Born a Monster

Remember how I keep saying no plan survives contact with the enemy?

Hobgoblins are generally tall (almost the size of humans) and thin. In proportions, they more resemble taller elves, and the pointed ears do nothing to make that similarity less. Or, they’re what happens when goblins are crossbred with humans, which I find more likely.

Some day, I need to do actual research into such things.

In any case, I mention it because when I say that the armored hobgoblin who strode into the tent was broad of shoulder, I don’t mean like an uruk or dwarf, but rather he was tall and wide and muscular for one of his kind. He easily bore the plate and chain armor of the invading generals, and in one hand an arming sword (called longswords by the ignorant), as casually as I might wear clothing.

“Sir, you can’t...” my guard began.

He could. He did. Screaming something incoherent, he took two steps and plunged the sword into my heart.

I don’t mean into my chest toward my heart; his System somehow knew I stored my heart left and upward of where it would have been efficient, and struck directly, deep enough that the point of his blade ended up in the center of my beating heart.

As he made a disgusted face, he withdrew his sword with the usual twist, coating all of us in blood.

Have you ever been in so much pain that you literally can’t scream?

.....

I fell to the left, bringing the chair with me. It turns out that manner of injury creates not one but three fatal conditions. I slapped [Stalwart Health] on the one that looked worst, [Heart Punctured]. Yes, yes, in the future, [Heart Stopped] has priority. Live and learn.

So, the general was screaming about his son, the guard was shouting for assistance, and I was gasping, letting my lungs take in air that wasn’t getting distributed to the rest of my body.

It was a feeling not unlike [Smothering], which may actually have been among my conditions. For such a simple thing, the biological effects were numerous. Add in the lingering injuries I already had, and my System was near useless.

<System. Dismiss language interface for thirty seconds.>

[Command not understood.]

NOT NOW, STUPID SYSTEM!

[Command not understood.]

<Dismiss System prompts. Timer. Thirty seconds.>

I let out a sigh, nearly panicking as it took a second or two for my lungs to try breathing in again.

Can you call it panicking when you’re already panicked?

Anyway, I had, to a degree, prepared for such a thing. I wasn’t a warrior, but I got into a lot of fights. It was only a matter of time until something like this happened. So, I’d done what I could.

I had the nutrients for a transformation, and triggered a return to my normal form.

Now, why not just let my System do that? Well, it didn’t like changing forms when I was this badly injured. For obvious reasons, there wasn’t time to argue with my System about this.

So why not turn my System entirely off, or send it into a reboot? I hadn’t learned to do transformations without it. I know, the sort of stupid thing I should have been learning, and the incident did prompt me to make that part of my daily routine.

And, although it sounds silly to admit now, I remembered how, as a newborn, I’d first developed [Amphibian Lungs]. It hadn’t been through an interface, and I hadn’t even gotten the genetics of an amphibian. I’d needed something to survive, and it had just happened.

And yes, I considered that without the [Maternal Biomass Loan], that might just fail.

Death, I recall someone saying, is the sucker’s bet. There’s no coming back, and life just ends. All the things you could have done, or just sat back and not done, those are all over. And they never come back. You don’t come back.

You go into the light, like the silvery ball of Mara that was rapidly approaching.

“No!” she shrieked. “You die by MY hand! The Fates promised!”

Don’t try talking while your voicebox is between forms. Just don’t. Some things are just so stupid that they stick with your reputation until all witnesses have died.

So I lay there as bones broke, and tendons came loose and writhed, as blood vessels expelled their contents to find new positions before taking in the blood at those areas. As organs not designed to bend and flex did so.

Transformation is a messy process, and it takes a lot out of me.

But hey! Brand new heart, just like I’d hoped!

Well, no. It had a scar on it, where it had wrapped itself closed. And, distressingly, it had forgotten where I’d wanted it and just returned to where normal people would keep one.

In short, while my “normal” form was nothing that would have evolved naturally, the pieces moved to match evolution, rather than my custom design.

I coughed up bile and other poisons; my pores leaked ammonia. The chemical changes that let me keep those in my bloodstream … were gone. But my heart beat, and the edges of my vision were fading back in from black to red.

My breathing stabilized, and I could rise.

It turns out that chairs don’t fare so well during my transformations. My wrists had thrashed my hands right off to get me clear of the manacles, and then just absorbed them right back in.

Something, again, that my System wouldn’t allow.

And... it wasn’t wrong. I stood, just breathing, at a height some four inches, a year and a half of careful growth, below where I had last viewed the world.

I was chuckling, even as I fell backward and to the right, pulled off balance by the weight of my own tail.

“No.” said the armored form on the other side of the tent. “No, you have killed my son, and you will die for that.”

Oh, right. That was still going on.

I know no shame; I ran.

On all fours, I scrambled outside the tent into the night. I’d like to say that it was instinct, but it was pure fear. I’d nearly died, something I’d spent every day of my life avoiding. And every day since, yes.

The thing about conscript armies? Run far enough through such a camp, and you’ll find some youth or other who wrestled hogs on their farm. In fact, you can find a small group of them, if they decide to hang together.

You can find yourself trussed up in rope, wrists, ankles, and tail all in a neat bundle, and your fanged mouth securely muzzled.

Not by professionals; it took only four farmhands, beaming at each other in the moonlight.

“Priceless.” Mara said, rising toward the moon. “I’ll treasure that sight until I gouge your eyes out with my thumbs, and break your neck.”

By the time they turned me over to my keepers, my breathing had slowed. Some parts of rational brain thinking had come back to me. Some parts; if they had untied me then, I’d have clawed and bitten and attempted to run.

Hortiluk looked... old. Old and tired. And why shouldn’t he have? Unlike me, he’d been enjoying a good night’s sleep.

But the sight of me acted upon him as a restorative.

“Do you know who attacked you?” he asked, turning his attention from his fallen sentry.

I grunted and shrugged. I’d killed a lot of people’s sons. And daughters. And fathers.

“Pity.” Hortiluk said. “All the money on chains and yet a simple coil of rope holds you so securely.”

He scratched at his scalp, where a serious case of bed head was trying to ruin his image.

“Double... no, triple his guard. Recruit outside the Trusted, if you must.”

“You can’t still mean to keep the hob-monster here.” Alexis said.

“Exactly what we must do, now.” Hortiluk said. “And hob-monster?”

“Hobgoblins are booted goblins.” she explained. “If that thing can wear boots, then it’s a hob-monster.”

That made Hortiluk smile. “Keep it bound. Keep it muzzled. It might not have killed Arion, but it’s the reason he’s dead.”

He seemed to collapse a little. “And prepare a pyre. Arion wanted a traditional funeral.”

Hortiluk rubbed his eyes. “Only a limited number of people possess the arrogance to walk in here believing they could just walk back out. There will be vengeance, this I swear to you. But for now... protect the hob-monster.”

“How intact do we need it?” Malgaunt asked.

“None of this is it’s fault, Malguant. Don’t untie the thing, not before dawn.” he looked down upon me. “But no, word of this will spread through the camp. Now we have no choice. We must surrender him to the Forge, now.”

His face looked untroubled as he said this. “All of you, get what rest you can. This will become worse before we can make it better.”

And then, a sweep of his nightgown, and he was gone. Out the tent flap, not like a puff of faerie magic.

“Get some sleep.” Malgaunt said. “Like that’s happening. Okay, who’s helping me with Arion?”

“I’ve tended bodies before.” Alexis said. “He deserves the hand of a friend.”