Chapter 10

The clever trick

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NO AUTHORS NOTE!

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When Grim got out of the capsule it was 2 am. Very late but he was so grateful that sleep in-game made you relaxed as if you had sleep in real life. His classes would start in a few days again but Grim would worry about it when the time comes.

He took a quick shower , ate 3 sandwiches and flushed them down with some mountain dew. After changing clothes he went back into the capsule with a steeled resolve.

" Im back , hey Thalia. " Grim said while petting the Fae that was happily flying around him.

Now he took a quick peek around but Clash and Crow were missing. Viena was sitting on a log while cooking some food up for future hp and mana regeneration. She looked up to him and greeted him excessivly.

" GOOOOOODDDDDDD MORNING! Would you like breakfast first , or a bath or .... m.e? " She said with a huge grin on her face.

" Breakfast please. " He said.

Now Viena was pouting slightly , not only because he didn't take the joke as it was but more because he saw through her that she was only 50% joking. Ever since they met Grim saw her giving him these coquettish looks.

Viena had shoulder long blond hair and her bangs were swipt to the side , which in turn revealed her prominent face. High cheeckbones , smooth skin and a high brigded nose combined with lips that had a slight shade of pink topped with light brown eyes surely made her attractive.

Even though she was wearing wide robes one could see the exquisite figure she hid underneath them. Her long and slender neck was visiable from time to time and everytime Grim took a peek she was stretching her arms over her head and pushed out her bossom even further.

Well judging by her character , she definetly wasn't shy and knew how to use her ' weapons ' but Grim being himself , knew every female relationship he ever had went down the drain pretty quickly.

Not because he was a ' D ' , but everytime out of the same reasons. He was nice , held his girlfriend car doors open , carried their heavy things and so on. Literally he was a gentleman and protected his GFs well and with respect. But the problem arose after a few months.

Most of them simply cheated on him , not because the nightly activitys were bad , on the contrary , but they all gave him the same reason. ' It is your fault! ' was what they would all say. After it happend the third time he simply quit having GFs and objected every female approach that was made towards him.

He knew for himself that he wasn't the warmest of person and he had many secrets of his childhood that he did NOT want to talk about , and he was not one to load his feeling of depression on other people at every corner , especially not his GF.

Simply not to worry them , he had no problems expressing his love and affection towards his Gfs but the bad parts were just left out , so Grim could not trust his counterparts with ALL of himself.

Grims with his 20 years of age knew he wasn't all knowing and he definetly didn't expect to be the master of relationships so he decided to stop them completly.

" Where are the others? " Grim asked after takin a bite of wolf meat sausage supreme , as Viena named it.

" Hunting and foraging , we discussed your plan afterwards when you were gone and came to the conclusion it would be best. " She said.

Grims expression did not change at all but his insides looked different. He sent Thalia a few pictures through their connection and she promptly understood to be ready whenever Grim thought it would be a good time.

This was just a plan to escape the 2 males in their momentary group. Grim had the feeling that they wanted to kill him in action when the quest was nearing the end. Naturally make it seem like a mistake , along the lines of OH crap this i missed my arrow , or something like that.

But nonetheless he knew Crow and Clash were planning something after they returend 2 hours later with only a little bit of meat and wood. ' They defiently were discussing something. ' Grim thought and send Thalia the pictures of what he was thinking.

As a reply Grim got a picture back where a little Fae was grilling 2 elfs on her beam of holy light , slowly and tenderly while they screamed and begged for mercy. He sent her his amusement back but soon they gathered their things and went along the way deeper to the south.

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As they walked farther south they meet more and more Goblin groups and they grew in level with every mile they ventured forth. Now they were meeting groups of 4 Shield bearing Gobs 5 archers and a mage or shaman to back them up at lvl 65 each.

In really bad situations they meet groups of 12 with 2 mages and a gob priest. Then the battles would drag on forever. But the experience was down right ridicioulus. The priest groups gave double the xperience then the 10 man groups. Naturally the difficulty was alot higher.

The 10 goblin group was taken care of in 10 minutes. The priest group took a astounding 40 minutes considering they got lucky a few times without any deaths yet. Grim with the help of Clash and his scouting abilitys tried their best to avoid those groups but they just kept coming and coming.

Clash also reported , due to his greatly increased stealth skill , that there was a immense unnatural fissure in the ground 2 miles up ahead , but thousands of goblins swarmed the premises.

Grim came up with 2 plans simulteonusly. First he used the message system in-game for the first time and called on the only player he had any intensive interaction with.

He clicked the button and typed in her name. A short message was delievered and to Grims great relieve her foster parents released her after she told them Grim needed the help of his soon-to-be-bride. She would be here in another day since she owned a horse and had the riding skill. The other plan was downright simple.

