I concentrated briefly, casting an instantly empowered Shadow Hound spell, summoning ten black mastiffs. The mastiffs spread out in all directions, gaining on the bandits, herding them back toward the mountain.
“Shadow Lord, look!” Bek yelled, pointing farther away from us.
A fourth group of bandits was about to emerge out of a fourth ravine. Somehow my scouts had missed them.
The bandits we were fighting fought back, peppering us with arrows while their melee fighters charged us with their shields raised. Bek and I instantly raised mana shields, and the arrows skipped off the energy domes.
“Bek will hold them here,” the other goblin piped. “You go to stop new group.”
I hesitated for a moment. Bek was a tier 3, level 24 boss. He was much stronger than the bandits, half of which were barely over level 10, but there were still 20 of them left.
“Go!” Bek said. He gestured with his hands and a wave of darkness welled up, downing four bandits, while he launched another volley of drilling arrows, downing two more.
I ordered my mastiffs to support Bek and hunt down the enemies then I teleported toward the fourth group, leaving my shield behind.
The teleport brought me 60 meters closer to the enemy, halving the distance. I kicked off immediately, closing the gap instead of waiting the few seconds required for the spell cooldown.
I met the bandits head-on and blasted them with a direball that devastated their front line. The others took shelter behind boulders and started shooting me with arrows.
Instead of wasting a spell to cast another shield, I cast Shadow Web at the ravine exit, bottling them in. Several arrows hit me and shattered against my armor, not one of them strong enough to penetrate my protection.
I snorted. This was like shooting fish in a barrel. The bandits were no threat to me; they were merely pests.
I launched another direball, but the bandits ducked behind their shelter and the spell detonated against solid rock. The shrapnel injured some, but none were killed. They were using the ravine’s depth and rock outcropping to shield themselves from my ranged spells. I had little doubt I could take my time and keep bombarding them until they all died, but I needed to make sure my other forces were holding their own.
I summoned my shadow clone, ignoring a few more arrow hits, then I teleported again. In my shadow form, I sped through the darkness toward the nearest enemy group.
Bek’s shield was surrounded by broken arrows and several corpses. Three warriors were hammering on his shield, but the goblin didn’t seem alarmed. He calmly started casting another spell – one of his priest-given powers – and let loose a ring of violet energy. The ring expanded and hurled the three warriors backward. They screamed as their flesh sizzled and blackened. My mastiffs rounded up the last of the bandits trying to escape back into the ravine.
Things seemed well in hand, so I turned back into darkness and swam toward the other group, where I found myself inside a slaughterhouse.
Unlike Bek, the mutated kobolds had reached the ravine before the bandits could come out, and they blocked them off. The four half-breeds were drenched with blood, and the ground around them was littered with hacked-up body parts. As I watched, one of them jumped on a fleeing bandit. His scythe arms crossed in front of him, instantly severing the man’s legs and making him fall. A second kobold materialized out of the darkness and jumped down on the falling bandit, decapitating him before he hit the ground. The rest of the bandits were backing off, but the tight quarters forced those at the front to hold position and the half-breeds hacked them apart mercilessly. The broodmothers’ trophies had not been wasted on them.
I moved on to the next group and saw that the 12 hob scouts and their bonetises were finishing off the last of their enemies. Everywhere I looked, bandit corpses were nailed into the rock walls by the scouts’ arrows or hacked apart by their mounts. Only a small group managed to flee up the mountain outside of bow range.
Meanwhile, back in my physical body, I appeared inside the ravine in the midst of eight of the bandits. I didn’t bother to use any spells. Instead, I supercharged the mana coursing through my veins and fell on the closest bandits, stabbing them with my spear. The Epic-ranked weapon felt natural in my hands, and it sheared through leather armor and metal shields with ease, felling an enemy with every strike. It felt good to kill with my own hands, to feel the warm blood of my enemies spray across my face. My magic was powerful, but it rarely gave me this sense of savage triumph.
The remaining bandits threw down their weapons and ran up the ravine, desperate to get away. But I wasn’t done with them yet. I pointed my fingers, willing the darkness to amass. A giant wave of semi-tangible darkness formed farther ahead of the bandits and washed down on them. They were swept toward me and my hungry spear. I kept stabbing and killing, reveling in the power and bloodlust. This was what it meant to be powerful. To destroy my enemies. This was what it meant to be a monster. I loved every second of it.
The corpses heaped around me. I was almost disappointed when I realized there were no more enemies to kill. The bandits had provided no challenge. They weren’t even high-level enough to justify collecting their void crystals.
I joined the rest of my men at the foot of the mountain. Several of the hobs and kobold half-breeds were injured, but a Heal Followers spell took care of that.
“Thank you for coming, Chief,” one of the lieutenants, Orrq, said. “We wouldn’t have been able to stop them all in time on our own.”
“You fought well,” I said. They really had. The scouts’ average level was 19. They were stronger individually, but the bandits’ higher numbers would have normally tilted the odds against them. The high-quality gear and enchanted weapons my soldiers wielded more than made up the difference. Some of the bandit bodies were cut in half by the enchanted blades, and more than one hob had a slash that could have been life-threatening had their armor been weaker.
