Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

With little time left to act I reached down to my hip and unsheathed my longsword and prepared for the incoming goblins, the first one that was running just fine gave a happy sounding yelp as it basically jumped and swung its curved sword towards me. While it was in mid jump I brought my longsword down which it blocked with its shield which deformed the metal and pushed the goblin back giving me some breathing room.

The other goblin that decided to run at me was trying to remove the earth bolts from its arm and was paying little attention to the fight at this point or anything else other than the earth bolts in its arm. The first goblin after the sudden and powerful strike was now a little more cautious of me and was moving around a few meters from me trying to look for something.

‘This isn’t very good, these two goblins are tougher, faster and probably stronger as well. I guess I never really realized just how much since I never fought any of these ones up close. I was always in the back casting spells and providing support. I guess I am lucky the boss goblin decided it only wanted two of his subordinates to fight me at the start, it probably wants to figure out how tough I am and then plan accordingly.’

The leading goblin of this group, getting impatient shouted something at his two subordinates which seemed to motivate the one closest to me to try and kill me again. This time however it rushed towards me lowering its body to try and make itself a smaller target, it was definitely evidence that it was thinking and now trying something new and that they might not all be deserving of death, but unfortunately it was still a moron.

Swinging my sword from my lower left side up to my upper right was enough to force the goblin to stop and try and block my attack with its sword which knocked it out of its hands. Following that I brought my sword down with as much strength as I could muster which the goblin tried to block with its shield, the shield made very poorly and in worse condition had part break off and fall to the ground. The goblin worried and scared watched the piece of the shield break off and fall, distracting it enough for me to kick it in the chest to knock it off its feet and onto the ground.

Now that the goblin was disabled I raised my left hand and quickly casted the tri earth bolt spell point blank and sent each of those bolts directly into its eye. Since the goblin was dazed and knocked over it was unable to do anything as all three earth bolts penetrated its left eye and killed it. The other four goblins who had been watching this happen weren't very happy with what I did to their friend and shouted something before readying their own weapons, the other goblin that had the two earth bolts in its arm was now trying to keep itself from bleeding out as one of the bolts hit vein and it was bleeding profusely.

However I was prepared this time for these goblins, I already knew that unless I was up close tier one spells like tri earth bolt wouldn’t be of much use, that left me with just my tier two spells that cost double the mana of a tier one spell but had much more power. ‘I don’t have enough time or distance for a ranged attack, that just leaves me with the fire wave spell if I want to kill them all. But it will be a very close call, they will be close enough to swing at me, so I will need to be quick and move backwards as I cast.’

As I started casting the tier two fire wave spell I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, the goblins noticed that I was casting another spell and were more than happy to stop me from doing that again. Slowly I took steps backwards to try and somewhat extended the distance between us just enough to stay out of their attack range, but as the seconds passed I knew they were going to reach me just as I finished the spell.

And I was right, just as the leader was half a meter from me and his three subordinates were right behind him I finished the spell and had my hands raised above my head before in one swift motion I brought them down with a wave of fire that engulfed all four of them.

Since pyromancy isn’t physical like how geomancy or hydromancy is, the goblins didn’t fly away when they were fit by the fire, instead they were just engulfed and every nerve across their skill sent signals to their brains that they were on fire. This was enough to stop them in their tracks and keep them running around panicking as they died.

Unfortunately for myself I was dangerously close to running out of mana, while I did recover some during the walk up to the fifteenth floor and back it wasn’t quite as much if I had meditated and recovered some extra. Thankfully I still had a single unit of mana left so I wasn’t feeling any severe effects of mana exhaustion though I still felt tired after.

I took a moment to relax and breathe while the side effects wore off while I watched what the last remaining goblin was doing, with the sudden shouting of its commands it looked up as saw all four of them slowly burning to death it started to panic. It stood up on its shaking feet and tried to slowly walk past me to run away, but that was when I noticed it and it froze.

I could see that it was thinking and it was trying to find a solution to escape, since it stall had its weapon in its still functioning hand and I looked rather exhausted after what it saw a very powerful magic it decided it would try and move past by force. To start this quickly thought up plan it decided to waive its sword around and draw attention away from its injured arm in what I think was an attempt to scare me away which of course didn’t work.

Then it started to hope itself up by jumping up and down a few times to get the blood flowing before soon after it started running towards me like before. It knew I couldn’t cast any more spells and it also knew that I wasn’t as strong as I was before. Unfortunately for it I still had the strength to swing my sword and fight it.

With little consideration for its posture or its form the goblin ran right up to me and swung its curved sword from overhead to try and either hurt me or scare me. Using my own sword I just blocked the sloppy attack which surprised and left the goblin open to a counter attack. From my upper right down I swung my sword and left a deep gash on the goblins left shoulder which it at the last moment tried to jump out of the way from giving it some distance. I could see now that the goblin realized that it made a mistake.

