Book of Hestia: Ch.2

External Drive

Muaus, 12th, 132nd year of the Tower

Me and luck have always had an...odd relationship. It’s like luck is some bird of prey, swooping in to curse me with agony and fear. Then, just as I think it's the end, it flies away and watches my screams. Once I finally calm down, fooled by the silence and safety, I let my guard down enough for the predator called luck to swoop down again to take everything away again. So I suffer under a cycle that tore away everyone I knew and cared for, and left me to stumble around as the only survivor.

But...

For the first time in my life, something stopped that cycle- not some great hero, a legendary skill, or a beautiful woman, but a voice in my head.

------------------

‘Duck!’

A voice yelled. I didn’t recognize who it was, but I followed that yell. The surprised yelp of a goblin behind me and the falling strands of my cut hair told me just how close I was to being decapitated.

‘Push back.’

The voice said, and I followed, pushing myself back into the goblin and knocking it off its feet. I quickly turned around, impaling the creature on my spear. The weakest monster in our world, goblins, humanoid in shape and miniscule in size, they resembled the child of a goat and the world's oldest prune and had somehow gotten the drop on the caravan I'm a part of.

Over fifty of them showed up, and while that should have been nothing for our group of three hundred people, the fact that they're the weakest monster did not mean that they're weaker than humans. Light as a pillow, but stronger than the average person by a favor of ten, if not for how easily knocked around they are and how outright stupid they are in general, we would have been slaughtered as soon as they popped up.

‘Your blonde friend is in danger.’

I looked up from the corpse I made to see most of the caravan being overwhelmed, so the voice probably wasn’t lying. Enough people swarmed around me, though, that I could hardly figure out where to start looking. The world around me was a mass of bodies, with goblins swarming through like the ugliest gods of death I’ve ever heard of. While I would've liked to question my sanity, seeing as I had a voice in my head, I decided to sprint through the crowd of people and monsters to where I last saw Daniel, hoping he was still there.

It didn’t take long for me to spot him- he was actually easy to spot with his fair skin- being wailed on by a plump goblin with an axe. Daniel was a stout, chubby boy who could probably best be described as a ‘blonde friend’ not only because of his hair, but because he was the only blonde in the crowd of people- a northerner. His pale skin, a novelty among the mass of red skinned, black haired people that made up the frantic crowd. Like many people around us, he was panicked. His spear was broken in half, and he was struggling to knock the attacks away with a sharp stick.

‘Throw your spear- you won’t make it in time.’

The voice said, a vision of my spear impaling the plump goblin flashing through my mind.

Great, I’m going insane, I thought. But rather than waste any time worrying about that, I followed the voice’s advice. I launched my spear at the offending goblin, striking it in the shoulder so hard that the little bag of wrinkles went flying, spinning through the air before crashing into another one of its fellows.

There goes my spear. I grumbled, picking up the crude axe the goblin dropped while guarding my struggling friend as he steadied himself.

“Thanks,” was all he could say, gasping for breath. I patted Daniel on the shoulder before handing him the axe, taking the stick from him. Although I would've been better off with the axe, he actually knew how to use one, while all I could use was a spear. I’d wear myself down to death with something like that.

“Take this, and see if you can help Abra.” I said before looking around myself.

“How’d you do that?” He finally said, almost shouting in my ear.

“Do what?”

“You sent that goblin flying, man, I couldn’t even hurt it.” His arms were almost flailing in excitement.

“Yeah, well, I just surprised it. We need to find Abra, because I don’t know if I can do that again.” I said, only to realize that he had already sprinted off.

How am I going to survive this? I couldn’t’ve helped thinking.

‘Barely, if you were alone. Follow him for now.’

The voice hinted in my mind. Since it already saved my life once, I decided to trust it. Rather than letting Daniel run off on his own, I followed him, throwing down the broken spear and picking up a long stick dropped by another goblin. The two of us rushed through the crowd, looking for another oddity in the crowd- a southerner. She was a dusk-skinned girl with tacky metal armor that made her look like a wall of steel rather than the soft girl she expected us to treat her as.

It didn’t take us long to find her, and she clearly didn’t need our help. Behind her stood ten, cowering kids, and, in front of her, the remains of at least four goblins, another three running away in terror of her. She was covered in blood and laughing as she chased after them, spearing two of the four before throwing a corpse at a third, hitting it hard enough that it probably died. This brute of a woman was Abra, one of those rare female warriors who didn’t die as soon as she picked up a spear to fight a monster.

“Boys? Faris! Daniel! Where are you?” She yelled out, looking around as she kept guard over those kids. This horrifying monster slayer was Daniel and I’s mom, adopted from the ruins of a burned out village. One of the first, and finest, examples of how much luck likes me.

