《Falling from Paradise: Ravens Journey Begins》


 The beginning starts with a bang

    A young man by the name of Sid Craft stands in the rain on a sidewalk next to a busy street on a dark night looking up into the dark sky with the rain running down his face followed by tears, Sighing the man starts crossing the street, music plays from his ear buds underneath his hood, A horn blasts as he walks across the street but he''s oblivious as the Semi plows into him. Some say things go into slow motion as your life flashes before your eyes¡­ that''s a lie, sure its slow motion but all you see and feel is your death, bones breaking and being pushed into your organs, the organs exploding inside and slamming into the other side of your body as you slowly get lifted off the ground and thrown across the road every bone breaking and shattering all your organs turning to mush. One would think that''s the worst your ever going to experience how could it possibly get worse¡­ well This young man isn''t that lucky he has been fighting with leukemia for the last three months going through kemo and bone marrow transplants only to find out it didn¡¯t work and he was going to die anyways even after the horrible treatments. As he lays there bleeding he can hear people faintly talking in the distance a woman shouting and sirens but most of all is that pounding rain. he gurgles out ¡°finally its over¡± before slowly passing away.


    The black void swallows the young mans consciousness as he dies. The sense of falling overwhelms his senses but as he tries to open his eyes or swing his arms nothing happens, no rushing of air, no sense of feeling from any of his senses other than falling. A booming strong male voice announces ¡°Welcome to Fertixia, Forever grow and explore¡±.


    The falling feeling abruptly stops and his senses slowly start to come back to him. The feeling of sleepy limbs combined with ants crawling with static shocks from every step of the ants across his whole body drives his newly awakened senses mad. He tries to move scream and scratch but nothing happens, this goes on for a few minutes when suddenly his vision comes back to him, he is floating in the air in a prone position looking straight down possibly 10 feet in the air. Trying to move again he notices he can move his arms again so he quickly brings them to his face and in horror sees his hands for the first time since being hit by the truck, his hands have two inch long black sharp nails, his skin is green and scaly and he only has four webbed fingers. He Shouts out in surprise and has a voice not of his own rougher and deeper, feeling his face he finds his face has a snout that protrudes from his face with sharp pointed teeth in his mouth, struggling in the air he feels something hit his legs turning in the air looking at his legs he sees a tail protruding from his rear with short black spikes in a double down the length. He sees some strange leather clothing covering his body but wearing no boots his feet are much like his hands but a bit longer than his old human feet. Looking himself over he sees a backpack with a tent roll on top on his back he feels the weight of the bag knowing it has some things in it. As he''s looking himself over he hears a loud pop feels a pressure push on his body from above and he begins falling to the ground.


    With a heavy thud he hits the ground but thankfully doesn''t seem to have been injured from the fall he didn''t even get the wind knocked out of him which seemed odd, but he can hear a male chuckle from far away yet seemingly close looking around he see¡¯s no one in sight. Laying on the ground he rolls over looking to the sky when he sees the sky he is surprised to see that there are two suns and three moons one sun being blue and the other yellow the first moon being purple one being blue and the last white. Standing up the man brushes himself off and takes in his surroundings, He stands in a meadow with small rolling hills and high grass up to his hip. In the distance mountains and forests can be seen but no life no birds wild animals insects¡­ nothing. Checking his gear he finds he has a basic survival set, hard bread, water skin, small brass bell, three fishing hooks, small roll of fishing line, fire starter, small hatchet, dagger, some twine, roll of thin wire, a wet stone and a mortar and pastel. He wears some tanned leather clothing that seems to be well made and strong the bag being soft leather and the tent being made of some linen or canvas.


    Having looked over his gear he decides its time to go as there doesn''t seem to be any food he has to go hunting fishing or foraging soon. Looking at his surroundings he looks to the forest but deep in his stomach he feels dread looking at it, turning to the mountains he feels a push a need to go there like a craving to be in the mountains. Shaking his head he decides to go opposed to his feeling and go to the forest as its more likely to have food and water and not trusting his ¡°instincts¡± at the moment as his body is not his own. As he begins walking he feels weird it feels natural to walk in this new body but its completely different from his old body, he used to be a two hundred pound six foot two twenty one year old male being this lizard is completely different he thought he should be falling over his own feet but yet he''s able to walk and even run without issue.


    As he walks towards the forest he chuckles to himself ¡° so I died and got isekaied to a new world where I¡¯m a lizard and I¡¯m all alone¡­ great¡­ of course this happens to me because why the hell not right? Just bend me over and fuck me right up the ass why don¡¯t you while your at it¡­ I was already dying for fuck sakes why did I have to go through that horrifying way of dying and why the fuck did time slow down so I could feel everything in painstaking detail what sick fuck caused that shit!? Seriously!? What the fuck! I get Leukemia go through the treatments and the same day the doctor tells me the treatment didn''t work and ill be dead in weeks I die to a fucking truck!? Come on!¡± shaking his head he stomps along kicking the occasional rock to take out his frustration.


    Finally approaching the forest he hears some sound coming from it, bird calls and the slight hum of insects the first sound other than the light breeze through the tall grass exciting him but also causing some worry, how big are the insects in there that he can hear them from outside the forest they don¡¯t sound close but he can still hear them through thick forest. A shiver runs down his spine but he swallows hard and pushes forward as his stomach rumbles slightly keeping a hungry eye on his surroundings.


    Pushing into the forest the Tall grass gives way to bare dirt with rocky ground with the occasional plant growing in the sparse light the tree canopy blocking most of it. The majority of the trees all seem to be the same species a red wood maybe not to sure as he''s only ever lived in New York and never been in nature before. As he walks deeper into the forest the bug life gets louder and the birds seem to be active in his area but has yet to see one, every once in a while he hears a snap of a branch or ruffle of leaves but has yet to lay eyes on anything In the area. After about 2 hours of walking in the woods he is sure he is completely lost now unsure of the direction he came from he starts to get slightly worried but as he has no idea where he is anyways he shrugs and is about to carry on when he spots a small hill in the forest with a cave opening of fair size at least twice as large as he is.


    Coming to the entrance of the cave he looks inside but cant seem to see anything but the sent of something sour wafts from the cave entrance, but with no where else to go and having traveled for a while now he''s tired and wants shelter to rest as he''s not sure if this world ever gets dark with two suns. Moving into the cave he''s surprised to find his eyes quickly adjust to the low light changing to white and black vision allowing him to see just fine in the dark. Looking around in the cave he finds it has two tunnels at the other side of the cave but in front of one of the tunnel entrances he sees a corpse walking a little closer to it seems to be a small bear but the body is heavily rotted holes all over the fur and a strong rotting smell coming from it. Fighting the urge to vomit turning to the other tunnel he hears a light hum coming from it like electricity coming from power lines, he goes down the tunnel with the hope he may have found civilization in some form. As he walks down the tunnel the hum slowly gets louder, once he reaches the end of the tunnel there is a small alter in a natural stone room, the alter made of a light blue metal hums and glows a faint white light. Walking up to the alter he sees there is an item on top of the alter a white metal ring. Looking at the ring without touching it he sees there is a inscription on the inside of the ring but the writing is nothing he has ever seen before like cursive with geo shapes mixed in. Deciding that anything is better than nothing he picks the ring up, as he removes it from the alter there is a rumble what sounds like something heavy dropping with a rush of air pushing out of the top of the alter he puts the ring on his right ring finger without even thinking about it as if he had no control over it himself. Deciding he doesn''t want to be in that room when what ever fell hits the ground he starts to run from the room as fast as he can, reaching the first room he trips as he enters the first room falling onto his face.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.  Standing back up brushing himself off he swears then as he stands in front of the tunnel there is a loud boom behind him a massive blast of air and dust blows out from behind him launching him out of the cave with extreme force he rolls head over heels out of the cave entrance. Standing up for the second time in a short time brushing himself off yet again he looks to the cave with concern in his eyes when he hears a chuff and snap of teeth within the cave. As the dust clears something starts to stumble out of the cave on four legs and covered in damaged and rotting fur bones exposed from the holes in the fur. The young man yelps as the undead bear looks to him with hunger in its one eye that remains milky white and runny. The bear chuff again then charges at the man with a pained and weak roar, rushing the man it quickly gets in front of him and swings its paw at him claws extended aimed towards his face. The man jumps back but again falls this time on his butt raising his right hand screaming ¡°don¡¯t! Stay back!¡± When suddenly the ring glows a bright white and releases a pulse of energy shooting out all around him striking the bear and launching it back pushing the bear back into the cave entrance slamming the wall of the cave mouth dislodging a large rock from the cave mouth causing the roof of the cave to fall down onto the undead bear crushing it as it screams in pain. A few seconds pass when the voice he first heard when he came to this world announces in his head


    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>stat stack<<<<<<<<<<<<<<


    ¡° Undead bear level 3 defeated you gained 100 EXP, Congratulations as this is your first time getting EXP the EXP has been used to unlock your system, Hero summon core detected Awarding random affinity to skills and one random spell. Due to this being your first kill the EXP will also be used for skill points to give you a starting point to work off of 10 EXP per skill point earned from your first kill have been added to your stats page for later use.¡± Shock follows, a cold shiver runs down his spine and if he could sweat he was sure he would be pouring buckets but apparently this reptile doesn''t sweat. A screen pops up in his vision populated with lots of text and tabs, looking at the text he sees: Name: not selected Race: Kobold Class: not selected Level: 1 Skills: none earned *3 hidden affinities* spells: create water Hero modified Level 1, repel undead *from item*, Stats: Strength 8 Endurance 12 constitution 10 Dexterity 12 Wisdom 12 Intelligence 10 Luck 2. HP: 12 MP: 12+4 from magic item 10 unused skill points.


    Noticing mention of a magic item in his stat screen he looks to equipment and finds the ring listed ¡°unidentified magic ring, found stats +4 MP, Repel undead major, Holy Aura item not fully identified yet and as such has hidden stats that remain dormant. Looking to the rest of his gear he doesn¡¯t seem to have any other magic items on him in fact none of the items he has with him other than the ring even register in his inventory screen on his status page.


    Selecting his name on his stats page it pops up a window asking what he would like to set his name to. Wondering if he should use his old name or a new name he decides he hated his old name Sid, and decides to leave his bad luck behind with his old name choosing the name he would use online he enters his new name Raven, last name instead of Craft he selects Hex since he always seemed to be cursed in his old life and hits accept. Trying to select class nothing seems to happen so that is ignored for now, Moving on to skill points he selects the skills tab where he can see the 10 skill points but no skills, selecting the Plus mark where it says no skills a list populates his vision listing thousands of skills most grayed out but still visible a few show white and seem to be available.


    The available skills are: Sneak 1 point, sword 1 point, parry 1 point, shield 1 point, dagger 1 point, spell casting 5 points, potion brewing 3 points, basic engineering 5 points, blacksmithing 3 points, survivalist 2 points, Bowery 1 point, basic crafting 3 points, running 1 point, gambling 1 point, cooking 2 points, stage craft 3 points, tailoring 3 points, poison resistance 1 point, Psychological resistance 3 points, Physiological resistance 3 points, foraging 1 point, hunting 1 point, swimming 1 point,


    Choosing to spend his skill points right away as he has no idea what they actually do or how they effect him the only way to know Is to test it. Buying sneak, survivalist, running, basic crafting, and finally physiological resistance for a total of 10 skill points. Going back to the skill page on the main screen he sees his new skills :sneak adds 10% to your hiding chances when in full cover per level. Survivalist adds the knowledge of basic crafting options like basic fishing pole, basic mallet, basic repair on fabric, basic tool maintenance, knowledge of where a good spot to set up camp would be and basic knowledge of plant and animal life as well as a 10% resistance to weather per level. Running increases base running speed by 10% and are able to run 1% longer per level. Basic crafting allows for crafting of any stone age tools and crafts such as structures and traps with quality of the craft increasing by 10% per level at level 10 you have a 20% chance to create a masterwork craft. Physiological resistance reduces damage taking by 2% per level as well as increasing your save chance from disease poison and illness. ¡°Congratulations you have an affinity to this skill doubling its effects per level¡±


    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Chapter End>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

 Beware the night

    Standing in front of the collapsed cave entrance marveling at the fact the cave crushing the undead bear is the only reason he is still alive still shaking from everything that has happened to him in such a short time he decides he wants to be as far as possible from the cave and continues on walking hungry and tired from todays adventure. Choosing to continue walking for another hour Raven comes to a small flat patch of ground at the base of a fairly large red wood tree with some rock cover just open enough to set up his tent for the first time. Once he sets his camp he collects a small amount of dead fall to make a fire to keep himself warm just in case the suns go down and the nights get dark and cold, most of all the fire will make himself feel safer from predators like bears¡­ or the undead variety. Settling down for the day he goes to lay down in his tent but realizes he doesn¡¯t have a bed to lay on or blankets just a tent a bag and some supplies so laying his gear on the ground using the bag to cover his chest from the cold he tries to go to sleep even if just for a few hours.


    Waking what feels like minutes later peaking out the tent flap he sees that the suns have in deed gone down and the night is supremely dark and cold almost to the point of ice forming over surfaces. Collecting some of his gear he gets set to start his fire to keep him warm and to help light the area so he can keep watch, he has a feeling he wont be sleeping anymore till the suns come back up. Listening to the forest ambiance sounds he notices the insect hum has gotten a fair bit louder but deeper as well and much much closer. Grabbing his dagger and putting it on the belt loop of his pants to keep it close he finds his hand constantly going down to it checking if its still there as he sits in the poorly lite area that is his camp. Sitting next to the fire feeding it listening to the crackling wood he hears a snap in the trees near by looking around he cant make anything out but the sound of a low deep growl makes its self known above him in a near by tree.


    Drawing the dagger and backing away from the direction of the growl he tries shouting out ¡°stay back, I don¡¯t want to hurt you please just leave me alone!¡± Grabbing a stick from the fire the tip burning and glowing red he raises it as a makeshift low light torch towards the sky to see if he can see anything at all, when he notices a glint in the trees a reflection of the light on a set of eyes¡­ to many eyes. Dropping from the tree but not touching the tree or ground hangs a giant spider the size of a compact car deep purple in color with black limbs and zig zags on the rear of the spider.


    Eyes shining in the light also seem to have a purple hue to them as the giant insect stares at Raven not moving just hanging there looking at him as he''s frozen in fear. ¡°Why did it have to be a spider, id rather fight the bear again.¡± The spider moves at the sound of his voice slowly lowering its self to the ground raising its head up looking him in the eyes and growling. Raven panics and throws the fire stick at the spider while backing away slowly, the stick flies past the spider missing it completely but draws his dagger ready to fight. Trying hard to remember anything he might have to fight this monster with he remembers  seeing a spell on his sheet, create water *hero modified* and tries with all his might to cast it first shouting ¡°create water¡± but nothing happens, so next he focuses on the spell and what he thinks it does forming water in a ball above the spider he sees nothing happening but as he focuses he can feel a drain on his very being like he just ran a mile with butterflies in his stomach a screen pops up in front of him stating ¡°casting successful how much mana would you like to put into the spell out of 16 MP¡± mentally selecting 16 mana and hitting accept the drain to his mental capabilities is staggering dropping him to his knees as he starts panting and feeling the need to vomit. The spider hisses and starts to slowly approach Raven as he''s kneeling in front of it when a loud crack sounds from above the spider, before it even has a chance to look up water comes crashing down from the tree top in a dense sphere the size of washing machine crashing dead center on the spider knocking it to the ground with a loud pop coming from each of its legs. The rush of water pushing Raven down and washing him a few feet away as well as putting out his fire soaking him and the ground all at once. Crawling to his tent to get away from the spider he can hear it behind him slowing giving chase every step it lets out a hiss of pain. Raven gets to the tent crawls inside and readies his dagger to protect himself when the mass of the spider comes crashing down on top of him stabbing up and through his tent he thrusts his dagger over and over again not stopping, screaming the whole while. After a few dozen thrusts the spider seems to stop moving and gives up releasing its last breath of air as it dies. Stuck under the spiders mass and wiped out from the spell casting Raven slowly passes out to the voice of what he thinks of as ¡°the system¡± ¡°congratulations you have slain a level 5 Brood spider and gained 150 EXP Level up!¡±


    Waking up several hours later to the stink of the spider on top of him crushing him and coating him in thick purple blood, trying to get out from under the spider he finds his tent wrapped around him preventing much movement and the body of the spider pinning him in place. With a loud groan he grabs the dagger laying next to him and starts to cut the spiders body from inside the tent a slow and oh so gross mission to free himself. After about 20 minutes of cutting and pushing and wiggling he manages to get the corpse off him and frees him self from the bloody mess ruining the tent and leaving it heavily damaged, the suns are up and shining birds are chirping and the insects humming.  he rolls up what''s left of the tent and packs it away collecting all his gear looking himself up and down and seeing the truly horrifying image of gore all over him and his gear he decides to cast his create water spell but only putting one MP into it and focusing It above his head. A bucket sized ball of water appears above his head dropping down soaking him and washing some of the gore off but no where near all of It. Raven sighs resigned to the fact his cloths are ruined and will never be clean after that. Looking at the spiders corpse it appears the water was strong enough that it shattered all but its front two legs and it dragged itself on top of him to eat him and died there. After packing up Raven starts walking in a random direction still lost, walking hand on his dagger eyes darting towards any and all noises and movement.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    A few hours of walking in the random direction he finds himself at a river cutting through the forest, kneeling at the rivers edge he takes a drink from the water and refills his water skin. The river is a slow moving river hardly seems like it would reach his hips if he were to try and cross but as he has no reason to try at the moment he decides to stay where he is, utilizing his fishing line and hooks he puts a small piece of spider on the hook pulled from the folds of his cloths. Using a basic stick as reel and a small stick as a bobber he throws the line out and lets it float while he sits down bathing in the sun coming through the clearing caused by the river. Sitting there letting the nights horrors and tension leave him as he watches his bobber floating down stream gnawing on the hard bread from his kit when the bobber suddenly sinks and the line goes tight, pulling on the line and rolling it in on the stick he feels something fighting the line something small but at this point hes not picky food is food. Reeling the line in and brining the fish to the shore line he pulls it up and out of the water revealing what looks like an eel with no eyes and a large mouth on its bottom side filled with row after row of teeth, it squirms around trying to get free so Raven grabs his dagger stabbing it in the head it slows its movements and coils around the daggers blade twitching as it dies. Getting his camp fire ready he puts a stick through the eel and cooks it on a spit over the fire slowly rotating it while eying it curiously thinking ¡° I wonder if I can actually eat this or if ill get sick. I really don¡¯t want to eat that hard tack so I¡¯m going to try this anyways but man does it look ugly¡­ please don¡¯t make me sick.¡± After cooking the fish he quickly eats the fish surprisingly it doesn''t taste horrible it sort of tastes like slimy chicken.


    After his meal he decides to continue on packing up his gear and following the river down stream as his survival skill tells him settlements generally will settle along water tributes and also draws in game that can be hunted and is a free fresh water source and fishing could be useful. Following the bends of the river and from time to time having to climb over obstacles like fallen trees or small cliff faces he is making good time on the rough ground and starting to feel a little chipper for the first time in the world, the scenery is beautiful the area smells like sweet grass temperature is nice and warm like a pleasant day on a beach with a cool light breeze.


    As he walks he remembers what he heard as he passed out under the spider he gained a level what does that mean? Bringing up is stats screen he sees he has 1 stats point to spend an 2 skill points. Looking at his stats he puts a point in Strength as being trapped under that spider was horrifying and he never wants that to happen again. For the skill points he looks over the list but decides he needs a skill point in dagger and decides to get parry as well so he has some kind of combat skill. Looking at his skills the Dagger skill gives 10% bonus damage per skill point and Parry gives you a better chance to parry a declared attack by 5% per level once per combat.


