A distant clang of metal sounded in the air as the gang assembled in their new favorite meeting spot within the junkyard, the site around Chul’s old hideaway. The den had become claustrophobic for them, surrounded as it was with a host of new shelters and goblin families. Chul enjoyed having the tribe around, but he still wasn’t accustomed to all the attention. The children were delightful, and they had a habit of swarming him and Rusty whenever they left the den. He enjoyed playing with them and telling them stories, but the adults were already coming to him to ask for favors and to take their side in disputes with other families. Whenever the Tribe moved, there was a good bit of squabbling over who got to settle where in the territory, what water belonged to whom, and so on, and Chul wasn’t particularly interested in any of that. He had always survived well enough with just the gang, or exploring on his own, and he thought goblins should figure things out for themselves.
Grik was willing to take on the role of tribe mediator for now, but he had made it clear that Chul was soon going to have to start taking his responsibilities more seriously, and the day-to-day management of the tribe was a big part of that. It had only been a day since the pledging ceremony, and the old goblin had suggested he take some time to himself to figure out his new abilities, and then come back ready to be a leader.
The gang had come with him, all except Jiwoo, who had insisted on staying behind to guard their den. Just because they were important now didn’t mean other goblins wouldn’t try to steal from them. Rusty’s hoard had grown so much that it took up most of the gang’s living space, and it made for a tempting target for young goblins who might want to show off a piece of that treasure to their friends.
“Okay gang,” Chul said, throwing his arms up, “I’ve got news!” He gestured toward Rusty, who was sunbathing on a nearby pile of shells.
“My dog got bigger!”
Sooji rolled her eyes. “We can see that, Chul. We’re not blind.”
His companion had more than doubled in size, now almost seven feet long, including his tail. He’d been shedding everywhere, and there were still patches of dry scales along his back that looked about ready to come off. His wings, oddly, hadn’t gotten any bigger, which had dashed Chul’s hopes that they would go flying around the junkyard together anytime soon.
“It’s what I thought would happen,” Jiho said. “Dragons get bigger as they advance in level. They grow to match their hoard.” His mood had improved since the ceremony. Chul felt bad for Jiho, who had had his heart set on becoming the Great Goblin himself, but this was far from the first setback in his life, and he wasn’t unhappy with the idea of being the foremost advisor to the new leader of the tribe. The goblins hadn’t been treating him with respect, exactly, but no one had spit at his feet or threatened him since the end of the trials, and that was definitely an improvement.
“Okay, well,” Chul went on, a little put out at the lackluster reaction to his first announcement, “also, I’m level ten.”
Sooji clapped. “That’s amazing, Chul! Congratulations.”
“Shouldn’t it be higher?” Seok asked. He was busy arranging a row of increasingly heavy stones to use for strength training. “He was already level six, and he had to get at least a hundred new pledges since then.”
“The most important pledges haven’t happened yet,” Jiho said. “The experience gained from low-level followers tapers off quickly. He needs the heads of the other families to give him their oaths if he wants to advance much farther, or else start having children as soon as possible.”
Chul hadn’t thought about it much, but it was true that while some of the other candidates from the trials had been present during the festivities, and even given him their congratulations, they hadn’t offered a pledge of their own. The higher level a goblin was, the more experience their pledge would be worth.
“That makes sense,” Sooji said. “Important goblins want to be wooed.”
“I hope not,” Rusty said, stretching his legs. “Chul isn’t very comfortable with all the wooing going on.”
Chul’s face darkened with embarrassment, and Sooji laughed. It wasn’t that he never wanted to have children, but he wasn’t ready for it yet. It wasn’t long since he had thought of himself as a child, and the gang had always treated him like a tagalong kid. Some of the females who had come to him had seemed nice, particularly Kkoch, but the idea of just jumping in and doing whatever goblins did to make more goblins with her or any of the others filled him with dread.
“Hey,” he said, changing the subject, “look at this.”
With a thought, he called up his status screen. The holographic [System] display flickered to life in front of him, and the others gathered around to look.
Chul “Great Goblin” Chul
Marsh Warden
Level 10
Attributes:
Wits: F3
Vigor: E4
Agility: D3
Spirit: D4
Might: F9
Health: E2
Mana: E8
Recovery: D5
Class Skills:
Nature’s Bond: 12
Terrain Mastery: 10
Spiritual Link: 8
Skill points available to distribute: 20
“You boosted your agility,” Jiho said. “Finally, a sensible choice.”
“My ranks are higher than yours,” Rusty said, “but the numbers I have next to my ranks are all lower. What does that mean?”
“The letter is more general,” Jiho said. “Most young goblins have attributes that are F rank. But as you grow and train, you can advance your attributes naturally without a level boost. A one means you're just barely in that rank, and a nine means you're a step away from being in the next category. It takes a long time to do that, though, and you haven’t done any dedicated training. So, you’re still stuck in the same steps you started with.”
