Something new: Izzy, Chapters 1 and 2 (Patreon)

Also known as Izzy, Goblin Queen Of The World Or At Least A Bit Of It

I've got ten chapters of this written now, and I want to see what you all think of it. The chapters are shorter, around 2000-2200 words, and I'm going for a kind of carefree tone, though you know people are going to get hurt. This is straight up GameLit, too, with Classes and Skills and Quests and all that.

Now, I say carefree, but the first chapter is kind of dark and we don't actually learn our heroine's name until the second chapter, so I'll do a twofer for the first post. Please do comment if you read it!

Also, is Tuesday good for this? I'd also considered Saturday or Sunday, to spread my posts out a bit more.

//AB

Note on Dec 28th, 2024: I've made some changes to the first two chapters based on comments below. If you're reading this, believe me: you didn't miss anything. It's better this way!

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Chapter 1: The Rudest of Awakenings

“Mash! Run!”

The words ended in a pained gurgle as something hot sprayed across her face. Blood, from the smell and taste of it. That couldn't be good. She spat reflexively, still coming to, and her ears filled with a chaos of voices: roars and bellows, furious shouts and higher, guttural screeches and screams of pain.

Mash’s eyes snapped open. Mash. Was that her? It didn’t feel right. But she didn’t have time to worry about that because right next to her a big bird of some kind lay with its wings bound, its eyes rolling madly as its hooked beak snapped at her. It looked like someone had been painting on it. Above her a figure — Old, she thought, with scraggly hair and lots of wrinkly skin — clutched at a gushing gash in its neck. She felt familiarity and loss as she looked at the creature. She knew it. She knew him.

In the second between Mash — if that was her name — opening her eyes, and the giant behind the old creature kicking him aside, his lips moved soundlessly, and his eyes told her to run.

The giant looked at her with hate and pain in its eyes and drew back its chipped sword to pin her to the ground, and instinct took over. With the litheness of a ferret she rolled and twisted onto her front, springing forward on all fours for three strides before finding her feet. Behind her the giant screamed in outrage. She understood it, and what it roared filled her with dread.

“Don't let it get away! Don't let any of ‘em get away!”

The two questions that echoed through her aching head — “Where am I?” and “What the heck is going on?” — were quickly answered in the most immediate sense. She was in some sort of camp, semi-permanent tents of hides, poles and bones standing here and there in no order that she could see. It was dark, but a few firepits lit the camp, one of them with a cauldron above it. The metal vessel was so enormous that someone had set up a rickety stepladder. The camp was in a glade or clearing, trees looming into the cloudless sky, silent witnesses to what was happening.

It was a one sided slaughter. Here and there figures of her own size fought with spears and knives, all of them as familiar as the one that had just died protecting her — was that right? Yes, she was sure that was what had happened. They were being butchered by giants wielding swords and spears and axes and — some instinct told her to throw herself to the side, and an arrow zipped past, slicing through the hide wall of a tent and vanishing from sight.

And bows. The giants also had bows.

All she knew was fear and confusion. She didn't know who the familiar people dying around her were, or why the giants were killing them. She didn't know why she'd been on the ground. She couldn't remember anything before the moment she woke and began running for her life. And she didn't have a moment to stop and think, because she knew that the giants were after her, and they would kill her if they caught her. So she ran, letting her feet carry her where they would as her kin — yes, that felt right — died around her.

To Mash’s left a giant charged at her with a spear. An elderly female of her own kind threw herself at the giant’s legs, tangling them and tripping the monster. A glance over her shoulder showed Mash the sword wielding giant forced to stop for a moment to strike down two hopelessly outmatched opponents armed with a washing stick and a long ladle.

They died to buy her a moment, and she realized that her kin were not only dying. They were dying for her. To buy her time to escape. And she thanked them for it, but she had no idea why. Who was she? Mash? Who was Mash to them, that they'd give their lives so she could escape?

