Time slowed. Jennifer’s voice caught in her throat as she instinctively crafted a potion and started to rush to his aid of a goblin who just stepped into an arrow. She was trying to make sense of why a goblin would do this to himself when his neck would be cut.
But the shaft of the arrow snapped before she got to her feet. When the goblin turned, only a small cut on his neck. It was like a cut someone would get while shaving. He held the two parts of the broken arrow, one in each hand. The goblin talked to the crowd then motioned one of the selected goblins forward to do the same.
Relieved, Jennifer went back to her position on the ground. She knew what was going to happen but remained just as tense. Something could easily go wrong. The body of the arrow might not break, the tip of the arrowhead could be extra sharp, or the arrow could break and the sharp wood could slice into them.
It only took three goblins breaking the body of the arrow before one did go wrong. Jennifer rushed over and poured the healing potion directly on the goblin.
The words of the old goblin came out slow. Even in another language, the meaning was clear. She was not to interfere. The next goblin to make an error with the arrow, would not be receiving a healing position.
That was not something Jennifer could do. She glared at the smaller green one before her, twisting her lip into a snarl.
Giant intimidation has failed.
She swore she would help the next goblin. Kevin clamped onto her robes with his teeth and pulled Jennifer back. When she returned to her spot, the ceremony continued.
Thankful for the excess of food she had, she was able to regain her lost stamina from casting Craft Healing Potion. She could even refill her two stamina and healing potions for when things went wrong. Not if, when.
The line thinned quickly because many goblins left after the first goblin failed the test. But there were no more punctured throats. After the last goblin broke the final arrow, the gray-haired goblin spoke in a loud voice to the successful goblins as the crowd watched. When the gray-haired goblin finished speaking, all of the goblins moved around the encampment with purpose. Some went to gather firewood while others laid out stones. The villagers made a long and narrow firepit about the width of Jennifer’s leg and about eight of her paces long.
She figured they were going to make an enormous fire then have the goblins walk over the coals. She vaguely remembered doing something like this at some point but could not pin down the memory. Then Jennifer had an idea. She took one of the sticks meant for the fire and Dark Pulse the tip. The stick did not catch fire. After several attempts, she finally got it to light, the same yellow orange flame as normal. She was hoping for a dark fire similar to the attack, but all she did was use a lot of mana.
The gray-haired goblin came up beside her. This time Kevin did not make any attempt to intercept him. The goblin looked at Jennifer’s lit stick and smiled. Jennifer handed it over, and the elder goblin called to the others, speaking in a loud voice while holding forth the burning stick. After a few moments of speaking to the other goblins, the gray-hair goblin turned to Jennifer and made a gesture with his free hand. With his arm and palm out, the goblin made a pew-pew noise she recognised.
A smile broke out on her face, and she understood what the goblin wanted.
The fire ignited with the first blast, burning brightly and quickly. While the wood was burning, the gray-haired goblin once more took up his violin and, with soothing musical notes, transformed. While in his sandstorm form, the sand moved, almost dancing, over the fire. Initially, the fire glowed brighter, but as the sand fell, the fire went out, leaving only steam and red coals.
Leaving his sandstorm form, the old goblin took off his shoes and socks and walked barefoot across the coals. He moved deliberately, each step showing confidence in his stride. He stepped in one of the glowing red spots as if it was nothing. When he was done, Jennifer rushed over to give him a healing potion. He smiled through his beard and gently pushed the healing potion away.
Jennifer had mixed emotions about this. She wanted to help and heal people. On the other hand, it was the goblin’s choice, and this was probably something cultural for them. Plus, she respected that by refusing her help, the older goblin showed that he was not a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do elder.
When coming here, Jennifer had assumed that Kevin would find a goblin in a cowboy hat, and that goblin would become his rider. Kevin would have a partner and be stronger. And that would be that.
So far, Kevin had to accept the rider, then [AP1] they had to have the bravery to almost impale their throat on an arrow followed by literally walking over fire. Jennifer felt herself shaking, she lit the fire they would be walking on. They would be hurt, and she would not be allowed to heal them. She sat down cross-legged and tried not to ball her fist in anger. Kevin came up beside her, nudged her with his head, and lay down with his head in Jennifer's lap. Jennifer smiled at Kevin and pet him behind the ear.
The gray-haired goblin yelled at the remaining prospects who stared at the field of coals, one by one the goblins attempted the crossing. Most did not make it to the halfway point. Out of the many who tried, only three goblins made it all the way.
Kevin inspected the three remaining goblins.
Jennifer could not tell much about the goblins other than one was female and the other two were male. Or rather she assumed the one was female because of the chest band she wore. She had trouble telling most of them apart. Since the game system copied people, she figured it must be the same with goblins. The goblins were not exactly the same, but many closely resembled another.
