Chapter 5 The Goblin Mine

You find yourself between a rock and a hard place with goblins in front of you and their nest behind you. You have no other choice but to stand your ground and kill all of the ones coming for your life.

You stand your ground with your sword. You only have 4 stamina, so you will have to be careful of what you do. The first goblin rushes towards you. He has a maximum power of 5 and 4 stamina. You use a 7.1 power skillful attack. The power difference of 2.1 overpowers the goblin. You deal 4 damage and lop off his head with your sword swing. The goblin has died. You have 4/12 stamina and 4.1/13 power left The next goblin rushes at you.

You can tell he has a maximum of 4 power. You rush towards him. The goblin gets scared and defends himself. Your trick worked and you hit him with a 0,1 power jab. The goblin takes 1 damage and you regain 1.9 power. The goblin has 3/4 stamina and 4/4 power left. You have 4/12 stamina and 6.5/13 power left. The next goblin rushes at you.

The goblin coming against you has a maximum power of 5. You go all out in hopes of overpowering him and it works. The goblin used a 4.1 power skillful attack. The power difference of 2.4 overpowers the goblin. The goblin takes 5 damage and you chop off his head. You have 4/11 stamina and 3.7/13 power left.

The next goblin comes towards you. The goblin has a maximum power of 5 and 4 stamina. You can't overpower him and defend yourself. You get hit by a pickaxe on your left shoulder and it hurts like hell. You take one damage. Your left hand is extremely injured and can't be maneuvered well. You have lost 1 maximum power. You have 3/12 stamina and 7.7/12power left.

The next goblin rushes towards you. You managed to overpower his 5 power attack and cut off his head. You have killed another goblin. You have 3/12 stamina and 4.1/12 power left. The next goblin comes toward you. It is the one that defended your attack the last time. He is coming full force.

You use a 4.1 power skillful attack and deal 3 damage to him. His head goes flying and you have killed another goblin. You have 3/12 stamina and 2/12 power left. The continuous attacks have left you completely tired out. Your breathing is frantic and your movements have become heavy. Your maximum power decreases by 1. You have 1/11 power left.

"Fuck, who would have thought the wretched goblins would attack me on sight. I am too tired to continue. I need to regain my breath." You look up and notice the constellation for HOP is still there. You weave the stellar energy into a HOP spell and shorten the distance between you and the mine's entrance. With one leap you appear directly in the mines. You have lost 2 stamina. You currently have 1/12 stamina left.

The goblins saw how you jumped into the mine and are extremely confused, but it lasted only for a moment. The leader goblin takes out his sword and screams "В погоню, братцы!" The miner goblins get riled up and scream "Для моей Родиной!" The remaining 6 goblins and the leader march into the mine. Combat mode is active. You cannot regenerate power without a turn passing, as your condition is tired. You have 1/12 stamina and 1/11 power left.

You are currently in the goblin mines. You are engaged in combat mode and cannot regenerate power without a turn passing. You think to yourself "Fuck! I need to rest and regenerate some power, but the goblins are still engaged with me. I can only hope one of them will waste a turn so I can regenerate a few power points. I should try and find a place to cast PEP, or I will constantly be 1 hit away from death. I have an idea!"

You look up at the stars and rejoice. You can cast a spell that might save your life. Honeycombs take a lot less time to digest, so you take out the jar of 2 honeycombs and eat it directly. +1 stamina. You will heal another stamina point after digesting the honeycombs. You have 2/12 stamina now.

You weave the stellar energy of Gaia, Racoon and Wane into the spell GRW. The magical seed in your hand lights up and turns into a human that looks like a weaker version of you. You lost 1 stamina. You have 1/12 stamina left.

You hand him the 3 power sword. Wooden Analander has 6/6 stamina and 7/7 power. You look at him and say "Go out and fight the goblins that are charging in. Make sure to use all of your power while attacking and defend right afterwards. When your power is full, attack and then defend again."

The wooden Analander nods his head and charges out. You sigh in relief and rest. After a couple of minutes, you feel your power slowly regenerating.

You have regained 0.8 power from resting. You have regained 0.6 power from resting. You have regained 0.8 power from resting...

