Chapter 14

It was perhaps inevitable that the sole exit from Tenebrous Valley was at its southeast end, not too far away from that goblin camp that had fucked him up so bad. Luke had actually explored the valley quite thoroughly, at least the part of it that was above-ground. He’d found probably forty or fifty caves scattered around the edges, but he wasn’t eager to delve into those. Other than the one his brother’s secret base was in, Luke left them alone.

Maybe if he’d focused higher on perception, he might have considered it. Goblins were probably the best source of XP he could find in the valley. They weren’t the highest level around—that honor belonged solidly to Red—but they were quite numerous. That was exactly what made them so dangerous. Rarely did he fight more than one monster at a time, but goblins were almost never alone. Groups of two or three were common.

They were smart too, or at least they were smarter than the animalistic monsters he fought elsewhere. The goblins knew who he was. They remembered him. Every time one got away, it took more information back to the rest of its tribe. The only saving grace was that he’d fought three different types of goblin and they didn’t seem keen on sharing info with each other.

Grimshard goblins were located on the west side of the valley, and Bluerock had the north. The ones that had the above-ground camp were called Bloodbite, which was just kind of gross. Luke didn’t want to sound racist or anything, but he couldn’t tell them apart at all. The only way he knew which ones were which was by reviewing the system notifications telling him what kind of goblin he’d killed. Otherwise it was just a guess based on where he ran into them.

Luke hoped to get out without another big fight. Bloodbite goblins were the most numerous and the most willing to hound him if he ran into one of their patrols. He’d also ran into a few that were level 11 while exploring, which was fantastic for gaining XP but sucked balls to actually fight, especially two-on-one.

They had been the kills he needed to push to level 10 though, and he’d immediately spent 6 of his new AP on [Counter] and [Twitch Reflexes]. The other 4 went to his stats, though he debated heavily about where to spend them. His brother’s build wanted him to focus on strength and perception, but he found himself needing agility more than anything.

Fighting multiple enemies at a time meant he needed more speed, better coordination, and a body that could keep up with what his skills were feeding him in real time. Perception and agility were the more important stats for what he needed in a fight. Maybe if he had some sort of armor to help protect him, it would be different. But he didn’t, so in the end he split them up and brought both agility and perception up to 12.

“What do you think, buddy?” he asked Red, who was perched on a stone outcropping and staring up at the pass in the valley. “Level 10. That’s a nice round number. A good benchmark before I get the hell out of this place.”

The hawk turned a head to stare at him, its unblinking gold-colored eyes ferocious and hungry. “You know I hate when you look at me like that,” Luke said. “Makes me think you’re about to eat me.”

Not for the first time, he wondered what Red’s level actually was. No matter how much stronger Luke got, that intensity never went away. Nothing else in the valley made him feel like that. Fortunately, the bird seemed to think of him as some sort of meal ticket, and Luke was happy to club some hapless animal on the head to appease his feathery overlord’s gluttony.

They traveled along the east rim of the valley, or at least Luke did. Red disappeared frequently, only occasionally showing back up for a minute here or there to check on him. “Check to see if I’ve got food for you is more like it,” Luke muttered to himself.

There wasn’t much that got in his way. The rocky shelf of land between where the mountains jutted up sharply and where the forest began didn’t have much living in it or much willing to wander through it. That meant that as long as he avoided going too close to the caves, Luke was generally left to travel in peace.

Once he got closer to the southeast corner of the valley though, he retreated back into the woods. There were too many goblin patrols for him to feel comfortable being so exposed. It was slower going, and he ran a much higher risk of running into predators and monsters, but staying out in the open all but guaranteed he’d be spotted by goblins.

After the first few skirmishes, they’d learned to gather in numbers before they attacked. It wasn’t an experience he was eager to repeat, and it was more dumb luck than anything that he’d gotten away relatively unharmed.

But now the trail that led to the exit was in sight. It curved up, winding its way towards the only break in the mountains surrounding the valley, a pass too narrow, crooked, and jagged to be taken any way but on foot. That didn’t matter much to Luke since he didn’t have a vehicle anyway.

There was a thousand-foot open stretch of unforested land between him and the first bend in the trail. That was where he was the most concerned about being attacked. If there was a patrol of goblins a hundred feet to his right, he’d be dodging crossbow bolts the entire sprint.

