New World Day 26

  I woke up early the next morning to finish the barrier runes on the roof of the house in preparation for the conflict that I believed to be coming sometime that day. When I opened the door from the basement to the first floor and looked out the windows of the great room, my jaw dropped down, and I let out a long sigh. Rain poured down from thick dark clouds and thunder shook the windows as lightning rippled through the sky. Of course it would storm on the day that I needed to work on the roof of the house. I rubbed my face with the palm of my hands for a moment before I let out another sigh and climbed the steps to the second floor. It needed to be done storm or no storm.

  I opened the window from my old bedroom on the second floor and crawled out onto the roof. I activated both my mana vision and mana enhancement skills as I worked on the runes for the first part of the roof that extended out over the front porch. My hands shook when I first drew out the metal knife I used to carve the runes. It would be a fitting end for these last few weeks if I was struck by lightning while sitting on the roof of the house.

  I took a few deep breaths to calm myself and forced my hands to stop shaking. It was at that moment that I started to carve the runes. The finished barrier for this floor and the roof would be similar to a misshapen T. I had gotten enough practice in over the last few days that it took just two hours to complete the third and final barrier for the house. There were a few close calls with lightning that gave me quite a fright, but I persevered and dragged my drenched body back into the house in triumph.

  There were just a few quick things to organize and then I would be ready for anything the hobgoblin could throw at me. Wet foot prints marked my path down the stairs to the basement where I grabbed a hammer, a box of nails, six mana stones, a bottle of mana water, both of the rifles, the shotgun, and all of the remaining ammo for the weapons. I didn’t bother to change my clothes since I needed to go back out into the rain to put some nails in the roof, but I did strap on the pistol and knife combo. I hopped back up the steps two at a time and laid out the weapons and ammo on my bed. The next step was installing the six mana stones in the wall of my room. There was an activation rune in both bedrooms and in two spots on the roof. The other two barriers for the first floor and the basement had similar arrangements to ensure that I didn’t get stuck in a situation where I needed the barrier but couldn’t reach an activation rune. All of the activation arrangements had two different activation runes. One rune would activate just that floor’s barrier. The other would activate all three of the barriers to create one enormous barrier for the entire house.

  The storm raged away as I crawled back out onto the roof to hammer in a couple of nails on the upper part of the roof that covered the second floor bedrooms and the great room. I noticed it before when I was carving the runes, but there were multiple areas where there were large gashes and missing shingles. I suspected that damage was caused by the thunderwind hawk investigating my cooking. I only heard it a couple of times which worried me. There were enough gashes to make it clear that it had been on the roof far more than just a couple of times.

  That was another thing that I would have to keep an eye out for in the future. I hammered in the nails just enough that they wouldn’t wobble or come loose. I intended to use them to hold the straps of the rifles and shotgun so that they wouldn’t slide off of the roof when I wasn’t using them. When I finished hammering the nails in, I hurried back inside and out of the storm. There was just one last thing to do. I ran down the stairs to the basement and retrieved my axe, some water, and the last bag of chips. I took everything back upstairs to my old bedroom. Everything was ready for the hobgoblin’s arrival. Now I just needed to wait.

  I sat there looking out the window of my bedroom while I ate a light lunch and practiced activating my mana vision and mana enhancement skills as quickly as possible. It was a boring repetitive training. I felt that there were a number of other things that I could be doing but I couldn’t afford to miss the arrival of the hobgoblin and his forces. I could see the entire front field, up the driveway to the road, and all the way to the big barn from my window.

  It would be difficult for my enemies to arrive without me seeing them from here. They could come from behind the house, but that would require them to take a path along the edge of the Little Lake which was dangerous for an individual let alone a large group. Even if they made it by the lake, they would need to either break the garage door, which I would hear right away, or come around to the front of the house where I would be able to see them. Either way, I would have plenty of time to activate the barriers, and if they were foolish enough to get that close, they would make easy targets. I would have preferred to be on the roof so that I could see all around me just in case, but I had already pushed my luck as far as I wanted to by being up there earlier with a metal knife and hammer.

  I sat there all morning and afternoon watching the rain fall to the ground in sheets and listening to the thunder and pitter patter of the rain. Every once in a while, I heard the cry of the thunderwind hawk over the rumbling thunder. The sound was always from a distance so I was never worried about it coming to make trouble for me as I waited for my enemy’s arrival. I made some progress in how quickly I could activate my two skills, but as the hours passed by, the hobgoblin never showed his face.

  Was I too paranoid about the forest coyote tracks? It could have been a wild forest coyote after all. Or did the hobgoblin plan to make a night raid? It had been willing to hunt forest coyotes at night so it didn’t share my fear of the night. My mana vision skill should allow me to use the mana leaking from their bodies to track and aim at them even at night. Hmm, maybe it was his plan to get me to stay up all night waiting for his arrival and attack in the morning when I was exhausted.

