She found herself in the heath during the simulated night. A region where only a few plants grew and none of them had the decency to be a usable cover. Her abilities provided insight into the kind of plants these were and that they were an indicator for agriculturally unsuitable soil. She checked the plants anew with Botanical Awareness. The plants were slightly toxic to elves and goblins. As this was kobold territory, she could imagine them planting the kinds of plants that kept their arch enemies away. She took leaves with her and smiled as this dungeon apparently developed lore.

In the pale moonlight, that wasn’t even actually real, the goblin settlement laid seemingly abandoned. The goblins had erected several rickety buildings made of wood, mud and rocks. Some of these buildings emitted a quiet snoring that seemed to indicate goblins. Others laid silent. Kiresula observed from a distance. She noticed that many of the thorny plants around the settlement were quite toxic to kobolds and dwarves. More dungeon lore, she thought to herself as she smiled and took some stalks. Botanical Awareness told her that the thorns were toxic to kobolds, but she needed to transport those without shredding her clothes, so she harvested the entire plant and put the Twitching Thistles into her pockets where the Heathspreader leaves were not.

Kiresula saw that there was one goblin guard patrolling around the perimeter of the village. The guard looked tired and unhappy when walking.

Kiresula smiled nervously, picked up a pebble and threw it in the direction behind the unhappy goblin. The goblin rushed towards the sound and in that moment, Kiresula cast [Nightly Sojourn] and [Freedom of Movement], then rushed after the guard. Her longer legs and the fact that the undergrowth didn’t stop her meant that she had no issue catching up to the little guard who cursed to himself about bats making noise again. As she was almost next to the guard, she cast a [Fire Strike] and used it on her hand holding his mouth shut. As the goblin tried to confusedly look towards her, she used a barrage of [Fire Strike]s until the creature sagged to the ground. Kiresula then used a dagger from one of her previous runs to kill the guard. Afterwards, she snuck into the settlement, that seemed more like a military camp than a town. Fortunately, she saw no goblin children, because that would make her abandon her plans. She eventually found the kitchen where large amounts of oats were in huge pots soaking and becoming the next day’s breakfast. Kiresula broke the Heathspreader leaves and added them to the pots when they turned into more of a powder than visible plant parts that might alert the goblins to their presence. As the kitchen house didn’t have a door, she decided to, after stirring the poison into the oats, to spread a bit of dirt onto the gruel. She hoped that this way, the taste of the gruel was blamed on the wind and the soil, not the Heathspreader.

Then, she snuck out and buried the guard. She didn’t want to give anyone the idea that there had been an infiltrator and that the guard was killed. [Move Soil] once again proved to be an essential spell for her. Then, she scurried to the kobold settlement. Light slowly crossed the imaginary horizon as she saw the place. The Kobolds had houses that looked deliberately planned instead of scrounged together out of whatever they could get their hands on. The houses were made out of wooden planks and had actual doors and windows that were more than just holes but instead covered by weaved plant fibre.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Kiresula looked around. She noticed the lack of chimneys in these houses and so assumed that they too cooked collectively. Eventually, she found the house with several chimneys, some smoking. She put an ear to the house and heard the barks and growls of goblins preparing food. She was surprised they were up before sunrise. She had [Nightly Sojourn] up already as she entered their settlement. Now she scaled the building, pushing more and more magic into this spell as it never was designed to disguise a climber to all senses but sight. Then, on the roof, she ground up the thorns and threw the powder into the pots. She heard noises from the camp and decided to exfiltrate. She jumped off the roof and ran.

She was dozing off, leaning on a rock, eyes closed, trying to recover from running the width of the dungeon twice over. She heard noises, well, she had heard noises the entire time she was relaxing, but now they were not birds and insects but footsteps. Kiresula had recovered some synthic magic because this hilly area was inundated with the stuff and doing Serenity while almost asleep had become a bit of a habit for her. She got up, ran, before she even saw who was after her. As she reached a forest, she hid behind a bush and peered out for them. There was a group of kobolds and goblins, a small group. There were originally about a hundred creatures, this group had 5. All of them looked in bad shape. Kiresula thought that she was well disguised, but shouts and barks and pointing in her general direction proved the opposite. Kiresula hadn’t yawned, not because this was going to be an easy fight but because she was tired, had spent most of the day running and before did some insane climbing. She checked her pockets and hoped against hope that the plant pieces she had in her pocket were sufficient for [Adapt Plant Trait]. Fortunately, there were still dethorned sticks of the Twitching Thistles, which were enough, even though the fragments of Heathspreader leaves were not. With thorny hands, [Light Body] bright enough to blind her assailants, and [Fire Strike] at the ready, she stormed towards them. The creatures were harmed by the poisons they received and acted more sluggishly than normal. Kiresula struck out at them. The thorns savaged the kobolds and goblins that tried to cover their eyes. She didn’t enjoy the ensuing violence, but quick strikes, partly empowered by her elemental abilities and partly just raw, violent and angry. She had to keep herself angry or she would not be able to keep on attacking these creatures that kinda reminded her of children. She remembered how she shuddered at the vision of the fire elemental mage burning down the village and everyone in it in her class selection vision, how the detached cruelty shocked her and how she much preferred a class that didn’t have that potential. The downside was, as she was made all too aware now, that every fight was close and personal and thus deeply impactful. Especially now as she wasn’t fighting an army but 5 people who looked utterly devastated from her previous attempt to solve this conflict via the use of poison.

As the last creature fell to the ground, a message appeared:

You have defeated the dungeon in hard mode! Please exit through the newly appeared gate. Alternatively, you can gain access to the core of the dungeon via the ladder.

She cussed as she saw the hole appearing a few paces near her with a ladder sticking out. She realised that she had to climb more.