Her feet knew where to go, even if she didn't. Ahead was a dense bramble, and in that bramble was a narrow passage, impossible for anything much larger than herself to get through. She felt a terrible blow to her back that hurt all the way to her gut and she stumbled, but she was only seconds from temporary safety and she refused to fall or slow, reflexes somehow keeping her feet under her.

She reached the bramble. She threw herself forward, ready to crawl through the thorny tunnel, and — she stopped, as her abdomen exploded into white hot pain. She grit her teeth and dragged herself forward, only for the pain to redouble as the bramble rustled above her.

She tasted blood. Dazed with pain, she looked over her shoulder and saw the feathered end of a shaft, almost a thin pole, extending from somewhere out of her field of view and into the dense stalks and leaves above.

She reached back. The shaft met her back, just under her ribcage. It was keeping her from moving.

Behind her one of the giants shouted. “There! In the blackberries! There's one!”

She had to move to live.

She reached back and pushed back on the shaft. The pain was almost blinding, and she vomited bile and blood. The shaft didn't break. The angle changed enough that she should be able to drag herself forward, but she still couldn't. On a terrible hunch she pushed herself up on one elbow and looked down her front. Sure enough, a barbed arrowhead stuck out from her dress along with a handspan of the shaft, slick with gore that dripped onto the ground. The sight made her faint, but now it was free of the dirt. She could move, and on her knees and one elbow she crawled slowly, painfully through her bloody puke.

Behind her the screams were dying down. “Get in there, Lars!” said a voice, flush with victory. “Finish ‘er off!”

“Count on me, Pa!” This new voice was higher and sounded determined.

In front, water roared. She kept dragging herself toward it, her vision narrowing, feeling only pain and abject terror. She was getting cold, which felt all wrong. Something told her that it was summer, and the nights were warm.

The bramble rustled behind her as the young giant forced his way in, swearing as the thorns caught him and when he slipped in the mud her blood had made. But he was moving faster than her. She could feel him back there, gaining on her.

The water was so close, only feet away. She forced her way forward. A hand grabbed at her ankle, nails scratching and biting into her skin. She cried out in despair, but in this one moment at least fortune was with her. She was too slick with blood, and her kicking pulled her loose from his grasp.

Her head came free from the brambles, then her shoulders and the rest of her torso. She could release the arrow, and the agony in her stomach decreased by one tiny degree. The water rushed only feet in front of her.

A hand again closed around her ankle with furious strength, and the giant yanked her leg out from under her, sending her crashing from her knees to her side.

The giant loomed behind her, a long knife in his hand and tears and murder in his eyes.

“No! No, please!” she screamed, locking eyes with him as she tried to scrabble toward the water. The giant, now free of the brambles, dragged her closer with a jerk that made her hip pop. “Please!”

The giant raised his knife, looked into her terrified eyes and, wonder of wonders, hesitated as understanding and confusion filled his face. He understood her!

With a final burst of strength, she kicked him in the nose. The pain shocked him enough that he lost his grip on her ankle, and Mash threw herself toward the river.

The rushing water swallowed her. Before her, shiny lines made of little squiggly pictures swam into view. She had never seen written words before, yet she could read them.

[Task in Quest ‘Midnight Assault’ complete: Escape! Partial experience awarded.] 

[New Task in Quest ‘Midnight Assault’: Survive!]

Everything went dark.

  *

To her vast surprise, Mash woke up. She was wet and cold. She felt pain, undeniably there but several orders of magnitude less than before, and she felt terribly weak, but her head was clear enough to take stock of her situation.

There were more of the shiny lines of squiggles floating in her vision, but they could wait. She needed to survive the next few fingers of time before she could pay attention to stuff like that.

The sun had come up but hadn't climbed above the trees yet. She lay among some brown and sickly-looking ferns and bushes only a few feet away from the calmer waters of an oxbow on the river. She must have dragged herself out before collapsing fully; a trail of bloody, disturbed mud led from the water to where she lay. The arrow that had pierced right through her lay in two pieces, the ends looking like they’d been gnawed by some rodent. Her dress was a ruin; the soft deer hide — how did she know that it was deer, she wondered — was stained with blood and caked with mud, cut and torn and, for some reason, full all over with little pinprick holes. She still had her necklace of bones and teeth, and it rattled as she fiddled with it, a calming habit of hers which she hadn’t known that she had until just then.

