by Ryan Rimmel
“Glak’ilk’sic,” he bowed, “Shadow Goblin, and Slayer of Men. You just killed off most of Galk’ilk’sic’s servants. Bad form.”
Chapter 11: Battle with the Shadow Goblin
I examined him with Lore.
Glak’ilk’sic: Shadow Goblin Level 6
Health: 60
Stamina: 80
Mana: 10
Sword Novice: He gains +2 to damage with swords
Dodge Novice: He is skilled at dodging
Stealth Novice: He is difficult to spot in the best of circumstances,
Perception Novice: Sight based skill, allows him to see more detail in your environment, grants limited low light vision.
Twin Weapon Fighting: He gains a speed bonus when attacking with two weapons.
Shadow Goblins are Elite Goblins who have been cursed by drinking the blood of the shadow god. They are imbued with his power and are much more cunning and capable than normal goblins. They like to keep normal goblins around as servants. Normal goblins will always listen to and follow the orders of Shadow Goblins, due to their magical nature. Many armies use them as assassins and spies.
Note, there is a 4 level difference between you and the target. Attacks will have a lower probability of striking the target. Defensive skills such as Dodge will be more expensive when fighting against a higher level opponent.
“You saw me in the gully, when I was sneaking around,” I replied, drawing my daggers.
“But of course, though Glak’ilk’sic’s clever mind had you pegged as a Rogue. Out here, you have all of those pesky traps, so you must be a woodsman, or a much higher level Rogue with trapmaking skill.”
With that Glak’ilk’sic started pacing at the end of my traps, forcing me to either close with him or walk around in a circle to keep distance. I chose to keep distance. “Why do you think that?” I asked.
“Well, Galk’ilk’sic used his Lore skill on you, of course. You also have Lore, but your readings cannot be right. They claim you have 82 Health, and 90 Stamina. That means that you cannot possibly be level 2. You must have an item that is making you more powerful. and Glak’ilk’sic would like that item,” he smiled, “Glak’ilk’sic would like that very much.”
He lunged forward in the blink of an eye. Only my newly enhanced mobility based Dodge skill allowed me to leap clear, as both swords would have bisected me. He was still close enough to attack though, so I slashed at him. He easily dodged the strikes, flowing backwards until he was standing where he started only a moment before.
“That is interesting,” he stated. “You jest. You are pulling the wool over Glak’ilk’sic’s eyes. I guessed you were at least level 4, maybe level 5. But ha. You fight like a 2nd level Rogue. Tell me, is this humble servant mistaken? Are you just level 2? Has Glak’ilk’sic erred?”
“Well come over and find out,” I stated, “You will see the true power of Jim.”
Glak’ilk’sic stood for a long moment, “Wait, is that your whole name? Galk’ilk’sic thought there would be more. You must have had terribly unimaginative parents.”
Suddenly, he was on me again in the blink of an eye. Every strike he made would have gutted me, if I hadn’t been dodging around like a maniac. My own counter blows either went wide or he dodged with almost no effort. The end result was bad; I was down almost half my Stamina bar and his was only down about a quarter. Health was important, but if you couldn’t move, then you couldn’t defend yourself. If my Stamina ran out, I’d die.
After one particularly nasty dodge, I landed wrong. My foot became pinned by a root and I couldn’t manage to break it free. Glak’ilk’sic grinned his rictus grin and lunged at me, forcing me to parry both blows with my daggers. That, coupled with his forward movement, left him exposed. I finally managed to score my first hit of the battle, a slight scratch on his left side.
Unfortunately, that move left me exposed and he jammed one of his short swords into my shoulder before leaping backwards out of my reach. I pried my leg free as he stared at me, his expression growing hotter.
“Please tell Glak’ilk’sic something, Human,” he started angrily, “And now you parry, you dodge, and trap, … and parry, all badly, and parry is something a Warrior does or a higher level Woodsman, but never a Rogue. How do you do all dodge and parry and trap, little human?”
I said nothing, starting to pace around him in a circle again. He was down about a tenth of his Health bar. Mine was as well, but my Stamina bar was at nearly 30%. I noticed my bar filled faster than his. That didn’t help much though, because his depleted more slowly than mine and he had a bunch more Stamina left. I noticed my Trap Making leveled up again, but that didn’t help much.
As long as Glak’ilk’sic could move, I was not going to be able to hit him. Weighing my options, I waited for him to lunge forwards again. This time, I leapt backwards into my field of traps. With Mobility, I could land pretty much exactly wherever I wanted. I chose to land where a goblin had gotten picked off by one of my snares.
Glak’ilk’sic jumped to my earlier vantage point and stared down at me. His glanced about, seeing the results of my traps, but here was the contest. He had the Perception skill and that certainly had to show him some of the traps, but it possibly didn’t show him all of the traps. Skills had success ratios and some of my traps had been rather poor. However, others had been excellently hidden or quite deadly. He had been busy sneaking up behind me, not watching the traps. As he looked back to me, I deliberately took my left hand and patted my left pocket.
The goblin charged, trusting that he could find where most of the traps were. I stopped trying to attack him, a futile process anyway, and just started dodging. My Stamina was still low, and getting lower all the time, I didn’t have long to keep up with this game.
