Chapter 54 The Promised Punishment for Deception

The hours passed in a blur, time slipping away like grains of sand through an hourglass. Kaka worked tirelessly, his muscles aching and his brow slick with sweat, but he refused to yield to exhaustion. He knew that every moment wasted was a moment lost and with adventurers threatening to raid their home, he could not waste precious time.

But there was no time to finish the tunnel in one day. With a sense of urgency, Kaka hastily concealed his work with a small pile of leaves, masking the entrance to the tunnel from prying eyes. Then, with a last look over his shoulder, he slipped back into the tent, his heart pounding with a mix of anxiety and fear. He prayed silently for a little bit more time before the adventurers struck.

In the next few days that followed, we experienced a relentless onslaught of torment at the hands of the sadistic guards. We pleaded with the guards to show mercy for our barely clinging to life, smushed, hatchling friend. The guards seemed fueled by a perverse pleasure in inflicting suffering upon our defenseless forms granted us a boon and delivered his share of torture upon our already broken bodies. Without fail, they came regularly each day to deliver the torment.

The torture sessions became increasingly creative and gruesome. The guards, now devoid of any semblance of restraint, reveled in their power over us, the tiny goblin hatchlings. From vicious beatings to depraved games that left the hatchlings maimed and broken, the brutality showed no signs of easing. Kaka did his best to mend our mushed forms but the wounds received persisted no matter how hard he tried.

One particularly nasty guard, known as Slasher, took pleasure in tormenting Kaka the most. Slasher seemed to have a personal vendetta against the scarred goblin, targeting him with a sadistic zeal. Each day brought a new form of cruelty, and Kaka, beaten and discolored, bore the weight of the guards' fury.

With every shift of his torture duties, Slasher's eyes gleamed with a malicious glint, his twisted grin sending shivers down the spines of even the bravest goblins.

The torture began with simple beatings but soon escalated to unimaginable horrors. Slasher reveled in devising new methods to break Kaka's spirit, each one more diabolical than the last. He would drag Kaka from his makeshift tent, his gnarled fingers digging into the scarred flesh of the goblin's arms as he dragged him to the center of the camp.

There, surrounded by jeering guards and terrified onlookers, Slasher would unleash his depravity upon Kaka's miserable body. He would brandish his whip, its cruel lashes leaving angry welts and belts of hanging skin upon Kaka's already mutilated body, each strike accompanied by the sickening sound of flesh meeting thorny vine.

But Slasher's cruelty did not end there. No, he delighted in inflicting psychological torment upon his victim, using words as weapons to chip away at Kaka's fragile mind. He would mock and taunt the scarred goblin, his voice dripping with scorn as he hurled insults and threats with a grin of pure joy.

And then there were the implements of torture, each one more grotesque than the last. Slasher would force Kaka into agonizing positions, stretching his limbs to their breaking point as he screamed and squealed in agony. He would subject him to the rack, the sound of snapping bones echoing through the camp as Kaka's body contorted in pain.

But the most rat act of Slasher's atrocities was his use of fire. He would hold a flaming torch to Kaka's crotch, the searing heat causing blisters to bubble up on his already devastated skin. The smell of burning flesh filled the air, a sickening reminder of the horrors that awaited those who dared to cross Slasher's path.

And through it all, Kaka endured driven by sole hope, his tunnel to freedom. His spirit may have been broken, his body broken and maimed, but he refused to let Slasher's cruelty extinguish the spark of only hope that still burned within him. He gritted what was left of his teeth against the pain, no matter the cost.

At the end of the day, the tent, once a feeble sanctuary, now echoed with the cries and whimpers of the tortured goblin hatchlings. The friendship that had briefly united us in shared sorrow began to wane as the relentless abuse took its toll. Fear and hopelessness settled over the hatchlings like a suffocating shroud.

Kaka, with each passing day, got frightened more and more by the fear of adventurers raiding and killing us all, yet he continued to shield us as best he could, but his efforts seemed futile against the unbridled cruelty of the guards. The remaining hatchlings, their innocence shattered, cowered in the corners of the tent, their eyes haunted by the pain and trauma inflicted upon them.

A few days have passed since the encounter with the adventurers. With no sighting of them since then, the guards seem to brush it off as a simple lie, a blabbering of goblin slaves who tried to save their hides by telling nonsense. 

The guard's visit to Kaka's tent was like a dark omen descending upon us, casting a pall of dread over the entire camp. The guard had promised punishment for Kaka's alleged deception, and now he was here to deliver it with a ruthless fist. I watched with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as he approached, his footsteps echoing like the tolling of a funeral bell in the stillness of the night.

As he entered the tent, Kaka stood before him, his eyes downcast, his body tense with fear. I could see the anxiety etched upon his face, the weight of his promised punishment bearing down upon Kaka like a crushing weight.

But what happened next was beyond anything I could have imagined. Instead of the physical torture we had expected, the guard's attention was drawn to the small, smushed hatchling that Kaka had been so desperately nursing back to health. With callous hands, he reached out and plucked the tiny creature from his makeshift bed, his fragile body trembling in his grasp with fear as he realized the horrors that awaited him.

My heart lurched in my chest as I watched in horror, unable to tear my eyes away from the scene unfolding before me. 

"Please! Master!" Kaka pleaded, his voice cracking with emotion.

 "Have mercy on us! Spare the hatchling's life! I beg of you! He is not but an innocent hatchling! He do no bad!" But Kaka's cries of protest fell on deaf ears as the guard carried the hatchling outside.

In a desperate bid to save the poor creature, Kaka lunged forward, grabbing hold of the guard's filthy feet and clinging to them with all his strength, his hands and knees scraping against the rough dirt as he begged for mercy and forgiveness. He kissed and licked the guard's filthy feet, hoping against hope that his show of submission would soften the guard's heart and spare the hatchling from a fate worse than death.

But it was all in vain. The guard's cruel laughter echoed in the stillness of the camp, a mocking reminder of our powerlessness in the face of his tyranny. As he reached the edge of the camp, he raised the hatchling high above his head, a cruel smirk playing on his lips as he prepared to deliver the punishment.

Kaka's heart shattered as he watched helplessly, tears streaming down his face as he realized that his desperate bid for mercy had been in vain.

In one swift motion, the guard thrust the poor hatchling against the wall with a force that sent tremors rippling through the air. The impact reverberated through the wall, rattling the very foundations of the wall as the hatchling let out a gut-wrenching scream of agony. The guard's grin twisted into a cruel smirk, a grotesque caricature of amusement etched upon his face as he reveled in the punishment he was about to deliver.

He produced a set of rusted, crudely made giant nails. Each one is a sinister instrument of torture designed to inflict maximum pain upon its victim. With a savage grin, he jabbed the nails into the hatchling's frail limbs, driving them deep into the tender flesh until they pierced through skin and bone alike.

The hatchling's cries of pain echoed off the walls, and each nail sent shockwaves of agony coursing through the tiny creature's body, producing desperate sobs and anguished pleas for mercy which sounded like music to his tormentor's ears.

As the last nail was driven home, the hatchling hung nailed to the wall like a ghoulish work of art, his frail limbs pinned in place by the cruel instruments of torture. Blood trickled from the wounds, forming a cascade that stained the walls with its gruesome hue. He had become an effigy of the unspeakable cruelty that lurked within the heart of the goblin breeding farm.

The guard stepped back, his chest swelling with perverse pride at the sight of his handiwork. He surveyed the scene before him with a twisted satisfaction, reveling in the agony of the helpless hatchling as he writhed and squirmed against the unforgiving nails that held him captive.