Now that it was injured in two places I began walking forwards with my own sword held close to my right shoulder ready to strike again. The goblin started to panic even more and started running around me to try and escape that way, it probably thought that if it got far enough away it could hide and eventually I would give up. Unfortunately I was both faster than it but I also had a better reach with my sword.

As it tried to circle around and escape I quickly followed after it and when I was close enough I thrusted forward with the tip of my sword aiming for the upper back area. Due to all the movement and the fact I was running while doing this my thrust missed its initial target and instead grazed the side of the goblin leaving a deformity in the armor and causing the goblin to stumble. I then brought the sword back again and stabbed again this time hitting the back of its left thigh and it fell to the ground.

Without wasting a moment I raised my sword again and slashed downwards on the goblin towards the face and head area leaving a large cut in the face that took off some flesh, the goblin screamed out in pain at this and started to wave its curved sword wildly to force me away. My next swing was towards the hand and I managed to cut around halfway through the wrist and the armor it had there where I actually landed the hit.

The goblin screamed out in pain yet again as its right hand became useless, this time I faced little resistance as I stabbed the face again. My sword went straight into its eye and past reaching its brain where the eye socket began to crack and break open somewhat as I pushed harder against the now crying goblin. When I did eventually retract my sword the goblin was barely moving as blood poured from its eye socket.

/- - - - - -\

+ 100 Exp X 6 (600)

Level 8, 4600

+ 10 points, 40 unused

Next at 5400

\- - - - - -

Dropping my sword to the ground I fell to my knees as I started to heavily breathe, the stress from the fight just now making itself known to my body which was now aching with exhaustion. Slowly crawling over to a wall with a view of the staircase I leaned against it as I sat down allowing myself to relax and I took a moment to meditate and recover my mana.

Closing my eyes and taking deep breaths I could begin to feel my mana recovery spike up, I kept my ears open and listened for any sign of anyone or anything entering the floor via the stairs. Thankfully I didn’t hear anything and when my mana had recovered around a quarter of the way a half hour later I saw no change to the area.

Slowly standing up I could feel that my mussels were still tired from the fight, I didn’t have enough strength to carry any of the equipment that the goblins brought with themselves or what I returned to collect as well. ‘Dam, this is unfortunate. I guess I am going to need to come back tomorrow when I wake up to bring this all back to my bedroom. I honestly don’t think I have the strength to carry anything other than what I am carrying and wearing.’

Slowly I returned back up the stairs the very same way I came and through the hallway to my bedroom. Once inside I closed the door behind myself and quickly took my armor off until I was just wearing my clothes. But as I was about to lay down I suddenly smelt something really bad. I started looking around the room for a moment to find what it was, but eventually I realized that whatever it was followed me resulting in the smell being about the same everywhere. Eventually I raised my arm and smelt my own armpit and immediately recoiled from the smell. ‘Oh heavens, that is awful. I smell like a wild animal, I don’t think I have washed since I have woken up here for the second time. I should probably do that before I sleep if I want the sheets to smell half decent tomorrow when I sleep again.’

Walking over to the door where there was some empty space to have a bath I conjured up a large tub via geomancy and started to fill it with water collected from the moisture in the air until it was around three quarters full. Then I used my pyromancy to heat up the water so I wasn’t sitting in cold water. I started to take my clothes off and wash them the best I could in the water before hanging them over the edge to dry while I clean myself.

Since I didn’t have any soap or even a brush to help clean myself it wasn’t a very efficient process and I only felt and smelt partly better. But the smell was much better than before which was enough for me to dry my clothes with some pyromancy and put them back on before going to sleep for the night.

********

Bright and early in the morning Aelia and her four subordinates began their walk down the stairs to the fifteenth floor. The day before they were permitted by Lyra to explore the fourteenth floor in addition to the eleventh where they found no goblin activity. Passing by Citro who was now wide awake they all nodded a simple yet universal way of showing respect. Past the barricade they took in their surroundings and looked at the available paths they had. From what they could see there were two hallways they could take that were still intact, the first was directly ahead and partly illuminated by some of the blue crystals attached to the walls, the second was off to the left and soon went around a corner preventing them from seeing anything past it.

“This looks like one of the smaller floors of the city. Might not be all that much here other than a few goblins and whatever they scrounged up.” Aelia said as she held her two handed axe in her right hand, her face wasn't visible behind her helmet's visor but her voice conveyed all the emotion necessary to understand how she felt about the situation.

“Yeah, it does look quite small. But this might also be dedicated for the wealthy residents of the city. We might find something like long forgotten jewelry or even enchanted items somewhere. The dwarves of the second era were well known for being very greedy and wealthy, that was the reason why they started so many wars at the start and lost so much power and influence by losing most of them.” Hambel said as he started to walk down the hall directly ahead in an attempt to cheer everyone up.