Wooden Analander has been killed. The wooden Analander managed to last for 10 rounds before it was killed and you have rested well. +5.6 power. You have 1/12 stamina and 6.6/11 power left. The wooden Analander lasted for quite a while and managed to help you heal 1 stamina worth of power. You don't have enough stamina to make another wooden Analander.

You sigh to yourself. Even if you made one, it wouldn't be of any help. You are out of stamina and won't have enough strength to last even a bit longer.

The wooden copies mostly have 3 times lower stats than their makers. The wooden Analander should normally have 6 stamina and 3 power. You got lucky and it was born with 4 power. The only reason it lasted for 10 rounds instead of 5 or six was the sword you gave it.

You decide to wander around and kill off the remaining goblins one by one by sneakily assassinating them when they are distracted. The wooden Analander has injured quite a bit of goblins. You will be able to kill 2 or 3 before you run out of power once more.

You sneak around the mine and find the first goblin. He looks quite injured. Combat mode allows you to see his stamina. He has 2/4 stamina left. You might be able to kill him if you use a sneak attack and he can't react fast enough.

You sneak up to the goblin and he doesn't notice you. You brandish your sword and use a 0.1 power jab. The sword does 2 damage and pierces through the goblins skull. The goblin falls down and dies before he can even make a single noise. You have 1/12 stamina and 8.5/11 power left. The other goblins felt a sudden increase to their power from a turn ending and realize you have killed one of them. They will be on alert and sneak attacking will be a lot harder.

You move around stealthily and notice a group consisting of two goblins. You see one of them has 3/5 stamina and the other has 3/4 stamina. You rush towards them and get your sword ready for a jab. You managed to surprise the second one and use a 0.1 power jab to attack him.

The goblin was on high alert and managed to defend himself. He only got a small cut wound on his right shoulder and took 1 damage. Goblin 2 has 2/4 stamina and 6/6 power left. You have 1/12 stamina and 10.4/11 power left. Goblin 1 swings his sword at you.

You jump back and get an attack ready. You see his max power is surprisingly 7. He is using a crude, but a spear nonetheless. You use a 7.1 power attack and managed to rush at him. The goblin didn't use much force in his attack. His thrust only had 5 power in it. The difference of of 2.1 overpowered goblin 1 and he took 4 damage. You manage to cut him into two even halves down the middle.

Goblin 2 watches you and runs away in fright. You give chase and throw your sword with a 2 power jab and impaled his head onto your sword. The two goblins have been killed. You have 1/12 stamina and 7,8/11 power left. You grow even more tired from the constant fighting. Your maximum power has decreased by 1. You have 6,8/10 power left.

"Heh, heh, heh. Fuck! This is, hah, hard. I need to rest my body or I will die of overexertion! I can't take a single more hit and I am fairly sure I still have 3 goblins left to deal with, the leader and the coming reinforcements. I don't know what I should do."

You feel your aching muscles soothe themselves and regain some of your lost energy. You have digested the honeycombs. +1 stamina. You have 2/12 stamina now.

You sigh in relief "At least i have regained some of my stamina. I am still, hah, tired." You suddenly feel a batch of second wind coming towards you. You feel your body revitalize. You check your body and realize something. Your body has gotten a bit more adapted to the polluted air and your maximum stamina went up to 13. You have 2/13 stamina now.

"This is good news, but it makes no difference to my current situation." You are still 1-2 hits away from kicking the bucket. You go wander around and manage to find a group of 4 goblins. The 3 surviving goblins and the leader are together. They have grouped up in order to not get sneak attacked by you.

You look up at the stars in hopes of finding some kind of lifeline. You see your guardian constellation is idle and and is not willing to help you now. The constellations that can be formed into a spell right now are FAR constellation, SUS constellation and the GRW constellation. You suddenly have an idea.

You think about summoning a GRW beast with the extra stamina point you gained. You can equip it with one of the 4 power spears and have it fight the goblins. You decide to not do that. That single stamina point is what separates instant death from a chance to counter. You do not wish to risk it.

You give up looking for the answer in the stars and try to devise a strategy to fight the goblins before reinforcement arrives. You check the goblins. One of them has 9 power, two have 5 and the last one has 6. The leader has 6/6 stamina. The other two have 5/5 stamina and show no signs of being injured. The one with 6 power has 4/4 stamina

You try to remember the path you took to get to this part of the goblin mine and realize something. The place the 4 goblins are standing is the only path to the entrance of the mine. You can't escape unless you defeat all 4 goblins. The strength you'd need to defeat them all is too high and you have no useful spell.

