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Chapter 7: A Ranger finds a Silent Argument among Goblins.

Chapter 7: A Ranger finds a Silent Argument among Goblins.

Holding his bow, Telvin walked cautiously down the tunnel, listening carefully, and not hearing any movement from ahead.  The dim mana lights stuck in the walls, as he got deeper into the ground, were getting brighter. 

As he rounded a corner, Telvin saw the tunnel expanded into a cavern, and slowly crept up to it’s entrance. Getting close to the ground, Telvin crawled closer and took a look over the cavern floor. 

From the mana lights scattered around the cavern he could see the passageway he was in was ten feet above the floor of the cave. A ledge led down the left side from the passage that led down to the the cavern’s floor.  The cave itself was a hundred feet across and fifty feet wide in a rough oval shape.

Below the ledge, Telvin could see a pile of furs and rugs.  It was an apparent bed for the goblins, he could see several were currently sleeping. In the middle of the room was a group of goblins that were in the middle of training. 

Though, Telvin wasn’t sure waving spears and knives at crude mannequins was really training. However all this he saw was cast in an eerie silence. Using his examination skill, Telvin could see the goblins were under something called a dome of silence.

Standing in the back of the cave, a poorly made chair was sitting in front of some ragged curtains. Next to this stood two goblins in an argument. A large goblin was gesturing wildly with an axe that was several sizes too big for it. 

The other goblin stood picking its nose, looking bored. Using examination, Telvin took a closer look at them, and realized they were the Goblin Tribe Chief, and the Goblin Shaman.

Race

Goblin Chief

Level

4

Difficulty

2

HP

60/60

MP

20/20

Effect: Under Dome of Silence

Race

Goblin Goblin Shaman

Level

4

Difficulty

3

HP

60/60

MP

80/100

Effect: Under Dome of Silence.

From the argument, Telvin guessed the Shaman must have cast the Dome of Silence. It must have gotten annoyed at the Goblin Chief, and activated to shut the Chief up. Luckily this had prevented the goblins from hearing the fight taking place in the galley.

Slowly Telvin made his way down the ledge, when he entered the dome, the pounding of his heart went quiet in his ears. Reaching the cave floor, he could see slightly behind the curtains a set of cages. His sister was most likely there.

Stealthily he approached the sleeping form’s of the goblins. Using his knife, he jammed it into the goblins skull and quickly killed it. Repeating this process, each time making sure none of the awake goblins had noticed him yet, he finished killing the rest of the sleeping goblins.

With all the sleeping goblins out of the way, Telvin took a quick look over his skill Nature’s Rage. 

Nature’s Rage - Summons the fury of Nature, Your Rage is her Rage. Targets up to Ten Enemies. Only Usable once a day. Beware targeting any ally of nature, as this will cause the skill to rebound upon you. 80 MP.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Telvin thought for a second and decided Shaman’s were closely aligned to nature, and could be an ally.  Excluding the Shaman from the targets, he started the summoning process for the skill. As he did so, he started to glow bright green, this alerted the rest of the goblins to his presence.

They looked startled for a moment, then charged at him with their weapons, with the Chief right behind them. The Goblin Shaman waved his staff around and the dome of silence fell. Feeling the surge of power from the skill reaching the peak he unleashed it upon the charging goblins.

For a second the cavern fell silent, then the ground began to shake.  The weaker goblins began to lose their balance, and they wobbled towards Telvin. Then giant roots rose up and began to grab at the goblins.

Screaming, they tried to escape and cut at the roots. Unable to escape in time, the low level goblins were caught by the grasping roots.  In terror, they were torn roughly apart, and then crushed to death by the roots. 

With a great roar, the goblin Chief was able to hack the roots approaching him, and evaded the tendrils.  As it made its way towards him, Telvin began to fire arrows at the goblin Chief. One of the arrows caught the Chief in a shoulder. 

Growling in anger, the Chief pulled the arrow out, and tossed it aside dodging more roots.  After expending their energy, the roots sank back into the ground. The Chief took this chance to charge at Telvin.

Throwing aside his bow, Telvin pulled out his knife and went at the Chief. Swinging the axe, Telvin barely dodged it, by sidestepping. Telvin retaliated against the goblin Chief by slicing it’s face with his blade. Failing to avoid the blade, the Chief had it’s left eye cut up. 

The Chief backed up screaming in pain. Telvin was going to go in for the kill, when he felt a sense of danger. Looking to his right, he barely managed to roll out of the way as a dozen glowing spheres came at him.

Telvin was able to dodge most of them, however the last one hit him in the chest.  He felt like a giant rock had just slammed into him. Landing on his back, he was dazed.  From the corner of his eyes he saw the grinning face of the Shaman.

Seeing that the Shaman was preparing to fire more of those orbs. Deep within Telvin, a spark flared up and a hot rage burst forth within him. With Telvin’s blood pounding, he saw the Goblin Chief starting to run raising the axe to strike him.

Roaring he threw his knife into the good eye of the goblin Chief, who instantly stopped and wailed in pain.  The Chief dropped it’s axe and grabbed the knife in its face. Pushing himself up from the ground, Telvin grabbed the axe and swung it into the skull of the Chief.