Grim and the other 2 males sharpend thick wooden branches by the hundreds. Thalia and Viena used magic to create deep holes in the ground. They built pittraps cleverly with spikes and hid them with branches , leaves and piled the loose dirt ontop of it to conseal the contraption.

After they pulled a 10 man goblin group without a priest and 3 Goblins disappeared inside of them the rest was dealt with in 2 minutes. Nonetheless they only created 2 pitfalls for practice methods and they still had over 200 spikes left. Now they just needed to wait for the 6th party member , including Thalia of course.

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He logged back in at the appointed time and to his relieve all the others were present. Thalia as usual fluttered around his head relieved to see him again , without being in a comatoes state.

They chattered lightly and filled their stomache with a meal Viena had just cooked up. Then came the ardicious chores , Clash filled the water containers , Crow went hunting for wild animals , Grim gathered firewood and Viena cocked more as new materials arrived hourly.

Grims first inventory was half full , 3 places were filled with branches , each stack 300 smaller ones , and the rest with rusted Armor pieces by stacks of 10. The most common were rusted arm or legguards. Then some rusted sword and at last breastplates. All in all it was a good haul so far and Grim already had plans for it but that could wait till after the quest.

The others inventory was filled to 1/3 , considering they had half the space Grim had , it was not much but they had , in their eyes , the more valuable equipment. As Grim sorted through some things he saw a horse approaching fast. But the sandcloud behind her made Grim worry.

" More then i expected , get ready. Don't forget where the pitfalls are we WILL need them. " Grim reminded them.

All 3 nodded and Thalias flew up and down to tell Grim she was ready as the horse with the female rider approached. Grim gave her a strict advice how to advance , as to avoid her falling to her death in a pitfall.

" Welcome to the fun , Celu. " Grim shouted towards her.

* tring*

Celu has joined your party

She dismounted and after playing a weird looking flute the horse disappeared in thin air. Grim raised his eyes in suspicion but she just shrugged her shoulders. Now the sandcloud revealed what was inside.

Golbin hunter groups of 6 -10. But not only 2 or three groups. Since Celu had to ride her as hard as she could in the fastest of time possible , on Grims urging , she pulled all the respawned groups Grims group had killed before.

About 300 Goblins headed their way. Vicious snarls and curses met them from far away. Even though their teamwork was high this particular large group hadn't formed a raid or anything , Grim checked it up creatures could do that but only with a commander or general of their race with them , so no battle ranks were formed. Afterall they were mere savages so they just chased Celu all the way here.

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" Get ready. " Grim said.

Viena , Crow and Clash tensed their muscles while Thalia landed on his shoulders. Celu was suprised by all of this as she had no idea what was going on. Grim smiled and motioned for her to follow closely behind him.

" NOW! " Grim shouted.

In unison all began to ran towards the east. After 300 yards they stopped and the Goblins still made chase. Crow stuck multiple arrows , that had no more room in his quiver , in the soft ground before him. Clash diasppeared and soon reappered climbing a tree 100 yards between them and the enemy horde.

Viena was initiating the ritual to summon her newest spell. Fluid gestures and soft murmurs followed the ritual but it took over 1 minute to summon the effect , but there still was time. Grim used his newly developed " Hidden skill " as he called it to ' tank' the group.

" Oy you rat faced scum, stop walking and run you maggots haven't seen such a rotten pack of filth since i chopped the heads of your mothers of! " Grim shouted.

Celus jaw dropped down as she stared openely in disgust at him. But Grim suceeded , as Celu saw it , the Goblins attention that used to scan the area concentrated solely on Grim. Not that they could understand the common tongue but they AI made it appear that the Golbins caught on to his insults.

" Celu , if you have any buffs , now would be a good time. Her take some of this tea it 400 mana , drink it once you have depleted that amount every time. Roughly 100 warrios should survive , then Viena will block of their retreat. You saw the rogue going up that tree right? He will shank the archers and create confusion while i aggroed the front line. Be carefull of arrows for the first 2 or 3 mintues of the fight. Crow the archer over there will help Thalia to kill the archers. You just heal EVERYONE you can and buff when ever it runs out. " He commanded her and introduced her to his plan.

She chanted a few words and the whole group got a buff. Grim eyed it and was surprised at its strength. 10% to all stats and +10 mana reg per second for the whole group. Now he eyed Celu in a new light. Even though her lvl 16 , since she couldn't venture outside , this buff was considerably stronger. He wanted to know more why it was so high but the front line had almost reached them.

" Let the feast begin! " Grim shouted as the first Goblin crashed into his shield.

Clash dropped from the tree as the first volley of 100 arrows let loose and he shanked 2 goblins and another 2 before he disappeared again. Thalia realeased 2 beams of holy energy and fried 2 goblins with each one of them. Crow shot mutliple arrows and slew 5 goblin archers alone. Vienas magic finally took effect and a wall of flame cut of the archers from the goblin warriors.

