109 An Altar
"A problem?" Emile asked. Emile wasn't with Severn for five minutes, so he didn't know how a problem could have occurred so quickly.
"Yeah, my father messaged me about an interesting thing that's going on," Severn said.
"Explain?" Emile asked.
"He said there are unnatural movements occurring within the goblins near the center of the plains. They seem much more active and angry," Severn said.
"What problem has that caused?" Emile asked.
"It hasn't caused any problems, but it threatens the safety of the people living inside the city," Severn said.
"Does he want us to stop the activity?" Emile asked.
"No, he wants us to scout the goblins areas and check to see if there are any problems," Severn said.
"All right," Emile said.
They hunted in the forest near the city which had an assortment of mobs. There were goblins, deer and few other small mobs that could attack them.
They could kill these in two to three hits. These mobs couldn't attack back since Emile would dodge the attacks. Grinding for long periods of time drained stamina. They had grinded for multiple hours in a row for the past few days. Severn and Emile were getting better at working together.
Emile tested out his sword on the mobs. His sword had no extra attack damage. All it gave were stat increases not an increase in magic attack or attack. This was the downside of the sword.
The sword gave three AOE skills which could kill chunks of mobs. Players and mobs alike would fall due to the skills.
Emile was a walking death machine. With a snap of his fingers, he could give the death sentence to the mobs surrounding him. (1)
Emile walked out of the forest and headed towards the plains. These plains were the main location with goblins.
The goblins couldn't hit him since their attacks were slow. They had an easy time evading the attacks of the goblins.
He walked deeper into the plains. The deeper he went into the plains, the stronger the enemies were. Emile saw enemies that were higher than level 22. He couldn't identify the enemies above this level.
Pinpoint only worked on enemies up to 10 levels above him and all enemies below him. They had to be cautious when moving around. Any slight mistake would alert a large group of Goblins. If that occurred he would have to use his skills to kill the mobs as swift as possible.
Severn didn't have a problem with evading the goblins line of sight. Emile could also do the same.
Soon they entered the deepest part of the plains. They noticed one giant goblin sitting on top of an altar.
The goblin was kowtowing to a strange black statue. The statue had illusory chains that held the goblin in place.
Each time the goblin kowtowed another chain would attack to the body. There were several hundred chains that Emile could notice.
Emile had many questions in his mind.
What was the statue? Why did the goblin continue to kowtow? Is the statue forcing the goblin to kowtow?
"Should I inform my dad?" Severn asked.
"Tell him about it," Emile said as he watched the goblin kowtow once more.
After a few kowtows from the goblin, Severn turned to Emile and retold what his father said.
"He said that we are not strong enough to face off against the goblin since it is beyond our level. He knows about how you killed a Phoenix," Severn said.
"So what did he tell us to do," Emile asked. If the mayor knew that Emile killed the Phoneix and still mentioned that it was impossible for them to kill the goblin, then that meant that the Goblin was much stronger than the young Phoenix.
"He told us to find a way to disturb the statue and stop it without fighting the goblin," Severn said.
"I'm worried that if we attack the statue the goblin will attack us," Emile said.
"Yeah, that's one of my worries. We should observe the statue," Severn suggested.
"The statue is a monk with pitch black eyes. Uhm... It has a black robe draped around it. And it- oh there are these weird strings attached to it," Emile began to describe the statue and noticed an interesting detail about it.
The string could be followed to a small nail that was attached to the floor of the altar.
"The string leads to a nail," Emile said to Severn.
"Hmm... I remember reading something about altars," Severn said. He remembered something due to the nails.
"Hmm?"
"There's a tradition in the world which allows us to attach spirits to a statue. Someone placed a spirit into this statue for unknown reasons. They would lock the spirit in place with nails, stakes and other objects, To remove the spirit, we need to release the statue from its binding," Severn said.
"So we have to remove all the nails?" Emile asked.
"I think," Severn said. He wasn't certain about this.
"Well, we have to try something," Emile replied with a shrug.
"Look for the strings around the statue," Emile said.
They looked around the statue for the strings. They found eight strings that each led to a small nail.
"You take those four and I'll take these four. Try to go as fast as possible, since the statue might react and send the goblin towards us," Emile said.
Severn nodded.
They got onto the altar with nothing occurring. Emile and Severn stood on their respective sides. They both touched the first nail and pulled it out.
The statue eyes glowed red after the first nail was pulled off. The illusory chains were swaying around.
The goblin stood up from its kowtowing position in a slow motion.
Emile didn't worry about the goblin, he was focusing on getting to the next nail and pulling it out.
They had removed four nails before the goblin was standing upright.
It looked at Emile and Severn and ran towards Severn. They had removed six nails by the time it decided for the person to run towards.
Emile and Severn were running to their respective nails. Severn was in a dangerous predicament.
They pulled their last nails.
"We did it," Emile said. His words were premature.
"Wait, why hasn't the goblin stopped," Emile blurted. The goblin was still running towards Severn and the statue still had red eyes.
Severn looked around frantically since his life depended on it. if he died, he wouldn't respawn like Emile. He had one life.
"There's a nail where the goblin was kowtowing," Severn noticed another string.
The string was blocked by the goblins large build, so they couldn't see the string. The nail was under the goblin during the time it was kowtowing.
Emile activated a wind gem to gain a boost towards the nail. He activated the fire and water gems on the goblin to distract it. He did this while he was in midair.
As the boss was in the process of smashing its arm onto Severn, Emile removed the last nail.
The boss stopped moving inches away from Sever's face.
"We did it," Severn gave a breath of relief as he pushed himself away from the goblin. He didn't want to goblin to wake up and attack him.
The illusory chains vanished into oblivion. The statue lost its red eyes and went back into a peaceful state.
At this moment, the goblins arm began to twitch. The goblin lifted its head and with its dark gray eyes, locked gazes with Severn.
