This Will be a Sneaking Mission

Two shitty bone knives and a stone-tipped spear were not exactly what John had in mind when he thought of ‘solid weaponry’. He was hoping for a sword, maybe an axe, something at least made of metal, but as a beggar, he accepted that he could not be a chooser. Something was better than nothing, even if he would have been better off grabbing a steak knife from the kitchen.

John was standing in a tent with a ceiling low enough to brush against his head. It served as the Greensmoke armory, small as it was, filled with an assortment of simple tools of war. Clubs, Knives, Spears, and a few shortbows lay both scattered about the floor and on wooden racks about the perimeter. Light was provided only through what managed to filter through the gaps in the tent walls and the open front flap, casting most of the room in shade.

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Thighbone Knife
Weapon - Dagger
A short cutting implement carved from the femur of some beast. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but it’ll get the job done.
5 Damage, Slashing/Piercing
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Crude Spear
Weapon - Polearm
A sharp rock tied to a long stick. The product of generations of Kobold technological advancement.
8 Damage, Piercing
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He considered taking a bow and a few arrows, but John didn’t know the first thing about archery, and learning on the fly would be hard enough without a piece of crap as his only training implement. He could try, but the weapon was diminutive in his hands and most of the arrows were crooked if not splintering. Against living, moving targets, John got the feeling that all he would accomplish would be to waste time at best and give away his position at worst.

Armor was completely out; what little the Kobolds did have was too small for someone twice their size. From the look of them, rough assemblages of bone and hide, they probably wouldn’t have done him too much good anyway. John remembered seeing distinct flashes of metal during the Black Claw raid, and the armor did precious little to protect the defenders. As the only piece of properly tanned and cured leather his size, his gifted cuirass was the only option.

More distressing in the present moment was the Kobold female who was sent to attend his preparation. She had been a bit too handsy while attempting to fit him with some protection, and was growing increasingly distracting in her blatant attempts to feel him up. Of course, his traitorous dick was beginning to respond to the attention, encouraging her behavior. She let out a delighted chirp as she ‘accidentally’ brushed against it while adjusting John’s belt, and was about to nuzzle his member directly before he pulled away, stumbling backwards.

“Hang on a se-”

John’s retreat knocked over a rack of spears, sending them clattering to the ground. His foot caught on the rack’s support struts and he followed it down shortly after. He groaned as his tailbone met the ground with the sound of breaking wood and a painful thud. John’s position seemed to only excite his company further, as she began an almost predatory crawl on hands and knees towards him.

“Nope!” John shouted. He scrambled towards the entrance and to his feet with an expert display of dextrous ineptitude only achievable by a panicked, gangly nerd. “Nope nope nope! Not doing this, no sir!”

“I’m sure you’re very nice, and thank you for all the help, but I’m good. Just tapped myself actually, really terrible timing,” John sputtered excuses on his way out. “Any other day, hoo boy, one way ticket to Lizard Pound Town, but I’m just fresh out, sorry!”

John could recognize the pout and disappointment on his would-be paramour’s face in spite of her reptilian features. It was almost enough to make him consider changing his stance on the matter. Almost.

Instead, he clapped a hand on the shoulder of the single guard standing outside the tent and gestured his free thumb behind him.

“All yours, buddy, have at ‘er.”

The Kobold stared at him in confusion, but that swiftly changed after he followed the Human’s gaze back inside the tent. The guard nodded enthusiastically and dropped his spear to clasp John’s hand and shake it with the same amount of vigor. He bounded inside, leaving John alone on the outskirts of the camp.

He recognized the sounds of intense rutting that followed near immediately after.

“Jesus Christ, someone get this whole tribe a cold shower,” John sighed as he walked off.

The Black Claw encampment was closer than John expected, only a half hour walk away from the Greensmoke settlement. Parking your tribe so close to your sworn enemies seemed like a terrible idea but, as John remembered from his recently absorbed book, Barriers tended to be microcosms of the environment they manifested as. The original spells that generated Barriers had been modified to operate that way shortly after their discovery as a matter of convenience. Every later iteration of a Barrier creation spell that followed used the same base function; nobody wanted to travel for hours just to complete a training exercise.

Man, magic is freakin’ complicated. As weird as it feels to remember stuff from Skill Books, it’s way better than having to memorize this stuff manually.

