Elaria continued the long walk to Felspire, and once again had to endure the tedium of endless plains and grass with not much else in sight. It was honestly a little disappointing. Having grown up with stories about the danger of being outside the boundaries of human civilization and how the plains were supposed to be filled to the brim with ravenous monsters looking to tear you apart limb from limb, she had been expecting to battle her way to the city, or at least encounter more than just a single snake. There came a hiss from behind her as she was daydreaming. Make that two snakes. Not even bothering to check the distance, she whipped out her sword and swung in a circle, slashing behind her in a single fluid motion that caught the snake completely off guard, and it died with a look of shock in its cold, reptilian eyes.
Level 2 Verdant Greenscale Adder has been slain!
+6 XP
Verdant Scale x1
You have levelled up!
+1 stat point
That was neat. This time, she observed the corpse of the snake as it slowly started to dissipate into white light and vanish into the atmosphere, but she was unable to understand what was happening. She stowed the scale away with the one from her last kill, and continued to make her way forward. Originally, she had planned to just dump every stat point she received from her first few levels into the luck stat, but since she obtained the boost from her fancy cowboy hat, she was hesitant to make her build so unbalanced. For now, she would just hold onto the extra point and wait for a better moment to invest it. In any case, the monsters so far hadn’t challenged her too much, so without a pressing need to increase her damage output or durability, saving it until she had a better idea of what kind of route she wanted to go down in terms of her career was an intelligent decision.
In order to not lose her heading, Elaria had been following the only visible landmark, a towering peak that reached up into the sky and dominated the horizon, despite being almost a thousand kilometres away, Cloudreacher Mountain. The gigantic mountain was where the capital city of Erlich, Cloudvale, was located. Felspire was located in the same direction, albeit much closer to home, and so any travellers lost in the region could use Cloudreacher Mountain as a compass to help them get back to a settlement. As the sun edged closer to the horizon, almost touching the peak of the mountain, the walls of Felspire came into view.
Despite being one of the lower ranked and poorest regions of Erlich, due to Baron Faust’s rather lacking power and influence compared to other members of the nobility, Felspire, where the baron’s home, Castle Cordwen, was situated, still had grand and imposing walls. They stood almost ten metres high, with towers located at regular intervals along the wall to allow the soldiers to view all the surroundings. The city gates were half the height of the wall, forged from tough steel, and with the familiar blue and gold eagle banners, the crest of Baron Faust, hanging on either side. Beyond the walls, she could see the spires of Castle Cordwen reaching higher into the sky, like charred fingers grasping for hope the black stone towers competing for space that made up the seemingly random architecture were what gave the city of Felspire its name.
Engrossed in the beauty of the imposing structures, Elaria failed to notice the three goblins sneaking up behind her, wielding an assortment of rusty knives, battered wooden clubs and little round shields. The group had been hunting for prey in the fields bordering Felspire, and lucked out when they noticed a young girl seemingly unaware of her surroundings, lost in a daydream while strolling forwards. They had snuck up behind her, taking care not to make a sound so as to not startle their unsuspecting victim, and were about to strike a fatal blow, when her foot caught on a rock, and she tumbled head over heels onto the floor, causing her to spot the three little green goblins just behind her.
Frankly, the goblins were just as shocked as Elaria at the strange turn of events. What kind of heaven defying luck did this little girl have? If it wasn’t for that rock, she would have died without knowing why, and the goblins would be bringing a fresh meal home for their entire tribe, along with some valuable loot. Even though they had lost the advantage of surprise, they didn’t falter. The numbers were still on their side and they were confident in beating the human in a three versus one fight. The girl in question was looking up at her cowboy hat and wondering whether that fall had just been a coincidence or if her high luck stat was starting to pay off. Thanks to a helpful prompt from the Chain, she identified these strange little monsters as goblins, though thanks to their stereotypical green skin and shiny bald heads, she probably could’ve made a solid guess as to their identity anyway.
Elaria wasn’t frightened. On the contrary, she was excited to face the three in battle. The two snakes hadn’t really posed much of a challenge to her, and her enthusiasm for the journey had faded greatly since realising it wasn’t anywhere near as dangerous as expected. She had started to believe she would reach Felspire without even having a proper fight, but thanks to these three courageous fellows, it looked as if her wish would be granted. Drawing her sword, she took up a defensive stance, and prepared for battle against her pint sized foes. The three goblins advanced together, used to working in tandem to bring down prey, they split up and circled her slowly, cutting off any escape routes. Deciding that the best course of action was to try and take one out while they still thought she was just a weak little girl, Elaria darted towards the weakest looking goblin, a lime green runt that looked like a leathery bag stretched over a tangled mess of bones carrying a short, rusty knife and a cracked shield.
