Chapter 14 Part B

  Continued from Part A

  ...

  Its now about 8 AM.

  Status;

  Health; 119/226

  Mana; 582/786

  Stamina; 112/200

  Health regen; 12 per day

  Mana regen; 100 (hourly)

  I used the first aid skill on myself. Then I used minor heal over myself twice.

  Status;

  Health; 173/226

  Mana; 522/786

  Stamina; 114/200

  Health regen; 12 per day

  Mana regen; 100 (hourly)

  Huh? There's a very minor stamina regeneration bonus from minor heal?! Wow, that's interesting. I'll have to see if I can grow the effect later. Stamina is the hardest to replenish. I'm pretty sure a normal heal isn't supposed to do this though. Its a sort of back door cheat.

  The assassin goblin that I'd just survived from and killed has dropped some loot.

  I collected 521 ris from him. He also had some kind of ring, but it looks grimy and dirty. He's also got a rather sharp looking 'Orc knife +3'. I didn't know much about this ris currency either, but I suspect this amount is more than normal.

  Oh? They have good gear like this? Who knew... This thing is nice. Until now most of them have had pretty cheap weapons. I can use this really good knife, though I prefer my axe.

  And orcs must live near here also, is now another worry. How else would the system identify this as a knife made by their culture?

  I pocketed the goods.

  Still... that shook me up pretty good.

  But now I have to get ready to face the invaders. Looking over the edge of the cliff side by the meadow's edge, I see that the goblins are organizing another war party. They have a whole camp that's resting around a big bonfire a few hundred yards further down from the giant hornet nest; all of that further down hill and in the bottom of the elevation. Its not hard to identify it with the war bonfires they all have lit up over such a wide village area (or is it a town?)

  But it looks like they won't be ready for awhile.

  'Are they doing some kind of ritual ceremony?'

  With the binoculars I can watch them pretty well, but its pretty far and they look like ants. I can see what looks like 3 shaman goblins, with 1 of them being some kind of big boss, and the others all crowded around him and some kind of sacrificial altar. The shaman then pulled some bedraggled human villager over and put him over the altar. They all have psychotic murderous vibes in how their beady little eyes look around at each other.

  Now he's pulling out his knife in order to...

  Oh dear... that's too far and too many for me to do anything about. I feel bad but I don't have a way of rescuing that human villager.

  Where did that guy come from anyway? I thought this world didn’t have people, or does it? (Goblins aren’t people...)

  I pulled away from looking for a few seconds, as I didn't want to see them kill someone. I didn't need to see that. I knew he'd cut someone's throat out though, on a non-goblin sacrifice. And then they are laughing at the death they caused. Several of them even came over and started urinating on the human that's still dying, while they ... this is like the goblin version of a 'dry bar comedy business stage'.

  Its proof they are vile filthy animals.

  The crowd of goblins was now all over the altar feasting on the villager's flesh in the goblin camp that I'm watching through the binoculars.

  Huh, they eat the meat raw it seems. At least they do when they are hungry. Or possibly some of that is that they have to hurry and gobble it up before their neighbors covet the meat belonging to others. Shameless still.

  What the hell kind of ritual was that?

  They did something to it, but I don't want to know what.

  I left to go strengthen my defenses and get ready for the coming darkness.

  What time will they come, I wonder? Or will they come in waves?

  They will invade for sure. That's an army they are putting together and mentally conditioning.

  I put down 6 more improved traps, all in a tight formation that's staggered to allow some path ways and connect with the others. Then I put up 2 more full thorn wall hedge maze panels. And as always the placements of the improved traps are meticulous, to build on the continually moving design of my Hedge Maze, which eventually will be a hidden castle in a maze.

  Now its starting to look like a small hedged garden area in the inner center area rooms, with hedge bush like walls (monstrous hedges that is). Its a maze in progress. I wish it were bigger but its not.

  I still don't have a fully intact wall around the entire perimeter, because of expanding one side that's unfinished; but that's besides the point. I will get to that point with several inner full walls inside the maze, but if I have the outer wall with no openings they will just be faster to destroy the man killing thorn wall trap hedging units.

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  I still have several linking hallways with turns all over though. That's in place and enough for me to be protected. To a point.

  I'm starting to get some hallways made with lots of turns in them to confuse you. But its not very far yet. To be ready, eventually it needs to be quite large and huge with hundreds of turns and alley ways all over the place to get you lost while trapping you.

  I may even end up with multiple entrances into the maze, to capture prey. But for that to be ready it has to be quite huge really. For now 1 entrance is ideal... And I don't have all the sides closed up right, though the trap functions of each wall take care of the weak spot there.

  This...

  Am I now currently the reverse of a dungeon lord now?

  In theory I could tame some monsters to help me...right?

  And I am a life wizard...

  Eventually I'll get there. I just need defenses up before I can experiment.

  If I can get my defenses up a bit more then I'd have enough resources to do more magic experiments soon.

  I shook it off but began being more careful. There could be other goblin stealthers around. In fact, I'm pretty sure there is. Sometimes I thought I heard noises but I can't tell for sure. So I stay near my traps, which won't eat me but will snatch up everyone else.

  And what happened to my rabbit?

  At 11:13 AM I found my rabbit's guts and deformed destroyed fur from a goblin stealther having killed and eaten most of him. It looks pretty fresh, so I'm pretty sure there's at least one other stealther here.

  That bastard killed my innocent little rabbit! I want revenge...

  Well technically I was going to eat the little guy first, but still he stole what's mine!

  Hm... I wonder if that rabbit bought me some time by its death?

  By 11:30 AM, the goblin camp is getting bigger. Looks like they intend to gather strength before coming up here. And where are they coming from?