Tossing contemplations on magical theory aside, John was close enough that he had to start making strategic decisions. He could see movement among the canyon walls and small structures dotting the landscape ahead. Unfortunately, the Black Claw had set up camp in the bend of a sharp oxbow curve of the canyon. The meandering geography had thus far hidden his approach from view, but it also meant that steep face of the adjacent wall blocked his view of half of the encampment. That might not have mattered, but John couldn’t see any larger tent similar to Yoksazza’s that obviously denoted the Black Claw chief’s home on this side.

Lovely. So much for a quick in and out operation. Plan B then, search and destroy.

To say John had a concrete Plan A in the first place, let alone a Plan B, would have been an overstatement.

The sun was beginning to set, coloring the already reddish canyon landscape with orange light wherever it could reach, which turned out to be not much. As a matter of delightful inconvenience, the sun was directly ahead of John, casting the furthest wall in shadow and blinding him should he look in that direction for too long. The rest of the light was mostly blocked by massive, patchwork canopies of hide and cloth that stretched over the span of the canyon by some feat of Kobold ingenuity. There were not enough of them to form a single, cohesive ceiling for the camp but they did block enough sunlight to cast the majority of it in shadow. Only the path leading up to it was filled with a reliable amount of sunlight.

Approaching the settlement would be a challenge of its own. While a variety of hide tents littered the canyon floor, it seemed that the Black Claw were partially subterranean, constantly popping in and out of small holes carved into the canyon. They provided countless vantage points along the perimeter walls and gave a good view of the canyon’s sole angle of approach. The overhangs erected over each one only made things more difficult; the Kobolds’ black scales blended in with the shaded entrances and lightless interiors to such a degree that it was impossible for John to tell if one was occupied unless he directly saw a Kobold enter or exit.

John covered the sun with his hand and strained his eyes to try and make out something he could use to his advantage. He staggered back when the sun found a gap between his fingers and caught him in the eye, and that was when he finally realized.

They can’t stand the sunlight, you idiot!

He recalled the reaction members of both tribes had to the light in his earlier encounter. Sunlight was apparently lethal, if not extremely painful, to the Black Claw. The Greensmoke seemed to be able to tolerate the sun, but even so, the one guard who stepped into the light to retrieve him was blinded by it.

John sighed, happy to know he had a leg up on his enemies but ashamed of himself for taking so long to realize it. He’d specifically chosen the environment to cater to his lack of dark vision without considering that the opposite could also come into play. With that in mind, he had to act fast. Assuming the sun moved the same way as it did in the real world, John only had an hour, tops, to use it to his advantage.

And so, without further hesitation, he jogged the rest of the way to the camp in broad daylight, not even attempting to hide. It was only when he reached the shadow’s edge and he ducked behind a boulder that he could feel Stealth kick into gear. After waiting a moment to let his eyes adjust to his darker surroundings, John could get a much clearer picture of what he was up against.

Closer inspection revealed that many of the holes carved into the canyon walls were shallow, only deep enough to hold one or two Kobolds at a time. Not all of them were occupied and those that were contained a sleeping resident as often as not. Still, the walls were literally crawling with the black lizard folk, so John would have to continue to be on his guard. Curiously, he could neither see nor hear any sign of the captured Greensmoke women. In the most likely scenario, they were wherever the chieftain was, which served as further evidence that he was not on this side of the camp. John considered his options.

First and foremost, he could just walk through the main passage. It would be the easiest method if it wasn’t also a great way to get himself slaughtered. He could instead attempt to slink along the inner wall and make his way around the bend. It might work, but it didn’t offer much more cover than following the main path and getting spotted would lead to him being just as surrounded. The least confrontational route would be to scale the canyon outside of the camp and climb down on the other side. If his scrawny arms could even manage it, the effort would still take hours to complete. It would be well past sundown by the time he was back on the canyon floor, costing John his one advantage and almost assuredly making him late for dinner. The sun was one thing, but missing dinner was wholly unacceptable.

Instead, John considered the last option he could come up with. While many of the carved holes in the walls were little more than cozy nooks, not all of them were. A handful of them were deep enough to lead to what John assumed was a tunnel system, and several such entrances dotted the neck of the valley’s bend. It was where the divide between sides of the camp was thinnest, the most likely place for a shortcut. John couldn’t see clean through it, but if there was an entrance on this side, it was reasonable to expect there to be one on the other side. He’d have to contend with darkness for a bit, but it was his best bet.

John did his best to move between what few bits of cover he had, trying to find patches of light to cling to. He dove into a classic dodge roll maneuver to make it to a particularly far rock, leaning on his gaming instincts. The end result left something to be desired. While he didn’t take any damage in the attempt, John did suffer a bruised back and sore wrists for his efforts, spread eagle on the hard ground.

