Ping!

A solid lump of something struck me in the chest, knocking me flat on my ass as it flew back into the cavern room it came from. I held tightly onto my sword and flashlight, and ahead of me Aiden and Yara were already taking a stance to ambush whatever came in from the fence.

Constitution Check : Failure!

You have been dazed!

Another lumpy shape hopped the fence, and it was immediately set upon by the warriors, cutting it to ribbons. The powerful stench of hot rubber assaulted my nose, bringing the memory of summer back on Earth to my mind. I blinked out the stars in my vision and after a few moments I was able to bounce back to my feet and see what had attacked me.

A goopy blob on the ground shook, condensing the ribbons of itself into four little balls. Two small blips of yellow light appeared in them, and focused on me as if they were looking at me. I tried to move back, and found I could only take half steps as I was still winded.

Scholar Livy

Don’t just stand there, RUN YOU IDIOT!

Either the dazed effect ran out on its own or the ghostly scholar had managed to command me from beyond the grave. I turned and sprinted for the door. I heard the sound of a dribbling basketball behind me as the odd lumpy blobs followed me. I heard Yara and Aiden shout, but I couldn’t make out their words, only the sound of their weapons striking things.

Two of the blobs shot past me, trying to cut me off. One of them formed a toothy maw, and spewed out a thick layer of resin onto the ground in front of me, while one from behind me hit me in the back. I was sent tumbling towards the floor hazard, and I desperately tried to jump over it. My wizard shoes heated up under my feet as if sensing my distress and they caused the rubber suit around them to burst open. My foot hit the cavern floor near the resin, which was now steaming hot. It felt like I was leaned over a piping hot oven, baking me in the heat and my shoes heated up again. I was sent flying over the strange foes, and right over the resin.

I struck the mushy ground and rolled to a stop inside the glowing moss, pink fluid coating me and my sword. I cursed as my flashlight rolled around the edge of the resin pit, drastically cutting back on the light around me. The lumpy blobs launched themselves towards me as they relentlessly chased me. They came to an immediate halt when they too struck the mushy ground. They tried to ‘hop’ in a sense, and fell straight back down.

I looked at the moss under them and heard the wet slosh each time they jumped. The moss was absorbing the impact of their force, keeping them from bouncing around. I had a thought coming to me, this had to be why they let the moss grow so close to the door, these monsters must have some kind of weakness to it. The blobs tried to roll away towards the flat cavern ground, and I noticed their lumpy bodies seemed to be hardening. I struggled to my feet and used the light of the moss to guide me as I cleaved the blobs in front of me. I easily hacked them apart and kicked the moss at them, coating them in the pink fluid.

The remains shuddered and instead of coming back together like before they simply melted into the glowing moss. They became a thick, greasy, rubbery carpet in the middle of the underground cave. I gave it a small kick and it felt like any run of the mill rubberized carpet I used to sell back at Dandy Warehouse. The remaining ones tried to rush away faster, but the fluid managed to it’s work and they hardened into rubber balls.

“Fine thinking, and good sword work,” Aiden said, as he and Yara jogged up. He carefully avoided the resin on the ground, although it seemed to have cooled down finally. He cautiously poked at the rubber carpet and seemed quite pleased when it didn’t move. “How did you know rubber slimes would interact with cave moss like that?”

Knowledge World : Failure!

I didn’t have time to speak as the gated fence exploded as another, larger monster was coming for us. The thing was as big as a car. It bounced around the entryway, gathering up momentum as it dribbled itself off the ceiling and floor.

Yara reached into her magical bag and whipped out a clay pot. She scooped up moss and the pink fluid into it, flicking her hand out in disgust. She held her halberd in her tail and pointed at the ‘rubber slime’ heading towards us at a rather worrying speed. “Think you can hit that?”

Aiden rolled his shoulders, splitting the arms of the suit open. “Easily.”

True to his word the hobgoblin strode ahead confidently, holding his scimitar out to his side. The approaching black blob was now the size of Sten, as each time it hit the ground it seemed to quicken and compress itself, becoming more compact to deliver its attack. Like it was a tightly wound up spring about to blow up. At once it rocketed towards Aiden, like a fastball from the world's best pitcher, intent on taking his head off.

