NOVEL FROG 24 - Goblin Extermination
Chapter 24
Goblin Extermination
One wooden spear later and quick teleport I find myself back on top of the artificial hill I created in the grass lands. I realize that the sun will be down soon, but that may be the best time to infiltrate a goblin den. Hunters and gatherers should be returning with their catches and I will probably draw less attention if I bring in food and join in. While I still have light, I quickly recast elemental mana wings and use air once again to soar up about 100 meters to get a good look around. From up here it looks like there is a pond or other low lying area about 5 kilometers south west from my hill. I see at least one fire lit and a hut looking structure. It is too far to make anything else out. I hope that is where I need to go.
I descend back down onto the hill and make my way towards the water source and hut that I saw. After about 3 kilometers I realize that I need something to distract them with and take out the salamander carcass from my inventory. I chop a leg off, and re-store the carcass in my inventory. I throw the leg over my shoulder like I am bringing it back from a successful hunt. Another kilometer goes by when suddenly I hear someone call out.
“Who there?”
Time to find out if all the stories about goblins being dumb are accurate.
“Me here, who there?”
“I is Branny who is you?”
“I is Grot?”
“I no know Grot.”
“Well I no know Branny.”
“Ok now we know each other, whacha got?”
“I gots a leg of meats.”
“Why only legs? Where is the rest of it?”
“I can only carry one legs of meat, stupid slimy lizard is too big.”
“How come you no have other gobbos bring rest of meat?”
“Stupid slimy lizard eats them.”
“Ok give meats to Greta she cooks tonight.”
“OK.”
I walk past the sentry like I belong right where I am and he does not give me another look. That was easier than expected. I guess the fantasy rumors and descriptions are pretty spot on about goblin intelligence. I had hoped that it was true. Now I basically have been passed into the inner circle so no one else should question my being there. They may wonder who I am, but since the guard let me through I must be ok.
I walk just a little further until I see the pond and a large hut dwelling on the opposite side with a giant cook fire and pot in front of it. I see another hunting group walk up and just throw their entire catch into the pot, skin, bones, and all. Ok seems simple enough, but I think I can actually add a new ingredient that might help me out. When I get close to the pot I lift the salamander leg in preparation to toss it in and glance around.
No one is paying me any attention, so I quickly call up poison orbs as fast as I can and throw them in the pot. I manage to get four in before I hear someone else coming up. I casually toss the salamander leg in and walk over towards the big hut, but off to one side. There will be time enough to explore later, right now it is time to reconnoiter. I hope that my little gift of poison will do some damage to the goblins, but I do not know if it will or not. These little guys must have a pretty hefty constitution to survive living in the filth that surrounds me.
I decided a little preparation might do me a lot of good later on. I stroll around the entire pond about 25 meters out in the rising grass and use element manipulation to create a bare patch of earth about 1 meter wide in a giant circle around the camp. I am hoping that even if a goblin notices that they will not care or be too stupid to figure out why I might have done this. I am going to use this as a fire break. I realized that even though I do not want to set the whole grassland on fire, a nice big ring of fire will keep all the goblins in one place, do damage, and allow me to attack them from a safe distance.
Before I do anything else though I better make sure that the group I ran into was normal. Inspect.
Grass Goblin Level 51 Magic: Unknown
Grass Goblin Level 50 Magic: Unknown
Grass Goblin Level 53 Magic: Unknown
Goblin Shaman Level 64 Magic: Unknown
Oh my, that is good to know. I was just randomly checking around and found a shaman. The title shaman implies ability to use magic. I have no idea what kind of magic he can use either. That guy better be my first target. There was actually no way of telling him apart at first and then he stood up from where he was squatting and reached down and grabbed a stick to hobble around with. Ok, staff equals shaman, definitely good information to have. It looks like everyone is starting to gather near the cook pot, time for me to hide.
I make my way behind the large hut and peer out at the goblins starting to eat the poisoned stew. Nobody is actually showing any signs or symptoms yet. I wonder if the poison ball was not strong enough or if it wore off? Nope, some of the goblins are holding their stomachs and grimacing. Some are even starting to throw up. The shaman seems to be casting a heal spell or something either on himself or the sick goblin next to him. Ok this is the time to strike.
I call up a stone spike and a flame spike and aim both at the shaman. He is going to be the primary target until he goes down. I launch them and have the satisfaction of seeing them hit him square in the back and knocking him off his feet before exploding and doing even more damage. I call up two lightning orbs and send them once again at the shaman. Even though he is on the ground, I do not know if he is dead so the area of effect spells will be centered on him until I go and stab him. Both hit either on him or next to him and the screaming of the goblins begins.
I launch one stone orb at the shaman and with the other hand I throw a fire orb off to my left in the grass to start burning a ring of fire around the camp. Both orbs hit their targets and do their job quite well. Time for some acting. I start running towards the downed shaman and start screaming in goblinoid, “Branny says fire demons come. Quick quick, hide in hut so they no see us.” Goblins here my shout and see me running. Either they are dumber than I thought or they all know and trust Branny as they all start to stagger into the large hut.
