The Mayor of Noobtown

by Ryan Rimmel

  I knew instantly that I’d be awarded that ability if I possessed all of those items. It wouldn’t have even been that difficult; I would just have to craft or find the items later. Glancing at the Weapon and Armor Smithing, both had similar requirements. The affinity apparently bypassed those and granted you the ability without having to meet the requirement, interesting concept.

  I selected Blade Smithing, since I knew now how to work towards acquiring the others.

  You have selected Weapon Smithing, all weapons gain +5 Durability and +10% Damage.

  Not bad. I had just enough material to make one more dagger.

  Simple Dagger: Durability 30/30, Damage 8-15.

  It was on par with my enchanted dagger, but the enchanted dagger had much better secondary abilities. Well, that was something. I still needed to repair it, but I would first have to learn more about its magical properties; as it stood, I didn’t even know what it was made of. I sheathed it and took my newly forged dagger and the undamaged goblin dagger with me.

  Time to find some wolves.

  Status: Jim

  Hit points: 105/105

  Stamina: 115/115

  Mana: 40/40

  Shart wasn’t responding to me, at all. After going into map mode and yelling until I actually watched a leaf fly across my entire field of vision with no response, I gave up on the demon. He was sleeping or something and I didn’t necessarily need him to go hunting for wolves. It was entirely possible that he was just as annoyed with me as I was with him. There was also his ever present anger toward my lack of acceptance of his epic quest of my destruction. He was around somewhere and ignoring me. I could live with that.

  I had 40 arrows, my simple bow, and other gear ready to go. The trip into the woods was uneventful now that I could find and target the goblins from increasingly wider distances. The goblins had, meanwhile, decided to get farther and farther away from the town, leaving me a nice clear path to get to the forest.

  Taking a different, slightly longer route, I ended up near an abandoned farmhouse that lay just inside the outer border of the forest. From there, I trekked further into the forest and started using my Lore skill and Perception and looked for wolves.

  It didn’t take long. Within the first 30 minutes, I’d found a wolf, skinned it, and started off towards the next beast. By the end of the day, I had enough leather for several suits of armor. I was tired, but content. I’d even earned the title Wolf Slayer, which made it much easier to gather up the skins. My trip back had me carrying a double armful of sticky, smelly leather that I would have to properly tan overnight back in the village.

  I was still well away from the town. Perhaps I was too involved in searching for wolves. Maybe I was assuming too much regarding my Perception skill. Whatever the reason, my guard wasn’t fully up. So, when the sizzling black orb flew straight towards my chest, I was surprised, to say the least. I was so heavily overloaded that my dodge skill didn’t work correctly and the orb exploded between my hands. The only thing that saved me was the day’s worth of leather that I had been carrying, which blocked the majority of the force of the bolt.

  There was still enough of a jolt to lift me off my feet and send me flying backwards into a tree branch.

  I blacked out entirely for a few seconds. 59 hit points, more than half of my health, were gone and my Stamina bar wasn’t filling properly. I heard a voice approaching me, but I wasn’t even sure my limbs worked due to the status effect. I decided to stay still for a moment, while I tried to catch my wits.

  “A tough one they said,” stated the first goblin.

  “The tough one is dead,” stated the second.

  I opened one eye a sliver and saw the two goblins approaching me. They were slightly shorter and thinner than the other goblins I’d seen, and feminine in appearance, if that was a thing for goblins. They were still hideous, with bulbous noses and several large warts each. Both wore earrings, large hoop ones that clattered slightly as they walked; they held a single larger staff between them.

  They were getting closer. Almost close enough for my plan when one screamed, “Alive he is! Bind him we must!”

  I rolled forwards, grabbing at my bow and drawing an arrow in the same motion. The two goblins looked shocked, but as my first arrow shot towards the one on the left, a black barrier flickered into existence. The arrow dissolved into smoke as it passed through.

