CHAPTER EIGHT

ARMED TO THE TEETH

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Genji must have woken me up forty times throughout the night. I’d gone to sleep almost before sunset, which the dog had found strange. Lovable thing that she was, Genji was more than willing to curl up on the bed and sleep a bit early, though.

Normally, she would get up and bark at the door a few hundred times. I would ignore her, and she would eventually return to bed. Usually, she had an attitude about it, too, grumbling and mewling to be let outside when she knew good and well that she wasn’t going until I got up.

That night was different. I was different. The dog would get up and bark, and instead of telling her to shut up and come back to bed, I would go on full alert, machete in my left hand, loaded pistol in my right.

The dog loved it. She seemed ecstatic that I was finally listening to her, even if I never let her outside. By the fourth time she woke me I was already resigned to not getting a good sleep that night. I wanted to be off early, anyway. That was how I found myself examining Skill Tree tabs at five in the morning on a Sunday while the dog laid her cute head on my stomach.

I grinned a little. It felt like college. I wished I could look at my phone this way. I didn't even need my hands.

There hadn't been any changes since the last time I'd looked. Still five tabs. "Shapeshifting," "Auras," "Passives," "Elements," and "Nature," in no particular order.

I was wary of the Shapeshifting Tab. It sounded useful, but even a bear could be stabbed by knives. There were a lot of forms I could take, but they were all categorized into three main abilities dictated by mana costs. Unfortunately, none of them were very clear.

Skill: Shapeshift Minor Creature (Birds, Rodents, Snakes, etc.)

Mana Cost: Low

Skill Level: 0.

That was it. That was all I got. Try as I might to find a details screen or ask for more information and I got nothing. Most of the other skills were no better.

Skill: Shapeshift Medium Creature (Wolves, Jungle Cats, etc.)

Mana Cost: Mid

Skill Level: 0.

The “Large Creature” skill had a similar list that would allow me to become a Werewolf, Bear, Gorilla, etcetera, for a predictably high mana cost. All other skills in that tree revolved around enhancing the three tiers of shapeshifting abilities. For example, the skill “Improved Agility” improved the speed of all shapeshifted forms, while “Mighty Strength” only applied to the large ones.

All skills came with their own symbol. “Improved Agility” was a triple-studded arrow, while the medium shapeshift had a wolf symbol. There seemed to be one for every ability on each tree, and there were no restrictions on what I could unlock beyond the mana cost.

Still, I was hesitant to choose anything with a high mana cost.

The Elements tab seemed much more promising.

Skill: Cyclone

Mana Cost: Low

Skill Level: 0

That one seemed pretty useful. I didn’t know the difference between Cyclone and Tornado. They were synonyms! Tornado’s symbol seemed more potent and intimidating, and the mana cost was high instead of low, like Cyclone. Was it safe to assume it was just… bigger?

I had no way to know and no way to find out except biting the bullet and picking a skill.

Each menu had between ten and fifteen different skills I could choose from. Near the bottom, there were also greyed-out skills, as if I hadn’t even fulfilled the requirements to know what they were, let alone pick them.

There were far more than just wind-based skills, too. “Gripping Vines,” “Poisoned Weapon,” “Poison Creeper,” “Boulder Toss,” “Flock of Ravens,” “Earthen Shield,” “Cyclone Armor…” Fucking hell. “Rabies” was a skill!

I had a lot of different options and was reluctant to choose any of them. The passives were a lot less complex and actually had descriptions if incredibly sparse ones.

Skill: Nature’s Bounty

Improved Passive Mana Generation. Doubled when meditating.

Skill Level: 0

Almost all of them had some nature-themed name like that, and they pretty much did what they said on the tin. Small improvements that I probably wouldn’t notice.

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The aura tab was easier to understand. Each ability there focused on improving and changing the Druid’s passive aura. “Improved Healing,” or “Stamina Regen,” added small effects to the aura, while there were also Totem abilities that seemed somewhat confusing.

Skill: Confusion Totem

Confusion Totem can disorient enemies in a radius around it.

Mana Cost: Low.

So… why were the totems in the auras tree? Did I have to stay near enough to the totem for my aura to affect it? Or did I carry the totem and then my Aura would confuse enemies? Would it still heal me and my allies under the effects of the totem?

I could’ve spent days on this rabbit hole, trying to find the perfect option. In the end, physical protection was the most important thing to me, making the choice simple. “Earthen Shield,” from the Nature tab or “Cyclone Armor" from the Elements tab.

The choice between those two was pretty easy, too. One of them involved dirt, and the other didn’t.

Cyclone Armor gained a skill point.

That… that was it. There was no sudden influx of information in my head. No proof that I wasn’t insane. Just a spent skill point, and no idea how to use my new ability.

I was immensely disappointed. By the time I finally chose my skill, the sun had almost risen over the horizon. Dew was on the ground and Genji desperately wanted to go pee.

