax” #2
He’s sitting on a throne made of skulls. Human skulls, goblin skulls, animal skulls—a whole taxonomy of death stacked into something like a chair. He’s easily twice the size of the others, thick with muscle, wearing armor that looks like it was scavenged from actual adventurers.
The Goblin Chief. Floor boss. Level 5, probably, maybe higher.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ THREAT ANALYSIS ││ \[Goblin Chief\] (Floor Boss, Level 5) │├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ HP: \~150 ││ Primary Attack: Cleaver (Heavy, slow) ││ Secondary Attack: Commanding Shout (buffs ││ nearby goblins, summons reinforcements) ││ Passive: \[Pack Leader\] --- +20% stats when ││ minions present ││ ││ CURRENT MINIONS: 12-14 ││ ││ YOUR STATS: ││ Level: 1 \| HP: 28/45 \| MP: 6/12 ││ ││ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 8% ││ ││ "The good news is, 8% isn't zero.
││ The bad news is, 8% is really close to zero.
" │└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Eight percent.
I read that number three times, waiting for it to change. It doesn’t.
Eight percent survival probability. Against a floor boss I have no business fighting, with stats that wouldn’t impress a training dummy, using skills designed for supporting a party I don’t have.
The smart thing—the sane thing—would be to leave. Come back tomorrow, or next week, or never. Grind the tunnels for XP until I’m strong enough to face this properly. Play it safe. Play it smart.
But.
There’s a village up there. A village that’s going to die if the spawn rate doesn’t drop.
A little girl who talks to her dead father’s grave.
An old adventurer who’s waiting for a reason to pick up his sword again.
People who looked at me like I might be their last hope, even though I’m barely a step above useless.
And there’s me. Whatever’s left of me. The Archmage who got stabbed by his best friend, who watched his wife hold his hand and tell him it was better this way, who spent two hundred years as nothing and came back as even less.
What’s another eight percent? What’s another impossible situation?
I’ve already died once. It wasn’t that bad.
(It was that bad. It was worse. But I’m not thinking about that right now.)
I start gathering stingweed.
Twenty minutes later, I have a plan.
It’s a terrible plan. A plan that relies on timing and luck and the assumption that goblins are exactly as stupid as they look. But it’s a plan, and that’s more than I had an hour ago.
Three stingweed bombs—bundles of the irritant plant wrapped around rocks for throwing weight.
One pouch of sleepvine spores—the System identified them growing near the entrance, mildly sedative, reduced effectiveness on goblins but better than nothing.
Two handfuls of glowcap paste—scraped from the bioluminescent moss, causes disorientation and temporary blindness on contact.
And one very angry man with nothing left to lose.
The goblins haven’t noticed me yet. They’re busy doing goblin things—eating, fighting over scraps, generally being awful. The chief is picking his teeth with something that looks disturbingly like a human finger bone.
I take a breath.
Another.
One more.
Then I throw the sleepvine pouch into the center of the room and everything goes to hell.
The pouch bursts on impact, sending pale spores billowing through the firelight.
The goblins nearest the fire start coughing immediately, stumbling, their movements going sluggish and uncoordinated. One of them walks directly into the fire pit and doesn’t seem to notice until its leg is actually burning.
I’m already moving.
The first stingweed bomb hits two goblins near the entrance, and their screams are immediate—high and piercing, clawing at their faces, at their eyes, at skin that’s already starting to blister. They’re out of the fight. Maybe permanently.
The chief stands up.
“WHAT—”
I don’t let him finish. The second stingweed bomb is already in the air, arcing toward his throne, and he has to dive sideways to avoid it. The explosion of irritant oils catches three more minions who weren’t fast enough.
Chaos. Beautiful, horrible chaos.
I run through the sleepvine cloud, holding my breath, knife in one hand and glowcap paste in the other. A goblin looms up in front of me—disoriented, swaying, not quite down—and I shove the paste directly into its eyes.
It screams. I keep moving.
Another goblin, this one more alert, swinging something sharp at my head. I duck, feel it whisper past my ear, and bring the knife up into its throat. Hot blood sprays across my face. I don’t stop to wipe it off.
The chief is roaring now, really roaring, the sound shaking dust from the ceiling. He’s got his cleaver in hand—massive, easily as long as my arm—and he’s wading toward me through his own minions, shoving them aside like furniture.
“LITTLE HEALER,” he bellows. “LITTLE HEALER THINKS HE CAN FIGHT. LITTLE HEALER WILL MAKE GOOD SOUP.”
“Soup?” I’m panting, bleeding from somewhere new, knife slick in my grip. “That’s your threat? Soup?”
