01 initialization, p.9
01. Initialization, page 9
part #1 of Paths Of Power Series
Goblin Shaman Apprentice
Level 3
HP 55/55
Stamina 110/110
Mana 150/150
There were nearly half a dozen of these casters; casting magic is all well and good, but in games, it always sucked when the enemies had their own core of casters to go against you. The worst was the largest goblin and the oldest goblin. The oldest had a full-blown headdress and a better-looking staff with what looked like a glowing ruby affixed to the top of it.
Goblin shaman
Level 5
Hp: 55/55
Stamina 110/110
Mana 170/170
Goblin War chief
Level 5
HP: 70/70
Stamina 140/140
Mana 100/100
Taking on a few scavengers was no problem for Rukia and me, but there had to be almost fifteen of them here. The grunts were two levels higher, and there were nearly twenty of them. I had no clue how a body cultivator rank two would stack up against a level three, but I was sure it would be more challenging than the level ones. A core of casters, all likely with ranged attacks, possibly heals for their allies, and the shaman himself and the war chief was almost twice the size of the scavengers I killed before.
This horde was way too much for someone like me to take on solo, even with Rukia being so much bigger than she used to be. We would be killed going into that.
The settlement ahead at least had some basic fortifications, but the land between the hill I hid on and the town was mostly barren, no areas to hide, and no way to avoid the sight of the goblins. I wasn’t confident that I could run fast enough and far enough to escape their magic. I had no idea what the limits were on their spells, how far they could shoot, or what they could even do with it.
Depending on how many people were behind the walls and how strong they are, they might handle the goblins. I could try to take out the biggest troublemakers if the casters stayed in the back and I was able to get the drop on them. They had no armor, and their HP was the same as the scavengers. Classic glass cannons. If they were distracted enough, Rukia and I could possibly take them out. I bet their cores would fetch a reasonable price.
I realized I was trying to convince myself to follow these goblins and help the people ahead. I was terrified of the small sea of green making its way. I didn’t want to die; I needed to get home to my wife and son. I could get killed doing something like this… but those people could be killed if I do nothing; if those goblins manage to swarm the walls… there could be kids in there. Wouldn’t I want someone to help my son survive if they had the chance?
“Mother fucker” I whispered to myself. I slowly moved forward with a deep breath, keeping the few bushes there were between myself and the goblins. I needed to stay far back enough to avoid notice but close enough to strike when the opportunity presented itself. I was glad I topped up my Ki; if I had any left by the time this fight was over, I’d be surprised.
Chapter 9
It took well over an hour to reach the Settlement; goblins aren’t very fast on the march, it seemed. They didn’t march in orderly lines. Their members constantly shifted about. Several pounced on rodents and lizards they came across, eating them raw and still struggling. The chief didn’t seem to give two shits unless they got in his way or wandered too far off.
I stayed a good couple hundred yards back from the horde, careful to not be observed and even ranked up my stealth skill twice. The fenced-in truck stop looked deserted. I couldn’t see any movement inside from my admittedly imperfect vantage point. The residents, if there were any, must be hunkering down trying to avoid notice.
About a hundred yards from the fence, the chief brought the whole group to a halt. He seemed pretty aggravated over something, grunting, hissing, and gargling at his troops. The chief gesticulated wildly at the walls like they deeply offended him. The troops were getting riled up something fierce, and with a final bellow from the chief, the horde charged at the walls.
I moved to within a hundred yards of the Horde, a but under two hundred yards from the building when a message popped up in front of me.
You have entered the territory of the Snowville Hamlet
Nothing happened for the first couple hundred feet, but once they crossed into the final hundred feet, a ten-foot-wide explosion of fire knocked down several of the lead scavengers, quickly followed by a flying hammer arcing with lightning. The hammer smashed through the head of one of the prone goblins leaving a small crater in the dirt, then sailed right back and over the wall.
I could now see at least half a dozen heads peeking over the fence. One woman stood up fully, her head and upper torso showing as she shot a golden arrow at another of the prone goblins, finishing it off before she ducked back down again.
The people holed up here could pack a wallop, it seemed. As I marveled at their opening salvo, a large group of grunts seemed to trip and fall over. I could see tendrils rising out of the ground and wrapping around the fallen goblins and any that crossed into a roughly twenty-foot-wide circle, forcing all the other charging grunts and scavengers to circle around.
The casters held back, staying about a hundred feet from the walls. Maybe they knew something I didn’t, like the effective range of magic.
The goblin grunts slowed their charge, and the dozen that didn’t get entangled began chanting and waving their hands for a couple of seconds. Then, a faint red glow emanated from their hands, and almost as one, they launched tennis ball-sized balls of fire at the walls. It might have been more effective if they all aimed at the same spot on the wall, but a dozen different scorch marks appeared all over the wall in a fifty-foot wide arc.
Another fireball erupted on the entangled goblins as the scavengers reached the wall. The creams of pain, fear, and anger coming from their throats were horrendous to hear. I know goblins are terrible monsters and are often depicted as cruel and twisted, but no living creature deserved to suffer like that. It would be better to put them out of their misery as soon as possible.
