Chapter 11 – Caged

Shaelith didn’t know how long they had marched them, stumbling, until they arrived at the goblin lair. It felt like days.

The world seemed to consist of nothing but musty darkness and the stench of unwashed goblin bodies. Shaelith stumbled forward, blind beneath the stinking sack, her bare feet slipping over damp ground.The background noise around her was overwhelming, hundreds of goblin voices screeching, laughing, arguing with each other. Somewhere, meat sizzled over an open fire, the smell mingling with rot and excrement to create a mixture that made her already irritable stomach rebel again.

This must be a goblin fuffurk.

A hard push between her shoulder blades sent her staggering down a flight of stairs. The sack caught on something, tugging at her head andsince her hands were bound, she could do nothing to break her fall.

She could hear Ryzinre cry out somewhere behind her and she sounded panicked and desperate.

Then a thud and silence.

No. Please don’t.

A metal door screeched on its rusty hinges andrough hands grabbed her and threw her to her knees. The impact sent waves of pain through her already maltreated joints.

The sack was torn from her head and Shaelith blinked against the flickering torchlight. She was in a crude wooden slatted cage in the corner of a guardroom. Five goblins squatted on the floor, dicing with what lookeda lot like knucklebones and drinking from bulbous clay jugs.

No sign of Ryzinre.

Someone cut the ropes at her wrists, only to immediately secure them together again behind her back with rusty iron cuffs. Her feet were given a short chain, just long enough for her to take a few steps before she ended up against the wall.

Her once elegant dress, or rather, what was left of it after the brutal glyph removal,hung in tatters from her body.

The goblins crouched in a circle, playing dice and drinking, chattering away in Fufflak, obviously unaware that their captive understood every word.

That’s good, that’s a real advantage. I just can’t let on.

“Giffrik’s off to send a crow to the Master about the purple witch,” one grunted, wiping foam from his chin.

A smaller goblin with only one functioning eye cackled hideously. “Master better hurry if he wants her untouched. My balls hurt just looking at her.”

“The chief says no touching.” The tallest of the group slapped him on the back of the head. “Krax tried it yesterday, the chief bit his ear off.”

At least that. Shaelith tried to get into a more comfortable position. The chains rattled with every movement. Everything hurt and she was almost insane with hunger and thirst.

She took advantage of the guards’ disinterest to catalog her surroundings. Rough earth walls, provisionally supported by wooden beams that looked as if they might give way at any moment. Primitive torches in rusty brackets a dim light. Her cage, which was basically nothingmore thana hastily assembled box made of wooden slats,stood in a corner of the room, far enough away from the door to nip any thoughts of escape in the bud.

Then she heard it.

Muffled screams penetrated through the wall to her left. Rhythmic grunts andcrying voices and wet, smacking sounds that she recognized with icy horror.

Oh no. No, no, no.

One of the goblins gave a dirty laugh. “Sounds like Krax is breaking in the new purple meat in the breeding kennels. I’ll stop by after the shift, too, if the line isn’t too long.”

Shaelith felt so sick that she would have thrown up again if there had been anything left in her stomach.

Ryzinre.

She squeezed her eyes shut, but that only made it worse.

~

The next days blurred into a seemingly never-ending fever dream of hunger, thirst and the horrific sounds from the nearby breeding kennels.

Twice a day a goblin came and threw her a piece of moldy bread through the bars, followed by a jug of brownish water that tasted like swamp. The most humiliating part was when they brought her a bucket to relieve herself and made nasty remarks while they watched her.

At least they have a routine. Shaelithtugged bitterly at her shackles. Looks likeeven goblins can keep to a schedule. That’s good. Makes them predictable. I just have to wait for the right moment.

But the right moment to do what?

The guards rotated in shifts, three or four at a time, playing their knucklebone game all day long, drinking and staring at her. She constantly tried the shackles, but the metal didn’t give an inch.

And she tried for what must have been the hundredth time to channel mana without glyphs. It was like trying to fly by blowing air downwards, it was completely pointless. Without the precise marks on her skin, she was as magically useful as a bag of spores.

The noises from next door were real torture. Between the grunting sounds and the crying, she could sometimes make out snatches of Shaeravynwords. “Please” and “Stop” and once, very clearly, “Mother”.

Is that Ryzinre? Or another Shaeravyn?

It was impossible to tell. There were definitely severaldifferent women, but they all sounded the same in their desperation.

“The master is sending word,” announced a newly arrived goblin at the end of the first week. “He’ll be here in a week.”

The atmosphere in the guardroom changed noticeably at that news and the goblins became more restless.And their gazes grew hungrier.

“Seven bloody days to go,” grumbled the small one-eyed goblin. “My balls will explode by then. Why can’t we have her?”

Another younger goblin crept closer to her cage and stretched his knotty fingers through the wooden slats, trying to reach her tattered dress. Shaelith backed away as far as the chains would allow.

“Only touch once-”

A much bigger goblin grabbed the young goblin’s wrist. CRACK. The scream was deafening.

The goblin chief beat him down to the ground. “MASTER’S PROPERTY!” he roared. “Whoever touches her, I’ll eat his liver!”

