Chapter 197. Clearing the Floor.
“Step back five paces,” I ordered again, noticing the pile of dead goblins had grown. While not a well-oiled machine, the team executed the maneuver well enough. Whoever this Ebbiq was, he hadn’t stopped bellowing from further down the passageway. I still couldn’t spot him, but I had a magic missile with his name on it whenever he made his appearance.
With some space to work with, the Grulnoks continued to cut down the goblins. I began to wonder exactly how many goblins there were, so far, we had seen more than I had originally spotted inside their chamber. The passageway allowed us to see about twenty yards ahead, and it was still packed with goblins. As I watched, a goblin came flying from out of sight, and slammed into the wall with a sickening crunch. His body landed atop the other goblins, causing a pileup.
From around the corner, I got my first peek at what I assumed was Ebbiq as he tossed another goblin out of his way and shouldered aside others. Ebbiq looked like the other goblins, except he was probably twelve feet tall and was ripped with muscle. Walking sort of hunched over, the giant goblin barely cleared the ceiling.
He looked over to us and grinned. “Ebbiq sees you. Time to kill and fill my belly.”
“Here’s an appetizer for you,” I replied, trying to shout over the din of battle as I triggered a magic missile. The bolt flew from the wand and hammered into Ebbiq’s face, knocking his head back.
He shook his head, sprinkling dark blood onto the goblins below him. My shot had sheared off part of his ear, and dug into his scalp, but the thick skull of the oversized goblin had protected his brain. Roaring at us, Ebbiq grabbed the nearest goblin and hurled him in our direction.
Despite being huge and powerful, the giant goblin wasn’t any better at throwing things than I was. The hapless goblin, shrieking in terror as he flew, careened into the goblins near my minions, adding to the carnage, and allowing my minions a bit of breathing room as the goblin attack stalled.
Half of the little goblins were still trying to attack, but the other half were trying to get out of Ebbiq’s way or flee from the battle entirely. My wand came off cooldown, so I hit the giant goblin with another shot, trying to aim for the same spot on his face. Maybe multiple hits might crack through his thick skull before he reached our line.
The magic missile landed true, as they always did. As it slammed into the side of Ebbiq’s head. He was stunned by the blow, and stumbled, landing on his butt atop a pair of unfortunate goblins who probably didn’t survive the humiliating encounter. Ebbiq wasn’t out of the fight, but he was having trouble getting to his feet and looked confused.
Behind the giant goblin, I could finally see the end to his lesser kin. Many of the horde began to stream away from the fight, some risking the climb over the fallen Ebbiq to retreat into the room they had come from. My two orcs hacked down the last few goblins still focused on attacking our lines, as Ebbiq finally stumbled to his feet.
Off cooldown, I added a third magic missile into the same spot as the other two. This time, Ebbiq was ready, and at the last minute, picked up a screaming goblin as a shield to block the missile. Ebbiq tried to stand once again but toppled over and landed on all fours this time. While I hadn’t been able to crack through his skull yet, the two hits had obviously scrambled his brain to the point where he could only crawl toward us.
“Grulnok, head out there and try to kill him, watch out for his reach and for him throwing a dead goblin at you,” I ordered to the duplicate Grulnok.
“Hey, why you try to give Ebbiq orders?” the giant goblin muttered, his speech slurred and confused.
“What? I wasn’t talking to you; I was talking to Grulnok. I think my magic missiles did more damage than I thought,” I said.
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Staring at the duplicate seemed to trigger something in the giant goblin’s addled brain. He growled and began to paw at my minion. As I’d hoped, his attention was now completely on the Grulnok duplicate, allowing me to hit him again with a magic missile. The wand activated, and the missile slammed into his exposed skull near where the other two shots had hit.
Pieces of bone flew from where the shot landed, and with a pitiful wail, Ebbiq grabbed his skull and rolled on the ground in pain. My orc duplicate wasted no time, charging in and raining a series of blows from his axe and mace onto the fallen monster’s head. A few strikes later, the giant goblin lay still.