“Hurries I helps shaman guy. Hurries.”, I yell into the night. The grass goblins actually manage to speed up a little and start disappearing into the hut. I reach the downed shaman who looks like he could die at any minute and reach down like I am going to help him and stab him in the chest. That last attack did him in. I pick up his corpse and pretend to help him stagger towards the hut. The last of the grass goblins in the clearing stagger into the shelter of the large hut and I finally drop the dead shaman and prepare for my next act.
“Shaman guy says he use big spell to hide us. No one makes noise or be scared.”, I yell out. I then proceed to use elemental manipulation to seal off the hut entrance with a wall of earth. I cannot believe this is working so well. Now that every one of the goblins in the clearing is inside the hut I continue to make a nice earth wall all around the hut until I feel sure that they are trapped. Now to finish phase two. I conjure up two fire orbs and toss them onto the top of the hut. I decide to make it burn faster and toss another two up a little farther on.
I stop using spells here to preserve mana. I won’t get any back until this whole thing is done. I may have a high regeneration rate, but the caveat is that it won’t kick in until I am calmed down or the battle is over. I patrol the outside of the burning hut with my wooden spear and listen to the screams of the goblins inside. I definitely think my reincarnation has affected my emotions or the ability to empathize with others. While this might be a great way to finish off a large group of enemies and earn experience, it is not very humane. The screams of the goblins inside burning to death coincidentally enough are enough to make me think about what I did and whether it was appropriate or not. However, I come to the conclusion that this was the safest and easiest way for me to finish off this little tribe.
As I am walking the perimeter of the burning building I realize that the fire I started around the camp is burning itself out. That means my little fire break worked. I am so proud of my achievements that I lose situational awareness and soon enough find an arrow stuck into my belly. Holy crap that hurts. Where the heck did that come from? I quickly pull the arrow out and suck it up. I am being attacked, the who must be determined first. I spot my buddy Branny standing outside the burned area holding a bow an d arrow. Did he just shoot me? That little piece of goblin dung. I rush towards him while fake a throw with my spear. He falls for it and ducks down. This gives me enough time to launch an Annihilation spike at him. What can I say, I know it’s a nasty spell, but he has ticked me off and shot me. The spell hits and causes rather large damage, distracting Branny long enough for me to reach him and start stabbing him over and over with the spear.
There really is no technique involved just me being angry and venting myself on the poor goblin. Soon enough he shudders his last and I look around just in time to see 3 other goblins running towards me. They must also have been on sentry duty.
“Why you kill chief’s son Branny?”, one yells as they rush me. Chief’s son huh, I never saw a chief. I hope he was in the hut, because chief implies a stronger goblin. Rather than talk I form one lightning ball and toss it and then chase after it.
“Him magic guy, we doomed.”, wailed a goblin. How right he was. I still had a little mad to get out and the exploding lightning napalm orb stunned the goblins long enough that I could stab each one in the throat and heart since they were grouped up. I feel a little better now and check the area carefully to make sure that no more surprises will be coming at me. This was a good move on my part. As I was scanning the area I saw one side of the earthen embankment explode outward. The strange thing was that the explosion of the wall made no noise, but I could hear the debris hit the ground several meters away.
Out of the new opening I could see a 2 meter tall goblin who looked burned, injured, and extremely mad stomping out. Oh no, it couldn’t be could it. Inspect.
Goblin Chief Level: 102 Magic: Cone of Silence
Bad news is that little goblin jinxed me when he talked about there being a chief. Ok, let’s be honest, most of this would be my fault for not checking the village thoroughly. I still wanted to blame that goblin a little though. Good news is actually two things. First, this guy seemed injured and second the cone of silence shouldn’t affect me as I don’t talk to cast my spells. I definitely cannot take this guy in a straight up fight though. He has to be twice the size of my current grass goblin body and probably twice the level as well.
If you can’t beat them fairly, then cheat. I still have just under half my mana remaining so I cast Elemental mana wings once again, but this time I go for fire hoping it will add a little intimidation to my presence and fly straight up out of the chief’s reach. I decide that monologues are for suckers and just start tossing improved element spikes at the goblin chief. I alternate each type to see which does the most damage. Fire spike does decent damage it looks like but is hard to tell due to the chief already being burned. Stone spike seems to be the winner for straight up damage, but lightning spike is what surprises me the most. It does not do as much damage as stone, flame or ice, but the side effects are the most impressive. I hit the goblin chief in the leg the first time I used it and it immediately fell over. It seems that my lightning spike shuts down whatever limb it hits.
This could be a game changer. I mean if I am able to target limbs I will be able to cause opponents to stumble at bad times and even disarm them. A humanoid opponent without his weapon is much less threatening. I bet a lightning spike to the chest or head would definitely stop magic users from chanting also. I am going to have to try that in the future. I am sure many battle magic users are taught to cast through the pain, but if you literally cannot speak due to your muscles seizing up from the electricity coursing through you, that training would be useless.
Soon enough the goblin chief keels over and I descend to stab him a couple times just to make sure he is dead. He does nothing while I stab him so I feel relatively safe. No other goblin came out of the hole he made so my burning the hut trick must have worked on the normal goblins and caused them do die either from fire or smoke. With the goblins all dead I need to search for loot and leave this place before scavengers arrive.