The goblin was a fair three foot high and wore a patchwork of rags, it had a crude-looking dagger and seemed equally as surprised as me. Now, the question is whether this universe has the intelligent kind of goblins or the dumb, savage type of goblins. So far it looks like the latter.
I and the goblin had a staring match for a while and eventually, the goblin started to wave around their hands slowly – I had no idea what it was doing so I kept staring.
Suddenly, some other goblin which I had not seen coming slashed at me, but seemingly not with the intent to harm but rather to cut the strap of my satchel so that they could run off with it. Seems like the weird hand gestures the goblin was doing was to cast a spell on me so that I wouldn’t notice his friend, or more likely he was just being a weirdo just to divert my attention.
Instinctively, I reached for the goblin to grab it but only managed to get a hold of its hat which slipped off – I swiveled my head quickly and noticed the distraction goblin was running away too.
I didn’t really know if I could catch up with them, so I threw my sword like a javelin at the goblin with the satchel. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen to skewer them and make me win the battle instantly, but it did make them trip over and drop the satchel.
Good enough, I rushed over to the goblin quickly and by the time I had reached them, (they hadn’t gotten very far away) they had gotten up and were beginning to run again, leaving behind the satchel. I very easily could’ve just let them run away and retrieve my satchel, but that hadn’t occurred to me at the moment so I bashed my shield into the back of the goblins head, making a satisfying but cartoonish crack noise.
The distraction goblin from before didn’t continue to run away but rather changed course and started charging me. Not really knowing the best course of action here, I charged into the goblin as well clenching my to my chest tightly. The goblin suddenly then decided that charging suddenly wasn’t all that great of an idea, and attempted to skid to a halt and change direction. Too late, I slammed into them and heard them heave as they smacked onto the floor and dropped their weapon.
Despite this, they were still willing to fight and scrambled towards their dagger. Not on my watch, I pounded my shield into the goblin's chest several more times hearing a cacophony of blood-curdling and bones breaking, before realizing it’d be far more efficient to go for the head. A few more whacks to the old noggin’ and the light from the goblin's eyes blinked away, leaving just me and the serene sounds of the forest.
Walking back to my sword and picking it up, I looked down at the first goblin I had killed. I plunged my sword into its head, just in case it was still alive and then wiped the blood off of using the goblins rags. Grabbing my satchel, tying up the straps and putting it back on I decided to inspect the corpses of the goblins now that I was now in a clearer state of mind.
These goblins weren’t particularly pretty, but I wouldn’t call them ugly either. I felt just a little bad killing a possibly intelligent species over a minor crime though, suppose, it’s all just a game, isn’t it? I sifted through the pouches and pockets of their apparel and found three pieces of gold, one piece of silver and a canteen half full of water. Wonder if this is stolen currency from other humans or just the currency of goblins? I pocketed it anyway as well as their daggers, which despite their crudeness were still quite beautiful as some designs were etched into the handles.
“Status.” I said, kicking my feet around now that I realized my lack of direction or objective.
_________________________________________________________
Your body feels okay.
Your torso is fine.
Your legs are fine.
Your arms are fine.
Your head is fine.
You have one attribute point. Spend?
Running: Very Low
Jumping: Low
Strike: Very Low
Carry: Very Low
Toughen: Very Low
Listen: Very Low
You have the following skills.
Shield: Very Low
Sword: Very Low
_________________________________________________________
Fantastic, another attribute point already! I went through the series of GUIs and spent another point in Strike, I want my Strike to at least be on the level of “Low” rather than “Very Low”.
Off we go again, hopefully in the direction of civilization or at least something interesting. Nibbling on some food and swigging some water, I walked for god knows how long until I finally found my way to a lone small log cabin. There was a sign above the door that read “STORE” as well as a sign on the door indicating that the store was open.
It’s something I guess, I gently opened the door and found a stout man sitting behind a counter, his eyes flickered and he suddenly got up.
