The big goblin kept eating for a long time, tearing chunks from the steaming heap in his hands and chewing with exaggerated delight. Every messy bite drew more laughter from the stands.
Finally, he tossed the gnawed bone aside, slammed his club into the ground once, and barked a few words Richard half-understood.
"Enough. Watch. Pups."
He pointed the club at them, then at the blue stones piled along the wall, then at the line of warriors.
The meaning was obvious even without the words: "Your turn."
For a while, no one moved.
The smell of cooked meat rolled over them in waves — rich, fatty, spiced with something sharp that burned Richard's nose. His stomach cramped so hard it hurt. Around him, the pups whimpered and swallowed convulsively, eyes fixed on the cauldrons.
"This isn't feeding time," Richard realized bitterly. "It's a test."
A lone pup broke first.
It was a mid-sized male with two beads, shoulders a little broader than most. With a strangled noise somewhere between a whine and a shout, he bolted toward the nearest pile of stones.
The guardian stationed there — a burly goblin with a heavy stick and a crooked grin — had been leaning on his weapon, pretending to be bored. At the pup's approach, his eyes lit up. He straightened, hefted the stick, and waited.
The pup didn't slow.
Richard clenched his teeth. "Idiot, at least zigzag."
The pup lunged the last few steps, hand outstretched toward a bright blue stone glinting near the goblin's feet.
The stick came down in a blur.
With a sharp crack, the blow caught the pup across the side. The little goblin went spinning, rolling across the stone floor in a tangle of limbs. He skidded to a stop a good three body-lengths away, coughing and wheezing.
The stands roared.
The big goblin thumped his chest and barked a single, contemptuous word.
"Weak!"
The guardian laughed and went back to leaning on his stick, as if nothing had happened.
The injured pup staggered upright, clutching his side. No one came to help him. No one even looked twice. He limped back toward the cluster of pups, eyes down, breath coming in short, pained gasps.
Richard swallowed.
"One hit like that and I'm done," he thought. "Even with my Body stat at 5, I'm still just too weak."
The pups shifted restlessly. A few took hesitant steps toward the stones, only to retreat when a guardian lazily lifted his stick in warning.
Richard heard his own breath catch.
Hunger finally broke the stalemate.
First one, then another, then three at once bolted toward different piles of stones. Most didn't even get close. The guardians had been waiting for this; sticks flashed out, cracking against ribs and shoulders, sending pups tumbling back in yelping heaps.
The first pup to actually lay hands on a stone was a thick-armed two-bead. He ripped it up with a savage shout—only for the nearest guardian to smash him across the chest. The blow lifted him off his feet. The stone flew from his fingers and skittered away across the floor, snatched up in the chaos before he even hit the ground.
The second to succeed was much smaller, just a one-bead, ribs faintly visible under gray skin. Hunger had hollowed his eyes. With a sudden, desperate scream, he sprinted not at the nearest guardian, but at one a little farther down the wall.
That guardian was still in mid-swing, finishing the blow that had flattened the bigger pup. For half a heartbeat, his guard was open.
The small goblin dove, hands scrabbling. Fingers closed around a shining blue stone.
"Run, idiot!" Richard thought.
The guardian recovered quickly. The stick whipped around, but the pup had already thrown himself sideways. The blow clipped his shoulder instead of his head. He tumbled, but he held onto the stone and started running with a triumphant shout.
"Got! Got!" he yelled in garbled Goblinish, holding the stone high.
That was when the others moved.
Three pups tackled him from the side, teeth and nails flashing. The stone flew from his hand, bounced once, and was instantly buried under a pile of grabbing fingers and snapping jaws.
The crowd howled with laughter.
By the time the tangle broke up, the original pup was curled up on the ground, protecting his head with his arms. The stone was gone, clutched to the chest of a stocky three-bead brute who had simply shouldered his way through the brawl and taken it.
The brute barely spared his victim a glance.
Clutching the stone, he charged toward the line of warriors. A few pups made half-hearted attempts to stop him, but he barreled through them like a runaway cart.
Near the end of the line, one of the warriors stepped forward, blocking his path. The brute skidded to a halt, panting, and thrust the blue stone out with both hands.
The warrior took the stone, tossing it back over his shoulder without looking. Taking a single step aside, he created a gap in the wall of bodies.
On the other side, a worker held a bowl.
The brute lunged through the opening. The worker shoved the bowl into his hands and gave him a shove of his own, pushing him aside.
He fell to his knees and buried his face in the food, shuddering with pleasure.
Watching him, the pups collectively lost what little restraint they had left.