  It turned out that I was just overthinking things. The storm began to lose steam as the afternoon passed by until it dissipated entirely in the late afternoon a couple of hours before sunset. With the storm gone, I opened up the windows and doors in both bedrooms and took the mana water, guns, and ammo out onto the roof. I sat there watching and enjoying the orange and red hues of the sun’s rays break through the clouds while I awaited my foe’s arrival. It wasn’t more than fifteen minutes after the storm ended that my ears twitched. It was faint, very faint, but I was sure that it was a howl. I wasn’t going to have to stay up all night after all. I picked up one of the rifles and assumed a kneeling position near an activation rune for the barriers in the middle of the roof. Five minutes after that faint howl I saw them emerge from the edge of the forest past the grassy front lawn.

  They appeared like ghosts at the edge of the forest without the slightest bit of noise. There were fourteen goblin coyote riders arrayed around the hobgoblin for a total of 30 enemies when the coyotes were taken into account. The eerie lack of noise from the forest coyotes aside from that first faint howl showed how thoroughly they had trained the forest coyotes. I was sure they would stand and fight along with their masters. Out of fear if nothing else. Most of the goblins were armed with wooden clubs or crude stone axes, but the four largest of them had bows. That was new, but it shouldn’t be a problem. I could just take care of those four first.

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  The hobgoblin had lost his sword during our very first fight, and I hadn’t seen what he had replaced it with at the creek. With him out in the open, I could see that his armor was the same as our first fight except there were black patches where the shotgun slugs had punched through the armor. The patch in the center of his armor was more ornate than the others. It was silver and formed a shape or rune of some kind, but the distance made it impossible to see all of the details. In place of his lost sword, which was sitting in the basement of the house, he had an axe with a metal head and a wooden handle that resembled a gnarled tree root.

  As I surveyed my enemy’s numbers and equipment, so too were they examining my home. It took the hobgoblin no more than a few moments to spot me atop the roof of the house. It swept its vision across the ground floor and no doubt took notice of the missing deck and the new spikes in the ground before it looked up and saw me kneeling on the roof. I gave the hobgoblin the same cheeky smile and wave that I had given it after our encounter by the creek. It narrowed its eyes and frowned at me. I could tell that it was surprised to see me alive and well.

  The creature’s surprise at my survival meant that that bastard really did know about what lived in that area of the forest. It had never expected to see me again after it saw me head towards the Haunted Spiderway. I had expected the hobgoblin and his horde to attack me right away when they saw me, but the horde just sat there waiting for the hobgoblin’s orders while it stared up at me. The hobgoblin must have been wary about the fact that I had not only survived the Haunted Spiderway, but that I had anticipated their arrival and was waiting for them.

  On my side, I was worried that they would retreat and come after me sometime when I wasn’t prepared for them. I would have to leave the house to acquire food and water eventually after all. We sat there locked in a staring contest as seconds ticked by until I showed the hobgoblin a vicious smile, gave him the finger, and yelled, “Come on you cowardly snot-colored bastards!”. I knew that the hobgoblin wouldn’t understand what I yelled or what the gesture meant, but it was smart enough to recognize an insult when it heard one and stupid enough to be provoked by it. The hobgoblin snarled in fury and stabbed his axe in my direction. The horde roared in response and charged at me as one like one giant snarling beast.

Minor Mana Enhancement (Active) © * leveled up!

Minor Mana Vision (Active) © * leveled up!

Name: Jason Silver

Job Name: N/A

LVL: 8 93%

Job LVL: N/A 0%

Job Points:

N/A

N/A

N/A

Titles:

Survivor © LVL 1 12%

Fool © LVL 1 82%

Swarm Killer (B) LVL 9 31%

Beast Killer (B) LVL 9 49%

Risk Taker (B) LVL 9 37%

Repeated Risk Taker © LVL 8 41%

Compassionate Fool © LVL 5 26%

Curious Fool © LVL 5 92%

Stupid Fool © LVL 7 96%

Extremely Stubborn Fool © LVL 5 22%

Greater Mana Wielder ® LVL N/A

Title Points:

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9

Stats:

HP:

MP:

Mana Regen:

Endurance:

Strength:

Speed:

Agility:

Spirit:

Bonus Points:

170/170

126/126

22 per min (-2.75)

21

18

18

10

40

0

Status Effects:

Regen, Spirit Regen, Disease Resist, Parasite Resist, Poison Resist

Skills:

Basic Axe Mastery (B) LVL 9 99%

Basic Gun Mastery (B) LVL 5 84%

Lesser Regen (Passive) (UC) LVL 1 31%

Minor Spirit Regen (Passive) © LVL 9 56%

Minor Disease Resist (Passive) © LVL 1 63%

Minor Parasite Resist (Passive) © LVL 1 71%

Minor Poison Resist (Passive) © LVL 1 22%

Lesser Mana Control (UC) LVL 1 75%

Greater Mana Vein (Passive) ( R ) LVL 1 0%

Flexible Mana Lake (Passive) (B) LVL 4 64%

Pain Control (B) LVL 4 71%

Fear Control (B) LVL 4 89%

Beginner Close Combat Footwork (Active) © LVL 1 23%

Beginner Ranged Combat Footwork (Active) © LVL 1 58%

Minor Barrier Runes (Active) © LVL 4 6%

Minor Mana Enhancement (Active) © LVL 2 31%

Minor Mana Vision (Active) © LVL 2 42%

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*****

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