Testing Theories

*Buzz*

*Buzz Buzz*

*BUZZZZZ*

Baal swatted at the annoying noise disturbing his slumber. After his exertion and previous lack of sleep, he had nearly melted into his bed the night before. His last order has been for his newest elemental to wake him at sunrise. Previously the sun itself would wake him as it peaked above the forest, shining into his little hole on the mountain. Now that he was deep within his dungeon that was no longer the case. Liegelord problems.

The little bubble bee easily dodged his clumsy attempts to shrug it off as it dutifully followed its orders to wake its master.

*Buzz Buzz*

“Shut up!” Baal roared as the elemental again slipped away from his fingers.

He sat up in bed angrily scowling at the retreating string of bubbles. The translucent elemental hummed happily for a moment at its completed task then zipped away.

“Need doors,” The orc mumbled to himself. “Thick heavy doors that smash little bees!”

He begrudgingly pulled himself out of the soft warm bed and eyed the waiting pop ups.

Level up!
Baal, Level 8 Orc Initiate
Monster, Microboss, Orc, Explicit
Experience to level up – 476
Attributes:
Strength 22 > 23
Dexterity 13 > 15
Stamina 37 > 40
Charisma 13 > 14
Intelligence 19 > 20 (+3)
Wisdom 24 > 25
Luck 26 > 27

He had leveled as he slept. Not only had he gained a level; but, thanks to the tireless skeleton, he was already well on his way to his next.

Fame: 24
Survive an Enemy Vendetta for 3 days! +3
Survive an Enemy Vendetta for 4 days! +4
A Quest Against You has been Updated! (Expanded)
Quest Accepted! + 2
Quest Accepted! + 1
Quest Accepted! + 3
Quest Accepted! + 3
Quest Accepted! + 1
Quest Accepted! + 5

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes with the somber realization that he had been too tired to check the quest status the day before and SirWalterTheDread wasn’t going away. He only hoped that the vendetta might somehow be costing the adventurer even as it boosted himself.

He brushed away the floating screens and re-equipped his menagerie of clothing.

Ill fitting, stained, and full of holes, he still had his slightly upgraded long time companions: the metal reinforced shabby pants and boots.

One of his many prizes from his first, and so far only, adventurer kill: the garish black and purple mage’s tunic that cut out around his hips and hung to his knees in the front and back.

The clumsily constructed orange trimmed and frilled leather bracers of life.

The thick salt and pepper speckled badgers coat that he wore unbuttoned.

His tarnished metal accessories with their dull lifeless gems set in ragged and rusted bands: a sapphire ring and an opal ring and necklace.

And lastly his twisted spike of a walnut staff of wind.

The short, pudgy, pig nosed orc marched triumphantly from his quarters to survey his domain. No sooner had he stepped forward than the translucent slime emerged to take its place at its master’s side.

“Suouo!” Suo chirped happily as a greeting.

He was about to ask the slime for the goblins location but the question was moot as he entered the altar room. Most the tribe was sleeping on the various steps ringing the pit around the altar. The two prominent goblin women Bunny and Feathers had taken the spots on either side of the opening to his own suite.

He shook the ex chiefess awake and watched as her face shifted from sleepy confusion to recognition to adoration.

“Master!” The goblin immediately wrapped herself around him.

“Good morning Bunny” he returned the greeting even as he tried to peel her away. She had a habit of rubbing her generous assets against him in a delightfully distracting way but he had other plans for the day. He pulled the armor he had crafted the night before out of his inventory and handed them to the sexpot. “Rouse the others and distribute these as you see fit. We have work to do today.”

In short order the orc was standing on the entrance level ring with the sleepy restless goblins arranged before him. Today they would be venturing up the mountain, a dangerous proposition in the best of times, but a large group would certainly gain unwanted attention. He selected the smith and builders who had practiced combat in the arena once they were out of useful materials the day before. Even that meager training made them stronger than the average goblin. He considered having the wiry trickster train all day, but his scouting abilities and ranged attack were too useful to pass up. Feathers would come of course, that was certain, even if the gobliness has deep green bags under her eyed that betrayed how late she had trained in the arena herself.