    >>>>>>>>>>>stats block<<<<<<<<<<<<


    Name: Raven Hex


    Race: Kobold


    Class: not selected


    Level: 2


    Skills: dagger 1 10% damage per level, parry 1 5% parry chance per level once per combat, Survival 1 various crafts and knowledge as well as a 10% per level resistance to weather, Running 1 10% bonus to speed and a 1% bonus to duration, basic crafting 1 stone age crafting with 10% quality boost and 20% chance to make a masterwork item at level 10, Sneak 1 10% bonus per level to hiding in full cover, Physiological resistance 1 reduces damage taking by 2% per level as well as increasing your save chance from disease poison and illness. Affinity double resistance  *2 hidden affinities*


    spells: create water Hero modified Level 1 1 MP generate 5 gallons of water, repel undead major knock back on undead creatures *from item*,


    Stats: Strength 9 Endurance 12 constitution 10 Dexterity 12 Wisdom 12 Intelligence 10 Luck 2. HP: 12 MP: 12+4 from magic item


    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>chapter end<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 The only option is Retreat

    After many hours of walking Raven comes to a sharp bend in the river forest on his side still but finally on the other side of the river is a clearing a grassy plains and in the distance he can see what appears to be horse sized brown woolly mammoths grazing on the tall grass in the field a small herd of 8 including 2 little ones. Amazed Raven watches them for a few minutes before deciding to set up camp here before crossing tomorrow with his tent destroyed he will need to build some kind of shelter in case it rains. Setting up a lean-to Raven uses the destroyed tent as a bedding and blanket in one wrapping himself with the foul smelling tent and using his bag as a hard pillow. Not setting up a camp fire today as he wanted to get right to sleep so he could wake up early to do his crossing Raven finishes his camp set up fast and heads to bed.


    The next morning he wakes up cold but well rested and ready to face the day, Getting up and going to the river bank to wash his face and try to wash his shirt at least scrubbing with his hand very little progress on the brown leather shirt is still stained purple in large spots. Giving up on it and putting it in his bag taking off his pants and adding them to the bag as well he gathers all his supplies into his bag tying it to a large stick and heaving it over his shoulder to keep it dry on the crossing. Slowly he wades out into the water quickly it comes up to his hips as he''s crossing the water is still moving slow but is very cold bone chilling cold in fact, Raven deciding he''s going to need to warm up after crossing quickens his pace and gets across the river getting up onto the bank he gets his clothing out to put it on when he notices it. One of the fish that he caught earlier attached to his right calf hanging off him. With a squeal he grabs his dagger and stabs the eel in the body prying it off him, as it comes off there''s a ripping sound and some of his flesh comes off with the fish and blood squirts from the wound. Stabbing the eel a few more times Raven curses but gets back to warming himself up carving wood shavings from his stick and breaking it down into small pieces he sets to getting his fire going to warm up placing some grass on to help it along.


    Cooking the fish that tried eating his leg is strangely satisfying eating it instead, growling at it as he pulls its crispy husk from the fire and biting it. While its not the greatest tasting food in the world its not horrible even if it is a little vampire. Cleaning up his campsite and looking around he doesn¡¯t see the Mammoths anywhere but he does notice a small trail of smoke down the river a little ways, deciding he''s got nothing better to do he decides its time to meet civilization and starts walking that way. As he gets closer he finds a small camp fire surrounded by 4 tents and 4 Humans skinning and breaking down a mammoth corpse, Raven gets excited and goes jogging up to them with a hand raised in a wave, when he''s spotted the 4 humans stand and arm themselves 2 of them with sword and shields one with a spear and one with a long bow and arrows with metal tips. Shouting they get into a defensive stance and ready for a fight. Raven slows calling out ¡°I¡¯m friendly, I¡¯m so happy to see other people out here. Everything keeps trying to kill me. Any chance you could point me to the nearest town?¡± one of the sword wielders shouts back ¡°stay back monster or we will kill you. This is our kill and you can not have anything from it leave now or we will add you to our collection!¡± Raven stops in place gathering what he just heard replying ¡°I''m not a monster my name is Raven, I don¡¯t know where we are I¡¯m lost my tent was destroyed and id like to get back to civilization I don¡¯t think I¡¯m cut out for the wilderness.¡± The humans all chuckle and the same human replies ¡° you can fool us monster just because your kind can speak common doesn¡¯t make us anything alike¡­ oooh hooo what''s that I see!?¡± The human turns and speaks to his partners chuckling and whispering away they all laugh and nod together ¡°alright tell you what we will let you camp with us if you help break down this beast once that''s done we will point you to our outpost and you can get transportation from there to the major cities. How''s that sound mon¡­ eeerrr Raven was it?¡± Raven nods ¡°yes that will be fine but I don¡¯t have much experience harvesting animals if you don¡¯t mind that I would really like your help and will take you up on your offer.¡± The humans all nod and wave him forward as they turn back to the beast, Raven notices all but the leader put their weapons back and go back to work on the mammoth while the leader watches raven with a piecing gaze.


    Raven walks up to the beast pulling his dagger and helping strip the animal of its hide and helping break down the bigger parts to more manageable pieces. As he''s doing this the leader slowly walks back and forth behind him watching him with intense focus when he gets a chill on his neck and a pull on his stomach like he felt when he cast his first spell. Turning and looking at the leader he sees that his eyes are glowing blue and his gaze is locked on the ring on Ravens right hand. ¡°I knew it, its a magic item boys get em!¡± the leader belts out. Raven jumps to his feet looking at the other three hunters as they stand grabbing their weapons with big grins on their faces, Raven decides this is not a fight he could win and runs for the river bank as fast as he can. The leader shield bashes Raven causing him to stumble crashing into a tent knocking it over and rolling over a box on the other side of it. Getting to his feet he finds the 3 with melee weapons in front of him towards the center of the camp and the archer standing next to the mammoth with an arrow knocked and ready to loose. Raven swings his dagger trying to keep the approaching men back but not really achieving anything. The leader side steps and an arrow comes flying past them directly into Ravens right shoulder screaming in pain Raven stops trying to fight turns and runs for it as fast as he can to the river. As he gets to the bank the hunters are right on his tail another arrow wises by his head just missing him as he dives for the water hoping its deep enough to help him get away. As he hits the middle of the river he splashes down thankfully this part of the river is a fair bit deeper than where he crossed. The humans shout and curse as Raven swims with the current to get away as fast as possible the act feeling a little to natural with very little need to surface for air as he swims he hears a few plops on the water above him but doesn¡¯t look back and just swims as fast as the current will take him.


    After 10 minutes of swimming under water he surfaces with a gasp of air climbing onto the rocky area blocking this part of the river standing up and getting to the opposite bank of the hunters pulling the arrow from his shoulder he decides here''s where he will go back inland a little to try and lose  them. As he walks he checks all his gear thankfully he didn¡¯t take his bag off as he worked and nothing came out in the water. With a quickened step he moves back to the trees that are a 5 minute job inland to find somewhere to hide. Pulling out his hard tack from his bag it has turned to mush but since if he doesn¡¯t eat it now it¡¯ll go bad in scarfs it down and  continues he''s jog. Coming up to the forest he finds  the ground is slightly on an incline the first real hill he''s seen since the first field he left continuing to run into the forest he looks over his shoulder and sees on the other side of the bank the hunters mounted on large wolves all four of them looking directly at Raven as he runs into the forest, Cursing Raven picks up the pace and runs full out into the woods. Running for an hour at full speed Raven starts to slow down due to exhaustion and notices a flashing icon in the top right of his screen, opening his stats page he sees the icon indicates Fatigue 1 which says stamina will regenerate 5% slower due to prolonged exertion resting for one hour per Fatigue tick will recover it. Unable to rest here Raven decides to slow his pace to a fast jog and continue up the forested hill for another hour. As he hour passes he decides its time to take a quick rest maybe try and make a trap of some sort in hopes of slowing them down or getting them off his trail. Using his dagger he sharpens a few short sticks as he walks, once he finds a flat spot he makes sure to leave a trail to the area highly visible digs a small hole spreading the soil through the trees placing a few sharpened sticks into the hole then placing a few sticks over the hole and covering it with leaf litter then carrying on up hill. Following a game trail up the hill he finds a good spot to rest there''s a few large rocks resting on the top of a stone ledge that over looks the trail setting up a simple resting camp he sits and waits.


    After an hour the fatigue icon goes away and just as he''s getting up to carry on he hears a loud scream come from down the trail. ¡°My foot! My foot! Oh gods my foot, why is there a hole here aaaaghh!¡± there''s a few other voices that shout something but Raven can¡¯t make it out. Getting the rocks ready he waits for the first sign of some one coming up the trail when he sees the archer bastard come bounding up the trail looking down at the ground tracking his prints and tail drag in the dirt. With a hefty push Raven pushes the first rock as it falls from the short cliff it makes a loud bang and starts rolling down the hill following the trail, the archer hears the bang looking up just in time to see the rock barreling towards him, jumping from the trail into the thick trees Raven hears the archer scream as he falls down a embankment and starts rolling down hill. The Rock continuing down the hill comes in contact with the second shield man hitting him directly the rock the size of a backpack bouncing off the ground just before impact causing it to hit him directly in the chest knocking him back down the trail several feet where he lays unmoving. More shouting follows the rock and the spear man comes running up the trail looking straight at Raven, Raven gives him a little wave then pushes the second and last bolder down the hill turns and runs as fast as he can up the hill farther. The rock rolls down the hill but Raven doesn¡¯t look back to see if he hit anyone and just keeps on running once he gets to the top of the hill he finds a mid sized lake atop the hill surrounded by rocky bare hills so without wasting time Raven dives right into the water and goes as deep as he can to stay away from shore.The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    Raven sits in darkness even with his low light vision he cant seem to be able to make much out under water the water seems to be heavily silty and his dive disturbed the ground muddying the waters. As he sits on the bottom as still as he can he can hear the humans at the shore line shouting and throwing stones into the water. After a few splashes from the rocks he feels something swim past him something large and strong the displaced water almost pushing him over Ravens heart starts racing all he could see was a giant tail fin the size of him go by. Raven starts slowly swimming back to shore in hopes he can get away from what ever just swam past him and get away from the hunters at the same time when he hears a blood curdling scream muffled by water filling lungs and then silence as the water towards the hunters turns red with blood. Raven swims full speed back to shore on a 45 from the hunters jumping out of the water he sees a spear laying on the ground next to the leader of the group with his shield and sword raised towards the water and the archer holding his ribs hanging back away from the water both ghost white and shaking. Raven does his best to sneak out of the water and get to the woods once again when he hears an arrow whiz past his head ducking and running as fast as he can he gets back to the trees and starts descending the hill. Finding a small out cove Raven dives in covering himself with tree litter and tries to activate his stealth skill an icon pops up on his screen with an eye half closed in the upper right of his screen taking that as stealth he lays and waits.


    Laying there Raven hears the last two humans talking some where near by ¡°I¡¯m taking jock back to the outpost this was stupid we lost Jock and Tim and its going to take me months to heal up from this I may as well be dead too. Your on your own James.¡± ¡°Fine leave you coward that''s fine once I get the ring ill sell it and all the profits will go to me and me alone if your not going to help¡± grumbled James their leader. Raven relaxed a little knowing its just the one last guy hunting him and at the same time scares him even more. ¡°What the hell is it going to take to get this guy off my ass I mean seriously 2 of his guys are dead and his buddy is abandoning him in the wilderness.¡± Thinks Raven. A few minutes go by and he cant hear the archer anymore but the leader is still walking around the area grumbling under his breath looking for Raven when he jumps down from the stone Raven is hiding under landing directly in front of Raven. Slowly drawing his dagger he starts to push himself up trying to be as quiet as he can. Fully standing up behind the leader Raven drives his dagger into the center of the mans back driving the dagger to the hilt into the mans back. Screaming the man turns around to swing at Raven, Raven pulling the dagger from the mans back, when his sword hits the stone Raven was hiding under not allowing for enough room for the man to swing his long sword. Raven ducks down spinning around and wiping the mans legs with his tail knocking the man down Raven jumps on top of the man diving the dagger into the mans left shoulder the man screams again pushing Raven off and throwing him down the hill. The man stands up not able to hold his shield up any longer due to the cut he drops it to the ground holding the longsword the man has turned ghost white and is sweating heavily and seems like he may pass out at any moment. Grumbling under his breath he starts to walk towards Raven but he''s not in the mood to stick around so Raven takes off running being at a disadvantage here makes there no reason to engage having a shorter weapon and being down hill from the his attacker would just mean death for him better wait him out and let him bleed out.


    Raven takes off down the hill at full speed not looking back trying to get back to the river to follow it again to get away from these crazy people in hopes of finding true civilization. As he disengages from the fight a system notification pops up ¡°congratulations you have received your first player killer point or PK point. These points can be turned in at system approved dealers for gear information or upgrades. As this kill was considered a ¡°player¡± there is no EXP reward for the kill PK points are based on the players level. You have killed a player and can now have a bounty placed on you at an assassins guild be careful you never know when someone might want you dead. PK points earned so far 3.¡±Blinking at the notification Raven sighs wishing he got EXP instead skills cost a lot and he hasn¡¯t even figured out how to raise those skills yet. Shaking off the distraction that is the system he continues his run down the hill as he gets to the clearing before the river he finds the archer mounting onto one of their wolves with the body of the other shield hunter strapped to another wolf with a kick of his heels the wolves take off down stream at an alarmingly fast pace. Standing there in awe of the animals that seem to go faster than a car he hears a loud bang behind him as he turns around he sees the leader of the hunters standing there sword banging across his chest in challenge. Raven pleads with the man ¡° look we are both hurt you more so I don¡¯t think your going to survive if you keep pushing yourself your bleeding out. Please lets not do this I don¡¯t want to kill you.¡± The man scoffs at Raven walking towards him with his sword pointed at Ravens chest. The mans eyes glow orange as he comes closer and he smiles at Raven ¡°time to die monster that ring is mine!¡± in a split second the man seems to blur forwards covering 10 feet in a second coming face to face with Raven and stabbing his sword towards his gut. Raven stumbles back raising his dagger into a guard as the sword swings at him deflecting the sword but knocking the dagger out of his hand Raven falls back onto the ground in front of the man. ¡°Please don¡¯t do this I haven¡¯t done anything to deserve this!¡± Raven screams ¡° you don¡¯t have to simply being a monster is enough reason for me on top of that you have a magic item that could pay for my retirement right here and now. Now die monster!¡± James swings his sword down at Raven with all his might Raven rolling to the side the sword just missing him, as he rolls his tail flicks up striking the man in the face hard knocking the man down as he falls he rolls down the hill a little as he rolls his sword falls from his hands scattering down the hill with a loud clank. Raven gets up as fast as his tired body will allow picking up his dagger and walking towards the man who will not stop trying to kill him, Standing over the man it seems hes lost all will he had left bleeding heavily and coughing spitting blood up as he coughs. Raven looks down at him and says ¡° I tried dammit I tried! I kept telling you I had no quarrel with you and yet you kept trying to kill me! Because of you 2 people are dead and soon you will be dead too. Was it worth it you idiot!? Well was it!??¡± Raven kicks the man in the ribs as hard as he can the man groans and coughs even harder but doesn¡¯t move or respond. ¡°Warning killing an unarmed and injured ¡°player¡± is considered a crime and can cause faction loss bounties and a PK flagged status for 24 hours giving bonus points to anyone who kills you during the timer and allows trackers to easily find you if they have an open contract on you.¡± The system must be reading his mind because the second he thought he would ram his dagger into this mans heart he got the warning message. ¡°Well guess I wont kill you directly but I can watch you die from your wounds you scum bag.¡± A few minutes go by the man coughs harshly spraying blood all over his face and chest wheezes a few times then stops breathing. ¡° You have gained 5 PK points, but due to the way you let the ¡°player¡± die the system has decided a penalty is warranted and has put a Dark point on you.¡± ¡°Danger you have earned a dark point towards Humans, if you gain 10 to one race their relations to you will become hated and they will attack you on site despite personal relations to you.¡±


    ¡°Due to the extreme fighting you have faced your dagger skill has gone up by 1, due to your constant running you have raised running by 1, Due to having a dark point you have unlocked a spell Detect human it allows you to see silhouettes of humans through solid objects within 10 feet for 1 minute per 5 MP.¡±


    >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Stats Block<<<<<<<<<<<<


    Name: Raven Hex


    Race: Kobold


    Class: not selected


    Level: 2


    Skills: dagger 2 10% damage per level, parry 1 5% parry chance per level once per combat, Survival 1 various crafts and knowledge as well as a 10% per level resistance to weather, Running 2 10% bonus to speed and a 1% bonus to duration, basic crafting 1 stone age crafting with 10% quality boost and 20% chance to make a masterwork item at level 10, Sneak 1 10% bonus per level to hiding in full cover, Physiological resistance 1 reduces damage taking by 2% per level as well as increasing your save chance from disease poison and illness. Affinity double resistance  *2 hidden affinities*


    spells: create water Hero modified Level 1 1 MP generate 5 gallons of water, repel undead major knock back on undead creatures *from item*,


    Stats: Strength 9 Endurance 12 constitution 10 Dexterity 12 Wisdom 12 Intelligence 10 Luck 2. HP: 12 MP: 12+4 from magic item


    Dark Points: 1 Humans


    PK points: 8


    >>>>>>>>>>>>> Chapter End<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 Meeting some one new

    Staring at the dead man in front of him Raven decides his gear would look better on him so he starts stripping the gear from the man taking his long sword scabbard and shield as well as his backpack sadly there is no camping gear just another dagger some travel rations and a water skin. The armor is in rough shape and not worth taking besides it looks to small for Raven to wear. Satisfied Raven spits on the corpse of the man who tried to hunt him down kill and rob him as he continues back down the hill towards the river. Deciding that even if they are trying to kill him for no reason its best if he goes with the river towards the human outpost at least from there he may be able to find some one friendly to him to help him out, Perhaps not everyone is an evil cunt in this world there''s always that hope right?


    Two full days traveling the river and not seeing anyone, eating the travel rations he took off Jim and trying to stay out of sight as much as possible limiting camp fire time to day time only and in the forest. He finally sees something on the horizon as it comes  into sight the forest seems to recede from the river bank even more and disappear in the distance leaving Raven walking in the open plains once again with the few scattered boulders the size of houses and hip high grass. He slowly approaches the outpost Surrounded with palisades made of felled trees 2 feet thick and 20 feet tall this place is a fortress with guard towers at the gate and all 4 corners looking at the towers he can see 2 men per tower equipped with what look like cross bows. This place screams death to Ravens senses many small camp fires roar within the camp leaving lots of smoke raising into the sky with the stench of burning meat blowing across the plains. Raven decides getting any closer than a couple miles is a bad idea and keeps his distance seeing if he can find a road or trail that may lead him some where else. As he gets to the other side of the camp he finds that the river leads to a large body of water which could be an ocean judging by the salt smell coming down the wind. In the bay is a large wooden ship bigger than anything Raven even seen on his own world with many small boats ferrying supplies to the outpost. Returning to the front side of the camp at distance he decides there''s nothing for him here and maybe he''s better off trusting the instinctual pull towards the mountains when he sees the gate open and four wolf riders come riding out at a fair clip towards Ravens general location, as they approach he can hear them argue ¡° if you don¡¯t want the magic item that''s fine boy you stay back at camp and we will take it. We don¡¯t need you to find a lizard in the forest. Go home!¡± one of the men on a wolf stops some 50 feet away from Raven turns his wolf around as he does Raven knows him as the archer from the previous group the man seems to hesitate turns the wolf back to the group and continues to follow them. Raven Curses under his breath waits for them to pass and retreats back to the forest to hide.