Thanks to his agility and stamina though, it would be a sprint. He was betting he could do it in under thirty seconds, even wearing work boots and blue jeans, with his mace strapped to his back. The thing was surprisingly light, not even five pounds. If he was lucky, he was just being paranoid and he could casually walk the distance without an issue. If he wasn’t lucky, he figured he’d get at least a third of the way before the first goblin shot at him.

“Here we go,” he said. “Okay, just do it now.”

He took a deep breath, looked one more time to make sure there were no monsters visible nearby, and took off at a dead sprint. His feet pounded against the dirt and stone as bounding strides hurled him forward, each one eating several feet and his legs pumping like pistons to propel him further. He didn’t make the effort to count the seconds, but he was sure he’d beaten his goal time when he rounded the boulder that marked the first curve in the trail.

He peaked back around the boulder and scanned the tree line, saw no goblins chasing after him, and let himself relax. Luke wasn’t even winded after the mad dash across open ground. He hadn’t been attacked. Everything was fine. All he had to do now was put one foot in front of the other.

He made it about fifty feet before he felt a rumble in the ground. At first, it was so faint he thought he was imagining it. That kind of stuff had been happening since he’d started putting points into perception, and he’d mostly learned to tune it out as unimportant background noise. A few steps later though, the ground rumbled again and this time he knew it wasn’t in his head.

Eyes scanning for danger, he reached a hand up to pull the string tie on his mace and pulled it out of its sheath. He held it in front of him while he spun in a full circle. There was nothing, but the rumbling kept getting louder. Luke took a step back, putting himself closer to the sheer wall of stone that made up one side of the trail.

That was a mistake. A few seconds later, he was pelted with a shower of small stones as the wall exploded outward. Another explosion threw loose scree up into the air from the ground nearby. A… thing… something kind of human-shaped but definitely not human climbed out of the pit. Another one broke free of the wall nearby.

They were both about eight feet tall, made of rocks stacked up like a man, somehow glued together and not falling over. Where joints should have been, loose rubble grated against itself, allowing the creatures to swing arms and legs. They shed small, loose flakes of earth as they moved, but each footprint was inches deep and sucked up new material to keep themselves whole.

Luke reacted instantly. If there was anything he’d learned from his first week or so on Aros, it was that damn near everything wanted to kill him. If it didn’t want to kill him at the moment, give it twenty minutes and it would change its mind. The only exception so far had been Red. Chances were good these things were not getting added to that list.

So he smacked the closest one in its head approximation as hard as he could. Chunks of stone blew out backwards, some of them flying fifteen or twenty feet before hitting the ground. The monster didn’t really seem to mind though. Its rocky fingers just reached out and grabbed Luke by the arm, then started squeezing.

They were strong, stronger than him, at least. But they weren’t smart and didn’t think tactically. He brought the mace down in a short one-handed chop on its ‘elbow’ joint, easily smashing the rubble out of place and to the ground. Without that connection, the whole hand became inert. It was still locked on his arm, but not moving, not squeezing.

Luke got some distance and went to work. The monsters weren’t fast either. All they seemed to have going for them was relentless endurance and a lot of strength. Once he separated their limbs from their bodies, they immediately started to soften until they turned to loose gravel and mud. The hand clutching his arm took maybe fifteen seconds before it sloughed off and splattered on the ground.

The first one went down and he got an audible ding to let him know it wasn’t getting back up. Curious, he got some distance from the second and opened the notification.

[You have slain Minor Earth Elemental (lvl 10). 102 XP awarded.]

“Should have guessed that. Curt would have known right away,” he said. Now that he’d killed one, he was actually alright with the outcome. They weren’t too hard to kill or too dangerous to fight as long as he was careful, and the XP was good. Four more like that would be enough to level up again.

He smashed apart the second elemental, also level 10, and started walking forward again. Within a hundred feet, a new elemental had emerged from the mountain side and attacked him. Fifty feet later, two of them popped up at once. Luke smiled while he fought.

Then while he was fighting those two, a third one popped up from behind. That was annoying, but not insurmountable. What concerned him was that a fourth could show up before he took care of the ones he was already fighting.

The ground started rumbling again.

“Goddamn it! One at a time people!” he snarled.

Three minutes later, Luke was sitting on the ground, panting heavily and covered in dust. He had a hundred tiny little cuts from exploding shards of rock peppering his face, chest, and hands. His coat was even more shredded than it had been when he started, and he was concerned about the integrity of his harness.

There was one small consolation though. If nothing else, it was good XP.

[Congratulations! You have reached level 11. 11 AP awarded for use.]