“Greetings! Welcome to my humble store, I haven’t had a human customer in ages! Make yourself at home, I have all sorts of goods in here all at low prices! Hey, I’ll even offer you a discount just for being a human!” the man said jovially. I found his smile rather unsettling, but he was friendly enough at least. His comment about me being human was worrying though, as it probably means I’m far, far away from any human civilization.
Noticing I was still standing near the door, he beckoned me to come closer with some hand gestures. “Closer friend, I don’t bite! Oh, and the names Gorbshin, a pleasure to meet you.” he chimed. Walking over to the counter, I took note of all the items on display around the store.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Quiet type, huh? Not to worry, as long as you’re here to buy or sell.” he quipped, still smiling. Even in my old life I wasn’t much of a talker, having lost the inclination to talk long ago, not that I was depressed or anything. I was always just a quiet guy.
Whilst I’m here, I might as well see if I can get rid of the goblin daggers on me. I fished them out of my satchel and put them on the counter. “Ah, enchanted goblin daggers! They’re more dangerous than they look, I assure you.” Gorbshin said as he put away the daggers and gave me eight silver pieces in return.
Enchanted? He made me curious enough just to talk. “Enchanted?” I whispered, not wanting to raise my voice.
Gorbshin seemed a little weirded out by my speaking habits but also didn’t seem to mind either. “Yes, durability and lightness enchantments specifically, fairly good enchantments for goblins too.”
Now that I think of it, the daggers didn’t have a scratch on them and felt a little lighter than expected, which explains a lot. My own sword and shield were initially scratchless too though they had accumulated a few on my journey, but they both lacked any enchantment-looking inscriptions of any kind. Maybe enchantments don’t always have to be inscribed onto the tools?
Might as well buy something whilst I’m here. “Do you have a map and a sheath for this sword?” I asked, raising my sword to show it.
Wordlessly, the man took out a scroll from a nearby shelf and a sword sheath from another, plopping it upon the counter. “One gold and ten silver! Well, factoring in the discount it’s just one gold for you, my fine customer.” he jabbered. I found him a little annoying, but I’ll admit his positivity filled me with just a little bit of vigour. I shifted through my satchel again and gave him the gold piece, before equipping and sheathing my sword as well as grabbing the map and unrolling it.
It was a world map, depicting a continent as well as all the nation-states upon it. And there was an absurd amount of nation-states.
“Gorbshin? Which nation are we in?”
Gorbshin seemed unfazed by the question, implying that nomads weren’t too out of the ordinary, at least around here.
“We’re in Valia, which is right there.” He reached over the counter and tapped on a purple blob, which was a little larger than all the other blobs around it. Only its capital city was marked.
“And where are we in Valia?” I queried. Gorbshin responded by moving his finger a few centimetres to the left, far away from the capital city known as “Valia”. How creative.
I frowned, which Gorbshin noticed and responded by grabbing another scroll from another nearby shelf.
“This here boy is a regional map, marks all the towns and the terrain in Valia with a good amount of detail! You can exchange your world map for it.” he piped, plapping it down onto the counter.
I lightly tossed the world map scroll onto the counter and grabbed the regional map, I then grabbed the scroll and unrolled it. It displayed towns and their relative size, a depiction of a compass in the top right, roads, mountains and forests.
Gorbshin reached over the counter again and tapped a seemingly random part of a forest on the map. “That’s where we are. Say, you don’t have a compass, do you? What’s the point of a map if you don’t have a compass! Here, one second.” Gorbshin remarked. He lumbered around his workspace for a while before grabbing a spherical-shaped rock with all sorts of weird etchings engraved into it. “One gold and two silver.” he beamed. The fact that he was still somehow smiling was getting on my nerves.
Giving him another gold piece and nearly half of my silver pieces, he passed over the compass.
“Oh, that things uncharged. You know, it’s only three silver for a cha-” I cut him off by waving my hand, and instead took out one purple crystal from the analyzer-tablet-thingy from before and inserted it into the compass – finding the location of the crystal slot just took some feeling around. In response, a faint purple arrow appeared above the stone – it kind of looked like a sci-fi hologram.
