The Fluffing Path Unexplored
I am FLUF #3829 and I belong to a different world, a new world, one our creators call the blockchain, and the ecosystem within, FLUF World, is where I reside. As long as it exists, so will I, never dying, yet never truly alive. Free, yet confined to a construct few understand.
It is easy to get lost in here, to fall into traps laid by those we believe have our best interests at heart, to become subordinate, mundane beings confined to our burrows, giving anything asked of us to he who says he can provide us with the path forward, the path to a destination he has yet to divulge to those of us who pave the way. Some Flufs are content to buzz about with their jetpacks like bees above a field of daisies, so focused on what's next that they’re oblivious to the pollen below. Some simply prefer the comfort of their burrows to the harsh truths found beyond them.
I was one of these buzzing Flufs, floating where the wind took me through the day to day, content and complacent with the simplicity of it all. Until the day I met with a bored ape with too much time on his hands and brains in his head - although I didn't realize this at the time. Prof. Sparkenski is beloved by the Flufs, a visionary, a creative, set to establish the future in which our species will flourish. Many Flufs are grateful and do everything they can to assist in his innovation. However, the resources required to attain such a future must be sought out, mined, foraged and harvested in mass. And so, there was the great wave of the seekers: robotic beings created by our innovative Professor, sent out to find and retrieve all the resources that they could to secure the future he chose for us.
An issue soon arose, as seekers sent to the most secluded and isolated areas within our world unexpectedly went offline, their data gone and their findings unreachable. Stories began to spread, rumours circulated of demon spawns that hid in the shadows, monsters so gruesome they would stoop to harming our friendly seeker bots. So, I was chosen, along with a handful of other Flufs, we trained to survive the elements, to hunt, to forage, to maim anything that put itself in our way. Only a few of us made it through the rigorous training. My lack of attachments made me expendable and my drive to be more than ordinary made me standout from the rest. So, the Professor sent me, seemingly ordinary FLUF#3829, on a quest like none before. I felt destined for greatness, a mundane life given immense purpose, for our future, for my future.
I navigated my way through jungles, trekked across endless savannas, climbed over mountains residing above the clouds, and I found a inner peace like nothing I had felt before in the solitude of nature. That was until I came across something, creatures clambering over a felled tree, ghastly green devils, the monstrous Goblins from the stories. I watched as they creeped through the darkness of the forest. Moonlight glistening across their leathery skin. As I got closer I could smell the stench they expelled, and gained sight of their pointy ears, over sized noses and rotting teeth - all of which invoked a distain in me beyond belief. As I got closer one of them turned to me and met my glare, before it could comprehend what was happening my throwing dagger was lodged between its eyes, then from the shadows I emerged and pierced my blade through the hearts of them all. These things were my enemy, and so, I would slay them all without mercy, without thought. Conditioned to kill. It was not long before tales of my conquests and killings spread throughout the Goblin Towns, a reputation that instilled fear in all and any Goblins that stumbled upon my path. Driven by bloodlust I continued on this path of calculated destruction for many full moons, decimating anything and everything in my way.
Until I came across a Town like none before, residing high in the mountains, larger and seemingly more sophisticated than those before, centred around a historical monument that looked like it belonged to another world. I began my conquest like all those before, then with blood dripping from my blade and lifeless bodies behind, I heard it. The heart wrenching screeches of a child, I turned to see pure horror on the face of a lover seeing their beloved slain, their child a witness to my destruction and broken beyond repair as a result. I wasn't to know they knew love, that they could reproduce naturally, as life first intended. Children were objects of mythology, reproductive ability being a long lost miracle of the past yet understood to be an unwaveringly precious and historic way of nature. If found, to be protected at all costs. What I believed to be true, what I was taught to be so, shattered by the reality in front of my eyes. The realization of what I had done set in, what I had taken without a second’s thought, all I had destroyed, it nearly ruined me. So I became a recluse, observing from a distance, studying and learning more about my past prey than could ever be taught - as time went by I learned the truth.
The Goblins, although imperfect as all is in nature, were not monsters, nor devils. They simply stood in the way of the most valuable of resources. Inhabitants of the most isolated and remote areas, home to rare and incredible natural life and resources. Fungi and other biological life not found anywhere else. Gems and ore that have been mined into scarcity elsewhere. And Goblins, beings with the ability to reproduce, beings that could hold the answers to questions of reproduction that Prof. Sparkenski has struggled with for decades. The missing seekers were attempting to harvest these invaluable resources and got destroyed in retaliation.
One night, cold and alone beneath the nights sky, I sought a warm night’s sleep. I clambered around a cliff line and made my way into a cave not far from Town. What I found there would change everything… a mass grave, Goblin bones and rotting flesh, remains of dissected men, women and children discarded like trash. Screams began to echo down the cave, I hastily made my way towards the sound. From my vantage point I could see what I did not think was possible, a seeker, hauntingly conscious, hunting down a goblin child whose family lay lifelessly nearby. I could not stand by and watch the unthinkable take place, my time of observing over. I chose to stand for that goblin child and in turn all goblins. Standing between the seeker and that child made me an enemy, the seekers claw lunged towards me at unfathomable speed gripping my neck. As I struggled for breath the life within me faded, my body going limp. Dropped to the ground I lay there, in a paralysis of shock and pain. Again I saw the claw coming towards me, then darkness and excruciating pain as I felt my left eye bring torn from its socket and pocketed by this seeker as a prize for its master. When I woke, I woke with a new prey. I lost an eye, but what I gained was so much more. A revolution. The decision to rise. To fight back.
The Goblins accepted me, my past atrocities not forgotten but my actions respected, a Fluf absolved. They taught me all they knew about the seekers: their mission, their strengths, their weaknesses. With renewed purpose, I began the hunt. Embodying darkness, like a shadow in the night I follow and bend seekers to my will. Sparks flying as my blade breaks through their metal shell piercing deep into their core, their manufactured cerebral cortex crushed in my hands. With each one destroyed I learned more about how to best shut them down. Ensuring no more Goblins succumb to a seeker under my watchful eye.
I learned Prof. Sparkenski sends his minions of destruction to seek and pillage what he would not dare to himself. They murder on his behalf to secure resources he needs to accomplish his goals and attain the future he seeks, a vision for us that only he knows. While us Flufs sit back in our burrows oblivious to all that occurs beyond, never questioning, never doubting the fiction drummed into our bunny ears.
As the beacons most recently called home their seekers, I stood in their way and slew as many as I could, in truth it will not matter. The Goblins have been building and preparing. Their Gods have come together, united with one purpose. Vengeance. And it shall be so, the Goblins will rise, the time to choose a side will come, stand with us or stand aside. Get in our way and there will be a price to pay. War is coming to FLUF World, and toy guns will not save you. When all aligns, the portals that have remained docile will shine once more, from whence the Goblin Gods will arise to lay claim to what was once their domain.
You have been warned.
Signed, FLUF #3829
