New World Day 5

  That night was the longest night of my life. Every little creak and crack caused me to jump in fright and wonder if the monsters had finally found me. After what seemed like an eternity, I gathered the courage to venture into the garage to check if the sun had risen yet. I slowly cracked open the door to the garage and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw sunlight flooding into the garage from the windows. The long night had finally passed. There were a number of things I would have to do today. First, I needed to check on what had happened on the upper levels of the house and make sure that nothing had made its home up there. Then I was going to need to do something about the darkness in the basement. Something more than just burning a few candles, and I needed to find a way to keep track of time.

  When it came to keeping track of time, there was a pretty easy solution. My parents had kept a couple of battery powered alarm clocks in their bedroom. I hadn’t grabbed them before since I had more important things on my mind, but now I saw the need for it. Hopefully whatever had broken into the house didn’t break them during their rampage. As for the light in the basement, I had a few more candles, but they wouldn’t last me too much longer. There was an answer to the problem, but it might be a bit of a risk. My dad had kept a couple of solar powered lanterns in the big barn to the right of the house. If I could get my hands on them, I could set them in the sun just outside the garage door each day to charge. Of course, grabbing them would mean going into the big barn. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but the barn was in clear sight of the dam of the Small Lake. I was worried that something might come up after me from the lake, and that crazy grass growing on the dam would keep me from seeing any predators that might be watching my movements.

  After thinking it over for a bit, I convinced myself that I was overthinking things. I told myself it was just some residual fear left over from that first crazy chase. If it was really that dangerous to just be in view of the dam then something should have come up after me already. It wasn’t like the house was that much further from the lake than the barn, and it was even easier to hide in the lake itself than the grass on the dam. Finished psyching myself up, I returned to the bedroom and changed into a pair of jeans and put a button up long sleeved blue shirt on over top of my white undershirt. I then added the same jacket from previous excursion on top of that. I had a good supply of jeans and long sleeved shirts, but I would still need to be careful with them. I had ruined two full sets in just four days. At that rate I might run out of clothes almost as quickly as I would run out of food and water.

  I quickly shoved those thoughts out of my mind. I couldn’t afford to be too conservative with my actions. The goddess had said that the stronger creatures would be sluggish and not move until the mana levels stabilized which meant that the creatures I was fighting now were the weakest of the weak. I had to take advantage of this lull to become as strong as possible, and get as close to Cincinnati as I could. Once I investigated the house and grabbed the lanterns, I planned to go past the neighbors houses to see if I could find the main road to Falmouth, but that was for later. For now, I strapped on the pistol, put on a backpack with the axe, a couple bottles of water and some granola bars in it, grabbed the shotgun and rifle, and quietly snuck out of the garage.

  My head turned from side to side as I held the shotgun tightly and checked the surroundings for anything out of place. The shadow demon trees were still gone, and I didn’t see any goblins, forest coyotes, or geyser crayfish around. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun was beating down upon the treetops relentlessly. I wasn’t sure if the creatures that had invaded the house last night were still there so I snuck as quietly as I could to the front of the house. Each step I took was both as light and deliberate as I could be. Heel to toe, heel to toe all while carefully avoiding twigs, leaves, and gravel. As I snuck around to the front of the house through the triangle of trees, I had to stop for a moment when I noticed something out of place in the dirt. There were more footprints like the ones from yesterday on the ground, but there was a different footprint with them. The foot was longer, wider, and the imprint at the front of the foot where the toenail in a human would be curved down and dug deep into the ground. Clawed feet maybe? The other footprints had a bit of an imprint at the end of each toe, but nothing like this one. What made this print? Was it the creature responsible for the fighting last night?

  My pulse began to speed up and my breath came in short quick bursts as the prospect of a potentially impending fight with this unknown creature hit me. I worked hard to pull my breathing back under my control switching out the short quick breaths for long calm inhalations. A burst of wind suddenly blew threw the trees. The branches rattled. The leaves rustled, and the shadows danced and trembled all around me. Panicking and fearing that the shadow demons had returned, I jumped backwards and backpedaled towards the garage. With each step backwards I swung the shotgun side to side and looked for the shadow creatures I thought were closing in upon me, but nothing was coming after me. Breathing out a sigh of relief, I realized that they were just normal shadows. Those stupid trees really spooked me. I was more proud than I would like to admit that I didn’t shit myself when they attacked me the other day. Shaking my head and smiling a little I thought to myself, “Best get this over with before I stop jumping and start shooting at my own shadow.”

  I resumed my quiet steady walk up to the front of the house and made it to the front porch without incident. The front porch was originally screened in with a few benches and chairs scattered about, but now the screen was torn in multiple places. Great gashes were torn into the light wire, and the furniture was all flipped and broken. Apparently, the creatures had rampaged outside in addition to their fighting inside. Moving past the front porch, I walked forward on the deck that lined the outside of the house to just before the set of large windows that overlooked the garage. At that point, I put my back to the house and held the shotgun tightly before I leaned over and snuck a glance inside to the family room. The once familiar and beloved family room was now even more of an enormous mess than it had been after that first goblin had attacked me. The couch, love seat, and chairs were all flipped on their sides. All of the other eye level windows had been broken and glass was everywhere inside. However, what drew my eye was that there was a body laying there in the center of the room.

