Quick Change Volume 1: Slyborn

by C. T. O'Leary

Seth assessed the new skills. It looked like two of the new additions, Expose Breach and Onslaught were meant to be used in succession after Deliberate Strike. He’d not been using his skills very much in the boar fights, preferring to just hack and slash with his sword, but when he did happen to use his named attacks, he noticed they did more damage.

  Charge looked to be an initiation attack, the distance requirement meant he actually had to be a certain distance away to even activate it, but not too far. He imagined the area from which he could activate Charge if viewed from top down, and realized that it would look like a donut, a circle with a hole in the middle. He decided to call the area the sweet donut. Privately of course.

  Seth couldn’t wait to try out the new abilities, though the fact that Aurora had to sneak around the kobold cave made him nervous. He’d thought that nothing in the area would be even a slight threat to her, but that seemed like it might not be the case.

  There were other effects of Seth’s leveling that weren’t as obvious as the new skills. He felt much stronger, just in general. Whereas he’d been feeling weaker than he had on Earth since coming to Morgenheim, after passing level five he had started to feel about as physically fit as normal. Now that he was level ten, he felt amazing. It was as if he was in peak physical condition, he was convinced he could run for miles without stopping, or do some absurd number of pushups. Probably best not to do any of that while hiding from some monsters in a bush though.

  Seth had still yet to see Aurora so much as draw her sword, but he hoped that would change as they entered the Kobold cave ahead. After a few more tense moments she came back through the underbrush, audible but quieter than Seth would have expected someone wearing full plate armor to be. She whispered, “There are three kobolds standing guard. I’ll kill the two on the left if you can fight the one on the right. I’ll count down on my fingers from three, then use your Charge ability. After that, take him out as quickly and quietly as possible.”

  Seth nodded but then said, “Charge on one, or charge on go?” He was nervous and needed exact instructions. Seth’s lack of ability to deal with ambiguity had been partially responsible for his career choice.

  A look of confusion flickered over Aurora’s features, and she said, “What?”

  “Should I Charge when you say one in your countdown, or are you going to say go or something after you say one. When should I Charge?” Seth responded.

  Aurora looked incredulous. She stared at him for a few silent beats before sighing and saying, “I won’t say anything after one, so activate your Charge ability on one. Any other questions?” Her tone did not invite any other questions, so Seth just gave her a thumbs up.

  She stared at his thumb uncomprehendingly. Seth ground his teeth together and said, “I understand. Let’s go.”

  Aurora nodded her head as she crept forward again. Seth wished he’d asked her what exactly a kobold was. As they proceeded around the stone outcropping, he got his first look. The kobolds stood between four and a half and five feet tall. They had knobby brown skin and looked sort of like what Seth imagined goblins looked like. They wore patched together rags as clothes, and chittered back and forth in a language he didn’t understand, in-head translator or not.

  Aurora made eye contact with Seth and held up three fingers. Seth was distracted, instead of holding up three fingers closest to her thumb like he might have, she held up her pinky finger, ring finger, and middle finger. She dropped her ring finger, and Seth visibly jerked, realizing he hadn’t been focusing on the enemy at all. He honed in on the kobold on the right and silently drew his sword as she dropped another. Aurora dropped her pinky, and Seth mentally activated Charge.

  Chapter 9

  When Seth mentally activated Charge, his body took control. It was like the muscle memory was programmed into his limbs. He coiled backwards and low in an instant, weight on the ball of his right foot. His arms wound tight to his center of mass, and he balanced like that for a moment. Suddenly, his leg muscles bunched hard in unison, and he kicked off the dirt with ludicrous force. Seth lurched forward, literally sailing over the intervening ground and crashing into his assigned kobold, sword first.

  The monster let out a yelp but didn’t make a move to retreat or pull out the club secured to a shoddy belt hanging around its midsection. Seth stood before the humanoid, staring at it like an idiot for at least a full two seconds before realizing it was still stunned from his new ability. He slashed his sword at its exposed throat. He’d burned too much time, and it was able to throw itself backwards at the last second, completely avoiding his strike. Seth flicked his eyes up above its head and found its health bar sitting at around ninety percent.

