Maybe for the first time since my own tragic demise, I am feeling pretty good. I brush the dirt clear of what I had written and start again. N-I-C-E--T-O--M-E-E-T--Y-O-U.
I stop and look up at her. I'm bouncing. I'm so happy to have someone to talk to. It's super inconvenient and slow, but I'll take what I can get. She's smiling, and it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Probably an exaggeration, but I don't care. I didn't realize how starved for companionship I truly was, over the last week.
I clear the space and write again. S-T-A-Y--H-E-A-L--I--H-E-L-P--Y-O-U--H-O-M-E--A-F-T-E-R
"You want me to stay here until I've healed, and then you'll help me make it home?" she asks, interpreting my shorthand. I nod.
"Do you think it's safe? There could be other goblin patrols, or worse."
I clear the ground and write S-A-F-E-R--T-H-A-N--F-A-C-I-N-G--T-H-E-M--I-N--T-H-E--O-P-E-N--W-H-I-L-E--I-N-J-U-R-E-D.
"I suppose that's true. This place is pretty secure other than the door, and I suppose you could always seal the door up if need be. Alright, you've convinced me. I'll sit tight until I can walk without a limp. Are you going to nurse me back to health?" she says with a smirk.
L-O-L
She frowns. "Lol? I'm not sure that one translates."
Explaining texting shorthand to a fantasy world adventurer was not something I ever expect to do, but here I am. It takes me some time, and I'm pretty sure I've created a monster. The explanation of ROFLMAO had her doing just that.
Eventually, we had to stop and prepare for the night that was quickly coming in. I gathered some wood and a couple of squirrels for dinner. Cara roasts the squirrels over a small fire. It's the first hotter than slowly cooling body temperature I've had in this life. It is heavenly.
Before we settle down to sleep, I use the little Mana I've recovered and sealed the entrance tight. Nothing is coming in without a chainsaw in under twenty minutes. I also fabricate a cot from roots and vines fo Cara to sleep on. She places two of the cloaks from her dead companions down as bedding and uses another cloak as a blanket. She salvaged what she cold from their bodies, and I put them back in storage. We'd return them to her guild once we got her home.
Another thing in the shelter was an intricately carved staff with two golf ball-sized orbs embedded in it. Apparently, that is Cara's personal weapon. Cara is a sorcerer, which is about the coolest thing I've heard since coming here. There is this whole thing where a person can obtain a class that helps them become incredibly powerful and fight against monsters and dragons.
Usually, a person must find either a teacher to enter a class or find a legacy that can imbue an individual with a class. Legacies typically come in the form of a soul fragment passing on the predecessor's knowledge and the path to a new generation. Normally, a person consciously does this by imbuing a soul fragment with enough consciousness to get the job done. Cara's case is a little different. She was actually born with the sorcerer class already preloaded. This is, apparently, how the sorcerer class is actually passed down. All sorcerers were born to be sorcerers. It doesn't mean that they can never have any other class, but it is a bit harder and takes a lot of effort.
Cara tells me stories about her time in the guild. Her first party was a big mistake, and after there first successful mission the group had a victory celebration. One of the guys in the group got her drunk and took advantage of her. Not the best way to start a relationship based on trust. When she said something to the group leader, he just blew it off, so she left.
The next group she was with was a lot better. She had several adventures with them over the course of two years, and as a group, they became close. They stopped because two of them ended up marrying and having a baby, and the other decided it was time to settle down himself. Cara wasn't quite ready for retirement and started seeking out a new group. If the dynamic felt off, she'd leave, and she made it a rule to never drink with a new group.
Her latest group was an unmitigated disaster. One D ranked adventurer teaming up with a couple of E ranked rookies as a learning experience, all of them warriors. They asked her along for a little magical backup. She berates herself that she should have been smarter, but the mission was supposed to be easy enough. A small group of goblins had harassed a couple of farms outside of town. The report said there were only five or six goblins believed to be stragglers from a warren that was wiped out a few weeks back.
Basically, clean up work. The new kids get a real fight, and she collects an easy silver piece for two days' work. That's how the older warrior sold it to her. She was pretty sure he was using it as an excuse to flirt with her, but she also was a little short on money after taking a couple of months off. The trouble was, it wasn't the remnants of a destroyed warren. It was a raiding party of an entirely different active warren.
When they came across the warren, they tried to sneak away to inform the guild, but one of the rookies tripped and caught a goblin's attention. Two dozen goblins charged out of the warren after them. They managed to kill a few and get some breathing room until after a few hours; they thought they'd lost them.
The party leader, Johan, was just saying that everyone should stay on guard when a spear penetrated through his leg. He shouted at the rest to run, but one of the rookies insisted on staying. Cara was down to the dregs of the Mana and knew it was suicide to stay, so she dragged the other rookie and ran. It was pointless though the goblins had surrounded them and cut them off at the next clearing, where Morgan found them.
They should have taken a hunter or a scout with them, but the quest said a small group of goblins. A small party like theirs would have been able to handle five or six goblins, no problem. Hell, even ten wouldn't have been too much of a stretch with two D ranked adventurers in the group. A warren? Yeah, that's just a recipe for dead or defiled adventurers. There could be over a hundred or more goblins in there, and they grow fast. Within a month, there could be five hundred.
