Such a tiny cave to start so many futures.
For Ellen, this was the perfect opportunity to prove herself. She’d done her research, practiced her skills, and Leveled up as much as she thought she could without some real experience. At some point, she needed to do this for real, and there was only so much a newbie solo adventurer could do. She needed something simple, fast, but dangerous enough that it needed a combat Class to take care of it.
Even if she barely qualified as having one.
Ellen shivered as a cold wind blew past her, fluttering the cloak. She quickly drew it more tightly about her body, covering the slender, fit frame of a rural girl who helped out around the farm daily. Her free hand drew her hood up over the long tumble of scarlet hair, shielding her cheeks from the chill, biting mountain air.
The cave mouth—barely big enough for her to squeeze into without crouching—was not easy to spot from below. She’d had to stumble through so many game trails before lucking upon some goblin tracks. The recent rainfall had left the ground soft and spongy, but the worst of the mud had dried away, making it simple even for an amateur like herself to follow the tracks back to their source.
It was a great view, though. Ellen turned to see the lush greenery of the forest on the slopes below, broken only by the winding road in the valley below. She followed it with her eyes, tracing in reverse the path she’d taken not long ago, but the hills obscured the village in the distance where she’d passed through on her journey. If she squinted, she thought she could make out the wispy lines of smoke from some of the houses.
Or maybe that was just her imagination.
The wind moaned through the valley once more, carrying with it another slice of cold. Even in her cloak, the direct cutting air still chilled her fingers, reminding her that she was exposed on this small ledge. It wasn’t a particularly cold day, but without the trees breaking the wind, the natural currents through the valley could bring their full force to bear upon her exposed hands.
The cloaked redhead shivered and shifted her spear to her left hand, so she could tuck her right hand behind the cloak and against her body. It would warm up eventually—at least enough that her fingers wouldn’t be stiff. She needed them flexible and responsive if she were going to take care of the goblin in the cave.
Ellen spent a few more moments scanning the trees, wandering over the canopy in search of any sign of the clearing she had camped within. By the time another gust whistled through the valley, she was satisfied that it wasn’t visible from here. She hadn’t thought about how easily it could be seen when she’d set up camp, and it had only occurred to her upon finding that the ledge that overlooked the entire valley. At least if she had to retreat back to camp, she wouldn’t be found immediately.
Not that she should need to retreat from this!
By all accounts it was one scraggly goblin harassing travelers. One or two merchants had lost some trail mix or rations when they threw it behind them to run away, but the little menace had yet to actually manage to hurt anyone, or steal from a merchant, or anything else like that. Left alone, it might gather more of its kind, so it needed to be taken care of…
Which was an excellent Iron Tier task from the nearest Adventurer’s Guild!
Nobody wanted to take such a low-paying job, but Ellen smiled to herself. When you were like her, and just wanted your foot in the door to get your proper license, this was the perfect kind of job. Too far away for other newbies to be competition, but easy enough to solo. All she had to do was make a long hike, and that wasn’t new for her.
“Okay, stop procrastinating,” the girl breathed to herself. She puffed her cheeks up, clapped them one after another with her now-warmed hand, and switched her spear back to her right hand.
Then she turned back toward the cave and…
Better check that she was ready one last time, just in case.
ATTRIBUTES
Strength: 8
Agility: 8
Endurance: 9
Willpower: 8
Affinity: 8
Perception: 8
SKILL ENHANCERS
STAMINA: 83/87 (+9/minute)
MANA: 80/80
CLASS: Fighter 6
EXPERIENCE: 5,223/8,000
PERKS
Tireless
ABILITIES
Ellen sighed as she realized she’d been dallying by the cave mouth so long, her Stamina had almost fully recovered from the hike up. Her Tireless Perk made that climb much easier, but that still meant she’d been waiting around much too long. What if the goblin had noticed her?
She squinted into the cave mouth. It didn’t look like it went straight through. She was pretty sure she saw a bend. She’d expected a simpler cave, but this didn’t look cramped. If the goblin lived there, it shouldn’t be a treacherous cave.
It was, however, quite dark.
Making a face at her own delay, Ellen propped her spear up on a large rock and rummaged into her satchel. She’d left her larger and bulkier travel pack at camp, so she wouldn’t be lugging all her supplies into a tiny cave, but that left only a little room for caving supplies. Fortunately, she’d remembered to pack some small torches.
A quick strike lit the torch, the head letting out a loud hiss for a second or two before settling. It wouldn’t last long—perhaps half an hour, or forty minutes if she was lucky. That should be enough to get in and get out. A single goblin—or two if she was unlucky—wouldn’t be hiding in a massive cave complex. She should be in and out quickly.
Despite the cave mouth being roughly her height, Ellen ducked her head anyway. The tunnel wasn’t even, and it would be embarrassing to crack her skull on a protrusion as her first injury of the adventuring life.
Her stomach did a little flutter when she thought of that. Adventuring.
