Gaia's Gambit: Evolution Online I (A LitRPG)
Page 13
“Nice shot.”
I snickered when I saw one of the melee goblins get shoved out of cover by roots, Anlyth had copied my trick and the poor goblin was peppered by two arrows and a sharp jagged piece of steel. The goblin tried to get up and charge, as it screamed a war cry, but it literally couldn’t. The roots held his feet and legs fast.
When I saw one of the three final archers poke their bodies around the tree, I dropped down into cover. I didn’t see it, couldn’t see it from behind the wall, but Gwen’s, Wynn’s, and Anlyth’s follow up attack silenced the wounded goblin.
As soon as the arrows hit our stone walls, or flew over our heads, we hopped back up.
Two of the goblin archers were pulling back, the third got our treatment, and died in flames. I stared at the other two in frustration, they were out of spell and arrow range, and even hard to see through the thick trees. It wasn’t a distance thing really, it was the forest, they’d be very hard to target even with magic. I had a feeling they were going to watch the rest of the battle and report back, I was opposed to letting them escape.
I summoned the fire and water elemental, and sent them hunting. They were just over five feet tall now, and level four as I was. That also meant they’d have four minutes to wear down and kill the goblins, who knew, maybe it would even work. They didn’t do a whole lot of damage with their attacks, but they were also immune to normal weapons, could only be blocked. It was the best I could do.
Without covering fire and arrows to make us cautious, it quickly turned into a slaughter. I wondered what the eleven remaining goblins would have thought of their archers’ cowardice, and selling them out. I stuck to entanglement, and pushed them one by one out of cover at the cost of a measly five mana each. I recovered that much mana in less than three seconds.
Lyre’s bow and fire spell on the arrows, Anlyth’s jagged metal disks, and arrows from Gwen and Wynn tore the enemy apart at close range. Two of them tried to break out and run before I got to their trees with entanglement, but Gwen hit them with a cursed arrow before they could get out of range, which made them recklessly change their minds and charge our fortifications in a rage.
They all died in under a minute.
Wynn said, “Pursuit, now. I don’t want those two escaping to report back. This was a good setup, and we should use it again tomorrow, but we can’t if they get away.”
I agreed, hopefully my elementals were keeping them busy so they couldn’t run. The fight had gone on less than two minutes since I’d cast them so they’d be around long enough for us to catch up, I hoped. My guess was that they were still engaging, since we hadn’t gotten experience yet that meant the fight was still ongoing and not too far from here.
I switched over to water magic, and created an ice ramp over the thorns and pit, so we could exit quickly.
Wynn grunted in approval and hopped up on the four-foot wall to run across. The rest of us followed. I was the one with the least strength and agility, so ran full out in an effort to keep up. I still fell behind, but fortunately we didn’t have very far to go, just about fifty feet into the forest I could make out the glowing forms of a fire and water elemental.
Lyre, Wynn, and Gwen fired their bows while on the run at the one trying to get away from my fire elemental. The arrows all struck, and the goblin turned with a scream to charge us. I really loved Gwen’s cursed arrows.
I gave up on catching up, I was close enough. I tried out another idea I’d had. Ice spike concepts combined with control water. I shot an ice spike with a base cost of ten mana at the one facing my water elemental, five was for water control, and I pumped forty extra mana into it. The fight was almost over, and I still had most of my mana. So, I figured why not. It hit for sixty-two damage as the ice spike hit for twenty two base damage, plus forty for the forty extra mana. Then control water kicked in, and before the ice could melt, it shattered explosively. The sharp end of the spike, and almost half of it, exploded inside the goblin. The small pieces of sharp ice expanded and tore through flesh, muscle, and soft organ tissue for another twelve damage. The outside explosion of ice wasn’t wasted either, and dug into its skin and caused long shallow wounds. The small ice shards continued to rip through the goblin both on the outside and inside for another four seconds, each second yielding another twelve damage.
In essence, much like fire blast using control fires, I was able to double the ice damage in five seconds for a total of one hundred twenty-four damage. He’d already taken damage from my water elemental’s attacks, and fell over dead. I wasn’t sure why elementals weren’t that damaging, at a guess though it was that they had a low intelligence. A level four water elemental would hit for four damage, plus intelligence and mana spent. For me, intelligence was a whopping eighteen points of damage and the majority of the damage in the equation without a whole lot of extra mana pumped in. For a stupid elemental that base damage was a whole lot lower. Regardless, my water elemental had done enough that my strike killed the goblin over time.
The other archer died a lot quicker, with four of the party attacking it.
Wynn grinned, “Good.”
Congratulations! Thirty goblins are dead. You have earned nine thousand Experience Points!
You have leveled!
