Chapter 19

[You have slain Bloodbite Goblin (lvl 7). 50 XP awarded.]
[You have slain Bloodbite Goblin (lvl 12). 147 XP awarded.]

Luke stared at the kill notifications from his raid on their camp for a long time. He knew the higher level goblin would have more AP, but the difference between them was insane. “System,” he said finally. “Can you help me out here?”

“How can I assist you?” System asked.

“Every goblin I’ve fought so far has been… well, kind of weak. That last one was different. It was by far the strongest thing I’ve gone up against. Was it just the higher level, or am I missing something?”

“You do not have access to other creatures’ status screens,” System said. “I am unable to tell you what differences existed between your most recent kill and the ones prior to that. I can tell you that goblins are sapient and there is no template they follow. They are as free to assign their AP wherever they want, just as you are.”

“Maybe that’s the difference?” Luke mused. It wouldn’t take much to drain all their AP. Just a few rank 1 skills and maybe a single rank 2 would use most of the points a level 7 goblin would have. If they didn’t invest into their stats, they’d be weak. If their skills were all utility, they’d be weak. If it was both… it was no wonder he’d never had any trouble taking down enemies that were the same level as him.

A goblin warrior would be different. It would be optimized for fighting, just like him. He’d only spent 9 AP, he thought, on non-combat skills. The other 69 had gone directly into stats and skills to help him fight. “Hah, nice,” he said. “Probably never going to get to say that again.”

It was a humbling realization. Technically he was fighting things that were sometimes the same level or close to as he was, but in reality their AP were probably spent on so much stuff that didn’t revolve around fighting that it wasn’t really fair.

“Animals all follow the templates, right? How often do those have big point sinks in abilities like digging or improved smell?”

“Almost always,” System told him. “Even among sapient creatures, it’s statistically unlikely someone will invest all their AP into nothing but stat increases. Similarly, though most people will choose skills that benefit their chosen professions, almost nobody devotes their AP to nothing but those skills. ‘Hobbies’ is the term I believe humans use for the practice of spending AP on other skills.”

“So what I’m getting from this is that I need to be careful, especially fighting intelligent monsters. They might be specialized for fighting and kick my ass.”

“One should always be careful when fighting in life or death combat,” System agreed.

Luke rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the advice.”

All this really meant was that he needed to level up higher than he thought. It wasn’t enough to meet the monster’s level; he needed to exceed it. He also needed some form of armor, but that seemed unlikely to materialize. Even if he found goblins wearing some and managed to kill them without breaking it, it wouldn’t fit anyway. He was five nine, and he didn’t think he’d seen a single one that was four and a half. Most weren’t even four feet tall.

He supposed he could make something out of wood and leather, but he wasn’t sure how useful that would be. An inch thick breastplate made of wood would be… better than nothing, but it seemed like an inefficient use of his time. “Okay, that’s low priority. What’s at the top of the list though?”

“Safety, security, and shelter,” he told himself. Technically he had that in Curt’s workshop, at least as much as could be found in the monster-infested wilderness he was stuck in. But it wasn’t comfortable in there at all. Not only was sleeping on stone even worse than sleeping on the ground, but the place had a kind of stale smell to it, like being in a crypt or something. Too bad there were no windows to air it out.

Plus Red couldn’t join him there, and as much as Luke wasn’t in love with the thought that his only companion and best friend was a giant bird who could snap him like a twig, that was the reality of his situation. His only intelligent conversations were with System, who was not much of a conversationalist since it was more like an AI that ran queries for him than a person. Red at least had personality, even if they couldn’t talk to each other.

Unfortunately, as much as he desired a new home outside the cave, there was no store to drive over to and pick up a bunch of lumber for the project. The tools he’d managed to snag would be good for small projects, but not for what he wanted. His forest camp would remain unsecured, though his drying racks were going to improve immensely over the next day or two.

“You know who does have lumber though? Those goblins,” he said to himself. “That means they have the tools needed to process a felled tree.”

He wasn’t about to take another run at the place though, not until he packed on a few more levels. In the end, everything he thought to try came back to that. He needed more levels if he wanted to leave. He needed more levels if he wanted to stay. Any comforts he wanted, he had to make with his own two hands, which meant gaining levels so he’d have AP to spend on skills that would teach him how.

“Always levels. There has got to be some way to live that doesn’t involve just randomly killing everything I come across.”

Try as he might, Luke couldn’t think of anything. The levels were coming slower and slower as the amount of XP needed kept ramping up and the available monsters dwindled. The low level ones would freeze or run if he went near them now, and it wasn’t really worth his time anyway.

Goblins were all of the sudden a hell of a lot riskier than he’d expected. He supposed if he stayed near the beginning of the pass, he could grind on some of the small, weak earth elementals. The big one hadn’t chased him back into the valley before. Of course, there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t change its mind if he ran into it again, but he didn’t think he had much choice.