You can either go deeper into the mine in hope of finding a different exit or you can do one last desperate attempt at breaking through to the exit and try to escape.

You are extremely perplexed. You decide to go into the mines. Something inside of you is telling you trying a breakthrough is completely impossible and only death awaits if you try. You decide to go deeper into the mine and find something of use to you. Combat mode is active. You cannot regenerate power without a turn passing.

After walking for 5 minutes, you stumble upon a door. You look up into the stars and see you can cast DOP. It will cost you your last stamina point, but you see no other way. All other routs lead to dead ends and the only other entrance/exit you have seen in the entire mine is this door.

You resins yourself and weave the stellar energy into a DOP spell and cast it onto the door. You lost 1 stamina. You have 1/13 stamina left. you have regained 0.7 power from a turn passing. You have 7.5/10 power now.

The door in front of you slowly opens and you walk in. In it you see a huge cavern. You can hear the sounds of metal hitting stone echoing all around you and some weird whispering sounds. With your senses, you can tell there are around 30-50 such sounds all around you. You quickly duck behind a mine cart and try to figure out what room you have entered.

You look around yourself carefully. You notice a small, 70-76 centimeters tall creature swinging a pickaxe almost as big himself a fair distance to your left. The pickaxe hits the stone wall and stone falls down with a clank sound. You can see some sparks coming from another spot and see the pickaxe hitting an iron ore vein. You soon realize what's going on.

You have gone deeper into the mine and found the rest of the goblin workers. The ones you fought were just the ten workers on break. The other 4 goblins were guards and the leader was a supervisor of the goblins here.

You notice the goblins are saying something in unison. You listen in and hear what they are saying "...Молодого коногона несут с разбитой головой! Куда ж ты парень торопился? Куда сваю лошадку гнал? Али десят..." You don't understand a single word they are saying. You sigh at your own shortsightedness. Master Anne once offered you to learn the goblin language, but you refused her offer.

The soon stop thinking of the past, as a realization came to you. This is one of the biggest mines in all of Shamutanti Hills. How could it only have 10 goblin workers and 4 guards? Such thoughts were nothing but naive hopes your mind tricked you into believing. You internally laugh at your own stupidity and sigh.

You poke your head up after hearing something being thrown into the mine cart. A goblin slowly walks away from the mine cart and you look inside. Inside there are some clumps of metals, but it is too dark and you can't tell exactly what is inside of the mine cart.

You reach your arm into it and take out 1 thing. It is oval shaped and feels spiky. One goblin's ears pricked up and he turned around towards the mine cart. Goblins have different eyes than humans. They can see well enough in the dark and their big ears gives a greater hearing range as well. You can only get 2-3 more items before they spot you. You reach in and quickly take out the first thing your arm touches. It was a large clump of something.

You put it into your bag and hear one of the goblins say "куда идёшь?" "Я думаю там что то с тележкой. Я пойду и проверю это." "Ладно. Только быстрее." The goblin starts walking towards the mine cart. You quickly reach both of your hands in and and grab two things before bolting out of the door. You slowly close the ajar door without the goblin noticing. You stuff the two things into your bag and go as far away from the door as possible. You wouldn't want another 30-50 goblins on your tail, would you?

You go far enough away from the door and look into your bag. You see the four things you have taken in the light of the lamps hanging on the wall. They are 1 egg shaped piece of gold, Two are large clumps of iron and the last thing you managed to take out was an emerald. It is quite big and will be worth a lot of gold coins if you manage to leave this place alive.

You hear some footsteps and look around a corner. You see the 3 goblin guards and the leader coming towards you. You quickly hide behind the corner and wait. The goblin with 4 stamina approaches the corner you are hiding behind and you have a sudden idea.

You wait for the goblin to arrive. The goblin comes around the corner and you use a 0.1 power jab. Your weakened body wasn't fast enough and the goblin managed to notice your sword coming towards it. He defended himself and jumped away from you. You still managed to cut a shallow wound on his right leg and deal 1 damage. Goblin 1 has 3/4 stamina and 6/6 power left. You have 1/13 stamina and 9.4/10 power left.