“Let’s head back into their lair, the numbers should be thinned out enough for us to deal with now,” I ordered. It took some time to climb over the fallen goblins, we’d done quite a number on them, but I wasn’t sure exactly how many had survived and fled. I held up our advance at the entrance to the goblin’s lair, only to spot a couple of the creatures retreating down a staircase in the far corner of the room.
Giving the swirling energy at the top of the stairs, it must have been the portal to the second level of the dungeon. I suspected most of the goblins had fled to the floor below, but just to be safe, we scoured the camp, looking for any holdouts. A trio of goblins sprang from one of the tents when Lillia peeked inside. She skewered one on her spear, but the other two were on her before she could recover her weapon.
I picked one off with a magic missile, and Rupert came to the rescue and dealt with the last. As soon as the final goblin fell, we resumed our search. Minutes passed before I was convinced there weren’t any other threats waiting for us. With this level of the dungeon dealt with, all that remained was to gather loot.
Having minions sure made this task a lot easier than it would have been if I was forced to do it on my own. I did help the team, starting with the largest tent that I assumed must have been Ebbiq’s home. As I suspected, the boss creature of this floor had a bit more in the way of rewards than the few coppers in a normal goblin’s pouch. I found a small chest in the back of the tent. It didn’t appear to be locked and I used a piece of firewood to flip open the lid, not wanting to fall prey to some trap after making it this far.
There weren’t any traps, and inside the chest, was what looked like a pile of dirty laundry. Using my trusty sword, I pulled out the stinking garments, trying not to gag as I did so. Nothing on Earth could come close enough to describe how badly unwashed giant goblin clothes smelled.
Once the stench ridden garments were out of the box, the real treasure was revealed, a pile of coins, and a golden goblet with a row of small green gems set around the rim. The coins in the box were mostly copper, but there were more than a few silver in the mix, as well as some smaller gemstones that I would have the folks at Refuge sell for me.
The goblet might be something more important, though, as it was the only item to not have any signs of dirt or corrosion on it. That told me it was magical, but as it wasn’t a direct system reward, I had no idea what it was or how it worked. All I could do was throw it in my pack and hope that once I made it back to my personal space, the system might give me a heads up on it.
If all else failed, it might be something that Tzes’zod could help with. He didn’t know much about my role as a summoned being, but identifying magic items seemed like it would be more in his wheelhouse as a negotiator. After all, how could he negotiate if he didn’t know the value of things?
The others were still rummaging through the fallen, gathering the coin pouches of the goblins. I sort of felt bad for the team, it was a gruesome task. It hit me then; I was going about this the wrong way.
“Ah, man, I’m sorry guys, hold up. I should have been the one to do the looting,” I said apologetically. I had forgotten the lessons I’d learned from Glenda and Hoen back when I’d helped defend their dungeon. All I needed to do to loot the fallen enemies was approach their corpse and the dungeon would transform them into loot. After all, the dungeon creatures inside here were all supposed to be just mana constructs.
“Sorry dungeon, I wasn’t thinking about it, and the last dungeon I was in wasn’t working properly. I can assure you I wasn’t trying to game the system, and if you want, you can dissolve the rest of the fallen without me pulling any loot from them. Is that fair?” I called out to the dungeon, suddenly worried that it would think I was trying to double dip on the loot, having my minions pilfer the corpses and then using my status as an adventurer to loot them a second time.
The dungeon core Glenda and her assistant Hoen had been kind enough to me, but I was there to assist them. Here, I was worried that if I’d offended the dungeon core, it would crank up the difficulty to end my delve, or maybe alter the loot tables to make sure I didn’t get anything good. A few moments later, the fallen enemies began to dissipate into mana vapor.
“If you’d like, I can leave now, just let me know. Otherwise, I’d like to see how your second floor is laid out. This one was a great challenge,” I said to the dungeon core that I hoped was cool with me now.
“You have been here before, with the thieves. Now, you return and wish to address me directly?” A voice thundered from the portal at the stairwell.