Today's #flashfiction #GoblinLives

“Help, I've fallen and can't get up!”

Lucifer* #quote

Today I went to my card game thing, much fun was had!

Goblin Lives

           “We're all going to die,” Tolo the goblin said to his brother.

           Forel responded back, “No, there's a chance. We can stop them.”

           The other goblins manned their posts while they did theirs. The huts were empty while the gates shut closed. The smell of outsiders drafted through the air. They wished they could just throw the treasure in the middle of the village off some cliff, but they couldn't lift the enchanted chest. Only a player could open it. And as soon as the treasure was taken it would be replaced. As would they.

           “They never stop coming. We've held some off, and the slimes keep holding them off. What are we, level twenty? Luckily strangely high level goblins in a low level zone put in some strange corner.” Tolo remembers the last players that came through. Half of the group perished at the hands of a wizard and knight. They took the treasure at the center of the village and left. In three hours new goblins appeared in their village and so did a treasure. Forel was among the new goblins.

           Forel, “You can't convince me that's how it is. They just come through, take our lives, the treasure and leave. Can't we stop them? Keep fighting until they no longer come here?”

            Tolo explained to the new goblin. “I've been one of the lucky ones. I've survived many generations. That is the truth. They never stop coming. They come back to life. It is a never ending onslaught.”

            Forel sat down, smelling the same smell of outsiders that Tolo did. “So are we some kind of crop for them to farm?”

           Tolo wondered how many goblins he would be saying goodbye to during the next attack and how many new ones would spawn to replace them. “Or maybe the players are for us. I've been strong enough to survive a few fights. Maybe I'll try to be strong enough to win them.”

           A knight approached the goblin camp and he would be first of the many goblin victories.  The players never knew they were merely a cog in the grand design of a mechanical evolution. Survival of the fittest of artificial intelligence through living as monsters in the game. Eventually the goblins would prove themselves and be plucked from the game world by the scientists who created it and shown to real world.

          In their real world bodies Forel told Tolo, “I told you there was a chance we'd live.”