Orrq winced. “Some of them got away though. I think they’ll regroup and continue to be a threat. The mountain offers an excellent vantage point on the area below, and there are many other ravines they can use to strike. We’ll need hundreds of soldiers to guard them all.”
“I have a solution for that,” I said. “We’re going to build an outpost here. I need you guys to locate the optimal spot.”
“We can do that, Chief,” the hob said.
I nodded. “I’ll leave Bek and the kobolds here as reinforcements. I’ll be back soon.” I took a deep breath and teleported back to the valley.
I staggered as I reappeared next to the Chief’s Haunt and put a hand on the wall to steady myself.
Kaedric was still there. “Are you well, my lord?”
“Yeah, I just need a moment.” I inhaled slowly. All around me, goblin workers were pouring out of their lodgings to start a new workday. “How are the outpost’s blueprints coming along?”
“The researchers are about two-thirds of the way,” the mandibled hob replied.
“Rush it,” I ordered. “And call for Zuban.”
I felt a slight shift in the information tendrils around me as a small trickle of 600 EP drained from my clan’s store.
“It is done,” Kaedric reported. “And there is our head constructor.”
Zuban approached us. He cut an impressive – though somewhat ragged – figure in his piecemeal mithril armor. It might have been more prudent to gift the expensive armor to one of our more prominent fighters, but I occasionally needed my chief constructor to supervise projects outside the safety of the valley, and I wanted him to remain as protected as possible.
“Greetings, Chief.” Zuban bowed his head at me. “How may I be of service?”
“We need to build the new outpost as soon as possible,” I said, cutting right to the chase. “I have a few troops guarding a vulnerable area, but it’s just a matter of time until they’re attacked again.”
Zuban nodded sagely. “The outpost will certainly help with that.”
“Do
we have the resources required to build it?”
He rubbed his chin. “It takes 2,000 lumber – of which we have plenty – and 500 metal that we can spare. The problem is stone. We’re almost out of limestone, and the outpost requires 500 of that.”
“Can’t we use obsidian instead?” I asked.
Kaedric said, “After the clan-wide upgrade, we still have 851 in storage.”
“Of course,” Zuban replied. “Obsidian is a higher-grade stone and more costly. It will make the outpost stronger.”
“Alright. Have all the resources brought to the cathedral,” I instructed.
“The cathedral?” Zuban raised an eyebrow at me.
“I’m going to open a portal directly to the destination,” I explained. “That’s the second thing I wanted to discuss with you. I need a stationary altar built to do that. Bring the required resources over here.”
Zuban dipped his head. “I understand.” He looked up and shouted some orders to the nearby goblin workers. Three of them sped away and returned shortly carrying stacks of stone and white bones. Zuban looked back at me. “We have the required resources, Chief. Shall we march to the destination?”
“No need,” I said. I motioned Zuban and the three workers closer, took a deep breath, and teleported us away.
We appeared back in the open grassy plateau next to the mobile shrine.
Orrq approached us as I waited for Zuban to recover and for the three goblins to stop retching. “Chief,” he said. “We’ve located the best spot for an outpost. It’s not far from here.”
“Lead us there,” I said and gestured for the others to follow.
It took us only a few minutes to reach a natural rise in the ground that overlooked the entire west side of the mountain range. It was perfect.
“Good job, Orrq,” I complimented the lieutenant. “Zuban, plot the altar right here. Workers, put down the materials.”
The constructor walked a few steps away then nodded. “I’m ready.”
I focused on the area ahead of him, targeting the new tendrils of information that whispered their intended purpose.
Rush Altar construction (100 EP required). Yes/No
Yes.
An ethereal shape of the altar appeared in front of Zuban then the piles of bone and stone started flying on their own, assembling over the visage. The entire process was over in a few seconds, leaving behind a fully formed altar of Nihilator.
Deep darkness spread out of the altar as my deity’s influence claimed the ground around it. It only spread to a 20-meter radius, but that was enough for my purpose. I brought up the Runecraft Design Mode and drew the portal blueprint on the ground. A shimmering rent in the air appeared as the portal opened, connecting us back to Goblin’s Gorge.
I sent out my thoughts.
Soon after, a steady line of goblin workers streamed out of the portal, each of them heavily laden with resource bundles. The workers deposited the resources on the ground, and soon, piles of stone, metal, and lumber were mounting around us.
Once the workers were done and had returned to the portal, I said to Zuban, “Plot the outpost.”
My chief constructor took a deep breath and stepped forward.
I felt the information tendrils twist around like snakes, defining the building that was going to emerge. I pressed down on it with my will.
Rush Outpost construction (15,000 EP required). Yes/No
I whistled. “This thing takes 15,000 build points?” It was easily ten times more than my most expensive building.
“Yes, Chief,” Zuban replied. “It’s a single structure, true, but it incorporates several facilities.” He indicated the pile of building materials. “It takes a lot of effort to convert those into the required shape.”
“That’s no problem, we have plenty of energy,” I said. “I was merely wondering out loud.”
