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Chapter 167: Tale

He sighed. “I’m not some sort of expert. And you’ll be hard-pressed to find one, since most people who scuffle with ‘em end up in a state unable to tell tales, if you catch my meaning.”

“Can you at least tell us what happened when you fought them?” Erani asked, her half-whisper of a voice creeping into my ear.

The gold-degree seemed unsettled by her voice, too, but didn’t show it too much. I was sure he’d seen quite a few strange Spells in his time. He just nodded solemnly and leaned forward in a way that made me feel like he was trying to be cinematic. “I was on my way home from a job. I’d been tracking down a wild monster—a Goldspan, invasive to this land. They don’t mesh well with the environment, and normally end up making the Gloomspur problem even worse, so jobs to take ‘em out when they wander near here normally pay pretty well.”

“How do they make the Gloomspur problem worse?” I asked.

“That’s not the point. Anyway, I’d just killed the thing after a long, long chase, and now I was on my way back home. I’d lost track of where, exactly, it’d led me, but I knew my directions and the landscape well enough to find a road quickly, and I began heading down. This was an area of thick forest, trees looming over my shoulder, shadows leering behind me. I had no idea, but I’d unknowingly wandered straight into Goblin territory.”

He paused for dramatic effect.

“I walked down this overgrown dirt trail, roots and fallen logs covering it, dried up dead leaves blowing through the wind, and the sun was just beginning to set. So I pulled my bag out and grabbed my rations to eat for dinner as I walked. While I was fishing around in my pack, that single vulnerable moment, it was all they needed to get me.”

I waved my hand in a motion to get him to move along in the story. “So…what did they do?”

“I stepped down on the road, a footstep like any other, but I had no idea that the road had been trapped. The pile of leaves I’d attempted to stand on had no ground under it! The damned things had laid a pitfall trap right below them. The flimsy netting holding up the leaves easily broke away under my weight the moment my foot pressed on it, and I fell straight in. The fall must’ve been five, no, ten paces, at least! And after such a long fall, the dirt tunnel I’d tumbled into was laid below with sharpened stakes! My brand-new armor that I’d just bought the weekend before managed to save me from the majority of the damage—as did my admittedly hearty stores of Health—but I wasn’t unscathed. The pain, the damage, it stunned me for just long enough.

“So, what, they just set a trap for you to fall into?” I looked over at Erani. “Doesn’t seem that bad.”

He chuckled. “One trap? Kid, it was much more. Before I could recover from my fall, I looked up and saw a bottle being flung down the pit with me. It splashed against my plate armor, shattering and unleashing its liquid contents onto me. At first, I was scared of poison. But when nothing happened to me, I was just left confused.”

At this point, a couple bar patrons had pulled up chairs and sat at the table with us. A woman who was listening with bated breath spoke excitedly,“What happened next?”

“Well,” the man smiled, obviously loving the attention, “I definitely wanted to know what they’d thrown on me. But the next object gave it away—in a method I really didn’t like. A lit torch was flung down into the pit next, and at that moment I knew. They’d covered me in lamp fluid. If the torch hit me, I’d ignite!”

Gasps from the audience.

“But I was quick on my feet, and my mind was even quicker. Hurriedly, I opened my pack and flung out my cloth blanket, using it to catch the torch and then squeezing hard around it to smother the flame. I could tell the Goblins above me were confused when they failed to hear the screams of agony of someone burning to death, and they’d soon realize what I’d done. I had to act fast.”

“Wow…” a man with a wooden plate hanging around his neck said.

“So I drew my dual daggers and stabbed them into the dirt walls of my underground tomb. Using my grit, determination, and a little bit of upper-body strength, I scaled the wall, stabbing over and over and pulling myself upward pace after pace, until I could finally peek my head over the edge of the hole. But the moment I did…”

He paused, looking around at the half-dozen people listening to his story. I did not appreciate the theatrics.

“I was peppered with arrows!” he shouted with perfect timing to withdraw gasps from the crowd. “From all sides, the Goblins had brought bows and arrows. There must’ve been ten—no, twenty of them all surrounding me, hiding up in the trees using the natural camouflage of their warted green skin. I took arrow after arrow to the head, my Health only barely preventing them from piercing my skull, and quickly flung myself out of the hole, unsure of what to do. They were all around me, hiding up where I couldn’t see, couldn’t even reach them!”

“How did you survive?!” someone burst out.

He grinned. “Well, I’m getting there. But the story isn’t that flattering, I’ll admit. I decided, if there was a pitfall in the middle of the road, there were almost certainly more surrounding me. And with their numbers and coordination, I could bet that, if I ran, they’d chase me down and guide me straight into the next pitfall, where they’d be much more liberal with the lamp fluid and torches, I was sure. I had to fight. Even if they surrounded me, outnumbered me, everything. I had to kill them if I wanted to survive.”