“Evasive Strike!” Aiden shouted, bending down to one knee to seamlessly avoid the attack while bringing his scimitar straight into his attacker’s path. “Enduring Stance!”

The blob couldn’t change directions mid air, and it split down the middle, crashing into the wall near us. Yara doused one half with the contents from her clay pot, while I used my sword to hack apart moss near it. I picked it up by the handfuls and threw it onto the remains as it tried to form into a new foe. The other half spilled out, and the thing started to grow in size again. The three of us set on it, throwing moss, fluid and kicks at it for good measure, trying to halt it.

The party has defeated an encounter!

+75 XP to Josh.

+15 XP to Yara.

+10 XP to Aiden.

The thing was now a massive lump on the cave floor coming up to my chest, but it had solidified into a boulder. I gave it one more kick for good measure and the whole thing jiggled.

“Aye, a fine reward, you did discover their weakness,” Aiden said. He tore off the fragments of the rubber suit, having split it down the middle with his attack. “I think we know what happened to the goblins now.”

Scholar Bo

Fine thinking young man, a quick display of using your environment and wits! We took bets on you, and I’m glad to see you came ahead.

“Why would they have these things?” I asked, kicking the carpet. “There has to be an easier way to get a welcome mat.”

Yara shrugged. “I heard of the rubber slimes before, but never saw one. They usually keep them really small, bleeding off the resin and the outer layers of their bodies. You can feed them slop and garbage and they slowly convert it to useful rubber. It’s either that or import it from the coasts.”

“At the rate the merchant’s down there charge?” Aiden shook his head. “No, these things are usually easy to handle as long as you don’t let them get too big. Still, what a way to go.”

I looked down to see a black stain on the front of my suit, and I picked at it. It was a hardened layer of black asphalt material, like they were trying to cocoon me into it too. It also ate away at the suit and I ended up tearing it off like Aiden had, as it was now rather useless. It had done its job to protect me from one hit at least.

“Glad you thought of that,” Yara said. She shook her halberd, trying to dislodge the gunk from its head. “I would have just kept hacking them until my arms couldn’t lift my halberd anymore.”

“Eh, it was nothing really,” I said. “I mean, it makes sense after all. They left the moss around the door so they couldn’t get out. Not to mention It was kind of dumb luck I even thought of it.”

Yara lightly punched me on the shoulder. “Josh, learn to take a compliment. I’m being honest, Aiden and I are going to need you. We are both warriors, straight to the point and taking things head on. If we come across more weird creatures or traps I’ll need your smarts to deal with it.”

I tried to lightly punch her on the arm back, and felt my knuckles crack like I punched a wall. “That, or we just have you kick down the doors and brute force every puzzle we come across. There’s a saying back home, if you only have a hammer every problem looks like a nail.”

Yara hummed with delight. “Oh, I like that saying. One of my besties from my judicator coven loves to use a warhammer, I can’t wait to tell her.”

Aiden was crouched beside the fragmented remains of the fence. He cautiously stuck his head through the choke point to check out the room ahead. As Yara and I went to retrieve my flashlight he went ahead instead of waiting. As soon as my hand wrapped around my flashlight there was a snapping sound, like a mouse trap going off.

“I need you wizard!” Aiden shouted.

Yara and I sprinted into the room, finding a bizarre laboratory mixed with a barnyard. Brass contraptions, broken barn pens and copper tubes covered the perimeter of the room. It looked like a dozen farm animals could easily reside inside here. The brass machines were akin to farming equipment, and the only one I could really compare was a tall cylindrical brush with a foot pedal. If I didn’t know better I would have thought it was a cow brush. The middle of the room had a tall pedestal with a fist sized mana crystal set inside, connecting to the copper tubes to power the machines.

Aiden had somehow set off a trap by the fence, and was now inside a giant upside down glass jar. It was probably intended to capture escaping critters, and obviously wasn’t that great at its job.

“How did you…manage this?” I asked.

Aiden growled and pounded on the glass, surprisingly not even leaving a mark. I followed the line of copper in the floor and found a kill switch by the pedestal. There was a series of other knobs or switches, used to activate lights or open pens. I placed a finger tip onto the switch connected to Aiden’s trap, and I hesitated.

