Respawn Condition: Trash Mob

The sounds of my hooves smashing against the stone floor ring out around me like dull blows of a hammer, striking against rock, one impact after the other, in constant repetition. In mid-sprint, I turn direction, smashing against the wall of the labyrinth with my shoulder as I do so. I have quite a substantial amount of weight and momentum behind my body. Minotaurs aren’t small, gentle creatures. A minotaur lady is anything but delicate, I could give an ogre a run for his money in an arm-wrestling competition. Hell, if I was a bit more agile and could catch the hero, I bet I could crush him with just my grip. As I readjust myself to continue my speed-run through the labyrinth and push myself back up off of the wall, I notice several of the bricks have shifted from the impact. Bracing myself upright, I continue my race.

Minotaurs are strong as all hell and fast too, tell you what. When running in a straight line, that is. The thing is, it’s a brutish speed. I’m fast because my legs are literal meat-towers. But I’m not agile, flexible. Corners are an issue for me. Twisting and turning and anything that isn’t right in front of me is an issue. What I’m trying to say is, guy. If you are ever attacked by a minotaur, just run in zig-zags. There is basically nothing they can do to you then.

As I brutishly wind my way around another corner, I batter a poor skeleton on the way. The fragile body crumples against the wall from the substantial impact as I crush him against it by accident. I stop and turn my head to check if he’s alright. A moment later, the skeleton rises back up to its feet like nothing ever happened and continues walking down the labyrinth alone by itself.

I don’t have the faintest idea of where I am going, I’ve been here a while, but I’ll be honest. I’m not smart enough to memorize the final labyrinth. It’s not only as big as the grandeur of our dark-lord himself, but it just looks the same no matter where you are. Sure there’s an odd pebble here that wasn’t in another corner and there’s a thin spiderweb there that I didn’t see before, but honestly it’s just all a lumpy gray mess filled with skeletons. Sorry dungeon-master, I’m sure you put a lot of work into it.

As for me, I’m just following the old adage of always walking along the left wall of a labyrinth. Though I am unsure if it will work. Or was it supposed to be the right wall? Uh… Does it depend on which side you start from, maybe? Ah. Hmm…

My thundering body stampedes down the winding corridor, my thin, bony tail swishing around behind me as I go. Having a tail is always a weird feeling because, well, you can feel it. Imagine just waking up and having an extra finger for the day, but it's by your backside. It’s weird, okay? Plus add on the other, ah, extras that I have in this body and the whole thing is just really awkward for me. I don't usually have this much stuff dangling off of me everywhere.

It’s a good thing minotaurs are so self-confident, otherwise I’d be really embarrassed right now. I shake my head and bound violently around another corner, this time without any extra destruction. I am going as fast as I can, I need to get through the labyrinth, so that I can try the stairs. To see if I can go up them. I need to do that and fast, before the hero-party makes it to the grand-treasury. That won’t take long, my last life was short. Very short.

I turn my head as I hear the rattle. A great amalgamation of bones and metal shuffling around the labyrinth. Skeletons. A lot of them. I look up, trying to discern where the sound is coming from. If my theory is correct, they’re trying to go upstairs too. If that is the case then I’m right and not only do I know about the stairs, but so does the dungeon-master. I feel a faint smile come to me once more, as the relief dawns on me. If the dungeon-master knows, that means he will send as many trash-mobs as he can to block the hero-party. Is that what happened in my last life too? That means I have more time. I can do this. I w-

I realize something. Two things actually. One that I am an idiot. Two, if I raise my hand up into the air, I can graze the top of the labyrinth wall. I mean, yeah. I’m huge, almost twice the size of a human. Of course. Ugh…

I lock my fingers around the edge of the wall and jump, hoisting my giant, meaty body upwards. Wow, was I always this good at jumping? Talk about functional strength. The bricks I grip onto slide a little and I barely manage to adjust my grip, before I remove them entirely from the top of the barrier. With more effort than you would expect, I slowly hoist myself upward. I am strong. But I’m also heavy as all hell. I don’t have the strength to pull my old body up completely, but I do have enough to wrap my arms over the wall and look around the labyrinth from a head's height above it.

There!