Jennifer looked up in the sky, the sun was much lower than she was expecting. This had taken more time than she thought. She got up, dusted herself off, and called to Kevin, pointing at the sun, hoping he understood there was a time issue.
Kevin made a circle around the goblins before choosing the one she assumed was the female. Jennifer turned to Woozle who watched the whole process in silent interest. They stood to go but stopped when the gray-haired goblin held a bag up for Jennifer.
He passed her the bag, and when she looked inside, she saw something that made her smile and her eyes well up. Inside were two items, a purple Bishop’s University hoodie, the word Bishops was printed in black on the purple top against a gold backing. The second item was a pair black sweatpants with the black sweatpants, the word Bishop’s was printed in purple with a golden backdrop down the right leg. She put the new clothes into her inventory.
Jennifer immediately hugged the goblin in thanks. The goblin patted her on the back as the two embraced. When the hug was over, he spoke to another pair of goblins, then hurried to Kevin who then gave a low bark.
Jennifer looked over her menus for the party interface and did not see the new female goblin as part of their group. She tried to send the goblin a party invite but received a notification that the recipient of the party invite was invalid.
“The goblin counts as Kevin’s pet,” Woozle answered before she could ask. “If you look at the party menu and focus on Kevin’s name, you should be able to expand for more information and see the goblin as a pet.”
Jennifer did as was instructed and looked for the goblin’s name but only found her listed as Goblin. She was able to see the goblin’s health, stamina and mana bars. As a precaution, she cast her force field spell on Kevin and his goblin partner, and it succeeded without issue.
“I guess all goblins are just called goblins. Unless they’re a goblin boss.” She shrugged and looked at Woozle.
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She thanked and said her goodbyes to the gray-haired goblin and the goblin from the attack force before turning on her navigating skill and heading back to the town.
Chapter 11 (12): Paper Raid
Jennifer jogged towards town, picking up the pace yet never letting her stamina drop too low. She slowed periodically to allow it to build back up.
While she was setting the pace of the jog, Kevin easily kept up, but the goblin rider had trouble staying on his back.
She stopped to take a break and eat some of the food in her storage because she needed to keep her stamina topped off. She also wanted to change into the Bishop’s sweat shirt and pants but did not like the idea of getting undressed and redressed in the open. When she entered her menus, she figured out that with a few mental commands, the change could be done instantaneously. She changed clothes.
Bishop’s Hoodie and pants - set bonus plus 15% experience.
Kevin removed his armor, too. When the team began running again, the goblin was able to hold on much easier but was covered in sweat. Jennifer saw how much effort the little goblin was putting in just riding. She hoped when the goblin leveled up, it would be able to choose a skill or power that made it easier to ride.
After two more quick breaks, the group was able to make it back to the town just before sunset. When Jennifer got to the guard house, the gate had been left open with no one inside. She was impressed that it had been remade and upgraded with a metal gate and a stone guard house. A sign on the outside of the guard house read “Raid night. Enter at your own risk. Evil players will be rejected from the town.” She shrugged and entered the town.
Even after the blood ritual, she was not evil. Woozle had no issues. Her spider used a trap door to go from in front of the guard house to Jenifer’s shoulder rather than wait. Kevin and his new pet goblin also had no issues entering the gate. The town had changed a lot, barriers were set up, windows boarded up. It was a strange sight, but the town was getting ready for a raid, so it made sense for them to be prepared.
Jennifer looked at her friends list in her menus to find Sarah No Val and Large Soup Bowl and sent them group invites. Both of them accepted quickly. Jennifer followed her mini map markers, which showed the two were in the open field.
Sarah wore a new black and white suit and looked ready for action, while the ninja had on the same clothes he always wore. As Kevin put his armor back on, his goblin looked around confused.
Jennifer was either going to have to learn goblin or that goblin was going to have to learn common. The same went for Kevin. Jennifer knew taking the mining skill would be helpful but being able to speak to others would be nice.
Dozens of other teams gathered and waited for the raid. Her heart was racing. A smile edged onto her face. This was going to be her first raid, and something was going to happen. With something she really should have asked before.
“Hey listen” a red robed, gray bearded man said while tugging on his companion’s green tunic.
“Hey, listen?” the one in the green asked. The one in the red pointed at Jennifer.
“Hey, listen!” the one in the robe repeated with a laugh.
“Hey listen, you really should get rid of the familiar, they're just annoying. They are only helpful to noobs.” The one in green said. Jennifer had no context to interpret the twos repeating the words hey listen, or the word noob but she felt offended.
“I am useful,” the words were quite, Woozle was looking down at the ground. His ears dropped to the side. “I am useful.”
Jennifer picked up her familiar and put it in her hoodie. “Yes, you are.”
“No, he is not. All he will do is repeat things, and point out the obvious. Water is wet, you should not walk into walls. Bah, get rid of him so we do not have to hear it speak.” The gray bearded one spoke.
