Without much time to think about it, Hal dropped his 5 attribute points into MND, bringing it up to 9. His MP jumped to 110, nearly giving him three casts of his new Beast Magic spell, Bomb Toss.
Setting Bomb Toss as a spell was as simple as thinking it. Getting to his feet, Hal began to pry up the boards above the koblin’s cage. The noise gathered the attention of the koblin.
Hal turned to Lurklox. “Find another way down, take out any goblins you find but don’t expose yourself needlessly. But first, once I’m down, I need you to put these boards back, okay?”
Lurklox nodded and saluted.
Hal turned to the shouting koblin. He didn’t have long before the goblins swarmed the second level again. “Stand back!” he called down to her and a moment later he dropped through the hole to the floor below.
The koblin looked at him curiously as Hal stood there, astounded he could take the fall so easily. He recovered quickly though and with one heavy swing of his sword, broke open the cage.
The koblin leaped out and darted past the new opening and down the corridor. Hal was hot on her heels. He redoubled his efforts to catch up to her once he saw the new Quest update.
Quest Updated: Repay Buffrix!
All of Buffrix’s immediate clan are freed. All that remains is to free the rest of the koblins. Destroy the goblin menace once and for all.
Objectives
Break Buffrix’s clan out of the goblin prison.
Destroy the goblin cave.
Additional objectives available.
Rescue Sparkspox (Complete).
Rescue Jabkix (Complete).
Kaboom?
Do not let more than 10 koblins die in their cells (0/10).
Rewards
2,000 Experience Points.
Koblin Reputation (Variable).
Item: [Goblinbane].
Additional rewards available.
500 Experience Points.
Running after the koblin, Hal slashed wildly with his sword, severing the cords holding shut the various cages. Without any need for subtlety or quiet, he could open them all with one heavy swipe of his sword.
The few goblins he ran into it were in full chase, following what had to be Sparkspox. As Hal came upon them from behind, he utilized Sneak Attack to deal substantial damage to them.
Those that didn’t fall immediately bled out shortly after but Hal already forgot about them. To his relief, the first level was exclusively filled with koblins. They rushed out and mobbed the few goblins that were hanging onto life by a thread and stripped them bare.
Hal offered what equipment he could. With each downed goblin, the koblins grew in number and were better equipped. They were forced to fight in small tight quarters, twisting tunnels beneath several creaking levels of hastily constructed cages.
They were turning the narrow spaces against the goblin’s greater numbers. They were winning.
17
Their luck was short-lived as Hal nearly bowled over tiny Sparkspox as he turned the corner. They were off in a side tunnel that twisted and opened into a large chamber with three exits at varying levels.
From the looks of it, they had run straight into the armory where dozens of goblins were busy donning full sets of heavy armor and snatching weapons from barrels along the walls.
With a thronging group of koblins at his back, Hal pressed forward. Reaching into himself, he gathered the mana for bomb toss.
Like using enchainment, the knowledge of how to enact the spell came to him instinctively. He tossed the swirling orb of mana as it coalesced into a gleaming metallic patchwork replica of a goblin bomb.
Its hissing wick sparked through the air. All eyes turned toward it as Hal triggered the explosive effect with a mental command. A sphere of rapidly expanding flame burst out from the center of the room.
You cast Bomb Toss.
The [Goblin Packmule] takes 15 points of damage.
The [Goblin Mercenary] takes 13 points of damage.
The [Goblin Skirmisher] takes 16 points of damage.
…
Your Beast Magic has risen to Level 2.
+3% Beast Magic potency (+6%).
Your Beast Magic has risen to Level 3.
+3% Beast Magic potency (+9%).
The list of scrolling damage automatically truncated, saving Hal’s vision from being utterly cluttered with the repeated list. Just in time too as a burning goblin wearing a bulbous pack and rusted plate armor rushed at him with its axe held high.
Hal picked off the attack with his falchion and was about to press a counterattack when he heard the hissing coming from the goblin’s bulbous backpack.
