Locke made his way down to the palisade wall under the cover of nightfall. The moon was nowhere in sight due to the heavy cloud cover, not to mention it was quite windy out. These were perfect conditions for infiltration, he even decided to rush his plan because of this. The watchtowers and buildings did have torch lighting that he needed to avoid staying in for too long. However, the towers themselves were sparse enough along the walls to where they didn't really cover each other well. With the palisade wall being constructed of thick logs that stood almost 10 feet tall it wasn't easy to come up with a plan to make it over unnoticed.

Digging under it most likely would not be possible so he didn't even bother trying. The reasoning behind that thought was there wasn't anything seemingly holding up the wall. Which almost certainty meant that the logs continue far into the ground to stay upright. The first thought was to jump, grab, and pull himself up but due to the pointed tips at the top and the height he didn't believe he could make it.

Opening his inventory Locke pulled out one of the wooden ladders that he built yesterday. He called it a ladder but it was basically just a tree log with cut out foot holds/grips allowing him to climb. It took a while to find tree's that were light enough to do the trick without resorting to drying them out. That is if drying a log even reduces the weight of wood. His options were limited because he only had one arm, making a proper wooden ladder would have proved far too difficult. The only reason this log ladder trick would work is because he can boost himself to 30 strength. This allowed him to both properly handle the logs weight inside and outside of his inventory.

Locke had been playing around with the inventory quite a bit and he found a small exploit that helped him here. He could grab hold of the item and then instruct the inventory window with his thoughts to fly upwards allowing him to pull it out. The window had a set limit on how far it could go, but it was enough for this. Once the log was fully out of the inventory it would remain weightless for a short time even after letting it go. It would hover in place until Locke touched the item again.

He slowly and carefully set it against the wall with the watchtower being closely behind it. There was a reason for this, every night this specific goblin wasn't very good at it's watch duties and usually dozed off for a couple hours. Reaching the top of the ladder he noticed the goblin still asleep.

Thanks for being terrible at your job little guy.

Locke cast his highest mana shocking touch and then jumped into the tower. He quickly gripped the goblins mouth to prevent it from screaming while tackling it to the ground. There was no chance to resist as it died immediately from the spell.

As expected the smaller goblins are weak.

Now that the goblin was dead Locke propped it's body up inside the watchtower. This way from a distance other monsters wouldn't be able to tell it was dead and not doing its job. More intelligent monsters might wonder why the goblin wasn't moving around, but they didn't bother checking when it was sleeping so it should be fine. He took a quick look at the nearby tower to see if the other goblin noticed the commotion; it did not. Jumping down to the ground and landing as silently as he could Locke planted himself against a building wall outside of vision.

So far so good, now to make it to that building over there.

The building he was eyeing was on the other side of the fort. There were many red flags between him and that building that he would need to avoid. Multiple torch lit areas, the worg cage, the bonfire that multiple monsters were sitting at, and lastly the hobgoblin that was guarding the front side of the structure. There were no patrols to avoid per say, but the monsters that were not asleep would obviously be roaming about as they please. He wanted to turn on his perception boost to assist with avoiding detection but he needed the strength in case something happened.

Luckily he could just follow the right side wall all the way to the other side to avoid most of the problems. The worg cage was on the left side immediately ruling out that option. The bonfire was closer to the center of the fort and the random roaming goblins generally wouldn't be close to the wall edges.

There were two more watchtowers between him and the destination that he needed to get past. Getting past the first tower proved to be no problem, but once he got close to the second there was something off. He was about to move into a dim torch lit area until a sound was heard originating from above. Locke swiftly hid behind two large nearby barrels his eyes fixated on the origin of the sound. The goblin that was manning the watchtower started making it's way down the ladder.

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The time to swap shifts is not even close, have I been discovered? Shit.....I will need to silence it quickly without being noticed and before it cries out. Even then I won't be able to bring the body into the tower unnoticed. It would only be a matter of time before one of the creatures finds out it's missing.