  Charging towards them, I leapt, trying to get enough distance to completely hurdle over both of them. At the apex of my leap, I released another arrow, which hit the barrier as well. The shocked goblin recovered and swung the staff down, causing the head to catch fire for a moment, before a stream of flame shot from it.

  I narrowly jumped behind a tree while fishing out another arrow. My bow’s Durability had been reduced to one by the full day of use and then me violently bouncing off the tree. I didn’t know how many shots a Durability of one equated to, but it couldn’t have been many. Twisting back around the tree the way I’d come, I fired another arrow.

  The goblins assumed I’d continue running, so they had moved to face that section of the tree. The stream of fire was already roasting towards the space I wasn’t, and my arrow struck the barrier with an audible crack. An instant later, the entire thing shattered with a pop.

  Drawing another arrow to fire, one of the goblins let fly with a dozen glowing white orbs that streaked through the air towards me. My arrow missed the targeted goblin, instead striking one of the orbs as I tried to dodge away. Even my Dodge skill was useless against that barrage of blasts and I was struck several times. Fortunately, my Mitigate skill worked, though I noticed that the Resist skill didn’t. The orbs were not affected by defense and caused me another 6 hit points of damage.

  Both goblins were chanting, but whatever magical effects they were doing were not ready yet. I quickly brought my bowstring back to my ear and took aim at the one generating the barrier. She glared at me, chanting and gesturing as fast as she could when I heard the twang as my bowstring snapped.

  For a terrible instant I was standing there without a plan in the world. One of the pair finished her spell just as the other stopped casting hers. A glowing gourd, seriously it looked like a butternut squash or something, of flame appeared in the goblin’s hand. Much like a professional pitcher’s windup, she prepared to throw the strange object at me. The other goblin dropped to her knees and placed her hands on the ground as I used my Dodge skill to fling myself behind the tree.

  Intuitively, I realized it would explode. I jumped, grabbing the highest branch I could reach, then hauling myself even higher as the brightly glowing orb landed at the base of the tree. It exploded into a fireball. I took another 3 points of damage as the branch I was on suddenly erupted into flame, but I was high enough to avoid almost all of it.

  Strangely, the fire died much more quickly than I expected. One moment, there was a glowing fireball underneath me. The next moment, there was simply smoke.

  I resolved to not be in that tree anymore and attempted to leap away, only to find my ankle had caught itself in the branch. No, strike that. The branch was wrapping itself around my ankle. I pulled against the branch with all my might, but I was stuck properly. I had a hatchet with me that I’d stolen from some dead goblin and I attempted to hack away at the branch. Somehow, despite it only being around the width of my finger, it was incredibly tough.

  With the smoke, they couldn’t see me quite yet; I had a few more precious seconds to think. I focused, activating my inner eye, and found the strand of magic that connected the goblin’s spell to the tree. Instead of putting more power into it, I attempted to draw the power out of it.

  “He tries to counter the spell!” cried one of the goblins.

  “He tries to be a Rogue as well,” replied the second, “we shall find him and kill him.”

  It was like trying to empty a pool with a cup. I was draining just enough power to force one goblin to do nothing more than concentrate on the spell. Unfortunately, that le
ft the other goblin to hunt me down; she started off towards me.

  I was still trying to cut the branch with the hatchet and draw the magic out of the spell when she came around the corner. A few times, my draining and cutting had allowed me to get a good whack in on the branch. If I could have kept it up for an uninterrupted period of time, I would have been able to get myself free. However, the goblin approaching me had other ideas. She drew a wand and pointed it at me. Suddenly, I felt my body warp.

  My Mana bar started twitching. I instinctively applied Stamina against it, causing the other goblin to shriek in pain.

  “Fights hard, this one little wretch,” she cried.

  “The tastiest fish is the hardest to catch,” replied the other.

