Corwin Benedict
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Risha Chapter 1
🕑 Added 2025-04-14 07:00:11 +0000 UTCThe pit was a place of death and Risha was not ready for it.
Risha was the strangest of goblins.
Born as all goblins are born, in a litter of twenty, none of the goblin elders or orc overseers thought she would live past the first week of her life. She was the smallest, a purple little ball that could barely use her hands and feet. She had to fight every single one of her brothers and sisters for the milk of their mother.
But contrary to everyone’s beliefs, she managed to trick and steal milk from her siblings until she was old enough to find food on her own.
Life for a goblin wasn’t easy, and even less so for the weakest and smallest of them all, but still Risha refused to give up. She found her own food, tricked those who would wish her harm, and made a small life for herself as a little goblin.
But a strong will wasn’t enough for the orc overseers, and they had no need of a smart goblin. Orcs, after all, were far smarter than the lesser species they evolved from.
So at fourteen years old, Risha was thrown into a pit.
Risha was naturally terrified. The pits were no place for a fully grown goblin, let alone one who’d barely left goblin adolescence.
Risha placed her hand against the rock wall, slowly lifting herself off of the ground as the orc overseer looked down at her and sneered.
No doubt he thought her a stupid little creature, but Risha was more than that, so much more. And she would not forget the ugly face of the orc who discarded her like tiny trash.
But she could not bare her teeth at the orc, and instead was forced to look down and away.
Goblin bones lined the pit, the bones of others who had angered the overseers. But those did not scare her, no, it was the many-legged creature hiding in the shadows that truly terrified Risha. The large cavernous hole known as the pit led into several smaller tunnels where the spiders made their home. Cared for and fed by the goblins, the spiders were terrifying creatures who only listened to their orc masters thanks to the chains and spikes the orcs used to control them.
But this spider had no chains in it, and there would be no stopping it here.
Risha’s left hand grabbed a pile of dirt while her right picked up the sharpest bone she could find. It cut into her hand, drawing blood, but she did not care.
A skittering sound echoed across the walls of the pit, coming from everywhere and confusing the poor senses of the little goblin.
Still, her hand did not waver, and her gaze stayed focused.
Out of instinct more than anything else, she threw herself to the ground. A large shape flew over her head, landing on the opposite side of the pit. It skittered to a stop, its eight legs quickly catching on the stone ground and wall.
Inflamed scars covered the spider’s face, cutting through six of the eight eyes. The scars were punishments given out for refusing the orders of an orc master. But in the two eyes of the creature that were still unharmed, hatred for goblin kind was visible. Standing at twice the height of poor Risha, the goblin couldn’t help the small tremble in her hand.
The spider sprinted towards her with terrifying speed, and she jumped out of the way, dodging both the creature's legs and the following thread of web that attempted to catch her.
The spider turned towards her again, but this time Risha was ready. Risha threw the dirt into the creature's eyes, blinding it and irritating the inflamed scars. The spider screeched loudly in pain and surprise.
With all of Risha’s strength, she jumped onto the back of the spider, the bone weapon in her hand stabbing into its eyes.
Again and again, she stabbed, her fury fueling the attack on the poor creature. The spider fell on its back, nearly crushing Risha as she rolled out of the way.
All eight of its legs curled up as it bled out a blue blood.
Risha heaved with the adrenaline flowing through her, and cheers echoed out from above her.
She looked up to see a gathering of orcs, all of them howling and cheering the little goblin.
Hatred fueled Risha at the sight. She’d just killed a creature! A living breathing creature that had felt the same hatred that she felt now.
Her eyes met the eyes of the overseer who looked at her expectantly. She wondered why, until a blue screen appeared in front of her.
Congratulations! Due to your great feat of combat, you have qualified for evolution! Would you like to evolve into the war evolution [Orc]?
NO! Risha’s denial echoed through her as she refused the question with her entire being.
The screen disappeared, leaving nothing but the bleeding corpse of the spider behind.
The overseer’s look of expectation turned into confusion, then disappointment as he shook his head.
“It seems that the fates have decided that the tiny servant is unworthy of becoming one of us.” The overseer spoke fluently, and Risha only understood a few words, but she knew that he was wrong.
She refused the fates, the fates did not refuse her.
“Still, I suppose such a feat requires a reward…” The orc’s eyes shifted into the darkness where Risha could not see. A dark smile covered the orc’s face. “Tiny servant, seeing as you’ve killed their mother, I will trust you to take care of the brood.”
Risha shivered as her eyes followed the orc’s gaze to a white sac covered in webs.
“Throw it a ladder!” The orc overseer called as he turned and left. The other orcs soon followed him.
A ladder was quickly thrown down into the pit, and one of the other goblins climbed down.
“Risha!” The goblin cried, running towards her. It slowed as its eyes caught on the dead giant spider before continuing over to the tiny goblin. “Risha hurt? Oh no! Hand hurt, hand bleed.”