He went all in, tagging me several times. Each hit caused a bright flash of pain and a drop in my Health. Most strikes were doing 7 or 8 points of damage. Stamina was worth more than Health at the moment, so I couldn’t even mitigate them. I lost over half of my Health before he made a mistake.
I had backflipped over a tree and he slid underneath it, attempting to strike at my knee. It was there that he found a trap I’d placed to prevent someone from doing just that. A snare caught his leg, yanking him out from under the tree and slamming him into the ground. Several feet away, the sapling I’d used snapped back into its correct position.
I lunged at Glak’ilk’sic’s stunned form, but even before I was half way through my arc, he had tucked himself into a ball and launched himself away from the trap. The snare had broken when he’d been flung, so he was free. He jumped but landed on one of the paths the goblins had not used. I had trapped just about everything on his current trail.
He managed to land in another binding trap. This time, he was stuck fast. He had also come down with enough force that I’m pretty sure his ankle would have broken - should have broken, at least - but this wasn’t Earth. My Stamina was down to the point where I was having trouble seeing straight, 20%. I walked back over to my bow and picked it up as he struggled to wrench his foot free.
“Glak’ilk’sic was tricked,” he yelled, using his swords to try to pry the trap loose, but it was very well made and his swords did piercing damage. Hard wood was strong against that. Grabbing at the two branches that were both now crushing his leg, he then tried to pull them apart through brute strength, an ability goblins lacked due to their size.
I took aim with my bow and fired. He still somehow dodged it. Without the Lore skill, I would have ran at that point. Gotten some distance between us. I might have even left the three I came to save, maybe. However, with the Lore skill, I could see how much Stamina that his dodging drained. Dodging while pinned was possible, but consumed Stamina like sand taking water.
I took aim with my bow and fired. He dodged again. His Stamina dropped to a sliver. It was not enough to dodge again.
“I curse you, Human,” cried the goblin, “You are a trickster. You cheated at an honorable duel.”
/> I took aim with my bow and fired. He did not dodge. He was immobile, so the attack qualified as a sneak attack, causing the vicious wound to bleed heavily.
It took the rest of my quiver before I was sure the goblin died. He died screaming obscenities at me, the world, the gods, and the demons. On the final arrow, he was cursing the shadow god himself for his predicament. Then, finally, he quieted.
As I walked over to search the corpse, I slit his throat for good measure. I grabbed his swords and a ring he was wearing. The rest of the stuff was all non-magical, so I left it. Him, I bound up by a leg binding trap for the flies.
“That was a Shadow Goblin,” stated AvaSophia, who had emerged from hiding when the screaming started.
“Yes,” I replied. My Lore ability had already confirmed that. Whatever else a Shadow Goblin was, I didn’t want anything else to do with them. Then I noticed her children. They were both looking at me in awe. AvaSophia, on the other hand, looked to me, then the corpse, then back to me.
“You just rescued us to lure him out, didn’t you,” she said, then, gaining confidence, “You bastard! You rescued us just so he would come out and you could have your little duel.”
“Mama,” said the son, “but he won.”
She stared at her children, then at me, then finally, at the corpse once again. Grabbing her children in a bear hug, only then did she start to weep.
Chapter 12: Deep in the Woods
“Why is it so important that we bring them along?” I asked Shart quietly, after figuring out that only I could hear the demon. I had eventually forgiven him for allowing me to be snuck up on by the Shadow Goblin. Shart explained that holding a discussion while trying to remain hidden was tricky and, furthermore, there was always the risk of being seen. According to him, some magic spurts could possibly reveal him unexpectedly. He further argued that, had that happened, the sudden appearance of a demon on my shoulder would have done far more harm than good. I didn’t agree with any of it, but he’s a demon and has his own priorities.
“You need more people in your village,” replied Shart, “Also, they will be safe there, but that’s mainly a sop for your conscience. I’m really only interested in her village powering up ability. She has two kids with her. Those are worth almost as much as an adult.”
After the battle, and when I had finally stopped bleeding, I was down to only 27 of 85 hit points. Everything hurt. Not as bad as falling below 22 hit points would have been, as that would have triggered the final quarter of my hit points extreme pain ‘feature’. But it was close.
And I didn’t know what to do with the family. Taking them to the village at least put them in a safe place. Their caravan had been destroyed, she said, and they had been captured. In so far as I could tell, they had no place else to go.
Additionally, since my village had no supplies and AvaSophia and her lovely children liked food, I had to go into the camp and repurpose the goblin’s supplies. As luck would have it, the caravan her family had been traveling with had gotten raided pretty badly, and the goblins had taken several hundred pounds of supplies.
So, if a random stranger had been walking by wondering why I was carrying about 400 pounds worth of ‘stuff’ through the deep woods, that’s at least part of the answer.
JoeClarance, the scrappy 11 year old boy, was also carrying a bunch of stuff. More than I thought he could, but he wanted to be strong like me. EveSophia, the little girl, was also carrying some lighter objects, but as she was only 9. I had already picked up everything heavy, so she wouldn’t have to. AvaSophia, her mother, had been a little bit pickier when she grabbed as much as she could, but she was still carrying a bunch of food, as well as pots, pans and other sundries.