Congratulations! You defended the forest glade from the second wave of goblins without crapping your pants! You have earned two thousand Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Fire sphere to level five. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Water sphere to initiate level five. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Life sphere to initiate level five. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Meditation skill to initiate level five. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Sneak skill to initiate level five. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Builder skill to initiate level five. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’ve advanced the Hunter skill to initiate level five. You have earned ten Experience Points!
Congratulations! You’re a little wiser. You have earned one thousand Experience Points!
Then my mind froze as I was bombarded with concepts and power for all my advances. More small incremental changes. The first time I’d been so overwhelmed by all the concepts breaking down into finer detail concepts, but I was used to the process now. I imagined reaching level ten would be a huge step forward and a lot more intense, but the small degrees of understanding seemed easy enough. I’d have to meditate on them to prepare for level six.
I was also impressed, three hundred experience per goblin, they must have been level seven or maybe even higher. They were a lot harder than yesterday’s fight, even if we didn’t have to flee today because we were much better prepared and protected. Lastly, I’d just managed to go up a wisdom point! That was supposed to be hard, and I suppose one point in five levels wasn’t all that incredible, but if I could keep that up that would be twelve points in sixty levels. On the other hand, I got the idea the higher it was the longer it would take to improve. My wisdom had only been sixteen, while my intelligence was eighteen, which hadn’t gone up yet.
We took the time to loot, we each got six more sets of goblin equipment. Even if it just sold for scrap metal and scrap leather, we’d probably make a pretty penny for it all. I’d also gotten a decent amount of silver, these stronger goblins actually had decent coin on them. I had eighty-six silver now. I wasn’t sure how much things cost, but I already had the equivalent of over eight gold just in silver, over twelve given the three hundred eighty-six bronze I was walking around with. That was before selling the weapons, armor, and animal pelts. Surely, I’d be able to afford a couple of simple enchantments, on top of the free item.
After we cleaned up following the batt
le, I took the time to meditate on all the concepts I’d gained. All the others were working on their skills as well, having leveled too. I’d even managed to gain level five on Hunter skill, the hunting the day before must have been enough for two levels. I had no major breakthroughs. I didn’t expect to have any more of those until level ten. Half way there!
I was curious what I’d get at level eleven, the beginning of the apprentice levels, outside of enchantment which would be a major concept shared among all eight of the magical spheres. What else though? Perhaps assess would tell me more information, like hit points and mana? There were a lot of reasons to gain power, not the smallest one to keep myself, Gwen, and the rest of my party safe. But also because it gave me a sense of accomplishment and growth, despite magic being fake. But most of all, it was my burning curiosity to learn more. I supposed it was the same insatiable curiosity that made me retreat into studies of science, math, and culture back in the old world.
When I finished meditating on the concepts and mentally adjusting my spells to add them in, I checked my status.
Name:
Jason
Classes:
None.
HP:
114
Regeneration 1.5%/sec.
Race:
Half-Elven / Half Human
Mana:
146
Regeneration 1.8%/sec.
Platinum:
0
Stamina:
123
Regeneration 1.3%/sec
Gold:
0
Level:
5
TNL: 4970
Silver:
84
Strength:
15
Bronze:
386
Agility:
14
Intelligence:
18
Willpower
13
Wisdom:
17
Magical Spheres:
Fire:
Initiate level 5
Water:
Initiate level 5
Air:
Initiate level 1
Earth:
Initiate level 1
Light:
Initiate level 1
Darkness:
Initiate level 1
Life:
Initiate level 5
Death:
Initiate level 1
Skills (Combat)
Combat Skill Name
Description
Level
N/A
Skills (Non-Combat)
Skill name
Description
Level
Sneak
Allows you to move silently.
Initiate Level 5
Builder
You can build a fire and create crude shelters and buildings.
Initiate Level 5
Hunter
Your ability to track and hunt animals.
Initiate Level 5
Meditation
Calm and focus your mind.
Initiate Level 5
Not too shabby. It was close to lunchtime, it’d taken me a couple of hours to get through it all. It looked like I was the first one done, so I wandered over to the fire pit and piled in some of the wood. I used Control Fires to start it up, and seasoned some of the rabbit, deer, and pork. Someone had taken down a boar, must have been one of the elves.
The food was merrily cooking, when Gwen came out of the cottage and over to me. She smiled, and I happily took her in my arms and accepted a short but passionate kiss. I firmly reminded my body we were waiting. There was a lot of temptation there, of course there was, she was sexy and beautiful, and I could tell she wanted me just as badly. But, we were adults with self-control, and it would be worth the wait to do things right.
Gwen said, “Thanks for starting lunch.”
“Any plans for this afternoon?”
