Chapter 10 - Preparations

There were three things on my todo list, before I started my mission.

1. Thin out the goblins with Skadi (and hopefully level up some)

2. Learn to heal myself

3. Get a working goblin form

To tackle these three tasks I set up a simple routine. Every six hours Skadi and I would check on the dungeon and kill the guard-goblins simultaneously if possible. Between those attacks I would split my time evenly between learning to heal with Val and getting my goblin form.

The attacks on the goblin guards worked flawlessly. I am sure at some point they were going to increase the guards or something like that, but for the first three days Skadi and I basically had a free Buffet. And I have to admit that my bond with Skadi really is changing me, because raw goblin flesh straight off the bone was pretty god damn tasty. Or maybe it’s the class, or both. Who knows?

Learning to heal myself was a slow process, because I couldn’t just go “Heal this!”I had to know what parts of my body needed to grow in what way for which injury. So basically I was trying to learn the counters to the most likely injuries while hoping that my [Internal Immunity] and my Constitution picked up the slack, when all I could do would be closing the skin and stopping the bleeding. At day three I got so far as to know how to deal with slash wounds and almost all broken bones.

Lastly the goblin form. That one was a bitch to train. I shapeshifting inherently hurts, magic or no, you are reshaping your Body while nerves still sense pain. Changing the entire body is radically worse than some claws. Or even my wolf form as that one was helped by my class. The goblin form felt like having all your bones broken and rearranged. I needed about 20 minutes of break for every half hour I spent trying to shapeshift. And that was with an array of recovery potions Val provided me with. On day two I asked her about this: “Not that I’m complaining or anything, but isn’t this a lot more help then ‘Simply mentoring’?” I shook the empty potion bottle for emphasis.

She shrugged: “Kinda. I am allowed to provide you with knowledge and resources, if you are training or studying. There isn’t really a limit specified. Also I think your Idea of infiltrating a Dungeon seems entertaining, so I am willing to dip into my personal funds to bankroll your plan”

“In that case…Thank you, I guess?”

“Your welcome” She gave me a kind smile “Ready for the next round?” And so I continued. At the end of the third day I managed to get a full, functioning goblin form. As I celebrated this momentous achievement I realised I hadn’t checked my notifications since we started.

[Forest Movement]+1=>

10

[Internal Mana Manipulation]+2=>

59

[Shapeshifting]+8=>

31

[Stealth]+5=>

19

[Unarmed Combat]+2=>

33

Congratulations! For having achieved two different Forms apart from your natural one, at least one of them without any help from a class, you have gained the personal Perk [Transcendance over Form]

[Transcendance over Form]

You are no longer bound to the physical form you were born with. Your race is no longer Human, but whatever form you currently inhabit. Any negative effect that is based on race will not affect you, if you have achieved a form that would not be affected. Any positive effect that is based on race will affect you, if you have achieved a form that would be affected. +3 to all Stats

I looked at my personal info to confirm this and sure enough:

Name: James

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Race: N/A (Currently: Goblin)

Age: 17 Years

Class: [Wolfman](lvl 8)

Congratulations! For hunting and eating prey with your bond in Wolf form, you have gained two levels in [Wolfman](lvl 8)

Strength+4+3=>

31

Agility+8+3=>

45

Constitution+10+3=>

58

Endurance+6+3=>

48

Intelligence+2+3=>

23

Willpower+4+3=>

39

Wisdom+4+3=>

31

Charisma+2+3=>

21

Free Points+6-6=>

0

Finally [Prepared Form] had a third slot due to my Wisdom reaching 30. I saved my goblin form immediately. Then I asked Val about my new Perk. She looked relieved for some reason.

“I was afraid, when you didn’t get it when you transformed into a Wolf. That Perk is one of the few things generally known about shifter Paths. Interesting that it had to be one not helped by your class. I’ve got to record that.” She took a deep breath and let out a laugh “Honestly without that, you’d be screwed when we left the forest eventually” I raised an inquisitive Eyebrow “Most organised Militaries and Peacekeeping force have some form of ‘Racist Spells’ stuff like ‘Heal all Elves’, or ‘Slow down all non-humanoid’. There are even some detection spells to get through illusions ‘Make all non-Orks glow’ and the like. With this Perk you’ll be nigh impossible to target with such area spells. And since mana is indiscriminate and most mages don’t have the chops to accurately cast an area spell without hitting friendlies, you’ll be safe from them. Also kind of important, if you ever want to play soldier, else you’d have to mimic getting buffed, which is harder than it sounds.” She looked off into the middle distance, presumably lost in memories.