The goblin warriors became panicked but renewed their vigour against Grim who was still only holding his footing against the incredible force of goblins from the front. For this purpose he took a dropped item from a lone ogre they found in the area. He had a huge shield and now Grim replaced his shield guard for it.

After the intital rush the force subsided a little and roughly 1/3 of the goblin archers were already dead. Now as the Goblins tried to surround him they learned how cunning humans can be. Left and right the ground collapsed and revelead a incredible number of sharpend pikes sticking out in a 10 foot deep hole. 30 Goblins fell victim to this clever trap , not even a third of what Grim had anticipated.

Grim annoyed at his miscalculation clicked his tongue. There was only a 10 foot wide ' bridge' between both pitfalls and Grim needed exactly this space to optimize the last phase of his plan.

He grinned with a evil smile after evading a few loose arrows that were targeted at him through the wall of flame. He saw his health dropping a little bit but instantly received healing from a warm light that enveloped him. Celu was healing the whole group and was frantically chanting words and pointing her scepter at the person she wanted to heal.

Also whenever she wasn't speaking she sipped the tea she was holding in her otherwise unoccupied hand. All while doing this she cursed Grim for this crazy plan.

Now after Grim saw the plan bear fruit he initiated his counterattack. He swung the mace heavily on the first Goblin that didn't see it coming. The creature staggered back and pushed 2 goblins into the pitfall. After he swung it from his right to his left , Grim smashed it into the next goblin to the right.

*tring*

Kockback effect

He smiled at this as he saw 5 goblins being flung away with force directly into the pikes. Grim cleverly deviced this plan around his ability to tank and knock the goblins off. Viena was the strongest damage dealer followed by Clash then crow and Thalia. But since Viena had to concentrate completly to uphold her fire wall spell to effectivly lower the moral of the horde of goblins as well as to make them panic she was out of question for this task.

This is where the pitfalls came in. They did most of the work as already over 100 Goblins had fallen prey to the deadly trap. The archers have been reduced to half of their ranks and now Clash became bolder as he shanked 10 before he disappeared.

" Now switch. " Grim shouted as the Number of archers dropped to 30 with the help of Thalia and Crow.

Thalia and crow now firmly assaulted the warrior goblins at the front to create chaos. They succeded efficently and the Goblins in the middle that saw this turned around and went into a frenzy. They pushed back the goblins in the back to their own firey demise and soon realized what they had done resulting in a even greater panic. Clash shanked the rest of the archers that were searching for him frantically and chased the ones that ran off in panic.

The battle ended in meager 10 minutes as Viena released the fire wall and grinned at the rest that looked physically exhausted.

" Well , Celu you can summon that mount right? Can you do that again? " Grim asked with a glint of ambition in his face.

" No i can't" , " No she can't ! " , " God i hope she can't. " , " That was fun! " The group replied to his words which brought Grim to laugh out loud.

They split up the drops and Crows arrows at the same time. After that they rested since most of them were mentally drained as well so Viena cooked for them. Celu had gained 18 levels just from this battle since the lowest goblin of that pack was 45 and the highest ones around 55-60. Grim gained 2 while the rest gained 3 and 4. They all distributed their stat points and packed their little camp up.

Now they were headed south once more. Clash pulled every group he saw , but as he gained a new skill > Ambush! < he stealthed up to the priests and one shotted them with it the fights became so much easier.

All gained another 2-4 levels while Celu gained 8. Celu was now level 42 and Grim reached the staggering level of 62 while Thalia was level 49 now. She stopped relying on Grims mana a while ago , excluding the battle against the 300 Goblins. The others were in the level range of 55 - 52.

Grim had noticed this a while ago but after level 50 every level took double the experience the one before needed. Before that you needed about a third more. Just this reckless kind of hunting , since Celu joined , had allowed him to progress in a whole day four times the amount he had required with the rest of the group.

Reckless it definetly was , since Grim decided to take some attack he could easily evade due to higher damage output or some nice knockbacks he could get out of it. Since Celu gained alot of levels her mana pool was incredibly high and the buff she gave us was just the tip of the ice berg.

12 levels in three days for Grim was a acceptable level , but he wanted more. Some inner ambition had formed in him since he got the Dawnlight Guardian quest. Something in the back of his head was nudging him on. Almost as if something or someone was calling him. A restless anticipation was urging him on. It took him some effort to go to sleep even after they had fought all day.

On the next day after 5 more groups of lvl 70 Goblins they found a clearing in the forest. To call it a clearing was a little exagerated. Trees that still had there roots were scattered across the area and in the middle of it all a fissure had appeared.

Now Grim got a bad feeling about this.