BXBX NOVEL Chapter 15 - 14 Out Of The Woods
The day had finally arrived, Marcus got up full of excitement and began to arrange his item box with everything he wanted to keep. He left a lot of the old tools and other surplus items he had taking only one of each useful item. He then packed the rest of the item box with food and water and his other valuables like the beast pelts and magic stones he had. Once he had finished organizing his items he had about half of his item box free.
\'I really had been carrying around a bunch of junk as much as ten cubic feet may not seem like that much it is still a pretty big amount as long as you do not stuff it full of unnecessary stuff. I guess the last things I need to do before I leave is spend my skill and stat points and pay my respect to the former residents of this community.\'
Marcus assigned his skill point\'s as usual one point to strength and vitality, two to agility, and three to both spirit and intelligence. After that he went through the skill list looking for useful skills. He soon came across one however it would cost him all five of his saved skill points.
\'Ah this skill is incredible useful but so expensive, but there is nothing else other than basic skills like swordsmanship or jump which are not very useful to me now. Fine I am going to do it, better to not need it then regret not having it.\'
Marcus then spent all five of his skill points to obtain the darkvision skill, he felt that the ability to see clearly even in pitch darkness was too valuable to pass up.
\'Okay let me look at my status before paying my respects and then it will be time to leave.\'
\'Status\'
Name: Marcus Ferrous
Age: 28
Race: Unbound Ghost (Human Irene Soul Tethered)
Level: 9
HP: 430/430-290/290
MP: 380/380
STR: 10(+20)
AGL: 32
VIT: 10(+19)
INT: 38
SPR: 40(+3)
Stat Points: 0
Skill Points:
Unique Skills: Personal Status
Skills: Small Item Box, Lesser Regeneration Lvl 1, Digging Lvl 1, Fighting Lvl 2, Magic Circulation Lvl 2, Iron Magic Lvl 2, Disassembly Lvl 2, Stealth Lvl 2, Lightning Magic Lvl 1, Creature Appraisal Lvl 1, Fire Magic Lvl 1, Danger Sense Lvl 1, Darkvision Lvl 1
Blessing of Iron
Race Abilities: Invisible, Ethereal, Chill Zone, Float, Possession, Undying
Possessed Race abilities:
Specter Powers: Ghost Sounds Lvl 1
After checking his status Marcus headed over to the graves he dug for the former inhabitants of the small logging community. He offered his prayers for them and promised that he would try to save the other people who were kidnapped along with Lilia.
\'Now it is time for me to leave, the slavers have a month head start on me but moving all those people will slow them down. As long as I can find the trail I should eventually be able to save Lilia even if I have to resort to unsavory methods.\'
Marcus walked towards the neglected dirt path he knew would lead him out of the woods and towards the nearest village. Marcus knew it would take around three days of walking to reach the next village from the fragments of Irene\'s memory.
Marching through the remnants of the path that no one had used for a month Marcus began his decent out of the forest. While the days were longer on Mirrion then they had been on Earth around thirty hours instead of twenty-four the tall canopy of the dense forest blocked out a majority of the light and made the days seem to end sooner. After hours of hiking through the woods when there was only a little bit of light left Marcus decided to set up camp. He laid out his tarp to sit on and then began making a fire for warmth and to make dinner. After cooking up some of the assorted meats in his item box and roasting some nuts Marcus began to enjoy his dinner. Once he was finished he began to lay out the rest of the old cloths he used as a bed spread. While preparing for bed he noticed a flicker of movement at the edge of his darkvision.
\'What the hell was that, did my cooking attract some type of beast? Since it is hiding in the shadows it is probably not that powerful otherwise it would\'
\'Oh shit\'
As Marcus was contemplating what he could have seen in the shadows an arrow came racing toward him from his right side. With the help of his danger sense Marcus managed to dodge the arrow within a hair\'s breadth. Marcus cast his iron skin spell and covered his arms and legs as more arrows began to barrage him from every direction. With the use of his danger sense and iron skin Marcus deflected all of the arrows coming towards him. After around a minute the arrow attack ceased and the creatures that were attacking Marcus came within the range of his darkvision.
\'Green skin, big heads, red eyes, kind of small, if those aren\'t goblins than I\'m not a ghost.\'
Once the goblins had come into view and began to surround Marcus he started to check their levels. He found that the highest level of the seven goblins was eight while the lowest was three with most of them being level five or six.