And that was it. A ruined dress and a necklace. She’d left everything else behind. She’d gained an arrowhead on a short handle, in a way, and when she tried it the arrow was sharp, so it might be useful for cutting and not just poking. It still wasn't much. She felt incredibly impoverished, yet somehow it felt like more than she’d ever had or wanted. How odd.

Despite everything she felt surprisingly calm. Alone and cold, she should be terrified, shouldn't she? But now that the immediate threat to her life was gone she just… wasn't. She had all her limbs, and they felt like the right shape and number. And she had plenty of vague ideas for how to feed and shelter herself until she figured out what to do. She'd live. Probably.

What worried her more was that she didn't know who or even what she was, two things that she knew that she should know. She was pretty sure that it was her the old creature had called “Mash” before he died, but it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like it fit her. But she felt like she should have a name, and it would do for now.

So, the “who” was still a question. As for the “what,” she was sure that all those people that the giants had killed were her kin. It stood to reason that she was the same kind of people, then. Her arms were the same pale, almost grayish green as they had all been, so that was probably right. The giants had all been a very light brown instead, with proportionally smaller heads and mouths and small, round ears, so they probably weren't just really big versions of whatever she was.

She knew what a lot of things were, and she knew that she was a person, but the idea of people had grown in her head. According to a memory that surfaced, it had been obvious to her that there was only one kind of people: people, like her and her kin. But now that didn't fit. There wasn't just one kind of people. The giants were another kind of people, and there were others, too. She just had no idea how she knew that, just as she had no idea how she knew that her ruined dress was made of soft deerskin. While what she was didn't make any difference in the short term, it would still be nice to know.

The shiny squiggles started to pulse insistently. “Fine, yes, yes!” she croaked, the lines gaining meaning as she focused on them.

[Task in Quest ‘Midnight Assault’ complete: Escape! Partial experience awarded.] 

[New Task in Quest ‘Midnight Assault’: Survive!]

[Conditions met for contingency casting: Healing Roots. Casting successful!]

[Task in Quest ‘Midnight Assault’ complete: Survive!]

[Quest ‘Midnight Assault’ complete! Rewards pending.]

“Quest?” she muttered, not sure what it all meant. She liked the last part, though. “Reward?”

[Quest ‘Midnight assault’ status: Complete. Reward: Experience and variable. Reward pending. Claim reward now?]

“Reward!? Yes! Yes, gimme! Claim reward now!”

Three things happened. First, “Reward pending changed” to “Reward claimed.” Second, a new line of squiggles appeared:

[Congratulations! You have reached Level 4! Visit your Summary to allocate your Level.]

The third thing, which made her leap back and hide behind a bush, was that a crackling cloud of light appeared in the air right in front of her. Over the next few seconds she peered nervously through the foliage as the cloud became longer and thinner, finally losing its shine and resolving into a smoothly polished wooden staff, which landed in the wet dirt with a soft plap.

She cautiously crept out, eyes locked on the staff as though it might suddenly turn into a snake and bite her. Not an unreasonable fear, she told herself, considering that the thing had appeared out of thin air. But it had appeared as a reward from… something, so it should be safe, surely? And a long, sturdy stick could come in handy. She’d had one before, which she’d liked very much. She remembered that now.

Close up she could see carved vines twisting around the staff, leaves and all. It rose in her estimation immediately, pretty as it was, and she closed her hand around it.

[Vinecaller’s Staff: Made of hard, durable wood, and decorated with a motif of climbing vines, this staff grants a minor bonus to range and mana efficiency when used as a focus for spells in the school of Plant Magic.]

She yelped and dropped the thing in surprise when glowing squiggles appeared along it. Even on the ground the lines remained until she stopped focusing on them, at which point they vanished as quickly as they’d appeared.

She crept forward and picked it up. It sat nicely in her hands. Good weight, too. Good for whacking.

