NOVEL NEXT Chapter 18: Goblin Infested Forest
Lucan rented a horse while the others summoned their personal mounts and the party of five departed from a village 50 miles from Avalon heading to the suspected bandit's hideout. The client worked for Avalon's High Council and didn't want his blunder known. The contract was to retrieve the prototype wand from the bandits and return it to the client at the disclosed location.
Silent Night got to know the others while Lucan listened to her not stop barrage of questions and comments.
"Lucan, did you buy any information from the guild about the bandits?" Lucy asked, pulling her white horse close to Lucan.
"Umm, no, I figured it would cost contribution points."
Lucy laughed. "No, the information broker is a separate entity from the guild, he deals in coin or information worth coin."
"We will be fine." Madlad said riding up beside them. "Silver Line said he was impressed by Lucan's information gathering process."
"Who is Silver Line?" Lucan asked.
"You don't know Silver Line?" Lucy asked.
Van rode over while Lucan and the others had started to dismount. "Silver Line never introduces himself. He should have been the one to give you your code name."
"Oh, okay, I met that guy."
"I heard he joined at Mithril rank when he was only 10 years old." Silent said while dismissing her horse.
"Currently he is the only Adamantium member on this continent, so try not to get on his bad side." Madlad said. "But first, we have to find the hideout, the forest isn't large, shouldn't take more than a couple hours if we spread out."
Lucan waved away the idea of searching the forest on foot and took a seat with his back to a tree. Shadows twisted and revealed Adrestia in front of him. Lucan swirled his wand as a Little brown took the form of a mouse.
"Adrestia, fly above the forest and locate the hideout, help Little brown get there and continue monitoring the situation. Little brown infiltrate the hideout and await further direction. If you do well, I bought something called pumpkin bread in the city, I think you will like it."
*Chirp Chirp*
*Squeak Squeak*
"So majestic." Silent Night said as Adrestia and Little brown took to the air.
What Lucan didn't expect was that Adrestia would lower herself to the ground so Little brown could climb on her back. Lucan thought the drake would pick him up with her legs. It turned out that when Little Brown sacrificed himself to save Adrestia, he earned the shadow drake's respect and friendship.
"Let's wait for information." Lucan said while pulling out his woodworking kit.
Madlad nodded happily. "But may I make a suggestion. I don't want to undermine your commitment to woodworking, but the inner regions of this forest have level 40 creatures while the outer region has level 30 creatures. Since our levels and Silent's are well above yours, if you fight them and we don't interfere you will receive all the experience."
"Mmm, that is good to know." Lucan said, putting away his wood working kit.
"Even though you have the party set to an even split, it won't apply to experience from kills since our levels are too far apart. If we fight the bandits, you need to make sure to get at least one attack on each before we kill them. You will only get 10% of the experience instead of a fair split, but its to stop people from power leveling their friends and making useless high-level characters."
"Okay, let's look around a bit, once I get a direction, we can move that way while Little brown infiltrates."
After 5 minutes Lucan found his first target. A level 31 goblin strolled through the woods while stuffing its face with berries. Lucan pulled out two wands and prepared to pounce. This wasn't an Instance designed to test him with ridiculously strong and overpowered orcs. This was something that shouldn't be impossible for a fully geared level 26 Lucan.
He leapt from the bushes and locked eyes with the goblin. It was frozen in fear. A black dagger appeared as Lucan slashed and stabbed. Lucan turned sideways tucking his left hand behind his back like a fencer and started casting Telekinetic slash while he stabbed.
When the fear wore off the goblin only had half his health left.
Lucan summoned an illusionary copy of himself in his exact position. Him and the illusion leapt backwards in separate directions.
When the illusion slashed, Lucan used Telekinetic Slash. When he slashed out, the magic dagger did a little more damage than the spell but the dying goblin couldn't ignore either. It tried to turn his crude club on the illusion first. Before the goblin could hit the real Lucan, it died.
[You have gained 1,800 experience.]
After his kill, Adrestia gave Lucan a direction to move in. They made their way while Lucan hunted goblins. Vanslaughterfest could tell Lucan was new to melee fights and gave him a few pointers on the way.
Lucan was surrounded by three goblins, he had lowered each of their health to below half and was now starting to run out of mana.
"Should we help out?" Van asked Madlad. The monk wasn't sure and looked to Silent Night.
She shrugged. "This is my first time seeing him fight, normally he just makes wands or works the field like a farmer."
"I am fine." Lucan said. The black dagger in his hand turned back into a wand before transforming again.
He plunged a blue and red knife into his leg, converting health into mana at constant rate. With his second wand he unleashed a flurry of Telekinetic Slashes while reaching out with his empty hand. Blood began to float through the air, being pulled from the open wounds on there bodies. The dagger in Lucan's leg sucked in the blood, replenishing his health faster than it was being depleted.
As he finished the Life Drain ability the goblins collapsed as shriveled husks of their former selves before turning gray and disappearing.
[Congratulations! You have reached level 27.]
Vanslaugtherfest came and congratulated Lucan on leveling up. "Your blade work may leave more to be desired but your magic is always impressive." The warrior said.
"Thanks, I am trying to get better. We are not to far from the hideout, let's make a plan and get ready to take action. Gather around and take a look.
Lucan used illusions to create a 3D rendering of the hideout. At the bottom of a ravine there was a small guard tower above an entrance into a cave. The cave was blocked by an iron bar gate and 2 bandits were inside the gate while another 2 were in the tower.
Further inside, the cave path split in two directions. The left path led to a small cavern with a mess hall and sleeping arrangements. While the right path led to several small caverns, one was filled with sealed boxes, another resembled and office, and the final cavern looked like a private bedroom.
Then Lucan created an illusion board next to the 3D rendering and began to list the names and relationships of all the bandits he had eavesdropped on. He listed every bit of information he could think of. Total, there were 38 bandits ranging from level 58 to 65. An elite was the only level 65, presumably, he was the bandit boss.
'This is impressive." Madlad said while looking everything over.
"Mmm, I see two ways to do this, stealth or brute force." Lucan said.
"I agree." Madlad remarked. "I know you are running this show but do you want my opinion?"
"Sure."
"Okay, since we don't have an exact location on the wand lets use our levels to our advantage. We can easily sweep through them in a short amount of time. Have you found any possible escape routes?" Madlad asked.
"No, but I can't guarantee there aren't any, I can only say that if there is an escape route from the cave system, it is well hidden."
"Alright, we can't rule it out. Here is my suggestion. We bust in through the front. Van holds the front gate and makes sure no one gets past him. Lucy and Silent can take the left path while you and I go to the right. Chances are the wand will be on the right path. We quickly reach the last cavern and push everyone towards Van while Lucy and Silent do the same."
Lucan felt hesitant going on a different path than Silent. He was confident she wouldn't betray him until she became an elf so he would have preferred he take a path with her. But the higher-level players would have a better chance at stopping others from escaping through secret tunnels, so it was a good idea to have them take separate paths.
"That could work. Most of the bandits are on the left path though. Will Silent be able to do enough damage to that many bandits?"
"Don't worry." Lucy said. "I have 2 priest classes; I am a holy priest and a shadow priest. I have plenty of curses and damage."
"Ah, shadow priest, great."
"Do you doubt I can hold the gate?" Van asked, playing around.
"Nope, I am sure it will be a festival of slaughter."
"Ha, ha, ha, that's right."