Minlings: The Merger, page 20
"Orc…" Jake finished his sentence. Gritting his teeth. He had anticipated the Goblins could evolve, but he had hoped he was wrong.
"Yeah."
Mason sighed, shaking his head in dismay before continuing.
"Bolyr told us a bit about goblinoids. They are usually born as Goblins, some of which grow into Orcs and later Ogres or Hell-Orcs. But sometimes, one is born an Orc, and this always means terrible things for the surrounding species. His offspring will have a high chance of being Orcs right off the bat. They kept asking Sandra if she was sure he didn't evolve, but she insisted he was born as an Orc," Mason said.
Born? Jake blinked, then slowly nodded. It was probably better not to tell Bolyr and the others that none of them had been born like this, including the goblins. Who knew how they would react?
Disturbed by this information, he instinctively turned back to the ocean, almost as if searching for solace. His mind conjured up images of a burning Earth, screaming people, and a rapidly growing goblinoid menace. After a few seconds, he managed to push his growing apprehension away. Mason was silently observing him, but he knew he was thinking of the same things.
"So we can't go back through some portal, and even if we could, there might be nothing remaining there... Man, how are we going to find anyone? Who knows where they ended up? My parents, your mom?" Jake let his head hang hopelessly, any lingering joy from his swimming adventure long gone.
Heading out
As the last of the sun sank into the ocean, a cool breeze from the sea blew away the day's sweltering heat. A loud, annoyed chatter came from a small group of Kobolds sitting around a campfire at the edge of the jungle.
Bolyr and his two archers were having a heated argument. As they spoke their native language, Jake and Emma didn't understand what they were saying, but it had been going on for a while now.
Sandra looked at them from her spot further away from the campfire. She needed time to think without those juvenile delinquents and their witty comments. Scanning around, she saw Tess sitting with Emma, and they seemed to be happily chatting about irrelevant things. The fact that a scientist could be talking about the best way to create a ball from a bunch of leaves and fruit both surprised and annoyed her. Then again, she knew Tess was keeping up appearances, trying to act like something she wasn't. She'd have to keep an eye on that one.
Switching her gaze back to the three indigenous Kobolds, she wished she knew why they were arguing. It had started when the quiet, hissing one came back. He had been gone for hours, and Bolyr didn't want to share why. Now he was back and upset, but Bolyr still ignored all her questions. Still, unless she was seeing too much into his glances, it had something to do with either them or the Goblins. Just thinking of the Goblins made her shudder when she realized all of them had been soldiers only days before. How could they have changed this much? From a platoon of disciplined men and women into chaotic monsters. She wished they would have been the ones to disappear instead of so many others.
Like Hernandez. She suppressed the bestial growl that tried to wriggle itself free from her throat. Not the first time. Of all the people that had to disappear during the merger, why did it have to be her? She had no real family left, and now some magically mumbo jumbo had stolen her only real friend since basic training! As emotions bubbled up from the dark hole she normally pushed them into, she quickly looked around for a distraction.
The first thing that caught her eye was Mason, the annoying bastard that had stopped her from becoming the de facto leader of the earthlings. Not that she wanted to lead a group of civilians that had no idea what they were doing. But she was the best person for the job! How was some barely pubescent child allowed to join in decision-making? A savage fury began rising, and she tried hard to squash it. Something was wrong. She just knew it. What the hell was going on?
She shook her head to clear it, then glimpsed the blue Kobold, and the anger returned with a vengeance. Mason and Jake? More like Humpty and Dumpty! Some unknown abilities did not change the fact that he had no real-life experience in precarious situations. Especially not if he couldn't control them! No. These two should just do as she said before making things worse!
A small growl escaped her, and both of her targets looked up. Jake looked back with a curious expression on his face. But the big lug dared glare at her for a second, and then his dirty eyes wandered lower. How dare he? That filthy.... She could feel herself slipping, giving in to the fury, and was about to give in and rush at Mason when her long hours of training kicked in. With a shudder, she froze, half raised.
