Lurk took out his elven dagger and held it up to the neck of a woman. He pushed the tip of the dagger into the connecting point between the collar and gave a slight twist with it. The collar came off easily. The woman nodded at Lurk and quietly stated to him.

"... T.Thank you" Lurk blinked at the woman and smiled back with a nod, as he put the collar away into the ring on his finger.

"You are welcome. Right... Who is next?" Lurk said to the woman who rubbed her own neck as she picked up the bag she had put down. Lurk had steadily been removing the collars as they traveled. All but 5 of the women had gotten their collars off. Emily had not yet stepped up to have her collar removed. Lurk felt sorry for her as she had apparently silently decided to keep it on. Since it was effectively making her forget her trauma. She was not willing to face herself having been weak and captured.

Lurk waited till a woman came up, some of the women were with her holding her hands and one of the women also covered her mouth, he then activated the rod towards a new woman and her mind immediately seemed to clear up, she began to cry but the other women were already there to comfort her, and letting go of her mouth right away since she did not seem to react badly. They had to take small breaks whenever they would pick a new collar to be undone as the person in question would instantly relive their memories returning to them in full. Even when they had been prepared and guarded some would still not be able to cope easily.

Lurk went over to Sala who was looking out over the grass plains that was covered in jagged rock croppings here and there spread out over it. She was keeping a keen eye like the other guards for any following them. Lurk poked Lula who was on Sala's back who gave him a grin as she whapped his finger.

"Good girl." Lurk grinned, as he looked over Lula, she had grown slightly, it was disturbing to him still how fast goblins would grow. The other goblins also showed the same amount of growth and Lurk had made sure that the girl goblins had been taken care of and were taught properly. He had plans for them once they would grow up. Sala turned briefly to Lurk grinning the same grin as Lula before returning to her guard duty.

"So no one following us I take it."

"Well yes?? Sala would have told you. Geesh Lurk..." Sala rolled her eyes briefly. Lurk ignored the comment and made a note to work on Sala's ability to tell sarcasm properly. He looked out over the plains and looked at each of the large jagged rocks jutting out from the ground. He could clearly see them far away his enhanced senses catching all the details.

"Good... Aurk said it should take us a couple of days to get to the valley city." They were traveling towards the valley following the old road that sometimes would appear from under the grass and rock croppings. So no major travel hiccups had occurred except for their occasional stopping once they felt a person had been prepared properly to activate the rod on the person with a collar. Which was a harrowing experience since they had to talk to the woman and remind her of her memories. Lurk found it was not a pleasant experience if all the bad memories flooded back all at once. As one woman completely collapsed after screaming out loudly becoming completely unresponsive. This delayed them for a long while as the woman was catatonic and the women were very scared after that to have their collars taken off.

Lurk tried to examine the woman and saw her mind guessing that she simply was too distraught beyond what someone could cope with. Lurk felt bad for the woman that must have experienced something horrible to have happened to her. Asking the women Lurk found out that she was also very quiet before she had the collar off but she was not catatonic. During her time living in the village, she had three children and a husband that all got killed, most likely in front of her.

Once the collar was on her she started to act more normal. So clearly it was not a permanent condition. Lurk could see that her mind still worked in places but others were not doing much. They made a stretcher and carried her with them as they traveled. Lurk was unsure how to fix her though he tried to cast his various healing spells and status removal. but nothing changed her mental state. The mental runes showing a persons brain and mental activity were simply to complex to directly understand beyond the surface runes.

So Lurk had asked the women to talk to the next person and help them remember as much as they could. Lurk felt it would lessen the sudden withdrawal of the collars effect on their minds with too many memories suddenly assaulting them and reminding them all at once of their losses and experiences. It delayed the timing he had for their removal of the collars but he was sure by the time they were at the valley they would all be off. Emily had taken her distance from the group of women during these moments and had offered up to help with the front guard when they traveled.

