We’re sitting on the safety of Grubwick’s walls, waiting for prey to come by. Many monsters heading to and from the surface pass by within reach of the walls. We’ve brought the goats in with us, but had to leave the carts outside. Monsters don’t usually bother inanimate objects without people in them, I’m told.
“What were the food stores contaminated with?” I ask.
“They found a bladder filled with residue of green underswamp berries,” Milo says. “Too toxic even for goblins. It caused vomiting, diarrhea, and death in some cases. Fortunately, not everyone was affected.”
“Where are green underswamp berries found?” I ask.
“East of here, out near Muckburrow,” says Nika, a goblin lady and the only Elite among the hunters who isn’t sick.
“Muckburrow again,” I say sourly. “What could they have offered him that would convince him to betray his own Hearth?”
“Maybe he was confident in his escape plans, but it still seems like a poor idea,” Milo says. “Could he have received a quest from another Hearth with a reward that’s valid in the next life?”
“I don’t know,” Anise says. “You two would know more about how reincarnation works than I do. I just read books where two lovers are reincarnated together across history and it’s terribly romantic and tragic and sexy.”
“I don’t remember anything I might have done to get reincarnated,” Milo says. “So if I did and forgot, that’s probably not helpful. Well, imprisoning him forever would not have been a good solution, so if he shows up again, I hope he does not become too bothersome.”
I sigh. “As if we need a recurring villain that won’t stay dead.”
“Let’s think positively,” Anise says. “Elite bear spotted! Get him, guys!”
“[Hold]!” Milo exclaims.
The monster bear freezes in place, and the hunters and adventurers take advantage of it to lay into the creature.
“Hah… that worked great!” Milo exclaims. “Magic is quite useful. Ah, bother, it has already worn off.”
Nika charges ahead to meet the large two-headed bear with her spear, the other goblins pelting the creature with spears and slung stones from the walls. Despite being still immature for a goblin, Milo is an Elite now and is doing more damage than all the Basic-rank goblins combined, as well as disorienting it with Incantation magic. (It probably also doesn’t hurt that he’s using spells and they’re using stone age weapons.) Once the bear is down, we help haul it in through the gates. (And by “we” I mean people who have higher Strength than a precocious toddler.)
We’re into the dark season by this point, so while there are still monsters above ground, no new ones are coming out. Two-headed bears are going in toward Grubwick to return to whichever layer of Tempest Domain they normally belong to. This is perfectly normal.
Your Discipline (Self-Delusion) skill has increased to level 2.
This basically means food is coming right to us, it’s just food that the goblins of Grubwick are not strong enough to catch themselves at the moment. They normally wait for ones to come close to the walls and send out large parties of hunters to take down Elites. But thanks to the contaminated food stores, many of the hunters were ill and weaker than they should have been.
I don’t try to contribute in the fighting, but I do sit back and make stone spear heads to keep the hunters equipped. Considering I’d ideally been wanting to work on things a bit higher tech than this, I’m starting to really get the hang of this.
Your Crafting (Stoneworking) skill has increased to level 2.
I’m not sure how much I will be doing this after we’ve introduced these goblins to the wonders of metalworking, but every level of Crafting will probably help in getting a Crafter-type class and not something that involves killing things.
I was really hoping to spend more time back at Corwen studying and to not have a fair chunk of that time doing daily goat training, even if that goat training has already proven useful. Milo spent more time learning Incantation from one of my uncles. His class is actually [Goblin Child], the class all goblins get when they’re born rather than [Scholarly Child], [Nurturing Child], and such that humans can get when they’re 7 years old. My class is just [Child]. I don’t know what sort of bonuses either of our classes gets.
The next bear that approaches the city is much bigger. The Elite ones were bad enough, but this Heroic one is testing my [Fear Resistance] without even having a [Fear Aura] going on, unless it does but I’m pretty sure they’re just naturally terrifying for being bigger and much higher level than me.
Even if I wanted to try to fight it, any attacks I made would just bounce off of it like Milo’s stone knife bounced off Uncle Hawk. (I’m still not sure why nobody seems to hold a grudge over that.)
Meadow’s out here risking her life for the sake of some people who tried to murder her uncle a few months ago and looking like she’s having a blast at it. Not that it’s much of a risk when she’s standing on top of a wall with a bow just shooting approaching monsters from safety.
Daisy’s the only one looking nervous here, clutching her spellbook with white knuckles as she fires off prepared spells at the monster. The sigils in the book glow as she fills them with vis. The constraints of the writing are helping shape her vis to create effects with it. I can see the shape of the sigil in the air through [Aura Sight] for a moment after it’s cast. Daisy’s beginner spellbook is comprised of spells that only require one sigil, but they’re effective enough to help pick away at the monster’s Health meter.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
Once victorious, the carcass gets hauled inside so the goblin butchers can get to work on it. Daisy spends the downtime refilling her spellbook with vis to get another set of spells ready to fire off.
When we get tired, we settle in at them to eat and rest. The meat we hunted today will sustain the goblins for a while. Many of them are already tucking into it raw. I’ve gotten used to some of goblin cuisine, but I prefer the cuisine that can be at least slightly called cuisine and not just shoving raw meat into your mouth.
Thankfully, goblins are not so primitive to have failed to gain mastery of fire yet. We get a crackling fire burning in the hearth at the inn and roast thick strips of mutant bear meat on a spit.
“So you guys built this?” Meadow asks, looking at the building around us.
“And a few dozen goblins,” I say. “I did the design. They did most of the heavy lifting.”