No, something is wrong, she growled to herself as she sensed a strong internal conflict as she subconsciously fought the extreme desire to be aggressive. Moments stretched on, and she slowly panicked when she found she couldn't breathe. The fear powered her on, and she pushed harder. Finally, something snapped, and she flopped back down, breathing raggedly.
A soft noise in the sand made her look up, and she saw Ensir scrutinizing her from less than three feet away. She had no energy to ask him what he was looking at and was about to close her eyes when he spoke, causing her eyes to snap wide open in horror.
"You have a nasty brainbug. If we don't remove it, you might kill us all in our sleep," Ensir said. Then he turned and barked something to Bolyr.
The other Kobold surged upright, asking a quick question before calling the other archer over. Then Bolyr walked towards Jake while Sandra tried to understand what Ensir had said. Brainbug? Did he mean that literally? He couldn't, right?
--
Jake stared at Sandra with worry and incredulous disgust. Did she actually have some insect in her head? And how could Ensir know? He swallowed, seeing how her face slightly relaxed. He sensed Bolyr step next to him, his eyes never letting go of Sandra.
"She has a brain bug. It is a nasty one that will cause her to fly into an uncontrollable rage, and she will end up trying to kill us."
Jake felt his hackles rise and quickly translated. Then he looked at Bolyr. "How can you possibly know? And how the hell did she get that?"
"Ensir has seen the symptoms before," Bolyr said before shrugging and pointing at the jungle. "It has to be from there, though they are exceedingly rare and usually only infect the weaker races like Goblins. But we have no time. We need to hold her down and cut it out," he said as he drew his dagger and moved toward Sandra.
Jake saw Sandra's eyes widen, and she tried to jump up, but her legs gave out, and she fell back down. The three soldiers rushed up to her but stopped when Bolyr growled, hovering nearby and looking around at the others as if deciding who to attack first. Jake saw Bolyr signal him, and he knew what the other wanted.
"If we don't help her now, she won't live long. He says to hold her down, so she can't struggle. The brain bugs nest underneath the scales at the base of the skull," Jake quickly translated.
The soldiers hesitated, and Mason, who had been hovering nearby with a frown, suddenly stepped forward. "Move, dammit! Do you want her to die?" He growled as Bolyr had, and the soldiers jumped out of the way.
Mason and Tergin shared a look, then jumped Sandra, who tried to struggle but failed. They held her down under the watchful eyes of the rest. Sandra was breathing raggedly and seemed ready to pass out at any minute.
"Interesting, she is resisting the parasite. I didn't know that was possible," Bolyr said as he motioned Ensir to start.
The Kobold nodded once before crouching down behind Sandra, pushing her thick, coarse hair back to reveal the scales on the back of her head. They were darker than the others and seemed softer. Without any warning, Ensir ruthlessly sliced the scales off. Thick copper-red blood began to immediately ooze out of the wound.
Jake leaned forward, both curious and repulsed. What would this brain parasite look like? He suddenly wondered if he even wanted to know. A second slash followed, and as the dagger tip ripped through the flesh, there was a silverish gray slime pierced on it, one end still embedded in the deep, heavily bleeding gash.
A high-pitched scream made everyone turn to Emma, who was staring at the thing in panic. Tess quickly knelt beside her and averted her head, whispering comforting words to her.
Ensir cursed and drew out a second dagger. He sliced again, and a second, deeper cut appeared on Sandra's neck. Another bit of gray slime sat on the second tip as blood sprayed out. Ensir didn't seem to care as he got up, keeping the daggers as far away as he could. Something that resembled a cross between a slug and a scorpion hung between them, slimy and still struggling to get free. Ensir backed up to the fire and dropped both knives in with a disgusted look. A wet plopping sound followed, and a bit of silvery liquid appeared in the fire, then rapidly turned dark.
Jake swallowed back some bile as he looked at Sandra. Mason and Tergin were using some cloth to stem the flow of blood. Before they could do anything else, Sandra's eyes shot open, and she yelped. Then she raised a hand to the back of her neck. "What the hell? I have a bloody hole in my neck!"