The next rush came like a wave.
Pups sprinted toward the stone piles in twos and threes, then in fives and sixes. Sticks cracked down on backs, shoulders, and legs. Some pups went down and stayed down, whimpering. Others stumbled away, clutching bruises.
Every few attempts, somebody got lucky.
Stolen novel; please report.
A nimble pup would slip under a swing, snatch up a stone, and bolt. Most of them didn't make it far. Bigger pups had learned quickly. They lurked just behind the front lines, eyes sharp, waiting for someone smaller to succeed.
When a stone-carrier appeared, they pounced.
Some fights were short, a single sucker-punch or shoulder-check enough to send the stone flying. Others turned into chaotic scrums, a knot of snapping teeth and flailing limbs rolling across the cave floor until the strongest crawled out with the prize.
Sometimes the winner made it to the warriors. Sometimes another opportunist stole it in the last few steps.
Again and again, Richard watched the same pattern repeat.
Small ones grab. Big ones take. Winners eat.
It was messy, brutal, and horrifically efficient.
He stayed where he was, near the middle of the pup cluster. The roar of the crowd beat at his ears. The smell of food clawed at his insides.
His own body trembled, not from fear this time, but from pure, gnawing hunger. The thin daily portions already felt like a distant memory. He'd burned through most of them.
"If I don't eat today," he thought, "tomorrow's going to be worse. And the day after who knows what challenges he would need to overcome"
He watched a tiny one-bead pup make a desperate dash, only to be flattened by a guardian's stick and then stomped on by other pups in their rush to get past.
"If I go up there alone, I get smashed. If I win a stone, they'll jump me before I take three steps."
He glanced down at his own body—slim, with faint lines of muscle starting to show beneath the gray skin. Stronger than he'd been, sure, but against those three-bead bruisers… his courage shriveled.
"Odds of success… what, five percent? Less? But not trying at all is a guaranteed loss."
His throat worked as he swallowed another mouthful of saliva that tasted like nothing.
He took a slow breath, forcing himself to think.
"Fine. I can't win a straight fight. So I won't fight straight."
His eyes scanned the row of guardians.
Most of them still had healthy piles of blue stones at their feet. Some had hardly been touched — pups had learned quickly which ones swung fastest and hit hardest. Others had noticeably smaller piles, surrounded by scuffed stone where feet had slid and bodies had fallen.
Richard's gaze settled on one such guardian near the end of the row.
The goblin's swings were wide and heavy, impressive at a glance but slow on the recovery. Several times, Richard had seen pups slip in and grab a stone while he was still dragging his stick back into position. His pile was the smallest of them all now.
"Incompetent, lazy, or just dumb," Richard thought. "Perfect."
He shifted his attention to the pups, watching the flow of their attacks. They had started going in clusters, almost unconsciously, feeding off each other's courage. After one rush failed, there would be a lull, then another group would surge forward.
He waited, feeling the pattern.
A few pups sprang toward the stones at the lazy guardian's feet. Richard rose with them, but a step behind, staying just outside the main line of charge. The big goblin grinned, eager, lifting his stick high as the pups converged on him from different directions.
He swung at the largest first.
The blow connected with a satisfying thud, sending the pup flying. The second dove for the stones and caught the stick on his back for his trouble. The third, a wiry little thing, jumped back, retreating out of reach.
Richard hit the gap.
He slid between the staggering second pup and the guardian's leg, dropped to all fours, and snatched at the ground with both hands.
Cold, smooth stones filled his fingers, pressed together. He dragged them toward his chest, lurched to his feet, and ran.
For three glorious heartbeats, he felt like he might make it.
Then the stick came down like a falling tree.
Pain exploded across his back. The blow hurled him forward; he slammed face-first into the floor, leaving him dazed. His fingers spasmed, and the stones flew from his grip, bouncing once before skittering away.
Then the others were on him — not for him, but for whatever had fallen— and he vanished under the brawl. Hands grabbed at his arms, his legs, his neck — then let go when they realized he didn't have any stone.
In seconds, he was forgotten, another piece of debris on the battlefield.
Richard lay still, sucking in short, painful breaths, his teeth clenched tight.
Slowly, he rolled onto his side and curled up, making himself small. His face twisted into what he hoped looked like defeat.
The fight over "his" stones shifted away, dragged by the rolling knot of bodies.
A deep, triumphant shout signaled another winner making it to the line. The crowd cheered.
Richard pushed himself upright, wobbling.
Head down, shoulders slumped, he limped toward the wall of warriors.
It was a familiar posture. Every time a pup lost badly, they dragged themselves back to the others like this.