It raised the shield to guard its head and chest against her, but when Elaria kicked out her strength took it by surprise and it went flying to the ground, unable to maintain its footing against her heavy strike. Taking advantage of the goblin’s momentary concussion she darted forward once more and plunged her sword into where she thought its heart would be, and with a gruesome sound of cracking bone and squelching muscle claimed first blood in the melee. A little box appeared in her vision confirming the death but she didn’t have time to check it out, narrowly avoiding a killing blow from behind. The club didn’t hit her head, which the goblin had been aiming for, but caught her squarely in the back, stunning her briefly and taking a decent chunk of her health.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The little creature looked extremely satisfied with the result of its attack, sporting a sinister grin, teeth surprisingly white for a monster which she guessed didn’t spend much time focusing on dental hygiene. Forgoing their previous strategy of encirclement, the two remaining goblins decided they would have a better chance at defeating the girl who they now realised posed a bigger threat than they thought by sticking together and covering each other's openings. This was effective, and Elaria was forced back while trading blows with the two, unable to find a chance to strike and get another kill. While she was blocking a stab from the taller goblin the one with the club used the chance to bash her shin, shaking her balance and dropping her health down to just 9 points.
Intense pain radiated from her leg and her vision was a little blurry, but in order to strike her the goblin had overextended itself, and realising it was now or never she struck out, knocking the knife wielding goblin away and quickly twisted round, slashing at the shorter goblin who was attempting to dodge backwards. It wasn’t able to escape in time and her sword cut cleanly through its neck, the headless corpse slumping to the ground, fertilising the soil with fresh blood while the head flew off to the side. The final goblin recovered from her strike, and seeing that both its allies were now dead it became enraged. It roared out and charged at Elaria, who desperately blocked or parried each of its frenzied strikes. She managed to land a blow on its arm, causing it to drop its shield, blood dripping from the wound. Despite that it was unrelenting in its assault, bloodshot eyes staring at her in hatred, and managed to cut her a few times leaving her dangerously low on health points.
Was this the end? Imagine that, an adventurer who died their first time leaving home. Her story would probably spread as a cautionary tale to any reckless children who had similar ambitions. With just 2 points of health remaining, she grit her teeth and mustered all her strength and stamina, preparing to gamble everything on one final attack. The goblin struck at her chest with its rusty knife, and she parried the blow, making it teeter ever so slightly off balance. Elaria followed up by kicking at its wrist and was rewarded with a thunk as her boot connected with flesh, and the goblin’s weapon fell from its grip. Now unarmed the monster was powerless to defend her follow up strike, a powerful thrust at its chest. It raised its skinny arms in an attempt to protect its vital organs, but the sharp blade of the sword slid straight through them and into its torso with a satisfying squelch.
The body fell backwards and Elaria collapsed to the ground, starting to feel the pain and exhaustion as the adrenaline which had been keeping her moving wore off. She had almost died but the feeling of putting your all into a battle, clashing with another creature, your life hanging in the balance was unmatched. Elaria had never felt anything like it and she finally felt like her decision to leave home was worth it. If there was more where that came from, the life of an adventurer was perfectly suited to her talents and tastes. She took the chance to read over the notifications that had popped up as she’d slain the goblins one by one.
Level 3 Goblin has been slain
+9 XP
Goblin Finger x1
Level 3 Goblin has been slain
+9 XP
Goblin Finger x1
You have levelled up!
+1 stat point
Level 4 Goblin has been slain
+12 XP
Goblin Finger x1
Goblin Toe x1
You have levelled up!
+1 stat point
There was a small pile of fingers and toes on the ground in front of her and the small corpses of the goblins had already faded into nothing. She didn’t want to keep such disgusting tokens of her victory around but she figured she might be able to sell them in the city to an alchemist or something similar. Wrapping them in a cloth so they didn’t spread any germs to the rest of her possessions, she put them away with the scales and fangs she’d looted previously. The battle had caused her to level up two more times and now that she had a stockpile of stat points she figured it was a good time to spend them. Surprisingly, levelling up didn’t have the effect of replenishing health or anything like that, but that made sense when she thought about it. People wouldn’t grow stronger if they were coddled. Opting to stay balanced, since it seemed to be working out so far and there wasn’t much point in specialising in one stat while she was still early in her journey, she invested 1 more point in luck and put the remaining 2 in agility and intelligence respectively.
Being faster would mean she could dodge more effectively and make more opportunities the next time she got into a fight, since the main reason things had got so hairy this time was the fact the goblins kept catching her off guard with small blows. She didn’t know much about magic yet but the intelligence stat also had the effect of making a person a little bit smarter, which she figured was a good shout. Elaria was already fairly intelligent and compared to your average person, had the advantage of a previous life’s worth of experience but bolstering her brain even further sounded like a brilliant decision. She had a quick look over her status to check the results of her growth.
[https://i.imgur.com/S0WGDxZ.png]