Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

With several earth bolts in my left hand and my sword in my right I slowly stepped around the bar counter and up to the wall before walking alongside it until I could peek around the corner. When I did I saw the goblin mage had left a door at the very end of the hallway open and from what I could see there was a very large bed in the very center of the room.

The goblin was out of my line of sight, likely hidden past the door and waiting for me to try and enter to attack me, but there wasn’t really anything else that I could do. So with deep breath I started walking forwards with my left hand pointed forwards ready to use the earth bolts at the first sign of movement. That first sign of movement did eventually happen and the goblin mage poked its own head out from around the corner to look.

Immediately I released the earth bolts towards the goblin who immediately ducked behind the corner and the bolts missed instead hitting the wall. I rushed forward with my sword now in both hands. As I rounded the corner the goblin mage had a spell in its hands that was another ball of water, only this time it was much larger than the others. Though the spell must not have been ready because the goblin didn’t even try to hit me with it.

Instead it started walking backwards while shouting at me and enlarging the ball further, I took this lack of offensive action to run towards it with my longsword tip pointed towards it with the intention of stabbing it. The goblin managed to somewhat deflect my stab with its ball that it hastily reshaped into a disk shape but I quickly followed up with an overhead slash that used most of the momentum I retained which damaged the water ball severely.

With a damaged ball of water the goblin tried to walk backwards to gain some room but the limited size of the room prevented that from happening and left me with an open target. Taking a step forward with my left foot I thrusted forward with my sword’s tip once again and this time I found my mark and stabbed the goblin mage in the stomach leaving a deep wound, the goblin shouted out in pain and fell to the floor as its wound bled. Changing to a reverse grip I plunged my sword downwards into the goblin again and again in the chest, stomach, and the face until it stopped moving and yelling.

Leaning against the nearby wall I took a moment to catch my breath, I gave the goblin a few pokes before I was certain that it was actually dead. Satisfied with that outcome I started walking back down the hall towards the stairs back down when I heard the sounds of footsteps in the distance and shouting goblins.

‘Shit, the other goblins must have heard our fight and are coming to investigate. I am betting that those shouts were them asking if the goblin mage was alright, since it didn’t answer they are now coming to take a look.’ Panicking somewhat I readied my sword and began casting offensive spells that I kept at the ready for when the other goblins marched up those stairs using around half of my total mana capacity to do so.

I could hear them reaching the level just below and mutter amongst themselves in their language, eventually I heard one lone set of footsteps start walking up the stairs and I aimed my spells towards the stairs while standing behind the bar counter. After several moments of stress and anticipation I saw the head of the foul goblin poking its head into view and without hesitation I gave it an earth bolt that pierced into the back of its skull.

With a loud thud the goblin fell down the stairs and likely ending in front of those remaining as they started shouting in anger with a little touch of fear. Three more goblins quickly rushed up those stairs this time paying attention to where the bolt came from and raised their shields to block my attack.

Unfortunately for their quick thinking I have very good control and power with my spells and I managed to circumvent their shields or blow right through them to land a serious injury that either took them out of the fight or killed them. The three goblins followed their first ally and fell to the bottom of this flight of stairs with only one still breathing at the bottom.

After this the goblins went quiet for a while as they thought about what they just witnessed and what they could do to kill me, but unfortunately for them I wasn’t really keen on waiting on my ass for the danger to find me with my half depleted mana reserves. With six units of mana I conjured up a Wave of Fire spell which I then kept in hand as I descended a few steps until I could see several of the goblins who looked up at me with confusion. As they looked like they were going to do something I finished the Fire Wave and pushed my arms forwards resulting in the fire wave engulfing most of the goblins in my view.

The only goblins that were not touched by these flames were the ones that were standing towards the back, the rest were practically fully enveloped by the fire leaving them in pain and screaming for their lives. Taking several steps back to avoid the now terrified goblins I took my sword in both hands and waited with bated breath as the chaos unfolded.

By the time the fire stopped burning at least half of the goblins that were burned were dead while the other half were out of the fight permanently due to their severe burns. Raising my right arm upwards while pointing my sword forward I ran down the stairs and towards the nearest standing goblin and stabbed it in the arm.

With a loud scream in its own language it fell to the ground and I swung my sword down on it while the other still standing goblins were still recovering from the shock of what happened, but that didn’t stay that way for long. Two goblins immediately turned to flee from the current situation while the other two rushed at me with their weapons held high.

The first goblin to reach me was carrying a piece of rock that was shaped into the form of a large club relative to its own body, it looked very awkward to carry around but this goblin looked to be doing half decent with it. With a large swing the goblin brought the club down, missing me by a few inches. I was about to swing my sword to retaliate when the second goblin followed up with a second attack with its spear towards my face.

Taking several steps back I took a few deep breaths while the two goblins readied themselves and ran towards me to attack again. Like before the first to attack was the goblin with the club who missed when I dodged out of the way and was followed up by the second goblin thrusting its spear towards me, only this time I waited for this to happen before I circled around to the now exposed side where the spear wielding goblin was vulnerable.

