Slowly I opened this secondary door within this simple temple and peered inside of it. To my surprise it was a simple bedroom with a single person bed, a small table and chair, a wardrobe, a small chest at the foot of the bed, and a small shrine with a statuette. After looking around the room a second time I stepped forward and looked closer.
Like I expected everything was designed for dwarves and the sizes of everything pointed to that, the bed was small, the wardrobe and clothes within were far too small for a full grown human, and the table and chair looked very awkward to sit in.
Though the chest held a small bag of old coins and a strange looking cylindric oval made from metal. The cylindrical oval looked to have several moving parts along its sides that upon further inspection folded off as small tools. The first was a small knife that could possibly be used to cut string, thin ropes, or gut small animals. The second was a tiny saw blade around the same size of the previous knife, I wasn’t exactly sure what this could be used for. The third was a small pair of scissors that were of surprising sharpness. The fourth was a thin piece of metal with a scratchy face on it that could be used for very fine sanding. The fifth and final tool was a thin piece of metal that had a sharp point and was spiraled around like a coil, I wasn’t quite sure what this was for either.
With some difficulty I slipped it into one of my pockets hidden past my armor where it would be safe for the time being. ‘This might be handy. I don’t exactly know how something like this could be made, but I think some of those tools might come in real handy if I am going to stay here for a while.’ I thought to myself and I stepped towards the shrine.
The shine was made up of two simple stone blocks, one large that served as the base and a second that served as a small pedestal for a small statuette of what appeared to be a dwarf wearing a wolf's skin over his head. It was rather strange but helped me understand that I was likely in the bedroom of a priest of this god.
Though I am not a particularly religious person I gave a small prayer to this unknown god as a small thanks for what I found in this room. I didn’t hear, feel, or even see anything that might have alerted me to the god acknowledging my prayer so I simply stood up after and left the room and exited the temple back into the hallway.
I checked the rest of the rooms on the right side of the rightmost hallway and found very similar things. A temple followed by a bedroom to a priest of said religion. Most of what was within those rooms was just furniture and clothing that was too small for me, the only other thing of value to myself was a rucksack. It was basically just a bag made up of whatever fabric was available that had an opening that could be closed.
It was a rather small and light thing to have for personal storage, but for the time being it would be useful for keeping anything that I will find without hindering myself. I even took the time to fish out the metal oval cylinder and put it inside for easier access.
With that I had looked through all the rooms on the right side of the right hallway. Now I was going to look at the rooms on the left side of this hallway which had fewer doors and were far more spaced out. I believed this to be because these rooms were far larger than the ones I was just in. ‘Assuming that this whole floor just consists of temples and the builders didn’t just decide to add in new random rooms because they felt like it, then these are probably the bigger and more popular temples of this city. Lyra’s mercenaries that were assigned to this floor never did say how many goblins they found down here or where they were, but I have a feeling that they might be hiding in these rooms.’
Slowly I unsheathed my sword and reached for the door handle, while I didn’t feel danger running down my spine like I had in the past I had a feeling within my gut that something alive was on the other side of this door. Slowly the door creaked open showing a ruined temple with several goblins in one corner sleeping while others in another were doing something with bones and leather.
I slowly entered the room and closed the door behind myself without being noticed. For a moment I watched the goblins as they either slept or worked at whatever it was they were doing, it was strange to be completely honest. It was scary or weird, just strange, like looking at the weapon designs of a foreign land from across an ocean.
‘The ones that are currently awake are likely to be able to react faster than the ones that are sleeping, so I should probably take them out first hand then when the others are still waking up take advantage of their confusion.’ I smiled as I slowly started walking towards the busy goblins. Since there wasn’t much in hiding places I was forced to do a sort of crouched walk with my sword held low to minimize the possibility of being seen, but unfortunately it wasn’t very effective as one of the goblins stood up and turned around and saw me.
The thin and somewhat feminine goblin stepped back in surprise and gave a confused grunt before I ran forward and brought my sword down, splitting its skull open. Unfortunately there were other goblins who saw this and they reacted. They reacted by running away to the best of their abilities towards the door that led further into this complex. I of course was right behind them and made sure that they couldn’t open it.
This sudden and abrupt noise however woke up the few goblins that were sleeping and they were quickly on their feet looking around for the source of this commotion. One dressed in actual proper clothing was the first to see me and shouted out while drawing a somewhat maintained dagger and running towards me. To my surprise this goblin was actually quite quick and somewhat competent with his dagger, he ducked and dodged out of the way of several of my swings that I thought would quickly kill it like the others. He even landed a few hits on me that were thankfully absorbed by my armor completely.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
‘This one has actual skill with its weapon of choice, might as well do something drastic.’ I kicked forward, knocking the goblin back and followed it up with a second kick to the face that knocked it on its back. I then stepped forward and stomped down on the goblin's face and heard a sickening crack as its nose broke. The goblin wailed out in pain and dropped its dagger which I souped up and plunged into its chest.