I frowned. “If you knew they’d try to lead you into more pitfalls that they had around the area, wouldn’t you be able to avoid them? I mean, once you’re looking for them, you can just only step in places where you’re sure you can see the grass. Also, didn’t you say Goblins were slower than the average person? Surely you’d have no problems outrunning them.”

He sighed and leaned in to mutter, “Listen, don’t ruin the story for everyone, okay? Sometimes you have to embellish things for dramatic effect. I just thought I could take the damn things on.”

“Stop interrupting the story!” Someone shouted at me.

“Yeah, let him finish!”

He leaned back away from me and smiled at everyone. “So, anyway, there I was, surrounded on all sides by the Goblins, all of them up in trees and prepared to execute me. I had to fight back. So instantly, I charged toward the nearest tree that had one of them in it. I could just barely catch a glimpse of its yellowed eye through the leaves, and I saw. I struck fear into the monster’s mind. But it had its allies all ganging up on me, and it didn’t abandon its post. It drew back its primitive bow once more just as I reached the base of the trunk. Once again drawing out my daggers, I stabbed them into the trunk and started climbing. It was high up in there—probably ten, maybe even fifteen paces straight up—but I was sure I could reach the thing if I had enough time.”

He paused and looked around at the audience.

“But the Goblins had other plans for me. The one I was chasing up the trunk, it shot down at me once, twice, three times! But I was able to swat away its arrows now that I had it in my sights.”

“Wow…” I heard someone say. “Gold-degrees are so powerful.”

“However, just as I reached out to grab its leg, planning to throw it right down into the pit they’d thrown me into, it crouched, extended its legs, and jumped straight out, all the way into the branches of another tree! A superhuman leap—I doubt even I could do it with the ease the Goblin did. But I realized, it’d had help. The things were wearing harnesses, ones that they’d made, and they’d been attached up in the branches of the trees so they could jump down and swing from branch to branch with ease! I sighed, realizing it’d take a lot more work to kill these things than I’d thought. Really, I felt like I might never get it done. But I hadn’t noticed one key thing. One key thing that turned this from an annoying encounter, into a deadly one.”

“What was it?!” Someone squealed, unable to contain their excitement.

“When the thing leapt out of the tree and into the next, it’d left a present for me. A bomb."

I raised my eyebrows. “A bomb? Wait, okay, back up. So, they’re, like, Humanoid monsters, I guess, right? If they’re able to use things like bows and make tools and stuff, I imagine they’re similar to Humans, at least. But they can also make magic items? Is ‘Goblin’ just, like, a term for a foreigner, or something? Or a native Human tribe? Because I’m definitely not exterminating them if that’s the case.”

“You’re mistaken,” the gold-degree laughed. “They aren’t Humans—I can promise you that. And they can’t use magic, either. When I say it left behind a bomb, I’m not talking about a magically-created one. Not like the ones you or I would know. No, these are mundane items. No magic used whatsoever.”

“What? How do they get an explosion without magic?”

“No clue. Goblin secrets. I talked to someone about it after I fought these things, and they said the Goblins do it by using this thing called ‘sulfur.’ Apparently it’s a somewhat uncommon way to blow things up without the help of the System. They mine it out of the ground and use it to make explosives through purely mechanical means. Honestly some pretty crafty stuff. I’d be impressed if they didn’t constantly use the explosives to kill people. Anyway, the Goblin, right when it’d leapt out of the tree, had left a timed charge behind, the fuse lit and ready to go off with me having no idea. Well, let’s just say I got an idea of my imminent demise right when I met my fate. The explosion went off barely even a couple paces from my face.”

“Woah…” the crowd murmured to each other as the man paused and let them wonder among themselves about how he could have possibly survived such a thing.

“Folks,” he raised his hands, “I am very lucky. No idea how I did it, but I lived through that explosion. The tree I was holding onto was completely destroyed by the bomb—splintered apart into tiny chips not even big enough to use as kindling. Even the ground below me was turned into a crater. A crater which I fell into, barely any more Health left to me than an Unclassed would have. I was charred and smoldering, still peppered with arrows from the other Goblins in their trees, and still bleeding from the spikes I’d fallen into. I was near death. But I still had fight in me. I was still ready to kick their sorry green asses for ever thinking they could get one over on me.”

“So what did you do?!”

“Well, I tried getting up. But then, before I could even get two hands on the ground, that exact same Goblin, the one who’d leapt into a new tree, it walked right up to me. And in its hands, do you know what it had?”

“A knife!” someone shouted.

“Another bomb!” said another.