This would have to do. I had a goblin body to examine and a cave to explore.

I wanted to wear some sort of body armor to protect myself against knives, but I hadn’t been able to think of anything that would actually work.

I considered calling up my brother. He was a larper, though he’d probably kill me if he ever heard me calling him that. I could hear him now, “It’s called Belegarth! Larping is for dweebs.” Dead serious, as if from the outside, anyone could tell the difference.

I chuckled. He probably had a spare set of legitimate chainmail that might be useful if it fit over my bulk. He lived an eight-hour drive away and had only visited once since Rio and I had bought this place. I didn’t think I’d be able to get him to bring it to me in any reasonable timeframe. Not without telling him a lot of things I wasn’t fully ready to even believe yet, anyway.

So, no armor for me. I had a leather jacket that I thought might provide more protection than nothing.

My final loadout was a t-shirt and blue jeans, a leather jacket, a backpack, a machete on my belt, a gun with two spare clips, and a spell for Cyclone Armor that I couldn’t use! I was ready to go into…

I sighed.

Into my back-friggin-yard.

Feeding the dog before I left proved surprisingly difficult in my ‘armor.’ Thoroughly demoralized by the humiliating need to disarm just to get under the counter to the dog food tote and get some food in Genji’s bowl, I finally set off around nine-thirty, a solid hour later than I’d intended.

‘God, I really hope I’m not making the biggest mistake of my life…’ I thought as I gassed up my arms and shoes.

I avoided the road. The last thing I wanted was for Jill to spot me wearing all… this. At best, she’d think I was weird. At worst, a raving lunatic. Instead, I walked into my backyard and headed straight down the mountain, following the path I’d traveled the day before after the little goblins.

I hadn’t kept a good track of where I’d run to the day before. The cave was well away from the roads, in the ravine, but not quite to the creek. I was worried I’d have trouble finding it, but those fears were unfounded.

The smell led me right to it. Dead Goblins stank.

I found the cave first, stumbling about half a mile through the ravine after reaching the bottom. It was easy to spot from the dry creek, and with the dead bodies’ stench guiding me, the whole search didn’t even take twenty minutes.

I hadn’t noticed it until after, but the cave sent chills down my spine. It was… darker than it should be. It almost seemed like the sun faded slightly, but only in a small radius around the entrance.

That must’ve just been my imagination. That wasn’t how sunlight worked.

Still, it wasn’t any scarier than going into my crawl space I supposed. I squeezed into the entrance and found the goblin I’d killed the day before. The corpse was bloated now. Disgusting. It was a struggle not to hurl as I approached the little beasty.

I had time now to examine the little creature in detail. It had two arms and two legs, but that was where their similarity to humans ended. Bloated boils and pock marks that had been there long before it had died marred its skin. Its teeth were all sharp like a canine, and its curved nose practically bent over its upper lip.

It wore a loin cloth and a jerkin that bared its chest. Both articles were closer to rags than clothes. And, of course, its skin was red.

Sure enough, two gold coins lay there on the ground where they’d fallen the day before. I greedily picked them both up. To my delight, they disappeared a few moments after I grabbed them, just like the two from yesterday.

I pulled out my cell phone. Frantic with excitement, I opened my banking app and scrolled to my account before beaming. Two more deposits of forty-four dollars and thirteen cents. Both were pending. The “Sendee” field, the same as before, was Guild of Hope.

“What is with the ominous vibes?” I said aloud, still beaming at my account's seven hundred and sixty-eight dollars.

So. Theory proven. The coins would actually turn into legitimate deposits in my bank account. One barrier down. I hadn’t run into any goblins on my walk here, and there was no evidence of the two who’d run away yesterday. This still wasn’t a viable source of income yet, but still one step closer.

Now that I had time, and because I really wanted to get out of this cave, I decided to examine the other dead goblin. This one took me a moment to find because the smell of it was everywhere.

The quiver of arrows it had dropped was still there from the day before. A quiver that I was almost certain the goblin hadn’t actually carried when it had been alive and trying to kill me.

I picked them up but found nothing strange about them. Same as the potions, they didn’t disappear. They were just… arrows. They looked... old. Not that they were worn out, but like they were made by a fletcher from a hundred years ago, rather than the sleek arrows I could buy today. I might be able to sell them at a pawnshop for a decent penny.

I shrugged and was about to return to the cave when I heard a sudden, muffled cough. I drew the pistol immediately and spun toward the sound. Again, I heard a panicked cough.

Two strides forward and one up the mountainside were enough to leave me panting, but there I found it.

The third Goblin. The one that hadn’t died.

It had crawled away from where I’d smashed it, and its friend had kicked it, but it hadn’t made it far.

Now it stared at me, its wide, beady eyes filled with panic.

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