69. Monster Hunting: Wiremu

Tāoke and I are now trying to stealth through a goblin-infested forest to find a Shaman. It is not as easy as it sounds, and it does not sound easy. It is only a light forest with wide gaps between trees and sparse undergrowth. Stealth and Camouflage are getting a serious workout. Tāoke is up ahead as my scout, as he finds it easier to move unnoticed for some reason. It might be the size difference. Maybe.

The smell of goblins is everywhere. When underground, they are active whenever they feel like it. Above ground, they are more active at night, so in some respects, this would be easier during the day. In other ways, not so much. I think they are about to launch an attack on the wall. Without Camouflage, this would be impossible. Darksight and Hearing Aid are helping me avoid the worst groups. I have a knife in one hand and a dart in the other. My bow is over my shoulder with a small quiver. I dash to the next tree throwing a dart ahead of me, catching a goblin in the eye and then my knife is at his throat to make sure.

I can see a Shaman through the trees with a large number of Goblins. I hope he will send them against the wall, leaving him relatively vulnerable. I put my knife away and ready my bow while dashing to the next tree. I saw Tāoke drop on a goblin from above and wrap himself around the goblin’s neck. I knew through the bond he had locked his joints using Granite Bones, so strangling the goblin is not costing him any energy or venom. The goblin's claws were barely scratching the Snakeskin. He has got scary smart. I put it down to how much time he is hanging around me. Genius can rub off.

I line up a triple shot with two Venom Arrows. I need the extra arrows to align vertically rather than horizontally. Otherwise, they won’t make it through the gap in the trees. Damn, he moved. I also think I need to be a bit closer. I lower the bow without taking the shot. I move to the next cover, which is a fallen log. I am lying flat and have Camouflage active as a group of four goblins walk past. They nearly stepped on me but passed without noticing me, although I think one did take an extra sniff. I move to the stump of a tree and kneel. I have a good view of the back of the Shaman. I line up Triple Shot again as Tāoke joins me. This time I take the shot, and it hits with all three arrows. The two Venom Arrows get absorbed into the Shaman, and the physical arrow lodges deep. If he is one of the Death Shamans, it won’t kill him. If he is any other type of Shamna, this should be a kill shot. He turns to me and points at me, yells and staggers. Time to go as he has a lot of goblins around him.

Goblins are quick, but this is not their normal environment. I run. Fast. Tāoke is on my shoulder, facing behind me. Every now and then, he spits Venom at a goblin. There is no stealth now. It just comes down to speed. The Goblins are yelling, and I am dodging the ones coming in from the side as I dodge around trees. My knife is swiping at some, and I am throwing darts as I have the opportunity. Suddenly I feel claws in the back of my armour, and Tāoke lunges for a strike. The claws fall away, but I miss a throw and a goblin charges in from the side. I stumble, but his claws don’t penetrate my Troll Leather Armour. Don’t ever stint on armour. His claws don’t penetrate, but his teeth do, and I still stumble forward. I put my hand on his head and trigger a Granite Spike, and I am off again. However, it gave my chasers a chance to catch up, and two landed on my back. Tāoke takes care of one, and the other sinks his teeth into my shoulder. I just keep going because if I stop, I am dead.

I see the shield line ahead. The Twins are in the centre and have a gap ready for me. I feel more claws skim off my armour, and then something latches onto my arm and takes a bite as I rush past the twins. They close the gap behind me. I roll on the ground and dislodge the two goblins that came with me. Ört beheads one, and Kryddor rips the throat out of the other. The shield line is busy, but I take the time to check my status for the monster kill. Yes! I got him. That means these goblins should scatter quite quickly. I miss Tabitha and her Aura, or they would be gone by now. I picked myself up to see if I could help and saw Oske charging across the front of the shield line. He scattered the goblins almost as well as Tabitha.

Ört starts looking at my wounds and wiping the blood. The arm worries me the most, but I have full movement. The Sergeant comes up to me to check if I am OK. I think he thinks I am crazy. Maybe I am. I grin at him.

“One down,” I said. “At this rate, we might get three before dawn.”

The second one turned out to be the easiest. Two Shamans and their goblins were attacking the camp wall. They were not looking behind them. Kelda was on the wall throwing oil and lighting it to excellent effect. I snuck up behind a nature Shaman, stabbed his brain with everything I had, including Power Strike, and then pumped in two Granite Spikes. I threw a dart at the eye of the other Shaman but missed, and it was sticking out the side of his nose. He turned to me, which was not an opportunity missed by those on the wall as two arrows and a fire bolt went his way. I couldn’t stop to watch, as I had attracted attention. I gave the wall a quick wave before taking off with a dozen goblins on my tail. Unfortunately, I didn’t have as big a head start as last time, so this was a rolling fight rather than a sprint. I had a shield on one arm this time and a knife on the other. Power Strike with the shield was effective and Quick Strike with the knife. I just had to keep moving and not get tripped and swarmed. I didn’t make it to the shield wall this time. Skavt and Oske had to come and save my ass.