I see several of the long pikes sticking out atop the wall, not far off from here. That’ll be them, my bony, spooky guys. Alive and well. Well, as well as they can be, all things considered.

Looking around with my old eyes, I see the vague shape in the distance, the stairs! I try to get a scope of the area and drop back down, sprinting along the path which I just saw from above. Soon, I catch up to the skeletons, but there is a slight issue. They are jamming the hallway. Dozens of them stand in clumps all together, pushing and shrieking their way through the vague, dungeony darkness. Stepping in their midst, I excuse myself as I try to push and shove as many of them out of my way as I can. Gently of course. Thankfully, skeletons are mindless enough so that they don’t care about other trash-mobs. Not zombies though, they’ll eat anything they can get their grubby hands on. Skeletons only listen to the champion, who I see marching at the front of the group. Either him or the dungeon-master, if the big guy has something to say, in which case his commands obviously supersede the champion’s. Chain of command, etc.

She doesn’t even have a cape. I sneer to myself as I make my way past her and the glowing mace in her hand. I do feel a tiny spark of envy though, but I had that life already and I blew it.

The skeleton champion nods to me. I nod back to her, one woman to another as I walk past. Just good manners is all. The champion has a bit more awareness than the other skeletons, I’ve noticed. Guess you need a brain to command after all. I assume they’re on the level of a goblin, intelligence-wise. But I’ve never had a chance to put that theory to the test. She isn’t big on words, you know? As I bolt ahead of the crowd, I wonder, as a thought comes to me; I’m always an extra spawn, right?

I don’t take somebody's place, but I’m thrown on top of the heap, right? So when I was the champion that one time, does that mean there was another? A second champion? Or did I replace her, in that instance? Are champion spawns an exception to the rule? I have no idea. I wish I could ask somebody, but it’s not like I got a guidebook on how to be a permanently-respawning trash-mob.

As I run, I occasionally hop up to look over the walls again in order to get my bearings. I could just follow the skeletons, since they seem to know the way, but that would take too long. Skeletons are a slow bunch, bless their dark, little hearts.

Soon, I find myself at the entrance to the labyrinth, my familiar battlefield. Looking around, I half expect to still see the broken bones and scattered weapons lying everywhere. But there is nothing here. Of course, that never really happened, technically. As I jog towards the stairs, my fur is still sweaty and wet, now from exertion rather than pure heat. I bet that I reek. I wonder if there are secret-stairs on this floor too? I bet there are. But good luck finding them in the labyrinth.

Tentatively, I place a hoof on the first step, where I sent so many of my men to their undeaths and without hesitating too long, I try to take another one.

It works.

My foot is on the second step. The step of a ‘real’ staircase. The weight of my heart is lighter than a feather, as I leap up the next steps, bounding up one after the other. It works! I can go up stairs, real stairs! My theory is true! What does this mean? Did I undo some dungeon-rule, when I went up the secret-stairs? Did I ‘unlock’ the next floor for me and for all the other trash-mobs?

As I spring up those seemingly endless steps, I feel light, happy. Knowing that I did something that mattered, something that really made a difference, even if it was only to us trash-mobs. I am happy that I left an impact.

As I ascend towards that place higher still, my body feels weightless. The steps go on for a while. After cutting into the cavernous ceiling of the floor below, they rise higher and higher into a seemingly perpetual darkness. Soon, I find myself lost in a rhythm, my mind focusing only on the dull clunk of my hooves against the steps. They are honestly a tad too small for someone with legs my size, but I manage to climb them with little effort, my body working in surprisingly smooth fashion for its age.

Not long after that, I find my way up to the next floor. Light shines down the stairs and two tiny silhouettes stand there, peering down my way. Goblins. As they see my massive form thundering up the staircase, they seem apprehensive for a moment, as if deciding whether it's worth the effort to try and stop me. But they don’t really have a say in the matter, if I’m going to be honest.

I hear a set of confused, gnarly, goblin squeaks and squawks as I storm the gates, in a manner of speaking. I suppose I’m not the first mob heading up this way, if they are already prepared and guarding the way down. Either that or they heard me coming, I’m not exactly dainty. Once I bash through the two of them, I find myself in the large chamber, the palace of the goblin-king.