All I knew was that my package was heavy. I’d love to make a joke about my package, but the crushing weight of my massive package was no joke.
“Are you sure that’s not too much?” asked EveSophia again.
“No, Darling. It’s about what I usually carry when I’m off on a nature walk.” I answered. The girl nodded consideringly, like the evil little thing she was, and walked up next to her mother, her lightweight backpack almost floating away in the breeze.
“How did you find the village?” asked AvaSophia. After she had gotten her cry out, which had only taken a few moments, she had moved from emotional wreck to no nonsense. It was a talent mothers seemed to have; I remembered my own wife doing the same on several occasions. After gathering the supplies, she had been downright eager to go towards my ‘safe village’.
“I was walking in the woods and I found it,” I stated. She scrutinized me but didn’t have enough of a read on me to determine the accuracy of my words. I had left out several parts which she might figure out later.
She’d only agreed to go with me to my village because she’d heard rumors that there was a safe village that helped new people somewhere out here. However, no one came into this valley anymore, because there were goblins absolutely everywhere. She honestly had no idea whether such a village really existed, or if the rumors were just that. Her options were fairly limited, though. Which explained why she was following a strange man through the woods.
We continued walking and I finally had a moment to examine my gear.
You have found Short Sword of Wounding, 7-10 damage, causes bleed damage
Short Sword of Piercing: 7-10 damage, ignores 4 points of armor.
The ring was more interesting.
You have found Ring of Vitality, lesser, +10 Stamina, +10 Health.
I slid that bad boy on and my pain dropped a notch or two. It got down to the point where I stopped hating every step, at least.
I also had leveled up again. Apparently. the Battle of Trap Field had given my Woodsman skills enough to level before the fight with the shadow goblin had even started. However, that was all considered part of the same battle; I’d topped out on experience for that class until I leveled it and started a new fight.
Warrior also leveled due to the damage dealt. It seemed there was a big bonus when the levels were that badly unmatched. Rogue earned me some, but not enough to level. Unsuccessfully dodging didn’t earn XP, and Dodging isn’t a high value Rogue skill anyway. On the other hand, dodging did earn SP so my Dodge skill was very nearly at Novice. So, cup half full, right?
You have leveled up Warrior 3, You gain one Perk, +10 Health, +10 Stamina
I went through the Perks menu again. Past Dual Wielding were several weapon skills that seemed to buff damage, attack speed, and the like. I wasn’t really having that much of an issue damaging targets, so improving my chance to hit seemed more important.
I frowned and looked over the menu more. The Resistance perk was still there, so I dialed over it.
Resistance: Provides 8 (5 + level) Defense to all sections of your body. Stacks with Defense granted by armor.
Defense was some approximation of armor, or at least armor granted defense. There were some possibilities there, and it went up with level. I was very aware that my current defenses were anemic, but when I brought up the menu, it was worse than I thought.
Defense:
Head: 1
Torso: 2
Legs: 2
Arms: 1
You are lightly armored due to (Leather Pants, Leather Shirt) which provide a total of 2 defense. Your Endurance provides one point of defense. This increases the cost of your Dodging skill by 25% and increases your Damage Mitigation by 1 point.
Dialing back through my combat log, I discovered that it would have been better for me to fight the goblin naked than with the shoddily made clothes I was wearing. I was going to have to find better armor or something. While still wondering how much more effective it would be to take a Weapon skill, I selected Resistance.
Instantly, my skin felt tougher, but maybe that was my imagination. I prodded my body, pulling and poking the skin, but it didn’t feel any different. Taking one of my daggers and, using my Perception skill to ensure no one was looking, I slid the point down hard
against my palm for a one point wound.
To my pleasant surprise, nothing happened. Well, not nothing; the skin hardened against the knife point to the degree that it only left a thick mark against my flesh. It was akin to scratching dry skin. Aside from that, the mark did no additional damage and my skin became immediately soft and pliable, again. Well, relatively speaking. As soft and pliable as a manly man’s skin ever gets.
Glancing at my character sheet, I scrolled over to the defense tab.
Defense:
Head: 9
Torso: 10
Legs: 10
Arms: 9
You are lightly armored due to (Leather Pants, Leather Shirt) which provide a total of 2 defense. Your total defense is now 9. This increases the cost of your Dodging skill by 25% and increases your Damage Mitigation by 3 point.
That was so much better. Hopefully, that meant that every little strike wasn’t going to be nearly fatal to me. Not to mention, wounds hurt. I mean, they really hurt, and I didn’t like them; anything to reduce that was great.
You have leveled up Woodsman 3
The Woodsman perks were shorter. There were improved Tracking and Trap Making perks, but I wanted to get a feel for how the Lore skill worked before I committed to more of that. I noticed a few Bow skills that were Woodsman only, so I checked out those.
Woodman’s Marksman said it gave an improved chance to hit and damage, but that wasn’t actually my problem. In game terms, I had problems hitting enemies that were above my level; that had been a major issue in my last fight. Then, I noticed the Accuracy perk.