The goblin quickly pulled out some cloth, and gently pried the sharp bone from Risha’s hand, so that he could wrap it with practiced movements.
“Risha alright.” Risha said, her body shaking from adrenaline. “Thank Glo.”
“Glo happy. Glo big worried spider eat Risha.” Glo slowed down in his binding. “Glo miss Risha if she gone.”
Risha grabbed the older goblin in a hug as tiny tears dripped down his face.
Glo puffed up his chest as Risha let go, tears still falling. “Glo help Risha.”
With that said, Glo hurried over to the dead spider, slowing down slightly as he approached. “Risha need help!” He called out, and several more goblins peeked their heads out over the edge of the pit.
One by one, they made their way down the ladder, surrounding Risha to check for injury and then hurrying over to the giant spider.
“Risha need food. Baby spider hungry.” Glo said to the small group of goblins, most of whom were Risha’s age or younger. Glo took out a knife and started cutting up the giant spider. “We help!”
“We help!” The other goblins cried out in agreement, hurrying to cut up the giant spider. More and more goblins gathered as the orcs left the village. The orcs did not deign to stay in the same village as the goblins, instead only visiting once or twice a week to assert dominance and occasionally cull the goblins they disliked.
Risha hurried to help the other goblins. “Risha thank!” she said, her dirty face unable to hide the large smile on her face. “Risha big thank!”
The other goblins cheered. Then one of them started singing. The other goblins joined in as they took apart the giant spider and stored the meat as best they could. They didn’t sing words, because they didn’t know the words to any songs. Instead they just made sounds like the birds and the wolves. It may not have been a real song, but it was perfect for them.
The goblins finished storing the meat of the big spider, leaving only the exoskeleton of the once great predator. They then split off to take care of their own brood or feed the other spider pits.
Risha found herself alone in the pit, staring at the egg sac she was now responsible for. She wondered if she made the right choice in refusing to become an orc. It hadn’t even crossed the overseer’s mind that she might’ve refused the offer. Evolutions were rare for goblins, and required great feats, such as the smallest and weakest of goblins killing their greatest predator in a fair fight. Plus who wouldn’t want to be an orc? Orcs are the ones in charge, they rule the goblins.
But something inside Risha wanted something else, anything other than becoming one of the creatures that killed and enslaved her kind.
Risha knew she was different in that. If any of the other goblins had gotten the chance, they would’ve jumped at it.
Risha had always been different from the others. She wanted more. She wasn’t content with just being a goblin or an orc. She wanted so much more.
***
Risha woke up the next morning with her entire body aching. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but Risha still rose from her rough fur blanket and walked over to her roughly made bow and arrows, careful not to disturb any of the other goblins that shared the hut with her.
She picked her weapons up and snuck into the night. Eventually, she found a perfect tree, and climbed up onto a branch to wait.
A little white rabbit walked into the clearing, the rising sun shining off its dirty fur. Risha pulled her arrow back, took a deep breath, then let it fly.
The arrow pierced the neck of the rabbit and it fell to the ground, bleeding out. Risha scurried down the tree, and picked up the dead rabbit. Then she moved and waited again. Three rabbits and a weasel later, she hurried back to her village.
Early morning light poured in through the branches of the large trees that surrounded their home. Risha enjoyed the warmth of the sun as she butchered and cleaned the food. Then she cooked it over a fire.
The other goblin hunters greeted her as they came back from their own hunts. It took a lot of food to feed the goblin village and the spiders that were under their care. It’s one of the reasons that if food quotas weren’t met, the overseers would choose to feed the spiders with the goblins themselves.
After cooking the food, Risha hurried over to one of the caretaker huts, where a very exhausted mother goblin swayed on her feet as eighteen baby goblins ran around her.
“Risha!” The children called out as Risha set her pack full of food on the ground.
“Risha have food!” Risha said to a series of happy sounds.
Risha was not, and likely never would be big enough to be a mother goblin, but she knew what it was like to be small and hungry.
So every morning she would hunt extra food for the youngest goblins.
“Line!” The mother goblin ordered and all of the little ones hurried to obey her command.
One by one, Risha handed out tiny pieces of meat to the baby goblins, who happily gulped down their food. Of course she wasn’t the only hunter to bring food for the little ones, but her prey made up for how few hunters there were.
Once that was done, she went to her hut and grabbed a small knife, her bow and some sticks of wood that had been left there by another goblin. She made her way to the pit, lowered the ladder and climbed down to watch the eggs.
With their mother dead, she was now responsible for making sure that no other spider or predator found them and ate them. A tall task for a small goblin. She knew that if she failed, she would be fed to another pit, this time with her tendons cut. Risha rubbed her wrists at the horrid thought.
Shaking her head, Risha grabbed one of the sticks she brought, pulled out her knife and started shaping them into basic arrows.
The routine continued for two days before something changed. She was carving a tiny design into one of her arrows, when out of the corner of her eye, she saw the webs leading out of the tunnels trembling slightly.
She knew what that meant. Something was walking on them.