“I’ll let you out. If you make a deal,” I said.

Yara and Aiden both faced me in shock, with Yara recovering quickly to look impressed. Aiden struck the glass with the hilt of his sword and the glass jar glowed as magical power surged through the floor. A shocking blast erupted inside the prison and Aiden was thrown around the walls.

“Josh, that’s devilish of you,” Yara smirked. “Impressive though.”

Aiden was prone on the ground and raised a shaky hand towards the wall again. I sighed and tapped my foot impatiently. “Really? Come on, you're smarter than that.”

Aiden glared at me, his hair once again all over the place. He managed to get back to his feet and looked ready to charge straight into the glass. “You dare defy traditions? I would rather die than bend the knee-”

“You're going to die if you keep that up,” I said sourly. “Listen, this tower is inside my lands now, and I have zero intentions of being a prisoner to anyone, no matter who they are. So, like I said, I’m willing to make a deal.”

Aiden hesitated, halfway between wanting to fight me, while his sensible half seemed to be willing to hear me out. “Speak.”

I gestured to the bizarre room around us. “This place obviously has a bunch of magical machines and stuff I want to study, I want to learn how they work. I’ll give you some money, food and medicine so your team can make your way to Wyrmbreath when we get out. After that you leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.”

Scholar Livy

A dangerous game you're playing young man. But if you get him to swear by his name he will follow it down to the letter of your agreement. Their feyish nature forces them into it, but you have to get him to state it clearly.

Persuasion Check : Success!

+3 XP gained.

Aiden sighed and once again smoothed out his hair. “Fine. I will not take you as a prisoner, even though this is in violation of what we established. But, I want it to be clear, my team gets half the gold value in loot down here, besides these weird machines. I also want five days of rations and at least two healing potions or similar healers supplies for each member of my team.

Yara tapped me on the shoulder. “Mind if I do a little negotiating?”

I nodded to let her go ahead. After Yara quickly established that in fact the hobgoblins loved bacon we had the rations settled on. It turned out during my outing with Lin, Burn had been hard at work to build up a stockpile of health potions to flip with Rodney’s next visit, meaning we had plenty to share. After hearing the merchant’s name Aiden also eased up, seeing we were both allies to him.

While they went back and forth I tried to get a pop up about understanding the machines, but all I got was failures. The scholars also didn’t pipe up at the moment, and I instead busied myself by taking a short walk around the space. There was one machine that had a rickety conveyor belt that led to a large copper tank. There were several barrels of powder beside it, and there was the powerful stench of rubber that got past the mask. Following the marks on the floor I saw it led to a sliding door, and I opened it to find a long thin cave room that was packed to the brim with cubes of processed rubber that was as tall as I was, set on wood pallets. There was a few tons of material down here.

“Huh, neat,” I said. I poked around with my flashlight and found a flat cart with two prong arms low to the ground. It had a tall lever with switches on it attached to one side, and under the contraption was a set of hard metal wheels with a layer of rubber over it. Completing the thing was a smaller version of the motor that had been on the goblin minecart. I instantly knew what the contraption was. “Oh hell yeah.”

It was a motorized pallet jack, or at least the goblin equivalent of it. I loved these things, and it always bothered me why my old boss Dan got rid of ours for the boring manual ones.

I instantly started messing with it, and figured out what buttons made the arms go up or down. Of course as soon as I could get the thing to move I hopped onto the thing and took it for a joy ride.

It went much faster than I anticipated and I shot out into the lab and barn room barely controlling the thing. I tried to slow it down, and before I could toggle the accelerator the earlier machine surged into view. I lurched to the side, dragging the arm of the pallet jack to the side. It spun out of control and I was thrown into the cow brush while the pallet jack rammed into the conveyor belt, snapping the belt and denting the gears underneath. The motor kicked over and died, spewing out a cloud of black smoke that coated the copper tank, turning it pitch black.

The cow brush turned on, and the bristles messed up my hair. “Oh yeah, that’s why we got rid of them.”

The only sound in the room was the soft whirl of the cow brush spinning. It lasted for about ten seconds and turned off on its own. Yara cleared her throat and turned back to face a bewildered Aiden.

