The brush gently sways around me, the earth slightly damp, and small clumps of dirt cling to my fist as I grasp my dagger in hand and crawl about. I watch the five visible goblins half heartedly patrol their campsite, mostly busy gnawing on some meat or stomping on the grass. Only one of thoses goblins seems to vigilante in his duties, consistently scanning the horizon.

We should be able to lure that guy over into that thicket.

I grab a small stone and lean on my right elbow. It’s a bit awkward, but I throw the stone over to a small thicket nearby. It silently finds it’s target and ricochets off of one branch and hits the trunk. The abrupt noise and rustling directs the goblin’s attention, and starts to crouch as it slowly approaches the source of the noise. The others, a little farther away, pay no attention and continue entertaining themselves.

It ‘s easier to sneak up on a hunter than it is to sneak up on prey. It’s time to see if you can handle my old moves.

I slowly start crawling, matching my pace with the goblin. The knife still feels a bit awkward in my left hand with crawling, but the few hours of practice it feels a bit more comfortable. I try to move on my right elbow, and avoid any weight on my open wound. Knees always bent,

20 ft

…

15 ft

…

10 ft

…

Hold

The goblin pauses near the entrance of the brush. Quickly looking around.

He’s alone. Wait till he’s just about to pounce into the bushes to strike.

The goblin moves silently up and down with his club.

Mastermind

Goblin is just about ready to pounce.

I push off from the ground with my left hand and use my coiled legs, leveraging them against the balls of my feet to rocket myself towards my unsuspecting prey.

[One with Nature] Active

[Wind Walk] Active

Yes, this is great!

Ok, time to use True Strike.

[True Strike] Activated

The goblin’s silhouette becomes highlighted, with his lower right back, neck, and head highlighted in red.

The goblin moves his left hand towards a branch overhead, and I can see his grip tightening on the club.

Completely off guard! I love it!

My dagger sinks into its kidney. A small grunt escapes, but it’s tiny body locks up in the sudden, intense pain emanating from the pierced organ.

[Multi-attack] Used

My dagger slides out as easy as it went in.

[MasterMind]

Optimal Dagger Trajectory Mapped

I see the floating red line appear, connecting the tip of my Daggerto it’s throat.

The dagger cuts through the air, tracing the faint red glow of my MasterMind’s optimal trajectory. I feel the drag on the dagger as it digs into the goblin’s throat. I push it a bit deeper as I sweep it across, and it bounces off of it’s spine. Blood gently sprays on the brush infront of him.

The two strikes, even if it was just happened, landed within a 2 seconds of eachother., left the goblin incompacitated and collapsing in my arms. Felt like a small sack of potatoes.

Ok, now set him down gently. If the wind changes a bit, those little Gobbies will definitely smell the blood, and will check.

I gently bring the limp goblin to the forest floor. His body twitches one final time.

Skill Learned:

Goblin DarkVision

Your eyes turn a goblin yellow while in use, and lets you see up to 60 ft in low light scenarios.

Skill Learned:

Goblin Sense of Smell(Beginner):

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Your sense of smell is now more sensitive to the smell blood.

Skill Learned:

Club Proficiency (Beginner)

Skill Learned:

Torture (Basic)

You have a basic understanding of how to torture creatures.

Skill Learned:

Iron Stomach (Beginner)

Your stomach can now handle recently expired foods, and tiny bits of non-food, without negative debuffs.

I push the windows to the side.

Did you get any of the Gobbies’ blood on you?

Yea, just on my hand, and a little on my front.

Ok, we can rub a bit of dirt on those spots, but we are going to be noticed if we find ourselves downwind on these guys.

Let’s see here how long we have.

[One With Nature]

Gentle breeze will be changing in about 10 minutes.

I say that gives us about 5 minutes before we need to start making our escape for the night.

Hmmm, that should give us enough time to try and get a peak at their encampment at least, and see if we can locate any remaining slimes.

So, how do you suggest we get closer?

I can see you are pretty good at knife throwing. Are you comfortable with hitting a Gobbie in the neck about 15 ft out?