He lifted his leg and booted the goblin with all his might before turning on his heel and running away, trying to pull as many koblins along with him.
A flash of heat and unbelievable noise followed shortly after. Hal was carried on a wave of force that felt like he was hit by a bus. He was thrown clear of the melee and hit the ground with a painful crack.
Sound returned in fits and starts like he had partially lost his hearing and was only just getting it back. A moment later the familiar rush of a Level Up overtook him and his HP yo-yo’d from half back to full as the familiar golden wind swirled around him and revitalized him.
Hal only glanced at his log, noticing the rolling notifications of loot and EXP. I guess kicking an explosive into a group of goblins counts the same as fighting them.
It didn’t seem the most honorable thing in the world but he’d take any edge he could get.
With 5 more points to spend, Hal placed them into INT. The damage from bomb toss was only respectable because of the sheer number it hit and the destructive chain reaction it caused. On its own, 15 damage was a little less than a good hit with his sword.
It seemed that hitting so many targets at once skyrocketed the skill gain of Beast Magic too.
Hal struggled to his feet and gawked at the devastation before him.
Where had once stood dozens of goblins was now a blackened circle roughly twenty feet wide. Goblin bodies were strewn about, and Hal noticed with a stab of guilt some koblins as well but the goblins bore the overwhelming brunt of the explosion.
Parts of the cave had collapsed, closing off the left-half of the room and two of the three exits. The room was filled with smoke, making it hard to accurately count the bodies.
While the EXP rolled in, Hal noticed a single goblin body exploded into purple-black plumes of smoke. Curiously, the koblin bodies didn’t explode. That made him feel the loss that much more.
“Quick-think man-thing saved kobbies from kaboom-boom!” a koblin cried out, its voice soon joined by a throng of surging koblins that swarmed around him.
“Savior man-thing!” the sack-wearing koblin called, tugging at his hand, “Holding-holes have been emptied, Sparkspox has brain-fruit if savior man-thing will listen?”
I’m going to get a stroke listening to these people.
“Go ahead.” Now that the cells were clearing, he could enact the second part of the plan that he hoped would work.
“Sparkspox knows recipe for boom-powder, gobbies hold-fast door. If savior man-thing opens, Sparkspox make big boom, gobbies reduce to smolder-dust!” She motioned at the smoldering ruins of the room before them. “Like Savior man-thing do here but bigger. Muchly bigger.”
“There’s another room with explosives?” Hal asked.
Sparkspox nodded, then looked at the room ahead. “Savior man-thing, is muchly important. Please to not kaboom-boom other room.”
Hal felt a stab of guilt looking at all the damage. He turned to Sparkspox. “Show me.”
Armed with an idea, he said, <“Elora, how are you doing?”>
Elora’s reply was strained, <“I’ve got most of the koblins and kids back here with me, but a few goblins have discovered us. There’s a natural bottleneck but if they become too many we’ll be cut off from any more you send my way. Why?”>
Hal explained his plan to Elora, and h
ow it was crucial that everybody be in the back of the cave and away from the cages.
<“Buffrix do this thing!”> the little koblin shouted over their party communication.
Sparkspox brought Hal around to the rear of the cave. Already Hal could see Buffrix hard at work, shepherding the koblins and their small charges to the far wall. Some of the children looked up, a few pointed at Hal’s appearance but nobody approached him.
From the rear of the stacks of cages, Hal could get a better idea for how it was put together. As much as he hurried before, he had missed a lot of detail. Now that he wasn’t worried about a goblin raising the alarm – been there, done that – he could pay closer attention.
He found it much easier to focus and notice things that otherwise would have slipped his scrutiny. The notification only served to bolster his belief that he had been right to increase his INT further.
Your Investigation has risen to Level 2.
+1% Investigation speed (+2%).
+2% Investigation success (+4%).
There were narrow gaps between the cages at the ground level and deep within he spied a few thick stalagmites that the goblins used as pillars to anchor their shoddy construction to.
