Dungeon Sniper

Neither Nasty nor I budged an inch from where we stood, facing each other in the distance. My index finger tightly grasping the bow grip twitched involuntarily. Nasty held his Metal Slingshot firmly and calmly.

"So? How are we going to do this?" I said toward the despicable Goblin.

"Simple. I kill you with joy, eat you while your heart is still pumping, and join the other tribe and continue hunting down Humans as I have done all my life."

"Make sure you tell me where this 'other' tribe is before you die so I can wipe them out as I wiped out yours."

"The tongue. I will pluck it out and swallow it whole the first thing."

We stood still for another long five seconds.

I reached for the quiver tied to my back almost at the same time as Nasty took out a pebble from his waist pouch.

Nasty was quicker, and with the unnocked arrow still in my hand, I rolled sideways and hid behind a tree as I watched a pebble shooting up dirt on the spot I had stood a second ago.

The pebble had dug for more than two inches into the ground. I blinked silently as cold sweat ran down my spine.

"I have always liked the notion of shooting down prey from afar."

Nasty's voice echoed around the dense forest. He had also moved from his original position, and my Echolocation had a hard time picking up his exact location due to his constant movement. He also shot at faraway branches and twigs to distract my concentration. For an ugly, barbaric monster, he knew how to fight pretty damn well.

"But the bows, they feel ever so clumsy in our hands. Imagine my frustration, Human, that a technology is lost with us forever due to something so trivial as physical limitations. Do we have the strength? If your weak Human arms could pull the string, our kind can do with thrice the power. But, alas, the length of our limbs. Sometimes I want to curse the Creator who designed us this way, in this form," Nasty's voice rang from all over the place.

"Yeah, well, add your ugly faces to the list of complaints," I retorted, only to be immediately greeted by a sharp pebble shooting off the bark of the tree that I crouched behind.

I sprinted across the open field to hide behind another tree. Three more pebbles came flying my way, narrowly missing me near my feet.

I had yet to nock an arrow to my bow, let alone locate Nasty's position. On the other hand, he seemed to know where I was, where I would be heading, and what I was planning next. It was probably better for me to shut up and stop telegraphing Nasty where I was, but I could not stop myself from one last quip.

"So you got yourself a children's toy. Hey, I didn't see you with your toy in our first meeting. I guess it must be embarrassing for you to carry it all the time. I mean, I'm embarrassed myself just looking at you holding that in your fat fist like it's some deadly weapon—"

And then came two more pebble shots in my direction. Well, I had that coming. This time I snuck from a tree to tree as quietly as I could.

"For every arrow you manage to shoot at me, I can shoot two pebbles within the same time span. You are a bigger target too. You cannot win this, Human," boomed Nasty's voice, reflecting off every solid surface and object in the forest.

"How in hell is he finding me?" I cursed under my breath and was frustrated to find yet another pebble shot narrowly missing my head and stuck deep inside a tree not far away from me.

"Confused, are you?" echoed Nasty's voice.

"More like annoyed," I muttered under my breath.

"I will tell you, because you deserve to know our kind's supremacy over your kind, and in turn your pathetic existence as mere prey. I have used my Reflect Voice, a traditional Goblin hunting technique. Only the best scouts can learn this ability, and master it. They work on all kinds of creatures with ears, but it is the most fun when I get to watch Humans looking around with scared, hopeless eyes."

I kept my mouth shut this time. If I kept quiet, he would not be able to find me. Or so I hoped.

Nasty's voice turned into sharp laughter all of a sudden.

"Foolish Human, you laugh at my weapon, but you, you thought carrying a fancy bow suddenly turned you into a hunter? Goblins are the natural-born hunters, and your kind is eternally doomed as the prey. You are weak, pathetic... but delicious, I will give you that."

It was unfair he was trash-talking all he wanted while I had to keep quiet. As one could see, I was a pretty good trash-talker myself. It was one of my less celebrated talents as the world's best professional gamer. But more on that later.

I figured the day would break in a couple of hours. Goblins, the so-called hunters-by-nature or whatever, had good enough eyes on their own but they could not see in the dark as clearly as I did with my Night Eye Skill, originally from one haughty owl who did not see his death coming between its eyes. The ability to see better in the dark was probably the only advantage I had over Nasty at this point, meaning I had to finish this impossible fight while it was still nighttime.