Gwen shrugged, “I’d like to take an hour with Wynn or Anlyth, and practice some new fighting techniques, but other than that no.”
I nodded, “I should probably try out a few new spell concepts as well, for all three of my spheres. How about a walk out to the western edge of the forest after that. See if we can catch the elves approach. Hopefully they’ll be here today and can set up tomorrow.”
Even if they did arrive today, they wouldn’t be ready to trade or take over local security until they were done assembling an outpost tomorrow. Still, I was sure tomorrow afternoon we’d finally get access to weapons, armor, and general goods.
She smiled, “I’m looking forward to it to. Better armor and weapons I mean.”
“Was that a yes?”
She grinned, “I’m always up for a walk and time in your company. We don’t really need to hunt either, there’s more than enough food, and pelts to sell. It’ll be good to just decompress, we haven’t been able to relax much since this crazy ride started.”
She turned, and leaned back against me. My hands snaked around her body, and rested on her stomach. Well, on her armor. Probably a good thing, kept the temptation down.
“I won’t argue with that, and it’s what I had in mind. Nothing to build, nothing to fight, and our basic needs are met. It’ll be a nice break from the craziness, and spending time together.”
She twisted her head and smirked up at me.
I grinned, “Fine, I’ll admit it, it’s that last one that was on my mind.”
She replied, “Thought so.”
Wynn left his cottage, and a few moments later Lyre and Anlyth walked into the glade from the forest. They came over and everyone seemed to be in a good mood with the level and all.
Wynn said, “Good work today, and that entangle idea was genius. We have some pretty solid tactics. Any idea what we could do better tomorrow?”
I said, “Let them come a little closer before attacking. Their archers were at extreme range, and able to easily dodge with the time that afforded them when I sent fire blasts. If we can sucker them in further, it would help with that. If not, entangle worked, but it was an extra step.”
Wynn nodded, “I was surprised they didn’t have any shamans with them. This last wave will be bigger, and have a shaman.”
Gwen asked, “How can you be sure?”
Wynn shrugged, “No one escaped, the goblin chieftain will escalate appropriately, and assume a larger more powerful force is needed. The only question is how much larger and more powerful, and how many minor shamans he’ll send.”
Gwen nodded, “My curses advanced slightly. The goblins affected may charge us like they usually do, but there’s a chance they’ll be so blinded by rage that they’ll attack another goblin instead.”
Wynn asked, “Anything else we can do?”
Lyre said, “Stay flexible, if they have tactics to defeat our own we have to adapt. If not, we should stick to what worked today.”
Anlyth nodded, “I agree. The fortifications and our spells worked, I’m not sure how we can improve either, at least not until they’re countered.”
Gwen changed the subject.
“Will you spar with me after lunch?”
Wynn nodded in easy agreement.
I wouldn’t need help to test my spell improvements, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to talk over my gains in fire with Lyre, and in life with Anlyth.
“You two want to discuss our new insights into fire and life while they’re doing that?”
Lyre replied, “Good idea.”
With a plan for the first part of the afternoon, we settled around the fire pit and started to eat lunch.
Chapter Fourteen
The leaves fluttered in the wind, the sounds of the animals, and the scents of the forest were very familiar to me at that point. The overcast sky and fog were long gone, and the sun was bright in the sky overhead, as Gwen and I took our leave and headed west into the woods.
Gwen asked, “What do you want, out of all this?”
I tilted my head in thought.
“Still getting used to the idea of this new world, and wonder what Gaia is truly up to. I’m not really sure. Companionship, and enough power and knowledge to keep those I care for safe. I don’t really care about influence or leadership, but I want my vote. Maybe eventually a home, but at the same time I don’t want to ever become stagnant like we did on the old world, and there’s a hell of a lot to explore on this continent, and a whole other world outside of it. I want to always strive for more, but guard myself against that ambition growing dark. I… want to love, and be loved, and hope that you’re the woman I can do that with.”
She laughed, “So… hadn’t thought of it before? I’d love to hear your answer once you have.”
I grinned ruefully, “Maybe I’ve considered it subconsciously, because all of that just poured out. What about you?”
She replied, “Not totally sure myself. I want stability, but like you said I don’t want to stagnate. Maybe we could buy a house in every city, have the best of both worlds.”
I laughed, “Or I could build one for us. That sounds like a good idea, stability of a home without being tied down to one place. Eventually, we’ll get to that human settlement in the south, and maybe even the one past the elven forest to the west.”
She sighed, “If you’d have asked three days ago I’d have laughed at the thought. But I definitely want companionship, and love. I hope that’s you too, and it’s looking good so far.”
That was nice to hear, that it wasn’t just me, and I reached out and took her hand. Her fingers eagerly intertwined with mine, and she squeezed my hand back.