"We got a monster!" Emily said out quietly, Lurk quickly went over there and looked, seeing a large lumbering tall humanoid creature, it had a large underbite with large teeth from it two horns on its forehead. and a large malformed head. Its arms were very long and its hands were big. It was dragging a big piece of wood as a weapon.

"Is that a orc?" Lurk asked Emily.

"No its an ogre. It has not spotted us yet... They are normally not alone so we should keep an eye out if we are gonna attack it." Emily tightened her grip on her sword, Aurk, Vorm, and Sala came over.

"You stay here Sala. use a bow if you have too" Lurk advised, telling the other goblins who had bows to get ready for them to fire.

"Vorm can you sneak up and try to get in behind when he comes at us. " Lurk said as Vorm immediately headed out keeping a rock or other blockage in between him and the ogre as he hid between where it was gonna come from and the group.

"Get ready here gobs and when I say fire give it two volleys then ready your swords and spears." The goblins readied up.

[Leadership] Learned at 0.2

"Ah thats neat. Ok Aurk and Emily you are with me"

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"Sala also wants to come!" Sala looked huffy but Lurk wave his hand up to stop her.

"Not this time. Stay back if you get hit you might lose the baby" Lurk reminded Sala who still looked huffy despite Lurks warning and reminder.

"Two ogres now!" Emily said, Lurk saw the other ogre but it was further away they were both steadily walking in a direction not towards the group and had not yet noticed them. They did not seem to be very observant.

"I will focus on the other ogre" Lurk said as he stared at both the ogres."

("Is this what Sala and Lula would become if they evolved? I need to check their stats later if they actually gain too much of the bad stats")

Lurk Aurk and, Emily all headed forward and waited behind a rock. Vorm was father ahead, Lurk gave the motion to the goblins behind to move up and start shooting

[Leadership] at 0.4

"Go!" Lurk gave the command and the goblins started to fire at the ogre nearest to them, the arrows raining down around it, only a few of them hitting it. It roared out loudly causing a nerve-wracking effect on the group, some of the bow goblins looked like the might panic. The ogre had the [Roar] Ability that could cause panic in targets!

[Mental Resist] 0.2

"Steady!" Lurk said, as he cast a [Clear Status] on one of the goblins that looked much worse for wear off from the roar the ogre gave off. The other goblins were still shocked some fumbled with the bow but they shot more arrows at the now stampeding ogre that was making a straight line for them. Lurk also cast the [Clear status] on himself as he still had time before the ogre made it up to where they were.

Lurk and the front party jumped out to face it, Lurk fired off a [Tempest disk] at the ogre its left arm flew off and a deep slice cut into its torso, but the ogre swung its wooden log still with its other arm but the group quickly dodged it and then struck all their weapons into it. Emily yelling loudly as she made several well-aimed strikes that cut the ogre deeply. Aurk stabbing into the ogre's thighs causing it to stumble down on the ground. Lurk following up with a stab with his elven dagger into its skull that despite its thickness did not much, the blade sinking into the ogre and it collapsed taking the dagger with it onto the ground. Lurk quickly pulled out his shortsword and readied himself for the next ogre that was charging towards them also.

The ogre charged past where Vorm was and he leaped out onto its back and sunk his sword into its back. Lurk quickly bombarded it with [Wind Bullets] causing holes to explode on its chest. It began spinning madly trying to grasp behind it. But Vorm held on tightly. Aurk and Emily charged ahead, the goblins behind following up behind charging the Ogre as they began to stab at it with their weapons, it was slowly whittled down as it collapsed, Emily, stabbing her sword into the ogre causing it to stop moving. Only one goblin got knocked away by the ogre's massive arm. Lurk hurried over and started to heal the goblin that was completely out cold.

[Holy Magic] 5.0

("Finally.. that last decimal was hard to get..") Lurk thought as he kept healing the goblin its eyes opening up as it got up.

"Thank you chief!" The goblin saluted Lurk and grabbed its weapon.

"Be careful next time, but good work everyone!" Lurk said to the goblins that all cheered.

Emily took out her ax and slammed it into the head of one of the ogres. splitting it open. She began to crack open the skull and then pulled out a small crystal from its head.

