Goblore Pt. 01

His vision was hazy, but they were small humanoids. Children maybe. Had he been caught by a crowd of little kids who were going to cut him up like wild game? What a disappointing end, he mused.

"Oh...uh...hi?" he said experimentally. One of the small figures undid the knot that held the rope to the tree. Unfortunately, whoever did it was too quick. The last thing Jesse remembered seeing was the ground coming straight at him like an overloaded tractor trailer.

***

Getting back to consciousness was an even more of an ordeal than it had been resting on the airbag of his car. This time it felt like he was trapped in molasses. He'd had sleep paralysis before, but this was different. Everything was hazy. Indistinct. He couldn't move his limbs, and he couldn't even think clearly. The consistent point was the pain, so he focused on that. The pain of his face and his head from both impacts ebbed and waned, but never fully dissipated. Painstakingly, he crawled out and back to the world of the living.

"Aha!" a woman's voice high in register exclaimed right in his ear, making him cringe. Sound sensitivity, great. Welcome to Concussiontown: Population Jesse.

He rotated his head around on whatever soft lumpy object it was resting on to search for the source of the voice. He was in some kind of workshop. Tables filled with tools filled one side, where another was clustered with glass vials and beakers that twisted into bizarre shapes. Many were filled with coloured liquids. On elevated points in the room, less elegantly designed jars swarmed with dozens of a kind of firefly that pumped out a steady, almost electric light. The room hummed with their buzzing but it was low enough to be ignored.

His eyes settled on the face of a woman beside his bed. Her long dark hair had been pulled back in a ponytail, save a pair of strands that slid down her temples. Large, orange eyes looked at him with the glint of amiable curiosity. She wore a dark grey smock that had been crisscrossed with so many different stains that it could have passed as an abstract expressionist art installation.

Oh, and her skin was green.

At least he didn't freak out too much this time to the reveal of a person of an entirely different species. She was humanoid as well, at the very least. Upon closer inspection, however, the woman was standing and just came up to the bed that Jesse was lying on. She couldn't have been much more than three feet tall. A distant analytical thought posited that she could just be a little person. But all the same, she looked adorable. Almost like a Goblin from some fantasy novel.

"Gnhhh," Jesse managed. He wasn't feeling particularly articulate, but he did want to vocalise that he was at least partially aware.

"Great! I was worried the net might have cut off the circulation to your brain. Sorry about that. Huntress gets a little wild with her trapping sometimes." She pulled a pair of coloured lenses attached to a crude wire frame over her eyes. A second and third pair were mounted on little arms that could swing and clamp into place. She played with them for a while, flipping between the circular panes of coloured glass, letting out a series of displeased grunts. "Whatever transmogrification you've been through has been surprisingly thorough. I can't interpret the aura it left behind."

"Transmogra...what?"

"Oh dear, maybe there was brain damage after all. Sorry, I'll try to go slow." She cleared her throat, then began again in a deliberate, patronizing pace and volume. "Hi there. What has happened to you to make you look so strange?"

"I could ask the same thing," he managed. She grinned at that.

"Ah, sparkling repartee. And here I was wondering if I was going to have to spoonfeed you for the rest of your days. Or at least until I was done experimenting on you. I'm Vee, pleased to meet you! And, for my records, what can I call you?"

"Jesse...Jesse Sandoval." He saw her writing down the name, then added: "Jesse Sandoval, two words, not Jesse Jesse Sandoval. Just wanted to nip that in the bud."

"No, no, I understood. It's alright," she reassured, her tone back to its distant, clinical cadence. He peeked at the crude form of paper that she was writing on, and the written language looked unlike anything he'd ever seen. Strangely, they were conversing in English easily enough. Had that entity that had told him what had happened to him and his car done something to his mind? Or was this some kind of low-level psychic field that allowed for instantaneous translation? Something to ponder for later. He was just glad he wouldn't have to go through arduous weeks of learning an entirely new language from scratch. Though he might need to learn how to read the strange blocky script that the small woman was sketching out if he was planning on sticking around. "So what brings you to the Temporary Village, Jesse Sandoval?"