Next to her, Mason snorted. "Yes. Ensir just pulled some gross snot lobster from your head because it was fucking with your mind. Feel better?"
Sandra looked at him in confusion before she followed his pointing finger. The archer was ruefully looking at his daggers in the middle of the campfire.
Roughly ten minutes later, when everyone recovered from the weird ordeal, Jake was gazing at Bolyr. The blue-armed Kobold had been talking with Ensir again, which quickly dissolved into a loud shouting match. In the end, Bolyr had broken it off, ignoring the smaller Kobold as he turned to him and the others.
"Ensir met up with two others from our tribe, who were sent to check on us. After hearing about your existence, they decided that we should bring you to the elders. They wanted us to leave immediately, but we will not," Bolyr said, stretching the last words while looking pointedly at Ensir, who shook his head, an annoyed look on his face.
"We will leave in the morning, when we have the least risk of running into any Hydraci patrols. Rest well, we will need to traverse the sea to our home island, and there is a chance that we will need to flee from deep-sea serpents or other predators."
Bolyr glanced at Sandra before walking off towards the sea's edge, beckoning Ensir to follow him. The disgruntled Kobold did as requested, but Jake saw him dragging his heels as he followed.
"I have a bad feeling about this…" Jake whispered.
--
"I suggest we have a little chat."
Tess's husky voice caused everyone to look at her in surprise, and Jake frowned. She had barely spoken a word since they had met the native Kobolds. Now she was the center of attention, but she barely reacted as she looked at them, her eyes momentarily meeting his. The coldness made Jake slightly uncomfortable.
"Okay. What do you want to chat about?" Sandra asked, her hand still on her neck.
Tess sat down, motioning the others to follow. "I don't think it is a good idea to go with them. And I for sure won't be going."
Jake looked at the Fiend and instantly knew what she was getting at. If she came with them, the other indigenous Kobolds might capture her or worse.
"I understand why you don't want to. But what is the alternative? Even if what they told us about the Goblins was a lie, how would we survive here?" Sandra said.
Tess looked back, her lidded eyes and emotionless face not betraying any of her inner thoughts.
"There should be more Fiends in the jungle. I will go and find them. At least that way, I don't have to worry about being locked up like some animal," she said.
A soft gasp startled Jake, and he looked to the side. Emma was gazing at the Fiend in disbelief, then stepped closer to Jake, grabbing his hand.
Tess took a step forward but stopped when Emma hid behind Jake. She sighed softly while the rest looked on. Jake somehow realized he didn't at all feel sorry for her, which surprised him. She hadn't really done anything to harm him. Perhaps it was due to David? A quick look showed that none of the other Kobolds reacted to Emma's behavior.
"I am sorry, Emma. But I can't go with them," Tess said softly.
Emma didn't react but hid further behind Jake, which surprised him even more. Why did Emma react like this?
Tess sighed, then turned back to Sandra. "Sergeant, you shouldn't go with them. You have no idea where they will take you and if what they said about the Goblins is true. They may want to lure you somewhere for malicious reasons."
Yeah, Jake thought as he nodded. He had been thinking the same thing.
He heard the soldiers begin whispering behind him, but Sandra just shook her head. "I don't think they lied. If they wanted to harm us, they would have already done so. What we need is more information about this world. Seeing as we won't be heading back to Earth anytime soon, we'll need to gather all the intel we can."
"What about everybody else? There should be more people from Earth on this island. We don't know if they are all like the Goblins, but it's safe to assume they aren't. What about the other Kobolds?" Everyone fell silent and looked at Mason.
"We can't help them right now. We can't even help ourselves. There are monsters in this jungle, and..." Sandra fell silent, touching her neck and cringing, "other things we don't know about."
"So, what then? We go away and leave Tess alone?" Emma asked as she looked at Jake, her reptilian eyes reddish around the edges.
Jake frowned as he knelt beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. "Sandra is right, but so is Tess. We can't stay here, and Tess can't come with us."
Emma sniffed again, then looked at Tess for a second before running off towards the sea.