If he could get his hands on a couple of explosives and plant them at the base of a few pillars, he might be able to cause all the cages to come tumbling down. And if he did it so that the front section came down first, the whole construction should tumble down in a tidal wave of sharp broken wood and stone.
All Elora and the koblins had to do was hold the line a little longer.
“This way, Savior-Manthing,” Sparkspox called, slipping through a gap between two cells barely large enough for Hal.
He reached back and took hold of Lootlox. “I need you to go to Elora and Buffrix to help them, can you do that for me?”
Lootlox looked like she was going to object but finally nodded. “Savior man-thing has big brain-case. Lootlox will do this thing.”
She hopped down and scurried off through the winding passages toward Buffrix. A line of koblins was threading that way, heading off the goblins that had found the place and pushing them back so more could join.
Hal turned back to the narrow gap and pressed through.
It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic.
Bent nails and jagged splinters jabbed out at him. They left small cuts in his skin and ripped the rags he wore until they fluttered and hung off him by a few scant strips.
They came across several crossroads that were barely lit by dim torchlight. The koblin seemed to take paths through the cells at random until they emerged not out into the open but at a flat rock wall.
Unlike the rest of the cave, which was rough, this section of the wall before Hal was straight and smooth. His perception immediately limned the frame of a door in soft blue.
Your Perception has risen to Level 3.
+2% Perception highlight chance (+6%).
+5% Awareness of magical items (+15%).
“It’s a magical door,” Hal blurted out.
The koblin looked back at him. “Savior man-thing has quick-think brain-case!” she said sarcastically. “Yes, door is hold-fast.” Sparkspox knocked on the stone as if to prove her point.
Hal wasn’t entirely sure what Sparkspox expected him to do. After examining it for a full minute, he noticed a small depression in the center of the door. A tiny slot for a key, perhaps.
Sparkspox moved out of the way as Hal knelt down to get a better look. He wasn’t sure how difficult getting the door open with Mana Investiture would be. If it was like Ashera’s collar, or even worse, then it would bottom out his MP when he needed it sorely for his spells.
He rooted around on the cave floor a few moments before he found a loose nail and just as he was about to try – rather ineptly – to jimmy the lock open, a small mitt smacked his hand away.
“Psshkoh! What is savior man-thing doing? Want die? Leave lock-tricking to Thieves like Lurklox! Shoo, shoo!” Hal backed up and dropped the nail, which the koblin expertly scooped up in its mitt.
“Where’d you come from, Lurklox?”
The koblin bent to the task, fidgeting the nail and something else he couldn’t see into the tiny hole. “Am watching savior man-thing’s back! Gobbies sneaksy. Lurklox sneaksier.”
Hal didn’t know what to say. He was moved that the koblin would take his protection so seriously. “Thank you, Lurklox.” The koblin looked over its shoulder, regarding him curiously as if gratitude was a foreign concept.
Not to mention the koblin likely saved his life because just as Lurklox was fiddling with the lock, Hal heard something click from deep within the stone door. A red glowing line split the door in half and Hal barely managed to get out of the way before a gout of flame flashed down the cramped corridor.
The [Ignition Trap] hits you for 12 points of damage.
Hal’s arm was singed with a long line of angry red skin. It looked like the worst sunburn he ever had and felt like he’d been whipped by fire.
Off to the side, he found Sparkspox. The koblin was a little shaken but otherwise fine. Hal’s eyes followed the glowing line of rapidly cooling stone at their feet straight to the Thief, Lurklox.
The koblin laid on her side where the line ended, a wide scorch mark on the koblin’s leather armor. Hal rushed over immediately and knelt by the koblin, mindful of the hot stone. “Lurklox, are you okay?”
Her HP was barely a quarter of its full bar.
The koblin made a rasping sound in her leather mask and lifted one mittened hand, giving Hal a thumbs up. “Savior man-thing no furrow-brow at Lurklox. Lurklox stronger than stupid gobbie trap. Go. Lurklox rest.”