He considered lying, for fear of being considered a demon or a monster. But since he was clearly in the presence of at least one humanoid race other than human, it would probably be pointless to pretend he was a native to this world who had just gotten lost. "Something pulled me through some kind of hole in space. I ended up here from my world."

She stopped writing. Lifting the lenses up onto her forehead, she squinted at him like he'd just started speaking in tongues. "A hole...in space?"

He shrugged. "Something like that, probably. No idea how common this kind of crazy shit is on your world, but it's news to me. I was just trying to get my bearings here when I got caught in that net."

"Hmm," she said, making a face. "I...alright, that makes about as much sense as any theories I have. Well, it's good to meet you, Jesse. I'm the apothecary/doctor/natural philosopher of this village. I don't suppose you've ever met one of my kind before?"

"Never. You look like...well, you look like Goblins."

"So you have heard of us?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Complicated. You resemble a fictional creature from my world...though, truth be told, a lot less ugly."

Vee wrote that down too. "Happy to hear. Well Jesse, unfortunately, I don't think we'll be in each other's lives that long."

Jesse sat up, the movement making the pain in his head shift around. He fought through it long enough to get his legs onto the ground, though he remained seated. "Why's that, Vee?"

"Well, you're not one of our kind. You're about a measure too tall to be one of us...that and the skin. And the ears, come to think about it. You're not Folk, either, or any other race I've ever heard of. Everyone's convinced that you're some kind of Shifter, so they're calling for your blood."

"What?!"

She sighed wearily. "I know, grotesque and barbaric. And according to everything I can determine, you're little more than a mutated Woodborn with a bizarre lack of sap in your hair. But who am I to argue with the baying of the masses?"

Jesse swallowed the growing fear forming a knot in his throat and did his best to look unassuming and non-threatening. Difficult to not be intimidating to someone you towered over, but he did his best. "Look, I told you the truth. I'm a human, I'm not from around here."

Vee shrugged her tiny shoulders. "I do believe you. But speaking as a purely objective observer, a more logical explanation is some kind of infiltration with a ludicrous story by our enemies. I'll tell Nell about this, try to convince her to just let you go and never come back. But I have my doubts that'll fly. We're all a little...it's been tough, lately, and a lot of people are calling for your execution now, proof that you don't belong here regardless."

The door burst open, revealing a handful of armed green women. Leather armour and short bronze spears made them look like miniature Spartan warriors, though he doubted the Ancient Greeks had slots for a pair of enormous pointed ears to poke out. He fumbled away from them toward the back of Vee's hut, but there he ran into a dead end. If there was a back door, it was too covered in boxes of clutter and miscellaneous lab equipment to be squeezed through. He turned around, hands raised, and submitted to the diminutive spearwomen.

"Come here, Shifter!" one of the women said through gritted teeth. She motioned for him to drop his hands, and he did. One of the pint-sized warriors bound his hands in front of him, tightening the rope until it bit deep into his wrists.

"Tell them I'm not what they think I am, Vee!" Jesse said. "I don't even know what the hell a Shifter is!"

For a moment, he thought he saw a spark of genuine concern on her face. With a brush of her hair, however, it faded to her original dispassionate appearance. "I'm sorry, Jesse Sandoval. I hope you can find some peace in whatever afterlife you believe in."

Leaving the hut and into the harsh glare of the strangely coloured sun, Jesse got a look at where he'd been brought to at last. A dozen or more wooden structures with thatch roofs stood in a haphazard oval, centred around a raised wooden platform. Atop this odd, almost stage-like structure stood another Goblin. She, and so far he'd only seen obviously female members of the species, wore a long dress made of reds and yellows that looked formal and garish at the same time. From her neck hung more than a dozen gold and silver icons, the meaning of which Jesse didn't have the slightest clue of. Long, wild light blonde hair rolled down her shoulders in desperate search for a comb, and even from a distance he could see her eyes burned a firey crimson colour totally unlike anything he'd seen outside of some wild cosplays.

"Aha! We have the intruder now!" she bellowed, pointing at Jesse as he was prodded along toward her. "See his strange complexion and malformed features. His elongated body! His...his face hair! There is only one explanation for his appearance!"

"He's a Shifter!" came the reply from a steadily growing crowd. Others shouted agreement.