I was contemplating possible strategies when I heard the sound of wind slashing followed by a sharp pain in the upper arm. A pebble hit me. And this was no scratch or grazing the skin either. A sizeable chunk of my arm had a deep cut—no, hole—with blood dripping and soaking the Leather Jacket I had put on.

It was a good thing that I was too shocked to let out a cry of pain. Nasty still found me crouching behind one of the thousand trees in the vicinity when I had not said a single word to reveal my location.

How? I made sure I kept my mouth shut. And it was difficult with Nasty taunting me and I had like a hundred pent-up comebacks in my tongue.

"Did I get you? I smell blood. You see, Human, I can do this all night long. You can even say I live for this," cackled Nasty's voice arrogantly.

I was about to swallow another curse when it hit me. The smell. He said it himself. Nasty was tracking me down with my 'Human' smell.

I stripped n.a.k.e.d and left all my clothes. The shoulder that got hit with the pebble hurt like hell when I turned, so I just ripped the worn Leather Jacket from the sleeve up. In a matter of seconds, I had nothing on me except the Hunting Bow, the Quiver with nine arrows hung on my back, and Mataki's Blade that I held in my mouth. Then I rolled the Leather Jacket, partial Leather Armor, and Ragged Pants into tight balls and threw them towards different directions.

The ripped, blood-soaked Leather Jacket traveled the farthest, hitting a branch and hanging by it—only to be shot down by two pebbles in a row momentarily.

"The blood just reeks in the air, does it not? I hit you pretty good this time, no?" echoed Nasty's excited voice. As smart and devious as Nasty was, he was still the same stupid Goblin like the rest of them. He still did not realize that he slipped his tongue. I let him have his fun while I moved swiftly for my next action.

I arrived at where the three dead Goblins lay on the ground when Nasty's voice had also stopped ringing around the forest. The three separate smell sources divided among my castaway clothes had finally thrown him off the track.

But I had no time to idle at such a small victory. I held Mataki's Blade and slashed at one of the dead bodies. The heart had long stopped beating so there was no blood spurting everywhere, and this was one of the rare moments, if not the only moment, that I wished I was showered with Goblin blood all over my n.a.k.e.d body. Left with no choice, I put both of my hands inside the still-warm body, took them out and sprayed the blood over my skin hurriedly.

I was masking my Human scent. And I did not stop there. I cut off all six limbs of the three Goblins as well as the heads—which was done surprisingly easily thanks to the sharp edge of Mataki's Blade—grabbed an armful of bloody Goblin body parts and threw them all over the place as I ran.

The forest stank of Goblin blood now. I wanted to shout out, 'Your move,' to Nasty, but I was smart enough not to do that. I thought the message was clear. A severed Goblin arm with only the middle finger extended was not exactly a call for a truce.

Nasty's silence for the past few minutes only confirmed that I had made the right decision. He was confused, and I got him good.

I kicked the last head into a bush and threw the arm to hang it by a branch of a particularly tall tree ahead. Nasty had stopped echoing his voices around, probably figuring out his next move to locate me and keep pressuring me to run. I might have avoided being spotted by smell, but I still had the task to locate Nasty myself.

We were playing hide-and-seek in the dark woods, a kill-or-be-killed game, and the hider has become the seeker now. At least, both Nasty and I were hider and seeker at the same time.

It was this new reversed perspective that gave light to my next plan. Everything was coming together now. My limitations with Echolocation and Scent Tracker Skills pitted against Nasty's subpar night vision compared to mine. No Skill or Perk was perfect, I could see that now, and Nasty's annoying Reflect Voice was no exception either. I concentrated hard on how to beat the confusing voices that ricocheted off every solid object within the forest.

My eyes fixed on the one Goblin arm hanging too high on the branch of a tree. I was thinking how ineffective of a scent decoy it had become, as the increased height and elevation of its location only meant less smell it would reach to the ground level.

And there it was. My breakthrough. My checkmate-equivalent to the Goblins who ambushed me by burrowing through the ground and springing out of nowhere.

I ran towards the tallest tree in the vicinity, grabbed the trunk and forced myself upward. My b.a.r.e skin scratched and bled from the rough surface of the bark, but it was all worth it.