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I made sure to grin at the Sergeant again. This time I had taken a hit that split my lip, and my teeth were bloody when I grinned, just to add to the crazy. Actually, I think I had taken quite a few hits this time, and I had a lot of aches. I told them about the second kill and that I hoped the wall had taken out a third Shaman. The Sergeant, Skavt and Ört were worried about me doing it again. The Sergeant I could understand as I was purposefully winding him up and acting crazy. Skavt and Ört were different, and I considered them carefully. We would try one more, but I would be extra cautious. We had been very successful, and now I was tired and sore. Mistakes became much more likely.

I used to be a sensible person. A sensible person would have stopped while they were ahead. When did I become the gambler to keep taking risks? That is Tabitha’s role. We moved around to the other side of the camp, near the gate. The gate was looking very fragile. There were a lot of Goblins here. Too many. Dawn was about two hours away. I figured I would try to get a count on the number of Shamans and the types if I could. I wasn’t going to stir up this lot.

I ended up hiding in trees mostly. Goblins could climb them at the click of the claws, but they didn’t. I think trees were largely new and unknown, so it didn’t occur to them. I got in a position where I could see and what I saw was the Goblin Chief. He had certainly been caught in the blast. He only had one arm. He had stone armour that was cracked and crumbling in many places. He was big, like Modrica big.

I put aside the fact I should be able to make stone armour. Surely it is a modification to the Granite Shield Skill. I wanted to know what he was doing. Five dead Goblins were at his feet, and one was standing in front of him. He was moving and making noises. Then he suddenly grabbed a goblin beside him, broke its neck, and added it to the dead pile. He kept moving and grunting and growling, then grabbed another goblin, broke its neck and added it to the dead pile. The goblin standing before him looked zoned out and unaware of his surroundings. When he grabbed another goblin, I realised his movements and sounds were repetitive. Not rhythmic at all but in a repetitive pattern. I strained with my Sense Spiritual. It was barely Apprentice level, but I needed some clue about what was happening. Something was happening at the Spiritual level, but my Skill was too low, or I was too far away, or something. When the eleventh goblin died, that seemed to be the final one. He made a sudden violent movement and ripped his claws across the front of the goblin standing before him, so the goblins' blood flowed freely. The goblin changed. He seemed to grow, his skin stretched, and the blood flowing from him stopped and seemed to reverse. I pulled my vision back to take in the scene better and suddenly realised the Goblin Chief had just created a new Shaman with a blood affinity. Holy shit! That was some sort of ritual. One Shaman was worth much more than eleven goblins. How often can he do that? The Chief certainly looked drained, in the Spiritual and the Physical. Could he do one a day? One an hour? It made a big difference. One a year was probably too much to ask. While there were a lot of regular goblins, his supply wasn’t unlimited.

Then the realisation struck me. The Chief just made a monster core. Was this something only Goblins could do? The new Shaman was not heading to the walls but the tunnels. The monster core is probably small and needs time to grow, and he will probably breed. We need to find the breeding areas and wipe them out. There will be some reason it is not happening. Going into the tunnels is probably a big reason. Without Tabatha’s and my affinities, we would not have survived the tunnels.

That was a ritual of some sort. Ritual magic was never talked about or discussed. The Sentient races must know about it, which means it is being suppressed. If the governments knew how to make Monster Cores, they would be, so there is more to it. I knew from Tāoke that monster cores had the power to change a creature fundamentally. The horror stories were too frequent and varied for there not to be some truth to them. Therefore it is probably not just government propaganda. I needed to put this to one side and take down a Goblin Chief.

Even damaged as he was, a single Triple Shot would not do it. He looks to be in remarkable condition for a being in the blast that created the crater in the Kill Zone. Even allowing for his stone armour, surviving that is remarkable. I need to discuss this with Skavt and Ört. Ört is the brains, Skavt is the tactics. I started making my way back very carefully. Maybe I do have a semblance of common sense left.

We now only had an hour before the Army started their retreat. We ripped some cloth to write on to warn them the Chief was still alive, and I put it near a Sentry. We thought we would need all the Affinity users working together to take down the Chief. We didn’t know what the Army’s priority was, to get their wounded out or to take down the Goblins. They were down to half-strength, but I was betting they would prioritise killing the Chief. This was the Army, and they had a job to do and the opportunity to do it. Ört took that bet. Healers always prioritise the wounded. My camp chores will be done for me until we return to Jern.