“No, no,” he laughed. “I’d be dead if it were either of those things. What it had was a plain old rock. But it lifted the thing up all the same, and smashed it into my face, knocking me out. When I awoke, I felt them tugging at my armor. They were trying to rob me blind! I could already feel, they’d taken my backpack, my weapons, my food, my water, and now they were trying to take my brand-new plate armor!” He laughed again. “But that greed, it was their undoing. See, you know how the thing had hit me with a rock instead of killing me? Well, I have a theory as to why it did that. My armor, it was new. It was shiny. And if it used an arrowhead to slit my throat, that shiny armor would’ve been covered in my blood. And I bet they wanted my armor in clean, perfect condition. Same reason why they didn’t just fill that pit with bombs instead of spikes. If they did, it’d ruin their loot! But they made the mistake of trying to take my possessions while I was still alive, and I was going to make them feel that mistake.”

“So cool…” someone muttered. I was honestly getting tired of the crowd, but if this was how I had to get the information, so be it.

“So, right as a Goblin tried tugging off my gauntlet, I whipped my hand out and grabbed its throat, snapping its feeble neck in a single squeeze. Then I took my own dagger out of the hands of one of those greedy monsters, and stabbed it right through the eye with its stolen cargo! With kill notification after kill notification, I took the things out, and they dropped like flies. Didn’t even take a minute before they were all dead.”

“Wow! You’re so cool!” Someone shouted from the crowd.

He waved off the compliment. “Maybe. But I didn’t survive because I was cool. I only survived because they made a mistake, and I had the presence of mind to capitalize on that. They got what was coming to them, but I wouldn’t suspect they’ll ever make that mistake again.”

With that, his little show was over, and most people wandered off. Well, most except for me and Erani.

“So…” I said after waiting for everyone to leave and for the tavern to regain its dull buzz of a dozen different conversations happening at once. “How much of that story was fake?”

“None, really. I mean, sure I embellished here and there, but for the most part, it all happened.”

“...Uh huh,” I nodded. “Well, in that case, I really don’t see what makes these things so dangerous. I mean, as long as we don’t fall into one of their traps, we’ll be fine, right? You only fell because you didn’t know where you were. If we’re actively looking for them, we’ll be much more careful.”

“They’re still dangerous even if you don’t literally fall into one of their traps,” he sighed. “You heard what I said about the explosives, right? Can you imagine trying to fight off fifteen of those flamin’ things? All of ‘em with explosive pouches in their pockets, ready to be lit at any moment? Anyone would die in a heartbeat.”

“You survived, didn’t you?”

He pursed his lips, and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Well, okay, maybe that was one of the parts that I embellished. I didn’t exactly kill them all. Well, I didn’t exactly fight them at all. They knocked me out, and I woke up to them robbing me. That was true. But, I mean, how could I fight them? They’d kill me easily. So I just played dead and let them take whatever they wanted. Once I was sure they were gone, I got up and ran off.”

I frowned. “Wait, then what happened to your stuff?”

“They ran off with it!”

“Why do you have your plate armor, then?”

“This old junk?” He looked down at his armor and laughed. “This was my old set, the one I tried to replace! Had to go back to wearing it once I lost my new set.”

I groaned, rubbing my face with my hands. “Okay, so you really think we’d have no chance?”

“If I couldn’t do it at gold degree, you probably won’t be able to do much at silver. Sure, you’ve got two people, but I’d estimate that, combined, you’d only match me in power, not exceed me. So no.”

“Hm,” I nodded. “What if we had three?”

He looked around. “I don’t think you’re gonna find a third man for your party. Not if you’re planning on going up against Goblins.”

“Just ignore that,” I said. “What if we had a third person? Someone who’s at our power level.”

“Probably past it,” Erani chimed in.

I nodded. “Yeah. She’s really strong. You think we could do it then?”

“It’s not just about strength,” he said. “Their craftiness is the great equalizer. No matter your Level, if you fall into a pit, get lit on fire with lamp oil, get blown up by their mundane bombs…it’ll be a problem. Sure, more Health can help, but they’ll outnumber you, too. And I’m telling you, they will get the drop on you. That’s the real problem. If you’re going into their territory, they’ll have traps all over. No way you can get through without falling into a few of them. Especially if you’re actively trying to run into the things. I’d advise someone at your Level not even set foot in their territory because of the risk of you running into them. But to go looking for them? You’ll fall right into their hands.”

I nodded. “Well. Thanks for the advice. We’ll think about it.”

“Yeah, you better use your brain here,” he nodded. “No sane person would ever go after them.”

We got up and walked out of the guild lobby, into the bright sun of the day ahead of us.

“What do you think?” Erani asked.

“Oh, we’re doing it.”

“I was thinking the same thing. If the problem is traps, you should have it handled easily, right? I mean, it’s kind of impossible to surprise us.”

“Yeah. Still got three uses for the day,” I said. “I highly doubt they’ll pose an issue with that at our disposal.”

“So, what do you say? I’ll call Ainash and we can go over the plan with her?”

“Yep. Hey,” I laughed, “maybe she can make friends with them and we won’t have to fight at all.”

“Yeah,” Erani rolled her eyes. “That sounds likely.”