“Not for long,” Seok said, pointing at the rock weights he had collected. “We can all start doing my workouts together.”
“You’ve only got three skills,” Sooji noted. “Don’t you think it's time for you to branch out?”
“Yeah,” Chul said. “I get to pick another advanced skill because I’m level ten. I want [Terrain Morph].”
“You can do better,” Jiho said. “If you’re still set on not taking [Marksmanship], at least think about [Natural Alchemy]. It would give you access to some medicines and antidotes, and there’s a branch that helps you construct special traps. You like traps, don’t you buddy?”
“What kind of skills do you have again, Jiho?” Rusty asked. The scaly dog had raised his head and was looking at Jiho so intently that it seemed more like an accusation than a normal question, which Chul thought was weird, but he was more interested in his own skills than anyone else’s at the moment.
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He did like traps, though they never seemed to work right when he tried to put them together. After repeated failures, he’d concluded that rats were just too smart for him to trick with sticks and strings, and he’d never worried about it much after that.
“How special are the special traps?”
“Very special,” Jiho assured him, not looking at Rusty.
With twenty points in the bank, he could afford to bring [Natural Alchemy] to a ten and get a different advanced branch, but that would mean he had to wait until level fifteen to learn [Terrain Morph], and that was a long way off. He might never get there if he didn’t win over the more important goblins.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I always wanted to brew potions,” Sooji said. “Maybe you could teach me some things once you learn.”
That decided him. Sooji had always been kind to him, and he felt bad that it was so difficult for her to advance. If he could teach her something, that would be a way of paying her back for having looked after him when he was a little gobbo. He couldn’t remember his own parents. They had died when the big bad happened and Jiwoo stopped being a leader. Sooji was the closest thing to a mother he knew, even if she wasn’t particularly motherly.
“Okay,” he said, and made the selection. He put ten points into [Natural Alchemy], and if he didn’t like the options that opened, it still left him with plenty left over to put into what he had originally wanted.
He got a notification.
You have successfully allocated (10) skill points into Natural Alchemy. This skill grants you the expertise to harness the abundant resources found in nature for crafting. You can now concoct potions and antidotes from ingredients associated with your chosen terrain (Junkyard), providing vital support during your adventures. You also have the option to craft traps out of the resources found in your surroundings. The effectiveness of the items you craft will be directly proportional to your mastery in "Natural Alchemy."
“Let’s try a few,” Jiho said, rushing to collect a heavy sack from nearby. “What do you know? I happen to have some ingredients and tools right here. Who could have predicted this?”
Sooji rolled her eyes.
Chul giggled at Jiho's eagerness, and the group gathered around, laying down a tattered but clean cloth to serve as a makeshift workspace. Jiho had brought dried herbs and mushrooms, bottles of water, some pots, and a mortar and pestle for grinding ingredients.
Chul felt a strange connection to the items laid before him, as if the skill had created a line of communication between him and the resources of the junkyard he had never considered before. His fingers knew which herbs to pick up and which pastes to mix all on their own.
The gang watched, entranced, as Chul worked with a focus and expertise that seemed to belong to someone else. His movements were second nature, as if he'd done this a thousand times before.
Jiho played the role of a stern instructor, even if his advice wasn’t necessary, pointing out potential combinations and suggesting ways to increase the potency of whatever Chul was trying to make. Sooji, meanwhile, maintained a respectful silence, her keen eyes following Chul's every movement, a slight smile playing on her lips.
With a flourish, he pushed the resulting mush into one of the bottles and held it up for all of them to see. It had the color and consistency of mud, and Chul experienced a twinge of doubt from Rusty. The System had made a few options available for him, [Basic Poultice], [Basic Antidote], and [Basic Tonic]. He knew that poultices sped the recovery of wounds, and the antidote would be generally effective against low-level venoms and toxins from the natural world, but he’d had no idea what the tonic was for, so that was the one he’d wanted to try.
“What did you make?” Sooji asked.
“It’s a tonic,” Chul said, feeling enormously proud of himself. “Want to try?”
“I do!” Seok snatched the bottle out of his hand and downed the contents in the next second.
“Ugh,” he complained, “that tastes like rat piss.”
Sooji smirked, “And why would you know what that tastes like, Seok?”
“You should have asked Chat what it does first,” Jiho scolded. “Don’t just drink anything you see in front of you. He might have done it wrong.”
Chul reset his screen to start a conversation with the [System].
“What are tonics for?” He asked, and it quickly generated a reply.
The [Basic Tonic] serves as a replenishing elixir that temporarily enhances the user's vital attributes. When consumed, it grants a moderate boost to Might, Agility, and Vigor. It is crafted using a blend of common herbs and minerals found in the wild (Junkyard), synergizing their properties to revitalize the user's body and spirit. The duration and potency of the effects will increase as your proficiency in "Natural Alchemy" grows, an essential tool for any Marsh Warden.
“Oh, I’m really feeling it,” Seok said, striking a pose. “Do my arms look bigger? I think my arms look bigger, guys.”
