Lurk picked out the rest of the items from the storage chest. his eyes glimmered as he picked up a book and finally he saw what he had been waiting for in the menu once he looked at the title of the book.

[Elven Writing learned]

__________

[Book - Understanding Runes]

(Elvish)

common

paper

0 slots

__________

"huh... a book can get a rune slot too if it's made of good paper?... " Lurk muttered to himself. He had now gathered enough attention from Resti and Sala who came over to look at what he was picking out of the weird dimensional hole in front of him.

"Wow! This looks amazing! What is it?" Sala looked above and below the flat glowing square floating in front of Lurk, seeing just a glowing field beneath and the chests contents from above. Lula making noises seemingly also wanting to see unable to see from the back of Sala.

"It is a magical chest, so far as I can gather from it... The chest here in front of us can be accessed anywhere via this ring" Lurk showed the new ring on his hand. Sala and Resti's eyes shined on seeing the amazing craft and the pretty looking gem.

"This is amazing Lurk! Such items are extremely rare! Only the elves and some of the greater mage kingdoms have these... I never knew they had a chest placed down somewhere though..."

"Yeah, that is a requirement for this ring. This entire room seems to have a beacon spell to allow certain things to connect to it here... I am not sure if the chest itself is a part of it... I would have to examine it a bit closer. But why would the elves leave it here unattended..." Lurk said picking up another book also written in elves, following by some scrolls that did not seem magical in nature, but merely contained some drafts for various items. The book though when he opened it had elvish words and numbers but it was not making sense in the slightest.

"Huh... that's weird..." Lurk turned a few pages trying to make sense of the contents of the book when the menu suddenly popped up with a new message for him.

[ Cryptography ] Learned

"Huh, it's encrypted... Well, this should be fun to try and crack..." Lurk turned a few more pages before putting it back into the chest. He opened some of the pouches and his eyes glimmered as he saw several coins in each of them.

"Wow, this is a lot of gold... It all the great kingdom coins too... They are still useful even today" Resti looked over Lurks shoulder as he opened up the pouches. Sala started drooling seeing the glimmering gold. Apparently, goblins knew the value of gold, which made Lurk ask her a question about it.

"Where would you use coins, Sala? You seem to know they have worth?" Lurk tilted his eyebrows

"Well strong goblins will collect things like these, some wear amulets and charms on their armor to show how strong they are at being able to keep it. Sala saw back in the old cave once when the big chief was visiting he had several of the coins placed down for everyone to view, and he collected them from the bosses that had taken them from raids. So goblins were told these were to be collected for the bosses. Along with a lot of other shiny items like rings and necklaces."

"Hm so its purely a sense of pride and strength holding onto pretty things..." Lurk pondered on it but it seemed to easy of a solution. Since Xarn had connections to the dark kingdom it might be because they took gold currency there. Or that someone else took the coins in turn from Xarn. Lurk held up a gold coin and examined it.

______________________________

[Gold coin - Great Kingdom]

common purity

______________________________

"Yeah... Gold can be used to make magical items... If someone can remove the impurities I bet it will become more potent..." Lurk examined a few more coins til he found one that had slightly better purity. Lurk put all the coins back into the pouches to the dismay of Sala who wanted to hold them more.

"Right bring over the heavy cumbersome items, also the bags from my room with several bits and pieces. Also the books, this chest should make our travel easier." Lurk had worried about leaving some items behind here. But now he was beginning to worry about something entirely different also.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Could he return here and use this place as a base? the chest was after an important item. The workshop itself had many different tools built into the tables used for crafting many items. But now that he had begun on the path of saving these women, the location would, in fact, be easily found if someone asked the women where it was located. Luckily none of the women except Emily had heard his thoughts on the chests function and its importance... At least as far as he knew... He began to get a smidge of paranoia worrying what would happen if the women actually returned home and began to tell of the goblin with the treasure of a lifetime in its hands. His eyes turning slightly cold as he looked around at the women gathering bags to carry.

