Chapter 16

The mentally Ill , Ruby Prince

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Authors note

Hello fellows i missed you :)

As usual hope you enjoy

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Another day passed and the war preparations were coming along nicely.

Before the first rays the morning greeted all the people of this world with shone , the ' army ' was headed out. Torches in hand they made their way through the forest , where they used to kill goblins by the hundreds of thousands to get to this point.

150 Knights of house Fab-gwain accompied by 50 priests of the house soc-relma had gathered at the Kings command to aid the Chosen ones in battle.

The Chosen ones were counted yesterday and measured over 700. Most of them were lvl 55-60. The second set was in the range of 70 . A few selected even managed to gain lvl 80. The exploration the group of Grim , Clash , Celu and the Npcs gave alot of in-sight on the opposing troops.

With her own eyes Celu saw the thousands and thousands of goblins. The smallest ones were lvl 45 while the biggest ones were lvl 75. They also had priest , archers and warriors. Nothing spectacular from their side , well what one would expect from idiotic goblins.

They were a inferior race over all that relied on stealth of the night and numbers. So to speak their physical abbilitys were sub-par and their intelligence very low. Surely if one would get swarmed by hundreds of them at the same time problems would occur. But as the Army Celu had gathered numbered close to a thousand she wasn't worried one bit.

The troops were ready. Over the course of almost 2 months they not only increased their levels dramatically , but also learned from the knights how to do battle in small scale wars or skirmishes as the knights themselfs called this.

The moral was high , as the command was held by Alberthos , and they were at a point where even all the knights agreed the chosen ones were disciplined. There was loud chatter going through their ranks as they approached the fissure where the dungeon began.

Celu heard people talking about the most trivial things , about the crops that had to be collected very soon from the knights and what loot may drop from the players. It was more like a entourage going to a festival instead of a procession going to war.

But what had she to complain? They were in high spirits , and she was the lady from a noble house that had to look good and wave when the moral was low. Nothing else. Inside though she was a wreck.

Everything she displayed , every small smile or warm glow on her eyes was a play she had deceived herself into believing it was true. The first knights entered through the fissure and a loud shout was audiable.

Celu quickly made her way to the fissure.

Alberthos was at a loss what to do. Everything so far went as planned , they gathered supplys that would last long enough for a whole month. They repaired the equipment and stocked up on necessitys. But now this....

In front of Alberthos was the supposed to be crack in the earth leading to the dungeon , as he had never seen it himself , but there was nothing there. Just a solid wall , it looked oddly smooth , but nothing a earthquake couldn't produce.

A realization struck him as the first light of the morning sun struck the ' wall ' in front of him just as Celu arrived there.

It broke the light and reflected it back to them. As Celu touched it she noticed the texture it didn't have and the cool surface.

" ITS IRON! " She shouted in surprise.

" Hihihihi , hehehehe ... " A voice was giggling like a maniac above the fissure.

She remembered the voice , not the frantic giggle but the grumbling undertone that reminded her of a Lion immediatly.

As she looked upwards her self built facade crumbled as she recognized the brown hair that were covered by a mass of blonde. The rubys in his forehead broke the light perfectly and it shone down towards them.

Celu even had to shield her eyes against the red light assaulting her irises. His smoothly voloptious Lips towered over by a straight and petite nose. The golden light that broke itself in the ice blue eyes. She remembered it and yearned for it.

It used to be their air for her to breath , the water she found in the desert and many many more things. But no more , she thought while shaking her head frankly to dispell the thoughts.

She needed to be strong now more then ever , Celu reminded herself.

" Ignore the pitiful creature , everyone who has a pickaxe and the mining skill go forward we need to get through this wall. " She tried to immitate Grims tone when he commanded.

It had not the same effect but at least some complied with her wishes.

' How did he do that? ' Celu asked herself while wondering at the iron wall , the thing that used to be Grim had put in her way to block the armys advance.

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Grim was giggling like a maniac , and he was glad for the rubys in his forehead for the first time. As he behaved like an idiot , to enrage the army more , he was blushing incredibly. From time to time he would throw dirt down or stretch his butt over the fissure and in general do anything he could to mock them.

For full 14 hours they were working on the Iron wall , Grim had prepared a few days before he let himself get caught , without pause.

They rotated between workers in 3 shifts. Every shift had 3 hour jobs of trying to break through the wall but yet they had no luck. Or more to Grims luck. Not that Grim needed luck for them to fail , the wall of pure iron was 10 meters thick.