Morgan was hoping the guild would send a search party out since their group was overdue but wanted to get back to town as soon as possible just in case they didn't. The town needed to know about the threat. There needed to be an extermination force gathered and that warren needed to be burned to the ground.
I listened to the story and the concerns that Cara had, but I have to admit, I was a little tempted by the idea of a hundred piñatas filled with EXP just waiting to be cracked open. Of course, I also realized that this was probably a bad idea. Yeah, probably a very bad idea.
I wake up the next morning and decide to use Plant Manipulation to reinforce the area around the shelter. It's probably unnecessary, but it makes me feel a little better knowing that I've prepared for the worst. Or at least what my limited knowledge imagines is the worst. I leave a jackalope I'd yet to start eating with Cara to clean and make some breakfast.
Once the area is a little more secure, and breakfast has been eaten, I let Cara know I'm going to search the area, and I'll be back around noon. Based on the direction the group had been traveling, I backtrack to the area that Cara indicated the goblin warren was... just to get a look at it. I'm not going to do anything crazy.
I spot four goblins carrying a deer carcass through the woods. I stay high in the trees and them back to the warren. I'm a little shocked that it really is like a warren. It's a gaping maw that scars the forest under a, particularly large tree. I watch several groups of four to six goblins pass in and out, amounting to several dozen foul little creeps.
It's definitely too much. Not that I was thinking of going in there, but I just wanted to confirm my thought. Really! I wasn't thinking of going in... It would be stupid, alright? It's cramped in there and probably dark.
I mean, I could probably use Plant Manipulation on that tree to flood the tunnel with vines and take out the stragglers one by one. No. They could have multiple entrances, and I don't know how far this warren extends.
Enough. I promised Cara I'd be back by noon, and I should get going. She's not up to full strength yet, and I have a quest to complete that doesn't involve endangering my charge because I wanted to try my luck at picking off a bunch of dirty little monsters.
I force myself to turn back towards the treehouse and take off. Ten minutes later, I see a small group of goblins on a direct course for the treehouse. Okay, so maybe they would miss it, but I don't see a reason to take that chance.
It's not a large group; only five goblins. If I'm going to do this, I should do it smartly, at least, right? I don't have the rage to push me through it this time, and I want to think clearly about this. One is bigger than the others, so I want to target him first. The rest I'll try to trip up and then take them down.
I fly ahead of the group and activate Plant Manipulation and excite the roots and plants to rise to the surface to create places feet can catch and then I use low ferns to cover the whole area. They were already there; I just changed how they lay to get the best coverage. From above, it's obviously unnatural, but they won't be able to see that. I also create a hiding spot that gives me a good vantage point. Now I wait.
Five minutes later, the five goblins come into view. I activate my telekinesis, pull the three swords of the dead adventurers out, and three spears moving them to angle above the goblins. As the targets enter the trapped area, I wait for one to trip to make my move. I don't have to wait long as two faceplants, one right after the other in the middle of the ferns. I drive the three spears right into the back of the large goblin, and he lets out a scream. Tough bastard. I send out the three swords one straight down at the leader and the other two at the still-standing goblins coming from their flanks.
The leader tries to jump back, but the weight of the spears still impaling him slows him down just a bit, and his leg takes a deep wound from the sword. The two other swords slam so hard into their targets that they lift them off their feet and onto the ground. I pull six more spears out of storage, sending one at each of the prone goblins and two at the leader.
I have to hurry this up, controlling objects in this way is actually very taxing mentally, and it drains my Esprit faster the more objects I control. It was barely noticeable when it was three objects, but now it's much harder. The leader manages to block one of the spears but is caught in the side by the other. He's starting to look like a pincushion but he won't go down.
Two notifications ding indicating that the two goblins that were hit by the other swords have been perished by the spear thrusts, opening-up the previously occupied swords. Before that, though, I activate Plant Manipulation to tangle those other two clumsy goblins in the roots. I need to conserve some Esprit, so I pull one of the swords out of the dead goblin and circle to the leader as he tries to crawl away. That's not happening.
I drive the sword down on the back of his neck severing his artery and finally ending the goblin that just didn't know when to quit. Pulling the sword free I bring it around to end the other two. Looking at my resources, with over half of them expended to take out five goblins, I realize it's a good thing I didn't try for the warren.
I fly down and put all the weapons into storage. I'll check the EXP later, first I need to get those crystals out. I pull a dagger from storage and get to work. The great thing about telekinesis is not getting black ichor on your hands-er talons when you dissect a goblin.
A half an hour later I've completely blown through my Esprit and I'm feeling tired, and lucky me I still have an hour flight to get back to the treehouse. Why didn't I just bring the bodies back with me and scavenge them there? Actually, that's another good point. I don't need these bodies anymore. I don't need any of the goblin bodies anymore. I toss the all twenty-plus goblins in a pile and wash my hands-feathers of them.
Despite my tired mind, I still can't see this as anything but a productive morning.