  Taking my hand from the branch, I drew a dagger and flung it at her. Unfortunately, with me balancing on the branch while trying to resist both spells, my aim wasn’t good. It thudded into the ground next to her. She looked at it for a moment and then grinned up at me, now holding a second wand.

  “Nettles, a supper for thee,” she cried, pointing it at me. This spell affected health. My skin felt like a thousand biting insects were upon it. It wasn’t even doing damage; it just hurt. It did succeed in ruining my concentration, however, and the branches of the tree started wrapping around me more, grabbing both legs.

  Tethered to the branch in agony, I still tried to struggle free when an errant breeze blew away a patch of smoke. Only then did I clearly see a bees’ nest. Figuring it couldn’t get worse, I used my free arm to hurl the hatchet at it. With a secure grip on the branch, my aim proved much better this time. The hatchet struck true, splitting the hive.

  Half of it landed on me, covering me with a thick, sticky honey and hundreds of angry bees. They launched themselves at me, stinging me hundreds of times. However, that was physical damage and my Resist skill ignored each strike. The second half of the nest landed next to the goblin beneath me. She was less than impressed.

  A high pitched scream alerted me to the incapacitation of the foe underneath me. The nettles stopped. The bees hadn’t been able to hurt me at all. Suddenly, free from pain, I tried desperately to drain the magic from the branch around my lower torso.

  “This spell takes all my might,” cried out the second sister, as my Mana Drain cut deeply into her mana.

  “They bite, they bite!” came the reply, as the goblin beneath me was stung over and over again.

  For an instant, the spell casting goblin and I struggled. Her attempting to keep the branches intact; me attempting to drain the mana from them. I realized she’d stopped at my feet because they’d basically been hardened into place, but not well enough. I could totally get my feet free if she stopped now. Then, all of a sudden, she cried out, “You fool, you bring them to me?”

  In that moment, the spell broke. The branch, which had been gripping me like steel, slackened enough that I was able to wriggle free. I kicked off the branch, falling down to the earth below. I landed hard on my hands and knees, causing 7 points of damage. I saw the hilt of my dagger and snatched it up.

  Maybe I can end this.

  Cutting through the smoke, trees, and underbrush, I moved to an area that had yet to see combat and laid eyes on both goblins again. Both were still hideous, one even more so covered in bug bites on every exposed portion of her skin. I watched as she poured the contents of a vial down her throat and the wounds started healing instantly. Great, she had a healing potion. The other sister had one as well, but seemed loath to use it, despite her own wounds.

  I need healing potions! Who else has those? Can I make those?

  Both were scanning the forest, now with either full or mostly full health. Neither of their magical pools was super depleted; all of my reserves were. Abruptly, one turned her head towards me and pointed.

  “He hides in the trees!”

  “Cut him off at the knees!”

  Both sisters began gathering up their magic for round two.

  Chapter 16: Aftermath of the Weirdness

  I did the only heroic thing I could think of and ran away from the goblins and towards my town, sprinting the whole way there. Unfortunately, they came after me. Thankfully, these goblins didn’t have wolves, so it was just me running away as fast as I could from two horrible little creatures.

  Whenever I thought I’d lost them, they would appear, blistering the air around me with spells. Now that I lacked a ranged response to them, they concentrated far more on offense than defense. The only reason I survived was that I had longer legs and could therefore run faster.

  What had taken me hours to walk took considerably less time to run. I used every bit of my Woodsman skill to my advantage, darting through trees and avoiding dead ends. At long last, I saw the barrier in the distance. I managed to make the final sprint across the field that separated the forest from my village in record time. I crossed the barrier and collapsed into the creek.

  Status: Jim

  Hit points: 31/105

  I lay face up in the creek, letting the cool water wash away the sting of bitter defeat.

  I had lost and I had nearly died. I had nearly died and it hurt. Both mentally, because it struck at the illusion of invulnerability I had gathered up around myself since the first fight with the larger wolf, and physically, because they were casting spells that hurt for the sake of hurting. Involuntarily shuddering from the spell, I tried to focus and calm myself, but the feeling of insects biting every surface of my skin still clung to my mind.