Plant Magic. Was that something she could do? The lines had said something about casting Healing Roots. Her gut told her that was magic, and that she'd done it. And roots were parts of a plant. Ergo, she could do Plant Magic. That was good!

There was the softest of rustlings from farther into the forest, and she froze, all her hair standing on end. Instinct, or perhaps experience, made her crouch low to the ground, eyes scanning in the direction of the sound.

Mash saw nothing. She heard nothing.

A gray and brown shape exploded out of the ferns, coming right at her.

Chapter 2: Is Communing With Nature Supposed To Hurt This Much?

Cat.

That single word was the only thing that went through Mash’s head as her body reacted to keep her alive. Instinct or experience told her that staying still was death, and she did two things: she scuttled forward, toward the large, tawny animal, and she thrust her new staff straight at it.

The cat had leapt at her from the overgrown top of a natural levee higher than her head. Thanks to the height, one end of the staff caught the cat in the belly. The other was pushed into the soft ground, and with a heave that used every single one of her scrawny muscles she turned the cat’s killing pounce into a short flight into the edge of the water, ending with a yowl of outrage and a splash.

Her first instinct was to escape, but the side of the levee was too high and steep, rushing water having cut it until it was vertical with a small overhang. It extended for a short distance to both the left and the right, and she knew that the cat was faster than she was.

She’d have to fight.

With grim determination she put her back to the loamy wall and gripped her staff in both hands. When she turned the cat was already flying at her again, and she threw herself to the left with a squeal, staff coming around to bap the cat ineffectually on the side as it twisted and rammed shoulder first into the levee. She stumbled back, and the cat’s paw flashed out even as it righted itself, claws grazing her and cutting long, shallow gashes in her forearm.

She hissed with pain. Things looked bad. The tawny forest cat was almost as tall as she was. Definitely bigger. Luckily, her body knew what to do. The cat looked healthy. Well fed. If it had been starving her situation would have been truly dire, but this cat wanted to kill her and eat her because she’d looked like easy prey. To live, she had to convince it otherwise.

In the moments between her stumbling and the cat’s claws raking her arm, she’d pulled her staff back. The staff shot forward in a line, the end driving right into the cat’s sensitive nose. Still in the process of getting its balance back after striking the levee, the cat yowled and bounced back, one paw rubbing at its face.

With desperate strength and a high-pitched “Yah!” Mash leapt forward, pursuing the cat, jabbing at its face as it hissed and growled, batting at her staff and constantly on the back foot. “Yah! Dumb cat! Yah!”

The cat’s reflexes were good and its paws were quick, but her jabs were quick and accurate. While most were batted away, she landed a hit on its mouth, then another on its nose, and finally one near its eye. With that final hit, the cat decided that this meal wasn’t worth it. With an outraged howl and a hiss it turned, ran all of two strides, then gave her a dirty look and walked off upstream.

“Hah!” she screamed in triumph. She raised her staff high, dancing in place, high on the rush of victory and of surviving the second attempt on her life in the short time she’d been awake.

Then the high ended, and the terror of what had just happened came in, along with the pain of her scratched arm. All that movement had aggravated the remaining damage from last night, too, and her gut hurt terribly. A cold that had nothing to do with still being soaked washed over her. She really needed to figure out what she had to work with.

The lines before had said that she’d reached a Level and that she should check her Summary, both of which felt familiar. “Level” felt synonymous with “strength” and “power” to her, and she wanted them!

Speaking to the squiggles had worked before. In a hesitant tone she said, “Summary?” and leapt back as a whole mess of shiny squiggles appeared in the air in front of her. They followed her, and she scrabbled back a length before her brain caught up to what was happening. These squiggles, she knew, were her Summary!

Many of them had tally marks after them, and there were even three little paintings. She stared at it all with awe, which turned to wonder when she realized that not only did the pictures have depth to them; they were moving!