Could the Goblins climb a tree? I doubted it, not with their T-Rex arms. Their arms were so short and needlessly muscular while their girth was uniformly thick. Some Goblins, or freaks of their kind, could climb, but I gambled that they never had to climb a tree before. The fact that they were specialized diggers suggested that 'going up' had never been an option. Just as eagles would never imagine a threat from above their heads, the Goblins would have only heeded to what was ahead and below, their niche hunting grounds. If the Goblins were the top predators, the best hunters in the area as Nasty had claimed they were, there was a chance that I might have pulled off an unimaginable tactic on their part.

When I was half-way up the tree, an angry outcry reverberated through the forest.

"You dare desecrate my brothers? I will kill you thrice for what you have done, Human!"

I bit my tongue not to shout out, "You killed them first, you idiot!" It was very difficult, but something made me smile to let go of the urge rather quickly. No, Nasty's unreasonable anger was just a bonus to my ears.

With added height, the echo of the voice dwindled considerably. I was confident that the further I went up, I would be able to pinpoint the exact location of Nasty.

By the time I got to the top of the tree, my scratched, scarred body was covered in both Goblin blood and mine. I managed to take a breath or two because not only did it feel nice to breathe fresh air away from the bloody smell down below, but because I had reached the endgame. If Nasty ever looked up and smelled the air, my fresh Human blood would surely expose me as a stranded, wingless bird with nowhere to escape.

On the other hand, I was kind of hoping some of the blood left on the tree bark would lure Nasty towards here. That would save me time to locate him myself.

I could feel my stamina was running low. I had been using too much Echolocation and wasting stamina vainly, not to mention running around the woods aimlessly for the last hour before climbing a thirty-foot tree without proper gear—without any clothes. I had bitten into Mataki's Blade so hard the past ten or so minutes I feared that I left a teeth mark on the beautiful dagger-sword. Either that or my jaw would break the next time I chewed another raw rabbit meat. Such a trivial thing to worry, sure, but I was finally catching up my breath before the final act of the prolonged battle.

I used Echolocation that I knew to be my last Skill activation for a long, if not for the last, time and listened to what was happening below. Nasty realized some time ago that I had hidden myself completely, and it was his turn to be hunted down. So he resorted to making random cries and tongue-clicks to keep me in the confusion of echoing voices. He thought he was masking his footsteps and other noises by constantly throwing voices off objects.

He had no idea that there was no more echo to be heard around so high up in the air. To be fair, he had never climbed a tree before, so he could not have been able to test the range of the voice. Even if he did test it on birds perched atop trees, the birds would have flown away at the hostile sound rather than run around in a circle to escape from the approaching Goblins.

In other words, the Reflect Voice was supposed to affect ground animals—Humans, in Nasty's case—most optimally and effectively. I could see that now, and with such a conclusion, I was beginning to feel confident.

But not too confident. I remembered all too clearly the last time I got c.o.c.ky with a Goblin. In fact, the same Goblin hooting and hopping thirty feet below my feet at the moment.

I kept waiting, above the height of Human ears where the echo had stopped, hoping for my Echolocation Skill to pick up a vivid sonar image of Nasty running about and cl.i.c.k.i.n.g his tongues wildly, cursing at each sight of the severed body parts I littered around the woods. So far it had been just a passing image. But he was coming closer. He had to, or I would be a sitting duck by the daybreak and an easy target for Nasty and his no-joke of a peashooter.

It was then that my Night Eye turned off abruptly. I swayed dangerously in panic and almost knocked myself over and down to the ground. There. My stamina had run out. No Night Eye. No Echolocation. Just me, n.a.k.e.d and helpless, left alone in total darkness.

I could hear my heart thumping, and—by some miracle or bad luck—a distant panting and persistent hoots of one nasty Goblin. Of course, it would have come down to this. There was no other way for this twisted battle to pan out, and come to a conclusion. Both and just Nasty and I, one-on-one, out of wits, and out of resources.

I took long breaths to slow down my heart, and the sound of Nasty kept coming nearer, closer.

When my heart took one big thump and stopped dead silent, so did the bustling noise of approaching Nasty. I closed my eyes, as opening them did not make any difference in the pitch dark that I was left in. I could no longer hear Nasty. I could hear his breathing, and I knew he was down there, standing thirty feet down and examining the curious blood mark extending from the bottom to the foreseeable height of the trunk until hidden by thick leaves.

