The goblin snapped the end off the spear, leaving just the head and half a foot of haft buried in his abdomen. It used that end, bracing itself in the water with its tail, to flip Jay over its head and into the sand. The diving suit, as good as it was for keeping him warm and breathing, didn’t do anything to soften the jolt or the tearing sensation of the spear’s movement.

  The impact hadn’t been quite hard enough to knock the breath out of Jay but that didn’t make any of the associated feelings pleasant.

  The goblin shot a look at its companions and barked a sibilant word that he didn’t catch through the burst of bubbles it caused. Two of them broke off from their individual fights, clubbing members of Group One with the ends of their spears to gain some space. Jay didn’t catch what they did after that beyond that it involved digging into a pocket on one of the straps they were wearing and making an underhanded throwing motion toward the one that had speared him.

  All he saw were flashes of the other fights as the goblin that had turned him into a shish kebab dragged him along the ground, his vision obscured by the combination of pain and silt. Jay could feel the grit seeping in with the water where he’d been stabbed; whatever weak seal the spear had formed with the leather that had kept both out so far wasn’t holding.

  He even lost himself in the burning feeling for a few minutes, only coming back to what remained of his rationality when the first lizard dropped something into the end of the spear. He had a second to process that, to realize that that was why they’d broken so easily, before he felt things twine around his limbs.

  They were cold and scaly, whatever they were, and spread out from his gut to bind every one of his limbs. They were in his suit. They were in his suit, tightening around his joints, binding his neck, even cutting into his breathing slightly as they squirmed into place.

  It felt like they were growing even, spreading out from where the spear had driven through him and encasing every inch of his body below the neck. They didn’t seem willing to slither into the helmet though, so Jay had a clear view as they spread out and enveloped the outside as well. They were the whip-like eels from the first day of the adjustment training, but now he could see that the line of light stretching down their length was a chain of eyes.

  That wasn’t creepy at all.

  They lashed back and forth over the faceplate and Jay could feel the extra restriction from the eels covering the outside of his suit too. When the last bit of his body was wrapped up, [Magic Sense] and [Astral Sense] both went crazy. The first felt like nothing he’d sensed before, a knot of power flowing through all of the eels and drawing in to cover him before dispersing in a flash.

  The second only told him that he was now somewhere else. Somewhere that the stars felt different and space itself felt odd. It was a worrying feeling and the System box that showed up as the eels slid off him didn’t help that feeling.

  *

  The eels, now slack, put up no resistance to Jay’s attempts to claw them off except for the ones that had stuck to his skin in the dried blood. Even that wouldn’t have been anything if it weren’t for the tugging jostling the portion of the spear that was still in him. It felt like every motion was tearing the wound open more.

  Wherever he was within Amyx – assuming he understood what a dimensional space was correctly – was dark and growing darker. The light of the line of eyes on the whip-eels was dying out, presumably as they did the same; after all, they weren’t in water anymore and the things pretty clearly hadn’t been natural creatures.

  The space also smelled absolutely terrible. It was a heavy smell, like the inside of a compost bin, but the darkness was too complete for him to see where it came from. It didn’t fill him with confidence that whatever the goblin before had meant by calling him ‘meat’ was going to end in anything that was even survivable for him.

  In an attempt to avoid that fate, Jay tried using [Lesser Resurrection] on the corpses but the green wisps were thin and flickered out before the spell could complete. Even the minor bit of focus that it took was disrupted by the pain of the spear. He contemplated, briefly, taking it out, but that seemed like a quick path to bleeding out.

  He didn’t have time to reattempt the spell before the sound of rock grinding filled the space. Two sets of footsteps shuffled into the room with their owners backlit by soft lighting from whatever was outside. They were humanoid, or at least moved like it, but the actual shape of their bodies were lost in voluminous robes.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t connect the dots that they were more of the lizard-like goblins. The footsteps approached him in a slow but steady tread, as if every step was deliberated before it was taken. When they grew close enough to touch him, they stopped.

  “Meat,” one said, the hissing language obviously the same as the one the goblin had spoken underwater. It sounded different without the water interfering, clearer and brighter.

  “Meat,” the second one agreed. Lines of yellow light flooded out from the sleeves of that one, illuminating clawed hands before locking into place around his limbs to keep him in place. The light anchored into the ground he was lying on, tripping [Sense Magic] the whole time, and leaching both his ability to move and his desire to.

  What was it with these goblins and trying to keep him still? Also, why did they sound like stereotypical evil witches?

  “An interesting one, this time,” the second croaked.

  “Hm,” the first hummed. “It is certainly ripe.”

  “Ripe. Growing. Growing many things,” the second agreed.

  They both began poking at him, each jab seemingly in a random place. A dot of coldness lingered with each prod as if they were leaving some mark behind.

  The first one raised its hands over him and an almost liquid tide of red light drifted out. It coalesced into a rough model of him, like a mannequin with his proportions, and every one of the little cold spots glowed a brighter red than the bulk of the body. The only thing that matched them were the round masses within the rest of the model, each below the spots. Some were larger than others, including one right where his diaphragm was that was so large it seemed like it should have been stopping him from breathing.

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  “We could keep him,” the one with the yellow magic said.

  “Farm him,” the other agreed.

  “More food. More meat.”

  At this point, Jay was feeling extremely cold across his entire body, not just the dots they’d left in their poking. His vast experience with war movies and historical accounts told him that that was a bad thing. Even keeping track of their conversation was going from difficult to impossible.

  “But only if he can be kept alive,” the first pointed out as if she’d noticed him fading, touching the spear and sending a lightning bolt of pain through Jay.