    Walking through the forest yet again trying to stay hidden hunted by humans yet again just for existing in the wrong area, he''s starting to lose his cool panic, rage and sorrow start to fill his mind. Distracted with his thoughts he doesn¡¯t notice the forest grow quiet around him as he stops through the trees for several minutes till he steps on a branch and the snap is so loud it shakes him from his thoughts. Listening to the surrounding area looking around with wide eyes he finally notices how still and quiet his surroundings are, drawing the longsword and a dagger he keeps looking everywhere when he hears a feminine giggle from behind him ¡°what are you doing out here Mr. Kobold, this isn¡¯t your home in fact you are far far away from your home lands. I think you should go home this place is not meant for your kind.¡± Spinning around raven looks behind him to see a two foot tall girl with pointy ears and 2 foot wings hovering off the ground in front of him wearing what appears to be a potato sack as a dress. ¡°Who or what are you?¡± Raven exclaims in shock. ¡°Why I¡¯m a pixie silly, my name is Anna, my questions stand why are you here?¡± Raven blinks a few times then replies ¡° I¡¯m Raven I just arrived in the area and am very lost I was hoping to find some civilization to see if they could help me get to know my surroundings and maybe help me survive this area.¡± Anna laughs and says ¡° oh silly Kobold these woods will eat some one like you up in a night you should go home quickly the humans have landed in the area and they will kill anything that isn¡¯t like them¡­ even then they tend to kill their own too they are really a nasty bunch.¡± ¡°Yeah I¡¯ve already run into humans they tried to kill and rob me but thankfully I was able to get away. I just seen a group headed out from their camp though so I think they are still looking for me, is there any way you could help me hide for a while I don¡¯t want to die¡­ again¡­¡± the Pixie raises an eye brow to the last comment but doesn¡¯t bring it up again ¡° we could help you hide for a time but the humans are persistent and will eventually find you, once they do we will not help you any further we are a peaceful people and do not fight.¡± Raven nods his head ¡° yes that is fine thank you very much.¡± Anna waves to a path behind her and beckons Raven to follow her. Raven follows Anna into a small game trail which leads to a small clearing with a massive willow tree in the middle ringed by standing stones with blue carvings on the tips in some unknown language. They approach the tree and as they get closer Raven notices the willow tree has small shelters built on its limbs within the canopy small pixies flying to and fro.


    Anna looks over to Raven has he stands in awe of the massive 200 foot tree ¡°this is our binding tree, We pixies are fay and as such are not bound to this realm and can only stay here for a short time, the stones around the tree mark it as part of the fey realm allowing us to stay in this place but if we were to leave the tree for more than a day we would fade back into the fey and be lost to this place again. We ask that you stay away from the stones as they can be temperamental around other races magics.¡± Raven responds ¡° how so, I have a ring I found in a cave and the humans think its magical is it going to cause you folks trouble?¡± Anna floats over and looks at the ring, as Raven raises it up to her it begins to glow lightly white and hum. ¡°Oh my no wonder the humans want you so bad that''s not just an magic item that''s an artifact¡± Raven looks to the ring and then to her ¡°whys it glowing when you approach it the only time I see it do that is when a undead bear tried to attack me?¡± Anna smiles ¡° don¡¯t worry I¡¯m not undead its because I¡¯m not of this realm so it reacts to the magic tethering us to this place, it should be fine around the tree but don¡¯t go to close to the pillars they could cause some feed back and give you a bit of a shock, wouldn¡¯t want you to become a crispy fried Kobold now would we.¡± Raven gives the pillars a wary stare then takes a giant step away from the closest one.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    As they stand there another pixie flies down from the tree tops to them this one appears to be a male holding a short bow with a quiver on his back full of arrows. ¡°Anna who is this and why are they here?¡± ¡°oh relax Dom this is Raven he has asked for our help hiding from the humans for a short time and is hoping to learn more of the area as he''s lost and seeking knowledge.¡± Dom looks Raven up and down ¡°a Kobold huh, haven¡¯t seen many of your kind you tend to stay in the mountains with your dragon protectors. Your lost yet you can see the mountains from the plains and your covered in, what is that purple blood and seem to have a wound to your shoulder. You seem to have had it rough in our lands Anna treat the poor thing, I will talk with the elders and we will decide what to do with you but for now you are welcome to stay with us for a short time at the least, collect yourself eat rest and heal up. I will be back shortly.¡± Fly back to the trees and out of site. Anna looks to Ravens shoulder she nods her eyes and right hand glow a light green then she lays her hand over the arrow wound on Ravens shoulder as she does the glow spreads around the wound and the pain slowly fades as she removes her hand Raven can see the wound has closed leaving a minor scar in its place. ¡° Thank you I wasn¡¯t sure what to do about the wound. How did you learn that spell is there anyway to teach me? I feel like that spell would be a must traveling alone out there¡± Anna sighs ¡° Our magic isn¡¯t the same as the magic as this realm we draw from the all mothers magic to cast spells she has blessed us with, from what I¡¯m told beings of this place can only cast spells they have learned through ancient scrolls magic items or earned from the gods for deeds related to the god in question.¡± ¡°Gods? So if I got a spell while traveling it was from a god? I don¡¯t know if I like the sounds of that.¡± Anna Laughs lightly ¡°its OK its not like they are interfering with you directly its more they have set tasks that if some one does them they will gain favor for that task. Like a chore list of the gods. They some times can be awful but most are actually really good things to do and help a lot and not just help you.¡± Raven nods and Anna waves him over to a hollow spot in the Willow trees trunk. ¡°You can sleep in here for now sorry if its not that big its where we store items we find in the forest till we decide what to do with them, its empty at the moment and ill have a bed made for you but it wont be ready till tomorrow, I hope you are OK with sleeping on the ground for tonight.¡± Raven nods ¡° that''s basically what I¡¯ve been doing in the woods anyways my tent was destroyed my first night out there so I¡¯ve been sleeping in the open. Anna frowns ¡° I¡¯m sorry to hear that ill get a door made for your room as well so you have at least some privacy but again will probably take a day to finish, don¡¯t worry though this place is protected wild life wont come here and outsiders cant see it till they come within the barrier. The stones have a glimmer that covers the tree so outsiders simply cant see it, think of it as a droplet of water around the area bending the image so you cant see it. But its getting late so get some rest we will bring you down some food in a bit but we don¡¯t eat meat so I¡¯m sorry to say all we have to offer is roots and vegetables ¡± Raven smiles ¡°that''s OK too I¡¯ve been stuck on a bread and trail ration diet for the last couple days so something new will be nice. Thank you for everything I don¡¯t know if I would have made it without your help¡± Anna nods and Raven goes to his room to rest wiped out from the days events.


    Waking the next morning Raven looks around his room placing some of his gear around the place to lighten his bag and make it some what more his. Walking out of his hollow he stretches and yawns loudly as the aces stretch out and his bones pop from the rough ground of last nights sleep. Above him he hears Anna¡¯s voice ¡°oh my we defiantly need to get you a bed that sounded horrible are you ok?¡± Raven gives a satisfied sigh and replies ¡°oh yeah nothing better than a morning stretch to loosen everything back up. Thanks again for allowing me to stay the night.¡± ¡°No problem Raven I¡¯m glade to have been able to help you, the Elders decided having you here for now at least could be a boon to the village and are allowing you to stay for one month before sending you out to the woods again, but In exchange they ask that you help with daily tasks to earn your keep. We would have let you stay as long as you like but the Humans seem to be in a expanding mood and we may have to move ourselves here shortly and as such cant have some one not of the realm with us when that time comes as it would kill you when we moved.¡± Anna Replies. Raven bows to Anna to thank her once more they trade a few more pleasantries and Anna tells Raven that the Pixies would like him to go to the forest and collect larger pieces of wood to help their crafters out since Pixies are not physically strong having him bring larger supplies to the tree would help them since they wont have to make the project outside the trees protection and bring it back after its been made to which Raven agrees and heads out to the tree line.


    Walking out into the Forest once again Raven feels that this time its different he has a temporary and safe home with people he can talk to that are not trying to kill him but are actively helping him with a smile on his face and pep in his step Raven gets to work. A few hours go by and Raven has stockpiled a large amount of wood in front of his new home logs and sticks mixed lots of dead fall but some he cut with his hatchet a few of the bigger logs he struggled with making Raven wish he had more strength the struggle reminding him of being trapped under the spider his first night sending chills down his spine. Dom flies down to Raven as he admires his pile of wood ¡°Nice work outsider this will keep our crafters busy for a while I''ve brought you some food and water and some of the crafters will being your door and bed down in a minute they are just getting a few people together to help carry it down.¡± Raven thanks Dom for the food and he flies away, Raven enters his Hollow and starts eating, after which he begins sharpening his daggers and hatchet. Looking over his gear Raven sees the brass bell that came with his bag when he first arrived and is curious why would a survival pack come with a bell it doesn¡¯t make any sense to Raven so he grabs the bell looks it over and gives it a ring. The bell doesn¡¯t make a sound but there is a silent pulse of pressure that comes out from the bell that makes Ravens head hurt. A few seconds later a system message comes up ¡°Bell of the gods has been used, None of the gods chosen have been detected in range. The use of the bell has alerted others of the chosen that a bell has been used. Beware the chosen may now be looking for you.¡±


    >>>>>>>>>>>>> Chapter End<<<<<<<<<<<<<

 Staying the Night

    A few days have gone by Raven has kept himself busy moving wood to the tree cleaning up the ground level around the tree removing stones from the soil and cleaning moss and hand sized beetles from the trees base that seem to be eating the bark. When Raven feels he should start working on his stats while he has the time asking Anna if its OK if he has a few days to himself to head out and see about making himself some gear and leveling some as he feels he is by far to weak at the moment, Anna nods and tells him ¡°that would be fine just be careful and if you find anything interesting bring it back to the tree I¡¯m sure if you don¡¯t want it we can make use of it. Since we cant leave the tree for extended time having some one like you look farther than we can could be beneficial.¡± Raven thanks her collects his gear and heads out to the forest, he remembers seeing some deer looking creatures in the forest and he''s craving some meat at the very least, plus having some leather to work with couldn¡¯t hurt maybe some new clothes are in order.


    Wandering out to the woods and finding the area he remembered its a small clearing in the woods where a natural water spring sits in the middle bubbling up fresh clean and cold water to the surface the area around it is lush green and seems to be brimming with life from butterflies small fish in the spring and brightly colored bids in the trees all in this one area. Raven approaches the spring looking for tracks from the deer in hopes he can see something that looks fresh to give chase but as he comes closer to the spring he notices something within the deep spring. In the center of the spring under the water seemingly lifelessly floating there he sees a naked woman with flowing green hair with a slight green tint to her body. Raven panics dropping his pack and jumping into the spring to save the woman from drowning as he swims up to her to pull he out of the water he feels resistance like she''s stuck in place, looking down Raven sees the woman almost appears to be made of wood her legs stretching down into the ground of the spring like roots as Raven turns back to the womans face he sees her eyes open and looking directly at him with piecing and glowing green eyes. In shock Raven swims back and jumps out of the water placing his hand on the longsword equipped around his waist the wooden woman slowly rises from the water her legs seemingly extending pushing her body up.


    The wooden but strangely attractive woman breaches the waters surface stopping a few feet above the water looks at Raven and smiles ¡°what does this young one want with Olive of the forest? Why do you disturb my growth?¡± Ravens jaw drops as he stares at her, he may be a lizard now but in his past he was a red blooded male human and the figure this woman has would be the desire of any man. Catching himself after a few seconds of slack jaw staring he coughs into his hand to recover and replies ¡°I¡¯m sorry I did not mean to disturb you I had thought you were drowning and dove in to try and save you. I didn¡¯t mean any disrespect or to disturb you I am very sorry.¡± Olive smiles looking Raven up and down ¡°a Kobold thought to save another race from drowning? Now I¡¯m intrigued what is your name young one?¡± Raven sputters ¡°R-r-Raven Raven Hex, I am new to these lands and just trying to make a life for myself.¡± Olive nods and hums a sound that tickles Ravens insides in a strange and relaxing way ¡°new to these lands you say how interesting. You don¡¯t act like a Kobold and in fact the energies coming off you almost seem human but wrong in some way. Your not from Fertixia are you¡­?¡± Raven steps back the clear sign of shock in his face as Olive nods ¡°I thought so, you smell of summoning magics it¡¯s weak but it¡¯s there, the energy is bleeding off of you and into my forest I could taste it many days ago. I was wondering what might be the cause I guess now I know, its you.¡± Raven replies hurriedly ¡° if you know I¡¯m not from here do you know what happened to me? how did I get here? what is this place? why do I see a system in my vision when I focus on it and hear voices that are not my own in my head!?¡± Olive smiles ¡° I¡¯m sorry child but that is not my place to tell you, what I will tell you is that the gods of this world can be cruel but also loving in their own way, if they brought you here they have a reason for it and I¡¯m sure you will learn their reason in your own time. I am of the forest and as such the world out there is of no concern of mine. I may be old but not foolish the gods do not like people meddling in their affairs so that is all I will tell you of that I¡¯m sorry.¡± Raven sighs slumping his shoulders in defeat and nodding to Olives words. ¡°Tell you what young one I have need of some one like you, the energies bleeding off you could help me with a task I have to complete, you were once human so I think it might still work even with you being reptile in nature now. I have to warn you though it may be a bit of a hard task for you, very exhausting and may take a while to complete.¡± Olive giggles. Raven looks at her with a cocked eye brow ¡°in what way can I help you? I have nothing and no skills really to speak of.¡± Olive laughs and says ¡° oh don¡¯t worry you have plenty of skill I¡¯m sure come here and place your hands on mine.¡± Before Raven even knows what he''s doing he finds himself walking into the water and placing his hands on hers, as he does roots grow from her hands and over Ravens joining them the roots going up his arms and neck then growing like a grown around his head a peaceful and pleasant feeling washing over him his eyes feel heavy and Raven closes them.


    Raven wakes up with a yelp, feeling drained and weak his legs shaking as he stands up at the bank of the spring, looking to the spring he finds a small oak tree growing where Olive once floated a small patch of ground under the tree filling the spring mostly in leaving a ring of water around the tree. Raven calls out ¡°Olive where are you, what was that? what happened?¡± but no one responds. Concerned quickly walks around the tree finding no trace of her he sighs with defeat, with nothing left to do here he decides to carry on with his adventuring and supply gathering. Raven walks down a small game trail he found leading away from the spring hoping this will lead him to the deer creatures he found earlier keeping an eye on his surroundings when he hears something up ahead a bleat from an animal. Activating stealth and slowly moving forward Raven draws his longsword wishing he had a bow he advances. Coming to a thinly treed area he finds three Deer laying on the ground between some trees ears up and pointed In his direction the animals are on alert Raven decides its best not to move any more till they calm down and hopefully go to sleep. As Raven watches the animals they get up a few times road around there chosen spot and eating grass Raven feels his eyes getting heavy, fighting back a yawn he tries to shake himself away which helps for a bit but every few minutes he feels the sleepiness return. Slowly as he watches the animals his head lowers to the ground and he falls asleep and quickly dreaming.


    Raven is standing in a white, void thick fog in the area. Raising his hand fog quickly covers most of it. Calling out Raven shouts ¡°hello anyone there?¡± A womans voice giggles behind him as Raven turns around he finds Olive but no longer a tree or wooden woman she appears to be a human woman still naked and still the most attractive woman he has ever seen in his life. She raises a hand and the fog starts to fade away but not fully leaving her figure fully visible she reaches out to Raven and without meaning to Ravens hand reaches to hers as it does Ravens hand changes from green and scaly to white slightly tanned just like his old hand, reaching up to his face he finds his face is human again everything about him is human again. Olive smiles and snaps her fingers, as she does Ravens clothing disappears leaving him standing in front of her fully undressed. Without being able to resist Olive and Raven embrace one another locking lips and falling to the ground. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Some time later Raven opens his eyes to find himself back in the forest where he was hunting the deer when he sees the usual message ¡°congratulations you have earned psychological resistance one. you have an affinity to this skill doubling its effects¡±, looking around he finds only one deer still there and appears to be sleeping peacefully abandoned by its cohorts. Raven shakes off the odd dream drawing his longsword quietly and stealthily approaches the deer. The deer doesn¡¯t make a move seemingly deep asleep Raven drives his longsword down into the body of the deer with a shout, the deers eyes fly open but before it gets the chance to get up Ravens sword drives into its back pushing the deer to the ground, letting out a pained screech the deer scrambles on the ground fighting Raven trying to get him off its back and to get up but just doesn¡¯t have the strength anymore. Raven twists the blade a few times releasing massive amounts of blood the deer finally gives a high pitched moan and dies. ¡°Congratulations you have received 50 EXP for killing level one pack deer¡± Raven waits hoping for a level notification but doesn¡¯t get one sighing he gets to work breaking down the deer with his dagger.


    A hour later Raven stands up with some meat harvested and a small amount of hide he was able to salvage from his hack job he decides its best for him to go back to the tree for now to drop off these supplies. Only able to carry half of what''s here he gets to work traveling to the tree with hopes can he can come back and grab the rest before it gets dark. As he comes into the clearing with the Willow tree carrying his supplies a few of the pixies seem to give him disgusted looks. Raven dumps the meat and what little hide he was able to harvest into his hollow then leaves to head right back to collect the rest of the meat. Raven manages to make the second trip to the meat and back to the tree with no trouble but as he comes to the tree he finds Dom and Anna waiting for him.


    ¡°Raven, we need to talk¡­ when I said Pixies don¡¯t eat meat I meant it. We do not harvest from the forest and we find it repulsive when it is done. I know you are a carnivore and we should respect your needs but we ask that you take your meat out of our area, cook and eat it out there in the forest where it will not bother us please. We were willing to look past your leather clothing as we would not ask some one to walk around naked in our lands but this we can not look past I¡¯m sorry.¡± Raven smacks his forehead with his hand ¡°I¡¯m so sorry I didn¡¯t even think of that OK I can do that, that''s not a problem. Sorry but I cant survive off plants forever I need meat but I will respect your wishes and ill figure out somewhere to store the food out in the forest.¡± Collecting his supplies he begins lugging it out to the forest. Deciding to keep the food cash some where close by he begins working on making a larder box between two trees. After a few hours he has the meat put into the box and the lid secured as best as he can manage he begins to make a smoker to cure the meat and a small camp fire to cook what he''s going to eat today. The smoker quickly comes up and some how knows its built well enough for the task, setting the meat in and setting a small smoky fire he gets to work smoking the meat and setting to cooking a small amount of the meat to cook. As the food starts to cook he can feel his stomach turning in hunger, the hunger feeling like he has not eaten in a few days. After cooking Raven gets right to eating but as he eats he finds his hunger never seems to go down, in fact the more meat he eats the more he seems to want after an hour of cooking eating and smoking meat Raven finds he has devoured half the meat and finished smoking the rest. Raven stops and thinks about how much he just ate, figuring it was around 100 pounds of meat his eyes go wide dread welling into his being something is wrong with him, there is no way he ate that much and isn¡¯t sick to his stomach even as a Kobold.


