Revenge of the Sorcerer King 2 - 8

Morning Guys! Hows thursday treating you all? 

Chapter 8

Oberon

The transformation of Gobrin proceeded in much the same way as Gobluke. Certainly, while I managed to refine the process after doing it on Gobluke, it was still painful for him. Gobrin still barely uttered a sound during the change. It spoke volumes of his will power. I would need to see about him becoming a spellcaster later down the road. The ability to ignore pain was high on the list for us.

Gobrin had less bulk than Gobluke. He was the same golden-brown skin but his hair which he gained during the transformation went to his shoulders. Other than that, his face possessed a sort of handsomeness that many human women might enjoy if they could look past his fangs. He currently was flexing his hands admiring the change.

“Gobluke. I want to speak with your elders in a minute, but first would you show me your status.”

“Of course!” His eyes went to something in the air that I couldn’t see until he twisted his hand under it. A screen much like my own appeared. 

Name: Gobluke. 

Age: 17

Race: Sun-Touched Goblin 

Level: 52

[Basic Magic Mastery: Novice] [Spear Mastery: Expert] [Tracking: Expert] [Mana Reinforcement: Adept] [Sneak: Adept] [Hunting: Adept] [Skinning: Adept] [Hand-to-hand Combat: Expert]

Curses:  

Boons:  

“Got quite a few things under your belt I see.”

“Survival of the fittest would be the most adapt way to describe the goblin tribes of today’s era. If you couldn’t pull your own weight, then there was no reason for the clan to keep you around.”

“Fair enough. Still… I have never heard of a Sun-touched Goblin before.”

“I don’t know about that. I’ve always been a yellow goblin. The elders might know more as what little clan history we do have is passed down through them.”

“Well no time like the present. Lead on.” I gestured to the exit and the reformed goblins led the way. 

To say we caused a stir would be an understatement. Goblins pointed and growled at the obvious alpha members. Males, in particular, were close to getting violent with the pair. Females drooled as the started flashing the two with their assets. I eventually had to cast a barrier spell to keep the growing crowd off us.

“That building, master.” Gobluke pointed at the largest building in the district. That however was its only redeeming feature. The goblins had knocked out several of the walls and hung banners of the different branches in the clan. The clan banner hung from the roof. A pair of goblin hands gripping bleeding hearts. I was impressed with how accurately the goblins had recreated the image.

A large goblin a full head taller than Gobluke stepped out of the building. A large rusted battle-axe that would have been magnificent had it been maintained rested on his shoulder. His yellow skin riddled with scars. 

“Chief GobRuk,” Gobluke said.

“Who you?!” The oversized goblin shouted angerly. 

“Gobluke and Gobrin. We seek an audience with the elders!”

“You lie!” GobRuk gestured threateningly with his great axe. I could probably kill him in a few seconds flat but given goblin hierarchy it might be better to let Gobluke deal with him. Just to make the whole process go smoother down the road. Given the looks he was getting from the females, then he was a hero in his current form.

“Gobluke. Just deal with him,” I said while trying not to yawn in the process.

“Skeleton make good chew toy for whelps,” GobRuk said with a wide grin.

“Okay. Now I want you to kill him before I turn your clan into Alessa’s playthings.”

“Yes. Master.” He moved forward a few paces. “I challenge GobRuk for position of chief.”

“Outsider show true self!” 

“I’m not an outsider!” Gobluke shouted with mounting anger. He grabbed his spear from his back and took a challenging pose. “I challenge chief!” He spilled back into his more goblin speech. I guess a few minutes of a better mind wasn’t enough to fix years of life. 

“You weak but GobRuk accept!” 

The battle started without much fanfare. The two goblins starred each other down for a few seconds before they charged. Before Gobluke’s change he might have been at a disadvantage even with the spear, but now their range came to about the same. Gobluke was the better of the two however, as his spear was much lighter than GobRuk.

GobRuk brought his axe down with a spray of dust as Gobluke sidestepped out of the way. He gabbed GobRuk with his spear quickly causing two then three cuts on the chief’s chest. They were shallow though and GobRuk shrugged them off. Going for a horizontal sweep this time, Gobluke struggled to back away in time and almost lost his head. 

Gobluke managed to avoid the blow by falling on his back and back rolled to escape the danger. He tapped the ground as he did so, and several swirling pits of sand appeared around the two. GobRuk grunted before he slammed his foot on the ground. Whirling vortexes formed filling the rest of the free space. 

After that, the visuality of the fight fell to almost zero. I switched to my life sight and managed to make out their signatures as they fought in the sandstorm. After close to three minutes, the whirling storms died down. The two combatants reappeared to normal sight with Gobluke’s spear stabbed through the throat of the other goblin. 

“I CHIEF!” He shouted to the cheering of all the goblins around us. I sensed a small vortex of mana swirl around him and Gobluke grew almost six centimeters in every direction becoming larger all around. He yanked his spear out of the former chief, but it couldn’t handle the fight and broke in several places.

I walked forward clapping. “Congratulations. A gift for the new chief.” I held my hand over the former chief and used my necromantic mana. The body exploded and a spear made from bone grew in front of us. When it was a proper length for the newly reformed goblin, I ceased the spell. 

“Thank you, master!” 

“Now. If the chief would please see me to the elders,” I said with a chuckle.

“Right this way,” he replied with a chuckle as well and led the way into the tribal building. The inside of the building was disgusting. I was sad to see how far goblins had fallen since my death. I hoped once they were freed of the curse, they would return to the way I remembered them. 

“One moment,” Gobluke said motioning for me to wait outside a room. I nodded in understanding. All societies had their procedures. While I could waltz in there and force them to do my bidding, I was a believer in having people do the work because they wanted to do it. Otherwise, I was better off making them into undead. 