But I did not know where exactly he was standing. I needed his exact location so I could shoot him down from up here. I only had one shot. If I missed, a barrage of pebbles were coming in my way.

I just needed one indication that he was standing still at one spot. Perhaps he was examining the blood trail, wondering where I had left from there. I could imagine Nasty looking down on the ground in search of a hole as naturally as a denizen and expert of underground tunneling. Then he would come to his sense that Humans were not capable burrowers like the Goblins, oblivious to the fact that I was probably the only Human who could indeed dig holes like the next Goblin....

But that was okay. I wanted Nasty to keep thinking. Keep being bewildered. Keep wondering what had happened, why the blood stopped here.

Why would the Human spray blood so high on the trunk where he would barely find it? Then Nasty would recall seeing a Goblin arm hanging in the high tree. Hopefully, Nasty stopped thinking at that point. Humans were taller than Goblins, and he would concentrate on the nonexistent trail of the blood.

But Nasty was a special Goblin. Quite possibly the smartest Goblin there ever was. I had to give him that. I would call him a worthy opponent even.

But then he was also a dumb, stupid Goblin nonetheless.

And I thanked him for his stupidity, as demonstrated by his next crucial mistake.

In the dark, Nasty had to stare above and mutter a word so brilliantly, yet so carelessly.

"Climb?"

Time slowed down the moment I heard the first consonant out of Nasty's mouth. I had my bow ready, pointing downward all along. My eyes were still closed, but a single-word utterance was all I needed to know where my enemy was at.

I could picture Nasty's ugly face looking up at the tree in half-enlightenment, half-confusion, his mouth still moving to finish the one word he should have kept to himself.

I loosed the arrow. There was a thud, the sound of a falling body, and I knew my Blind Shot Skill had hit the mark.

.

.

.

When I climbed down the tree and stumbled across the dark, I could hear a faint, shallow breath on the ground.

Nasty was not dead, yet.

Next to Nasty's outspread arm and glistening in the dark was his Metal Slingshot. I picked it up, thought about it, and chucked it into the bushes. My shoulder still hurt from that damnable toy. I just hoped no other Goblin played with that thing, ever.

"Nice shot, Human," coughed Nasty, his voice no longer echoing—nor arrogant as before.

I approached closer to the lying body and vaguely saw that it had not been a clean shot. The arrow had hit Nasty' body diagonally, entering from the collarbone and sticking out at the lower back, narrowly missing the heart.

"Are you still curious about the location of another Goblin Lair?" asked Nasty with a wheezing voice. I figured that his lungs had either collapsed or punctured from the arrow.

"Why? Are you going to tell me?"

"Keep heading north, and by the river there will be three settlements. The nearest Goblin Lair is there, along with a Dwarven minetown and an Elven... colony."

"Why so generous, Nasty?"

"My name is Karuchi. Remember that name, Human."

"I don't think I want to," I shook my head.

Nasty-Karuchi scoffed and coughed a spit full of blood.

"It was a good fight," said the dying Goblin with difficulty.

I did not say anything. I did not want to say anything.

"You won, Human, now, finish me. The Cycle of Life beckons me to become a part, and I will leave this world to join the greater world."

"Yeah? Where is that?"

"Somewhere," muttered Nasty, his eyes blank and staring ahead. He was going to die anyway without my help. But I wanted something from him.

I held Mataki's Blade and hesitated whether I should aim for the head or the heart.

I went for the head.

[Skill gained: Reflect Voice]

Mataki's Blade pierced deep into Nasty's head unlike the last time I had tried with a Rusted Dagger, Daggy. I pulled off the dagger-sword and stared down at the annoyingly peaceful face of one ugly Goblin bastard.

[So Karuchi joins the Cycle. Good for him. Always been a child with immense potential, but an equally strong obsession.]

"Who's there?" I turned sharply to the abrupt voice, swinging the dagger-sword in the air. The voice came from close by.

[Right here, young hero. I see that you took my advice and did search the c.h.e.s.t after all.]

Either I was getting high from all the Goblin blood that I had been sniffing, or Mataki's Blade was glowing on and off in the dark—and talking to me.