Turning around, I see the two goblins looking up at me in some shock, they aren’t royal-guards. Just some normal, everyday goblins. I look back around to the room that I’m in. It’s a large, covered area, the goblin palace. A great, round chamber with elevated platforms inside for onlookers to stand on, a great throne is on this end, above the arena here, which sits empty now. The goblin-king sub-boss is a wave fight. He sits there on his throne and watches the adventurers fight wave after wave of his goblins in this arena, until eventually, he goes in to do it himself, near the end. But nobody is here now, except for one or two confused normal goblins.

There’s no time to lose. Barreling out through the palace, I find myself at the familiar well. It is tiny. Everything here is tiny. What? I look around at the tiny place I’m in and feel a thousand tiny eyes look back at me. I suppose I’m quite the sight for a bunch of goblins. I see a mother goblin clutch as many of her dozen children as she can and pull them to the side, I wave somewhat awkwardly as I pass them by. I’d smile, but maybe it’s best if I don’t with this face. Before me is the first bridge, as I stand in front of it, I already feel uneasy. The sensation isn’t helped by the sight of all the goblins pushing and shoving each other away, trying to get off of the bridge before I step onto it. Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys.

It’s small for me. I’m a wide creature, okay? There’s a lot of me to love. Shifting my body sideways, I step awkwardly onto the bridge and then begin to cross it at full speed. I need to hurry. The rickety construction wobbles and makes some fairly disconcerting noises, but it seems to be holding together. I must thank the rats for their sacrifice next time I get the chance.

As soon as I cross the bridge, one of the goblins starts to clap, but his friend elbows him in the gut and he keels over. Another goblin whistles as he sees me, but then his wife elbows him in the gut and he keels over too. The first casualties of the day.

That was just the first bridge. However, with newfound confidence in goblin construction techniques and rat bones, I cross each quicker than the last and soon find myself at the staircase. A crowd of curious, frightened but also entertained goblins is on my heels. As I take that first step up the stairs and then the next few after, I turn around to wave goodbye to them.

Secretly, I hope to see my two friend’s faces in the crowd, but I don’t manage to discern them at this distance with these old eyes. I hope they saw me though, even if they don’t recognize me. As I continue my sprint up the staircase, I can’t help but notice the pitter-patter of a few feet echoing up behind me, though I quickly lose them. They aren’t used to the workout just yet, I suppose.

The next floor should be… sure enough, I see the weak blue glow shine through the opening ahead of me. The shine of the fungus in the moonlight-arena. As I come closer to the room, I can’t help but notice the smell. It is pungent to say the least. That means something, coming from a minotaur who has literally never taken a bath, okay?

The smell of mold and death fills the room, the taste of stagnating water coating my tongue as I breathe in the dank air. Breaching the surface of the chamber, I look around it, but never break my stride. There aren’t as many fairies here as I recall, were they already on their way upstairs too? In the center of the room, I see the fairy-mother, still as idle and stiff as ever on her toadstool. Odd. Since the goblin-king was gone, I thought she would be too. As I bolt past her, I shout out the minotaur equivalent of ‘Hi mom’, which is basically just a grunt, and a wave to her. She doesn’t wave back, but her eyes follow me with the same emptiness as always.

Thankfully, the moonlight-arena is a short floor and I quickly reach the stairs on the other end and climb up them as well. I’ve worked out quite an appetite, my body is soaked, my lungs burn and my old knees hurt. But I keep running, I don’t have time to waste. I can’t stop. I won’t stop.

I thunder up the final staircase, having sprinted through three floors in about half an hour to an hour, if I had to guess. My heart is racing from the exertion, but also from the excitement, I am almost there. I am so close. A golden light shines up above me like radiant sunlight, born of a breaking dawn. The shimmering luster of a thousand gold coins fills my heart with joy, not at their value. But simply because of their presence.

I made it. I step my hooves onto the stones above and stop, falling to my knees as I look around panting and heaving. I’ve made it, I’ve made it up to the grand-treasury from the lowest floor of the dungeon! In record time too, I might add. Not that there was a record, but now there is and I’ve set it.

Raising my head, I steady myself. There is still so much work to do.