They wisely only made me wait a minute. Likely, while Gobluke informed them of the changes that had just taken place in the clan. A lesser goblin poked his head out and told us to come in after a moment. 

Gobluke sat at the place of honor in the middle of the room. I noticed a few females that looked upset they couldn’t be near him. There were six elders in total with three on each side of Gobluke that had no such qualms about having a female service them while they sat there. Even the one elder that was female had a male under her.

I threw Gobluke a look and he nodded in understanding. He slammed his new spear on the ground causing the ground to ripple as he applied some mana to the action. “The master of the city is here. You will all cease this display of disrespect at once,” he said in the goblin tongue. 

The elders gave me a fowl look but waved off their concubines. When they had all left the room, one of the elders turned to look me in the eye. He was likely the oldest goblin I had seen in this new world. “What does the skeleton want?” It was a good thing I had cast a translation spell while I waited as it was quite thickly accented goblin.

“I was going to offer to free you from your curses like your new chief, but I might change my mind,” I said. Either the old goblin couldn’t tell that I could annihilate his entire clan with a wave of my hand, or he had big enough balls that he just didn’t care.

He gave Gobluke a critical eye then turned back to me with a shrug. “Young ones would certainly enjoy it, but this one is at the end of his life. The Skeleton’s offer doesn’t thrill this one.” I noticed the other elders were nodding along with him. 

“How about living long enough to see the sun again?” I asked raising my hand to form several ethereal green bolts around me. 

“Then my family would serve you until they no longer have to. They would be lazy and worthless,” the elder replied with a green as he starched his crotch.

“The Lord Skeleton is wise to seek our council. We should give him credit,” the female goblin elder said from the side. She looked to be the youngest of the bunch, but not by much. While she didn’t wear cloths, there were enough pieces of jewelry to thankfully cover most of her body. 

“Elders, this is going to happen. I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if you accept and move on,” Gobluke said with some annoyance. 

“Aye. This one knows we will give in. This ones still wants something to make it worth it,” the first elder said with a nod of his head. 

“What do you want?” I asked with some surprise at the elder. I guess even changed the goblins were still masters at making a deal. 

“Women!” They all shouted expect the female goblin who shouted “men!” 

“I suppose that can be arranged. For now, let’s say two per elder.”

“Deal! They better be good women. This one has grown tired of the goblin sort,” the elder shouted with enough glee I worried about the old timer. 

“Very well. I will arrange it shortly. I trust I will have full cooperation from all your families in the clan.”

“Aye. We even reach out to other clans if you want. We know where they place their hidey holes.” 

The room darkened as the flames in my eye sockets pulled in the light. “Excellent idea.” 

Alessa

Sarius and I looked into the hundredth cave for the day. Oberon said he would look into the finding out from the local goblin tribe, but I wanted to explore on foot. It gave me a chance to kill some monsters and Sarius needed to bring his level back to its original level from when he was a human.

I thought the man would resent me for ripping him from his life the way we had, but whenever I asked he was only thankful. When I asked Helena about it, she said it was part of the change. He would retain free will but would look at the last moments of his life as a human and would feel such feelings when he thought about it.

“Dead end, mistress.” 

“Damn. I was hoping to find it before Oberon,” I whined as I kicked a rock that slammed into the tunnel wall hard enough to dig a small furrow.

“If I might?”

“What is it?”

“Dungeons normally release monsters onto the world. That is why they have to be regulated. The fact the desert isn’t overwhelmed by monsters means this dungeon is dormant or sealed in some way.”

“Go on.”

“Thus, we need to find it like adventurers. Check the ambient mana in the air and find the highest concentration.”

“Helena thought of that when I asked her. Oberon’s city is throwing off all the readings,” I said with a pout. I moved to the wall and plopped down. I took one of the blood orbs and took a drink. I decided I would need to drink them faster as the one I was working on was the oldest at about a week and was starting to ruin as a blood source.

“Yes, but I doubt the dungeon will be of the undead type. Given that master Oberon was a sorcerer of world renown, then he would have created a dungeon that would help with this ambition. This is a long stretch but if we only check for elemental energies, we could speed the search up.”

I looked at him with new light in my eyes. He was right that we hadn’t filtered out anything when we did the first check. Helena had just set it for high energy levels and the city threw the gauge off. I reached into my pack and pulled out a large compass. Helena had given it to me when I told her what I was doing. 

I played with the mana crystals until only a few remained. Thanks to Oberon beating magic lessons into me. Quite literally as he would be launching magic missiles at me while he lectured. I knew a decent about of basic magic theory now. Once I finished rearranging the remaining crystals, I placed it on the ground and stepped back. A person’s aura could interfere with the reading after all.

The arrow spun crazily for a few seconds before it started to slow. After a good minute or two, it had locked onto something. I smiled when I saw that it was not the direction of the city. “Sarius. If we find the dungeon, I promise to kiss you,” I said as I picked up the compass. 

“It shall be an honor, mistress,” Sarius said with a bow. 

We quickly ran out of the cave and checked the path of the compass. Once we had the line in our mind, we took off. We crossed distance much faster than any mortal could hope to achieve. I personally wanted to create a small vampire force and seek out the rest of my family once they reached higher levels.

We could easily make it to the distant east after a few nights. Oberon and Helena both smacked me over the head and told me that was too dangerous. Admittedly, there were hundreds of things that could go wrong, but still. Adventure was all about taking chances. 

“Mistress.”

“What?” I asked coming out of my thoughts.

“We passed it,” Sarius said and I smacked my forehead as we skidded to a stop with a blast of sand around us.

I laughed as I rubbed the back of my head. “Whoops.”