She felt her heart begin to race, so she took a breath of the dank air, trying not to get too excited. Her parents wouldn’t approve, of course. Hadn’t approved. Only Uncle Anroll had encouraged her flight of fancy, and even taught her the basic steps and moves with the spear. He’d cautioned her not to rush, but she’d unlocked her Fighter Class. Pity she hadn’t managed to get any Skill Enhancers for her spear or footwork yet, but maybe fighting the goblin would help?
It should at least give her a lot of experience. The first time always did.
“Ah!”
FIRST TIME AWARD: Burned by melted resin.
For performing this activity for the first time, you have gained 10 Experience.
Ellen hissed sharply as a glob of hot resin grazed her knuckle on its way down from the torch. She tilted it to the side, brushing away the experience notification she got for that. Usually, she had to succeed at something to get that experience, but sometimes the System could be weird and awarded points for learning something.
Learning something like ‘angle the torch away from the hand’ in this case.
For some reason, she didn’t get anything for realizing that carrying a spear one-handed into a cave to fight was not the best idea. She should have practiced more with her knife and used that. The spear was awkward when clambering through the tunnel, and occasionally made a clattering thump against the rocks or wall that sounded far too loud for comfort.
Gritting her teeth, Ellen put that thought away for the moment. She needed to focus, especially if she’d alerted the goblin. Was it even here? Could she ambush it? That would swing the spear back to being useful if she could find its lair and stab it as it came back from foraging or something.
She wrinkled her nose as a light breeze wafted up from down the cave. It carried the dankness of water and mold… along with the sweaty stench of something else. She’d heard goblins smelled especially bad, so this confirmed it in her mind. She was in the right place.
Whether it was a good idea or not, that was another question.
Ellen swallowed and held the torch up higher as the tunnel widened. This didn’t resemble either of the two caves she had been in before, and that made her wonder about the variety and how they were made. Unfortunately, she was only in her late teens. She simply didn’t have the breadth of experience to know about the various different formations.
What she did know was that the flickering light of the torch didn’t reach as far as she’d thought. In the full darkness of the cave, it seemed like a brilliant illumination nearby… but it was maybe five meters before everything became murky shadows. The way the flame sputtered made the rocky outcroppings seem to dance and twist with a life of their own, the shadows they cast contorting wildly.
It was creepy.
She tried to remember what those outcroppings were called. Steel-tights? No, that didn’t sound right. Steel-something, she was sure about it. It sounded right…
Sound. The faint sputter of her torch masked something subtle. Water dripping. Trickling nearby. Now it made sense why the goblin had gone so deeply into this place. The cave had a spring inside it. Possibly the water flow had made the cave; she remembered her grandfather talking about such things.
And he was who she wanted to be.
She took a deep breath, pausing at a division in the tunnel. Straining her ears and holding her breath, she thought she could hear the sound of water coming from the left… which would likely be where she needed to go.
So to the left it was.
Ellen was beginning to regret her idea of going it alone. Most adventurers did have parties. Her grandfather was famous for handling things solo, but that was unusual. Maybe she should have tried harder to find a good group…
Her thoughts were interrupted by the faint scratch of loose pebbles beneath her boots. Strange. The cave didn’t have such debris for most of the exploration she’d been doing, which had surprised her at first. Now the expected gravel and pebbles were beneath her feet, but they felt out of place somehow.
The flickering torchlight made a shadow dance in the corner of her vision. Ellen’s heart leapt into her throat as she spun about, her spear’s butt end cracking against the wall loudly and skewing her thrust wide. She felt the jarring sensation as the spear tip skittered off of the hard stone, missing her target—
Which was just a shadow, after all. Her own shadow.
She was literally jumping at shadows, now.
Ellen stifled a giggle, keeping enough awareness to know that laughing out loud while hunting a monster was a bad idea. She’d already made far too much noise, bumbling around with her spear. She really should have used a knife for this, instead.
Her wrist ached where she’d ‘attacked’ the wall, her thrust having sent a hard jolt up her arm. With a wince, the redhead rested her spear against the rough wall of the tunnel, stepping back in the cramped confines to flex her fingers. The tunnel had widened from the entrance, but it still wasn’t all that big.
How far did this tunnel go? She’d have to light another torch, soon, and she only had four.
Maybe I should have spent the money for a proper lantern…
Her buyer’s remorse was still running through her head when she saw another twist of shadow out of the corner of her eye. That… couldn’t be her shadow.
The realization was just a moment too late as the inky darkness split away from the edges of the torchlight, a grungy-looking, child-sized figure darting forward even as Ellen lunged to grab hold of her spear, fingers scraping along the stone and failing to grab the shaft. Her spear tumbled to the side, farther away instead of into her grasp.
White hot pain exploded in her side as something sharp and jagged slid far too easily, far too swiftly in between her ribs.
Vision swam, the torch tumbling from her suddenly numb left arm.
Did I just get stabbed?
Violent Death Detected
Clearing memory cluster.
Transferring Experience: 4,000 XP banked.
Activating Failsafe.