"Leave her be for a while. We need to make some plans if we go with them," Sandra said just as Jake was going to go after her.
Jake hesitated, shared a quick glance with Mason, who gave him a shrug and a nod, then remained where he was.
"Fine. Let's plan," he said, keeping an eye on Emma.
---
Hours later, Jake dropped down on his back, causing sand to fly around and into the campfire. Next to him, Mason and Emma sat down. The young Kobold had come back before they finished planning and quietly sat between him and Mason.
"We haven't had much time to talk about what happened… You okay?" Mason asked, looking at Jake while Emma curled up between them, yawning and stretching like a cat.
Jake looked up at the stars realizing he had been so preoccupied with other things that he hadn't had any time to think about how he was feeling. Though he knew Mason had probably meant how he was doing mentally, something else drew his attention as if called out by Mason's question. Deep inside his chest, just above the pit of his stomach, a strange new muscle contracted, feeling sore as if he had used it too much in a short amount of time. As if he had done so hundreds of times, Jake relaxed it, and immediately he felt himself grow sleepy.
Drifting off, memories of the day began playing through his head like a slow-motion, muted movie. Tiny energy particles in dozens of variants of blue roamed around him as he felt his body react. As his dream-like self swam through the sea, the muscle flexed and pulsed like crazy- almost like a beating heart. At every pulse, the glowing energy particles in the water drew towards him, and he felt them absorb into his body. It almost felt like he was a vacuum cleaner, removing the tiny energy from the sea en masse.
As the memories kept playing, he felt himself slowly drift asleep.
"Jake?" Mason's voice startled him back awake, and he blinked, struggling to keep open his weary eyelids. When had those closed? He looked up to see Mason staring at him, worry written all over his face.
"Don't worry. I'm okay," Jake said, attempting a smile but butchering it with a yawn. He turned his gaze back at the stars.
He heard Mason sigh in relief before lying down. "So? Wanna tell me what happened? Are you some sort of mage now?"
"Didn't you say it wasn't magic?" Jake replied, grinning. Then he sighed, controlling his thoughts. "It's hard to explain. Do you remember those tiny energy bubbles? I think I can use the blue ones from the sea..."
"Yeah, I kinda saw that coming. Can you control it, though? So you don't fall into a coma again?"
Jake shuddered, then he recalled something from the daydreams. "Probably… Is Emma sleeping?"
Mason looked at the small form between them for a while.
"Yes. Out cold. Must be exhausted after all the swimming she did."
Jake laughed harshly. "Yeah, I don't know about that. She was absorbing the energy almost as fast as me. I don't think she knows what she is doing, but neither do I, to be honest."
"I can't see them," Mason said with a sigh, and Jake looked at him in surprise.
"The blue ones?"
"Any," Mason retorted. "I saw them from the corpse back on Earth, but back with those Hydraci? I only saw a few red ones. The blue ones? They kept… flickering. After that, I've not seen anything."
Jake stared at him, worry growing. Why couldn't Mason see them? Was it because he couldn't use water magic?
"Don't look so worried," Mason whispered, grinning. "Emma was able to absorb the same energy as you could from the dead monster and now from the sea, and she's blue. It looks like I need to find myself a yellow ocean… You know? Just like with Bob's birthday but bigger?"
Jake groaned at the mental image of Mason swimming around in a sea of urine. "Seriously, dude, I didn't need that picture… Besides, wouldn't you need a red ocean? Either way, you bring up a good point. Ensir said the four of us are different. Going out on a limb here, I'd say he meant you, me, Emma, and Sandra."
Mason chuckled. "You don't say, captain obvious."
Jake ignored him and continued. "If we go by what we've seen so far, I'd say some Kobolds have an attunement to some element. Based on our color, Emma and I are water. Do you have any idea what you got from that cat back in the tunnel? They were red, right? Did they feel hot, like fire?"
"Not really, and if it was, it wasn't the normal type of fire. I have been staring at that bloody campfire for the entire evening, and I haven't spotted a single bubble of energy inside it," Mason said, and Jake could hear the regret.
