> Chapter -2147483647 (Obligatory Goblin Encounter)
Ada crouched down in the field of wheat, slowly approaching the farmhouse.
As it turned out, there had been quite a lot more smoke than what a normal chimney fire should have produced, and Ada was concerned.
> [*ding!* You have unlocked the passive General skill [Sneaking]!]
>
> [Would you like to replace a General skill with [Sneaking]?]
“Uh, what?” Ada said in a nervous whisper, “I can just do that? Shit, I don't know, yes, get rid of [Daydreaming]. That one is stupid and I don't need a skill to help with it.”
> [*ding!* General skill [Daydreaming] has been replaced with the passive General skill [Sneaking]!]
Ada felt the skill take hold as it began to guide her arms and legs to positions where she wouldn’t bump into nearly as much of the wheat. It wasn’t perfect -- she still brushed against quite a lot of the stalks, but in a field as dense as it was, that was inevitable, and the skill was only at level 1 after all.
After an excruciating amount of minutes, Ada had finally made it close enough to make out some important details about the farmhouse.
First, it definitely wasn’t what Ada would consider modern. It looked more early medieval, or even earlier. The first couple meters were constructed out of stone, without any obvious mortar between the layers. At least one other story looked to have been made from lumber of some kind.
Secondly, Ada noticed that the building was on fire, and all that remained above the stone were scorched support beams sticking up from the walls.
The third thing that stood out to Ada was that around the remains of the building were short, ugly, green people carrying crudely constructed spears, axes, and one sword.
Ada had an immediate thought, “Oh, fuck, it’s Goblins.”
Quickly counting, Ada thought she could identify at least 20 of the nasty little beasties. The majority of them were crouched around a small fire that they had set a dented and rusty pot onto. Ada couldn’t determine what, if anything, was inside the pot, but she decided that she’d rather not find out. Ada remembered that Goblins had a rather unpleasant reputation in most of the different fantasy settings she enjoyed, and she had no intention of finding out which of those was the most accurate.
She started to turn around so she could sneak off, when she heard a shout from behind her and slightly to her left. The voice had yelled something that sounded a bit like “GARBLE GRABBLE”, but really it could have been anything for the amount of sense it made to her. Which was none.
> [Error: system language files not found]
“Yeah, no shit not found,” Ada thought furiously. “I don't suppose there's anything the system can do to help with this? No? Well, then, fuck off and let me figure this out.”
The thing is, in any other circumstance where Ada had been given any amount of time to prepare, she would have been very confident that this number of goblins would pose her no threat. She had been a nerd her entire life, true, but she had been the naturally athletic sort of nerd. Team based sports had never been her sort of thing just due to how she hated relying on other people to live up to her standards, but throughout her childhood, she had participated to various amounts things like Track & Field, Swim Team, Rock Climbing, several different schools of martial arts, and finally, several times a week for the past 15 years, both HEMA and SCA heavy armed combat. She had even qualified as an instructor at her local gym four years ago, and had earned a knighthood at Pennsic the previous summer. Ada had turned that down due to the pretentious courts the SCA was obsessed over hadn't held any interest for her. She enjoyed playing the role of a lordless mercenary, selling her sword to whoever came up with the best tribute each year.
Today, however, Ada was still entirely naked, and crouched in the middle of a field of wheat.
Still, though, simply based on the quality of their weapons, Ada thought she at least stood a chance. That is, she had until she heard the other shouts start coming from the rest of the goblins in front of her. Then the closest one she could see pointed straight at her and yelled.
“GARG! RABBLE GRAB!”
Ada stood up and raised her hands to shoulder height. “Well, it can't hurt to try a little diplomacy before defaulting to wanton violence,” thought Ada, “Not that any of my Pathfinder friends would agree.” Out loud she said, “Hi there, don't suppose any of you have a spare shirt and pants? No? Well, shit.”
The closest goblin approached her, spear leveled at approximately stomach height to Ada. She glanced left, right, and behind, trying to spot the first goblin that had called out her position, and it was still there, also leveling a spear in her direction.
Ada backed up slowly to get the two of the goblins in the same visual angle, then charged at the goblin that had been behind her. The goblin shouted in surprise, and thrust its spear at her belly. She slapped it aside with her right hand, then wrapped her left arm around it and spun, ripping the spear from its grasp. Ada then dropped to one knee and lashed out with the heel of her right hand aimed at the creature’s throat, knocking it down.
Ada stood and took the spear up in her right hand. It wasn’t quite the length of polearm she was used to wielding during the reenactment battles she had participated in every summer for the past 12 years, but it would do. She wished she had a shield she could use with it, or at least some pants.
It was at that moment that she felt a crawling sensation all across her body, like millions of tiny ants on her skin. The crawling feeling flowed up her legs, her right arm, and down her left arm. A disc of what looked like black sand grew from her left hand, then condensed. The sand then fused together, leaving a metallic heater shield resting in her hand.
“What the FUCK just happened?!” Ada exclaimed.
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> [Unknown Racial ability detected. Enumerating...]
“Uh.. shit, fine, you do that, I’m going to kill some damned goblins.” She decided that figuring out how the magic sand shield had shown up in her hand was not the most pressing issue at the moment.
Ada looked over toward the other approaching goblin. She could see that behind it, the other goblins were looking at her, weapons in hand. She struck the front of her shield with her spear and shouted at the goblins, “COME ON! It’s stabbing time!” Ada hadn’t been known among her friend group to be particularly clever with her words, and she wasn’t about to start now.
> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Spear scrapper] Fire - Lv28]!]
It seemed that the first goblin she had struck and stolen the spear from had finally suffocated from the crushed windpipe.
> [*ding!* Congratulations! [New Arrival] has leveled up to level 2! +5 free stat points from your class, +13 free stat points for being outsider (humanoid), +1 Magic Power from your element]
>
> [*ding!* Congratulations! [New Arrival] has leveled up to level 3! +5 free stat points from your class, +13 free stat points for being outsider (humanoid), +1 Magic Power from your element]
>
> [*ding!* Congratulations! [New Arrival] has leveled up to level 4! +5 free stat points from your class, +13 free stat points for being outsider (humanoid), +1 Magic Power from your element]
The goblins yelled incoherently and charged.
Ada got to work.
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> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Spear stabber] Earth - Lv 31]!]
>
> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Scrap Tinkerer] Metal - Lv 14]!]
>
> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Cranky Cook] Wood - Lv 29]!]
>
> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Arsonist] Fire - Lv 23]!]
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> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Scavenger] Wind - Lv 17]!]
>
> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Choppy Chops] Dark - Lv 26]!]
>
> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Punching Bag] Earth - Lv 38]!]
>
> [*ding!* Congratulations! [New Arrival] has leveled up to level 5! +5 free stat points from your class, +13 free stat points for being outsider (humanoid), +1 Magic Power from your element]
>
> [*ding!* Congratulations! [New Arrival] has leveled up to level 6! +5 free stat points from your class, +13 free stat points for being outsider (humanoid), +1 Magic Power from your element]
>
> [*ding!* Congratulations! [New Arrival] has leveled up to level 7! +5 free stat points from your class, +13 free stat points for being outsider (humanoid), +1 Magic Power from your element]
>
> [*ding!* Congratulations! [New Arrival] has leveled up to level 8! +5 free stat points from your class, +13 free stat points for being outsider (humanoid), +1 Magic Power from your element]
>
> [*ding!* Congratulations! You can now advance your class!]
>
> [*ding!* WARNING: Once you start advancing your class, you must pick an advancement.]
The Level 38 punching bag goblin had been surprisingly hard to kill, and Ada had snapped the tip off her appropriated spear in the process. She ended up knocking it unconscious with a strike to the head with her shield, and then stomped its face until it had finally died.
It was at that point that one of the remaining goblins circling her came up behind Ada and stabbed her in the side with its scrap iron sword blade. Ada screamed out of reflex, but didn’t really notice the pain. She needed a weapon.
The woman wished she had a decent longsword like the type-XIII style practice blade she had been using for the past decade, but sharp enough to actually hurt people with. She felt the crawling sensation across her body once again. This time, she looked down at herself and watched as black sand appeared, pushing its way out of the skin across her entire body, and then flowing across from her extremities out to her right hand. It then coalesced into the shape of the longsword she had pictured in her mind, and finally, it fused together into a solid blade 125 cm in length with a hand and a half grip -- a perfect type-XIII bastard sword.
Ada was flabbergasted. She didn’t even notice that the wound where she had been stabbed had stopped hurting. Instead, she spun around and cleanly lopped the head off the goblin. She then proceeded to do the same to the remaining twenty-four of the little green bastards..
> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Pillager] Dark - Lv 53]!]
>
> [*ding!* You have defeated [Goblin - [Axe Maniac] Wood - Lv 28]!]
“AAH! Enough with the fucking notifications!” Ada screamed, covered in greenskin blood, “Can you just, I don’t know, give me a summary of the combat once it’s over? The constant dings while I’m trying to concentrate on killing these fuckers is really entirely too distracting.”
> [*ding!* You have defeated 32 goblins and earned 7 levels in your class [New Arrival]!]
>
> [*ding!* Congratulations! You can advance your class!]
>
> [*ding!* WARNING: Once you start advancing your class, you must pick an advancement.]
Ada looked around at the carnage she had dealt out. There were small green bodies strewn everywhere around the field she stood in. Many had been decapitated. Several had had limbs removed, and a few had been disemboweled and then stabbed.
Ada doubled over and tried to throw up, but nothing came out. She hadn’t eaten at all since waking, but even so, she did not feel hungry in the slightest now. Tears started welling up in her eyes.
She no longer needed the shield and sword, and as soon as she completed that thought, both items burst into clouds of the same black sand they had formed from. The sand flowed directly into the palms of her hands and disappeared. Ada looked at her palms. They appeared perfectly normal, exactly as she expected them to look.
She then remembered the stab wound and twisted to her side to try and look at it. There was nothing there. She was still covered in so much goblin blood, but there was none of her own. She could tell because goblin blood was apparently tinted slightly purple.
“What. The. Fuck. Just happened to me.”
> [*ding!* Racial trait enumeration complete: You have unlocked the Racial trait [Reconstruction]!]
>
> [Reconstruction] - Your body was reconstituted from available materials upon initial incarnation into this realm. Due to your elemental affinity, you have subconscious control over the makeup of those materials. When at full Mana, your body will slowly return to the idealized state. Similar materials may be absorbed from the environment to increase the rate of restoration.]
>
> [Current body material components]
>
> [Hematite: 98%]
>
> [Quartz: 2%]
“Oh fuck.”
Ada fell face first into the dirt, unconscious.