It was goblins or earth elementals. Nothing else would do. They were too hard to find, too low level, or both. Before that though, he needed to finish building the new frames for drying hides, and then find new animals to skin for hides, and also dinner.

Being stranded was exhausting.

* * *

Luke spent his evening taunting death at the base of the trail that led to freedom. He killed a dozen elementals in quick succession, then retreated when he noticed the tremors growing too strong. The big one never made an appearance, but he figured he’d tempted fate enough for one day.

For all his efforts, he was rewarded.

[You have slain 12 creatures between levels 9-13. 1367 XP awarded.]

[Congratulations! You have reached level 13. 13 AP awarded for use.]

Some of his combat skills needed 15 AP to go up a rank, but some only needed 10. He considered hanging onto the points, but ultimately it felt like a recipe for disaster. His brother’s build notes recommended pushing for at least rank 2 in all his combat skills early, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave that many points unallocated. He would just boost his stats now and buy the skill rank whole in a few levels. Otherwise it felt like he was wasting the points for however long it took him to actually have enough to spend.

Maybe when he was level 50 and had an overabundance, when each level didn’t hugely impact his stats, he’d feel differently. For now, the choice was to increase [Peripheral Awareness] or [Twitch Reflexes]for 10, or to spend all the points on stats. Considering how much [Twitch Reflexes] had saved his ass in that fight against the goblin, and that he would probably find himself in a similar situation sometime soon, he opted to upgrade that to rank 2.

The last 3 AP went into strength, agility, and perception. Points spent but unwilling to venture back onto the trail while the big guy was lurking so close to the end, Luke bailed back into the forest. Overhead, Red circled lazily, no doubt watching for dinner to be served. Sometimes he wondered if the hawk ever caught its own meal anymore.

Considering that Luke could have been that meal if Red had been feeling peckish during their first meeting, he devoted himself to finding something suitably meaty. Though it was getting harder and harder to lure out a meal, Luke didn’t consider the effort a waste of time. He needed to eat too, and his attempts at curing meat had so far met with disaster.

That disaster’s name was Red. The bird simply ate far too much, and was not content to leave scraps of it hanging about on a drying rack. Luke’s attempts to build around a fire to protect the meat had not been well-received. Thus, he was stuck hunting a new meal twice a day if he wanted to eat.

Luke went through the motions, but his mind was elsewhere. Soon enough the food was cooked, over-cooked really, and he had done his best to chew it without tasting it. His plastic water bottles, the three that were left at least, were refilled, and Luke retreated to Curt’s workshop to get a few hours of sleep.

* * *

The Bossmoot started when Gulgok entered the meeting chamber. By rights, as the boss to call for it, it was his duty to host and he should have been the first there. Considering the subject, he felt it was forgivable that he was late since the very reason was the pale-skinned monster he’d gathered his peers to discuss.

“Took you long enough,” Qarsik whined. He was a thin goblin, built for speed and perception. Gulgok never understood how he’d gained control of the Bluerocks. If Qarsik had been a challenger for his title, Gulgok would have gutted him. That just showed how weak the Bluerocks were as a whole.

One thing they did have, the only thing Gulgok cared about right now, was a type of dog they’d bred for tracking. That was the reason he’d called for the Bossmoot. He needed those dogs to find the Day Hunter, and every tribe needed to devote an equal number of warriors to the monster’s destruction.

Gulgok ignored the other goblin’s complaining and took the final empty seat at the table. Bulgrit stood behind him over his right shoulder, one hand resting on the battle-axe sitting at his waist and his eyes locked on the other Boss’s hands, his counterparts from Grimshard and Bluerock.

“You know why we’re here,” Gulgok said. “What are we going to do about this problem?”

The other two were silent. No one wanted to volunteer their own tribe for the hunt, knowing how many lives it might cost them, that it would erode their own position and possibly weaken their whole tribe enough to be wiped out.

Gulgok felt his temper starting to rise. He was indisputably the most powerful goblin in the valley at level 21. He did not get that way by being even-handed and fair. The other two tribes were going to contribute, or he’d start hunting goblins himself. No doubt he’d be far more effective at it than the Day Hunter was.

“You,” he said, jabbing a finger at Qarsik. “Your tribe will find him. You have the means. You will do so. And you, Margl, you will provide elite warriors to help kill the Day Hunter. Am I understood?”

“Or what? You come here to this Bossmoot to issue threats, Gulgok?” Margl snarled at him, rising from his chair and leaning forward over the table.

“It has been a hundred years since the last Day Hunter plagued our people. You remember the tales? They have stayed alive in your tribe, yes?” Gulgok said, also rising from the tables.

“I… remember.”

“Then you know what must be done. The same as our ancestors did. All that is left now is to determine how.”

Gulgok was a rather large goblin, and he had no problem using that size to intimidate his cowardly peers. Hah! Peers. He could kill them both in seconds, without even a weapon. He stared at them both, and demanded, “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” they said sullenly.

“Excellent. Now, how shall we rid ourselves of this problem?”