While Bunny had settled well into the role of overseeing the goblins in the dungeon, half his plans today revolved around her, so her presence would be necessary as well. That left four of the mob goblins behind to train and watch over the dungeon and the two infants. It wasn’t ideal leaving his daughter in their care, but it was safer than taking her up the mountain. And it seemed that goblin children were typically cared for and raised communally.

Weapons and armor were redistributed, stone tools were collected, and the group set out early for the mountain trail. They would go in two groups. Feathers and the three workers would go together to gather in one direction, while he would take Suo, Bunny, and the trickster goblin to gather and test their skills in another.

Leaving this early, Baal assumed that they could harvest several of the closest resource nodes and they would refill by the time the groups returned, maximizing the harvest. But as they left the dungeon he was immediately sidetracked.

Again their was a small pile of common stone at his door step. Some sort of useless odd offering, but it was nice someone or something out there was trying to impress him. However, next to the pile was something far shinier and more lively. A Bronze Beetle, a rather large insect at nearly eight inches long and six inches wide, sat at the entrance. Its trademark hard metallic shell gleaming bronze in the early morning light.

“SuSuo!” The slime jumped in front of him protectively.

Bronze Beetle - ???

The bug clicked its mandibles as it stood its ground. He knew these creatures inhabited many of the caves in the mountain. A single beetle wasn’t much of a threat, and tasted terrible he recalled, but in a swarm they could be difficult to handle due to their high defense.

A wild bronze beetle has asked to join you.
Accept bronze beetle into dungeon?

The bug wanted to join him? Was it intelligent? Then again he had taken in a slime and a goblin tribe and it could be argued which of those had more intelligence. Well in for a penny...

Baal pressed accept.

He expected the bug to fall in line much like the slime had, instead it ignored him as it marched forward into the dungeon.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He demanded of the bug.

There was no reply of course. In fact no reaction at all. The beetle completely ignored the master of the dungeon and simply skittered around him.

Damn those things were fast.

He was already having second thoughts about accepting it as he chased the thing deeper into the dungeon. It crossed the threshold and was already descending the stairs before Baal even left the entryway. The stairs slowed it enough that by the time Baal made it to the pit on the production level, he caught a fleeting glimpse of the bug disappearing into the dark cave tunnels of the labrynth the golems were building below.

Well that was that then. Only time would tell if he had just made a colossal mistake.

Regrouping the troupe of goblins, and with a few curious glances from the mobs staying behind and the guard at the door, they set off once again.

He set Feather’s group off at the first crossing. They would take the rich resource path he preferred and focus on gathering as much as possible. His group would also gather as they had the opportunity of course, but their goal was entirely different. He lead them further up a somewhat familiar though less traveled path. He needed to go higher than the usual plateau and there was no sense in covering the same ground and resource nodes as the other group.

He was also intrigued by the trap crafting ability of the trickster. He had seen the simple snare traps the goblin could make during their earlier hunts. Now he wanted to see if it could produce something deadlier that might protect the dungeon entrance. A curious facet of the skill was that it required time but not materials to complete. Rather it seemed to be limited in what it could produce by the level of the skill itself. Baal’s dreams of explosive traps or poisonous darts would have to wait, but apart from the snare, the trickster was able to produce a small pitfall trap as well as a dead fall that caused a rock to crash on its target. If used properly either of those could prove interesting in the narrow mountain paths.

Once his curiosity was sated they still left a few of the snares as they climbed, just in case they could catch any small prey. Resource nodes were not as plentiful on this route but they were able to harvest quickly thanks to the tools, and possibly because of his skill or luck, they did recover a rather large percentage of the precious scrap ore from the boulders.

Finally, after climbing for most the morning, he spotted the target of their expedition. A herd of the scraggly mountain goats scattered around the cliffs above them. Traps might have been useful if it was possible to place them so high up the sheer wall. Baal was also curious as to the range and effectiveness of the trickster’s short bow. But before they alerted the animals bleating gloat-fully at their assumed invulnerability he first had something else in mind.

