Entering the fortress through the wide open gate, everyone was on high alert, expecting an ambush at any point. The fortress was built quite poorly, the stones used for the walls were not even evenly put on top of one another, and you could see some of them being crooked and sticking out of place.
The inside was equally poor. Small wooden buildings in combination with some stone houses were placed inside, all of them were built close to each other, making the place quite cramped. Straight ahead of the group was the main building, being a full 10 meters tall it stood above all, and everyone was able to feel a big amount of mana being drawn over on the top.
"Well, whatever they're doing needs a huge amount of mana, that's definitely the reason for them amassing so many mana crystals." Reign said while looking at the top with a serious expression on his face.
"I presume the chieftain is waiting for us up there, that's how it is in most games right?" Wolf asked while standing beside him, using his free left hand he ran through his golden blonde hair and combed it back.
"Yup, but I don't think all the mana crystals are up there, they definitely have a storage room, that's probably the hidden room in this dungeon." Shadow put his hand on his chin as he took a deep thinking pose.
"A hidden room?" Tank scratched his head in confusion and asked.
"Yeah, every RPG game has those, it's similar to the hidden quest we finished with the elite monster back then, the game won't tell you about it and it's up to you to find clues about it, in the end, if you manage to find it a lot of rewards are given to you, as the hidden room usually has a lot of loot in it, as much as the boss gives usually, sometimes even more, I'm certain that this place has one." Shadow calmly explained to Tank as he continued racking his brain to figure out where the hidden room could be located.
"I-I think it's either next to the building or below it," Beast said excitedly.
"Below, of course, a basement where they could simply throw the crystals in without a care, that has to be it!" Shadow jumped in delight and excitedly hugged Beast.
"Alright, so get inside the building, find the basement, and then go up to kill the boss, got it." Wolf looked back and nodded at them.
"Let's go, don't put your guard down, these guys definitely have something prepared for us." Reign reminded everyone as they started walking towards the building.
Slowly trekking forward, everyone examined their surroundings, the buildings looked abandoned and the ground had a lot of footprints on it, seems like the goblins were in a hurry when they approached them. The buildings were even worse than they thought at first, all of them had holes in the walls and some were on the verge of collapsing, one thing was for sure, these goblins were incredibly bad builders.
Crack.
Everyone stopped in their tracks as they hear a cracking sound nearby, taking a fighting stance everyone surrounded Beast with their backs turned to him, as an archer his close combat skills were his weakness, and even though a goblin would find it nearly impossible to take his life, they were not taking any chances.
The wolves growled as they looked around and Greenie cracked his knuckles in anticipation, this was going to be his first battle after evolving and he was pumped up about it.
Suddenly Beast knelt down on the ground and puts his hand on it, the wolves immediately jumped on the left and right sides of the group and closed their eyes.
One of the abilities a low lever tamer has is to briefly gain the same power as their tamed beasts, by focusing on his wolves hearing ability he could amplify it and share it between the three of them. Suddenly he could hear everything, the breaths of his comrades, the low sound of the air passing by them, and even the breaths of the goblins hiding nearby, focusing on that one thing specifically Beast was able to grasp their numbers and general location.
Standing up Beast knocked an arrow on his bow and told everyone his findings.
"10 goblins around us, they're right behind the nearest buildings, surrounding us." With a quick draw, Beast poured a big amount of mana into his arrow and released it toward a building on their right, the arrow zooms through 2 open windows and exploded behind it. The strength of the explosion was enough to kill 2 of the goblins in hiding and seriously wound one.
The rest of the goblins came out of their hiding places and scattered, giving it their all to run away from their enemies. Clad in black robes, the goblins were hard to spot in the shadows and darkness, their mana and presence were cloaked as well, making it difficult to notice them. Reign charged at one and used one of his new skills on one of them.
"Inspect"
< Goblin Thief lvl8 >
Strength : 14
Agility : 21
Endurance : ?
Vitality : 10
Willpower : ?
Spirit : ?
Description: A special type of a goblin's evolution, these goblins have adapted to the darkness and learned how to hide their presence to get close to their enemies silently, using their speed to close in and quickly dispatch them, they are strong in stealth but weak in a head-on confrontation.
Reign managed to learn the skill 'Inspect' one accident. He still has no idea how he gained it, but it happened right as they were about to fight a group of hobgoblins in the forest.
He was inspecting them, doing his best to try and see how powerful they are by checking how they moved and fought, which was when this skill suddenly appeared for him.
Looking at the stats that became visible to him, Reign knew why this part of the dungeon would be dangerous for parties, his agility stat was higher than these goblins but that is because of his ability, having an S-ranked one was a huge boost from early on, and the difference between it and low ranked abilities will only be widened when he leveled it up.
Catching up to the goblin, Reign brandished his sword and used [ Lightning movement ] to close in and attack. The goblin screeched in confusion and panic, it never expected Reign to be faster than it, further boosted by the skill, his speed was higher by a lot compared to the poor goblin who couldn't even lift his dagger up in time to defend.
Slash
The sword left a trail in the air as Reign decapitated his enemy and ran back to hunt more of them. Arriving at where the others were, he saw that there were no goblins in the vicinity, only a couple more corpses.
"We managed to kill 5, well Beast mostly, he killed 3 more after the explosion, those little fckers run incredibly fast." Shadow played with his dagger as he told Reign who nodded at him, the goblins agility was high so he knew the others would have a hard time catching up to them.
{Battle has been concluded, distributing experience...}
- lvl8 Goblin Thief killed, 80 exp points gained-
- lvl8 Goblin Thief killed, 80 exp points gained-
- lvl8 Goblin Thief killed, 80 exp points gained-
- lvl8 Goblin Thief killed, 80 exp points gained-
- lvl8 Goblin Thief killed, 80 exp points gained-
- lvl8 Goblin Thief killed, 80 exp points gained-
- lvl8 Goblin Thief killed, 80 exp points gained-
{The players have earned 560exp points and 21S coins}
"Let's move on, there might be more ambushes along the way, we need to stay vigilant." Wolf stepped forward while examining their surroundings, as an assassin he knew how dangerous a well-done ambush could be, allowing you to kill enemies stronger than you with ease.
Everyone nodded and continued walking toward their destination.
After some time, everyone arrived at the big crude door. Their bodies were drenched in blood and sweat, during their way they encountered 2 more ambushes, each bigger than the previous. The second ambush had 15 goblins in it, with a level 9 Goblin Thief leading it while the third had 20 of them and 3 were level 9. Everyone had to fight seriously against them as they almost failed to notice them on time.
At the very beginning of the battle, Tank and Reign got injured while Wolf was able to defend against the level 9's sneak attack. They managed to kill off most of their enemies before they started fleeing.
" So this is it huh, only the hidden room and boss fight left before we can leave this place. " Shadow exhaled deeply before saying that.
"Don't get too comfortable Shadow, this part will be the hardest, we still don't know how strong a level 10 is exactly." Reign gave him a stern look and warned him.
"I know, I know, let's go and find that damn room first, we'll probably be able to rest up there before attacking the boss. " Shadow nodded in acknowledgment and followed everyone inside.
"This is not what I expected." Reign and everyone else looked around the hall that they entered in wonder.