Gideon woke to pain. His back and shoulder throbbed where the fox’s teeth and claws had torn into him, although the wounds were already knitted closed thanks to the magical Health regeneration of this world. He flexed his fingers and hissed; the soreness was deep, the kind that lingered long after the blood stopped flowing. Groaning, he pushed himself upright and exited the cramped foxhole he'd spent the night in. After a moment of thought, Gideon began to stretch. He probably looked ridiculous going through slow, careful movements, rolling his shoulders, twisting his torso, and pulling each arm across his chest. His muscles ached with every motion, but little by little the stiffness loosened. He worked through his legs too, crouching and straightening until the tightness in his thighs eased. By the time he finished, nearly ten minutes had passed. He still hurt, but the fog of soreness had lessened. He exhaled and nodded to himself. "Ah, that feels a lot better already. I think I'm going to start doing stretches daily. In such a weak body, being limber might potentially be the difference between life and death." Gideon paused, imagining a Goblin in DnD being caught going through morning stretches in the forest, and couldn't help chuckling to himself. Oh well, to hell with the optics. If his stretching allowed him to be that one fraction of a second faster and dodge a fatal blow, it was worth it a hundred fold.

  He looked back at his shelter from last night. Even from a short distance, the crude den stank of damp earth and old blood. The fight replayed in his mind: the fox’s weight, its hot breath in his face as its teeth desperately snapped just inches from his face, his dagger punching into its belly over and over again until life left its eyes. He had survived, but only barely. Survival was not enough. “I can’t just keep hiding and running,” he muttered, voice rasping in the still air. “If I stay this weak, I’ll die sooner than later.” Resolve hardened in him. He needed to be more deliberate, more proactive. Careful, yes, but not passive.

  He left the foxhole behind and made his way back to the battleground. The carcass lay there still, but it was no longer whole. Half-eaten, crawling with maggots, flies buzzing in a haze around the ruin. The stench forced him to cover his nose, but the sight fixed his resolve. His decision to flee last night had saved him. If he had lingered, whatever had fed here might have made him its next meal. Turning from the corpse, he followed the creek until he found a quieter bend. Kneeling, he drank deeply, then stripped down to wash himself. Mud and blood swirled away downstream. He scrubbed his torn clothing as best he could, laying it out to dry on the rocks. For the first time in days, he felt almost clean. When the clothes had dried, he dressed and set his mind to the next task. He couldn't linger by the creek forever. If he was to live, he had to range further.

  He began marking landmarks as he moved: a crooked tree split by lightning, a boulder shaped like a crouching beast, the curve of a shallow gully. Even if he wandered far, he could always find his way back to fresh water. Over the next day, he also managed to bring down a few small animals, including two rabbits, a fat squirrel, and even a bird that he sniped out of a tree with a lucky shot of helped him avoid burning the meat this time. The smell alone felt like victory, and for the first time since waking in this new body, he ate until his belly was stuffed near to bursting.

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  His exploration led him to a spring-fed pool, clean and cold, and it was there that he found something that set his heart racing: footprints. He crouched low, tracing the edges of the impressions with his fingers. At first they were just marks in the mud, shallow hollows pressed into the earth. Then his eyes flicked to the trail behind him where his own prints marked the ground. The resemblance was undeniable. The same narrow toes. The same curve to the arch. The same short claws pressing into the soil. These were his prints, only larger, heavier, deeper. As though made by someone like him, but bigger, heavier.

  A chill crept down his spine. Goblins. He was nearly certain of it. He paused, his thoughts racing. In every book and game he had read or played back on Earth, goblins were tribal. Weak on their own, but strong in numbers. They banded together in rough communities, often violent, rarely trusting of outsiders, even other goblins. If those stories were even half true, then finding others of his kind could mean safety, or disaster. What did it mean for him? He was weak. Alone. But with a group, maybe he could carve out a place. Maybe he would not have to face wolves and foxes alone. Goblins might not be the strongest race, but together they endured. Hope and fear twisted in his chest in equal measure. He followed the trail carefully, weaving through the undergrowth. Branches bent and snapped, a half-chewed bone left in the dirt, even a faint whiff of smoke that made his stomach tighten. The signs were everywhere once he began looking. At one point he crouched and hid behind a log, heart hammering, certain he could hear voices in the distance. Harsh and guttural, carried faintly by the wind. He stayed there for a long while, every muscle trembling, but nothing emerged from the trees. The forest pressed close, silent but watchful. Always the evidence of goblins, but never the goblins themselves. At last, caution overpowered curiosity, and Gideon turned back, carefully marking the path to the spring as he retreated.

  By the time the light began to fade, he had chosen his shelter: a shallow stone overhang tucked behind a curtain of vines. Cramped, damp, but defensible. He gathered fallen branches and dragged them across the entrance to break the outline, then crawled inside. Exhaustion pressed down on him. His stomach was no longer hollow, but the subtle ache in his muscles remained. He curled against the cold stone, staring at the shadows flickering across the ceiling. The thought of other goblins so near gnawed at him. Was it relief, or danger? For days he had fought and starved alone. Now the forest whispered of kin, but kin did not always mean safety. Sleep came fitfully. His dreams were a blur of snapping jaws and red eyes in the dark, of human voices shouting his old name, then twisting it into cruel laughter. When he startled awake in the dead of night, heart pounding, the forest was still. Cold crept in, settling into his bones. He drew the scraps of fur tighter around himself and forced his eyes shut again, chasing whatever rest he could find.

  At dawn, weak gray light spilled across the forest floor. Gideon pushed aside the brambles at the mouth of the shelter, stretching the stiffness from his limbs. And froze. Six goblins stood there waiting. Three had bows leveled at him, arrows drawn taut. Two others brandished crude spears, their jagged points glinting in the morning light. At their head stood the largest of the group, a goblin with a shortsword in one hand and a battered wooden shield strapped to his other forearm. He wore a dented metal helmet, which was clearly made for a human, crookedly on his head. Too large for him, it slid down nearly to his brow, but the authority in his stance was undeniable.

  “Out,” the leader barked. Gideon raised his hands slowly, heart pounding. It seemed his kin had found him first.