“SOUP WITH BONES. CRUNCHY.”
“Your trash talk needs work.”
He swings.
I throw myself backward, hit the ground rolling, and the cleaver bites into stone where I was standing. Sparks fly. The impact cracks the floor.
That would have cut me in half. Actually in half.
I scramble to my feet, putting distance between us, mind racing. My bombs are gone. My paste is gone. I have a knife and four mana points and absolutely no good options.
The chief grins. Yellowed teeth. Rotten breath. Absolute confidence.
“NOWHERE TO RUN, LITTLE HEALER.”
He’s right. The surviving minions are regrouping behind him, shaking off the effects of my improvised weapons. Six of them still standing, maybe seven. All between me and the exit.
Eight percent, the System said.
Feels like less now.
The chief raises his cleaver for another swing, and I realize with perfect clarity that I’m about to die. Again. In a goblin dungeon. Beaten to death by a creature that thinks “soup with bones” is a compelling threat.
What a stupid way to go.
What a stupid, pointless, anticlimactic—
Something small and fast explodes out of the shadows.
I don’t see it clearly at first.
Just a blur of motion, brown-red fur, launching itself at the chief’s face with the kind of commitment that suggests either incredible bravery or complete insanity.
The chief stumbles back, cleaver forgotten, hands flying up to claw at the thing attached to his head. He’s screaming—actually screaming, high and panicked, nothing like the confident roar from moments ago.
The minions freeze. Confused. Their boss is being attacked by… something. They don’t know what to do.
Neither do I.
I watch the blur of fur rip into the chief’s face with teeth and claws that seem too large for its body, watch blood spray in arterial arcs, watch the biggest goblin I’ve ever seen reduced to a flailing, shrieking mess by something the size of a large cat.
Then the blur detaches.
It lands on the ground in front of me, sits back on its haunches, and starts cleaning blood off its paws with the casual disdain of a creature that does this every day.
It’s a rabbit.
A rabbit.
Rusty-brown fur matted with goblin blood. Dark eyes that gleam with intelligence far beyond what any rabbit should possess. Ears that swivel toward me with what I can only describe as smug acknowledgment.
The chief is on his knees, half his face gone, making wet gurgling sounds. His minions are staring. I’m staring.
The rabbit licks its paw.
Well? a voice says in my head—not my ears, my actual head, like someone’s talking directly into my brain. You just going to stand there, or are you going to finish what you started?
I blink.
The rabbit blinks back.
“Did you just—”
Talk? Yes. Telepath. Focus. Fat one’s still breathing. Very rude of him, considering I ate his eye.
I look at the chief. He is, in fact, still breathing. Barely. His one remaining eye is rolling wildly, and his hands are trying to hold his face together.
The minions are starting to recover from their shock. Starting to look at me. Starting to remember they outnumber me significantly.
I move.
The chief’s cleaver is on the ground where he dropped it. I grab it—heavy, way too heavy, but adrenaline is doing wonderful things for my strength right now—and bring it down on his neck before I can think too hard about what I’m doing.
Once.
The gurgling stops.
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│ FLOOR BOSS DEFEATED ││ \[Goblin Chief\] --- Level 5 │├─────────────────────────────────────────────────┤│ XP gained: 150 ││ Bonus XP: Solo clear (+50%) ││ Bonus XP: Underleveled challenger (+100%) ││ Total XP: 375 ││ ││ LEVEL UP!
││ Level 1 → Level 3 ││ ││ HP: 45 → 65 (+20) ││ MP: 12 → 18 (+6) ││ STR: 8 → 10 (+2) ││ AGI: 10 → 12 (+2) ││ INT: 12 → 14 (+2) ││ WIS: 14 → 16 (+2) ││ DEX: 11 → 13 (+2) ││ LCK: 3 → 4 (+1) ││ ││ "Two levels from one fight.
See what happens ││ when you have help? Not that you asked for it.
││ Not that you deserved it. But still." │└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The minions are backing away now. Their chief is dead. Their pack leader bonus is gone. And there’s a rabbit sitting in the middle of the room, cleaning gore off its fur like it’s grooming after a light snack.
Shoo, the voice says in my head. Somehow conveying infinite boredom. Pests. Honestly.
The goblins run.
Every single one of them, scrambling over each other to reach the exits, disappearing into the tunnel system like their lives depend on it. Which, based on what I just witnessed, they probably do.
I stand in the middle of the boss room, holding a cleaver I can barely lift, covered in blood that’s mostly not mine, staring at a rabbit that just saved my life.
“What,” I say carefully, “the fuck are you?”
The rabbit finishes cleaning its right paw. Switches to the left.