The roots holding down the goblins hit by the second fireball caught fire, burning the goblins even more and a plume of smoke rising from the brush and roots on fire. The cries choked off and were replaced with coughing and choking. The other goblins increased their yelling and speed. Once the goblins reached the walls, chaos ensued. Lightning struck from the clear sky. It killed or stunned several goblins grouped up. Then, bolts of clear and pure darkness both struck out at weakened goblins.
More arrows of light shot out. Any goblin that managed to climb up the walls were either sent flying or fell from the wall. Usually, less an arm or with a significant bleeding cut somewhere on their bodies. The defenders seemed to be holding their own. I looked at the group of casters and the goblin chief. I saw something that didn’t make any sense to me.
Instead of the shaman apprentices and the shaman casting their spells and trying to bring down the wall, one of the shaman apprentices was lying on the ground with the shaman kneeling with a black glassy knife in his bloody hand and chanting. Another apprentice knelt before the shaman, and he slit the apprentice’s throat, more blood geysered out. Red and black energies spiraled out of the dying goblin’s throat and flowed into the black knife.
After a third goblin apprentice died at the shaman’s hands, he turned and used the same bloody knife to carve several lines into the chief. The chief grimaced in pain but bore it. The black and red energy left the knife and infused it into the chief.
Once the chief absorbed all the strange energy from the sacrifices, he began to chant and wave his hands about. His hands glowed with orange light. I could feel an increased pressure coming off of the goblin chief even from a hundred feet away. His body seemed to ripple and swell, muscles bulging, arms and legs lengthening, and a red glow emanated from his eyes. They used sacrifices to boost the power of the chief’s spell.
The chief let out a bellow of rage and charged towards the wall, large club gripped in his now clawed hands. The shaman began chanting his spell, accompanied by his remaining apprentices. I couldn’t do anything about the chief for the moment, the defenders would have to handle him, but I could interrupt the spell the shaman was preparing. It seemed to be a long one too.
“Come on, girl, it’s time for us to cut in on this dance,” I said to Rukia. I placed my pack behind a bush and gripped my spear. It would burn stamina, but I decided I would go for a full sprint. I cycled my Ki as quickly as I could through my bone meridian, feeling my agility rise in response and charged out, spear point leading the way.
As I thundered towards the group of casters, they turned and looked shocked at my approach. The shaman kept chanting, but the apprentices stopped their long spells and quickly chanted a new spell, hands glowing in a red light I was coming to know meant fire magic.
Rukia had a blue glow around her as her speed doubled as it did on that first day. She reached the goblins a full two seconds before I did and tackled one of the apprentices, icy fangs sinking into the goblin’s shoulder and ripping it clean off with a fountain of black blood. The shaman stopped chanting and tried to bring his glowing staff to bear, but he was too slow.
My spear pierced through his side, sliding in just below his arm. Blood burst forth from his mouth as his lungs spasmed from the trauma ripping through him. My spear tore sideways as I passed, nearly ripping him in half, spraying me in putrid gore. Right after my spear landed, I felt two hot impacts land on me, burning as if I had just touched a hot pan. I could smell the burning cotton from my shirt.
I spun around and darted at the two apprentices that hit me with their fire spells. Rukia tackled the one to my left, savaging it, and I ran the dozen or so steps and ran it through with my spear. There was a lesson to be learned here; despite the shaman being a level five creature, it still went down as quickly as a level one scavenger. Glass cannons can dish out the damage, but they can’t take a hit worth shit.
With the casters dealt with, I looked over at the less noisy battlefield. Many of the goblins were dead or dying. Three men and one woman surrounded the goblin Chief. One was the man with the sparking hammer. Another had a pair of butterfly swords in his hands and tried to slice up the goblin chief. The third man held a fire axe and what looked like a homemade wooden shield, trying to tank the chief’s hits.
The sole woman had a pair of tonfas out and looked to be trying to off-tank for the shield guy. She would dart in, distracting the chief, blocking hits with her wooden weapons before the shield guy would chop at the chief to bring its focus back to him. The rest were doing their best to land hits and wear the damned thing down.
Some more goblins were entangled by a new circle of roots, and there was one figure, hard to make out that darted from rooted goblin to rooted goblin, slitting their throats. One woman from up on the walls would occasionally throw a green orb at one of their allies, and their wounds would close. She must be their healer. Not a bad group build. They have their tank and off-tank, a few DPS, and a healer. No wonder they survived nearly a week when so many didn’t.
After quickly looting the goblins we killed, Rukia and I approached slowly. We didn’t want to get in their way or distract the people fighting the goblin chief, but be ready to step in if it was needed.
It didn’t look like we needed to step in as the guy with the sparky hammer… I’ll just call him sparky, at least in my head for now. Sparky thrust his hammer up, and another bolt of lightning fell on the goblin chief, stunning him for a critical moment that let slicey mcslicey slash his butterfly swords across the goblin’s throat almost severing his head entirely.