[Summary for Mistral, Unbound Aura (Goblin vessel)]

This was accompanied by the first painting: a figure, looking much like how she herself must look, dressed much like she was dressed, down to the necklace. It walked and ran and leaped and danced, and all the time another, almost insubstantial figure danced around it in perfect harmony, never touching the ground. As the second figure moved, the first figure’s hair and dress moved with it, as though its movements were the wind itself.

[Classes:

Goblin Shaman (3)

Total Class Levels: 3]

Here was a second painting. The figure stood in front of many others of its kind. It raised a staff to the heavens, and the others knelt and raised their hands in response.

[Mana: 22/90 (+4)]

A few squiggles, a single word that she knew meant “how much magic you can do,” was accompanied by the third and final painting. It looked like a pot or gourd, full about a fifth of the way with water, and more water was slowly dripping into it. At the rate it was going, she was pretty sure it would take all day to fill up. That thought felt familiar and right, so it probably was.

The rest of the Summary had no paintings, but she knew, not instinctively but from a familiarity sparked by seeing it all, that she could find out more about almost everything here by thinking about it hard enough.

[Skills from Goblin Shaman:

Plant Magic

Ritual Magic

Contingency Casting

Non-Class Skills:

Survival

Scrapping

Leadership

Spells Known:

From Plant Magic:

Healing Roots

Create Vineling

Quests:

None

Unassigned Class Levels: 1. Note: Class Levels gained before unlocking additional Classes can only be assigned to your first Class.

Assign 1 Level to Goblin Shaman?]

“Stupid,” she muttered, though her heart wasn’t in it. She was still too awestruck and filled with wonder at the whole thing. “Why ask if I can’t do anything else? Yes, do the thing!”

[Your Class Goblin Shaman has reached Level 4!]

She had no idea what that did. Goblin Shaman and Total Class Levels each gained another tally mark, and that was about all. Maybe the gourd got a little bigger? She thought so. But that wasn’t the most important thing at that moment.

The most important thing was that she knew who she was. The reason that “Mash” had felt wrong was that she wasn’t “Mash” at all. She was Mistral. Which felt both wrong and completely right all at once, which was a whole new kind of confusion.

“Mistral.” She tasted the word, and found it cumbersome. “Mistral. Mistra. Mistry. Misty. Isty. Issy. Izzy. Izzy!”

Yes. “Izzy” would do. It still didn’t feel completely right, but it felt more “more right” than it felt “less right” in total, which was an awkward thing to think, but it made sense as long as she didn’t try to put it into words.

That covered the “who.” As for the “what”, Izzy concentrated on the part after her name.

[Unbound Aura, (Goblin vessel): You are an immortal spirit, imperfectly bound into and displacing the soul of a mortal vessel. Through accident or incompetence, your bindings are incomplete, leaving you free from the control and restrictions normally placed on bound spirits.

Aurai are spirits of the air, playful, generally unpredictable, and frequently mischievous. They are desirable targets for novice spirit binders, as they combine great potential power with a friendly, if unreliable, disposition.

Goblins are a race of sapient mortals. Comparing unfavorably with most other races in stature, physical prowess, hygiene, and intelligence, goblins as a race generally survive through cunning and a prodigious rate of reproduction. Despite their many shortcomings, goblins nevertheless form complex societies of interconnected tribes, with a wide variety of practical, artistic and religious traditions.]

That… felt right. Izzy had no idea how she might have been bound into a goblin or why she’d woken up in the middle of a slaughter, but it made sense now that her body didn’t quite fit. Maybe she just hadn’t had it for very long? The squiggles seemed unnecessarily judgmental about goblins, though. She didn’t mind her body at all. Maybe it was weak; she didn’t have anything to compare to. And maybe it was small. But it had served her well when she had to run away from the giants, and she was sure that surviving jumping in a river with a giant arrow stuck right through you was pretty impressive. She’d left a lot of blood behind! Although, maybe being an immortal spirit helped. Maybe she didn’t need as much blood as a normal goblin?

And it certainly was not stinky, like the squiggles suggested!

Izzy moved on to her Class, her Skills, and her spells.