“How much experience have you had with hunting?” He asked Bunny.

“Me not hunter,” she replied surprised. “Only kill small things. No good kill big. Good at make happy.”

She emphasized the last point by rubbing herself against the larger orc. It was more or less what he had expected. The goblins didn’t try to push the limits of their abilities on their own. And as an enchantress, Bunny had some truly unique abilities.

“I want you to cast your spells on those animals,” he told her.

“Make happy?” She asked with a strange look on her face.

Given the usual sexual connotations to those words from her, it was a rather disturbing implication that she looked more intrigued than revolted.

“Just... ask them to follow us,” he corrected her, hopefully heading off any misunderstandings.

The gobliness seemed to center herself for a moment. There was no outward change but after a moment Baal began to feel unpleasantly peaceful and calm. It must be her tranquility spell he reasoned. His own charisma was too low to resist the area of effect, but it seemed that either his liegelord ability granted him some knowledge or at least his willpower was high enough to recognize what was happening. Either way it was fine. This was nice. A good thing.

He growled softly to himself and bit down on his own lip to resist the damnable spell.

In the meantime the gobliness has changed her stance and had begun shaking her hips in a rather provocative dance which ended with her blowing a kiss. A small pink cloud enveloped the head of the targeted goat. It’s already dull eyes lost focus and it’s mouth hung open dropping the dry grasses it had been chewing.

“Come here food,” the gobliness called sweetly.

The charmed animal dumbly lept down the narrow ledges, stumbling the last few feet or so, and came to stand in front of her. The goat and the goblin were nearly the same height so it met her gaze as it bleated in her face waiting for further commands. Thanks to the tranquility spell, rather than being alarmed, the rest of the herd watched with mild disinterest.

Baal had hoped she would be able to capture more than one but this seemed to be her current limit. The idea he had before of creating a self sustaining food source in the dungeon relied on her unique ability of swaying the local wildlife and convincing it to come willingly. Still he considered this a successful test. Her spells clearly affected animals as well, if not better, than adventurers or other monsters. Now the only question was if the spell was strong enough to get the goat all the way back to his lair or if it would be broken by what he was about to do.

“Ok,” he nodded at the trickster who had waited patiently while keeping a lookout. “Kill the rest.”

The goblin readied his short bow with a toothy grin as he took aim at the motionless herd. It turned out the tranquility spell could be broken by combat, but the trickster was still able to take down three of the beasts before the rest retreated to safety higher up the mountain side. With no hostility directed at it, the charmed goat remained unaffected by the chaos as it patiently awaited a command.

Baal used a stone pickax to mine boulders as the goblin deconstructed his kills into items. They didn’t have a use for the wool yet, but the meat would be put to good use. The gobliness had taken to riding her new pet as she was of little help to the other two and to keep the slime from trying to eat it.

They were almost finished when Baal felt the change. The connection to the summoned skeleton he had left training in the arena was suddenly severed. It was possible the goblins had wanted to test the fruits of their training and had worked together to defeat it, but he had sinking feeling in his stomach. Something was wrong at the dungeon.

“We’re going!” He told the others abruptly.

The two goblins looked at him questioningly but obeyed the command. He considered his options as they started their descent and quickly altered direction towards the plateau. Without knowing what had happened, precaution meant gathering both groups.

It was something if a relief to find the Feather's team harvesting resources unmolested. The barbarian goblin had hunted several of the camouflaging lizards so in addition to the stone and ore resources they had also added several lizard skins and meat to their overflowing inventory.

This group had also nearly completed their tasks but he informed them of the change in plans. They quickly, but cautiously made their way back to the dungeon. Baal and Suo led the way, followed by Feathers, Bunny still riding atop her charmed goat, the three worker goblins, and finally the trickster bringing you the rear and watching for ambushes. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary on the path, though every random noise was treated with suspicion. All efforts at harvesting were forgotten so they made rather good time, but it was still early afternoon by the time they reached the crooked path leading around the mountain to the dungeon entrance.

All was quiet as they reached the open dungeon doors.

“Suooo,” the slime bristled.

Baal recognized it too. The smell of blood.