Goblin 1 notices you and thrusts his spear towards you. He looks serious. You use a 6.1 power skillful attack and counter his 6 power skillful attack. His sword comes for your head, but you duck and swing your sword in a stab motion. Your sword pierces through the goblin's heart and and you use the sword logged in his body to throw him away. The goblin flys a fair distance away from you and stops moving. His death is inevitable, so you leave him alone. You have 1/13 stamina and 6.3/10 power left.

The 3 remaining goblins get the notice of their comrades death and they come rushing. They are on guard and you will not be able to catch them by surprise. You decisively run back and try to blend in with the surroundings. You have 1 less enemy to deal with, but the three left are on high alert.

The three goblins pass by you vigilantly. You are standing completely still in a small crevice near the wall. You are covered by darkness and even hold you breath in hope you will not be noticed. You hold your breath and watch them pass. One of the goblins suddenly screams "Он тут!" And rushes towards you with his spear brandished. You aren't sure how much power he is using, but you notice that he is using a Jab-like attack

You use a 4.1 power skillful attack. The goblin thrusts towards your head with a 3.9 power jab. You rush out of the crevice and roll left. The goblin jabs his spear into the crevice and you jump up and cut across the goblins back. The goblin shrieks in pain and jumps left. Goblin 3 took 3 damage from the wound you left on him. Goblin 3 has 2/5 stamina and 5/5 power. You have 1/13 stamina and 4.1/10 power.

Goblin 2 charges at you and he is going all out. He will use 5 power to completely drain your stamina and then only death will await you. You see your life flash before your eyes and you realize something. You have fought many battles and your resolve is unshakable. Fearing death is a sign of weakness and you are the Analander! You are on a journey to kill the Archmage.

If you feared death, why would you even accept such a hard quest? You smile with passion and courage burning in your eyes and the universe responds to your dedication. You feel your body become stronger and your body's power increase.

You look up and see your guardian constellation has changed to the black rhinoceros constellation. Black rhinoceros is an extremely aggressive beast that charges into fight with the resolve to take out all of his enemies even if he dies. It is a legendary beast with no natural predators and the will of a berserker. Your body's power has increased by 1. You have 5.3/11 power now.

You swing your sword onto goblin 2 with a 5.3 power skillful attack and manage to cut right through his spear and then cut off his right arm and then cut into his torso's right side. Goblin 2 took 3. Goblin 2's maximum power has decreased by 3. Goblin 2 has 2/5 stamina and 0/2 power left.

You don't let the goblin escape and trust your sword with a 0.1 power jab straight into his skull. Goblin 2 couldn't even resist your attack and died on the spot. You trust your sword out goblin 2 falls down onto the floor with a huge stab wound in the front and back of his head. You have 1/13 stamina and 4.6/11 power.

Goblin 3 is frightened by your sudden revitalization into a stutter and looks at you as if you were a demon. You rush at him with a 4.6 power skillful attack. The goblin is too slow to react and only used 4.2 power skillful attack. You managed to avoid his spear and slash your sword across his Chest. Goblin 3 takes 3 damage and falls down. You cut both of his lungs and heart. He can't breath and his heart had stopped beating. He will be dead soon. You have 1/13 stamina and 2.3/11 power left.

The continuous attacking has made you even more tired and your muscles are crying out in pain from all the strain you have put on them. Your maximum power decreases by 2. You have 0,3/9 power now.

You don't have enough strength to lift your own body and fall down on all fours, breathing heavily with sweat pouring down on you. "Fuck! I managed to kill the first 14 underlings, but the one remaining is the big boss. I am at my lowest while the strongest of the goblins is at his highest. I stand no chance. One hit and I am dead."

The goblin leader walks towards you. His sword is drawn, ready to attack you at any moment. He smirks and, to your surprise, starts speaking the common tongue and says "The small troop you just killed were newly hired workers, that were born 1 month ago. They can be replaced easily, but the humans loosing an impressive fighter, such as yourself, will be a huge tragedy. I can't believe the weak looking human I just decided to kill on a whim would turn out to be this strong. You took out 14 enemies with only being injured once or twice. That is quite amazing."