I have been lied to by video games for my entire life. Lo, I am the fool of fools.

John stayed on his back just long enough to lament his inadequacies before groaning and turning over to crawl the rest of the distance to his target. To his relief, no one noticed his botched attempt, but in the moment John might have welcomed whatever **** awaited him had he been spotted. He slapped his cheeks to shake his head clear of unproductive self-deprecation and focused back on the task at hand.

Yell at yourself later. You have work to do, so get your head in the damn game!

Motivation renewed, John assessed his current position. He was maybe a dozen or so yards from the nearest entrance, but the ground between was empty and flat. Without anything to hide behind, he either had to inchworm crawl his way over or sprint and hope no one saw him. Considering his last stunt went unnoticed, and that he was starting to get hungry, John opted for the latter. Red dust kicked up from his footfalls as John sprung into a dash that could very well determine his fate. He was breathing heavily by the time he slammed unceremoniously into the wall just inside the cave mouth, already feeling the effects of his low Endurance. Thankfully, as before, his shortness of breath passed faster than he was used to, and he could think more clearly.

John’s clarity of mind returned just in time for him to hear footsteps and faint chittering heading his way from further within. He spun around the entrance and pressed himself flat against the exterior wall. Stealth was still active. John found that reassuring even if he didn’t know if that meant he was still undiscovered or merely using the skill. In either case, the footsteps drew still closer to his position and John held his breath. He equipped his borrowed spear and clutched it to his chest as it appeared in his hand. Adrenaline began to surge as he listened for what seemed like minutes, straining his ears to try and gauge the distance between himself and whatever was approaching.

The longer John waited, the less feeling he had in his fingertips. It was replaced by a twitching, tingling sensation that set him even further on edge. Every moment that passed was more time to consider the gravity of his situation, more time to think about the consequences. John did his best to suppress the imagined scenarios bubbling to the forefront of his brain, visions of his untimely demise that blurred his already shaky thoughts. He needed every bit of focus he had to strike the instant his target became visible; even a second too late could cost him everything.

And yet, for the eternity it felt like, the time for anxious anticipation ended without warning. A black snout crossed the threshold and everything stopped, even John’s heart. Latent instinct took hold of him, the primal drive to survive at all costs, to act without thought. He let out a strangled shout and was already lunging by the time the Kobold’s eyes came into view.

Sneak Attack!
22 damage, piercing

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<Skill Level Up!>
Sneak Attack - Lv 2
Damage bonus increased to 60%
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By chance, the tip of John’s spear caught the creature in the neck. He didn’t stop, he continued a full body charge across the opening to the other side. Only then did he wrench his grip downward and shove the Kobold to the floor as it gurgled helplessly. John didn’t even attempt to withdraw the spear, instead following his momentum to fall to his knees on his foe’s legs. He equipped his knives in a reverse grip and began stabbing the Kobold’s torso repeatedly in a panicked frenzy.

8 damage, piercing
7 damage, piercing
+30 exp
9 damage, <Overkill>
6 damage, <Overkill>
6 damage, <Overkill>
8 damage, <Overkill>
7 damage, <Overkill>
8 damage, <Overkill>

-1 hp

The only reason John stopped was because his left hand had lost its grip and slid down the handle, over the knife’s blade. Fear of what might happen if he failed at the takedown had driven him to focus solely on that task and that task alone. The pain snapped him out of it, and he realized that his hands were covered in a thick, warm liquid, the apparent cause of his loss of grip. Continuing to come down from the adrenaline high, John further realized that the fluid was the recently deceased Kobold’s blood. Several stabs too many had let the creature’s blood flow freely from its butchered chest, staining it, John, and the ground around it a deep red.

John tried to stop hyperventilating as he reached his shaking hands up to the spear’s shaft for support. It too was still embedded in the corpse, but he paid it no mind as a quartet of pop-ups distracted him from the situation.

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<Loot>
2x Kobold Fang
2x Kobold scale
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<Achievement Unlocked>
You’ll Never See it Coming
Kill an enemy before it has a chance to fight back.

+1 AGI
+1 Lv in Sneak Attack
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<Skill Level Up!>
Sneak Attack - Lv 3
Damage bonus increased to 70%
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<Skill Level Up!
Stealth - Lv 3
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“Yeah…” John said through a stuttering breath. “Cool.”