I settle in to start making some stone tools with some pieces gathered from the village courtyard.
“I’ve been so focused on general skills I haven’t had much chance to try to make sense of magic skills yet,” I say.
“Yeah, you’re not quite three yet,” Anise says. “You wouldn’t normally have to worry about it for a good ten years. And I have no idea when you might hit Elite with all the weird stuff you keep doing.”
“You want to be a Wizard, too?” Daisy asks.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Although those sigils do look interesting. I’m more interested in making things, though.”
“The seven types of magic… eight types, I suppose,” Anise says. “You should be able to do Necromancy, right? Creepy a thought as that is. Anyway, the eight types of magic are based on how you interact with the world. Sigils for Wizardry, sounds for Incantation, emotions for Sorcery, and so forth.”
“So when you use Sorcery, are you just getting angry enough to throw fire at things?” I ask.
Anise laughs. “It’s more like using emotions to do things rather than feeling them, so much. Turning rage into a blade instead of letting it ruin your self-control and make you do stupid things.”
“So basically, anyone that makes Elite rank can set things on fire with their brains,” I say.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Anise says. “Provided they learn how to do it. Just like anyone who is so inclined can learn to build buildings. Most people don’t put in the effort to learn a bunch of different stuff. Unless they dedicate the time and effort into leveling it up, they might at best manage to do what they could have done with Survival (Fire Making) instead. You’ve been unlocking a bunch of skills, but the grind is eternal.”
“If you want to make stuff, Alchemy might be the path for you,” Daisy says.
“Potions?” I ask.
Daisy shakes her head. “No, Crafting (Potions) is something else and doesn’t need magic. Alchemy is about extracting and infusing concepts. I considered it but decided I’d rather focus on Wizardry.”
“I suppose I’ll study up on it more once I get closer to the point where I can actually learn to do it,” I say.
Over the course of the next few days, our budding adventurers roast a steady stream of large mutant bears while the sick goblins recover.
The end of November is upon us, and with it, the birthdays of we reincarnator twins. I’m not expecting anything special, but Milo is. Still, I’m happy with my own notification.
You are now 3 years old. All physical attributes have increased by 1.
“Grubwick?” Milo says, doubtless staring at a similar message to the one I just got. “Grubwick, where my class choices?”
“Milo?” I ask.
“I suppose you’re not supposed to get Elite rank before you even get your first class choice,” Milo says. “Or… no, it says that when it disabled the quest system for me, it inadvertently also shut off class choices, which use the same system.”
I frown. “Does that mean we’re not going to get classes?”
“No, it’s just going to turn it on again long enough for me to get a class popup and then turn it off again,” Milo says. “There we go! And… uh… I don’t believe that other stuff was intended. [Apprentice Incantor], please and thank you very much.”
“What other stuff?” I ask.
“Several quests appeared,” Milo says. “They’re gone now that I’ve made my class choice, at least. I think I can safely disregard them. Anyway, it’s not like we weren’t already in the middle of delivering forty bear haunches to the village.”
“[Apprentice Incantor]!” exclaims Daisy. “Congratulations! I can’t wait until I get my apprentice class.”
With Grubwick’s hunters recovering and their food stores replenished enough that they can catch up the slack on their own, my group decides to return to Corwen to spend Hearth Day there. We take Snookums and Fluffles and head back out to where we left the two carts.
While we’d never driven an animal-drawn cart before, both Milo and I drove cars constantly in our day-to-day lives, and these devil-goats are well-trained enough to make up for any deficits.
Some random traveler might be treated to the ludicrous sight of a small child driving a cart drawn by a huge black devil-goat, carrying the corpse of giant two-headed mutant bear. There are not a lot of random travelers in the area this time of year.
Something catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. A radiant white stag emerges from the forest, walking toward the cave entrance and in no particular hurry to do so. Where he steps, flowers bloom and then die immediately. A sprawling rack of antlers sports dozens of points, like a branching tournament bracket all converging at the finalists on his head. And his face is not a deer’s snout, but a face more closely resembling a cat.
I’m frozen in place. My entire group goes dead silent. This must be one of the Legendary Nature Stags that Aunt Heather mentioned. And nobody who is with me will be enough to protect me from this creature if he decides to take offense at my existence.
I recognize the fear effect as being similar to the goats, but far more powerful. I try to shake it off, but it’s hopeless. I can’t move an inch as the monster comes straight toward me. He stops, five feet in front of my face, and looks me in the eye as though judging me for every sin against nature I have ever committed.
And then, without a sound, the Nature Stag moves on and the oppressive aura lifts as he vanishes into the cave.
“Such a beautiful creature…” Meadow breathes once we can move again.
“Phew,” Anise says. “I am so glad that thing didn’t see a reason to attack us. Let’s get home, before anything else shows up.”
The remainder of the trip home passes mostly quietly, with only one Elite two-headed bear trying to kill us. My party makes quick work of it and loads it into one of the carts to take back to Corwen. No sense letting it go to waste, after all. As the carts pull through the village gates, I receive a system message.
Skill acquired: Mechanics (Driving)
I suppose if it considers goat-pulled carts and automobiles to be the same skill, that would make sense why I had no trouble with it, but it’s good for the system to acknowledge it I suppose.
“Ah, civilization,” Milo says. “I look forward to the day Grubwick has indoor plumbing. I’m going to the guest house to take a bath. I smell like goat, bear guts, and goblin.”
“How much scrubbing does it take to make a goblin not smell like goblin?” Daisy wonders.
“I have been making use of the complementary floral scented soaps,” Milo says.