  Seth looked back at the kobold, expecting to see it rushing at him with its club out but, instead, saw it turn and sprint towards the entrance to the cave. It was quick and agile, and he wasn’t hopeful that he’d catch it as he gave chase. In Seth’s peripheral vision he saw Aurora, sprinting to his left. She passed him, an incredible feat given that she wore heavy plate armor, and caught up to the kobold, ending it with one deft swipe of her sword. Seth looked toward where the other two had been and saw their bodies lying on the ground, too.

  Seth felt a twinge of regret at having participated in killing sentient beings that were able to speak and even guard their camps, but he reconsidered these emotions a few seconds later, when he spotted the human skulls forming an arch around the wooden door leading deeper into their lair. Morgenheim had already proven to be a cruel, violent place.

  Seth glanced at his combat log to see what information he could see from the fight.

  Your party member Aurora has slain level 13 Kobold Grunt, +0 experience, 1,910 experience until level 11.

  Your party member Aurora has slain level 12 Kobold Grunt, +0 experience, 1,910 experience until level 11.

  Your party member Aurora has slain level 13 Kobold Grunt, +216 experience, 1,694 experience until level 11.

  He immediately noticed he hadn’t received any experience from the first two enemies Aurora had taken on herself and had received some from the last kobold. Since the kobolds were higher level than the boars he’d fought earlier, Seth would have expected to get more experience. He assumed that since he’d only participated partially in one kill, that he only received partial experience for that one, and none of the experience of the other two. That, at least, explained why she’d made him face all of the boars on his own.

  Seth approached Aurora as she knelt down over one of the kobold bodies, and sheepishly said, “Sorry I wasn’t able to take him out quick enough.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t really expecting you to, I just wanted you to keep him occupied for a few seconds while I handled his comrades. I was unsure I could handle all three quickly enough to prevent one getting inside and sounding the alarm. You did well, though I think you need some practice on utilizing the stun after your Charge lands.” She chuckled as she started digging around the shabby pockets sewn on the kobold’s rag outfits. She glanced up and must have seen the confused, and probably slightly repulsed look on Seth’s face. “A good number of monsters you take on will have at least one thing you can take off them and use or sell. See?” Just then she pulled out a small copper coin from one of the pockets, held it up for him to inspect a moment, then tucked it into a pouch at her waist. “Some monsters will have coins or gems, while others will have useful body parts or byproducts. Those boars you fought earlier have tusks an herbalist will pay a few coppers for, but they are somewhat difficult to dislodge from the creature’s mouths, so I didn’t mention it.”

  Seth’s jaw dropped at this revelation. He asked, “So, you’re telling me that enemies in this game, err, world…drop loot?”

  “Well, I’ve never heard it referred to that way, but I guess that describes the phenomenon pretty well. I was always taught that it was just another way the gods provide for us,” she replied. She stood and moved back to where the first two kobold bodies were still lying, intending to look for valuables on t
heir bodies as well, and that spurred Seth to ask another question.

  “So, if there are so many monsters and creatures in Morgenheim, what happens to all of the bodies? Why haven’t we passed mounds of boar carcasses on the way here? Also, how are there so many monsters? Is it possible to hunt them to extinction? It seems by killing several boars today, I would have put a significant dent in the population in this area,” Seth mused.

  She seemed confused by Seth’s questions, but still tried to answer. “What do you mean about the bodies? They return to the land after they’ve been slain.” She searched his face and saw his blank look, so continued on, “Take those boars that we killed on the path here, by the time we walk back to my house this evening, their carcasses will have turned to dust and returned their essence to whatever spirit willed their creation. Monsters in the wilds aren’t like normal animals or people.