Just as the goblin reached the bottom of the ladder and Locke was about to make his move he stopped himself. The creature wasn't turning around or coming towards him at all, it was actually moving in the opposite direction. Once it stopped the sound of drizzling water could be heard causing Locke to relax.

Are you kidding me....it was just relieving itself........give me a break.

Shaking his head at the situation he found himself in, Locke waited patiently for the Goblin to finish and go back to it's post. Once he was done waiting he moved forward and successfully reached the backside of his target building without being noticed. There was a Hobgoblin guard at the door on the other side meaning what he needed to do now had to be extremely quiet. Luckily it was still windy out which should muffle the sound. The ground the fort was built in wasn't extremely level, meaning this building had an open space below the floor with several pillars holding it up nice and flat.

It is now or never, just like I practiced.

Locke slowly crawled under the building a bit and opened up his inventory to take out the flammable foliage that he collected. The practice mentioned earlier was him learning how exactly to take objects like this out of his inventory without making too much sound. He continued to bring out the foliage and kept stashing it underneath the building a little bit at a time.

About halfway done, almost there.....

Just as these thoughts surfaced a loud shout could be heard on the other side of the fort. The hobgoblin guard moved away from the building, most likely to see what the commotion was.

Damn, they must have discovered the body. Either they decided to check up on him or the body fell over. Oh well time to finish this up quickly. I don't need it all just a bit more over here and it should go up in flames easy enough.

Wasting no more time Locke quickly planted more flammable material underneath the last area he wanted to light up. There was more that could have been placed but time was of the essence. Kneeling down just outside of the crawlspace several firebolts flew out of the palm of his hand setting the foliage aflame.

Shouts could be heard at a distance, one was very close, most likely the hobgoblin guard that was on watch not too long ago. It must have heard him or noticed the flames, either way it was time to go. Locke dashed towards his planned escape route. Running at full sprint he was at the bottom of the nearby watchtower in no time at all. The building behind him was already starting to ignite into flames. High pitched yelling could be heard above him as the goblin above was probably notifying the camp of his presence.

Locke made his way up the ladder as quickly as possible while another powerful shocking touch to deal with the goblin. The creature jumped back in fright and drew its dagger as it stared with wide eyes at it's assailant. In one fluid motion Locke dashed forward, dodged the dagger swipe, grabbed the face of the goblin, unleashed the spell, and jumped out of the tower. Still holding onto the goblin he slammed it's head onto the ground as he landed rupturing it on impact and breaking his fall somewhat. Wasting no time he picked up the pace and made his way towards the river.

The yelling and screaming could be heard behind him. He wasn't exactly sure how the AI would respond to this kind of hit and run tactic but he wasn't taking any chances. The enemy had worgs which could potentially track his scent so the plan was to utilize the river to his advantage. It wasn't exactly close by, but it wasn't far either. After a bit of travel Locke figured he had a good enough of a head start to switch his boost to agility. It was still impossible for him activate or swap the enhancement spell while on the move even after all the practice that was done. The reason being was still the amount of concentration required to control his mana internally.

This change brought his agility from 20 to 45 which was a huge change. Luckily with the Second Brain feature even with a drastic change like this it barely took any time to get used to. However, Locke did notice that even though his agility was more than double compared to before it didn't feel like he was running twice as fast. Far from it actually, he was puzzled as to the reason for this but it was not the time to experiment.

Getting to the river without his pursuers catching up proved to be no problem. He couldn't hear anything at all chasing him which left him to wonder. Was he that far ahead? Or were they just not pursuing him at all same as before.

I cannot risk assuming they are not chasing me, those worgs would be a huge problem. Since I have time lets get a little fancy.

Locke crossed the river, it was roughly four meters in width and quite deep. The current wasn't overly strong but he swapped his boost to strength just in case. After crossing he continued in a straight line forward for roughly fifty meters and then doubled back. Once back at the river he traveled downstream while inside it. Locke continued downstream for quite some time until he was confident they could not pursue him. After this was done he took the long way back to the cliff edge scouting spot he used previously, It was time to see if the initial plan worked.