    Raven goes back to the Pixie tree seeking out Anna to ask her some questions he finds her waiting for him at his hollow which now has a nice looking sturdy solid wood door and inside he can see a lumpy cloth bed on the ground along with a wicker basket on a wooden table by his bed. ¡°Anna thank goodness your here can you use your magic to see if there is something wrong with me, I have been starving no matter how much food I eat I still feel hungry.¡± Anna seems to have a worried look to her face as Raven talks, she looks him up and down flies up to him eye level and asks ¡°you went and visited with her didn¡¯t you¡­ you shouldn¡¯t have done that. There are beings in this forest that will use you for their own purposes than discard you like an empty husk.¡± Raven feels a deep sinking feeling, looking Anna in the eyes ¡°what do you mean what did she do to me, she asked for my help and before I knew what I was doing we were holding hands and roots were growing out of here and around me. What did she do?¡± Anna sighs ¡°that was a Dryad of the forest she seduced and placed one of its seeds within you. It will drink your mana till it is full and ready to grow once it does it will burst from your stomach dropping to the ground and then it will seek a place high in mana to place its roots and grow its tree. Dryads are rare not really evil but they need mana to produce offspring so they infect anything that comes in their domain high in magic they tend to use seduction on humanoids to get them to step into their reach.¡± Raven slowly curses ¡°fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuck, what happens to me now? I just have a chest popper rip out of me one day and I die?¡± Anna gives him a curious look ¡°chest popper? No no nothing like that it will drain mana from you till it is either full or you turn into a empty dried out husk. Once its full it will rip a hole in your stomach and drop out, it can be fatal if the draining didn¡¯t kill you but its survivable as well just have to stop the bleeding and close the wound. Problem is usually if you do survive the draining it¡¯ll leave you so weak that you cant move and that''s how most die.¡± Raven pales ¡°that doesn¡¯t sound harmless but why the hunger is that the need to eat for two like a pregnant woman?¡± ¡°no that''s due to the mana drain, as you expels mana you will need to replace it and the way your body does that is by extracting it from the food you eat, it also draws from the air but that amount so small it takes a long time to recover. Don¡¯t worry as long as you are here in this place you should be fine the ambient mana should be more than enough, and with me around I should be able to heal the wound if the baby Dryad comes out. Sadly that means no more leaving the tree for the next little while till the Dryad comes out. We will figure something out for you to still be able to help us out around the area.¡± Raven thanks Anna and she flies off to inform the others of the situation, Raven enters his hollow deciding to check out what was in the basket and to look over his new table and bed inside the basket is a new set of clothing made from the same cloth fabric the pixies wear happy Raven changes into the new clothing riding himself of the vile blood stained leathers finally placing them in his bag. Sighing he decides its time for another days rest for some reason he''s overly tired laying in his new lumpy cloth bed he quickly falls asleep.

 Babies are Over Rated

    Waking from a very long and restless sleep Raven decides its time to get up and figure out what he''s going to be doing for the next few days, Stepping outside his hollow he finds the area in front of his home has been adjusted the ground flattened and a small pit dug into the ground twenty feet from his door way walking to the pit it seems to be ten feet deep and twenty feet wide. There doesn¡¯t seem to be anything special about the hole there¡¯s nothing in it and the dirt seems to have been freshly dug. ¡°Oh your awake, good we have been busy preparing for the Dryad we will have it grow here next to our tree we are working on getting an enchantment ready for the hole to prepare a magic spring. How are you feeling have you had any pains yet?¡± Raven shakes his head ¡°no pain¡­ what do I have to look forward to how bad is this going to get?¡± Anna ponders for a moment then replies ¡° no need to worry the pain might get bad, but it will be quick and we will be there with you to help with it. But for now take your mind off it how about you help with making arrows for our defenders and maybe for yourself as well maybe we can get you a bow soon too ill ask the crafters about that.¡± Raven perks up at the mention of getting a bow ¡° thank you that would be a massive help.¡± Anna nods and flies away. Raven walks over to the pile of wood he brought over from his tasks before his venture into the woods pulling some straight pieces of wood preparing to make some basic arrows.


    After a few hours of making arrow shafts Anna and Dom come down from the tree tops, Dom calls out to Raven ¡°Outsider, I¡¯ll take the the arrow shafts you made and get them arrow heads and fletching attached, I¡¯ll bring down a full quiver for you later.¡± Dom flies off with out ever looking at Raven. Anna sighs ¡° I¡¯m sorry about him he doesn¡¯t like outsiders. How are you feeling?¡± Raven grunts saying ¡°oh you know I have a monster growing in me sucking the life out of me and then one day it¡¯ll burst out of me singing hello my darling¡­ so great really¡­¡± Anna giggles ¡°singing what? You know what never mind I don¡¯t want to know¡­ you will be fine we have been over this. Don¡¯t worry ill heal you as soon as it comes out and with the mana around here it wont even drain you in fact it should be ready in a few days. Usually it only takes a week to gather the mana then it¡¯ll come out to find its home.¡± ¡°Lovely¡± replies Raven. ¡°But that''s not why I came down, I heard back from some of our scouts that the humans have a large ship off the coast bigger than anything that has been here before possibly a military ship, we think they plan to build a large city here and permanently settle the lands. Most likely once the Dryad is born we pixies will be moving on so I¡¯m sorry to say but you wont be able to stay to much longer with us.¡± Raven slumps his shoulders ¡° I¡­ I understand, I did see the ship last time I scouted out the human camp, it did seem like there was a large amount of activity going on. You have helped me a great deal and I can never repay you for all the help any chance you can point me in a direction that is safe for when I do go?¡± Anna replies ¡° we are on the southern shore of this continent there is a huge mountain range in the middle of it, to the north of us this forest reaches all the way to it, there is a desert to the west coving a quarter of the continent and to the east there is swamp lands mixed with rolling plains and stony hills. North past the mountains is filled with large lakes that are fairly deep this area is super dangerous as its the dragons feeding grounds and in the lakes there are massive creatures I would suggest avoiding it at all costs.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll keep that in mind thank you.¡± Replies Raven. Anna gives him a nod and flies back to the tops of the trees as Raven looks up watching her fly away he sees hundreds of Pixies flying about the canopy all glowing with a faint blue light streaking streaking behind them with strange symbols floating in the air, the butterfly feeling starting up in his stomach again as if he were using mana, as he feels a wriggle in his stomach he starts to pale realizing the sapling is starting to grow and move.


    A day later after Raven spent some time in his hollow maintaining his equipment when he hears a light tap on his door, opening it Dom floats in front of him ¡°its time we have prepared an area for you the Dryad will be birthed soon.¡± Leading Raven Dom brings him to an wooden alter  only a few feet high but with carved runes that glow blue, just above the pit sweeping his hand to the alter he says ¡°lay here Anna is on her way down now.¡± Raven nods laying down on the alter worry on his face as he thinks about the Dryad bursting from his stomach. Anna flies to Ravens side ¡°here drink this you don¡¯t want to be awake for this¡± Anna hands Raven a vile filled with a thick green fluid with blue floating chunks within, pushing it to his lips Raven tosses it back drinking the contents, the flavor hitting him like a brick tasting of vinegar and soured milk and dirt a few seconds later Ravens head hits the alter as he passes out.


    With a jolt Raven sits up gasping and reaching for his stomach, feeling around his belly button he feels a large 6 inch raised scar horizontally across his stomach. Looking around his area he finds himself at his meat smoking station outside the pixie binding tree area all his supplies laying on the ground next to him he gets the feeling like he was toss out like trash after not being useful anymore. Groaning he tries to stand up but his legs give out from under him his stomach growls loudly and he feels dehydrated he crawls to his meat stash opening it and eating some of his smoked meats and drinking one of his water skins. After refueling Raven stands up on weak legs trying to get his bearings, collecting his gear he heads towards the pixie tree. As he comes into the clearing all he finds where the tree and stones once stood is a crater hundreds of feet wide and very deep staring down giving him the chills as he cannot even see bottom. Looking around the immediate area there is nothing left, no trace of the pixies ever being here. Feeling sad not to see Anna again but some what glad Dom is gone Raven decides its time to head north to the mountains to get away from the humans, the pull of his race calling for him to dive deep in the cold stone mountains.


    Stepping back into the forest Raven decides its best to take a look at the human camp one last time so following the same path he took to get to the pixie tree he heads back to the human outpost. Once the camp is in site Raven looks to the ocean and what he sees terrifies him, the ship the size of four cruise liners from home sits moored a fair ways off the shore with many sloop style sailing ships going from the ship to shore and back again carrying people and supplies, caravans running from the outpost to the shore and hundreds of tents outside the walls set up and more being built. The outpost has grown several times larger in a short time and the thought of how many people are on that ship terrifies Raven hundreds of people can be seen from this distance scurrying around ¡°Well¡­ fuck me. Time to get the hell out of here that''s for sure.¡± Tightening his back pack and turning roughly north Raven begins his journey to hopefully safer lands. Making a point to avoid any obvious trails in hopes of avoiding any humans.


    After a short walk in the forest Raven can hear voices in the area ahead of him, taking cover in thick brush he tries listening in as best he can. ¡°The settlement is growing quickly they are going to need supplies we cant waste time sitting around anymore we need to push and get hunting again they need us and we are not making any money following Greg''s claims of a magic item.¡± ¡°I know, I know, we will look for one more day then we are giving up.¡± A familiar voice pipes up ¡°look I know what I saw that ring even if not magical is worth a lot, he killed three of my friends even if you guys leave I¡¯m staying, I don¡¯t even care about the ring I want that lizard dead. Raven clenches his teeth with thoughts of ¡°that fucking archer again why can¡¯t he just die in a hole¡­¡± He can hear the humans packing up camp, it seems they are on the move again, waiting a few hours after they leave Raven starts his journey again this time cautiously. Walking for a few hour Raven decides its best to camp now and start early tomorrow, so getting to work he decides a camp fire probably isn¡¯t the best idea so gnawing on some smoked jerky he wraps himself into a his ripped up tent and goes to sleep.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    Early the next morning after not sleeping much, every crack of branches and scurry of feet waking him he decides to pack up his gear and get ready for the days hike. He hears a howl of a wolf in the distance, jolting up grabbing his gear and making a run for it in hopes to find somewhere to hide panic filling his very being. Gasping for air as he runs he finds a small dried up creek within a heavy brush covered area jumping into the creek bed to follow it for a bit to stay in cover while still being able to travel an acceptable pace, running along he spots a hole in the ground just big enough for him to get into prone, laying down feet first into the hole he backs in, once in he smears some dirt over his face and hands to help hide himself. Trying to keep his breathing controlled and activating stealth as to not give himself away when he hears foot steps coming down the creek bed, looking the way he came he sees a human male with green leather clothing and daggers on his belt looking to the ground walking and muttering to himself under his breath. Raven draws his dagger and prepares for a fight, tensing up and focusing he casts his Detect Human spell looking around he only sees the one human, the human walks to where Raven grabbed some dirt looking at the ground with his back turned to Raven, Deciding no time like the present Raven jumps from the hole stabbing the human in the back of the neck with a wet gurgle the man falls to the ground grasping his neck slowly bleeding to death. ¡°Congratulations you have earned 3 PK points, your stealth skill has increased by one.¡±


    Looking over the body Raven finds a scroll opening it he finds a poorly hand drawn picture of what appears to be himself with little text beneath ¡°Kobold low level goes by name Raven with silver ring on right hand murdered two humans Reward: 10 gold pieces wanted dead ring brought to Terminus as proof of death¡± Sighing he looks over the rest of the mans gear but finds nothing he needs, the daggers looking rougher than the two he already has, the mans armor seemingly just cloth but in a pocket he finds a letter. ¡°Josh please, we need you to come home we can not handle the taxes the crown has put on the family and we need help working the fields to pay off our debts, if we can¡¯t pay the debt off soon they will force our family into service, I don¡¯t think we can survive that. Please either send money home or get back here and help with the fields as soon as possible. Love mom¡± Raven cringes reading the letter starting to feel bad for the human he just killed. Deciding its time to get the hell out of there before he''s spotted he continues on alert and ready to fight hand on the long sword.  Jogging not bothering trying to cover his tracks in hopes he can put some distance between him and the body when he hears the Wolf again this time very close, spinning around grabbing his bow and drawing an arrow and knocking it, a massive wolf crashes through the trees running right for Raven. Firing an arrow striking the wolf in its left front paw the wolf yelps but continues the charge, dropping his bow and drawing his sword and readying his shield. The wolf gets to striking range jumping into the air with a howling growl and dropping down towards Raven, Stabbing his sword up while covering his face with his shield he drives his sword into the wolves gut as the body drops on top of him driving him to the ground the jaws of the beast around the shield, Loud cracks can be heard from the shield. The wolf whips its head around ripping the shield from Ravens arm as it explodes into splinters in its mouth. Raven withdraws the sword halfway from the wolves gut stabbing it into it again, as he does the wolf jumps to the side the sword stuck in the wolves gut it goes with it Raven losing his grip on the sword. Raven Curses and draws his dagger from his belt, scrambling to get back to his feet the wolf bites down on Ravens tail dragging him and swinging him about, he screams in agony as he''s slammed against trees and the ground, swinging him once more it releases him sending him flying into a bolder pain exploding out from all over his body blood spraying from his mouth. Raven lays there spasming from the pain twitching and frothing from the mouth the wolf slowly walks up to Raven growling biting the arrow in its paw ripping it out with its teeth and dropping it onto the ground, opening its mouth over Ravens head it lunges towards him to bite down and end his life, Raven gripping his dagger tight with the last ounce of his strength pushes himself it the maw of the wolf casting create water at all 16 MP and stabbing the wolf in the top of the mouth, the water forming in its throat in a ball then exploding out from every orifice launching Raven back out the wolves mouth, Slumping against the bolder Raven sighs blood pouring from his tail and mouth. Raven hears a voice ¡° Congratulations you have killed a level three dire wolf you earn 75 exp, you gain one MP due to the way you have been using your magics the gods are pleased and grant you this boon. Level up you gain 1 stat point and 3 skill points¡±


    >>>>>>> Stats Block <<<<<<<<<<<<


    Raven is able to access the system deciding to spend his stat point on Constitution in hopes he doesn¡¯t die while he lays there. he looks over the screen finding a few new skills, Spell craft 2 skill points, tracking 2 skill points, persuasion 3 skill points, detect lie 3 skill points, conceal identity* 10 skill points, Archery 2 points, having lost his shield he decides to place 1 point into Long swords *grants 10% extra damage per level* and 2 points into Archery *grants 5% aim bonus and 10% damage after a quick glance at the page the pain and blood loss is to great and he finally starts to pass out.


    Name: Raven Hex


    Race: Kobold


    Class: not selected


    Level: 3


    Skills: dagger 2 10% damage per level


    parry 1 5% parry chance per level once per combat,


    Survival 1 various crafts and knowledge as well as a 10% per level resistance to weather,


    Running 2 10% bonus to speed and a 1% bonus to duration,


    basic crafting 1 stone age crafting with 10% quality boost and 20% chance to make a masterwork item at level 10,


    Sneak 2 10% bonus per level to hiding in full cover,


    Physiological resistance 1 reduces damage taking by 2% per level as well as increasing your save chance from disease poison and illness. Affinity double resistance


    Psychological Resistance 1 resist Physic attacks and negative psychological effects by 5% per level *affinity double resistance*


    spells: create water Hero modified Level 1 1 MP generate 5 gallons of water, repel undead major knock back on undead creatures *from item*, Detect human it allows you to see silhouettes of humans through solid objects within 10 feet for 1 minute per 5 MP


    Stats: Strength 9 Endurance 12 constitution 11 Dexterity 12 Wisdom 12 Intelligence 10 Luck 2. HP: 12 MP: 13+4 from magic item


    Dark Points: 1 Humans


    PK points: 11


    >>>>>>>>>>>> Chapter End  <<<<<<<<<<<<

 Run through the Jungle

    An unknown time later Raven awakens In agony, looking himself over his tail is in shambles bent to odd angles and ripped and bleeding, his left arm broken and blood still coming from his mouth, breathing a blindingly painful task each breath causing the blackness of unconsciousness threatening to come back. Walking is out of the question Raven wont be able to do much of anything, if some one were to find him now he would be helpless. Looking over to the wolf he sees it laying there still its jaw unhinged broken its eyes bulged from its skull. Raven laughs and then coughs violently ¡°hope it hurt you bastard.¡± Raven spits towards the wolf leaving a bloody mark on its fur. Looking over the wolf he sees saddle packs on the wolf sitting up as best as he can he tries to wobble over to the wolf without falling over. Getting to the wolf he slumps to the ground digging through the bags in hopes of finding something anything to stop the pain, rummaging through the first bag he finds more scrolls of bounties of other people two with blood marks on them crossing the picture out. The second bag contains two vials one filled with a orange liquid the other appears to be filled with bubbly water, with no choice slowly bleeding out he grabs the orange vial and downs it in one gulp, Instantly his legs start to feel like they are burning his veins bulging from his legs, a icon appearing in his vision, selecting it, it reads ¡°Stamina boost 25% bonus to run speed and stamina regeneration duration 24 hours¡± cursing he downs the next potion in hopes of it helping in any way, as it touches his tongue his ring bursts with bright white light and the wounds on his body feel like they ignite in flames screaming in agony he begins to drop to the ground and roll in pain blinded from the light and pain. The pain slowly starts to lessen and the light fades away curled in the fetal position hugging his keens sobbing Raven lays there for several hours.


    Refocusing Raven gets up cleaning himself up a little with his sleeve and looking himself over, Looking to his tail it appears to be back to its normal self no scars no bends his arm fully functional and again no scars looking himself over fully he finds even the scar on his stomach is gone all his wounds fully healed even his mind feels clearer, lighter even. Looking to his stats screen he sees the stamina boost still have 20 hours to it he decides its best to use it while he has it running full speed to the north, once he receives his 3rd fatigue stack he decides to slow to a jog for the rest of the time, making great time when the suns start to fall and night starts to come he decides its best to camp and wait for the suns to rise again. With no camp fire again wrapped in his tent and laying even his old leathers stacked on him to stave off the cold. Two hours of shivering light finally starts to peak over the horizon again quickly packing he continues on with still plenty of time on his Stamina buff he begins running stacking two more fatigue debuffs and then switching to a jog again.


    Coming to a small lake Raven decides here''s a good place to stop his buff wearing off in a few minutes. Deciding he''s far enough from the human village he decides to set up camp and make a fire a good distance from the waters edge just in case. Warping himself in the tent tatters once again he decides he really needs a new tent, setting up a temporary shelter every day just doesn''t cut it anymore. Going to the waters edge he refills his water skins and washes his cloths and does some basic maintenance on his equipment sharpening his daggers sword and hatchet rubbing some charcoal into his leathers while washing them trying to get as much of the filth out of them as possible, thankfully his cloth clothing still mostly clean some small rips and tears and a little blood but all and all not bad considering the rough treatment by the wolf. Hearing a splash from the lake Raven jumps up looking out to the water when he sees several fish jumping small trout looking fish, dozens of them all jumping out of the water Raven smiles grabbing his fishing gear craving something other than smoked meat for a change. After a couple hours of fishing he smiles at his cache of three fish in a pile on the shore setting up his fire and cooking the fish he greedily eats his fill.