[Goblin Darkvision] Active

Blinking, the world goes from vague silhouettes and faint glows, to a dimly lit landscape, where I can make out proper features of the 2 closest goblins to my left, the farther right goblins are about 40 ft farther away and remain silhouettes against the dark forest.

With this, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Perfect. We will need to take out the two goblins closest to us. The farther ones should leave us alone. Let me share with you what I am thinking.

[MasterMind]

Plan updated, Suggested Route shown.

An overlay of my still self running through the field repeated over and over, timelapsed, is shown to me. I can see that my dagger is in my mouth, and my smaller knife is in my hand.

That’s about right. We don’t have much time to discuss.

There’s Goblin blood on my dagger, you want me to put it in my mouth!?

NO TIME!

FUUUUUUUCK

I push off from the ground and follow through as best as I can to match the form shown.I try and wipe the dagger in the tall grass and pop the hilt into my mouth. I almost stumble getting my knife, but am successful in doing so. I am glad no one is able to see me, but what Hounty is showing me… The Naruto run is the best form to do this in…

[MasterMind]

Warning: Breathing is falling out of synchronization, Hidden Presence will be ending shortly.

Try to keep your breathing in time, but if you can’t that’s fine, just push through!

I am fast approaching the first jump, my breathing is jagged from the last kill, and running with a dagger in my mouth, and the sharp metallic taste of blood and dirt is just throwing me off. I ignore the breathing and can feel my movements become a bit more sluggish.

I jump, fixating my eyes on the side bit of neck I can see from the first goblin, and whip my knife at it. A sharp pain shoots through my arm, but it quickly passes and goes instinctively to the dagger in my mouth before I or the knife lands.

The knife hits the goblin in the nek, and looks like the blade sinks all the way to the hilt.

Nice.

I land, and start taking a wide turn away from the first goblin and am taking a wide arch to the second.

I can hear a faint gurgling noise behind me, and look to see the first goblin clutching at his neck as he slowly drops to his knees.

It’s always good to confirm a kill, but always keep an eye on your target.

Understood

My vision focuses back to the second goblin. His attention is drawn to the gurgling and slowly approaching the first with hesitation.

I notice now the arch I was following was actually not linked up to the goblin, but infront of it. I guess Hounty knows these guys well enough that the noise of one dying goblin dying is not alarming enough to run away, but to investigate.

[MasterMind]

Minor Corrections made

I can see my route snap to the goblin, and can clearly see what is expected of me next.

I take a leap into the air once more, this time dagger ready. Looks like I am aiming for this guy’s temple.

It feels like time is slowing down.

[MasterMind]

Error has occurred - You have been detected

Shiiiit

Mere feet away from my dagger plunging into its temple, the goblins head starts moving to me. As his head turns to me, my dagger makes contact with its eye, plunging deep, and going up to the hilt. I felt some crunches along the way, but the goblin immediately went limp and collapses to the ground. Whether it be the blood, the dirt, my syliva, or my surprise, the dagger silps out of my grasp and falls to the forest floor, still inside the goblin.

Skill Learned:

Iron Stomach (Intermediate)

Lets you eat some clearly rotten food, and medium sized portions of non-food without negative debuffs.

Skill Learned:

Cowards Intuition (Beginner)

Your sensitive a few milliseconds before any immediate doom befalls you, giving you a slight possibility to escape in time.

Nice improvise, just try and keep your weapon gripped. Can’t have it go slipping out of your hand when it matters.

I lean over and wrestle my dagger from the goblin’s head. Freeing it, I start to head over to the first goblin to retrieve my knife.

Leave it, we only have about 3 minutes left to scout out this goblin camp.

Fine, lets try and save these slimes.

I start working on my breathing and jont over to a large boulder.

Skill Learned:

Goblin Charmer (Beginner)

Goblins just seem to like you instinctively. Chances of seducing goblins increase.

…

What the hell is that?

Uhmmmm… I guess the goblin that I threw the knife into his neck just died…

Yea, and what the hell is that skill?

How am I supposed to know? I am as puzzled as much as you...

Seducing-

Let’s just focus on checking out this camp

I shake away the message and slowly approach the three small campfires I can see in the distance, my yellow eyes slowly bobbing towards the campsites.