No one spared him a glance.
Even up close, the warriors were more focused on the incoming winners than on one skinny pup moving slowly along the line.
His heart felt like it was beating in his throat.
Richard stopped in front of a warrior and looked up.
For a moment, the warrior didn't react.
Then his gaze dropped. He frowned, as if annoyed at being bothered by a loser. He opened his mouth to bark something — probably an insult.
Richard spat the stone into his hand and thrust it up. Blue glinted between his fingers.
For a heartbeat, the warrior was frozen.
Then the warrior's expression changed. Contempt softened into something like appreciation. He snatched the stone from Richard's hand with practiced speed and tossed it behind him.
He stepped aside.
Richard's legs almost refused to move. Instinct screamed at him not to go closer to the giant monsters, to stay with the relative safety of the pups. But his body moved anyway, pushed by hunger and a lifetime's habit of walking through doors marked "VIP Only."
He slipped through.
On the other side, the world smelled even stronger.
One of the workers walked toward him, snorted, and shoved a bowl into his hands.
The bowl was hot enough to sting his fingers.
He barely felt it.
Inside was… food.
Not the thin, bitter porridge they poured down their throats in the home cave, but thick stew. Chunks of meat — some with bits of bone still attached — floated in a greasy, fragrant broth along with soft, indistinct lumps that might have been mushrooms.
The smell hit him like a punch.
His mouth flooded. His vision blurred.
For a moment, Richard just stared.
His human mind protested for exactly half a second. The stew was greasy, heavily salted, spiced with something harsh and metallic that burned the back of his throat.
His goblin body didn't care.
Every swallow sent warmth spreading through his chest and limbs, seeping into exhausted muscles. His hands shook as he shoveled more in, barely chewing, just making sure nothing spilled. By the time he scraped the bottom of the bowl with his fingers, he was panting, sweat beading on his forehead.
He licked the bowl clean.
Only then did he realize his eyes were wet.
"Get a grip," he whispered, voice rough. "It's just stew."
He sat there for a while, bowl in his lap, letting his breathing slow. The workers ignored him, focused on the steady flow of pups managing to get through. Some were big bruisers who had clearly muscled their way to stones. Others were small, trembling, still bleeding from earlier beatings.
Every one of them clutched a blue stone before crossing.
Every one of them left with a bowl.
Richard glanced over his shoulder, toward the crowd of pups still trapped on the other side.
A lot of stones were gone now. The piles near the laziest guardians had dwindled to nothing. Only the harshest, quickest ones still had a few left, and even those were being chipped away as desperate pups hurled themselves against them.
The waves of attacks had lost their earlier energy. The pups moved slower, some limping, others too bruised to run at full speed. Screams and sobs blended with the roar of the crowd. At the same time the guardian goblins also seemed tired.
Still, the pattern held.
Small, agile pups darted in to grab stones.
Big, brutal pups stole them.
Winners ate.
"Natural selection, goblin edition," Richard thought grimly.
Time blurred.
The fires burned lower. The cauldrons emptied spin by spin of the ladles. One by one, the piles of blue stones vanished, until the guardians stood above bare rock, sticks resting on their shoulders.
Finally, with a last bellow from the big goblin and a few more theatrical thumps of his club, the warriors stepped back. The workers hauled away the cauldrons.
Of all the pups that had been herded into the cave, maybe two-thirds bore the dazed, slack-jawed look of the recently fed. Grease slicked their chins.
The remaining third huddled together, bellies still hollow.
Most of those were small.
Richard watched them through half-lidded eyes. Some had tried and failed, limping now from their efforts. Others hadn't moved at all, too afraid or too cautious to step forward.
"Next time," he thought, "they'll be weaker. Easier targets."
A fresh chill settled in his chest, dulling the warmth of the stew.
The same workers who had dragged them here returned, coils of rope looped over their shoulders. Moving with practiced efficiency, they seized pups in pairs and trios, binding them into the same rope-chains as before.
As the line jerked into motion and they began the march back to the nursery cave, he closed his eyes and thought a single word.
"Status."
The translucent screen sprang up in front of his mind's eye, clearer now than it had ever been.
#########################
General:
Name: None
Path: None
Patron: None
Stats:
Body: 5
Mind: 12
Spirit: 6
Exp: 1
#########################
One little number had finally changed.
Richard stared at it as the rope dragged him through the tunnels, the echo of the crowd's laughter and the crack of sticks still ringing in his ears.
"So that's how it is," he thought.
"In this world, you eat… or you become someone else's experiance."