    Having fed himself Raven decides its time to move on this moment of peace was enjoyable but the humans may still be out there and staying in one place can be a fatal mistake no matter how peaceful it may seem. Packing his bags and heading out he heads north again as he passes the lake and is about to reenter the forest he hears a whistle go past him with a thud in front of him, looking he sees an arrow sticking out of a tree ahead of him. Grunting Raven starts running as fast as his legs will carry him, a second arrow flying past him getting closer Raven ducks as he runs leaving the lake far behind. Running yet again from a pissed off human with a bow Raven ducks under branches through bushes and around boulders dodging the odd arrow, when his path is blocked by fallen trees interrupting his run just for a moment when yet another arrow rips by this one hitting his back pack and knocking him over. Scrambling back to his feet he stands and turns to his attacker, the man staring at Raven with murder in his eyes a short sword and a dagger drawn bow laid to rest on the ground behind him. ¡°Why cant you just leave me alone!? you try and rob me, then try and kill me, then when I defend myself you are angered by it? Are you kidding me what the hell is wrong with you!?¡± the human huffs and chargers giving a angered shout jabbing his sword forward towards Raven, drawing his sword and dagger he activates parry and readies for the strike using his dagger to parry, he swings with his sword tagging the archer in the left arm slicing across it causing the archer to drop his dagger. Raven lunges with his dagger and the man steps back swinging his short sword up just missing Raven as he leans back from the attack. Swinging his tail out he knocks the man to the ground jumping on to him and stabbing his sword down into the archers chest, the archer reaching for the blade trying to pull it out. Blood freely flowing from the wound as the man moans in pain Raven twists the blade with all his might with a load crack the man convulses and goes limp. ¡°You have gained 5 PK points¡±


    Looting the archer who has haunted Raven for so many days with satisfaction he takes his bow, arrows and goes through his bag looking for anything useful finding some travel rations, a vile of an oily black substance, and a tube with a pull string. Placing the items in his bag quickly, to avoid the archers wolf he decides to move on headed north again. As he travels he can hear the wolf in the distance but it doesn¡¯t appear to be getting any closer it seems to be staying in one area and howling at the top of is lungs. Raven knows its found the archers body and will be following him soon, picking up the pace he begins looking for an area to ambush the wolf. Running for an hour at full speed Raven comes up on a small empty cave in a rock face deciding this is the best hope he has he begins setting up his trap.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    The wolf approaches the cave entrance smelling the ground snarling as it catches Ravens scent it begins to enter the cave getting half way into the entrance it peaks inside to find Raven not within. A small rock falls from above the cave as Raven jumps out throwing the black oil fluid he found on the archer at the wolf. As the potion makes contact with the wolfs back it shatters as the liquid makes contact with the air it ignites setting the wolfs back on fire. Raven gives a fist pump he had hoped it would explode on contact but he wasn¡¯t sure, when examining it earlier there was a metallic lump in the potion he figured it was some kind of igniter. The wolf howls in pain bucking trying to put out the fire charging into the cave running into the back wall rolling on the ground yelping it attempts to put the fire out. Raven jumps down from above the cave drawing his bow and loading an arrow he starts firing arrows into the wolf. After the 4th arrow the fire on the wolf goes out and the cave goes dark low growling rumbles from the cave but Raven doesn''t have site on the wolf putting down the bow and drawing his longsword and short sword and prepares for the wolf to rush. A few short breaths later Raven sees a shift in the shadows to his left he turns towards it and raises the swords, as he''s raising the swords the wolf jumps Raven gives a yelp as the wolf lands on him pushing him to the ground, the stench of the burning flesh filling the air, the wolf gives a moan of pain as it snaps its jaws at Raven, He pushes on his swords trying with all his might to keep the wolf away from him blood coating his hands the wolf tries to struggle but its life slips from it and falls into a pile next to Raven in a bloody smoking heap.


    As Raven lays there the familiar voice comes up ¡°congratulations you have killed a level three dire wolf and gained fifty exp¡± Raven groans getting up and looking the wolf over it seems to be missing its saddle bags and trying to remove the arrows only breaks them within the body. Cursing Raven brushes himself off rinses what blood he can off himself and is about to leave when he remembers the last cave he came across and decides to give this one a quick once over. Entering the cave the smell of the burned wolf is over powering bringing water to Ravens eyes. Within the cave the ground is cut brick and there are obvious tool marks on the walls but there is nothing else within the cave, a quick check of the walls for switches or pressure plates there''s nothing. In the center of the room there is a hole in the ground the size of a fist but its dark and does not appear to be anything of import, the floor seems to be stained brown around the hole blood maybe¡­ hopefully? Raven gags at the thought and walks out of the cave with a shutter he turns around facing the cave and casting create water into the cave center pumping 10 MP into it, with a loud splash water rushes from the cave and past Raven as it floods down hill. ¡°God I hope that was blood and not some ones out house cave¡± turning to leave he finds a few large dead beetles that seemed to have been washed out of the cave the size of his fist dark black with purple lines leading from one end to the other. They have large mandibles rowed with teeth and one even seems to have a leach as a tongue hanging from its mouth.


    With a shutter of all the possible things that happened in that cave pass Ravens mind he continues on his way. Making distance from the wolf corpse and the gross cave as quickly as possible. Proceeding north he feels the weight of being hunted finally lifting off his shoulders finally being free of all known pursuers and having some minor gear to which to survive from. Enough food for a few weeks and unlimited clean water with magic the only thing he''s short on is clean clothing as he seems to constantly be covered in blood. Thinking of ways to get new clothing he is in hopes to find some one who can either make him clothing or maybe find some, some where some how. His gear could use improvements and he''s sorely lacking information on his situation and as such would love to find some one to teach him everything he may need to know. He also feels he needs some serious help with fighting skill every fight he seems to almost die, feeling like he is missing something there has to be a way to become over powered, is that not the way of an Isaki tale?


    Trying to figure out the system he keeps trying to open tabs or look at other options but his screen remains the same just his character sheet skills spells and not much else, there does seem to be room for a lot more information in the sheet but it just is not showing anything for him, maybe he has to unlock it some how? In hopes that some day he will figure it all out he decides its best to focus on finding some where safe to settle down, then he can figure out what everything is and means. Thinking back on his fights since he¡¯s been in this world he figures he has been more lucky then not, nine times out of ten he should have died but here he is alive but not exactly better off for it, in a hostile land alone and hated by humans now a Kobold in a strange new world where everything is seemingly stronger than him and actively trying to kill him there''s a good chance he might just snap one of these days. Loosing his shit will defiantly get him killed but there''s only so much a person can take. He¡¯s been mind raped, attacked by a giant spider, undead bear, several humans, and a few wolves. And the only magic spell he seems to have access to other than detect human is create water, which great he doesn¡¯t need to worry about drinking water but come on how is that even remotely a good spell, he got lucky with the wolf earlier trying to eat him and casting it within its mouth, he doubts that spell will save him again it just isn¡¯t an attack spell no matter how hard he ties to think of a way to use it, maybe if he could change the temperature of the water but it always comes out a slightly cool temperature. Maybe if he finds some one willing to talk with him he can find out how to cast other spells or get better gear or even get the system explained to him so he actually knows what the hell he''s doing. Either way he only thing to do is to get a move on and hope he finds some where safe some time soon, he can¡¯t keep sleeping out in the open, eventually something is going to come across his camp and eat him in his sleep.


    >>>>>>>>>   Chapter End   <<<<<<<<<

 The Swarm

    Walking a game trail through the thick forest the familiar drone of insects seems to be louder than normal a mix of cascades and crickets, Raven blanches recalling the run in with the spider. Picking up the pace of walk Raven proceeds down the trail trying to ignore the horrible memories.  As he walks there''s a crash of splintering wood ahead of him as a tree crashes down several hundred feet ahead of him, Diving for cover and activating sneak Raven peeks ahead to see what the sound was caused from. In a small clearing ahead of him there is a large bear being attacked by a swarm of fist sized beetles and it is losing badly. The beetles, black in color with a purple line down the middle of them have a large mandibles on their heads and a large circular mouth with razor teeth taking chunks off the bear with each pass. The bear howls in pain swatting at the bugs as it bleeds its fur seems to grow gray and the flesh on the bear starts to sag, once its fur fully turns gray the bear collapses to the ground in a final groan of pain. The swarm now seemingly glowing red fly up and over the tree canopy the drone of insects slowly fading away.


    Raven approaches the bears corpse with caution looking it over the wounds seem to ooze dark blood the body of the bear is visibly shrinking as the ooze flows from the body in a pool around the bear. The fur starting to slosh off the bear starts to look very familiar and Raven starts to back away fearing what he thinks is about to happen. With a raspy groan the bears body shudders and begins to stand, black foam pouring from its mouth the bear turns to face Raven snapping its jaws with loud snaps it peers at Raven with hunger in its white milky eyes. With a groan Raven grunts ¡°fuck¡± turning and running for his life yet again. Weaving between trees and bushes along the trail looking back over his shoulder the bear doesn''t seem to be bothered by the trees crashing through most of them deflecting off the larger ones. Running looking at the bear Raven raises his hand as the ring shines with a blinding light just as the bear is about to bite Raven, the ring blasts the bear back, Raven turns to continue running as he clears a bush he finds himself running in mid air looking down he finds himself falling from a cliff down into a dark cave mouth, falling from the cliff Raven screams on his way down ¡°fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!¡±


    Some time later Raven wakes up cold and wet, looking around he finds himself in a dark oval cave opening with a small pond which seemingly broke his fall from the opening at the top of the cave 100 feet up laying halfway in the water he groans in pain. Looking around he sees several tunnel off shoots, moss growing on the rocks and a few mushrooms growing on a dirt pile. He doesn''t seem to be injured just very sore hungry and tired, giving himself a once over he nods his head, ¡°yep¡­ still in hell.¡± Getting out of the water and shaking off what water he can when he hears a loud splash behind him, turning in surprise he sees something large sinking into the water. ¡°Fuck me¡­ please don¡¯t be the bear¡­ please don¡¯t be the bear¡­ its the bear¡­ fuck me..¡± Spotting the sinking form of the bear.


    Raven decides now would be a good time to run like the wind. Running for a cave tunnel as fast as he can fear fueling his speed. Raven runs for hours in the dark weaving between tunnels and chambers not paying much attention to where he''s going, when he comes to another room entering it the smell from the room knocked Raven out of his running fit stopping him dead in his tracks. Looking around the room he finds 6 stone tables in a circle stained with blood the stains leading to the center of the room where a small hole in the floor sits. Looking around the floor there seems to be symbols carved into the stone that have old blood staining them, the room stinks of death and sulfur and makes Ravens skin crawl, something truly evil was here. Looking around the room there are two tunnels coming from the room the one he came from and one that seems to go deeper underground, Raven turns to go back the way he came when he hears the bears groans in the distance, changing his mind he jogs down the other tunnel going deeper under ground.


    Jogging down the newest of tunnels Raven feels lost scared hungry and hot? ¡°What is going on why is it so damn hot!?¡± looking around a bend in the tunnel he sees a light down the passage way, coming to the chamber its a wide open cavern with magma free flowing below a cliff edge within the chamber. Raven peers over the edge of the cliff where the lava flows a few hundred feet down. Admiring the view and the warmth Raven sighs as his stomach rumbles, pulling out a travel ration and eating the hard tack bread, as he swallows the bread he hears something from behind him. Turning around he sees the bear staring at him just a few feet away, Raven gulps and the bear charges, Raven dodges to the side as the bear rushes by it stops at the edge of the cliff turning and biting at Raven. Biting down on his right hand Raven screams in pain drawing his sword and stabbing at the bear seems to do little to nothing, the bear shakes its head throwing Raven around hanging him over the cliff the bear glares at Raven seemingly to grin as it lets go of his hand dropping him down the cliff face, as he falls he slides face first down the rocky face. Dropping from the rocky wall he drops onto a ledge, laying there in pain he looks around finding a tunnel on the small ledge he collects himself standing and decides only way is forward is well¡­ forward.


    Pushing through the tunnel Raven comes to a large room, in the center of the room a red crystal floats pulsing with red and white light. Above the crystal there is a hole in the roof with a small drip of blood coming from the hole dripping onto the crystal, with each droplet hitting the crystal it pulses with light and the blood disappears within the crystal. The sense of pure evil radiates from the room and the smell of death chokes Ravens senses, with a shutter Raven approaches the crystal to look it over. As he gets closer the sense of dread and the over whelming need to flee almost over taking him, but with no where to go except back to the lava chamber Raven decides to suck it up and investigate. Looking the crystal over there appears to be several hand sized runes carved into the face. The crystal sits a foot above the ground and stands two times the height of Raven. Reaching out Raven places his hand on the crystal and a system notification pops up ¡° would you like to claim this source of power? Once claimed the source of power will be linked to your mana removing it from from the physical world and bonding it to your soul. Would you like to continue?¡± Raven shakes his head, ¡°no I don¡¯t think I will, that sounds like a horrible idea.¡± Retracting his hand from the crystal surface and turning to inspect the room closer there are symbols carved all over the walls in seemingly no order all having what appears to be dried blood within the grooves, Raven gets the feeling a lot of somethings have died in this room. A loud buzz coming from the hole in the roof alerts Raven as he runs for the tunnel entrance from which he came hiding while still peaking at the crystal, as expected a swarm of blood red beetles swarms from the hole in the roof surrounding the crystal, as they do the crystal glows and pulses rapidly each time it does large sections of the swarm return to their normal coloring and fly out of the cave through the hole in the roof. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Once the swarm was fully gone Raven approaches the crystal looking it over for any changes, it appears to be more red with a new rune on the face and seems to be glowing brighter than before. Raven reaches out to the crystal once again and receives the same system message except at the end ¡° warning this crystal of power is nearing its max energy if it exceeds its power storage it will be violently destroyed. Once destroyed this source will release its seal weakening the jail of the fallen one. There are currently 6 of 7 seals still active, as seals fall the Fallen ones influence will expand across the land. Absorbing the Crystal will not break the seal but will weaken it till its placed once again.¡± Raven sighs ¡°yeah ok you win, lets absorb the big evil god stone why not¡­ what could possibly go wrong right? This wont blow up in my face not at all¡­ ugh¡± face palming Raven selects yes. The Crystal flashes red one last time then begins to shrink, as it shrinks he can feel the doom and gloom subsiding, with a flash of green light the crystal vanishes from site with a pop. Raven looks around tense. ¡° What no whammy? Come on I¡¯m not that lucky.¡± Shortly after the the statement the ground begins to shake and the smell of sulfur increases within the cave. ¡°Yeah¡­ that''s more like it.¡± Raven says shaking his head. Walking out of the room back the way he came he looks down the cliff at the lava below the level is rising at a steady rate. Raven feels the air pressure increasing drastically and the ground begins cracking, looking up Raven doesn''t see an opening above for the gas to escape, he does however spot the bear glaring at him from above. ¡°Oh good its still here¡­ of course it is because why not right¡­¡±


    Raven retreats to the crystal room in a panic looking everywhere for some hidden door or something to save him from being melted to death. As he panic searches there is a load crack from the entrance, as he turns he sees the opening collapse sealing him in the room. The temperature quickly increasing but the air pressure seems to have normalized. Looking to the collapsed tunnel he can hear a faint sound like rocks being moved. ¡°Oh good its the bear isn¡¯t it¡­¡± he can hear the thing roaring and bashing away at the stone on the other side of the collapse but doesn¡¯t appear to be making any progress how ever the temperature is continuing to increase the stones in the collapse are starting to faintly glow red. Raven decides to try casting create water on the stones to cool them off at least a little maybe it will help¡­ it doesn¡¯t. As soon as the water touches the stones the water turns to steam instantly filling the room with hot steam burning Ravens exposed skin, As he screams in agony the stones hit with water crack and a loud hiss can be heard from the cracks. The shaking of the ground intensifies then with a loud boom Raven feels like he''s falling before there is another big explosion then the air in the room gets sucked out through the cracks making Ravens hearing ring his eyes go blurry from the heat and burns, with another boom the collapsed tunnel opens up in an explosion of rock and ash throwing Raven across the room knocking him out.


    A unknown time later Raven awakens to aches and pains all over his body, looking around his surroundings he finds himself covered with a thick layer of ash and some rock debris but his vision seems to have recovered from earlier. Getting up slowly and cleaning himself off he finds the sulfur smell seems to have disappeared, looking to the tunnel he finds it still open but now day light comes from the opening. Moving to the tunnel and peaking outside he finds the cavern he was in is gone and blue sky greats him, the side of the chamber seems to have fallen in covering the lava and producing a rather rough path up and out. As Raven scrambles up the stones he finds the bear stuck in some rocks only one paw and its head protruding from the entrapment. Raven walks over chuckling and drawing his sword and ending the bears unlife with several dozen strikes. ¡°You have killed a level three undead bear and gained fifty experience.¡± ¡°You have collected a point of power and survived to tell the tale you have gained six hundred experience¡± ¡°you have gained a level from Level three to level five¡± Opening the system he quickly adds his points to constitution as he has been knocked out far to many times and healing has become a major need.


    Leaving the rubble behind Raven continues his journey to the mountains, but can¡¯t help but feel as though he''s being watched and not by something friendly. Moving along through the forest making good speed Raven can feel the weight of the last day finally leave his shoulders almost dying constantly and in a fight for his life, Raven lets out a chuckle as he walks looking to the sky and sighing. Darkness approaches so Raven sets up camp and cleaning his clothing maintaining his gear and eating what he can. As he sits in his camp he recalls the spider attack from a while back keeping on alert but maintaining a camp fire in hopes to ward off anything. During the night there are a few cracks in the woods and movement just in the corner of his eye but nothing comes within his camp to try and eat him.


    The next morning Raven packs up what he has and heads for the mountains with them in site and slowly getting bigger and the grounds getting rockier he knows it should be only a day or two more walk. Picking up the pace and with the instinctual feeling that safety awaits him in the mountains Raven starts to feel relaxed sightly the feeling like everything will be ok fills his spirit. The next two days are uneventful as Raven makes his way to the closest mountain, as he gets to the base of the mountain he can see caves all over high and low the mountain looks like an ant hill with the amount of tunnels it appears to have in it. Coming to the closest tunnel Raven feels the inner pull to go within and go deep, with no where else to go Raven decides to advance into the caves going into the depths of the planet once again.


    Walking into the depths of the tunnel it slowly grades down going deeper and the temperature seems perfect heat coming from down the tunnel seemingly keeping the tunnel a steady temperature, bioluminescent moss glowing green and blue grows from the walls. Walking down some tunnels for about an hour Raven comes to a small cavern glowing with blue and green light Raven spots a small body of water in a corner of the room fed by a slow trickle of water coming down the walls funneled to the pond. Next to the pond he finds the same mushrooms he spotted before in large number if edible he could live here for a while off them. Settling down for the time being and setting up camp Raven begins gearing down and getting ready for a long needed true sleep, staying near the water Raven scarfs down the last of his travel rations and meat once full Raven sets up his bed and goes to sleep for the night.


    Waking from his slumber Raven stretches with a deep yawn he gets up feeling well rested but stiff from the hard surface, walking over to the mushrooms Raven shrugs and pops one in his mouth. ¡°Well that''s strange it tastes like slimy rubbery meat.¡± Raven says with a laugh ¡°not the greatest tasting but it beats week old dried meat and hard bread.¡± Looking at the pond Raven takes a sip with a smile he drinks his fill, while cold and clean it has a mild salt taste to it. The pond seems deep enough to last and seems to have a fair amount of new water refilling it but sadly not big enough to support fish life so it looks like mushrooms are on the menu for the next while.

 Settling Down

    Raven has finally found a place to call home for at least a little while, his instincts telling him this is the place the need to go deeper still there but largely muffled. With nothing seeming to happen to him over night Raven is happy with his choice already to find shelter within the mountain, looking at his room he finds three tunnels, one the way he came tunnel two going deeper with a sandy floor and tunnel three seems to curl around going higher. Looking at the walls a little closer tool marks can be seen through out the area including all tunnels meaning these tunnels are all ¡°man¡± made.