  “Yes, yes,” the second agreed. “That would hamper a harvest.” She made another motion, the downwards scooping barely lit by the glow of the model of Jay’s body. The rock that had been anchoring the light began to flow, most morphing to take the place of the magical shackles but even more crept up and around his waist to lock the core of his body in place too.

  The energy drain increased. The stone felt like it was radiating heat that seeped into him, a very welcome feeling to counteract the frigidity of the blood loss. If he’d had full freedom of movement he’d have cuddled into the feeling.

  Then the goblin with the red magic reached into his gut wound and pain drove every thought of warmth or coldness from his mind. Time skipped as Jay lost himself in the overflow of agony. By the time his rationality returned enough to notice that he was healed, the duo were talking – and prodding – again.

  “Harvest the large ones early,” the one who had moved the stone said. “Then leave the others to grow and more besides.

  The other one hummed in agreement. “Careful, careful. Much to lose with one wrong cut.” She raised a hand to the floating model of Jay’s body and gestured as if slicing fully through the thigh.

  The grinding noise of the stone door filled the small space again, this time letting in a tide of light that let Jay see all the way to the ceiling of the chamber for the first time. It wasn’t a pretty sight, hunks of meat hanging from flared stalactites; he had thought the smell was bad before but now he had to count himself lucky it wasn’t worse.

  He couldn’t see who came in, still being locked into the stone, but he definitely heard him start speaking. He had a booming voice that somehow managed to echo despite the small size of the room. “What morsel are you keeping to yourselves in here?” The man’s voice lacked the sibilance of the other goblins.

  “Nothing, nothing,” one of the old goblins said, waving the idea off.

  “Just a benefit for the hive," the other crooned. “In very delicate state.”

  “I can see the state of him. What benefit could this possibly have for your kin?”

  The word choice didn’t escape Jay now that he was able to pay proper attention. Your kin, not our kin. There was someone other than a goblin in here.

  Neither of the elderly goblin women answered, returning to their debate over which of the presumable tumors to take out first.

  The man sighed and the golden light he’d brought with him increased. “Let’s try this one more time. What benefit does this show of yours have?”

  [Sense Magic] had never gone off quite like it was now. How strong was this new person? Even the Mushkhushshu’s ritual hadn’t felt anywhere near this.

  The robed goblins had collapsed to their knees at the threat in his voice, flattening themselves against the ground as if begging. “Food forever. You commanded us to spread the hive. We need to eat to have a chance of doing so.”

  “Hm,” the man said, noncommittal. “I did say that. But if you’ll recall, I also instructed you not to interfere with the other aspects of this plan. So why is one of my own on the verge of dissection?”

  “We –” the first started before choking her sentence into silence.

  “We didn’t know he was yours, my lord,” the second picked up. “How could we have?”

  “By using the sense that you should have as a Classbound species. You will not take this man again, do you understand me?” By the end of the question the man’s voice had gone eerily quiet, not quite a whisper but the words definitely seemed like they wanted to be one.

  Both of the goblins frantically agreed.

  “Shall I let him free, my lord?” the one with the yellow magic asked.

  “No,” he replied. “I will do it. You two would do well to leave this room at all possible speed.”

  They fled. The door ground shut behind them. [Sense Magic] finally stopped pinging and the golden light receded back to the level it had been when the man had first come into the room.

  The man, who Jay was increasingly sure wasn’t an actual man in the traditional sense, leaned over him. He was young with bronzed skin and laugh lines around his eyes. “Hello there,” he said. “I suppose you have questions.”

  “Definitely,” Jay said.

  “Too bad!” The man cackled at the expression Jay made in response to that. “Oh, you’re not happy about that at all, are you? Still, too bad. You’re more useful to me as you are.

  “But never let it be said that I don’t take care of my own. Let me give you something.”

  The man put a hand on Jay’s forehead. Another round of searing pain ripped through him, this time like he was being tased, and his body tried convulsing. He almost expected his wrists to break.

  When the pain ended, the man was gone. There was only a single System box of gold-on-white and the lingering feeling that something had changed.

  *

  Three days after the underwater fight, Jay trudged out of the ocean back onto their little island. His suit was shredded everywhere except the collar and helmet’s leather; even the glass on the helmet was cracked, though thankfully it hadn’t given out entirely.

  Only two people saw: Lethen, who was limping in circles in the empty space between the spread of tents when he came ashore, and Morios, who looked to be supervising him. They both rushed towards him but the minotaur had to catch Lethen when his leg gave out a few steps in. Jay, as tired as he was, didn’t spare them any more attention than he did the rest of the background.

  Eventually Morios caught up to him after having left Lethen sitting on the ground. “We thought you were dead,” he said. “What happened?”

  Jay didn’t answer, didn’t even spare him a glance, just reached up to pop the helmet off of its one remaining connector to the suit. He dropped it once it was off and kept moving.

  The minotaur winced, the motion visible even out of the corner of Jay’s vision. “Jay, what happened to your skin? Why are you gray now?”

  That got him to stop. He turned toward the healer with the kind of deliberate slowness normally reserved for glacial movement. Morios recoiled instinctively; Jay’s eyes were a sunken, unsettling, swirling mix of unfathomably deep black and searing gold, no whites or even a discernable iris left.

  “Don’t ask,” Jay said. His voice was as dead as his skin looked.

  “I have to,” Morios protested. “I might be able to help.”

  Jay shook his head with the same gravitas he’d turned to look at the healer in the first place. “You can’t.”

  He sounded certain enough that Morios couldn’t bring himself to question it, at least not then. He just watched as Jay slogged his way to his tent. No one had been willing to take it down until they knew he was dead for certain, not with Warinot’s ability unable to discern the truth.

  As he opened the flap, he spoke a final sentence, voice heavy. “If you really want to know, ask again when I wake up.”