MT Chapter 09

I started to walk towards the fire wolf. Even if we couldn’t do anything with it I still wanted to taste its meat and try to skin it. I wanted to see if the meat tasted better and I was fairly certain its pelt would be worth something when we made it back to the village. I made it just past Aki before I collapsed. Oh fuck. I’m a lot weaker than I thought from blood loss.

I just laid there for a few before Aki walked in front of me with her hands on her hips. She gave me a look I could understand. “I took care of the big guy. Did you seriously let those little wolves beat you this bad?” I couldn’t help but respond out loud. “Yea yea. I shouldn’t steal traits mid battle next time. I did get stronger though. Did you not feel the spell I cast on you?”

She gave me an inquisitive look. It seemed like she was saying. “Oh that was you? I thought I was just that badass.” I couldn’t help but let out a little chuckle. She responded in goblin. “Jeffrey.” I knew that one. The word was different for every goblin village but it was a word that was named after the stupidest goblin who died. I didn’t know what that goblin did but it was one of Aki’s favorite words to call me.

I knew most of the goblin curse words at least. I knew the goblin words for give, mine, kill, delicious and fuck me with your fat dick. I knew a bunch of different versions of that last one. Gobble my pussy, fill me with your seed, shoot me full of babies, shove that bat in there, grab my hair and spit in my mouth. Most of which didn’t really matter much.

She knew a few human words as well. No, stop, don’t eat that, you pissed on the bed again, why do your farts smell so bad. Those were just a few that she would parrot back at me as she did something she shouldn’t have. It had been long enough I felt I could heal myself and as I did so my body stopped leaking blood.

I stood up and noticed that the fire wolf's body had started smoking. At first I thought it had caught fire but soon I realized it was something else. The monster was strong enough to drop a monster core! It was like a cheat item that could empower anything you used it for. I could speculate on the effects it would give. If used on a weapon it would give a fiery like enchant to the weapon. Armor would give fire resistance, even a forge or oven would increase the fire produced. I knew those would go for about a hundred gold if you used other materials to get a similar effect. 

Monster cores could grow stronger as well taking on some of the aspects of the monster it came from. The fiery enchant might become stronger or give a statistical boost as well if used for a long enough time. Eventually it could absorb enough ambient mana or life force from slain monsters to become a dungeon core. That would be hundreds of years down the road though.

I had almost instinctively used it on my club but I already had a growing weapon. I walked over to Aki to use it on her dagger but as I picked it up I noticed how damaged the weapon had become. The dagger wasn’t really a dagger in the first place, it was a sword that had broken at some point. Several of the edge pieces had broken off and a crack ran down the middle of it. I knew enchanting an item made it far harder to break but at the same time the weapon was on its last legs.

I went to go pick up the core but noticed something else had dropped from the monster despawning. A scrap of the wolf's leather, a perfectly marbled piece of meat and a large fang were also left. I licked my lips as I thought about the uses for the ingrediants. Both of us were injured and sore with me almost dying at several points. We went home and after I cut the burnt parts out of her hair before I dove into making a new weapon for Aki.

The process was more difficult than I imagined it would be. At first I thought just slap the core onto the side and bing bang boom magic weapon but it wasn’t that easy. Nope, I needed to turn the fang into a weapon first and find a spot to embed the core for it to take effect. It took forever to do! First, I split the fang into two pieces opening up the middle I was going to scrape out to make room for the core. With only a dagger that was falling apart and my axe to do so it wasn’t quick or easy.

What would have taken minutes with a vice and a saw took a good part of the rest of the night. Aki had to drag me away from it for me to get any sleep that night. I was the first awake and instead of making food I focused on hollowing out the center for the core and handle for the dagger. The tooth was sabertooth tiger long. It took all my strength to shave off a tiny sliver of the tooth. At some point Aki pushed food into my hands and I worked while I ate.

As I sharpened the tooth so it could be used as a sharp edge like a normal dagger, the sword finally hit its limits and broke to pieces. Aki was mad about it but I let her slap me a few times as I continued to work. When she noticed I was still too focused on this she went back to whatever she was doing. I carved in some grooves near the handle and wrapped some leather binding it so it wouldn’t easily open. As I put the core in a bright light flashed and a message popped up.

Congratulations! You have created a named weapon! Fang’s of Ramash! Weapon has acquired a set bonus!

I shook unsteadily as I noticed the color of the enchant. This was an epic grade enchanted piece of equipment! Not only that but it was a named piece. If a person managed to get their hands on an epic enchantment it was highly likely that the rest of their equipment was enchanted as well. Even someone wearing full epic level enchanted gear might not have a named item out of the bunch. I looked at the stats. Wait, it has become two daggers!?

Ramash’s kindness

Deal +1 point of fire damage

Gain +2 to endurance

Gain +4 to agility

Weapon is classified as a shield while blocking attacks

Allows wielder to call upon a flaming shield. This ability lasts for one minute with a cooldown of one hour.

Set bonus- If both parts of the dagger are combined deal +10 points of fire damage. 

Set bonus- If both parts of the dagger are combined any sneak attack damage will cause the wound to catch fire and explode.

Ramash’s wrath

Deal +2 points of fire damage

Gain +2 to strength

Gain +4 to agility

After striking with the weapon it has a chance to form a flaming blade aura. Weapons fire blade grows the hungrier the user is. 

Set bonus- If both parts of the dagger are combined deal +10 points of fire damage. 