    Deciding its time to do a little exploring Raven choses the tunnel going up, bumpy rocky ground with what appears to be worn and damaged steps in the stone, climbing the path for a solid twenty minutes Raven comes to an opening, a large cavern filled with moss ankle deep all over the floor and growing up the walls even covering the roof. The air in the room is damp the floor squishy and the sound of running water coming from the far side of the room. Walking into the room Raven can hear something near the water a skittering and clacking sound followed by a bubbly sound, looking around Raven spots several glowing blue crabs the size of cats moving along eating the moss paying him no mind. Walking to the far side of the room he finds a creek flowing out of a hole in the wall and through another. The rock around the creek seems cracked above and around there also seems to be no tool marks in this room.


    Raven decides its best not to tempt fate and to leave the crabs alone for now, heading back down as there doesn¡¯t appear to be any other tunnels up here Raven decides to head down the sandy path and see what''s down there. Moving down the path Raven notices that the path is widening slowly but staying sandy after only a few minutes he comes to a cavern, within this room the ground seems to all be sand with a few large boulders strewn about. The room is roughly one hundred feet wide and three hundred feet long with six boulders within the room the roof forty feet high, Raven steps into the room and shuffles some of the sand around it appears to be fairly deep as he digs a foot into the ground and doesn¡¯t hit stone. Walking up to one of the boulders Raven notices its not only stone but filled with iron looking closer at the sand it appears to have iron sand mixed in as well, next to one of the boulders he finds a wooden crate badly rotten and damaged sticking out of the crate is a four pick axes, strangely these pick axes are not rotten and the heads seem to have a faint blue glow to them. Picking one up he takes a practice swing at the boulder with a loud bang and some sparks he chips some of the boulder off onto the ground, with a grunt Raven tosses the pickax back into the crate ¡°well that might be handy later, not sure how I¡¯m going to put that to use but hey I can dream right?¡±


    Looking around the rest of the room he spots two more tunnels from the room on the far side left and right side. Moving to the right side tunnel Raven starts down the path keeping an eye on the walls and spotting tool marks down this tunnel. After a short walk he comes to a tunnel that has a bunch of rotten wood and what appears to have once been food, the room seems to be a small storage room with no other tunnels with a shrug Raven goes to the other path.


    Walking down the left path Raven comes to a slanted room the floor slanted to the far side of the room, at the far side of the room there appears to be a glowing blue fluid filling half the room appearing to be fairly deep as well Raven looks around the room, In the center of the room from the tunnel to the back of the room is a groove in the floor with a cart tied to 10 feet of metal wire and then tied to rope, the rope leading all the way to the fluid, Raven tests it out giving the rope a pull the cart comes off a catch and rolls away down the groove and into the fluid, instantly as the cart hits the fluid, the fluid begins glowing brighter and wiggling, as the fluid moves he can see bubbles coming from the cart like its sitting in carbonized water. Pulling the cart back with the rope as soon as it clears the fluid he can tell all the rust on it has been removed and is sizzling as if it was just in acid. Raven nods and says ¡°so I¡¯m NEVER falling into that¡­ EVER. But at least it doesn¡¯t seem to be able to do anything else.¡± Looking around the room there doesn¡¯t appear to be any other tunnels so he decides to head back up and take a look around outside the tunnels and get some fresh air.


    Stepping outside the mine Raven inhales deep, stretching his back he takes a look around. Before he was to single focused on the task of getting to the mountains he never took a look around but now that he has the time he wants to find out what resources he has at his disposal. The mountain is to his north there is a thick Jungle to his south East is plains and west is rocky hills. In the middle of the plains there is a large lake while staring at it admiring its beauty Raven sees something large jump from the water grab a bird that was flying several feet above the water eats it and splashes down in a rather large splash, the creature appeared to be an over sized shark of some type. Considering how far away he is from the lake that shark had to be almost one hundred feet long ¡°and with that I¡¯m never going to that lake¡­¡±


    Walking to the jungle Raven works on collecting some wood for a fire and maybe to have some crafting supplies, cutting the wood it seems a lot of the trees here are soft wood and wet not great for fires but good for basic crafting. Collecting mostly dead fall for now he fills his bag and goes back to the tunnel doing a few trips filling a small corner of his water room. Going back to the acid room he tosses a stick into it to see what happens, and exactly what he thought would happen happens, the stick slowly sinks into the fluid and starts to break down the fluid moves a little and glows a little till the stick is gone. ¡°I''m sure ill find a use for this at some point¡± raven says looking at the acid fluid. Raven looks to the fluid wondering if its alive and if it is that would make it a slime and from what he remembers from a few table top games and anime they can be dangerous but usually are weak but they are usually very small this thing is the size of a bus.


    Headed back outside he decides he needs to find some other food those mushrooms wont last forever, Entering the jungle Raven starts looking for food of any kind bow in hand and ready to hunt and forage. A few hours in Raven finds a small stream and long the stream he finds frogs, with a groan Raven collects a few frogs and puts them in his bag still alive. Continuing to look but following this stream he finds muddy foot prints along the creek side, these prints are large at least double Ravens own feet with large spaced out claws. ¡°Yep¡­ that''s a dinosaur track¡­ fuck me¡­¡± Raven instantly pulls his bow knocks and arrow and gets low and to cover, eyes darting around looking for any movement Ravens heart pounding in his ears Raven starts to breath heavy as if he just ran a marathon. Deciding the frogs will have to do for now he starts back to the tunnels quietly and remaining hidden as best he can.


    As he steps out of the jungle he lets out a loud sigh slumping his shoulders feeling like he could pass out right then and there from exhaustion, even through It wasn¡¯t a long trip in the jungle the sheer terror of the thought of running into a dino scared the living hell out of him and now all he wants to do is sleep, returning to his room he does just that after starting a small fire cooking and cooking some frogs for dinner. Waking after a few hours of sleep he decides the only place he''s going to find food is down at the lake or maybe through the plains he will just stay near the shore to avoid the shark.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Gearing up and bringing his bow and arrows he heads out to the plains, walking slow and looking for tracks, walking through the plains he finds the grass is fairly high just above his knee making him think there are not many grass eaters in the area which means meat eaters birds and fish are going to have to cover his food requirement possibly tubers or edible roots. Sadly he finds no food on his way to the lake no signs of life at all so he approaches the water side looking to the lake there is a sandy beach around the lake and the lake bed appears to be mostly sand as well the water looks to be clean and fresh, tasting it to confirm there''s no hint of salt to it which strikes him as odd since it was clearly a shark he saw earlier.


    Pulling out his fishing rod he casts out a line with frog guts as bait waiting for something to hit the line he looks around taking in his surroundings. He can see the stream coming from the jungle leading all the way to the lake with a slow trickle of water, debating going over to the stream to try for more frogs he decides to keep fishing for now, for the lake to keep a shark like that alive there has to be tons of water life in here. Standing there for an hour or so Raven is just about to pull his line when something hits his bait, so unexpected Raven almost drops the rod but quickly rights his grip and yanks the fish from the water, a small yellow and black fish pops out of the water the size of his palm and slaps onto the sandy beach, Raven quickly dispatches it collecting what little wood he can find as well as some grass, starting a camp fire he cooks the fish and quickly eats it before packing up and leaving, no need to stay where the smell of food is that''s a quick way to end up in a man sized pile of manure.


    Going back to his room he sits down and starts working away making odds and ends, arrow shafts, spindles, fire wood, even going so far as attempting to build a chair and bed but lack of skill is making it hard for now a stump will work as a seat. With some time on his hands Raven decides to take a look at the Crystal in the system menu, ¡°Crystal of power seal 5.5/7 remain would you like to place the crystal of power? Placing it will change its power to align with your own you may also select a god to devote it to, it will remain a seal for the old one but will have the added benefit of being tied to your god allowing for future bonuses. Aligning a Crystal of power to a god will help said god and as such they will be more incline to help you in return. List of Gods: The God of death the Fallen one Current god bound to Crystal, God of Life Lilia God of Commerce Drax, God of Magic Odin, God of Time Falknor, God of War Felax, God of Monsters lijkith, Father of the gods Rolland.¡± Raven looks at the list but with nothing really to go on he decides who else but the big daddy of all gods to owe you one. Selecting the Father of the gods as the deity to the crystal and selecting yes when the are you sure prompt pops up he feels a drain on his mana as the crystal is pulled from within him appearing in his room floating there Raven notices the color of the Crystal has changed from red to Grey and the sense of doom and evil no longer emanates from it instead a sense of nothingness cold and uncaring coming from the crystal. Raven can swear once the crystal formed he could hear a man chuckle but looking around he sees nothing and doesn¡¯t hear anything other than a slight hum from the crystal like a power line over head.


    Walking up to the crystal Raven looks it over but only sees one symbol carved into the gem this time 3 squares within one another getting half the size, glowing with white and gray light. Touching the gem a screen pops up in front of Ravens eyes ¡°Binding stone placed 6/7 remaining. Would you like to use the Crystal of power to claim this area as your own? As long as the crystal has power it will ward off anything that may have hostile intent towards you preventing them from entering your zone of influence. Crystals power is currently at ninety percent and will lose one percent a day in powering your zone, to charge the Crystal you must offer your chosen deity something of their liking simply touch the crystal with the item and it will be absorbed. Your Chosen Deity has set magic items to his preferred sacrifice. Depending on the item the amount of power provided may differ drastically, However avoid over powering the Crystal as the extra energy will bleed off faster and offer no bonus, having a high amount of bleed off power can cause spells to randomly go off based on the mana released if to much power is added the crystal will crack releasing all stored energy and likely causing death to anyone near by. Set zone of control? Yes No¡± Raven selects Yes and as he does another screen appears ¡°Zone of control has been created and a area of influence has been made anything trying to enter your area will now have an over whelming  sense of boredom and lethargy when trying to enter your area as well as the urge to sleep in place.


    Raven pauses looking at the screen ¡°what the hell I thought it prevents things from coming in, instead it makes them lazy and want to sleep? The hell is that?¡± Looking through the rest of the message it appears to have opened a new tab in his screen ¡°settlement settings¡± going to the tab Raven looks over the new tab. Within the tab there are a few settings that he can access but most of the screen is grayed out, Permissions Raven Hex, Deity Father of the gods Rolland, bonuses Lethargy field, Power ninety percent minus one percent a day Power draws Field of Lethargy, Settlement name not selected, Resources within zone Iron Sand, Iron Ore, Glow moss blue, Glow Moss Green, Water source, Blue mother slime. Looking at the list Raven tries selecting the Slime ¡°Blue Mother Slime, often found in abandoned caves they are highly acidic and immune to physical damage and will eat anything adding to their mass including rock if given enough time. It is weak to magic and as such has an explosive reaction to damaging magic spells. Any part of it can be removed and will create a new slime and can continue to do this in tell its mass is reduced to a preset amount at which point it will become a regular slime again losing any remaining mass as it separates into even more slimes.¡± ¡°Oh that last part doesn¡¯t sound good¡± Raven mutters.


    Choosing the name he changes the settlement name to Ravens Den, beats Ravens love shack I guess¡­ with a shrug he continues looking over everything selecting the mosses ¡°blue glowing moss is a bioluminescent fungus with mild magical properties¡± ¡°Green glowing moss is a bioluminescent fungus with mild magical properties¡± selecting iron sand ¡°black iron sand often found in river beds can be smelted to make pig iron¡± Selecting Iron ore ¡° Iron Ore can be mined and smelted into iron¡± well that one was obvious. ¡°Water source is a magically occurring source of water for ever generating water and filling its boundary set within the spell when it was created, this source draws ambient mana and there for does not draw from the settlement power.¡± Interesting replies Raven as he looks over the screens.


    And with that he is satisfied for now at least, having done everything the system will allow him to with the crystal for the time being. Deciding to sleep for a bit then go out hunting again he has a quick snooze. Waking he grabs his bow and pack and heads out to the lake once again to try and get some food instead of relying solely on his mushroom supply. Getting to the water front uneventfully Raven starts fishing using what little he has of the frogs guts, casting out and waiting. After only five minutes there''s a loud splash where his line is as the line goes tight and pulls Raven from a sitting position to a standing one, His eyes go wide as something pulls hard on the line. Raven fights to pull what ever it is to the shore but he just can¡¯t seem to be able to pull it hard enough feeling as though its stuck to the ground Raven keeps pulling and pulling when he finally feels it start to lift, as he pulls as hard as he can he can feel what ever it is release from the bottom and the line goes slack temporarily. Raven pulls again to tighten the line and with that the fish comes flying out of the water with alarming speed straight at him. Ducking down Raven just dodges it as it splats onto the sandy beach, Looking over Raven smiles as he looks over what he just caught a large Stingray, pulling his sword out he ends the fish making sure to avoid its tail. Picking the stingray up It is heavy maybe twenty pounds, Raven gets to work breaking it down for food making sure to keep the barb and guts for later tossing what''s left back into the water as to not draw in predators.

 frightening in the dark

    Raven sits in his camp slowly cooking the stingray and processing the rest of the meat to be smoked later when a thought strikes him ¡°why do I get exp from killing creatures but not from fishing what is the limit to what gives exp and what doesn¡¯t I wonder. Very strange.¡± Once done Raven eats his fill and stores the rest of the meat in his room on a rough dry rack he pieced together by the pond. Getting up and ready again as the day is still young he decides he will try his luck one more time at the lake, while he does have a good stock of food it wont last forever and who knows if this planet has winters or not. Headed back out he makes it half way to the lake when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye to his left, looking over he sees something duck down in the tall grass but clearly its tail is fully visible looking much like his own but far smaller. Raven draws his bow knocking an arrow and taking aim, a hiss comes from the creature and its tail starts swaying side to side, Raven looses an arrow slamming into the creature hit barks and runs at high speeds away from Raven as he knocks another arrow. Waiting for a while the creature does not come back so he decides to walk over to where it was, when he finds where it was trying to hide he finds a hand sized blood spot on the ground, with a sigh Raven starts to follow the direction the creature went as he does not want to leave the creature to suffer if that was a fatal hit best to put it out of its misery now instead of having it suffer.


    After ten minutes of following the foot prints pressed down grass and blood marks Raven comes up to a flat rock leaning onto a hill creating a small shallow cave, looking within Raven spots the critter immediately, its a bloody raptor and not the proper looking ones but the ones from those old dinosaur movies where they thought they had scales and not feathers. The only difference to those movie ones and this one is that it is only as high has his hip but still has all the teeth and claws. Knocking another arrow Raven fires it at the prone dino hitting his mark direct in the lungs the dino flinches then goes limp. ¡°You have killed a level one Raptor due to your level you gain no experience¡± With a sigh Raven walks towards his kill looking it over. Deciding its going to take to much time to dress it here he stuffs the over sized lizard in his bag and looks around the cave finding a grassy bedding area with four eggs within, deciding not to waste them he takes them as well. Heading back to his camp to process the raptor Raven heads out, making it back to his camp without any issue breaking down the dino as skilled as he can trying to maintain the hide in hopes to maybe replace some of his cloths as they are damaged and stained but having no idea how to do any of that Raven just hopes he can figure it out.


    Fleshing out the hide Ravens not sure what to do next so he leaves it on his drying rack near the fire so it at least gets some smoke to kill any bacteria hoping that will help. Once done working the leather he finds he has a piece about the size of his chest possibly workable into something later, but with no skill this is going to be a labor filled with errors. A few hours go by and Raven has thoroughly destroyed the leather achieving nothing and only leaving scrapes of weak leather behind he decides to put them in his garbage pile for now he will feed it to the slime later, just because he has the protection zone doesn¡¯t mean it¡¯ll work no sense risking something big coming for an easy meal. Collecting his waste including the left overs of the raptor and some other debris he had laying around putting it in the cart and sending it down to the slime it takes only a minute and its all broken down and gone. Going back to his camp he sets the four Dino eggs by his bed for the time being as he doesn¡¯t wish to eat them right now, they will make a great breakfast. Deciding he has tempted fate enough today he works on his tools for the rest of the day.


    Waking up the next morning Raven hears a squawk come from beside his bed, looking over he finds one of the eggs has hatched and eaten the other three eggs that don¡¯t seem to have been fertilized. Looking around for the baby dino he finds It quickly jumping onto his drying rack trying to eat what is left of the stingray a large amount of it already missing. With a shout Raven jumps up grabbing one of his daggers and rushing towards the baby Raptor, as he comes up on it the raptor turns to Raven and squawks again tilting its head to the side and wobbling side to side slowly. Squawking again the raptor tilts its head the other way looking at Raven expectantly when Raven just stands there baffled as to why its not trying to eat him the Raptor lets out a light hiss and goes back to trying to get the rest of the fish. Raven steps forward grabbing what''s left on the drying rack ¡°this is mine you little shit get your own food, you cleaned me out in one night while I slept that food could have lasted me day! Where the hell are you even putting it there''s no way you ate it all?¡± The Raptor squawks again jumping towards Raven as he holds the left over fish, managing to get its teeth onto a piece hanging from his grip it tears off a chunk and swallows it without chewing tilting its head back and swallowing it whole.  ¡°Well that was gross¡± Raven says trying to push the raptor away with his feet. The baby jumps up a couple times squawks again rocking its head side to side then seemingly forgets about Raven curls up into a ball and goes to sleep. Raven stands there dagger in hand and fish in the other hand ¡°what the hell am I supposed to do with this thing when it gets bigger its going to try to eat me¡± currently no larger than a cat its claws while sharp don¡¯t seem to be to much of a threat. Deciding he doesn¡¯t feel like killing the baby he picks it up and puts it outside the tunnels outside his zone of control maybe if it has a chance it will leave.


    Having to replace what food he had since the baby raptor cleaned him out other than the raptor parent he still had on the rack which didn¡¯t seem to interest the dino Raven decides its time to go fishing again. Headed back to the lake he gets to the sandy beach with no issue, but once there he does notice large prints in the sand but sadly its hard to tell what kind of creature left the tracks, the size of Ravens chest he really does not want to meet this creature, Moving away from the tracks and down the shore line a little from where he usually fishes he casts out. After an hour wait there''s a light pull on his line and he gives it a pull instantly pulling a yellow and black fish from the water the size of his palm. With a grin he dispatches it adding the fish to his bag and continues to fish. A few hours go by and Raven manages to catch four more fish of the same size he decides that will be enough for today and starts heading back to his tunnel. As he comes to his tunnel he finds the raptor is not where he left it, with a sigh Raven heads into his tunnel to finish cleaning the fish and eating when he hears claws clacking on stone. Entering his room he finds the raptor on top of his bed looking at him with its head tilted looking to his drying rack he finds only the other raptor meat remaining the last of the stingray gone.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Raven growls drawing his dagger and storming up to the raptor on his bed anger in his eyes, the raptor jumps once and opens its mouth tilting its head back while keeping an eye on Raven. Raven stops just staring at the dino ¡°what in the hell? You think I''m going to feed you is that it? You just ate twenty pounds of stingray in one day how the hell are you still hungry? Your the size of a cat!¡± the raptor remains in place head tilted back and mouth open but gives a loud squawk in reply. Tilting its head in question the raptor eyes Raven and with a sigh Raven pulls a fish from his bag giving it to the raptor. Swallowing it whole the raptor trills in delight looking at Raven directly now when a system message appears ¡°congratulations on bonding a raptor what would you like to name it¡± Raven blinks at the message ¡°oh what fresh hell is this? Bonding you? What does that even mean? Well let me think of a name. Oh I know how about Kemo, because you¡¯ll be the slow painful death of me¡­ that sounds like a perfect name for you.¡± Trilling in delight the raptor now known as Kemo does a spin in place and hops once. ¡°You like the name¡­ of course you do¡­¡± Kemo rushes over to Ravens bed laying down in his covers and instantly falling asleep. ¡°You know you could be cute if you weren¡¯t going to grow up to be a giant lizard killing machine¡­¡± Remembering all the movies in his past life he watched of over sized raptors and how devastating they were sending a chill down his spine.