“We’re coming!” I yelled over after she yelled out my name, Faris-

‘Let her know you’re okay, and then turn to the right. There is a family I want you to save.’

-But the voice in my head changed my plans. I wanted to go stand next to the woman who could probably kill all these goblins by herself, but whoever helped me wanted me to return the favor, it seemed. My ‘mom’ spent years beating the rule of returning favors into my head, so if I didn’t help him save whoever, she’d spend even more time beating it into my head.

“Stick with her, I forgot something.” I shouted before I turned to my right and sprinted through the crowd, figuring that the voice would tell me who to look out for. I didn’t even given him time to reply; I knew he would have stopped me.

‘Look for a chubby man in merchant clothes, a little girl in a sundress, and a violent girl about your age who’s probably beating something to death.’

None of that is going to be obvious in this crowded place when everyone panicking. I thought, batting away goblins that got close to me as I looked around. I was overwhelmed from all of the faces as I tried to keep my attention on the enemies around me while picking out people in the crowd. I simply didn’t know enough to find the people the voice is looking for.

‘Keep going forward, they’re not here.’

I shoved the oversized stick into the gut of an approaching goblin, swung it at the second, before jumping on top of the first as I stole his sword. Then, before he could react, I stabbed him in the neck and started sprinting forward again, abandoning the other goblin to whatever fate he had. It was surprisingly easy to find the family the voice was talking about. As I ran, the crowd of people started to thin, and I spotted the scene the voice was talking about: two cowering people, a fat man graced with an amazing mustache and a little girl in a bloody dress, being protected by an angry, older girl who was beating a goblin to death with his own arm.

Charming.

Though, the charm of the act was even fouler when I noticed the body right next to that goblin, a motherly figure who, throughout the caravan ride, had been sneaking candy and sweets to many of the children. It looked as though she was stabbed in the gut and then stomped on. Her features were a mess of blood, and my memory of her was too fuzzy to pick out the details.

‘Save them.’

The voice said, four goblins turning to the three humans and slowly moving towards them. A spear, finally! I think, looking at one of the further back of the four monsters. Since I was going to have to kill them anyway, I chose to start with the spear-wielding goblin. Slipping through the crowd of people and past a few other goblins, I jumped on its unsuspecting back before shoving the sword deep into its head- which should have been impossible for me. The monster didn’t even have time to react before it died. I was struggling against one goblin before, too weak to even scratch it. Now, I’m beating them away like I’m almost on par with them.

I stole away its spear and sprinted to the next goblin, the trio of remaining monsters finally noticing me as I impaled one of them and took them down to a pair. The two remaining goblins screamed at me before they both started charging.

‘Sweep at their feet, and then target the leftmost one. Stay still until they are within range. They are too stupid to realize what you’re doing.’

The voice said, and I followed its advice. I shifted my weight to my left as I jumped, curving what looked like a straight-forward jump at the two monsters. Using the empty space to build up speed, I landed with a roll, with my spear sticking out enough to topple the pair. It was an odd move Abra taught me that was meant more for surprise than power. I unfurled myself from the roll into a half crouched position, close enough that I could easily spear the left goblin. Not wasting any time, I jabbed, cutting into its throat. Taking a few seconds to process what I did, I noticed that out of the two, the one I just stabbed was still clutching his sword, while the other had a broken nose from dropping his mace on himself. As I killed the unarmed goblin, I thought, Did you predict that?

‘That was a useless move. If they were any heavier, you would have lost your spear, and if you were not careful, you could have rolled into all sorts of sharp objects, or at least rocks, which would have slowed you down.’

It worked, so I don’t care. What do I do now?

‘Bring them back to your mother and then steal a wagon. Nobody will survive what happens next.’

What happens next?

‘You’ll know soon enough.’

How exactly do I get these people following me? “Hey!” I yelled to them, walking closer while the three clung to each other in fear of me. I saved you guys, give me a break. “I know this is going to sound really weird, but someone asked me to save you, so if you could come with-”

“Who?” The older girl demanded. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, lady.

‘Say it was her mother, and call the girl Annie; she’ll believe you. Then act like you’re leaving, it’ll will make them more willing to follow.’

“The woman over there,” I pointed at the corpse on the ground, trying to avoid looking at it too closely, “told me to protect ‘her Annie.’ Since you’re here, I’m guessing that’s you.” I turned away from the family. “We have to go now, too many goblins out here. I’ll bring you with my own family, if you don’t mind.” I tried to sound as rushed as I actually felt. So far this voice hadn't lied to me, so I really didn’t want to know what happens next if none of us would survive it.