"That's not-" Jesse managed before a harsh jab to his kidneys cut off his words. As small as these creatures were, he didn't expect he'd survive a fight with a bunch of armed Goblins. It wasn't like he knew martial arts, or even the basics of self defence. The best he could manage was out muscle them, but one stab to his unprotected flesh and he was probably donezo. For the moment, it seemed that he'd have to wait for his chance to act...even if it put him in further danger.

"Do not believe any of the heresies that pour from his lips. He has come to spell destruction for what little remains of our people!" The firebrand's words hit all the right marks with her audience. Jesse had never been to one of those revival churches, but he assumed that the preachers there sounded an awful lot like this woman. All that was missing was the pipe organ and the collection plate.

Propelled forward past the stage on which the gaudy woman stood, he found his destination: a pyre of dry wood, surrounded by a circle of stones. He paused before crossing the threshold. But with his hands bound and sharp objects in all directions around him, he was forced backward into the stone circle of the pyre.

"Our village has gathered here to see to the fate of this intruder. He bears no marks of the Folk or the Wolven on him, yet he is not of our kind. Indeed, his form appears to be that of a being caught between species, perhaps by some fault of his own or a curse placed on him by a slighted party. I declare that he is a Shifter, and should be destroyed before he can bring any more devastation to our village than he and his kin have already. What say you?"

A roar of approval met her question. One day into this world and he was already not liking it a whole lot, though that may be because it was reminding him of parts of Earth's own history. This had all the flavours of a witch hunt, with him ending up wearing the pointy hat.

"Please. I'm not your enemy." He tried to keep his voice as calm as possible, but it cracked once or twice from the anxiety of his approaching fate grew to debilitating levels. "I'm just a stranger from another land!"

His explanation was not well received. Further attempts to describe his origins were drowned out with jeers and further demands for his head. He felt around his pockets for his phone, with which he could prove he was not from this land, at least. But he remembered that he had left it, safe, in his damn car. Where it could be no use to him at the moment.

"More lies!" the priestess shrieked. "Deception will not save you, interloper. The cleansing fire of Kilari's Breath shall reveal your true form!"

On cue, two women in similar but less ornate outfits approached from either side of the raised platform. Each carried a torch that glowed an eerie blue colour. He'd seen a similar effect in high school using metal flakes and a bunsen burner, but he couldn't remember off hand what you used to make it blue. Sulfur? Copper? He'd have to ask the Afterlife's help desk after he burned to death.

The torches were inches away from the fire. The elder Gob faced Jesse for the first time. Her face was full of leering contempt.

"Any last words, Shifter?"

"None I'd say in polite company. But since you're about to kill me, how about go fuck yourself, you tiny zealot."

She grinned. "Of course. I wouldn't expect anything dignified from a servant of the evil ones. Torchbearers, prepare to-"

"Wait!"

Silence fell over the crowd, and every head turned away from the podium to where a Goblin in a peasant dress held up her hand. Her hair was a light grey, though streaks of a purplish colour still glittered through. Her face was still attractive but worn by stress or the elements, or both. Still, her single word had the rest of the green women captivated. Standing next to her was Vee, whispering something into the older woman's ear. She also handed of a pair of those strange lensed glasses. Flicking up the appropriate combination, the woman nodded.

"This one," she said, pointing at Jesse and his bewildered expression, "Is not a Shifter. His aura is...he is not of the Folk or the Shifters. I do not believe he has come to cause us harm."

Confusion reigned, as did a sense of frustration. Clearly these little people had a lot of anger about something that they needed to excise, with him as the likely scapegoat. And if Shifter really was short for shapeshifter, like he surmised, then they had a very serious problem indeed.

"Leader Nell, please! It's important that we show the Shifters a united front!" the Priestess bellowed. Jesse grinned just a little at her outrage before remembering that there was torches literally inches away from incinerating him and reined in the mirth.

The official-looking woman was having none of it. "Send him to the holding cell while we deliberate."

***

As quickly as he'd been thrust into the pyre, Jesse found himself shuffled out and around, away from the centre of the village. Carefully aimed pokes by the women's pointed weapons told him what would happen if he stepped out of line. Though they were small, he'd no doubt that a Goblin-sized spear would kill him just as dead as its human-sized counterpart.