  “Whereas your average dairy cow must mate, be pregnant, give birth, and then raise its offspring to bring about a new dairy cow, monsters in the wild are formed from the essence of spirits that reside in the areas they appear in. When you slay a monster, you are given a small bit of the essence that was invested to form it, and after a few hours the spirit that made it reclaims the rest. Depending on the strength of the spirit dominating that given area, the monster will be reborn in a matter of days or weeks.

  “It is possible to hunt monsters to extinction in a given area, but that usually involves slaying monsters continuously for days or weeks at a time until the spirit decides to give up and stop wasting its essence on creating any more monsters to be killed. These areas, if left to become wild again, will eventually revert to their old ways of churning out monsters, but that usually takes years to happen if you have forced a spirit out.

  “Many towns must be sort of seeded this way, and the Transportation Guild I told you about is very efficient at it. They’ll send somewhere from five to ten guild members along with a group of settlers to their chosen destination, and for the first few weeks while the settlers are cutting down trees and setting up the basics of their town, the guild members will hunt every monster that shows its face within a certain distance of the fledgling town. Before long, the spirits will back off and let the humans have the area. After that a single Adventurers’ Guild member is usually enough to keep the monsters from encroaching on the human’s territory.”

  Seth was amazed at what he was hearing, but it was as if every answer Aurora provided just spurred dozens of other questions in his head. Were all animals in the wild like this, or were passive animals like deer and birds regular animals like he was used to? If deer were just regular animals and not spawned monsters, where was the distinction? Were wolves considered animals or monsters? Seth almost voiced some of these, but she had already looted all three kobolds and was making her way towards the skull ringed door, and he thought better of it. Instead, he said, “What’s the plan now, and what can we expect inside there?” He nodded, indicating the door they approached.

  She said, “I’ve not been to this exact den before, but kobold caves usually have one main chamber where most of the kobolds will reside, and then a separate chamber branching off that where the clan chief lives. The Mayor of Bosqovar was told an artifact, some ancient egg statue, stolen from a local enchanter is in this kobold dwelling.

  “If I retrieve it and return it to the enchanter, he’ll donate a handsome sum of money to the town, and they’re willing to pass some of it my way for my trouble. While kobolds are technically monsters, it’s typically not in my jurisdiction to return stolen goods, especially when I can’t confirm how they ended up in the kobolds’ possession. But you know…politics.”

  Aurora grasped the handle to the wooden door set in the rock face and turned toward Seth before opening it, whispering, “I want you to lead the way and try to fight as much as you can. I’ll keep your health topped off and step in if I need to. If any of them try to run, let them go. We don’t need to wipe them all out if they don’t make us. Let’s just get that statue and get out of here.” Seth nodded at her words, and she opened the door, stepping aside to let him lead the way into the gloomy passage beyond. Seth took a breath of fresh air before gathering his wits and stepping through the doorway, descending down into the cave system.

  Chapter 10

  Seth noticed the dank smell hanging in the air immediately upon entering the cave. Aurora yanked a torch off the wall and pulled a flint and steel contraption from one of her pouches, silently lighting it and motioning him to move forward.

  Seth felt the oppressive weight of the rock above them as they descended into the gloom. The tunnel was plenty wide for one of them to walk single file, but it seemed to fit kobold heights better, and both Aurora and Seth had to stoop slightly as we went.

  After following the path past two sharp turns, the first left and the second right, Seth could see light coming from up ahead. They walked forward on the balls of their feet, and Seth was again frustrated by how quietly Aurora could move in such heavy plate armor. The ground leveled out, and he was able to see into the cavern that opened up at the end of the tunnel. The flicker of firelight threw strange shadows on the walls of the tunnel. Seth was able to count five more kobolds, all adult males from what he could gather, in different states of lounging in the chamber ahead.

  The chamber was larger than he had expected, and the short humanoids had spread out, claiming their own corners. If Aurora were to be believed, these were just constructs, but something felt distinctly off about walking into a cave where humanoids were living and meaning to kill them. Seth decided he’d try to resolve it differently and glanced at Aurora once before stepping out of the gloom and clearing his throat. Seth heard her hiss of disapproval but it was too late. The goblinoids were dumbfounded, all freezing in the middle of whatever they’d been doing before springing into action.