“By your dismissive tone, I would guess that you would be able to cast a spell in such a way, right?”

That took her by surprise: “Pfft, of course I can.” Then she started to look somewhat offended: “We learn that kind of stuff before our fourth decade.”

I cocked my head to the side a bit thinking about what she said: “Who knows? Maybe I’ll learn it before my fourth decade too.”

We looked each other in the eyes for a few heartbeats.

Then we both burst out laughing.

After I had gathered myself once more I got back on topic.

“OK, enough about that. All this isn’t really important right now. We have seven days left and I don’t want to cut it too short. What can I do to increase my odds?”

“Get a good meal.” I raised an eyebrow at her “I am serious. Your way of healing is reliant on the nutrients in your body. If there is nothing in store the body will start to digest itself to comply with your commands. That is very unpleasant and does more harm than good. So maybe take a big bite out of every goblin you kill or something. By the way that also counts for transformations, shrinking down from human to goblin is easy, but you better be very full if you want to go from goblin to human in one go. Other than that I’d say go in three days before the deadline, until then you could start by poking into the dungeon as a goblin after Skadi kills the guards. The ritual stuff will likely be at the very end of the dungeon, so you may be able to do some preliminary scouting. But stay in reach of the entrance. A quick escape is more valuable than any info you may glean.”

That was an interesting thought. It was kind of odd that no one had reacted to the killed guards. Maybe no one cared about the upper levels, when the ritual draws near? Only one way to find out.

After recovering from the shapeshifting training, I set off with Skadi in the late afternoon. Obviously two goblins with spears were not a threat for her at this point. She quickly dispatched them. I put on the gear of one of them and descended the stairs. Incidentally “Gear” is me being incredibly generous. I’ve seen lingerie with more protective properties.

The stairs were pretty long. I didn’t have a good measure, especially because my perspective was about a metre lower down now, but I guessed that I was about 20 metres deep, by the time the stairs ended. It was dark down there, but there were enough torches to make everything visible with my [Lesser Night Vision] Perk. At first there wasn’t much more than a dirt corridor. There were a few doorways, though without actual doors, along the corridor. The first doorway I looked into was an armoury of sorts, basically just a room with two weapon racks. One for shortspears and one for bows. Although the bows looked too big for goblins so presumably those were for the [Rangers]. A few more metres in were a bunch of sleeping quarters on both sides. Each contained about 15 hammocks. And there were a total of 6 quarters. So we are looking at about 75-90 giblins, minus the 29 Skadi and I took out. By this time it was night and about 40 goblins were sleeping here. It was tempting to murder them in their sleep, but that would definitely alarm someone. Instead I continued further in, until I found a mess hall. Well … that may be a bit grandios of a word. It was a room with a counter full of raw meat and a large amount of tables with benches attached. I counted another ten goblins sitting among the tables and eating. Behind the counter stood what looked like a zombie. Most zombies were little more than feral animals, but there were some ways of summoning and/or raising a zombie in service to someone. Basically as an undead slave. I guessed that was what this is.

I decided to look at one more room, before leaving. A ruckus could be heard from the next room. It looked like … it is hard to describe. Like a living room? But without any of the amenities, that make such a room actually comfortable. It was just a bunch of hard wooden benches. Goblins sat on them and were either dozing off, or watching the entertainment. The entertainment in this case was a fourway brawl. No one seemed to be cheering or booing or really reacting at all. They were just looking on as if the brawl was simply the least boring thing in the room. After three minutes the brawl ended. One of the goblins was definitely dead. No one cared. There was a corpse and a pool of blood on the floor. Just as I was about to turn away it happened. The blood and the corpse were absorbed into the floor. The dungeon was reclaiming them. That explained it. These goblins were spawned from the dungeon. That was why no one cared about the dead. And why their behaviour didn’t change when we started killing them. We probably killed less than they themselves did. And with the ritual underway the dungeon master likely wasn’t able or willing to check up on every death. He probably gave the dungeon standing orders to replenish troops and to keep the entrance guarded. The meat in the mess hall was likely also spawned by the dungeon, maybe even the zombie. I retreated after this revelation, but I had some more experiments for tomorrow. I had 6 days left until the ritual.