Both goblins saw this and they began to somewhat panic as I brought my sword down on the left arm of the spear wielding goblin cutting through the flesh and stopping at the bone. Blood began pouring out and the goblin dropped its spear as it screamed and took several steps backwards out of shock interrupting its ally.

The goblin with the club was surprised and angered by this display of tactics and practically howled at me like a wolf and began swinging its club around with little regard for anything else in the room we were in. Numerous pieces of furniture that were still present within the room were shattered apart when they met that club leaving the floor covered with pieces of stone and wood and unsafe for anyone walking barefoot.

However I started to notice the goblin slowing down with his swings along with his power decreasing with it, it started to breath heavily and it started taking a few seconds between each of its swings. ‘Idiot, everyone knows you can't swing something around forever. That is why technique is so important, that way you can limit the stamina you use when attacking.’

Eventually the goblin started to grow sluggish and after its club hit the ground with a loud thump several feet away from me it began struggling to muster the strength to pick it up and attack again. Being one to take an opportunity when I see it I raised my own sword and swung it towards the goblins neck.

Just before my swing hit I was blessed to have a moment to look directly at the face of the surprised goblin who was unable to imagine how I have the strength to swing my sword when it didn’t. Unfortunately it didn’t have the time to ponder this insightful question as my blade met its neck and left a very deep wound that started to pour blood like a waterfall.

The goblin started panicking as it held its neck with one hand and it stumped around with the other for something that might keep it alive, but eventually it lost its strength and fell to the ground from blood loss. It was still breathing when it was on the floor so I did it a favor and used my sword to end its suffering.

Looking over to the spear wielding goblin I found that it tried to escape down the stairs but tripped on its way there and went head first into the wall knocking itself unconscious as it was bleeding from its arm. Unlike its club wielding ally it wasn’t bleeding nearly as bad, but it was still my enemy so I killed it anyways with a blade through the chest.

/- - - - - -\

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 50 Exp

+ 75 Exp

+ 75 Exp

+ 75 Exp

+ 75 Exp

+ 75 Exp

Level 9, Next at 6600

+ 10 points

\- - - - - -/

Looking up at the notification before me I smiled as I felt my mana reserves slowly growing to reach twenty seven units of mana that I will have with thirty intellect at level nine. But I was also considering what I should do with the ten points I just received.

‘I should definitely use these points as soon as possible. I think for now my strength and constitution are good enough to fight and move effectively. My dexterity and vitality are a little lower than I would have liked and both of those things will help with my survivability, vitality will give me more stamina and dexterity will help me swing my sword in addition to help with my hand and eye coordination which helps both with weapons and magic. But there is also always just dumping those points into intellect or arcane as well.’

Realizing that I wasn’t exactly in the best place to be making these types of decisions I quickly packed up all the goblin weapons and armor that I could carry and I began on my trip to my bedroom on the fifteenth floor where I would keep it before returning and coming back. Starting with the weapons I started stuffing as many as I could into my rucksack that could fit which amounted to around half of the weapons there, most of those that remained were two handed weapons that I would need to carry with my hands regardless so I did just that.

On this first trip back up several flights of stairs I quickly discovered the value of having high strength and vitality as I was forced to make a couple stops to rest on my way back up. I even briefly considered dumping those ten points I just received into my strength and vitality, but I quickly dropped that idea as I wouldn't even feel the effects of it until I take several consecutive hours of rest. The only good thing I found aside from the loot I took was I did not meet any adversaries during any of my trips back and forth.

I didn’t know exactly how long I took to bring everything but by the time that happened I was just about ready to drop to the floor and call it a night. Unfortunately that wasn’t something I wanted to do as it would be both uncomfortable and bad for my own well being. Instead I sat down at the office desk and ate some dinner before quickly washing myself of all the dirt, sweat, and grime I had on me from my little adventure down to the nineteenth floor.

When I was done and happy with the results I took most of my clothes before climbing into bed and drifting off to sleep several minutes later.

*********

That night I had a strange and concerning dream, I was somewhere dark and blurry that looked so out of place with figures and outlines that resembled people walking around. Eventually my vision cleared up and I could see everything properly and from what I could see I was in the middle of a party or celebration of sorts in a place that resembled the castle located within the city of Antium, only this place was far more fancy and decorative with a more welcoming design.

Soon the voice of the people came into my perception and to my shock I could understand them clearly, they were speaking the very same language that I was speaking. Like some sort of spell I could also suddenly recall the name of this language that only I could speak. The name of the language was Eldaric, language of the Runead people. I was shocked by this sudden revelation. ‘Why did I understand and speak Eldaric when the people that spoke it had all died thousands of years ago? I would need to either be immortal or have found a way to pass through time faster than everything else, I am mortal and I don’t have the slightest clue how to do either.’