“Very well, once we are done here we can lay out any weapons or relevant gear and split it then, I swear by my name Aiden of the Forest Flames,” Aiden said. “Also tell your wizard to stop distracting me.”

“We pick first,” Yara shot back. She then glanced in my direction and hissed in a low voice I could barely make out. “Not, helping, Josh.”

I could see we were about to lose him and I threw out my hands. “Better yet, why don’t we flip a coin for who goes first, and then we go back and forth until everything is dealt with?”

Yara and Aiden stared down one another for what felt like a minute. At once they both spoke. “Deal.”

After freeing a surprisingly calm Aiden we hunted around for the other maintenance goblin. There was another large door beside one of the pens, and opening it up we found the next room in Aiden’s map was caved in. It looked recent too, leaving us with the dead one around for us to loot.

Aiden pulled out a dagger that was on his belt and went to work caving open the rubbery casket the dead goblin was in. It took him seconds as the blade easily glided through the material and I saw the edge shimmer.

Knowledge Arcane : Success!

+1 XP gained.

Keen Edge Dagger

Tier II - Weapon

This commonly enchanted dagger type is made for clandestine work, or for more robust use for adventurers. The enchantments make it so the edge never dulls and it has a bonus to critical hit chance and critical damage. The Weapon also gains a minor amount of armour penetration as it is easily able to damage non-enchanted materials.

+5% Critical hit chance.

+1x Critical hit damage.

+3 Armour Penetration.

I let out a low whistle. “Nice dagger.”

Aiden grunted. “Thanks, it was given to me by the keeper that used to own the lands. He was a weapon enchanter, and had one of those mana pools to use for it. I think this was made for keepers, so if you want to use it you need to find it, and convert it I believe.”

I made a mental note for Dan to scour the keeper pool cave and search for any signs or documents related to weapon enchanting. I did like the sound of that, and if I could learn to make weapons like this I could drastically improve everyone’s ability to fight.

The body inside the cocoon of rubber was mummified. There wasn’t a hint of moisture remaining in him, and as the air touched the body it crumbled to dust. Left behind was a handful of silver and copper coins stamped with ‘Mint of Wyrmbreath’, a penknife and a tarnished key. Aiden proudly held the key aloft, and sure enough in small print we could make out, ‘Maintenance’.

“Let’s go,” Yara said.

We quickly made it out of the room and sealed the door behind us. We tore off the gas masks and wiped the sweat off our cheeks, finally breathing air that didn’t stink. Aiden in high spirits made for the door and tried the key, this time opening the door without getting shocked.

“Hey, he isn’t going to backstab us, right?” I whispered to Yara.

“As long as we don’t get into a similar trap. Hobgoblins are kind of weird, they are like elves and all I can say is since we agreed to a deal with him it's basically law at this point,” Yara whispered back. She elbowed me to follow Aiden before he got too far ahead. “Did you level up yet?”

Current Experience : 2766/2700

Would you like to level up?

Yes/No

My smirk said it all. “Don’t tell Aiden, just in case.”

“Then level up in secret, level four is big usually, so just send me any info and I’ll slap your ass with my tail once for no, two times for maybe, or three for yes,” Yara said.

I gawked and shook my head in confusion. “Wait, why is yes three-”

“Hush,” Yara cautioned.

Aiden stood at the base of a ladder, painted in ambient low powered red light with a small hallway leading in both directions to elsewhere in the goblin tower. We followed him up a floor to find another hallway, with three doors, one down at the end of the hall and two others beside us. Aiden held up his map, but the small red lights here were terrible to read with. I held up my flashlight and after consulting the map we went to the end of the hall to find one of the control rooms.

The door was barricaded or stuck, which Yara fixed with the application of her foot. Boxes, chairs and a desk splintered apart and we found entry into what I would assume was some kind of classroom. Small desks littered the floor, each with a clear piece of cracked glass set into it, with a series of small rune stones in front of the glass.

At the far end was a larger table where three goblins could sit side by side, with a shiny bright wizard orb set in a divot in the table. The orb glowed and I could make out moving shapes inside it. We carefully stepped over the mess Yara made and reached the orb to see Burn, Sten and Bent fighting for their lives.