\'Okay I am stronger than anyone of them but I need to finish this fast before I run out of MP. Should I go for the strongest or weakest first, I can probably kill the weakest one with one attack but if I run out of gas while the strongest one is still up, I do not know if I can beat it.\'
The goblins having surrounded Marcus brandished there weapons toward him, most just had crude wooden clubs but one had a rusty sword, and the leader had an old iron spear. Seeing their weapons Marcus charged towards the leader first hoping for a quick kill on the most troublesome foe. The goblin seeing its prey charge towards it thrust its spear, however Marcus brushed it aside with his arm clad in iron, grabbed the spear and pulled the goblin in for a kick. As the powerful kick impacted the lead goblin it went flying a few feet losing grip on its spear. The remaining six goblins did not remain idle as three began to attack Marcus from the right, two from the left, and one from behind. Marcus cast his iron thread spell and entangled the three goblins coming from his right, and swept his spear towards the two on the left. Marcus then cast his spark spell sending electricity down his iron threads electrocuting the goblins tied up by his threads. However, the goblin with the rusty sword parried Marcus\' spear allowing the other goblins to close in on Marcus. Marcus raised his leg to block the club of the goblin attacking from the left but the weakest one coming from behind slammed its club into Marcus\' unguarded back. Marcus then threw a kick back towards the goblin behind him knocking it away as the goblin with the rusty sword slashed towards Marcus. Marcus cast fire shot point blank at the goblins face in an attempt to stop its advance, and while the fire shot blasted the goblin its momentum carried its attack through giving Marcus a horrible wound. The goblin with the sword began to writher on the ground from its horribly burned face, and Marcus grasp his stomach where he was now profusely bleeding. The remaining two goblins did not let this chance slip by and began to assault Marcus with their clubs. Doing his best to block their attacks Marcus struggled with everything he had but his movement were dulled from his wounds. The club strikes kept coming and more and more managed to connect against Marcus when as the goblins were going to deliver the final blow they suddenly could no longer move.
"Here let me pay you back SPARK!"
With Marcus\' iron threads coiled around the goblins his spark spell finished off the last two goblins assaulting him.
\'That was rough I never imagined that I would get ambushed by a bunch of goblins I should be more careful from now on and not have a fire or cook any food at night. I should store there corpses and weapon and move somewhere else for the night.\'
Marcus began hobbling over towards the bodies of the goblins when he saw the first goblin he kicked and disarm come out. It bent down and picked up the rusty sword from its fallen comrade and glared towards Marcus. The goblin had a dent in its stomach and blood dribbling out of its mouth, but Marcus was doing no better, beaten and bleeding all over and out of MP. The goblin charged towards Marcus sword in hand, Marcus was doing his best to defend against the goblin\'s onslaught but even with a higher-level Marcus was too injured to keep up for long.
\'I did not want to resort to this strategy but I am going to lose at this rate.\'
Marcus then instead of using his spear to block the goblins sword used his bare arm. The sword cut down into Marcus\' arm only stopping once it was half way through the bone. In that moment Marcus grit his teeth to endure the searing pain and jammed his spear into the goblins head. The two of them collapsed simultaneously the goblin dying and Marcus using up the last of his strength. In his last moments before passing out Marcus thought.
\'It is a good thing that sword was not well maintained otherwise I would have certainly lost my arm.\'
Marcus woke about an hour later his wounds had stopped bleeding but he was sore all over and still had a sword stuck in his arm. Marcus removed the sword enduring the pain as more blood began to seep out of his arm. Marcus knew he needed to get to a safe location before the carnage attracted a predator or more goblins showed up. He quickly stored the goblin corpses and weapons and used the small amount of MP he had regained to cast iron threads and climb into a tree. Once nestled safely in the tree Marcus once again embraced unconsciousness.
Marcus woke up after spending many hours recuperating, he had slept much longer than usual and the sun was already high in the sky.
\'My arm has healed up pretty well and my HP is back to full but I still feel like I got hit by a bus. I am going to need to be a lot more carful from now on because if there was even one more goblin I would have been toast.\'
Marcus climbed down the tree and headed back down the path. Now that he knew that goblins were around Marcus moved extra carefully, using his stealth skill the entire way out of the forest.. While it took two extra days to get through the forest because he needed to avoid multiple goblin camps and patrols Marcus, eventually came out of the woods and laid his eyes on the first live human settlement he had seen since coming to Mirrion.