The building that the goblins were using looked to at one point have been a sort of luxurious tavern of sorts. I could see curtains in the windows separating the balconies from the rooms they were connected to, though most were tattered or torn apart. The walls showed designs that looked unique to my eyes and I wondered why nobody said anything about this place.
The goblins were just standing around and acting like animals while I watched and observed them, inside the building on the bottom floor I could hear some of them eating something very loudly while they were talking to each other in their language. The ones outside were just lazily waiting for anything with very little enthusiasm, a few were even asleep.
I looked around for an opening in the building such as a window or a hole that I could enter through but unfortunately the goblins were actually smart enough to block any and all entryways into the building which was a first. ‘That just leaves the front door and climbing up the side to the second or third level. Climbing up has the advantage of surprise while the front door can allow me to escape if I need to.’
For a few minutes I watched the front door and the few goblins that were guarding it. From what I could see outside there were just three goblins wearing some basic metal armor consisting of chest plates and helmets while carrying poor quality spears as weapons. Like the other goblins I had seen, they were looking rather bored with their job and weren’t paying much attention to their surroundings like they should have been.
Hiding to the right side of the building far enough away from the door that they couldn’t see me I began casting the Tri Earth Bolts spell to try and kill all three of these goblins at once. Standing straight and hiding myself behind the corner I extended my hands and pointed them towards the goblins and kept them straight as I began casting the spell, the arcane words I spoke were not noticed by the goblins and they likely didn’t even notice anything until the three earth bolts punctured through the side of their skulls and killed them.
When they fell to the ground the metal armor they wore clanked loudly alerting the goblins within the building that something had happened. I could hear one of them shout something to their allies outside and wait a moment for a response that they didn’t receive. When they didn’t get it after a few moments they shouted again and once more before I heard the sound of chairs sliding across the stone floor and a few pairs of footsteps coming towards the door.
Since I didn’t do anything to hide the goblin corpses they were found very quickly and the still living goblins shouted out to the other goblins that were also still alive. But they didn’t sound scared or worried, on the contrary they sounded very angry by the deaths of their allies. The one shouting sounded like it was also mad at its still living allies as well and there was a brief conversation between those on the bottom floor that ended with a slap sound.
Suddenly one goblin stumbled out of the building followed by another as if they were pushed out, then the loud goblin shouted again and based on their expressions it was likely towards them. The second one looked a little scared and worried while the first one was basically cowering to the loud goblin and its verbal assault that lasted a while. Honestly, if I wasn’t going to kill all these goblins I would have almost felt bad for them.
I kept my eyes trained on the two new goblins as they were shouted at, eventually the shouting stopped and they slowly started walking away while looking nervous. I could see in their stance and the way they were holding their spears, they were stiff and uneasy making for a group of easy targets even without my magic. But since there were definitely more goblins hiding within the building I decided to avoid doing that and instead go upwards to the second level of this building.
Slowly and quietly conjuring up a ladder from earth I made sure that it wasn’t visible from anywhere inside the building before I slowly climbed up it. Reaching a balcony on the second level I carefully climbed off and onto it making as little noise as I could. Looking inside the building from the balcony I could see that there was a bedroom of sorts connected to this balcony, unlike the balcony it had an actual door and it was closed.
Looking around at the furniture I saw that most of what was in here was made of well crafted wood compared to the stone furniture that was in just about every other building, clearly this was a very expensive place to stay in as it had things most people here didn’t have. There was also a wardrobe that I opened up to find empty except for an old pair of boots that looked like they were once very well made whenever this city was inhabited.
Peeking outside the room I saw that there weren't many goblins on this floor, in fact the only ones I saw were sleeping in one of the rooms with the doors wide open. On this floor I counted five goblins each in their own separate rooms sleeping making themselves easy pickings for myself. The first that I decided to deal with was the closest to my right which was also the farthest to my right. Slowly I walked forward as I carefully conjured up a dagger from earth and held it in a reverse grip, thankfully there was a rug on the floor like all the others that muffled enough of the noise that I was able to reach the goblin without waking it.
Raising my dagger just above my chest with my arms outstretched I brought the dagger down to the goblins neck and stabbed with as much force as I could muster. The stab wasn’t exactly skilled or efficient, but it was enough to kill and pierced where I wanted it to killing the goblin quickly enough to leave it with no time to say anything before it bled out and died.
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+ 50 Exp
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+ 50 Exp
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Daggers Level 0
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The notification I received was a little unnecessary but it was good to know that I have actual skill in using daggers, even if it isn’t very much.
Putting any other thoughts out of my mind for now I left the room through the same door and went to the room directly across the hall and did the same thing. Each of the five goblins met the same fate before I dispelled that dagger that was soon dripping with blood. But before I did anything else I took a seat in the room I snuck in through and took some deep breaths to calm myself, as it turned out sneaking around and killing goblins even while they were sleeping was a very stressful task. The idea that they might just wake up at the slightest sound is terrifying and constantly in the middle of your thoughts, like something you want to forget but is so ingrained into your memory you can’t.
