Scouring through the remaining rooms of the fourteenth floor I found nothing of note aside from more temples and bedrooms to house the priests that ran them along with a few trinkets that were likely of little value.
With the floor now secured I entered the room to the farthest right of the floor and blocked the door to the temple with the statue and the door to the bedroom with a chair while I prepared myself to sleep. I didn’t want any surprises and I had no doubts that the goblins would return if my assumptions regarding their societal structure were correct.
The bed was a little small and not the most comfortable that I had slept on, but it definitely could have been worse. While I was laying I had my HUD open and was trying to decide what I wanted to invest my thirty points into. ‘Intelligence is definitely something I want to invest in soon, that way I can actually start using all the spells I know. Investing twenty points will give me three units of mana for every level I gain and still leave me with ten points to put somewhere else. Since I am also using a sword more often than before, strength and dexterity will both be useful as well, splitting that into five each might not be a bad idea.’
Following this rationale train of thought I invested my attribute points accordingly by raising my intelligence to thirty and both my strength and dexterity to fifteen.
/- - - - - -\
Strength 15
Dexterity 15
Intellect 30
\- - - - - -/
I smiled as I saw the numbers go up, but I also recalled that I wouldn't feel the changes until I slept for the night which I was going to do. I closed my eyes and adjusted myself until I was comfortable until I slowly drifted off to sleep deep below the surface in Dom Badaher.
**********
Meanwhile at the entrance of Dom Badaher the expedition led by Lyra had hit a dead end. Despite searching for a whole day they had not found any possible mechanism that would be used to open the city gate from the outside. While it was useful for keeping invaders out it was making entry even after all this time a bit of a problem.
Within the large tent that served as the headquarters of this expedition Lyra was speaking with an older human man with grey hairs projected via a communication orb not available to the common folk even with large sums of money. Citro was also there as he was an important part of the leadership of her Flock of war.
“I am sorry sir, but we have not had any success with finding a way into the settlement of Dom Badaher without digging a hole into its walls.” Lyra apologized while looking quite sad to the older man, the feeling of shame was preventing her from looking him in the eyes despite them knowing each other for almost her whole life.
“Well this makes things difficult.” The man on the other end of the communication sphere sighed while taking a seat. “If you are unable to find any other way into the settlement within 24 hours then call me again, when that happens I will give you permission to begin digging your way into the settlement.”
“Yes sir. If we do find another way in before then I shall alert you immediately of it.”
“Very good Lyra, you are dismissed. I hope to hear good news the next time we speak.” The older man said as both he and Lyra gave each other a salute, the fact that neither she nor any of her mercenaries were a part of the military was ignored before the call ended.
“You and your father have quite the complicated relationship. One day he treats you like a small child and a princess, and the next he treats you like a part of the military. What is up with that?” Citro commented as he draped a small piece of silk cloth over the communication orb in the middle of the tent.
“Things have been like that since he adopted me 40 years ago. There is always a time and place to treat everyone a certain way, that's what he always taught me anyways. Though I think he was a little saddened that I didn’t join the military since I technically don’t have any inheritance waiting for me, he is still happy that I have my own mercenary company though he would have preferred a military daughter.”
“Wait, you don’t have an inheritance? But he considers you his daughter and has treated you like one of his own children. I assumed you would have been a part of the inheritance from day one. Is this some sort of political scheme by your foster family?”
“A few family members on my foster mothers side of the family didn’t like that I was adopted, less so that I am an elf. You know, typical upper class racism. They somehow managed to alter the will so that I wouldn’t receive anything and my father was livid about it. To keep what happened simple we don’t talk with our extended family very often anymore.”
The room went quiet as what Lyra said started to sink in. Eventually she was forced to change the topic to prevent the situation from becoming any more awkward.
“So what do you think the odds are that we find an access point or mechanism to open the front gate to Dom Badaher? Since we haven't found anything so far I would bet that we are probably going to need to dig our way inside.”
“That is a reasonable assessment. The only real hope we have of entering Dom Badaher without digging a hole in the side would be to have someone exit from the inside and open the door, but we would need to somehow teleport someone with conjuration magic to do that and if that were possible then we wouldn't even be having this conversation.” Citro sighed and sat down while he rubbed his temples to relieve the headache he was feeling.
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“Even if we had access to such conjuration magic we would need to worry about the end location of the spell, otherwise we could accidently send someone into somewhere where they can't find their way out or even inside of a living creature if we are unlucky enough.”
Neither Lyra or Citro stayed in the tent for much longer as they each had their own duties to attend to, Citro went to take part in the search for an entrance to Dom Badaher while Calavia took care of the logistical problems that arrived from the expedition before the day ended.
***********
I slowly opened my eyes as I awoke from my slumber, as I slowly sat up I could feel renewed strength within myself and my mind was sharp like my sword. I raised my hand and conjured up a ball of fire that fit perfectly in my hand like a key. I didn’t need the HUD to know that my mana reserves were three times what they were before and I could cast a tier two spell if I either needed to or wanted to.