The koblin hardly looked ready to go walking around on her own. He deliberated between bringing the koblin to Buffrix or pressing on without the Thief. Time was not on their side and he doubted he could find his way out of the maze of corridors, let alone find Buffrix in time.
“Can you hold onto me?” Hal asked the koblin.
Lurklox looked like she was about to argue but then simply nodded. That alone spoke volumes for how weak she was.
Hal picked the koblin up, surprised at how easy it was, and shimmied the small Thief onto his back. It feels like I’m swapping one koblin backpack for another.
Lootlox’s absence was keenly felt. The scant insulation from his tattered cloak wasn’t enough to stave off the cold. Any moment he expected to get hit with the exhaustion status effect once more.
You suffer the effect of Biting Cold.
Without proper insulation, the cold is seeping in. Warm yourself up or increase your insulation to avoid increasingly detrimental debuffs.
Hal rejoined Sparkspox who had opened the stone door and entered the small chamber within. Lurklox held onto his shoulders. Lurklox was a lot larger than Lootlox and couldn’t hold on as tightly either, so Hal hooked his arms beneath the koblin’s knees like he was giving his little cousin a piggyback ride.
The room was dimly lit by glowing, cubic stones resting in stone bowls atop wooden tripods. Sparkspox reached over and grabbed a stone, chafing it and then returning it to the bowl.
The room surged with light.
As soon as Hal walked inside, he recognized the acrid smell of gunpowder that spilled from various sacks and small wooden boxes trickling the dark granules onto the floor.
Sparkspox opened a sack and scooped up a handful. Hal couldn’t see the koblin’s eyes but he could imagine the wide-eyed, almost manic look of a pyromaniac from Sparkspox’s voice alone. “Psshkoh…yes, Sparkspox will make all gobbies smolder-dust with this….”
Hal was a little worried at what he’d just unleashed.
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“Are you sure this is going to work?” Hal asked Sparkspox.
“Savior-Manthing don’t furrow-brow! Sparkspox is bestest tinker-smith! Let Sparkspox work.”
After Hal and Sparkspox had found the cache of gunpowder – and, unfortunately not much else – they had gathered up as muc
h of the stuff as they could in large sacks and headed to each of the pillars that supported the entire structure of the three-story holding cells.
Sparkspox had assured Hal that they could knock them out easily with a few quick explosions, but Hal wasn’t quite so sure. Now that the plan was nearly ready, he worried that he’d oversimplified the whole thing.
Typically, it was the work of several very capable engineers that did demolition work. Not some college dropout and a koblin that didn’t seem to use their fingers.
Hal had no clue how Sparkspox could be so adept while using mitts.
Despite his misgivings, the koblin quickly cobbled together something that looked quite a lot like a cartoonish bomb out of patched and bent plates of metal with a long wick sticking out of the top.
It looked a lot like the bomb from Bomb Toss, now that he thought about it. That didn’t ease his concerns.
Lurklox had managed to stay alert enough to hold on but not much else.
“Savior man-thing can go, fast-walk koblins away from boom-zone! Sparkspox reduce gobbies to smolder-dust and save clan! Then Sparkspox be savior!” The koblin looked up from the makeshift bomb at Hal. “Savior man-thing help koblins. Treat as equals. Kobbies not forget.”
Hal would have liked to leave it at that but as soon as he turned to go he realized he hadn’t been paying close enough attention to where they were. He turned back to Sparkspox and opened his mouth, but the koblin answered before he could ask. “Straight, left, left, right, straight.”
Following the instructions, Hal slipped through the narrow gaps between the cells on the first level and came out toward the rear of the chamber. Straight into a pitched battle.
“Good of you to grace us with your presence,” Elora said from up above, perched on a jut of stone. She blatantly ignored their party link. “Are you going to tell me your grand plan now? Because your loyal little foot soldiers are convinced you’re going to wave your hand and decimate the coming tide of goblins.”
Beastborne- Mark of the Founder Page 18
