It was an all too familiar experience. Chasing a wagon full of kobolds through the forest. Only this time he was stronger than before.
The kobold cart rolled from one clearing to another. Rowan found himself stopped by waves of monsters. This time he was strong enough to take care of them quickly and without too much threat. He dealt more damage now, even with the pole of a sword he crafted himself. And he knew how to block attacks, even if his timing was perfect and only occasionally mitigated damage.
After facing two waves of small fry he caught up to the wagon. This time the kobold captain shouted at two subordinates before taking off himself. Some type of leadership.
Rowan had quite a struggle when he fought his first kobold. Now he had to fight two at once. It was time to test how much he had grown.
Before the kobolds could get near him, Rowan threw a tomato. It did great damage. Then he followed it up with a swing of his sword as soon as it was near.
Rowan throws a tomato Deals 5 damage Rowan attacks Deals 3 damage Kobold Scout A is down
The first kobold was defeated before it even had a chance to attack. But now Rowan had to fight the other one. When it lunged at him with a spear Rowan tried to block the attack, but failed. Still the kobold was no match for him. Once Rowan learned the right timing he was able to block successive hits in order to mitigate damage. He managed to take out the kobold in just a few hits.
Kobold Scout B attacks Took 3 damage Rowan attacks Deals 3 damage Kobold Scout B attacks Took 2 damage Rowan attacks Deals 3 damage Kobold Scout B attacks Took 2 damage Rowan attacks Deals 3 damage Kobold Scout B is down The Kobolds are defeated XP +12
Rowan was pleased that such fighting had become trivial, and he resolved once again not to fight battles he couldn’t win with ease. He approached the goblin that he saved from kobolds a second time. He didn’t have to say anything to convey that a “thank you” was in order.
Scrumble struggled to free himself from his ropes, staring daggers at Rowan before collapsing dead asleep.
**
After Rowan carried the goblin back to his shed, he resumed farmwork. After a while he saw that the goblin had risen. Rowan went to ask what he saw at the fortress. Scrumble described how heavily armed it was, but then chuckled to himself.
“They have made one glaring mistake though.”
“What’s that?”
“Those kobold idiots really don’t know how goblin fortresses work.”
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Since Rowan also didn’t know how goblin fortresses work, he asked the goblin to elaborate.
“They think the catacombs entrance is a prison cell!” Scrumble said, slapping his knee and laughing.
When goblins build their fortresses, they first put up walls surrounding an entrance to an underground passageway. They don’t install a door until the very end, when the fortress is as fortified as possible. Until the door is in place, they enter and exit through an underground passage in a series of catacombs. Once the door becomes the main entrance, the way to the catacombs is locked or sealed. In the case of the fortress of Gleenix, it was locked in such a way that the unintelligent kobolds failed to identify it as a point of entry, and left a prisoner there.
It was a struggle to get the goblin to convey this information, and many insults came along the way, but eventually Rowan understood the situation enough to process it.
“We may not be ready for a full assault on the fortress, but if we can find our way through the catacombs, we can at least rescue one of the prisoners.”
Scrumble scoffed, “What you talkin’ ‘bout? I’ll show those kobolds what I’m made of and go in there myself if I have to!”
“You just did that and all you managed to do was look around. I still can’t tell how you got out alive.”
Rowan shook his head, “I don’t even know why I’m considering this. I should just wait for Zillia to get the goblin army together. This isn’t my responsibility. I’ve done enough fighting.”
“Classic human coward talk.”
Rowan wasn’t going to take the bait, but he threw out one last excuse, “I wouldn’t even know how to enter the goblin catacombs.”
“Oh, I could tell you that. The closest entrance is that way, past the swamp.”
“I’m not going to do any unnecessary traveling right now. The enemies are tougher the deeper into the swamp you go. I have to focus on farming.”
“Oh right. I forgot you were a puny human, too weak to fight.”
There was no pleasing this guy. It was one thing for the knee-high goblin to call him puny, but to call him weak after being rescued for the second time was completely unreasonable.
“You want to see weak?” taunted Rowan, defending his farm from a worm, taking it out in one shot. Instead of impressing the goblin, Scrumble seemed to focus on the weapon he utilized. Rowan forgot that he was still using the sword he crafted himself, and quickly hid it in shame. Scrumble had a new thing to make fun of.
“You call that a weapon? I’ve seen bad craftsmanship in my days, but that’s too much. Is that a sword or a fence post?”
**
Rowan stuck to his plan of focusing on farming for the rest of the day. He fulfilled as many orders as he could, but now the only one that remained required mixes of crops that included those he didn’t have access to. The only exception were orders for potatoes, but he was wary of planting those due to Zillia’s vague warning. Rowan wished he could ask follow up questions, but he had not seen his manager since she left that morning to inform the other goblins of the kobold threat. Fortunately, she had left a wagon to help him carry his crops into town.
Rowan attempted to put an entire crate of crops into his pouch. For some reason the matter warping bag could not shrink the crate. It could shrink individual items, but once they were bundled together, it didn’t behave the same way. Rowan thought there might be some logic to why some things could fit in his pouch and others couldn’t. But it wasn’t something he could figure out right now.
Once Rowan loaded up the cart with his product for the day, he sighed at the task ahead of him. Though he had a wagon, he had no horse. He’d have to carry the heavy load into town himself.
**
Even though Rowan left before evening, it was still not quite enough time to make the journey to town before night fell. Night fell while he was at least an hour from town. He stopped to take a break.
Rowan was outside the woods. The path to town was through open plains where he could see for quite some distance in some directions. Behind him was the forest, and ahead were hills, but to the sides were wide open plains. If anything were coming to attack him, he had the advantage that he would see it coming from far away.
He couldn’t see town from where he was, but Rowan was guessing it was just over the next hill. Either that or the hill after it. He had made the trip a couple times, and was hoping the views would jog his memory, but everything looked different at night, and riding on horse meant the trip didn’t take this long before. He was just guessing he had an hour left.
That had to be enough of a rest. Rowan took another breath and pulled the wagon once again. Either he would run into a rift beast or he wouldn’t. There was no use fretting about it. Just put one foot in front of the other. He resolved not to stop again until he made it to town.