Richard woke with his whole body aching. The feeling wasn't unfamiliar; pulling all-nighters had often left him in a similar situation. Experience told him to keep his eyes shut; opening them usually only made things worse. Stretching out his hands and feet, Richard half-expected to find his phone so he could call his live-in secretary to arrange some food and maybe an aspirin. Pulling his hands from under the covers, he groped blindly around only to realize, with surprise, that he wasn't in his emperor-sized bed.
"Don't tell me I'm at someone else's place," Richard thought with annoyance. One thing he never got used to was waking up in random penthouses and country homes. "At least they could buy proper mattresses." Too many of his acquaintances chased every ridiculous fad.
Stretching again with a jaw-breaking yawn, Richard slowly opened his eyes. Then, as realization struck, he snapped them wide open to a world of luminescent moss and gray goblins.
He was in trouble—no, deep shit. By his estimate, Mariana Trench levels of deep. Fighting the urge to panic, Richard shut his eyes, drew a deep breath, and waited for his heart to steady. Not daring to open them again, he began listing what he knew.
So—he was a goblin. And not just a goblin, but a useless baby goblin with barely any mobility. The only small consolation was that his limbs were improving. As for his surroundings, this was clearly the goblin equivalent of the Stone Age.
"And let's not forget the fiasco with the floating texts." Feeling the panic clawing back to the top, Richard took another deep breath and decided to just ignore the last point.
"At least I'm still me," Richard thought, "not one of these stupid animals. I have my mind and my memories."
"Okay, Richy boy, you've got this." Pumping himself up with a light slap to the face, Richard slowly looked around.
As expected, he was still in the dump of a cave with its colorful moss, surrounded by rows of gray goblin pups. Looking himself over, he found no bruises or wounds. Surprisingly, he felt fine—considering yesterday's beating, he had expected much worse. If not for the gnawing hunger, he might almost have called the situation cozy.
Looking around, Richard saw no adult goblins—only pups arranged in neat rows. Some slept deeply, while others made strange whimpering sounds.
On his mother's side, Richard had an uncle who owned a large farm full of animals. It was never his idea of a pleasant weekend getaway, but his parents sometimes pressured him to visit. One chore his uncle always made him help with was tending the kennel of hunting and farm dogs, though always under the kennel master's watch. Now, as Richard looked at the goblin pups, he couldn't help but compare them to those puppies on the farm.
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Like young puppies, the goblin pups were clearly not yet acclimated to the world, their movements uncoordinated, their aura helpless. What struck Richard most, however, was how they were handled. The kennel master had always kept the mother dog and her litter in a safe, supervised space. In contrast, the goblins were raised in what could only be described as an industrial-scale setup.
Each goblin had bedding made of straw on the floor, with an animal hide wrapped around them. They were arranged in neat rows, spaced about two feet apart. The floor even had oval-shaped indentations, likely meant to keep the pups from moving around too much.
Richard noticed his eyesight had improved again. Now he could make out details he'd missed before, like the subtle variations in the goblins' skin tones. Though all shared a base of light gray, many carried traces of red, green, blue, or gold; a few even shimmered with hints of magenta or purple. His own skin, he realized, held touches of gold—not as rare as the magenta or purple, but less common than the most prevalent gray with green hues.
Raising his hands, Richard studied his small fingers, unsure whether he liked their color or not. Still lost in thought, he heard noise coming from the entrance, and soon after, a group of adult goblins entered.
They seemed to be of the worker type, as none wore decorations. This time, the adults carried gourds almost as tall as themselves. Each goblin took charge of a row of pups and began some kind of process.
Not understanding what was happening, Richard focused on the nearest goblin—a green-tinged one with black hair and a brown tunic. He wasn't sure, but it didn't seem to be the same one who had beaten him yesterday. Richard let out a sigh of relief, then noticed his hands were clenched and trembling. Telling himself it wasn't fear, just a refusal to see that bastard again, he unclenched his fists and returned his gaze to the worker.
The adult goblin pulled out a yellow flower bulb, about the size of his hand, and shook it as if to clean off some residue. It resembled a bluebell but was more conical, its petals fused together with the bottom cut off.
Using the funnel-like plant, the goblin shoved it into a pup's mouth and poured green goop from the gourd straight through it. Richard expected the pup to choke or at least resist, but to his surprise, it didn't even flail—just guzzled the mixture instinctively.
The adult goblin filled the funnel to the brim, waited until the pup finished, then pulled it out and repeated the process with the next pup. That one, for some reason, received two full servings. The next also got two, then only one for the following. On it went, most pups getting two portions, a few only one, and even fewer three.
When Richard's turn came, he considered resisting as before—but the bone-deep hunger made him think twice. To his relief, the process was far less traumatic than he'd feared. The green sludge had almost no taste, and though he received only one portion, it was enough to satisfy his hunger. With his hunger sated, his mind began to drift as well.