The goblin Chief seemed to deflate, sagged to the ground as blood bubbled out of his neck.
“Wow, you guys tore him up real good,” I said into the silence following the end to the fighting.
All eight of the survivors stared at me like I had grown three heads and grew twelve feet tall. Their hands tightened on their weapons, the ones on this side of the wall grouped up behind Shield guy, ready for more violence if I twitched wrong. Rukia let out a low growl next to me, and I slowly knelt to one knee, put my spear on the ground, and wrapped one arm around her shoulder to calm her and keep her from attacking anyone, I didn’t think she would, but we have both changed since the Initialization.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here with these monsters,” the guy with the shield asked with a stern tone in his voice.
I analyzed him before answering.
David Mathews, Headman
Warrior Level 5
HP: 78/111
Stamina: 58/182
Mana: 54/100
“My name is John, John Baker. I’m a Truck Driver, or at least I was before all this shit happened. I mean you all, no harm. My truck broke down when the System Initialization happened, about thirty miles or so north of here on the 84. My dog and I have been trying to survive and make our way here, the closest town I knew of, in the hopes of finding other survivors. And well, I guess here you are.” I gave them the short version for now since they were still rather tense.
“And how did you happen to show up right after we killed off this goblin Raid? Think carefully about how you answer. You won’t survive the wrong one,” he said grimly. I felt a cold blade appear pressing against my throat. I didn’t even sense their approach.
I fought against a gulp, not wanting to have my throat slit. “I was ambushed by a few goblin scavengers a few miles from here. I saw another group of goblins vaporized by a herd of holy cows.” I felt the knife dig a bit deeper and saw a red number flash for a moment as the blade bit slightly.
-3
“Don’t be smart with us,” a soft female voice whispered in my ear.
I stammered for a moment, cleared my throat carefully, and said, “I mean it, my Identify called them holy cows, sacred cattle of Apollo. They were red, could heal each other, and shoot heat beams at threats. The prompt said they were FR two, whatever that means. But, C’mon, guys, my dog and I traced the goblins that ambushed us back to their group. This group. I saw they were heading in this direction but didn’t know how far their magic could reach, so I couldn’t risk getting out in front of them to get here first.” It was tough not to swallow and make the knife cut deeper.
“Could you ease off with the knife a bit, please? I can feel my blood trickle down my chest” I tried to remain calm as I asked.
The warrior nodded to the, I’m guessing here, rogue. The knife eased off, but it was still touching my skin.
I couldn’t help a hard swallow that time. “Um, where was I? oh yeah. I decided to follow from far enough behind that they wouldn’t notice me. If they were based here, I would sneak away and try to find another town or something. But if they were going to attack survivors here, I wanted to be nearby if I could help. And I did. I took out the casters for you. I couldn’t stop them from buffing their chief with some kind of ritual, but once he was off to attack you, I took care of the shaman and his apprentices.”
I saw the group nodding as I spoke
“Once they were dead, I saw you guys had things almost wrapped up. So I walked up here openly. I didn’t want to get in your way, so… yeah. Here we are now.” I was sweating a good bit, which didn’t help with the smell of goblin blood covering me.
“If you are a trucker, where did you get the boar spear?” a woman on the other side of the wall asked. I used Identify her as well.
Ella Clark
Artisan Level 3
HP: 60/60
Stamina: 120/120
Mana: 136/200
“I made it. I came across a farm where other goblins had either killed or run off the owners. We took shelter in their storm cellar for a couple days. Scavenged some, and I used a forge set up in their barn to make my spear. I didn’t have much else to use for a weapon until then. I’ve dabbled in smithing a bit before everything went to hell in a handbasket,” I answered honestly.
“It’s not bad work, especially without any power tools to use. Above-average quality, Ki infused, how did you manage that? And what does it mean?” she asked.
“I would be happy to answer any of your questions if you answer some of mine. But could we maybe, not do it with a knife at my throat? I’m sure scavengers will be here soon too. I swear I mean you all no harm” I felt a rush of energy flood out of me in a golden aura. I saw my Ki pool drop by ten points too. “what was that?” I asked, startled.
“Well, I guess you were telling the truth. This system takes swearing seriously. If you are telling the truth, it takes ten percent of your energies and shows that glow. But if you Lie, you lose half your health, all your energies and get a pretty nasty debuff crippling your energies for a full day.” The Warrior said. “be glad you were honest when you swore just now. We had a guy that was stealing from the group. He tried swearing his innocence, but the system flashed a black aura and drained him.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
“Banished from my settlement, if we can’t trust you, we won’t let you put everyone’s life at risk. Let him up Jamie, I think he’s ok.” Jamie removed her knife and let me get to my feet. I patted Rukia’s head to let her know it was ok and looked at everyone, Identifying each.
Hector Adkins
Mage Level 4
HP: 70/70
Stamina: 120/120
Mana: 52/270
Hector was one of the guys behind the wall, he had a flaming red eagle perched on his shoulder
Hope Barnes
Cultivation Body rank 2
HP:53/80
End: 104/200
Ki:35/100