[Goblin Shaman: Combining the roles of priest, healer, and mage, Goblin Shamans fill the magical and spiritual needs of goblin society. With access to many schools of magic, priestly traditions, and supportive Skills, Goblin Shamans sacrifice specialization for a truly impressive versatility.

Plant Magic: Best known for its use in agriculture, Plant Magic is a highly versatile school. Healing, utility, defense, and even limited offense; Plant Magic offers spells for a little bit of everything. When used innately, the skill allows the caster to control the growth of plants. Improved effectiveness and efficiency per Level. Note: As a Goblin Shaman, this Skill was semi-randomly chosen as your Level 1 Class Skill.

Ritual Magic: Perhaps the most ancient and versatile form of magic, Ritual Magic uses the ambient mana of Visva rather than that of a caster, which is then shaped through various formulae by the will of one or more casters. Does not innately provide knowledge of any rituals; they must be developed or learned independently. Improved control per Level. Note: As a Goblin Shaman, this Skill was semi-randomly chosen as your Level 2 Class Skill.

Contingency Casting: Allows you to set one or more spells to be cast automatically if enough mana is available when specified conditions are met, at a reduced mana efficiency. Increased number of concurrent spells, specificity of conditions, and mana efficiency per Level. Current spells and conditions: Healing Roots, to be cast on self when incapacitated. Note: As a Goblin Shaman, this Skill was semi-randomly chosen as your Level 3 Class Skill.

Survival: A catch-all Skill that aids in both combat- and wilderness survival, at a reduced effect. If a specialized skill which shares an effect with Survival is taken, the effects do not stack; the greater effect is used. Note: As a goblin, this Skill was automatically chosen as your Level 1 Non-Class Skill.

Scrapping: A highly generalized passive fighting Skill, Scrapping improves most aspects of combat performance, offensive and defensive, with or without a weapon. Note: As a goblin, this Skill was automatically chosen as your Level 2 Non-Class Skill.

Leadership: An indispensable Skill for anyone hoping to command their fellow goblins, Leadership improves your ability to give orders that will be obeyed when leading others. Note: As a Goblin Shaman, this Skill was automatically chosen as your Level 3 Non-Class Skill.]

Plant Magic, she thought. Healing. She cradled her bleeding arm, and curled forward a little to relieve the pain in her gut. She needed that healing. She looked at her spells.

[Healing Roots: A multitude of roots emerge to pierce the target, drawing on the vitality of nearby plants to massively increase its natural healing. Effective against all negative health effects, including injury, disease, and poisoning, with the exception of the natural effects of aging. Requires nearby vegetation. Once cast, the spell will only end when the target is in perfect health, when all nearby vegetation is dead, or when the caster runs out of mana. Note: As a Goblin Shaman, this spell was randomly chosen as your Level 2 spell for Plant Magic.]

There it was. That was what she needed.

It said that it used nearby plants to heal. Izzy looked at the brown and spotted leaves of the nearby ferns and bushes. She’d wondered about that.

[Create Vineling: Wraps a skeleton or similar structure in vines, replacing muscle and tendons and allowing it to move. The spell also imbues the resulting vineling with limited sentience and intelligence, allowing it behave like a living creature and follow simple commands. Requires a skeletal structure and nearby vegetation to cast. Once a vineling is created, the spell will continue to draw mana until the spell is canceled or the vineling is destroyed, with a mana draw dependent on the size and complexity of the vineling. Note: As a Goblin Shaman, this spell was randomly chosen as your Level 3 spell for Plant Magic.]

That sounded very fun and useful, but it was the healing she needed now, now, now! But if she needed healthy plants, the ones around her wouldn’t do.

Izzy picked up the broken arrow from where she’d dropped it in the mud, then carefully made her way downstream, in the opposite direction of where the cat had gone. Ferns were everywhere, but she wanted something more. Both more plants, and more concealment. She fought down the pain and continued, and only a short distance away she found a proud old willow bending out over the water. That would do. She sat down against its trunk, The rough bark was pleasantly scratchy against her back, and she relaxed just a little. Then, hidden by ferns and the tree’s drooping branches, she tried to do some magic.