"Ah, it had a good crystal this one." Emily said coming over to Lurk who was staring rather shocked at Emily, she handed the bloody crystal to him. He cast a Cleaning spell on her and the crystal as she had been covered in blood from the hit.

"What is this for?" Lurk said as he examined the crystal

________________________

[Magic Crystal]

Uncommon

25 raw mana

"Forms in all living beings and grows over their life time, the more ambient mana they are in the bigger these grow"

________________________

"Guilds pay a lot for these as they can be used by mages and churches to create items I'm told"

Emily went over to the other ogre but Lurk quickly followed and observed where she cut so he could learn it. She pulled out a smaller crystal and handed it over to Lurk. Aurk and Sala along with other goblins had also begun to cut the ogre up.

"Remember to keep that meat separate from the other meat," Lurk said to them, as he did not want the women or himself for that matter to eat that meat.

________________________

[Magic Crystal]

common

5 raw mana

"Forms in all living beings and grows over their life time, the more ambient mana they are in the bigger these grow"

________________________

Lurk grew curious and decided to check his avatar menu and tried to find his own crystal. It was clearly connected to his mana, and he opened up its information and opened his eyes wide.

________________________

[Magic Crystal]

Epic

600 raw mana

"Forms in all living beings and grows over their life time, the more ambient mana they are in the bigger these grow"

________________________

"Jeesh... If someone sees this I will be hunted down by everyone..." Lurk exclaimed as he closed the menu down. Sylphie who came up next to him tilted her head.

"Oh did you not know master? but the humans that came here with me were hunting a one-armed goblin. I thought it was you?" Sylphie put a finger on her chin thinking back.

"What? Oh... No that must be Vrek....." Lurk said but then looked at his own hand that had grown a lot since his mana recovery was not extremely fast he had the regen spell on all the time. It was almost time for the hand to start growing. Lurk was rather annoyed at the spell as it was so slow. But he looked worried now as he now realized that he was basically a big target by any humans seeing him.

"Damn... Vrek really keeps making my life miserable..." Lurk gritted his teeth, Sylphie looked worried and looked down

"Sorry master I did not think to mention it..." Lurk noted she was upset over her error, but he quickly shook his head at her.

"It's ok. I had no intention to be in eyesight of any adventurer or human anyways. But now we know." He gave her a pet on her head and played with her ears a little which caused her to cheer up a little.

Giving the goblins time to proper loot the ogres, the group got moving once more the raw meat being packed and then put into his ring. Lurk then cast his clean spell on everyone and the scent of blood vanished from them all.

"Well, I think that went well... We can handle a couple of ogres without to much problem... Still need to hold back the other goblins maybe" Lurk said to Aurk who came up to him and walked by his side.

"Indeed Chief, But the gobs need to learn. With your healing, I think we can risk it." Aurk nodded as they walked, the goblins were quite happy and high on their win.

"Good thing we did not lose any" Lurk said when suddenly a shrill scream was heard from behind. Everyone turned to face it and Lurks eyes widened.

The catatonic woman had awoken, and she had grabbed a dagger from one of the goblins and jammed it into his back, still holding the bloody dagger she raised it up and prepared to slam it back into the goblin, her eyes mad and she was still screaming.

"You killed my kids!!" Lurk stared in disbelief at the screaming woman, the women grabbed her and the goblins leaped at her, tackling her to the ground, but one of the goblins had drawn his sword and moving to strike her.

"Stop!!" Lurk yelled out at the goblin, the goblin stopped just before it was gonna stab the woman, it looked at Lurk angrily, then its eyes cleared and it looked at the sword and the woman, shaking its head as if it realized what was happening. It looked in fear at Lurk. As he hurried up to heal the goblin that had been stabbed.

"Dammit... Stabbed in the heart..." Lurk stared at the dead goblin and then at the frantically crying woman. Everyone gathered around them.

"... Ogres we can handle..." Lurk looked dejected at Aurk.