Lucius started his mission by climbing on top of the building the goblin riders had fled over. As he reached the top, he looked out across the city in front of him, searching for any sign of the creatures. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy. Hopping off the rim of the building and onto the actual roof, Lucius discovered what would become his most important clue in finding James: spider tracks. A layer of grime covered the entire roof, with the perfect texture and consistency to leave behind tracks. The tracks looked like a mixture of dots and lines—some of the creature's limbs stepped lightly, leaving dots, while others dragged across the ground, creating lines. Lucius took a long look, memorizing the pattern of the tracks and learning to tell what direction they indicated the creatures were traveling. He knew the direction the goblins had fled, but the next time he spotted tracks, he would need to glean that information from the markings alone. One set of tracks was deeper than the others, suggesting that the spider was carrying extra weight—likely the one carrying James.
Latent talent detected!
You have unlocked the talent 'Novice Tracker'
Novice Tracker - Level 1
Lucius was pleasantly surprised by the system's interruption. As soon as he saw the name of the new talent, he focused on it to understand how it might assist him in finding James.
Novice Tracker
Level 1
You have begun to learn the ways of the tracker. +25% perception while tracking; useful clues become easier to spot.
"Good!" Lucius clenched his fist in satisfaction, a small smile forming on his face. This was exactly what he needed; his chances of finding the missing boy had just risen exponentially. Taking one last glance at the tracks, Lucius could already feel a difference in his perception. Every detail relevant to tracking felt slightly magnified in his senses. When he was confident that he had learned all he could from the tracks in front of him, he made certain of the direction of his prey, moved to the edge of the roof, and hopped from the ledge onto a canopy halfway down. Even with the canopy cutting the jump in half, it was still a superhuman feat—the same fall would have broken his legs just a few days ago. Suppressing his fear he stepped off the canopy, landing lightly on the ground as if he had skipped a few stairs, rather than jumped off a roof.
Lucius made his way to the building closest in direction to where the creatures had been moving, paying careful attention for any warnings from Sense Danger along the way. It wouldn’t do James any good if Lucius got himself killed by an Abyss creature before he could save the boy. He climbed up the next building in the suspected route, searching for his next clue, but the roof was smooth and sloped, lacking any surfaces that could leave tracks. All Lucius could do was keep moving and check as many buildings as it took to find more tracks—and that’s exactly what he did. Through trial and error, he learned which rooftops best served his purpose and prioritized checking those buildings first.
Progress was slow; even with his strength and speed, climbing so many buildings was tedious. The sun moved across the sky as Lucius diligently continued his task, carefully checking one area after another. By the time the sun reached its zenith in the sky, and the day was half over, he had searched over 50 rooftops and the surrounding courtyards without success. After narrowly avoiding a handful of powerful Abyss creatures, and witnessing too many human corpses to count, he began to second guess himself, "What if the creatures changed direction?" he wondered. "am I heading the wrong way?" Doubt was constantly chipping away at his confidence, he was beginning to feel the need to turn back and retrace his steps. Hopping down from a set of apartments, Lucius walked through a playground tucked into the corner of the complex. He took a few steps away from the area, lost in thought, before he suddenly froze. Turning his head back toward the colorful children's area he had just passed, Lucius enhanced perception begun flickering with excitement. There, in the sandbox, was a single set of spider tracks.
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Through effort, you have raised Novice Tracker to Level 2!
The system message was further proof that this was exactly what he hoped. He felt the joy of success bubbling up inside him, but as he further scrutinized the tracks that feeling was abruptly cut short, "Its all wrong..." he thought as confusion creeped in to replace his elation. These new tracks didn’t make sense, they were heading in the exact opposite direction, back the way he’d just come.
After pondering his discovery for a few minutes, Lucius realized what was happening. These tracks should have been left by the goblin riders before they had stolen James, when they first headed out on their hunt. If that was true, he might still be heading in the right direction. If the goblins had a permanent camp, they should return to the same place after hunting. If they were nomadic and didn’t stay in one place, these tracks would be useless. With limited information, Lucius would still have to rely on luck.
The young man carefully checked the direction the tracks had come from, and continued his hunt with renewed vigor. The trail led him into a commercial district filled with warehouses and factories, it wasn't far from the port where massive ships unloaded their cargo from all over the world—"or at least, they used to" he thought. Picking one of the warehouses in the general direction of the goblins travel, he made his way up to the roof.
After reaching the top and deftly flipping over the lip of the building, Lucius looked down and did a double-take as he stood rooted in dumbfounded disbelief. He had been preparing for a long, tedious search for the next clue, but suddenly found himself standing on a roof absolutely littered with tracks. The roof contained so many overlapping tracks, that it would be impossible to determine the direction of any of them. For a moment, Lucius didn’t know what to do next, but he soon realized what this meant. Crouching low to the ground he slowly crept up to the opposite edge of the warehouse. Lucius glanced down at the area below, searching for any signs to confirm his suspicions, and it didn’t take long to find them. The manicured landscape in front of the building was trampled, and all the decorative trees had been hacked down and taken away, clearly felled using crude hand tools.
Lucius heartrate began to rise from the discovery, "I'm close," he thought, double-checking to ensure his aspect was working before climbing down from the roof. As he reached the ground, a pulse of warning echoed from his chest—Sense Danger was picking something up. He cast his eyes in the direction where the sense was the strongest and remained still. The feeling in his chest intensified—something was moving toward him. Once it got close, a group of goblins emerge into his field of view from the corner of a distant warehouse. There were at least a dozen, these goblin were moving on foot, there were no spiders with them. They moved along hurriedly in groups of four, carrying lengths of chopped trees.
When he finally caught sight of the creatures he had been tracking all day, Lucius felt satisfaction welling up inside him. The constant anxiety he had carried that he would fail the kidnapped boy—that he wasn't capable of tracking down the kidnappers—had been gnawing at him since he began the hunt. Those doubts were swept out of him by the proof in front of his eyes. Now he just needed to follow these creatures back to their camp, find where they were keeping James, and get the boy out alive.
Lucius waited for the goblins to pass before he began moving, unwilling to take any risks now that he was so close. The creatures moved slowly, burdened by their heavy loads, so there was no danger of losing track of them. As he carefully followed the creatures, Lucius saw group after group of goblins in the area. He was growing increasingly alarmed by the sheer size of their population, and it wasn’t long before he discovered the hobgoblins as well. The sight of the larger creatures thoroughly startled him, especially when it triggered the loudest Sense Danger warning he’d felt since facing the Abyss Queen. "Those things are dangerous..." he couldn’t help but think.
It took another fifteen minutes for the goblins to reach the outskirts of their camp, revealing the extent of what he was dealing with. Hundreds of goblins and dozens of hobgoblins bustled about, building themselves a primitive village right in the center of the warehouse district.
Lucius moved along the outskirts of the settlement, gathering every scrap of information he could about the goblins and gauging the settlement’s size. After making a complete lap around the perimeter, he climbed to the top of the nearest warehouse to get a clearer view into the village. There, in the center of the structures the goblins had erected, Lucius spotted a large cage filled with human beings.