In a strange way this recovered strength was almost intoxicating in a way I never knew was possible, before I was far stronger than this, but I felt so much more powerful. Quickly checking my things I made sure that everything that I wasn’t wearing was in my rucksack or strapped to my hip. I ate a few mushrooms as a simple and filling breakfast. I then removed the chair from where it was and opened the door to the temple which was also untouched from when I last saw it.
The hallway was silent as I stepped outside the temple, I looked both ways before I fully exited and walked towards the stairs intending to travel up another floor. ‘By the time I clear out the first floor I should be at around level ten given the distribution of goblins. That would leave me quite close to my power when I died at the dark magic of that imperial mage. Hopefully I can avoid that this time.’
Walking up the stairs to the thirteenth floor was just as uneventful as before and the opening hallway to said floor was just as initially empty as I expected it to be, but upon closer inspection the signs of goblin activity was there. Small splatters of blood and the occasional severed limb gave away the nature and level of cooperation that the goblins that lived here had. ‘Just like on the fifteenth floor, these ones are basically animals. I wonder what made the ones on fourteenth so different from the rest, was it the access to food that they had?’
I pushed my thoughts regarding the goblins who lived on the fourteenth floor out of my mind as I focused on those that were currently hiding on this floor. Given the larger area I had to cover there were likely to be more goblins hiding here than on the previous two floors.
With the unique placement of the buildings and metal gates that could close at any moment I walked carefully through and into whatever this floor might have been. Upon stepping past the gates I noticed that there were several panels of one way glass along the side of the building, since both sides were dimly lit I was able to somewhat see inside saw what appeared to be a control room with all sorts of levers and switches throughout the room control only the gods know what at this point.
With one hand on my sword and my other ready to cast a spell I continued forward wondering where the goblins might be hiding. As I rounded the corner I saw what looked to be a simple armory with its doors wide open and dried blood and old skeletons strewn across the floor. Looking inside the armory I found a few secretary desks and a waiting room with a few broken chairs. The next room within the building had a metal door with a powerful looking look that was unfortunately wide open. Inside was the actual armory that had a desk where I assumed the person handing out the equipment would stand and behind it were several racks where weapons and armor once were.
‘Looks like someone or something looted the armory a while ago. It might have been to fight against the goblins invading from the underground cavern they dug into, considering that the front gate of the city is still closed I don’t think they succeeded in their attempt.’
Climbing over the desk I looked around the room for anything that might have been missed but whoever went through this room was thorough and grabbed everything.
The only clue to what might have been stored here was a few half rotted manuals that were written in a language I didn’t understand, the only reason I even knew they were manuals was due to the pictures I could on a few pages. ‘Things must have been really bad if they took everything from here. From what I can see the primary weapon that was stored here were metal rods that were likely used to subdue targets, the armor on the other hand was actual chainmail from what I can see so I see why they took that.’
Eventually I looked through every container and every weapon rack and was left with just an empty room containing nothing. As I was about to exit the room I suddenly heard a noise from something alive and breathing. It was the sound of footsteps of more than one creature and they were speaking in the familiar grunts and growls that I heard the goblins use to speak with each other. I stopped and remained quiet as they passed by the armory and further into the floor, I kept my sword and magic at the ready just in case they entered the building, but thankfully that didn’t happen.
Once I was certain that they were gone I slowly exited the armory making as little noise as possible. When I arrived at the front doors I looked around outside for any sign of movement before stepping outside. ‘That group of goblins that passed by went past the armory and deeper into the floor. I hope there weren't all that many, otherwise clearing this floor will be a bit of a problem.’ With my sword still in hand I continued walking in the direction of where I heard the goblins walking and ventured deeper into the thirteenth floor.
One of the first buildings of note that I found after the armory was a large cell with iron bars where walls would have been excluding the back wall which was actual stone bricks. The cell had enough room to accommodate around twenty or so people if they were all standing, there were several seats but they were just heavy stone bricks along the edges of the cell.
‘This must be some sort of temporary prison cell where they are kept until they can be processed. I guess that would make this floor a prison, and the armory was used to stone prison guard weapons and armor. Things must have been really bad if they needed that to fight their invaders.’ Pressing further into the prison I found hallways dedicated to prison cells that could accommodate two people at a time. The cells were still quite small but were a lot better for sleeping in than the temporary cell that I passed.
As I walked through that hall I saw several skeletons of former prisoners still within their cells, whenever they were attacked they didn’t have an opportunity to escape and likely died from dehydration or starvation. ‘What a way to go. I guess I got lucky when that mage decided to kill me with that magic spell that conjured up a cloud of red smoke.’
I didn’t see any blood within any of the cells furthering the likelihood that these prisoners died not from injuries but because they were forgotten. But not all hallways of cells were like this, another was completely empty and had a majority of its cells open wide for anyone to enter or leave. The only evidence that someone was actually in one of these cells was a skeleton of a dwarf laying on the floor like it was exiting from one of these cells.