  Blood pooled around the body sinking into and staining the carpet a deep crimson. Flies buzzed and weaved through the air above it, and the stink of death and decay wafted over to me. I could tell at a glance that it was a goblin like the one I had encountered just days before. It had the same green skin, matted mohawk, and crude leather clothing as the last one I had encountered. Judging by the state of the body, I now was reasonably sure that they had a mana stone within them as well. The goblin had cuts and dark green bruises all over its body, but the most disconcerting sight was the gaping wound in its chest. It looked like something had reached right into its chest and torn something right out of it. The open chest wound made it easy for me to see that what was torn out wasn’t its heart which left me suspecting that it was the goblin’s mana stone that had been torn out of it. I tore my gaze away from the corpse to check the rest of the room for any unwanted visitors, and I was just about to climb into the family room when I heard a series of thumps coming from the other side of the deck. Footsteps! At least two creatures were walking alongside the other side of the deck!

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  Yanking my head back, I flattened myself against the side of the house as my heart began to pound in my chest. Time to take a stand! This was my house, and I wasn’t going to allow a group of damn midget monsters from hell take it away from me! I leaned my head out just enough to take a look through the window and saw two goblins looking into the family room at the goblin corpse. The two each had deep black mohawks, stained leather vests and kilts, and almost humorously oversized clubs in their hands. If it wasn’t for the nasty spiked teeth and pitch black claws the sight of them might almost make me laugh. They were both a little taller than both the corpse and the goblin from a few days ago. However, one of the two was about an inch taller than the other and seemed to be making a case for being in charge. It was motioning at the corpse with its hands before jabbing its companion in the chest with a little clawed finger as if telling it to get in there and grab the body. The shorter of the two didn’t take kindly to that and its black mohawk swayed back slightly before it launched its head forward and head butted the taller goblin right in the chest! The taller goblin staggered backwards a few steps and screeched in rage. The shorter goblin sneered at it and came at it once more. This time it unleashed a surprisingly quick strike with the giant club in its left hand. These things were stronger than I had ever imagined! I didn’t know if I could swing that stupid club that fast with two hands let alone one. The taller goblin backpedaled out of the way and the club swished by just in front of its short pointy nose and smashed into the house with an enormous thud. The screech of rage turned into a roar as the taller goblin grabbed its club with two hands and let loose a massive over handed swing at the other goblin! The shorter goblin dodged to the side and the entire deck rumbled as the giant club smashed into it. The wooden boards shattered under the force of the hit as a loud crack reached my ears.

  Now was my chance! I could get the drop on them while they were fighting each other. Ducking down, out of sight of the windows, I slowly crawled around to the back of the house. Once I turned one more corner, I would be face to face with two vicious magical creatures. Thawck! Thud! Crack! Crash! I could hear the deck breaking and splintering as the two goblins kept fighting one other. I closed my eyes briefly and summoned all of my courage. A hard determined look emerged as I slowly opened my eyes again. I quickly stood up to my full height, put the shotgun butt to my right shoulder, and whipped around the corner in a flash. As I turned the corner, I saw broken boards jutting up from the floor of the deck and railing posts splintered and bent out of shape. The shorter goblin had lost its club and had been knocked on its ass onto the deck. The taller goblin was looming over it menacingly with its club raising high over head. The shorter goblin was propping itself up slightly with its arms and had a beseeching look on its face when it caught sight of me turning the corner. It pointed at me with one short blackened claw and screeched a warning to its fellow goblin. The larger goblin had just enough time to turn its head to the side and catch sight of me in its peripheral vision before I raised my shotgun and pulled the trigger.

BANG!

  The shotgun slug blasted right through the goblin putting a fist sized hole in its chest and sending a mist of blood into the air. The shogun kicked hard against my shoulder, but I held it steady and switched my aim towards the shorter goblin on the ground. The larger goblin collapsed onto the ground with a sickening thud, and the shorter goblin scrambled forward to grab the club that fell from its now slack hands.

BANG!

  The second slug caught the remaining goblin mid lunge and sent it skidding backwards. It had just enough time to stare at the hole in its chest with a look of mild disbelief before it too collapsed onto the deck.

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 3 12%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

N/A

Titles:

Survivor (B) LVL 3 76%

Fool (B) LVL 4 50%

Pack Killer (B) LVL 3 54%

Beast Killer (B) LVL 3 50%

Risk Taker (B) LVL 3 42%

Repeated Risk Taker ( C ) LVL 2 89%

Compassionate Fool ( C ) LVL 1 78%

Title Points:

*

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1

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Mana Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Bonus Points:

120/120

10/10

2 per min (-1.5)

10

8

7

9

Status Effects:

Regen, Disease Resist, Parasite Resist

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 6 28%

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 4 62%

Basic Regen (Passive) (B) LVL 6 99%

Basic Disease Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 1 34%

Basic Parasite Resist (Passive) (B) LVL 1 10%

Basic Mana Control (B) LVL 3 59%

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