Set bonus- If both parts of the dagger are combined any sneak attack damage will cause the wound to catch fire and explode.

I thought that the bonuses seemed extremely tailored to the weapon and that made sense when I read the bottom line. 

Weapon was created by Kai for his party member Aki. Bonuses were created to tailor to her strengths.

I held the weapon reverently in my hand. It didn’t look like the slapdashed thing I created. With a slight twist I pulled the weapons apart, each had a perfectly shaped handle that felt small but natural in my hands. I put the weapons back together and the grip felt slightly too big. If you were to hold it with both hands as you plunged it into someone's back it would feel perfect. At least it would if you were a goblin they’d fit your hands perfectly.

Aki plucked the weapon from my hands before reverently looking at them. She held them like they were a fragile piece of glass but I knew it was because she felt pulled to the item. If you swung that weapon at a steel sword there was a good chance the sword would chip and break before it left a scratch on that weapon. She swung the dagger and a jut of flame shot out.

She swung the other and a slightly smaller jut of flame came out. She put the two together and shot out a gout of flame if she was close enough to a wall it would have definitely caught the house on fire. I stood up and a wave of dizziness hit me. I walked outside to get some fresh air before I noticed that it was already night time… Ah fuck.

My legs ache from sitting for so long while I worked. I felt oddly satisfied at what I created but at the same time something nagged at the back of my head. It felt like I was overlooking something but I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was. I couldn’t help but smile at the feeling of satisfaction, whatever nagged at the back of my head must have not been that important because I quickly forgot about it.

Aki must have wanted to reward me for creating such a weapon for her because she was rather gentle in her lovemaking that night. Before I went to bed I checked my stats.

Skill gained!

(Gain five levels and a subskill as you are the only human currently alive to have the skill.)

Tinkering 5- Makes it easier to create weapons, armor and items. Tinkering is the goblin equivalent of the crafting skill. 

Set creation- More likely to make equipment that gives bonuses when worn together.

We spent the next few days relaxing. I checked the surrounding area trying to find poisons or helpful herbs and helped Aki make some poisons and salves. I’ve helped enough that if I was going to get the alchemy skill I would have so I have to leave it to Aki and trust she can handle it from here. When we found a group of goblins patrolling the opposite side of the river when we fought I realized the problem with Aki’s new weapons.

As her combined daggers pierced the goblin it violently exploded stinky napalm like liquid everywhere. It took me a few seconds to realize what exactly just happened and I couldn’t help but utter out loud.

“Well, fuck.”

We made quick work of the rest of the group before I realized how terrible a situation we had just been put in because her weapons weren’t designed to fight against that type of enemy. I experimented with them the remainder of the day. The solution was pretty simple, before we fought she would have to dowse the weapons in water slowing down the process of creating fire until it burned through the liquid. She would only get two or three attacks with them and it didn’t work for the combined weapon but it was enough that she could at least use them.

The problem wasn’t as bad as it seemed thankfully. After killing another group of roaming goblins we found out that as long as she left the blades in the goblins for a few moments the blood would coagulate and make a coating that would last longer before the fire burned it off. We were clearing another group of goblins just across the river when something suddenly landed on me.

It knocked me on the ground and it wasn’t until I felt the creature jump off me almost breaking my ribs with its jump. The cold feeling of iron sliding out of my body went unnoticed as my blood rapidly leaked out. I got a heal on myself and felt the blood flow slow but not stop. The sounds of blows rapidly clinking together as I readjust myself to rest against a tree and see Aki fighting with two other goblins. Both moving almost as fast as her swinging daggers while working together to close the gap in stats.

I cast invigorate on her and immediately she started to push them back. A goblin about a head shorter but also wielding two daggers charged from the tree tops above towards me. He had been waiting to strike at Aki but had noticed I was the one to change the tide of the fight. The two goblins had been fighting to capture at first but now they fought to stay alive. That was unfortunate for them because as they kept parrying the blows the daggers proc effect activated.

We had just eaten before heading out so she couldn’t have been too hungry but the blade was still easily twice the length it had been previously. The blade activating made her remember something because she looked at the other dagger and it burst into a flaming shield comically scaring the two goblins fighting her. The smaller goblin rogue had finished closing the distance between us so I couldn’t pay attention anymore.

He jumped down trying to impale me like the other goblin had done but I took two steps back and he landed on the ground in front of me from a fall far enough to injure him. With an unceremonious two handed grip I swung my axe down like I would to cut into a log and burst his skull like a watermelon. I heard a shriek of outrage and looked towards the noise. One of the two goblins stared me down with an incredible look of anger in its eyes. 

For a brief moment I think it’s going to rush at me but turning its back on Aki was a huge mistake. The lengthened dagger pierced into his chest from behind. Aki kicked him hard and his body launched towards me before bursting into flames. The remaining goblin, having lost the element of surprise and quickly was overwhelmed patting at small cuts that started to smolder before his neck was nicked igniting him.

I healed myself again, closing the wounds on my back entirely. How the fuck did I almost die again? If the goblin twisted the daggers before pulling them out or struck better spots when ambushing me I wouldn’t have even realized I was dead before I hit the ground. If he was slightly stronger or weighed more the jump off of me would have broken my ribs. Finally, if the goblin watching above followed me instead of staying above Aki I wouldn’t have noticed him until I had been ambushed a second time.

The constant life or death struggles had me exhausted. We went back home after that and I spent the remainder hugging Aki in bed before going to sleep early that day.