The other goblins were half awake but understood that whatever happened wasn’t good as their leader who was screaming just a moment ago suddenly went silent. Like the one before they quickly tried to run away, but unlike before they all took different doors which forced me to pick a group to follow and kill. I chose to kill the group of three goblins that tried to run for the very same door, the one making things with bone and leather chose while the other five escaped. The three goblins didn’t put up much of a fight as they were unarmed and tired.
Taking a moment to catch my breath I sheathed my sword and dragged the seven goblin corpses off to the side as I looked for anything of value. I did contemplate chasing down the other five goblins but since I could hear them after they left the room I assumed they left the floor entirely believing it to be too dangerous to stay.
The only thing that I found that was of value was the dagger the one half decent dressed goblin had with it. I looked at its corpse as I looked at the dagger, it was definitely made by a dwarf considering the craftsmanship and skill it was made with, but I also noticed that someone had been maintaining it as it showed signs of sharpening with how the very thin amount of rust had formed on it. Looking at the former owner I found no whetstone that might have been used, but it must have understood how to use one.
‘Goblin’s are a bit more complicated than I thought they were. Despite these being outcast or banished members of the society that is within the cavern below they do have a sort of community here though it is far more refined than the one just one floor down. I wonder why that is?’ I put that thought to the side as I looked at my HUD and the notifications.
/- - - - - -\
+ 50 Exp
+ 50 Exp
+ 50 Exp
+ 100 Exp
+ 50 Exp
+ 50 Exp
+ 50 Exp
Level 3, 1000 Exp
+ 10 points
Next at 1400
\- - - - - -/
I smiled as I saw the notification. Now that I was at level three I had enough mana to cast a tier one spell, just one however. ‘If I were to put twenty points into my intelligence then I would definitely have enough mana to cast three tier one spells back to back. Though I have been using my physical capabilities as well as my swordsmanship to kill these goblins, so it might be wise to invest some of these points into my dexterity or my strength as well so I can actually fight when I don’t have any mana.’
With anything of value collected and my HUD checked upon I drew my sword and stepped towards the door towards the end of the room that based on the wall placement would lead to another room. ‘Hopefully this one isn’t full of goblins.’
Slowly and carefully I turned the knob and pushed the door open while remaining vigilant of any possible threats. On the other side I did not see any goblins, but I did see something quite unexpected that no one during the expedition mentioned despite how important such a thing would be. ‘This is a farm, with mushrooms growing as a source of food.’
I wasn’t really sure how these goblins were eating before, but this certainly wasn’t what I thought they were doing. But it did make a whole lot of sense when I thought about it, since everything needs to eat and they do live in an underground city with cavern access just ten floors below. Though the smell of the room was not very nice it was a functioning farm, and off towards the corner of the room there were old barrels of food that the goblins had been using. ‘This changes a lot about what I thought of the goblins and their command structure. I just assumed that every goblin that wasn’t part of the group in the cavern was on their own, but this might prove that they are for the most part one big interconnected group with a few outcasts like the group I found on the fifteenth floor.’
I walked towards the small area sectioned off for food storage and passed by a stone statue of what appeared to be a humanoid figure wearing plated armor and holding a massive sword larger than even my longsword pointed downwards. I noticed that it shared some similarities with the depictions of Solarius that I saw during my time in Antium. ‘I should ask someone about this, perhaps this is a temple to Solarius. From what I understand he would have been around during the second era when this city was built.’
Five barrels remained intact in this small space, using the dagger I took from the one goblin I pried off the lid and found it was full of the brown mushrooms that were being grown not too far from where I stood. Quickly I filled my rucksack around halfway full with these brown mushrooms before closing the lid and moving onto the other barrels. The next three just contained the very same type of mushrooms that I had already taken so I left them alone, the last barrel however had exactly what I was most interested in, it was a barrel full of honey.
I thought back to when this barrel was brought to the camp by a very proud group of Lyra’s mercenaries, though we didn’t eat the honey it was still a very interesting experience for everyone involved. I for one learned that honey is a type of food that can stay edible for an indefinite amount of time, so this barrel full of honey was very likely still very good to eat which was a good thing as my stomach began growling for food.
Opening one of the barrels back up I took two of the mushrooms and closed it back up. Taking out the dagger I cut the mushrooms up into smaller pieces and then dipped them into the barrel of honey before eating the piece. The mushroom itself didn’t really have a taste, but it certainly had a texture and I was not much of a fan of it. It almost felt like I was eating a poor copy of meat, it had an odd texture and was only made decent by the taste of the honey that I covered it with. Slowly I managed to eat all the pieces of the two mushrooms and Closed up the lid to the honey.
With some food now in my belly I was more than ready to continue exploring this floor in hopes of finding a safe place to stay for the night, both for sleep and to assign my attribute points as I would need both to continue without risking my life with every small decision I make and to eventually get down to the caravan and hunt as many goblins on my own.