Andrew’s Adventure (1/2)

“Tower feels a bit lonely today. Penny hasn’t been by since bringing that interesting lad to me. To think the System would replace his whole skeleton with only a single reward! Not that bone replacement was out of my expectations but I expected either a single bone or a set of bones. Maybe I can find some more interesting scamps around the guild!”

Mind made up Andrew pops to the entrance of the Adventurers Guild. A small party of adventurers get pushed out of the way as he appears there but are easily ignored. He strides confidently into the guild and glances around. Not much happening and all the parties inside know to not make eye contact. Sometimes Andrew just has to question his past decision to only give out wacky quests to those who do but Penny has kept him to his word. Speaking of Penny, there she is rushing out from the employees only area.

Penny jogs right up to him and grabs Andrew by his sleeve to drag him into the back. As this was basically his goal in the first place Andrew takes the time to read the message, he got when he entered. Once they are out of the common room Penny turns around with her hands on her waist, “what in the world are you doing here? You go through all the effort of hiding your tower only to just show up at the guild? I don’t have anyone interesting for you to play with so go home!”

Andrew chuckles, “Don’t worry, I don’t need to stick around.” Penny gives him a death stare. He rubs the back of his neck, “well not anymore! Something came up which should distract me a day or so. Received a letter when I got here. It was from that boy, Jason I think? Anyway, the guy who got a new skeleton sent a letter and there is a doozy of a research opportunity for me out in the wasteland!”

Penny just shakes her head, “you were planning on having me pawn some newbies off on you to mess with. It has only been a few weeks since Jason and his group left. That little kerfuffle should have given you enough to study for a long while.”

He waves his hands around, “bah, it should have in theory. However a single data point no matter how tasty doesn’t a study make. But this new thing is even better! Jason found three tribes worth of almost civilized goblin sub-species. Beyond that they have animal heads. There are enough species with stuff like that. However all the other species stick to a single family of animal forms. The Anubi, for instance, all have jackal heads no matter what. These goblins however have all kinds of animal heads! In fact, the three different tribes are split between the common dietary types. Carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores.”

“Then get out of here you old coot!”, and Penny shews him out of the guild. Andrew just laughs it off and pops over to the edge of the wasteland. He takes a quick look around and nods his head, “not much has changed here. A little farther away from the rabbit plains but that is to be expected. The forest and the mountains also ran away from her area long ago. Some upstart wasteland won’t be any different. Now I just have to find the little blighters. From the letter I assume they will be closer to Wasteland’s Edge than they are to Shinefish. Welp, better get a move on!”

Andrew lifts off the ground and rockets forward, the land below streaming past at absurd speeds. At the halfway point Andrew slows down a tad and strange runes start to drip off his fingers. The runes float up in the air forming intricate circles. Moments after each circle is complete they zoom off to each side of him not to be seen again. At least until one returns and inside of it is the frozen image of a goblin. Not just any goblin but one with the head and feet of a deer.

A smile spreads across his face, “perfect! They truly are as he describes. Now to gather a little bit of intelligence on the situation.” Andrew reaches into the frozen image and pulls the goblin out. As he does sickly green runes emanate off his hands and burrow into the monster’s head. “I hate using aggressive mind magic on something so close to being civilized but it is the quickest way to find out what is going on. Tribal monsters, especially anything goblin based, are irrationally fearful of their higher ups. Probably wouldn’t spill the beans if one of those carnivore-headed goblins told them not to. Thank goodness the System restricts actual mind control style magic from targeting civilized sentients.”

It takes a few more moments for the goblin to stop freaking out, that and Andrew landing them on the ground again. Neither goblins nor deer are known for flying. With it no longer screaming in terror Andrew opens up with a barrage of questions. “Do you have a name and if so what is it? How many are in your tribe? How many are in each of the other two tribes? Who is in control of your tribe? Does your tribe want to become civilized? How about the other tribes?”

The goblin stands up stiffly and answers in a robotic fashion, “No name, 43, 22 in meat eating tribe and 37 in the tribe that eats all, meat eater elder controls everyone, yes, meat eaters want to so they can get out and eat other civilized being while the tribe that eats all are split on it.” Once done speaking the goblin slumps over and goes into a panic attack. Revealing the carnivore tribes plan pushed it into despair.

Andrew smiles down at it, “don’t worry little one! I am here to figure this mess out. Everything will work out fine.” He waves toward the runic circle that had just been floating off the side. It swoops back down and the goblin is once again trapped in it. “Good! This makes my time here worth it all that much more. No one knows what prompted the formation of the three-eyed goblins so it will be nice to personally witness what changes might happen. First though I need to gather them all. Only 102 of them so this should be easy enough!”