I approved the prompt, and a gigantic holographic image of a building appeared before us, forming around the existing altar and shimmering portal. The building materials flew through the air. The black obsidian blocks came first, embedding themselves deep in the ground to form the foundation, rising to about a meter above the ground. The stacks of lumber came next, forming thick walls, interior buildings, and watchtowers, which were then reinforced with metal strips and rivets. The process took less than a minute.
New Building added to your clan: Outpost
I gaped at the structure in front of me. “Holy crap, that’s not an outpost, that’s a fort.”
Zuban chuckled. “We needed a fortified base of operation. This place can be efficiently held by a garrison of 50 soldiers, securing a large section of the surrounding area, though it could house up to a hundred. The watchtowers will allow the soldiers to spot attacks from kilometers away, and a quick response team can be launched. There are quarters for the soldiers, a mess hall, a general workshop, an armory, and even a small temple with its own resurrection point.
“This is perfect,” I said, taking in the imposing structure. “Orrq!”
The lieutenant approached and bowed to me. “Yes, Chief?”
“I’m making you this outpost’s commander. Tell Savol to assign some troops over here. I think 50 soldiers will be enough for now. You’ll also need an adept to maintain the temple. Those bandits weren’t that big of a threat. I trust you to stop any future attacks and protect our caravans.”
The lieutenant’s eyes lit up, and he banged his fist on his armor. “Yes, Chief!”
The other scouts were already climbing the walls and watchtowers, maintaining a lookout on the surrounding area.
I beckoned for Zuban and the kobolds to follow me and entered the outpost. The place had a military tidiness feel to it, and I noticed several scouts loading the armory with weapons and armor.
“The loot we gathered from the bandits, Chief,” one of the soldiers explained when he saw my questioning look. “Most of their equipment was trash, but we recovered 20 of decent quality.”
“Good. Every little bit helps.”
I found the small temple built directly against one of the exterior walls. The altar was right at the center of it. I could sense that the area of influence had grown to encompass the entire structure.
Feeling confident that the local problem had been resolved, I walked through the portal and back to the valley.
Kaedric raised an eyebrow at me as we came out through the other side.
“It’s done,” I said. “Bandit attacks in that area shouldn’t be an issue anymore.”
“Very good, my lord,” the mandibled hob replied. “I have received a communication from the general. The army just marched past Everance and is three days away from the border with Stoney Barrens.”
I nodded. “I should join them. Now that our back is secured, I feel better about leaving the clan.”
“Everything is well in hand,” Kaedric assured me. “We have sufficient soldiers to protect us in case of an attack and can call in reinforcements through the portal system if we need them.”
“I’ll teleport to the army directly, then. Have they completed the second mobile shrine yet?”
“I’m afraid not. Wolrig, our second constructor is with the army, but he has no workers with him, and his skill as a builder is limited. At the current rate, it’ll take him three more days to finish up construction on his own.”
I winced. Either Kaedric or I could have instantly rushed the construction, but there was no one with the army with similar privileges. I’d granted Savol the ability to use energy for resurrections, but not to rush buildings. There was another way, though. “Then I’ll teleport to Everance and rendezvous with the rest of the army. I don’t want to have to wait three more days. I should lead a scouting party into the Stoney Barrens before they arrive.”
“As my lord wishes,” Kaedric said.
That also meant I had to leave Lirian behind. According to the treaty I’d agreed to, my daughter wasn’t allowed on Everance’s s
treets, only players were. It wasn’t a big issue; once the shrine was completed, I would teleport her there, along with some builders to help speed up construction.
Unfortunately, my daughter didn’t see eye to eye with me on that one.
“Absolutely not,” she declared when I came to say goodbye to her and Tika. “I’m coming with you.”
“Lir, come on, you know you can’t,” I said. “Our truce with Everance will crumble if they catch us breaking the deal, and we have bigger concerns ahead of us. Stoney Barrens is no joke.”
“I don’t care, I’m coming,” the goblin princess said with unusual heat. “It’s nighttime outside the valley, so none of the light-lovers will see me.”
Tika smiled. “You know you can’t argue, not when she’s like … well …”
“Like you,” I grunted. I was supposed to be the chief, damn it, but my two girls always knew how to get their way out of me.
“Yes,” she agreed.
I sighed. “Fine, you can come.”
Lirian exchanged a triumphant look with her mother.
“But you can’t come looking like that,” I said, gesturing in her general direction.
My daughter frowned. “Like what, Father?”
“That armor you’re wearing doesn’t suit a princess. I can’t allow you to go into such a dangerous area without decent protection.”
Lirian deflated at that. “But Father, this is the best armor our soldiers—”
“It won’t do.”
“I don’t have anything else.” She looked down.
“Well …” I lamented exaggeratedly. “I guess you can try on this old thing.” I pulled out the Royal Scale Armor from my inventory and presented it to her.
Lirian’s eyes shone with delight as she inspected the high-quality armor. She untied her jeweled scabbard and removed the old leather armor, completely indifferent to standing before us in simple undergarments, then put on the new piece.
Life Reset: Salvation (Life Reset - Neo Book 6) Page 18