The goblin with the broken arm whimpered on the ground and the others backed away.

He’s slowly losing control.They won’t hold stillfor another week. I have to get out of here.

Which was easier said than done, because Shaelith was practically constantly trying to get out of this situation somehow.

Okay, think. Magic without glyphs will never work. I also have little desire to charm the guards somehow,not to mention that they’d get their limbs broken if they actually were to go for it. It’s time for desperate measures, I guess.

She had discovered that the edge of her ankle cuff was sharp enough to scrape the skin andafter hours of rubbing, blood actually oozed from her sore ankle. At last! Now just…

The problem was, with her hands tied behind her back, she couldn’t reach her own blood for the life of her. She contorted herself until her shoulders protested, but it was physically impossible.

Of course it can’t be that easy.

For her next attemptshe used the blood on her ankle to scrape glyphs of blood onto the sole of her foot with her big toe. But without her hands to guide the lines precisely, she only managed barelylegible smears.

These scribbles are fucking useless. Aaaaah. Calm down, think. How do I get the blood into my hands?

She bit as hard as she could into the inside of her cheek until the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. Then she tried to spit the blood into her bound hands. A downright acrobatic feat that ended with her drooling blood all over her own shoulder and still not getting any in her hands.

“The purple witch is going mad,” grunted one of the guards, pointing at her.

His buddy laughed. “Good, the crazies don’t put up that much of a fight in the breeding kennels.”

I’m not crazy, you’ll see.I’m just creatively desperate. Oh just wait what will happen if it works, I’m going to make you burst like an overcooked sausage you little maggot.

She scratched her own palm now, again and again and harder and harder, digging her nails into the skin.But her well-groomed and manicured Shaeravyn nails just weren’t long or sharp enough to break through the skin. But maybe in a few days-

A new scream came through the wall, high voice, young, but definitely not Shaeravyn. A human girl, perhaps?

She kept scratching untilher palm was sore and irritated, but not a drop of blood showed.

Carry on. At some point the skin will be so sore that it will break open on its own, or my fingernails will get long enough for it to work. And then I’ll kill them all. I’LL KILL THEM ALL.

~

It was probably day twelve or day thirteen, she wasn’t quite sure.Every day felt like an eternity in this stinking hole.

“The Master is coming tomorrow!” crowed one of the guards, raising his clay jug. “We’ll finally get our reward!”

The others jeered and drank andmuch more than usual, Shaelith noticed. The chief was already snoring in the corner, and an impressive string of saliva connected his open mouth to the dirty floor.

As if they aren’t bad enough sober.

Most of the guards staggered out one by one, presumably to get in line for the breeding kennels. Only the youngest goblin stayed behind, his yellow eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her uncomfortable.

“Waste,” he muttered and took another sip. “Leaving that purple witch untouched.”

Shaelith slipped inconspicuously into the far corner of her cage. Not good. Not good at all.

The goblin stood up, swaying slightly. His fingers fumbled with the bunch of keys. “Master won’t notice. I’ll be quick.”

“Your chief will kill you,” Shaelith said in Tulvian, not wanting to give away that she was speaking Fufflak, her voice calmer than she felt. “Or your master will.”

“Chief sleep.” He grinned, showing his rotten teeth. He had switched to a broken Tulvian, “No one will know. Quick fucking, you stay quiet. Or dead.”

The keys jangled and the lock to her cage clicked.

“NO!” Shaelith screamed, but someone was always screaming in the dungeon. The drunk chief didn’t even move.

The cage door swung open.

Shaelith tried to fight, but two weeks of captivity, hunger, the heavy chains and her own attempts to draw blood had taken their toll. The vile goblin was on her before she could even land a kick.

His claws tugged at the remains of her dress and his breath stank of rotten flesh and cheap booze.

This cannot happen. It must not happen. NO!

CRACK!

The door to the dungeon basically exploded into the room and splinters flew across the room likeconfetti. A massive, muscular figure stood in the doorway, framed by dramatic backlighting.

“MY NAME IS BENDERAST STONEFIST, AND I’M HERE TO SAVE YOU, PRINCESS!”

He spoke perfect Tulvian, but with a strange accent she couldn’t place. He had shoulder-length blond curly hair andhis sword sparkled as if someone had sprinkled glitter on it. The human’s massive muscles filled a coarse linen shirt, stretching it even a bit. He looked like he escaped straight from the cover of a very cheesy fantasy book.

The goblin on top of her shrieked and scrambled backwards off her, but not fast enough. A kick from the human hit him right in the ribs and punted him across the room like a green football andhe impacted with a nasty crunch into the wooden pit wall.

“Take that, you lowly worm! Ha, I could have easily gotten a scholarship for college football with a kick like that.”

Shaelith stared at the guy in complete shock.

This resemblance… the face was a little different, with anangular jaw and much more attractive,even noble features, as if chiseled from marble and all those muscles. But the eyes, the voice, the way he bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet…

Her UI flickered.

[NEW TRAIT ACQUIRED]
[Love Interest]

What the actual fuck.