After he hunted in the fields for 10 days with mobs of increasing level , he was at a point where the battles against 10-12 level 130 goblins were to easy and not rewarding. So he decided to head down the fissure and check on the goblins there but what he saw almost made him go insane for real.

The last time they came here there were only 10000 goblins + minus a thousand or. Now the amount had doubled easily. Also some strange incredible huge things could be seen in the far away dark. Grim got curious and walked closer to the camps.

He accomplished this with a new spell Thalia had formed while she exceeded lvl 100. It was a vision spell that illuminated everything in a 100 yard radius but shed no light. Instead of calling it a illuminating spell it was a spell that modified the users eyes to see light where there is none. As she could use this spell the idea of exploring the dungeon again formed in Grims mind.

But as he walked closer to the camp he didn't like what he saw. The mobs all had a level of 80 minimum. Even the lowest of Goblins had a sudden leap in level. As he used diversion tactics , throwing stones in another directon , to get by a especially stupid pack of Goblins that never moved from one place , yes he waited 1 day but they still wouldnt move.

He came closer to the hulking beings in the back and noticed they weren't actual living things. They were machines used for digging tunnels. Grims sudden realization on what was going on gave him the chills and almost drove him crazy.

But one thing was certain , Grim needed to get rid of those machines. Especially after he saw the goblins were building ramps that lead those machines to the ceiling of this cave , at least he guessed since the wooden constructs lead straight up into the darkness.

He discussed it with Thalia but she had not enough power to destroy all 10 machines that were at least 20 foot tall and wide. Neither did he himself have any magic that could help. But at that moment a explosion shook the cave and a bright and orange flame lit up in the back.

The way to destory those machines lay in the fire so he headed towards it and found to his surprise black powder. After he saw it stacked up he knew they would use this powder to propell the digging machines into the air.

He researched in the real world about blackpowder and found a sure fire way to rigg the blackpowder into explosives , that would destory the machines instead of propelling them.

As he was done with this more and more problems occured. Now not only where there goblins but also a handfull of creatures that needed to be dealt with. Then the number of goblins numbered in the 100 thousands.

Someway or another Grim dealt with all of this without killing more then a thousand goblins himself. Everything was set in motion but then another problem arose.

He noticed the REAL devestating power of Goblins , he drew up a new plan in his mind on how to battle them and sealed off the entrance to the dungeon with all the rusty armors and weapons he had found.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Even with all of his reserves , a hundred breastplates 300 arm and legguards and at least 500 swords , the tunnel was only filled with 2 yards of Iron. He needed more. He went hunting again. This time not for experience but for their loot.

He hunted the lvl 100 ones that were located a mile further down south. After he had started killing the groups of 10-12 Goblins in a matter of seconds the AI of this world adapted the creatures. Now they only appeared in packs of 20. Everytime Grim had collected enough for another 2 yards he went back and stacked the rusty equipment inside of the cave entrance.

During this time the packs size increased to war-bands size , the staggering amount of 50. But Thalia was happy at all the blood she could suck up when they were done fighting so she entered the fray and those groups of 50 were dealt within less then one minute.

Grim had no explanation why he hunted at this pace. It was inhuman until he realized that he simply was to occupied in his mind to realize there is no real or unreal here. Humans think there is air resistance here.

A placebo effect had been on every player at the same time. Limiting to the little knowledge they had. Sure magic was a system on which the actual AI assisted but the movement speed of your own arm was being restricted by your own mind.

Grim discussed this with Thalia at one point but she didn't understand the terminoligy since Grim was using alot of ' chosen one ' terms as she claimed.

He really missed the company of players but he had to do this.

Thalia under Grims instruction used her Holy and fire magic to melt down the rusty iron and they ' corked ' the entrance to the dungeon with 10 yards of Iron. The entrance itself was round with a radius of 5 yards itself so it was quite a feat.

All to prevent the Goblins from using their devestating ' power ' against the army.

There were still 2 weeks left until the deadline but Grim logged out and researched about various symptoms of mentally diseased people. He found the best way on how to initiate the ' play ' he was about to perform.

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14 mins and 37 second remaining before the Goblins can leave the underground invasion city Nerghul.

" Damnit .... what are we going to do now? " Celu asked.

Alberthos the leader of the knights was baffled. They had worked for 4 days straight but even after breaking off 4 yards of Iron the other side of the entrance was still no where in sight.