  I think this means there must be other goblin villages nearby. That bothers me greatly to think that. Because those warriors down there weren't as many before now.

  This worries me now as there's now at least 100 of them.

  Ugh... can I fight 100 at once?!

  Damn it...

  My mana bar is now up to...

  Health; 207/226

  Mana; 512/786

  Stamina; 116/200

  Health regen; +12 per day

  Mana regen; +100 (hourly)

  By 12 PM they still haven't attacked.

  So I laid down several more traps that I grew into maze hedge walls. But still checking them often.

  I do have some advantage in that I can now put down about 2 improved traps per hour. Some of those will be turned to walls, but many will stay as traps.

  I put down 8 more this time over the next hour, anticipating that the fight is coming soon.

  Meanwhile below me, the goblins are singing and dancing some kind of violent cadence down in their village camp. And passing around something to get high on that the shamans gave them. They probably do that to get them to overcome fear.

  !

  Huh? What was that?

  Shit...

  One of the stealther goblins broke his stealth screen and is now sprinting down the mountain side!

  Why did he do that now I wonder...

  Think, think, how do goblins think...?

  OH!

  Now I get it. The stealther probably is telling them that I'm getting stronger, and that they need to impede my putting down more traps!

  That's kind of crafty for him to realize that. I pulled out the binoculars to watch the stealther inform the head shaman.

  The head shaman scowled, and looked up at me. (!!!) Shit. Did he see me? From this far away?!

  Ah, maybe he has a spell of some kind.

  No maybe not, this cliff facing is rather high and far out; but maybe is just pointing his enmity at me. I watched as the stealther is giving his report to the shaman, who then is throwing a massive murder tantrum. He evan slashed the face of a rookie goblin, and stomped on him until he died. Probably he's telling the others they are next if they don't 'get me'? He made an example out of a failure or scaredy cat probably.

  Looks like they are forming a patrol and intend to impede my ability to put down more traps.

  Hm... if there's that many goblin raiders...

  I also need to put down more safe spots. The hidden pit cabin can't be my only safe spot. And I have to assume that the stealthers must have figured out where it was from watching where I came in and out of it. And ideally, I should alternate between them as the goblins try to ferret me out. And I could bounce from one to another.

  I began digging a few holes to hide in that are much smaller, but a bit deeper. I intend to put bricks around the corners of these, and then cover that with a thin layer of dirt, so that the bricks can support a wooden lid with live sod on top. When its done you only see grass, with a lid of grass that when open meshes perfectly to form a hidden seam in the grass. (Camouflage mini-bunker for 1 person.) And also these aren't full blown pit cabins,... yet. Right now mostly they are just small compact man sized spaces that 1 person can crawl into and cover up while the traps 'capture' and eat up goblins trying to find me. Its very tight and small.

  They are cheap and not hard to build. I set up 2 of those quickly over the next hour, aided with magic.

  It wasn't hard to use the matter creation options in my skills to create and line these with bricks, but they are only about the size for 2 people to hide in curled up into a ball, when you put the hiding lid on top of them. But the camouflag is pretty good, after I used a rejuvenate to cover up the trample damage. Originally I had these to be 1 person in size, and similar to Japanese spider holes. But I decided... there might come a time when others might need to be saved and supported by my base building also.

  But I only have a few of them ready... ideally I want dozens of these hidey holes, all over the place but only in places where I know where they are at.

  I decided at the last minute to make the sod thicker on the wooden lids of those also, to cut down on the chances of anyone hearing a hollow nice if they stepped on the lid.

  Good. This is very good. I can hide in these while the traps grab goblins.

  I did manage to reinforce growing a few of the traps hidden into and under actual hedge wall traps also by this time, but not as many as I liked.

  At 1:07 PM I heard the voice from earlier crying for help. But I can't tell where its at, or how to get to it. And I have no communication equipment. Again.

  Sure enough at 1:12 PM I spotted another group of goblins coming up, marching up the valley. This time they've got shields and spears. There's a group of a few archers also. Thankfully its not the full 100 of them I saw organizing in the camp. But its still a good sized patrol group.

  If possible when they get here I want to get rid of the archers first. They are the most dangerous to me.

  They started to confront the giant hornets right away.

  And...

  I realized I was enjoying myself!

  Wow...that's odd.

  At first, my first few days here I'd been struggling to survive. I'd felt very panicked at the time also, and living in fear.

  But when I'd discovered magic I'd realized I could live comfortably in this world. Plus I like this frontier where I don't have to pay taxes or rent. Hell who likes rent and taxes?! And I was trying to help tame this world of monsters also.

  And things had changed over time. Now I was fairly comfortable actually! I enjoyed learning and developing more magic skills, and leveling up. But also I was enjoying trying to make the world a better place by getting rid of goblins. And I also realized I had some flare for tactics and military strategy.

  It was the tactics and military strategy part that I was enjoying. And the fact that I could actually do it without dying. When hurt I could heal myself.

  But I found that stunning because I considered myself a peaceful person.

  Or maybe it was because I just liked interacting and using my brain to solve problems? Who knows?

  The goblins briefly engaged the giant hornets. They even lost 2 goblins, bringing their total down to about 28 goblins. I shifted the binoculars back over to the main camp of goblins and frowned.

  They are trying to bring in more goblins from down in the valley somewhere. I can see another terribly organized line of them wandering towards the camp, where the shaman is. This line is bigger than the line of the ones coming up to get me.

  Ugh... 2 groups within the same half hour? That's not good.

  That part made me kind of unhappy. It means this will be a long term siege.

  I sighed.

  ...

  Continued in Part C