“Got more questions. Can you tell me about the wildlife here?” I inquired, not looking at him but rather still fiddling with the compass and feeling the engravings.
“Fairly dangerous really, but nothing too challenging for someone armed and ready like you! I’d say the biggest threat around here are the goblins, but as long as you don’t look like you have anything shiny on you they won’t bother you. They’re not particularly violent either, but they’re no city goblins.” Gorbshin replied, who had now sat back down.
“City goblins?”
“You don’t know of them? Must be from Roschkra or something… Well, they smell and look like your average goblin, but are a little more bright. They can be found in your average Goblin tribe too, but they usually jump ship a while after their coming of age. Your average goblin is just the gold-snatching rascal we all know and hate though.”
This was mildly interesting to me, but I was getting off track and needed more general information about the world. “How do you level up at a good pace? Can you tell me more about the system?”
“System? Level up?” Gorbshin asked quizzically, tilting his head ever so slightly.
“I mean, the blue box things and getting attribute points.”
“Try to ask only one question at a time, don’t want to overwhelm me now do you! Well for your first question, you can earn your first couple of points just by going through day to day life – harvesting crops, skinning animals, that kind of thing. But after say, collecting five points or so the only way to level up is by killing dangerous animals, monsters or even people. We don’t know too much about the ‘system’ as you call it, but with an analyser like the one you had before we can see more specific information rather than the vague information it gives us.”
Nodding my head and scratching my sin, I was just about to ask another question before he started speaking again. “You know how to read boy?”
Assuming books in this world were also in English, yes. “Oh I am, are literate people rare around here?”
Gorbshin tilted his head again. “Rare? Of course, they’re rare around here! They’re rare around everywhere! You are one strange boy, but I feel like it’s a fair assumption that you don’t want to talk about your history...”
He was right, I wouldn’t even really know what to tell him. Would I just give him the plain truth and make the first person I met in this world think I’m insane? I mean, that is an option and the consequences aren’t probably that bad – but there’s also no real reason to tell him anyway. Gorbshin began speaking again.
“Anyway, as I was saying my dear friend, would you be interested in just purchasing a book on general world history? I’m sure for an intellectual such as yourself it’d be far more convenient than standing around here all day asking me questions!” Gorbshin said with a less jovial but more sincere tone.
As soon as I nodded in response, he shuffled out of his chair and opened a door to a storage room of some sort, presumably searching for a minute before returning with a thick red book with the title of “The World: Volume 1”. It was extremely dusty except for the parts of which Gorbshin had touched. He placed the book lightly down onto the counter. “Usually a book like this would go for around five gold pieces, but I doubt I’m ever going to sell this and I also doubt that I’ll ever want to read it myself. So, one gold piece.”
I was a bit confused by his generosity, he’s probably just a very lonely man who hasn’t talked to another human in a while. I gave him my last gold coin and put the rather bulky book into my satchel, which it just about fitted in thankfully. Time for another one of my own questions
“Who usually comes in here?” I asked, now uncomfortable from having to talk so much.
“Goblins. They sometimes try to steal a thing or two, but they’re generally fair fellows!” His smile faltered a little as he said that.
I looked over to Gorbshin who had sat back down again and was now not smiling but still grinning to himself a little. Despite his slightly annoying boisterous personality, I’d say he was of great help to me. I took out the regional map and used the quill from before to mark the location of his shop, before heading towards the exit to leave.
“You come back soon now, you hear? Advertise my services to friends, family and the alike!” Gorbshin yelled as I left the building.
I stood outside his building for a while just to take a closer look at the regional map and decided I’d set forward to the closest village, “Libita”. There was a road to it which may make things easier as it was an established route presumably free from goblins, wildlife and the alike – though there may be bandits. I decided against it just due to the possible prospect of bandits, and the fact that I’d have to walk all the way to the road. Instead, I’ll just walk to Libita right through the forest which seems a lot more straightforward.
Considering all the walking I’ve been doing and will be doing in the future, I now slightly regret not investing in agility. Only slightly, since being able to hit harder seems like a fair trade-off at least.