" I really don't know... " He replied.

Celu was stomping down with her foot and was in a rage fit, she cursed and mutterd. But now a voice that has drove her to the brink of insanity rang out again.

" Hihihihi , hehehehe ... " An insane laughter filled the forest and reached her ears.

She looked up and saw the thing with rubys in its forehead as it was jumping up and down , left and right , back and forth. The occasional mud or dirt it threw down was driving Celu mad.

5 minutes left and the only thing she heard was insane laughter and pickaxes colliding with stone.

1 minute left and the insane laughter intensified and they decided to stop the attempt to break through. After all 4 days of around the clock trying to chip away enough iron to make a hole wasn't enough the last minute wouldn't change.

30 seconds left , but all the players and npcs in the army just waited. The debated about the new plan and came to the conlusion it was best to wait here for either the golbin die of hunger or for the enemys to break through themselves.

5 seconds left and everyone was looking at the countdown in their quest windows.

4

3

2

1

But as the timer hit zero the ground stared to shake loudly followed by a deafening sound of an explosion.

* tring*

The quest the goblins march has been updated.

Goblins remaining 37 219 / 127 500

Now all of the assembled players and npcs jaws dropped down.

" Wait a moment we only saw at the most 20 000 Goblins down there why did their number increase by over 6 times! ." Celu shouted out.

They were all in utter confusion.

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" Hihihihihihihihihi , heheheheheheh ..... " Grim let out the insane laughter again.

During the first 2 days he was extremly emberassed doing this , but now he got accustomed to it.

If he could behave normally at the moment he would laugh a sinister laugh instead of this idiotic thing the used to mock the players and npcs.

But that was just because he watched his xperience bar fill itself up. For the last 3 seconds he could hardly follow the bar as i got filled up and filled up some more. It still only amounted to 8 levels in the end as goblins were low beings whose lowered physical and mental stats were sub-par.

No if it were undead whose stats are ridiciously higher at the same level he would have gained about 24 levels. But even as he saw the eight new levels he smiled a sad and lonely smile.

Only one task remained , to kill of the remaining Goblins , find out what the skill was he got from the rank B quest and then ... pay his debt to Palanthalos.

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A few minutes later the ground trembled once again , but it was soon followed by a even louder noise. The complete army had to cover their ears at the loud groaning noise but didn't know what to do.

Celu looked up to see Grim but found he was gone. No more idiotic laughs or sneer , no more dirt or mud throwin and definetly no more mocking. But Celu found it odd. Why was he out of his cell in the first place.

Now as she remembered everything she found it even stranger. Where did all the green blood go he was covered in? Why did he wear his armor? As she wanted to discuss this with her friends she noticed that only Viena was around.

She looked up her friends list and found 15 people , she had added over the course of the last months , missing. Not that they were offline , they were missing like they had stopped playing or threw her out of their friends list. But of the names of those people that were missing she found Crow and Clash.

' Strange ... ' She thought.

Alberthos gathered the army and lead them out of the little canyon that lead towards the Iron wall , as the noise got even more intense every second they stayed there.

And not soon enough as they soon realized what that noise was.

Just a mere 10 yards away from the fissure , the ground cracked open and a metal construct came into view. As the whole thing was over the ground it opened and thousand goblins came crawling out of the machine and the hole it had created.

" RIght and left Vanguard wings take the front ! " Alberthos shouted his command.

He started shouting some more commands but a figure that was running straight into the pack of goblins made them halt in their tracks.

" Hihihihihi , hehehehe .... " That thing laughed loudly.

With a mace in hand and a crazy expression and laugh he smashed his weapon of choice straight into a extremly ugly goblin. His weapon glowed in a ice bluish hue for a second and the goblin , with addition of 10 more , got flung around like a rag doll.

Celu looked closer at the goblins he was fighting and noticed they were at least lvl 120. Even though she couldn't see the boys level she knew something was incredibly wrong. She only saw the health bar the boy displayed over his head but even when 5 or 10 goblins kept stabbing him rhytmically the health bar only slightly dropped.

He was already chewing on some bread while sneering even more vicious at the Goblins and repeating his crazy laugh from time to time.

The group of a thousand goblins was dealt withing minutes and Celu was growing suspicious of the insane laughs and sneer , as they were to rhytmic. To timed , the intervals between them never shortend or lengthend.

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Additional Authors note

I will end with chapter 17 the goblin invasion.

But there are still things left unsaid about it so sit back and enjoy.