The hut he was brought to was different from the rest. It looked permanent, as it was constructed of bricks rather than the yurt-style accommodations that the creatures seemed to favour. It was also larger, and for once it looked like he might be able to stand up inside it rather than hunching over.

"In you go," implored the captor to his right, giving him a stiff push with the rear end of her spear. "Make nice with the other one."

"Other one?" he managed to ask before another, more pointed thrust got him moving into the structure. As soon as his heels had cleared the threshold, the door slammed shut. The clunk of a metal bolt slamming home had a chilling finality to it. He'd never been to jail on Earth, but he had a feeling that it wouldn't have felt much better to be locked away among his own kind as it did here.

"Welcome."

Jesse's head snapped from side to side, looking for the source of the voice. He found a pair of feet illuminated by a break in the walls, the rest of the body obscured by shadow. They were human-sized feet, at least. Could he have found another lost soul from his own world?

"I don't suppose you're from Earth too?" Jesse asked, cautiously stepping away from the door and over to the opposite wall from where the feet rested. Leaning forward, a ghastly pale face, silken white hair, and a pair of pointed, misshapen ears told him the answer to that question.

"And I don't suppose you're from The Ivory City. So we're even." The voice, and the facial features for that matter, were androgynous and soft. For the moment though, perhaps only for sake of variety, Jesse assumed he was male. Potentially the first male he'd found in this crazy world.

Jesse decided against offering his hand, considering the circumstances. Instead, he sat down and gave his name. The stranger looked as if he'd bitten into something sour as he moved what must have been an unfamiliar name around in his mouth.

"Jess..ee. Jessi? Jesse. Hmm. Interesting. I'm Lial. You don't look well, stranger. Your skin is...burned."

Jesse looked down at his hands. Not particularly melanin-rich, his lightly dusky complexion from his mixture of heritages put him much darker than the almost albin skin of the other prisoner. "You look sickly too. I've seen corpses with more colour."

Though not exactly a knee-slapper, the other man did exhale slightly harder than he had before. "I see. Judging from the chanting I heard, they thought you a Shifter. Though I very much doubt that. Their kind wouldn't be dumb enough to get captured alive."

"Gee, thanks." Jesse circled the walled pen, looking for weaknesses in the construction. Despite their relatively primitive lives, they certainly knew how to work with wood. Large interlocking panels joined with bronze rivets and wooden dowlings to form super-hard, nearly unwedgable components. "And what brings you here?"

"I got caught," Lial said with a shrug. "Embarrassing for someone of my station, admittedly. Whoever they have setting up their traps is surprisingly good for a greenskin."

Jesse frowned. Greenskin dripped off the pale man's tongue with all the venom of any number of slurs he'd heard spat out on Earth. His hopes of finding a kindred spirit were tempered significantly.

"What were you caught doing?"

"A lot of questions from you, round-ear. I could ask you the same thing."

The explanation of transdimensional misadventure had garnered about as much disbelief as he'd suspected it might. Failing to come up with a believable alternative, he settled on, "I got lost and stepped into a snare trap."

That got an honest to goodness laugh out of Lial, something that sounded pleasantly melodic for all his ugly words earlier. "Fair enough. These forests are not for outsiders."

"Then why are you here?"

The sliver of mirth melted on his face. "These forests belong to the Folk. The trees, the earth, even the very air soaks into our bodies. You and these... children are the foreign invaders, not I."

Jesse felt like he'd stepped in something, and had to endure the time dilating effects of awkward silence for what felt like an hour. Given that the light cast through the window didn't move much, however, it was probably closer to fifteen minutes.

Finally, blessedly, Lial spoke once again. "You truly aren't from these lands, are you? I've no recollection of your species. One of the beings beyond the sea?"

Jesse shook his head. "I'm human. Like I said, I got lost."

The androgynous man made a grunt of noncommittal to his answer, but didn't press the issue further. "Very well, Jesse the Human. I suggest we make a pact of temporary, mutual assistance. We are both captives of these creatures, and though your features are strange, you seem civilized enough. What say you?"