  As the kobolds rushed towards him, some drawing weapons and others just intending to use their claws and teeth, Seth held his hands up, sword still at his side, and said, “Wait! We just want to talk to your leader. Your chief.”

  The monsters’ charge slowed and petered out. They glanced at one another in confusion, and after a moment, one of them repeated his last word, chief. It sounded guttural, like all of the kobold’s noises were emanating from the back of his throat. The word was repeated by several other of the kobolds, before the one that was farthest from Seth turned and ran into a tunnel branching off the cavern to the left. The four remaining gray skinned humanoids remained, small weapons drawn and pointed in Seth’s direction.

  He risked a glance back at Aurora, only to find that he couldn’t see her. Panic jumped up his throat as he fought to tell himself that she wouldn’t leave him there, that she just hadn’t exited the tunnel mouth and was waiting within earshot to help if he needed it. The more cynical part of Seth, however, feared that she thought his move to talk with the monsters rather than fight them was so dumb that it warranted her leaving him to learn his lesson.

  They all stood like that, tense in the entrance to their hovel for what felt like an eternity before the single kobold that had run off, and another kobold, who Seth assumed was the chief emerged. The chief stood slightly taller than Seth, and much broader, an absolute giant among the other kobolds. He wore little clothing, chest and arms left revealed, showing off his solid mass. Some sort of bone headdress adorned his head, and an intelligence that Seth didn’t see mirrored in any of the other kobolds shined out of his beady black eyes.

  He walked right up to Seth, the other kobolds somehow stepping out of his way without ever turning their eyes from the intruding adventurer. The chief looked Seth up and down, not seeming terribly impressed, before flicking his eyes over his shoulder toward the tunnel entrance Seth had entered through and choking out some words in the human language of Morgenheim, “Your friend come out now.”

  Seth heard a clanking behind him as Aurora walked up and stood next to him, looking simultaneously bemused and angry. He wondered if their co
llision might smash him like an insect.

  The chief spoke up again, “Assume guards dead,” he nodded toward the passage they’d come through before finishing, “what you want?”

  Seth tried to reply, but Aurora cut him off, her eyes drilling into the chief’s, her teeth staying gritted together as she ground the words out, “We’re here to reclaim a stolen statue. It’s a small metal egg engraved with runes. I was prepared to take it by force, but my…friend here thought he’d like to talk it over with you first.”

  The king held her gaze for an uncomfortable several seconds before slowly reaching behind himself and pulling out what could only be the egg she was just referencing. He held it close to his eye, inspecting it like a jeweler might inspect a large gem.

  Seth couldn’t help but stare at the dirt crammed under his overly large fingernails. He closed his hand around it and looked back at Aurora, and Seth realized that both the chief and his party-mate were broadcasting the ‘adults are talking’ vibe towards him and the other kobolds. Simply refusing to even acknowledge there was anyone else in the cave.

  The chief said, “Not stolen. Bought from human warrior from town. Paid one silver. Will sell for…five silver.” A cocky smile crossed the chief’s face, and a couple of the other kobolds snickered. Seth thought that they needed to work on their poker faces.

  Aurora glanced at Seth before reaching to her waist, opening her coin purse, and pulling out six silver coins. She extended her palm towards the kobold, simply saying, “Six, and you tell me who sold you the egg.”

  The kobold seemed to consider, but Seth could already see the greed in his eyes as he stared at the coins, he seemed to have not expected her to even get close to his request of five silvers.

  The kobold began describing a man who had shown up several days prior, looking to sell a shiny treasure to the kobold group. The chief seemed very proud of how cheaply he’d gotten the statue, and accidentally let slip that he’d really only paid a few copper coins and thirteen sets of flint and steel fire starters. As he began describing the warrior in short, choppy sentences, Seth’s suspicions grew, and when he mentioned the very shiny sword the warrior wore, it clicked.