Callum staggered into the dungeon proper under the load of firewood he carried in his arms, and his bag was stuffed with even more firewood. The firewood in his arms unceremoniously clattered onto the ground and set off some traps.
Callum quickly dumped the firewood in his bag out and then carefully tossed his bag onto a rock ledge right outside the dungeon.
Callum knew that anything in the dungeon could vanish if the dungeon chose to absorb it and it wasn't on an adventurer. And losing his bag would significantly increase the difficulty in trying to survive in the desolate wilderness.
His bag secured from possibly vanishing, Callum started disarming the traps in a methodical fashion as he slowly made his way down the tunnel; he was determined to milk as much XP and skill growth as he could.
Disarming the traps didn't take as much effort as last time, as he had learned a little bit about the various triggers. Although, it didn't replace his nonexistent skill growth, it at least let him know what part of the trap to attack.
Callum took multiple stacks of poison as he moved forward; his increased pain tolerance enabled him to more aggressively attack the multitude of traps in front of him. Soon, he reached the chokepoint.
He changed his approach from there and only concentrated on the far left side of the tunnel; he had a theory he wanted to try out. Soon, he had almost cleared up to where he'd been spotted previously.
He carefully placed two lines of firewood; one went directly behind the chokepoint and the second was placed on the nearside of where the tunnel bent to the right.
The dungeon reinforced tunnel walls prevented all his attempts at trying to dig into them, so the best he could do for the firewood pile at the bend was wedging some of the logs in an upright manner. He hoped that they'd still be visible even through a horde of goblins.
Preparations complete inside the dungeon complete, Callum boldly sauntered out into the cave.
"Hey, uglies! Yeah, you four crotch biscuits. I heard your momma doesn't love you!"
The goblins did not take kindly to Callum's insults and three of them promptly charged him. Callum slowly fell back into the tunnel; careful to stay on the cleared side.
As the first one approached, Callum used his strength to sweep it to the right before lunging forward and
It was still alive for now, but Callum was confident the poisons would finish it off. Callum fell back before repeating the process with the second goblin, to similar results. With two goblins down and succumbing to poison, Callum moved forward.
Callum literally ran over the third goblin as he body checked it into the hard stone floor. His spear quickly followed the goblin down and ended its life. He moved forward and quickly finished the other two off with his hatchet.
"Huh, I thought there were four goblins?"
Callum dismissed his confusion as he soon heard more goblins nearing his position. He stepped back into the cavern and saw three other tunnels leading off into different directions; his stamina quickly replenished itself now that he was out of direct combat.
The two tunnels to his right carried the sound of goblin chanting to him, and he cautiously approached the two tunnels; the possible existence of additional traps were his main concern.
Callum met the first goblin charging from one of the tunnels with a quick
Two other goblins moved to flank him as he finished off the goblin unfortunate enough to have been first. He took some small damage and poison debuffs before he quickly whirled to sweep one goblin back.
The left goblin went flying back as Callum turned his momentum into a 360 degree turn in place, which caught the second goblin by surprise when it moved to stab him in the back. Callum would have finished both off if he hadn't noticed five more charging at him.
Wary of being swarmed, he reluctantly fell back into his tunnel where the goblins could only approach him from the front; he hated giving up easy kills, but he had a plan. And that plan didn't involve him being caught in the middle of the cavern.
Callum fought a bitter retreat back towards his chokepoint; his spear sweeps and the overeager goblins forcing multiple enemies into the dungeon traps he had left in place.
The dungeon monsters seemed aware of those traps, but they often knocked their own allies into the traps. And the goblin's own poison seemed to overwhelm their own pain tolerance, which left them vulnerable to Callum's deadly spear.
Callum estimated he had killed a dozen before his fighting retreat finally reached the chokepoint. Once there, he stopped retreating and fought a fierce war against the horde of goblins in front of him.
The overwhelming mass of goblins was both a blessing and a curse for Callum; the numerous goblins equally got in their own way as often as they prevented Callum from finishing any downed goblins.
Callum took numerous wounds and his stamina continued to fall, even as he reaped the lives of the goblins in front of him. Callum finally set the logs near the bend on fire; he hoped it would cut off further reinforcements.
The battle continued to ebb and flow as Callum alternately retreated or surged forward in attempts to kill various goblins. Eventually though, Callum noticed the pressure in front of him had lessened.
He looked up to see that a raging fire had stopped the flow of new goblins towards his position. Invigorated by his plan's success, Callum stopped conserving his stamina and aggressively attacked the eight goblins trapped on his side of the fire.
The eight goblins were unequal to the task and soon succumbed to Callum's strength and spear. Out of combat for the time being, Callum's stamina and health soon climbed to their maximum.
During the wait, Callum inspected his spear and saw that it only had two points of durability left. So, he tossed it into the fire and pulled out both his hatchet and knife; he didn't want to chance the spear breaking at the wrong time.
Callum couldn't see the goblins behind the fire, but he soon noticed that the fire was being disturbed; the goblins were trying to break up the fire in order to get at him.
Callum was ready though; his weapons had fresh poison on their sharp edges, his stamina and health pools were full, and he had an eager smile on his face as he patiently waited for the next act of the fight.
The goblins soon broke up the fire enough so that they could once more advance. But, there was no mad rush of goblins trying to swarm him. Instead, Callum saw ranks of level 20+ goblin warriors advancing on him in some semblance of a formation.
Behind them, Callum saw the goblin with the impressive headgear he had noticed last time. But this time he was able to identify it as it loudly chanted.
Goblin Witch Doctor (M) (Lvl 22)
HP:(180/180)
Callum had a bad feeling start to form in his stomach as he saw the changes to the enemy in front of them. The goblins were higher leveled, had magical support, and seemed to be acting in concert with each other.
The Witch Doctor reached a crescendo in its chanting as it gestured in Callum's direction with its staff; a flurry of sickly green bolts quickly lanced out at him. Callum's eyes widened in surprise, but he couldn't otherwise react before the bolts were upon him.
The bolts were too fast for the surprised farmer to even try to dodge. All four bolts landed and he could tell they had taken their toll on him. He pulled up his notifications in order to see what they'd done.
- 25 HP lost to
'Note, you have been Slowed. Effects: -5% speed for the next :05:28'
- 24 HP lost to
'Note, you have been Slowed. Effects: -10% speed for the next :05:28'
- 26 HP lost to
'Note, you have been Slowed. Effects: -15% speed for the next :05:29'
- 25 HP lost to
'Note, you have been Slowed. Effects: -20% speed for the next :05:30'