Resti noticed his look and tugged on his ear, snapping him out of his weird stare, making him blink several times.

"Eh, what?" He rubbed his ear looking at Resti.

"You had a weird look in your eyes, it was not a very nice look... What were you thinking about?" Resti had seen Lurks eyes become extremely serious and slightly sinister. Lurk rubbed his ear then sighed as he realized that the [Evil] trait had actually begun to whisper ideas of maybe forcing the women to not reveal anything, even the small thoughts of maybe getting rid of them slowly forming in his head. He quickly focused his mind to think clearly and tried his best to ignore the [Evil] traits input.

"Ah... Dammit... Thanks, Resti... The curse was giving me stupid thoughts..." Lurk gritted his teeth and looked upset at himself, tightening his fists as he began to accept the various items from Sylphie and Sala as he began to organize them into the chest. Resti looked on as his eyes remained the same after his realization, she decided to make sure to keep an eye on Lurk to help him notice when he would slip up on his focus, at least it was somewhat visible on his face since his normal calm friendly look would turn sinister. She decided to also ask Sylphie to help out.

Lurk finished organizing the various items and food into the chest severely reducing the weight and load on everyone, the chest was filled up properly now instead of being nearly empty from before. He made sure to put quickly needed items into the slotted shelves so he could quickly pull out vital items.

He tried also to see just how quickly he could pull out an item he needed, he stored a sword into one of the slots and readied himself to quickly summon the chest, and reach inside to pick the sword out. After trying a few times he noticed that he could actually summon the opening at an angle and then pull out an item without any of the chest contents spilling out.

The chest itself and its gravity were not translated through the opening. This caused a few ideas to boggle his mind. But the opening did not form instantly so it would be hard to maybe use the opening as a shield, which he could do but at the risk of harming the items inside the chest. Any item hitting the -bottom- of the spell-opening would pass through unharmed or unhindered without disturbing the items inside the chest. Which looked extremely weird and defied a lot of common sense.

Also closing the opening while an item was half inserted simply closed and left the item unharmed. So that left another heavy kill weapon idea out of his reach... Maybe it was just the chest itself that had this function... As he could picture a lot of spells using this [Space magic] in a lot of grisly and dangerous ways. But it was out of his reach currently.

Lurk closed the chest and went over to the goblins that gathered around him, he spoke loudly enough for the women to hear him as he addressed the goblins.

"Right... We will now be going to the human lands, our mission is to ensure these humans safe travel there. You must continue to keep this in your minds and do your very best to help them get where they are going! We have to do this to make up for the horror our people have inflicted on them. I know you have thoughts inside you that think this is wrong... But focus! I know it will be hard! But I trust you all to do this!"

Lurk looked the goblins in the eyes as he spoke, even putting his arm on the goblin, that had succumbed to his lust and tried to assault one of them women, and giving him an affirming pat on his shoulder.

"We can be better goblins and secure our lives and purpose in this world. Once we have delivered the humans back home. After this, we will search for a place we can live safely and hidden. I look forward to working with you all to ensure our survival and draw out our potential!" Lurk put his hand on his chest doing the salute he had taught all the goblins.

They all quickly repeated the action and their eyes were fired up from the speech Lurk gave them. Sala grinning widely, Aurk looking solemnly at Lurk as he also put his hand on his chest. Vorm sat over at the entrance clad in his dark clothing and even he stood proudly and gave a salute back over to Lurk. The goblins were all well armed and equipped with clothing and a few of them had fur armor and one goblin had even claimed the helmet the formed goblin boss had been wearing.

"Let's move out!" Lurk said as he turned to the human group and gave a quick nod to them all. They all looked with disbelief at the goblins formed in front of Lurk and having heard Lurks speech. Sylphie smiled back, Emily even smiled a little as her view of Lurk had slightly changed her outlook on him.

Resti though was slightly conflicted but smiled none the less. As they all began their journey.