    Cleaning the fish and cooking them over the fire Raven eats his dinner leaving the bones in a pile with the guts, maybe the murder machine will clean up his messes from now on. Doing his daily chores cleaning maintaining and trying to make anything useful to help his day to day life before trying to go to bed shoving the baby Raptor off his bed and going to sleep. Waking a short time later he finds Kemo laying on his chest curled in a ball fast asleep, with a sigh Raven decides to let it sleep and goes back to sleep.


    The next morning Raven decides its time to do some exploring of the other tunnels in his area maybe he can find something useful, packing up his gear and heading out he finds Kemo at the entrance to his tunnel waiting for him. ¡° No you stay here its dangerous out there and your my emergency food supply since you ate everything else. Kemo squawks but Raven shakes his head no and points back to the tunnel, with its head hanging low Kemo walks back to Ravens room. ¡°Ok that thing is kinda cute in a could kill me in my sleep kinda way¡­¡± Raven chuckles. Headed to the closest tunnel only a ten minute walk from his own he approaches the cave, looking in it seems to slowly go up the mountain with a few turns so he heads up the rocky path.


    After half an hour of walking around in this tunnel he finds a small room in the room there is a skeleton of what appears to be a human, next to the body a rotten leather bag and some rotten clothing on the skeleton as well as a dagger in their hand. Looking to the bag raven pulls out a book that seems to have been protected some what from decay, the cover is water damaged slightly, made of leather there was some image on it but it has long faded opening the book he sees its written in English so he starts to read. The book seems to be a journal of a traveling merchant trying to go from Terminus to another port town in the north by foot called Gallen where he was to meet his ship and depart for the human capital to report on the findings in this new land to their king and to inform them of anything of vale found in the land on his travel. It seems he was dropped off at Terminus by his ship that then went on a salvage run on a sunken ship in the north once they were done they were to meet in the north once the merchants job was done. It seems while he was traveling the lands he got sick and a rainstorm forced him into the cave where he stayed till he died of exposure. His last remarks in the book is that he could hear something deeper in the cave so he dared not venture further in his weakened state having lost all his gear feeing from monsters and the storm on his trip.


    Deciding to take the book as this is the first time he has seen paper in this world and the dagger, leaving the bag and clothing as they are falling apart. Looking the dagger over it appears to have a slight blue glow to it Raven figures that means it has some magic ability but unable to determine what it is he puts it in his bag and decides to carry on into the cave following the tunnel deeper. After a short ten minute walk Raven finds himself coming to another room this one twenty feet by twenty feet with a rather low ceiling of seven feet high, walking into the room he sees something on the other side of the room what looks to be a beetle digging at the rock, this beetle is the size of a car wheel when Raven notices it he draws his bow and arrow knocking and loosing in one fluid motion without hesitating, the arrow strikes the beetle and bounces off its hard carapace, Turning towards Raven the beetle clicks and clacks at him rubbing its head on the ground when it curls into a ball and starts to quickly roll towards Raven. Jumping out of the way as the beetle zips by Raven slamming into the stone wall with a loud crack, Raven drops his bow drawing his sword and stabbing at the beetle but again just bouncing off its armor Raven gulps. The Beetle turns towards Raven again curling into a ball and shooting towards him with some unknown force propelling it. Raven manages to dodge it once again and the beetle slams into the wall again with a loud crack this time he can see sparks shoot from the wall, the beetle uncurls and turns to Raven yet again when he decides to punt the beetle as hard as he can his foot slams against the beetle knocking it onto its back and breaking two of Ravens toes. With a pained grunt Raven steps forward and stabs down at the beetle piecing the stomach of the beetle it writhes in pain curling around the sword and dying with a final clack from its mandibles. ¡°You have defeated level two iron beetle due to your level you gain no exp¡±


    Raven sighs looking at the bug on the end of his sword finally in full detail, it has hand sized mandibles gray in color its carapace hard as iron deciding the shell could be useful he cuts it off the insect putting it in his bag and looking around for any other tunnels but not finding any he decides to head out. Once he reaches the exit he hears something in the distance, a loud thud echoes through out the area from the jungle in the distance. Looking to the jungle he can see trees shaking as something moves within the tree line, something big strong and having large claws. ¡°Is that a fucking T-Rex, give me a god damn break why does everything have to be from a horror movie¡­ where''s the nice fluff¡­ never mind¡­ damn Monty Python knowing this place rabbits will have sharp teeth and red beady eyes¡­¡± watching the T-Rex roam the forest tree line he can see it look his way a few times and smell the air so it for sure knows he¡¯s there but as it cant see him it doesn¡¯t seem to interested in looking for him¡­ yet.


    Once the dinosaur is out of sight Raven moves on to the next Tunnel deciding this wasn¡¯t enough adventure for him for today and in desperate need of knowledge and gear he decides to risk it. Finding another tunnel in short order this one a steep path deeper Raven carefully makes his way down the rubble ladened path. After making it down the rubble pile he comes to a Cavern the ceiling pass what his dark vision will allow him to see and the room far larger than anything he has ever seen before, the air is damp and the cave smells of dust mold and a slight hint of death.

 Once more into the Depths

    Walking into the cavern Raven makes sure to keep an eye on his surroundings the smell of death is never a good sign and good chances something is living down here. Walking slow and steady bow drawn and arrow knocked he looks around the area, the floor is covered in small rocks crunching under his feet as he walks there are no walls in sight and the roof is still far out of sight. He can hear droplets of water splashing down from time to time but never in the same direction which makes him think there is no body of water near him just moisture from the roof dripping down keeping everything wet. As he walks farther into the cavern he can see a faint light flowing in the distance approaching it he comes upon a stone statue of a human man holding a scale in one hand and a bag in another the statue faintly glowing a golden glow, at the bottom of the statue a plaque reads ¡°to honor the God of Commerce Drax he place this statue in the depths near the horde in hopes to gain his favor¡± Raven looks around with interest hoping to find some kind of treasure all he sees in the distance is another faint glow this one red.


    Walking to the red glow he finds yet another statue this one of a man with tusks coming out either side of his mouth holding a two headed battle axe in heavy armor a plaque reading ¡° God of War Felax may his influence hold the tide at bay. Looking around the alter there appears to be dried blood smeared around and on the alter, a few old rusted weapons that seem like they will fall apart trying to even pick them up, there appears to be bones spread around the alter in no order some of the bones show damage from teeth and sharp cuts a few bones appear to be broken with clean cuts. Looking over the statue one last time Raven finds nothing in the area of interest looking around one last time he notices yet another faint glow in the distance this one a faint gray, walking over to it he finds a statue of a man but his eyes ears mouth and nose are all missing, in his hands he holds an hour glass the size of a cat, the figure wears a cape slightly off his body as if in a light breeze around the statue are a few time pieces none of which seem to work a couple sand glasses and sun dials. Looking to the plaque at the base it reads ¡°God of Time Falknor here he place his statue in honor of the ancient ones who slumber here.¡± Ravens eye brow quirks up ¡°ancient ones that slumber here¡­ yeah¡­ that''s not good.¡± Looking around he sees yet another statue this one fairly close to the god of time, walking to it he looks it over.


    The statue before him is large at least five times the size of the last statues it glows a very faint yellow almost not glowing at all, the statue depicting what appears to be a giant hairless mole rat with shark claws and teeth its skin sags heavily around its joints between the folds are small creatures of varying races seemingly clinging to the giant mole rat looking to the plaque it reads ¡°God of Monsters Lijkith may his influence keep the ancients from waking for if they wake the world will fall.¡± Raven nodding his head ¡°yep I knew I was right really should not be poking my nose around here, but you know¡­ I¡¯m going to anyways¡­¡± looking around he sees no other glows and still cannot see the walls or roof, with a shiver he continues on the same direction the statues seemingly lead, walking for a while Raven notices the ground smoothing out almost to the point it looks polished looking around he sees in the distance something standing two feet tall thirty feet from him, approaching it he looks it over appearing to be some kind of fire pit light source but the brass bowl at the top of the stone pillar has nothing in it the brass bowl scorched on the inside, Raven shrugs stuffing the Brass bowl into his bag. ¡°This will do nice as a cooking bowl for now¡±


    Looking back down the direction he has been walking he feels something tugging at his sense, a hint of fear and and dread creeping in he draws his bow and knocks an arrow moving forward slowly. A few minutes go by and Raven finds himself staring at another glow far in the distance this one glowing black and purple with a dark mist surrounding it, coming to the front of the statue Raven looks at the statue with amazement, the mist seemingly blocking the statue from being fully seen only parts of it showing but not enough to make anything out, it appears to depict a human male holding a human skull in his right hand, looking for the plaque there is only a few words carved into the stone at the feet of the statue ¡°The Fallen one, God of Death¡± ¡°fuck¡­¡± mutters Raven as he starts backing up slowly looking around the statue there does not appear to be anything around It but as he is taking steps away from the statue a strong sense of dread comes over him, as if something very big and very angry just turned its eyes to him. ¡°Nope!¡± Raven shouts as he turns and starts to run the way he came as fast as he can. As he runs he hears coming from the statue a man laughing loudly in a standard evil boss way the laugh echoing in the cavern. ¡°Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!¡± shouts Raven as he runs. The ground starts to shake as he runs for his life as he passes the statues he previously passed he can see them flash brighter than before and the sense of dread starts to dissipate slowly. Making it to the entrance of this cavern Raven looks back and can see the black and purple mist following behind him a fair distance behind him, as it passes a statue they flash and some of the mist disappears but continues moving towards Raven. He runs out of the cavern and turns to make his way to his camp when he hears something to his left, looking over he sees it roughly six hundred feet away standing in a field staring right at him his worst nightmare, a T-Rex in all its terrifying glory. With a roar the T-Rex starts its slow stomp towards Raven, with a groan Raven runs as fast as he can hoping he can make it to his tunnel before the T-Rex makes it to him as it wont fit in his tunnel, He thinks about going into the tunnel where he found the man and his journal but really does not want to die there, at least at his tunnel he has the zone protecting him food and water maybe he can figure something out to save himself.


    Running for his life Raven is making good time to his tunnel looking over his shoulder the T-Rex seems to be having troubles running on the ground so its walking briskly towards Raven just barely gaining on him. Raven finally makes it to his tunnel scooping up Kemo as it jumps up and down outside the tunnels, looking over his shoulder he sees the T-Rex thirty feet behind him as he runs into the tunnel the sound of a loud snap then a bang as the Rex snaps its jaws at him and crashes into the side of the mountain. Raven runs to his room in a panic putting Kemo on his bed and telling it to stay Kemo seems to under stand nodding and staying put, Raven paces around the room trying to think what he might be able to do, unsure what to do Raven drops onto his sitting log stroking his chin while he thinks.


    After about an hour of thinking and listening to the T-Rex trying to dig its way into his tunnel an idea pops into his head. ¡°Why isn¡¯t the zone working on this damn thing it should be asleep or leaving by now¡± pulling the brass bowl out of his bag Raven runs over to the slime room lowering the cart to the slime but stopping just before, carefully sliding down using the rope to balance himself he dips the bowl into the slim pulling some of the slime out putting the bowl on the cart on an angle not to spill any of it he climbs back up the rope pulling the cart up and retrieving the bowl. Heading back to his room with the bowl he notices the bowl smoking the smoke choking Raven as he starts to cough violently running to the entrance of his tunnels he finds the T-Rex standing there looking the other way Raven shouts at it trying to get its attention, for a moment the T-Rex doesn¡¯t move just standing there staring somewhere else when it finally turns towards him. When Raven looks to its eyes he notices the color of them, a dark purple with black and purple mist slowly flowing out its mouth and back in. ¡°For fuck sakes can¡¯t I cant a god damn break, seriously what the fuck is this!?¡± The T-Rex smiles of all things at Ravens comment then makes a lung for him snapping at him, Raven steps back just being missed and throws the bowl into the T-Rexes mouth, The T-Rex roars in agony stumbling back as the slime eats away at its mouth and tongue steam blasting out the dinosaurs mouth in large volume. Raven runs back to his tunnel and watches as the T-Rex thrashes about roaring in pain and slamming its head on the rocks, as it does it begins throwing thick blood around the area watching for what feels like hours as the T-Rex thrashes around leaving blood everywhere its flesh starts to fall off in hand full. After the flesh starts to fall off it doesn¡¯t take long for the T-Rex to finally drop to the ground and die. ¡°Level 30 T-Rex defeated No EXP earned.¡± ¡°What the fuck why not!?¡± staring at the T-Rex as it continues to melt with resentment Raven walks towards it pulling out his dagger and drops his bag he gets to work carefully removing what he can without getting burned from the slime, managing to pull the jaw off fairly easily be salvages a chunk with 5 large teeth on it, cutting a section of hide off it capable of wrapping around him twice separating from the body with just pull.Stolen story; please report.


    By the time Raven pulls the hide from the body the majority of the T-Rex Is reduced to nothing more than a pile of melting goo sizzling and steaming he sees the blue slim reform a top the goo pile much larger than it was before, now sitting three feet high and two feet wide the slime sits there wiggling when it starts to roll towards him. ¡°Aw what now!?¡± Raven starts to run for his tunnel again as the slime rolls in after him, turning around Raven casts his water spell forming a ball of water in front of him filling the tunnel between himself and the slime. As the slime hits the water Raven pushes it towards the slime with a screech the slime explodes throwing water and slime everywhere some of the slime getting on Raven instantly starting to burn his arms and legs. Raven screams in pain as he gets blasted backwards into his room tumbling head over feet in a painful cart wheel he comes to a stop in the middle of his room, rolling around in pain Raven dives into the pond the water starting to boil instantly steam raising from the pond as Raven thrashes in the water, slime slowly coming off as it boils off in the water. After a painful minute the slime dissolves in the water Raven gets out of the water as its heat starts to burn him and having the scolding water on his wounds is just pure agony. Raven collapses on his bed passing out from the pain with a loud and painful thud.


    Raven awakens a few hours later in a large amount of pain, looking himself over his clothing is gone melted off and a large portion of his body is red and blistered blood leaking from some of the blisters that have burst. Raven breaks down into tears the agony to much to bare, he moans in pain shaking with the effort to stand he can feel his stats working to heal him but its slow and painful. Raven looks to the pond and he feels sick to his stomach looking to the water, black as charcoal the water is tainted with the acid and what it melted off him in time it will recover but for now that water is fouled. Grabbing some food and casting water filling his water skins with the magic he drinks and eats what he can near breaking down in tears again with the effort deciding there''s nothing he can do with no bandages or way to really clean his wounds he decides to cast water on himself to wash what he can off then goes back to his bed to sleep off what he can, through out the night he feels sharp stabbing pains and starts to feel shivers looking to his status page he finds a debuff ¡°fevered, lose fifty percent stamina gain, health regen and mana regen.¡±


    Raven awakens an unknown time later wet tired and cold he looks about finding Kemo sleeping on the other side of the room curled in a ball, Raven tries to stand and finds himself very weak starving and dehydrated, looking to his rack he finds very little left some small scrapes of meat that will not be enough eating that drinking his water and collecting a few mushrooms eating them he sits on his stump looking to his status page again, not seeing an ailment Raven sighs in relief he slowly gets up. ¡°Hey Kemo you ok there little guy?¡± Kemo looks at him sniffs the air and gags looking at him then goes back to resting. Raven sniffs himself and almost pukes ¡°go god what the hell is that smell, I''m sorry little guy that''s horrible¡± Casting water on himself once again, cool water forms above his head in a bubble then he releases it dropping the water on himself as the cold water runs down his body touching his wounds he screams in pain ¡°fucking hell that''s painful¡± biting down Raven scrubs his skin with his hands as best as he can and casts the water spell again washing off what gunk he can. After cleaning up his area and rinsing his bedding he takes it outside to dry off in the sun, as he comes to the tunnel where the slime exploded the rock seems to survived the acid changing a bright white color almost like bleached bones, walking outside the T-Rex body is mostly gone all the meat long rotted away all that remains are its two small hands, it seems they fell off as the Rex melted. Collecting the teeth claws and hide he brings them back into his tunnel and starts working away on the hide, it seems sitting in the sun cured it partly the goo seemingly helping to tan the hide, Raven makes a makeshift toga with the hide as walking around naked just doesn¡¯t feel right, using some fishing line Raven attaches the claws to a long stick making a sort of spiked club and making a necklace with the teeth. With a chuckle he puts the necklace on, doing a spin looking to Kemo Raven says ¡°what do you think bad ass? Or just ass?¡± Kemo scoffs at him then squawks jumping up and down. Raven nods ¡°sure sure let me get you something¡± grabbing a mushroom off the ground tossing it towards Kemo, with a hop and a snap Kemo grabs the mushroom out of the air eating it.


    Raven waits another day before journeying outside the tunnel going to the lake front to fish needing to collect some food. Sitting at the waters front he collects a few bugs and starts fishing using them as bait, taking a few hours he manages to catch a few small fish enough to feed him and Raven for the day he decides to head back still weak hurting and tired. Getting back to his room he sits down and starts cleaning and cooking the fish when a thought strikes him ¡° I never got a kill notice for the slime did I? Is that because it was part of the other slime, but I thought it said if I removed part of it that would make a new one¡­ God I hope that thing isn¡¯t still alive somewhere waiting to kill me.¡± Looking around he makes a thorough check of his area checking the slime room the food storage room and even going up and checking the moss and crabs, not finding anything he sighs in relief and heads back to his room still tired he decides to sleep it off, collecting a few mushrooms and filling his water skins when he needs he stays in the cave for a few days healing up.

 The Need for supplies

    Once Raven recovers from his injuries he decides its time to go exploring again, surly he wont run into a god again right? Grabbing his pack and headed out the tunnel telling Kemo to stay he pauses for a minute looking to the raptor ¡°have you grown little guy?¡± it appears Kemo has grown substantially in the last few days it appears to be the size of its parent before it died. Deciding it couldn¡¯t hurt to have it come with it him for now ¡°Kemo you know what lets go you need to stretch those legs I don¡¯t think i''ve seen you doing much as of late¡± Kemo Squawks jumps up and starts following Raven.


    Kemo and Raven head out of the tunnel looking for another tunnel to explore, it takes a few hours of looking but Raven finally finds one but the tunnel looks rough rubble everywhere cracks in the stone it appears the tunnel is near collapse. ¡°Mama didn¡¯t raise no coward right Kemo?¡± The Raptor looks to the tunnel and whines. ¡°Yeah its ok you stay out here, stay out of sight but if you get a chance I want you hunting your own food, our food supply wont last forever.¡± Kemo bobs its head and ducks behind some boulders near the tunnel and Raven starts walking in to the tunnel. Looking at the walls the stone seems to be old tunnels cracked and dark as if a fire tore through the tunnel small rocks littering the tunnel floor. Continuing into the tunnel there are a few twists and bends coming to a room, walking into the room Raven takes a look around finding what appears to be a wooden wall with a door badly burnt and in a state of disrepair. Walking to the door Raven attempts to open it but the door seems to be fused to the frame what little metal in the door having melted, Raven gives the door a hard boot shattering it. Walking through the door way he sees a small room with a tunnel on the other end a couple of wooden tables and a few bunk beds along the walls a few charred remains of what look like Kobolds still sitting in their chairs hunched over the tables. Raven checks them over but all their items are cooked nothing of any use remains in this area so he continues on down the tunnel, every once in a while finding another corpse in the tunnels as they twist and bend, as he gets deeper the blackening of the walls gets darker and the walls more cracked. Coming to another room Raven finds several bodies in a circle all burned, in the center of them a drawing on the floor looking like a complicated pentagram. Looking around the room he finds book shelves filled with burned books when something catches his eye one book managed to not burn, grabbing it and looking It over it seems to be a book about casting a fire bolt spell with a grin Raven stuffs it into his bag and continues looking around.