The 123 centimeters tall goblin starts laughing while standing over you and continues with his speech "I can kill you any moment I wish and you won't be able to do a single thing about it. You are at the bottom of the food chain at this moment and you don't stand a chance against me. It is almost impossible to go below 1 power, but you managed to do that. You are weakened so much now you probably can't even stand. Should I kill you is the question I am asking myself at the moment." The goblin leader smirks again and says "I think not. You body is simply fascinating and you are an amazing fighter. I won't kill you. I will have one of our sorcerer's erase your mind and turn you into a loyal dog out ours. What do you think about that? Want to become my pet? Маленькая псина?"

You are too tired. Your power is at rock bottom. All you can do is concentrate on escaping. You look up into the stars for some hope and decide to gamble. You fall on your face and the magical seed in you pocket fell out. Without the goblin leader noticing, you barely managed to whisper the words needed and scream out "GRW!"

The magical seed quickly sprouts into a direct copy of you and pushes the goblin leader back. He stands over you and is on defense mode. His stats are 6/6 stamina and 3/3 power. You have lost 1 stamina. You have 0/13 stamina left. Be careful. You have no ability to heal. Any injury you take now will be fatal.

The guardian stands over you and defends against the goblin leader. After two attacks, the wooden Analander has 2/6 stamina left. You have regained 1.6 power and have 1.9/9 power now. You have regained enough strength and decide to run. The wooden Analander manages to wound the goblin leader a bit and lasted 3 more turns.

By the time wooden Analander died, you managed to leave the mine and run away as fast as you can. Your power increased to 3.5/9 and you have enough strength to run away. You managed to get away after 5 minutes of running at your top speed. Combat mode has disengaged.

You hear a distant roar directed towards you. The sky darkens and thunder starts striking. You hear the sound of goddess Pandora's voice. You first felt relieved, but panic quickly overtakes you as you hear the anger in her tone. "Analander, you have lied to me! You said you will never back down and run away! This lie will cost you!" You suddenly feel weaker...

You are hiding behind wooden Analander. You have 0/10 stamina and 0.3/6 power left. You can barely continue and are on the verge of death. Suddenly, the world around you begins to warp itself and distort. You feel feel a weird sensation.

"Time has ceased to exist, space has gone insane"! You look around yourself and see you are on the palm of a giant woman made of overwhelmingly powerful stellar energy. You stand up and look at the woman.

"Chronada." Only one word comes to mind before everything stops. The huge white woman's eyes lite up and she points at you. A clock is suspended in front of her finger and she only pronounces one word "ZED."

Your body is dragged throughout time and space. You feel your memories warp in and become distorted as you forget everything that has happened and new memories appear. You remember thousands of years worth of information and nothing at all all at the exact same time. Your body collapses and shatters into specs of dust.

You are hiding behind wooden Analander with 0/13 stamina and 0.3/9 power left. "What was I thinking about just now?" You shrug the weird sensation off and concentrate on the life threatening situation you are currently in.

You are too tired to run and, even if you do, the goblin leader will catch up with you and will kill you, so you do not wish to take the risk. You don't try to run and recover as much power as possible before wooden Analander dies.

Wooden Analander lasted 6 turns You managed to recover to 4.4/9 power. Wooden Analander managed to wound the goblin leader a bit before it died. Goblin leader has 3/6 stamina and 5/9 power left. The goblin leader, for some reason, is extremely cocky and confident.

You rush towards the goblin leader with a 4.4 power skillful attack. For a reason you yourself can't possibly comprehend, the goblin leader uses a 3.4 power jab. You manage to avoid the curved sword trying to pierce your heart and slash through the letter armor covering the goblin leaders torso. Goblin leader takes 3 damage and he is extremely wounded.

You quickly rotate your body and slash your sword through the goblin leader's neck, cutting his head off and killing him. You have killed goblin leader and won. You have lost 0 stamina, perfect fight.

With combat mode finally disengaged, you are no longer in danger and can relax. You run outside of the goblin cave before more of them come out and you end up in even more trouble. You rush outside, take a sit in the forest, take out your last remaining provision and eat it entirely.

You rest for 2-3 hours, while healing your wounds and waiting for yourself to fully digest the provision. Your body has healed. You maximum power increases by 5. You have 14 power now. Your stamina increases by 4. You have 4/13 stamina now.

You can finally relax. You are no longer in the brink of death. You might become a sworn enemy of the goblins, but you are safe now and that's all that matters to you.