“They look the same to me,” Sooji said.
“Wait and see!” Seok rushed down to his line of stones and began hefting them up over his head in a manner that seemed bound to lead to backaches later in the day.
“That was good, Chul.” Jiho said. “Why don’t you look at all the options you have for advanced skills now?”
Chul did as he suggested. Each skill that he had raised to level ten gave him two branch options. He’d already invested in [Spiritual Link], and his other choice on that path had been [Nature’s Call], which was the ability Froglick had used during the melee to summon a horde of snakes and frogs. He’d been tempted to choose it before, as he liked animals, and he was interested to see what might come to his aid. But he had had his heart set on [Terrain Morph], which seemed too cool to pass up. It would be like the junkyard was fighting on his side, tripping up his enemies, and getting out of his way when he needed it to. It also cost a lot of mana though, and his pool was still in the E range, which would limit how much it could do for him.
[Natural Alchemy] had unlocked [Warden’s Snare] and [Elixir of Vitality]. The snare let him charge traps he constructed with mana, making them extra strong and hard to spot, but the mana he used for them wouldn’t regenerate in his pool until the trap was sprung or he dismissed the effect. He couldn’t afford to make many traps that way, and waiting around for something to trigger them wasn’t really his style.
The elixir sounded powerful, like a better version of the poultice and antidote rolled into one, and it didn’t hold on to his mana like the traps would, so he could potentially make a lot of them if he had the right ingredients.
“That’s the one,” Sooji insisted. “Pick it.”
“I don’t know,” Chul said, still thinking about [Terrain Morph].
“If I was a better [Shaman],” Sooji said, “then I could manage all of the healing. But I’m not, and that’s that. Seok was running around with a broken arm for days. If any of you had gotten hurt in the melee, there wouldn’t have been anything you could do about it. The elixir is a panacea, it’s good for anything. Even when Seok got a mouthful of Rusty’s breath weapon, this could have gotten him better right away.”
“I don’t know,” Chul said again, looking over at Rusty. “What do you think?”
The dragon quirked his head to one side, the silver horn on his snout catching the light. It had gotten bigger and was now as long and as thick as Chul’s thumb.
“I do worry about you getting injured. You’re not as tough as me, none of you are, and you don’t have any scales to protect you. The poultice might be good for recovering after a rough fight, but we could really need this.”
Jiho remained silent, which surprised Chul. But it looked like he was letting the others make his argument for him. He knew what they all wanted, and he wasn’t going to let down his friends just because [Terrain Morph] would be a lot more fun. He put five points into [Elixir of Vitality], two into [Spiritual Link], making it an even ten, and the remaining three into [Nature’s Bond]. Skills noticeably improved every five ranks. With [Nature’s Bond] at fifteen, he was confident he could start taming other companions. Rusty didn’t need any more taming, as far as he could tell, and was more like a brother than an animal companion. He’d never been very good at taming rats, as Jiho had often reminded him, but he could try again, or even find better animals to bond with. Maybe a bird. He liked birds.
“What about you?” Chul asked Rusty. His companion hadn’t shared his screens with him since the tribe’s gifts had been added to his hoard, and he was curious to learn how he had improved, apart from the obvious increase in his size.
“I’m level ten as well,” Rusty said. “And I put both of my attribute boosts into [Agility]. I was tired of always stumbling around.”
“Oh!” Chul jumped up excitedly. “We should have a race. Do you want to race with me, Rusty?”
“Shouldn’t we talk about his skills?” Sooji said, but the pair was already off and running. Chul was lighter than ever on his feet, and his [Terrain Mastery] meant that even the most treacherous of obstacles gave him only a moment’s pause. He quickly got ahead of Rusty as they put some distance between themselves and the gang.
“First one to the top!” He yelled, spotting a spiky pile of garbage that looked particularly unstable, rising almost twenty feet into the air. He sprinted to its base before catapulting himself up from a board that was jutting from its side. Within a few seconds of hasty scrambling, he had made his way to its peak, and looked around in confusion for Rusty, who had disappeared.
“Hey buddy?” He said. “Where’d you go?”
A moment later, he had to catch himself as the garbage beneath him shifted, and Rusty came slithering up like a junk worm, shaking off the debris that had clung to his scales.
“How did you do that?” Chul cried.
“Oh,” Rusty said, sitting back on his haunches. “It’s no big deal. I can tunnel now.”
Chul raised his arms over his head, screaming in delight.
“Trash dragon!” he shouted, leaping onto Rusty’s back, and wrapping him in his arms. The pair wrestled all the way back down the heap, coming apart at the bottom, laughing together. Rusty had always been impossibly strong, but with his increased size had come leverage, and Chul knew that Rusty could have overpowered him in a second if he’d wanted to.
“What else can you do?” he asked, eyes wide.
Rusty raised his head, no longer needing to look up at his friend.
“Let me show you.”