  Quest: Defeat the Goblin Menace 1: You live in a land of danger; your town is surrounded by goblins. Slay the goblin champions, their captain, and their chieftain so your town can be saved. You will gain a reward each time one of the goblin heroes is slain.

  You have discovered the ‘Weird Sisters’, magical champions of the Goblins. You have not defeated them. Defeating them will cause damage to the goblin army!

  You have learned about Sprinting, you are unskilled. Merrily they ran away!

  You have learned about Counter-Magic, you are unskilled. Abraa can’t dabra.

  I had learned how to run away faster. That was glorious. I hated spellcasters.

  I needed to learn how to cast spells.

  It took me a full day to recover from the ordeal. Being able to rest in town seemed to speed that up somewhat. In the meantime, I reviewed my combat tracker to see what they had hit me with. The initial attack was a spell called Dark Orb, which caused Dark damage. It had been powerful enough to kill me outright, except they’d targeted my chest, which was covered by my day’s gathering of hides. They had absorbed the majority of the otherwise fatal blast.

  I’d lived and that was the important part, I guessed.

  The rest of the day I spent searching the town for anything of value. I was hoping for another cellar find like I’d made in the forge. If I could find some leather or other materials, I might be able to make some sort of armor.

  I searched through one row of old houses and found a silver fork and knife, as well as a rusted candelabra, to add to my ever growing pile of metals. As I looted, I noticed one of my quest markers moving. I selected the quest log:

  Draft animal for the Creek House: Quest updated, you see a possible draft animal.

  I looked around, first broadly, and then in line with the direction I felt followed the quest marker. Even with my Perception, it took me several seconds to find what I was looking for. A large furry back was just visible over the grasses in the meadow, beyond the barrier. As I watched, the wolf that had previously belonged to the shaman rose up, looked around, and then dipped its head back into the tall grasses.

  I guess that works?

  Taking my newer bow and my daggers, I started moving closer to the edge of the barrier while I checked my pouch for something to eat. As I got closer, the direction got fuzzier. I could still tell generally where the target was, but I could no longer point to the exact location of the wolf. That made sense; any Stealth skill would have been rendered worthless otherwise. />
  I contemplated that for a moment, calling out mentally to Shart, who ignored me. I stepped out of the barrier, into the lands south of the town. The area north of the town was forest, starting off with light groves, and then moving into deeper woods. To the south, was the beach. However, between the beach and the town was an open grassland. If you stood and watched for any period of time, a massive blast of wind would slash through it. That explained why there were no trees out here. The only thing saving the town from being buffeted by winds constantly was the thick stone wall around it. That wall provided amazing protection, muting the harm the wind would otherwise cause.

  Out here, however, it would occasionally hit me full blast. It wasn’t enough to knock me off my feet or anything, but it did add a certain challenge to Stealth. Every so often, your nearby cover flattened, leaving you exposed. It wasn’t impossible to predict, though, if you watched the distant grass. It actually made tracking the giant wolf easier.

  Finally, I caught up to him. I had noticed several scurrying creatures in the grass, mostly rabbits, prairie dogs, and small rodents. My Animal Lore skills detected even more critters that I couldn’t physically see. Much of this skill was based on scant evidence, even bits of spoor registered with my Tracking ability. The wolf had been here for a few days and had several sets of deeper tracks that I’d found.

  At a range of 30 yards, I’d finally gotten a good look at him. It was a huge wolf, far larger than any dog I’d actually been in the physical presence of, including St. Bernards and a Great Dane. He came up to my shoulder when he stood, and I was once again overcome by the intelligence he seemed to exude. He didn’t look hungry. In fact, I’d found the remains of quite a few small animals, indicating that he’d been successful in his hunting. He did, however, look messy for a dog.

  I used my Lore ability.