When I felt I was calm enough I stood up and slowly closed each of the doors that had sleeping goblins in them while leaving the others open. Then I slowly crept over to the balcony I entered through and looked over to see what the goblins were doing. From what I could see more than just the two that were initially sent out were now outside their little basecamp and looking for whatever killed their allies, I could see two walking around and I could hear them talking with other goblins that I couldn’t see. I considered killing the two I could see with a quick spell but decided against it for the time being.
‘I should remain quiet and hidden for the time being and kill as many as I can within the building before I engage with the goblins who are actively looking for me.’ After reentering the building I made one last sweep in the second story to make sure that I killed all the goblins before I walked towards the stairs leading both up and down. Peeking down I saw a few Goblins walking around or sitting, the ones I could see had better equipment than the ones outside and were a fair bit taller and better fed than the others.
Upstairs however I could see or hear all that much, so to make a full sweep of as much of the building as possible I decided to slowly start walking up. Peeking my head from the stairs I looked around the room quickly and found it was like the previous story with several bedrooms, but there was also a large open space with a solid stone table that resembled the bar of a tavern that was surrounded by a few tables and chairs. Aside from the sound of something breathing softly I couldn’t hear anything else, it was like even the goblins didn’t like this floor for some reason. Climbing the few remaining steps I started looking around for the source of the breathing, I knew it had to be in one of the rooms as it was definitely muffled and I couldn’t find anything alive near the bar.
I couldn’t see much in the room with the minimal amounts of light that I currently had so I conjured up a small amount of fire to act like a torch, but then I suddenly noticed something that stood out compared to everything else standing near to the bar.
What I assume was once a coat hanger was missing several pieces that actually held coats and instead had an assortment of markings and a skull resting on top. It was positioned in a way that somewhat resembled a person if you squinted your eyes and were standing really far away. I wasn’t even sure what it was so I inspected the former coat hanger and looked at the markings that covered most of its thin pole.
But as I was nearly done with my inspection I noticed something, these markings looked an awful lot like magic inscriptions that are on enchanted items like the talismans I made. These markings were rather crude and lacked any sort of substance that could direct or transmit mana, but it was definitely a good start.
‘This is concerning.’ I thought to myself as I slowly stood up and looked around the room worriedly. ‘I doubt that just any goblin would have the knowledge to create enchanted items, even if they don’t have any ink this requires a certain amount of knowledge and training to do. Only a once in a million years genius would be able to do something like this without help, and I doubt any of those would be goblins.’
I took a few steps backwards to try and see if the markings would make more sense from a distance, the idea being that it might not be inscriptions and instead something else like a picture that can only be seen from a certain distance. But as I was walking backwards I accidentally bumped into the bar and something else that was on the edge that fell to the ground and created a lot of noise when it hit the ground.
Turning to look at the source of the noise I found it was a small cup made out of stone that was sitting on the edge of the counter, I bumped into it and it fell to the ground with a loud and sudden crunch as it broke into two. Cursing myself for my own carelessness I quickly picked up the broken cup and placed it back onto the bar before I noticed that the breathing from further into the room was gone.
I quickly turned to look in the direction of the bedrooms and I was met with a ball of water that struck me in the face and left me on the ground from the impact. My face stung with pain like I was just punched in the nose, but I quickly scrambled behind the bar as another ball of water hit where I was just moments before.
Within seconds I casted the Tri Earth Bolts spell and conjured up three earth bolts that I kept above my right hand, with a proper ranged weapon at the ready I peeked over the top of the bar and saw the source of these magical attacks. A goblin thin and frail compared to its other allies wearing robes made from thin and poor quality fabric and a skull of a larger goblin on its head while carrying what looked to be a wilted tree branch in its left hand was quickly conjuring up a ball of water in its right hand while looking right at me.
When it noticed I was peeking over the counter it shouted something in its own language that sounded quite excited and the ball of water started growing faster, without hesitation I thrusted my right hand forward and with it the three earth bolts directed towards this goblin mage. The goblin mage looked rather surprised by this sudden attack and was quickly forced to turn its ball of water into a disk of water as an improvised shield.
The improvised water shield managed to stop the first earth bolt from penetrating all the way through, but that left the structural stability weak enough for the second and third to quite easily punch through and hit the goblin in mage in its arm and the side of its hip.
Now with two sudden wounds that were quite painful the goblin mage stumbled backwards into the hallway connected to the bedrooms out of my view breathing heavily as it did so. I also took the opportunity to catch my breath and cast another spell as I prepped against whatever the goblin mages was going to try.
But after several minutes of nothing I began to grow suspicious and slowly drew my sword and crept closer to see what the goblin was doing.