“He is my friend.” Jennifer glared at him.
Giant Intimidation Successful
She ignored the two men, and turned back to her group.
“So, what’s a paper raid?” Jennifer asked her party.
Sarah’s facepalm was so aggressive she almost slapped herself. Large Soup Bowl had a huge question mark above his head. But Kevin and his goblin just looked around at the other groups. Jennifer was happy at least they did not think her question was bad.
“Request more information on raid,” Large Soup Bowl asked with no emotion in his voice.
Sarah blinked rapidly in Soup Bowl’s direction, in what Jennifer assumed was surprise. “This is the town’s paper raid. It’s called that because it’s a single enemy that will be copied many times. Like creating photocopies of the same thing. The enemy type is going to be a basic AI, so no copies of any person.”
“Then there are faction scores, with each of us belonging to a different faction. My part of the faction score is going to the company. Jennifer, as you’re part of the town, your faction score goes to the town. I have a vague idea where Soup Bowl’s or Kevin’s are going to go . . .” Sarah trailed off thinking about something but waved her hand before continuing on, “Then there’s a team score. We’re team Jennifer because Jennifer counts as our team leader, and she hasn’t changed the name. Then there are individual scores.”
“So, my name will be on the scoreboard with how many of the copies I’m able to defeat?” Jennifer asked, knowing with her power set that she was not going to be doing much damage in this raid.
Sarah smiled at Jennifer’s question. “The points total is calculated on what participants do. Healing does a lot of good and scores a lot of points.”
“Normally, this town starts off at a gray level. They get to green about one in ten times. But with the dinosaur team and all the other teams the mayor was able to bring in, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get to blue or maybe even yellow.” Sarah rambled without explaining everything.
But before Jennifer found a place to ask, Woozle interrupted and took the tone of a lecturer. “When you see the names of others, there is normally a color or just black. Black means they’re too low to get experience from. Grey is the lowest you can get experience from. White means equal level, so white can fade to black, or fade to red, and rise through the colors. Orange, yellow, green, blue, ending in purple. There are rumors that there are silver and even gold, but I’ve never found proof of those.”
Jennifer cast bubbles around her party, including pets, and waited for the raid to start. She did not have to wait long. The mayor made a speech from on top of a bench in the field. She was not paying attention to what he was saying. She was rubbing her palms together in excitement for her first raid. She caught bits and pieces, something about showing the dinosaurs a good time, prosperity for the town, and the micro foundry being repaired. For all the speech was worth, to Jennifer, The mayor could have been saying, “Blah, blah, blah.”
The sun was down, but the red smeared sky had not embraced the night yet. Loud, clear words came from all around, “Paper raid starting in ten, nine, eight…”
She pulled her focus to what her team would need as her pulse raced. She recast her Force Fields on the group while keeping her only weapon, the mop, ready.
Descending from a cloudless sky, came large rectangular gray pieces of paper. Once the papers touched the ground, they became large beavers twice the size of goblins.
Jennifer let out a loud audible, “Aww.”
Only a handful of heartbeats later, the rodents charged the line of the town’s defenders. The sharp, bared teeth of the beavers made them far less cute and more threatening.
Casting her Force Field onto the other defenders so they would not receive tearing bites while maintaining a watch on her mana, Jennifer focused on herself and her team. She only gave out protection to others when her abilities and status bars allowed her to do so.
While she stood behind the front line, a furry attackers broke through and charged at Jennifer. She was not sure why she had waited, but she activated the dark power, “Summon Undead.” One of the undead skeletal wolves instantly took on bodyguard roles protecting her. Any beaver that got too close would be intercepted by her soulless minions’ fangs.
Sarah No Val was using the same attack pattern as when Kevin had attacked them: two shots with her gun followed by a laser blast from her watch. Each attack took down an invader.
Large Soup Bowl did his ninja vanish, ninja attack with a high degree of frequency. He would attack, throw three knives, and vanish. While this pattern was longer and only took down two beavers.
Kevin would do the hit and run like the ninja, but he would vary his attacks. Sometimes would do an ambush attack that cloaked Kevin and his goblin in shadows, then he would jump out with glowing blue fangs. The illuminated teeth of the wolf would rip hard into the beaver that he crunched down on. Other times, he would body check or attack with his paws and use the Growl Debuff, which also worked as a taunt.
While Kevin’s goblin was new, she was the most ineffective member of their group. She did not have an effective power or ability to fight with. She was the only member of the party that could not take down a beaver on her own.
Jennifer's Dark Pulse did not have the stopping power of her teammates’ powers, but the silent predators by her side made up for it. The priority for Jennifer was maintaining the Force Fields on her teammates and shielding the front liners when she could. As the defenders pushed forward, she was thankful that she had not needed to use any of her potions.