Spitting out a wad of blood, Telvin turned towards the Goblin Shaman who was no longer grinning. Screaming the Shaman fired off another series of those orbs at Telvin. Grunting Telvin grabbed the axe that was stuck inside the Chiefs Body and lifted it.

Using the body he blocked the orbs from hitting him, the Chiefs body turning to mush and spraying blood over Telvin. Dropping the axe, he could see the Shaman looking terrified and it started to chant again.

Telvin charged at the Shaman, whose eyes bulged out in terror, and it tried to speed up the chantt, only to make a mistake in the chant. This caused the spell to collapse inside of the Shaman and it coughed out blood.

Before it could start another spell, Telvin was upon him. As the Shaman tried to back up, Telvin grabbed the staff it was holding and ripped it from the Shamans hands, tossing it aside. It screamed in terror and turned to run, but Telvin grabbed it by the neck.

Shoving the goblin to the ground, he began to pound his fist into the face of the Shaman over and over. The shaman struggled at first, screaming in pain. After awhile, the sounds it made turned to confused whimpers, then ragged breaths, finally nothing as it passed away under the barrage from Telvin. When his rage had finally burned away, Telvin found himself over the Shaman's corpse, it's head more paste then skull.

Standing, Telvin noticed he had gained a level in the battle, but wasn’t sure when. Turning to the back of the cave, he made his way to the curtains. Pulling aside the raggedy curtains, he found three iron cages, with women inside.

The first cage was the one that caught his attention, inside was his sister looking at him with tear filled eyes. "Telvin!" Diasne called out.

"Diasne are you alright, did they hurt you?" Telvin asked, getting close to the cage and looking over.

 "No, they knocked me out and brought me here. I was so scared, I didn't know what to do." She nearly broke out crying.

"It's going to be alright, I've killed them all." Telvin said as he took a look around for the keys to the cages. Finding a set of iron keys on a table nearby, he opened Diasne cage first and hugged her silently for awhile before he heard a light cough.

Looking at the source he saw a little girl that was sharing the cage with Diasne. She looked nervous and relieved at the same time. "Hello Sir Telvin, I am Mianda Evercral, daughter of Duke Adam Evercral. I thank you for rescuing us from the hands of these vermin." 

She was trying to put on that air of a lord, but Telvin could tell she was just a scared little brat. She continued "My father will surely reward you." She stepped out of the cage and gestured to the next cage. "Um that woman is my maid Carol. She was really hurt by the goblins," Mianda said tears breaking out as she broke composure and Diasne took her in her arms.

Telvin took a look at the cage holding Carol. Inside the cage was a woman lay looking out of it. The poor woman’s clothes were torn in a way that made it apparent to what happened to her. "She offered herself to them so the goblins would not hurt me," Mianda said muffled in Diasnes dress.

Opening the cage door, Diasne with Mianda went to check on Carol. Telvin took that time to look at the last cage. Shockingly inside the cage was an Nude Orc woman, sitting in a meditative posture. She opened her eyes when Telvin approached.

The Orc woman stood, and Telvin found she was taller then Telvin by nearly a head. “So you are the one” she said. 

Telvin was confused for a moment and said "The one?"

The orc laughed and said "The one to help me out of this cage."

Telvin said “got it” and proceeded to unlock the cage and open the door for her.

Stepping through the door, she said "Thank you." She looked towards Carol's cage. "She will need to see a healer soon." 

Telvin nodded, the poor women had suffered enough, she didn't need to suffer giving birth to more of those green bastards. "My name is Telvin'' 

Looking back she said “Pleasure to meet you, I’m Riley.”

Riley headed to behind the cages, and Telvin followed. On the orcs back was a series of tattooed characters. There was a small chamber offshoot that held what looked like what the goblins considered treasure. 

Riley said "Ah here is where they put my armor." She picked up a set of hide armor. She started to put on the armor, then caught Telvin watching. Smirking she said "Like what you see?" 

Telvin said "Yes, never had the chance to see something so beautiful before." Riley laughed and finished putting on her armor.

Telvin tore his eyes off her and took a look around. Most of it was useless, though there was a bag of gold. On a rotting shelf, he found two books that had a magical aura too them, though the contents made little sense to him. A bright green bow was the only thing salvageable in a pile of weapons he found. He placed them into his inventory and followed Riley back out.

Diasne and Mianda were able to carry Carol out of the cage and had lain her on some blankets they had found that they then wrapped her up in. Riley went to them and lifted her up in both arms. 

The system notified he had completed his quest to save his sister. Knowing it was approaching night he briefly considered staying the night in the cave, but decided it would be tough for the girls.

"We need to get going if we want to make camp outside." Telvin said. The others agreed and Telvin led them through the cavern. Diasne covered Mianda's eyes when she saw the state of the cavern. Blood and gore from the torn up goblins littered the floor of the cave.

Riley stopped at the Goblin chiefs corpse and pulled out the axe. She looked at Telvin and said "My Axe."

They made their way out of the caves and back up the main passage. Stopping at the junk room he picked out some junk wood and some supplies that they would need to make camp. On reaching the entrance he took a look at his map and said, "There is a clearing twenty minutes away that would be a good place to camp." 

Mianda said "Can we just walk to a village?" 

"No the closest village is a few hours away, bad idea to travel in the dark." Telvin said.

Riley nodded and said looking at the sky "We best head to that clearing, it's fast approaching night." Thus they set off

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