    Raven finds a section of wall that appears to have a seem in it, like it were a door of some kind but looking like stone, the only reason he even notices it is due to the walls being so badly burned and cracked. Pushing on the door does nothing so he decides to try using his daggers and pry the door open, he manages to get the door to wiggle a little but that''s all he manages, it seems its latched some how on the other side preventing it from opening. Working his daggers around the edges he finds where he thinks its latched pulling up on his dagger he feels the door move towards him using the dagger he pries the door open revealing the room beyond.


    Looking within the hidden room, it opens to a large room a hundred feet by a hundred feet the roof is twenty feet high, within the room there is a rail track leading down one tunnel on his right starting from the center of the room a mine cart on the track full of what looks to be iron ore. Another tunnel directly across from the entrance with a large solid metal gate with pull rings and a wooden wheel attached to cables on the door which seems to be a pulley to open the door. On the left there is another tunnel with no door but he is unable to see what is in it from where he stands. Within the current room there are a few tables and chairs and crates stacked in piles, a few open topped barrels with pick axes sticking out of them and two barrels filled with a red fluid with a strong sour smell. Raven walks to the the fluid looking at it, smelling it he knows it would be bad to drink it thinking It might have once been wine but has long spoiled. Looking the pick axes over they are crude at best long past usable, opening a few crates with his knife popping the lids he finds clothing, spoiled rations, water skins, iron bars, and what appears to be a coffin under all the supplies. Raven takes a few sets of clothing dressing himself the cloths seem to fit perfectly are comfortable but sadly have a bad smell to them.


    Looking the coffin over Raven sees a plaque on the coffin ¡°King Glixar the best of us¡± Ravens eyebrow cocks up ¡°a king you say? Surely they intended to bury him with riches right?¡± Raven cracks open the coffin looking within, he finds a long dead Kobold a golden crown around his head and a golden sword resting atop him, on one of his fingers a platinum ring all of which glows with a faint blue glow. Raven smiles grabbing the items and adding them to his bag, placing the sword wrapped in his once T-Rex toga tying it to his bag. Looking the ring over trying to focus on it in hopes it shows him something about the ring. ¡°You have unlocked the Identify skill¡± ¡°well its about damn time¡± Raven replies to the system message in his field of vision. Focusing on the ring he sees a window pop up ¡°ring of Command, once per day you can command one of your subjects to preform a task and they must do it, as long as the task does not knowingly put them in danger.¡± Looking to the sword ¡°Sword of the fallen, Once per day you may raise one of your fallen followers as an undead, they will retain all they are but will be forced to follow your orders but after twenty four hours they will once again die unable to be raised again.¡± Looking to the crown ¡°Crown of the Kobold, if you link your crown to a settlement you will be declared ruler of that area starting a faction with you as its king any Kobold without a leader in the area will feel drawn to you and are more likely to follow your lead.¡±


    ¡°Well damn its about time I find some good gear. Sorry my guy but these will help me a hell of a lot more than they will help you.¡± Raven smiles looking to the skeleton. Looking to the left tunnel Raven walks over looking down it, at the end of a short hall there seems to be a small room. Walking into the room Raven finds six skeletal Kobolds all laying against the wall with spears and shields by their sides with a gem in the center of the room. Focusing on the gem the system informs Raven of ¡°Soul gem strength one of out one hundred, soul gems are powered by souls and can be used to power enchantments, spells, or to maintain summons or undead.¡± It seems they sacrificed themselves to power the gem but Raven has no idea why pocketing the gem looking around the room there does not seem to be anything else of importance here, the room mostly polished stone it appears to have once been a storage room but was long cleared out.


    Walking over to the center tunnel with the mine cart track Raven looks down the track but finds the tunnel has collapsed fairly close to the room he is in now long burying what ever was down there. Deciding to take a look at the iron door he walks over and gives it a once over. The large iron door has artful drawings covering the majority of it, mostly depicting a Kobold with a crown fighting hoards of monsters in one scene and another depicting him fighting several dwarves, and in a final one him on his knees bowing to a very large dragon its wings spread out wide and its mouth open. Raven looks at the door thinking about it. ¡°Now do I open the door and go exploring maybe find some more goodies or pack up what I got now and not run into something I can¡¯t deal with and lose what I¡¯ve found so far.¡± With a nod Raven stands up walks over to the crates and starts packing up what he can carry, focusing on clothing as he never wants to walk around nude again. Once he has packed up all he can carry including a couple bars of iron he makes his way home calling for Kemo on his way out they head off.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    On the way home he notices a small group of mountain goats far above his position walking the mountains face and ledges but far out of his reach even if he wasn¡¯t already over burdened. Keeping a mental note of their direction of travel and location he continues on home, Looking to Kemo he asks ¡°if you think you can get one go for it other wise we will get them on the way back. we will need to collect food as there was nothing salvageable in that cave.¡± Kemo looks up the mountain seems to think about it for a moment then hops up once and takes off at a fast pace towards the mountain goats. Raven continues on to his tunnel as he needs to put the gear away before Kemo gets anything to help pack the meat and supplies. He arrives at his cave in good time moving with a quick pace, off loading what gear he has in a pile while keeping his hunting gear and deciding its best to head out right away and try to find Kemo.


    Running back to where he left Kemo he starts looking around for tracks he finds a red smear up on the mountain face roughly where he had seen the mountain goats in the first place, looks like Kemo got something that was quick Raven thinks to himself. Running towards the mark on the mountain face he can hear the crunching of bones as he comes up to Kemo snacking down on a mountain goat. ¡°Well you could save some for me you greedy bugger¡± Kemo scoffs at Raven between bites ignoring him as best it can as it greedily eats the goat. Raven decides to go after the rest of them climbing the mountain and looking for tracks or any sign of the goats, moving slow and trying to stay as quiet as possible he moves. Coming over a ledge he peaks over spotting three mountain goats eating a small patch of grass, Raven draws his bow and fires at the closest one. With a loud bleat the goats all start to run, one of them slower than the others an arrow sticking out its front left shoulder. Firing another arrow it strikes the injured goat in the neck, as the arrow hits the goat tumbles into a barrel roll tumbling to a stop a hundred feet away from Raven he looks to the other goats who crest a cliff and disappear on the other side. Raven draws his trusty dagger and gets to work breaking down the goat, collecting the horns while he''s at it.


    Walking back down the hill he finds Kemo waiting for him at the bottom of the cliff covered in the goats blood and the goats carcass fully cleaned of any meat, even the bones cracked and cleaned of marrow. ¡°Damn Kemo you work fast. You must have been really hungry after all that sitting around and sleeping¡± Kemo scoffs at him then eyes his bag. ¡°Oh no no no no this is mine you get your own!¡± Kemo squawks at him and starts walking back home Raven follows the greedy dinosaur and heads home with his meat woolly hide and horns.


    Once home Raven gets to work cutting the meat in to thin strips and smoking them, cooking one of the legs he eats it as a reward for himself. Looking to the wool he decides it would make great bedding sheering the wool from the hide he uses some twin and fishing hook and the T-Rex hide making a stuffed blanket and pillow. Deciding now Is as good as time as any he starts to make a rack to store his clothing on so they are not on the floor making another drying rack he makes it over sized to fit as many cloths as possible, placing shelves made of split wood across the rack. Placing his cloths folded on the rack it seems he was able to get enough cloths for ten people, all the cloths seem to be the same size which he though was odd but all the kobolds he saw seemed to be the same size as well.


    Next Raven pulls out the book he found opening it and starts to read, as soon looks at the images within the book a prompt pops up ¡°would you like to use the Fire Bolt spell book, using the book will destroy the book.¡± Selecting yes as only having one spell is really starting to annoy him, With a whoosh the book erupts into flames Raven drops the book eyes wide staring at it. As he stands there thinking nothing has changed it gets a sharp head ache then sees a message pop up ¡°you have learned Fire Bolt, spend one mana to cause point five damage, acts as a real flame and can start fires.¡± ¡°Well its not great but its something.¡± Stomping the burning book out and kicking it towards his fire pit he decides the next item he needs is a broom there is far to much dirt and dust in here to call it a home. Using some grass and a stick he builds a crude broom cleaning his area pushing the dirt and dust towards his fire pit for now deciding he needs to build a bed he starts building a box to fill with grass and leaves using small trees as poles stacking and tying them together. With a thought he decides he may as well try and make some kind of sled heck maybe he can get Kemo to drag it, but doubtful.


    After a few hours Raven heads off to his new rough but slightly softer then stone bed, getting a few hours of much needed sleep. After getting up he gets back to work trying to build a sled out of logs and sticks after an hour it appears he has a rough sled to move more supplies. Dragging the cart by handles on the cart he drags it all the way back to the previous tunnel stacking crates onto his sled two at a time and filling them with what he can while still being able to drag the thing he starts moving supplies to his tunnel, while this place is bigger it has nothing he needs, food and water are no where near here and the entrance seems like it could collapse any time. After a days hard work hauling supplies he moves ten crates and two barrels, the sum total of forty bars of iron one bar of copper another forty sets of clothing fifty water skins and two barrels of soured wine. Moving the majority of the supplies to the storage room he stacks up the crates and barrels. Raven feels a sense of satisfaction looking over his home, now starting to slightly look like a home with furnishings and food, now just to fix that gross water problem Rolling an empty barrel over to the pond Raven starts panning the water into the barrel with the damaged brass bowl, leaving the barrel light enough to roll out of his cave and dump it outside. After a day of hard work he then casts create water in the hole filling it slightly, using the new fresh water to clean the hole and dumping that water outside he fills it again once its clean with water again, finally fixing the gross water issue, the smell alone was starting to get to him, speaking of bad smells he decides its time to get rid of his old bedding now that he has a ¡°proper¡± bed and blanket, throwing out the old damaged tent he''s been using as bedding throwing it into the slime pit.


    Eating some of his meat and drinking some water he decides its time to go outside again to look for new sources of food, Telling Kemo ¡°I¡¯ll be back in a few hours go hunt for a while you got to stretch your legs¡± Kemo bobs its head and runs off into the direction of the forest. Deciding its time to head to the forest again himself with the T-Rex gone he''s doubtful there''s another around to takes its territory any time soon. Entering the forest and walking along game trails bow in hand as always Raven sniffs the air as he walks when he catches the slightest smell on the wind, the smell of something cooking in the distance. Activating his stealth skill and advancing towards the smell he finds a small camp, four canvas tents set up around a camp fire looking around the camp he finds ten humans all geared for battle in leathers seven with sword and shields and three with daggers and bows. Raven clenches his teeth in anger seeing the humans, knowing what will happen if he''s spotted he decides the best choice is to get the hell out of there without being spotted. As Raven retreats back the way he came he hears a human say ¡°I think he have a visitor¡± a cold chill runs down his spine and he starts to run as fast as he can. As he runs a message pops up in his vision ¡°a gods bell has been rung in your area marking you as a disciple of a god, the bell ringer can see your location for the next hour.¡±

 Humans, Why did it have to be Humans

    Running Towards the Statue cave in hopes that place is enough to lose them in, if not in the dark than in distance and distractions of the statues. Making it to the ¡°god cave¡± Raven runs down the rocky embankment running past the first few statues and hiding behind the War god statue waiting to see if the humans find him when he hears some one clear their throat behind him all warmth leaving his body he slowly turns his head to find a human in leather armor holding a dagger with his bow sling over his shoulder.


    Mouth agape Raven stares at the human not making a sound or moving, The human smiles and says ¡° you can relax my friend we are not here to hurt you, we are looking for someone.¡± Raven remains still hoping the human will just go away. A few awkward moments go by and Raven can hear the other humans making their way down the tunnel, Raven decides to focus on the human in front of him popping up a message ¡°Human Hunter level twenty five¡± Raven thinks to him self ¡°well. I¡¯m dead, level twenty five not a chance I could take one of them little lone the rest¡± ¡°hey, there you went don¡¯t worry we are looking for some one, Hunting something like you is not worth our time. Have you seen a human in these parts, probably carrying a metal staff and wearing a black cloak.¡± Raven shakes his head no but stops, thinking of the merchant perhaps they mean him ¡°I did find a skeleton a little while ago of a merchant his journal said he was exploring from the south port to the north when he got sick and died.¡± The man walking up to him shakes his head ¡°naw that doesn¡¯t sound like the one we are looking for, unlikely he even could get sick even if he were hurt. I will add a note in our logs about the man in case some one in town is looking for him though, thanks. Is that the only person you have seen?¡± Raven nods ¡°I have not explored everywhere yet I only just got here, I¡¯m just trying to survive.¡± The humans all smile and nod ¡°yeah this place is rougher than most being so close to the mountains only the big game really survives being hunted. To many of your kind around trying to feed their masters.¡± Says the leader of the humans, Raven tilts his head questioningly ¡°feed our masters?¡± ¡°yeah¡­ you know¡­? The dragons?¡± replies the man. Ravens shock on his face is obvious as the human looks at him questioningly ¡°you don¡¯t serve a dragon? Then why are you here?¡± Raven responds with ¡°just trying to live.¡± As he shrugs. The leader of the men laughs ¡°well now that''s just odd, you don¡¯t seem like most Kobolds you speak clearly, are not  instantly hostile, and you don¡¯t serve a dragon. You seem terribly under geared for being out here how ever, and being a disciple of one of the gods no less, your lucky I found you and not one of the other disciples they would kill you in an instant just for a chance to increase their power.¡±


    Raven feeling out numbered and out classed shrinking to appear as least threatening as he can, hoping they will leave him alive, but the need for knowledge is heavy on his mind so he decides talking this out might be his best bet for the time being. ¡°I¡¯m new to this, what do you mean a gods disciple? And how would one get more power killing me? And as for my gear what''s wrong with it, its served me well so far.¡± The man looks Raven in the eyes seemingly searching for something then chuckles ¡°you are new aren¡¯t you, well that would actually explain a lot, tell you what let me introduce myself, I am Malik I am the disciple of the god of Time Falknor. To be a disciple means a god has chosen you, and to be clear all of the chosen are from earth and pulled to this world, I myself was pulled from Canada where I lived before my death. I died in a work place accident. Each god has at least one disciple if they do well and gain their god a good amount of power the god may summon another to assist them. When a disciple kills one from another god they gain the spell granted to the fallen disciple and gain some titles and exp. Not to mention usually ¡­ usually the disciples carry strong gear and magic items so looting them is worth while as well. As for why I¡¯m not attacking you for said power is well, no offense but you don¡¯t look like you would grant me anything worth while to begin with and Falknor doesn¡¯t care for the squabbles of the other gods.¡± Raven sits there quietly soaking up the information as the man continues ¡°how long have you been here? I personally have been in this world for five years now.¡± Raven shrugs ¡°I¡¯ve been here for a short time its hard to keep track of time with the day cycles here but maybe a month?¡± The others look at each other with shock in their eyes ¡°if your that new that means a disciple has died recently, what god brought you here?¡± Raven shrugs ¡°I have no idea, and haven¡¯t the foggiest idea of how to find out.¡± The leader nods and says ¡°yeah I had the same trouble but I had the guilds to help me, I guess as a monster you don¡¯t have that luxury, who has been helping you this far? ¡° Raven responds quickly with ¡°no one, I¡¯ve been alone all this time, I ran into some humans and they tried to kill me so I¡¯ve tried my best to be hidden and alone.¡± ¡°I see, sorry to hear that, must have made the transition hard for you. Well if you have questions feel free to ask, I¡¯ve got nothing but time¡± the man chuckles.


    Raven decides now is the best time to learn ¡°yeah could you explain¡­ well everything really, I¡¯ve been stumbling in the dark here and I have no idea what I¡¯m doing, and it¡¯s almost got me killed several times.¡± ¡°Yeah that makes sense, sure ill start with the basics then. If you think character sheet it will pop up in your vision, this shows you your spells skills titles jobs class HP MP and some other basic info, for anything more in detail you have to think that screen into your view like for instance notifications is a big one, with that open you can open your notifications including title gains level gains exp gains skill gains and so on. Monster codex will pop up well what you know of monsters, you can increase it by fighting monsters and learning their weaknesses or by reading books, word of mouth doesn¡¯t seem to help your codex at all for some reason. There is a settlement page as well if you claim a domain but I have no experience with that. You can also open a spells page which will give you a better break down of your spells with better descriptions and costs to the spells, it will also allow you to merge spells to create new ones, keep in mind merging spells is based on your own thoughts of the merge so everyone experiences different spells merging with the same starting spells. You can make some seriously powerful spells doing this but the stronger the spell the more it costs to cast, some spells take so much mana they require multiple casters to link their MP in a ritual to cast those higher level spells.


    Next is the skill screen same as the spell screen it gives you better descriptions and progress to next level and skill costs to unlock new ones, personally I don¡¯t bother spending points to unlock skills that I know I can unlock myself and instead save them for the ones that would not be gained normally. But then again the sooner you gain the skill the sooner you can start to use and level it, some times it does take a while to gain a skill naturally. There is a deity page as well, this is where you can check what god you worship or are linked to, how many points you provided them and your standing with the gods, if a god does not like you, you can expect them to interfere in your life, from petty things like causing rain to follow you everywhere, dirt never washing off of you, to more extreme things like being marked so any creature near you can see you and feels the need to destroy you, to even dropping a meteor on you. It all depends on how much they dislike you as any action a god takes costs them deity points which are hard to earn and they need to maintain a power pool in case of defending themselves or their assets from the other gods, not to mention helping in the joint effort to keep the god of death contained.¡± Raven cringes at the mention of the god of death ¡°oh so you¡¯ve had run ins with him have you¡± Raven nods ¡°just a few days ago in this cave was the last run in he has a statue just over there that was glowing with a dark mist once I got close it started to chase me so I ran out and into a place I¡¯ve been hiding, when I came out of my hole the mist seemingly had infected a T-Rex and it was waiting for me. I only just survived that encounter with some ingenuity.¡± ¡°Interesting a T-Rex? Then how are you so low level that should have got you to at least level ten but my identify says you are level six?¡± the man responds, Raven nods and says ¡°yeah I used a slime to kill it I guess the system decided that didn¡¯t count as my kill because the slime grew by one hundred times and then tried to kill me, I destroyed it with a spell but I did not get EXP for that either.¡± The man says ¡°interesting, I can see not getting EXP for the slime killing the T-Rex but killing the slime should have got you EXP and both should have gotten a title of some kind I¡¯m sure. What titles do you have?¡± Raven cringes ¡°none I didn¡¯t even know they were a thing till this conversation.¡± Malics Eye brow raises ¡°oh son, I¡¯m sure you have a few titles you just have yet to claim you should go into your notifications and take a look to claim them you have to accept them there, there are titles that you can reject as they give bonuses but also give a negative effect.¡±


    Raven decides now''s as good as a time as any and opens notifications, a long list of notifications await him, going to the filter he disregards EXP notifications and the lists shrinks but only slightly, with a sigh he begins. ¡°You have arrived in Fertixia as a gods disciple as such your god has granted you access to the spell Create Water, you have an affinity to this spell granting greater power to your spell.¡± The next notification ¡°Run in with another gods power, you have been noticed by another god this could be a good or bad thing only time will tell, as such you have been granted the title Gods chosen granting you a permanent buff to your HP and MP regen, you now gain one HP and one MP an hour on top of your regular regen.¡± ¡°You have gained the title Seal breaker, you have broken a seal holding the god of death sealed as such the god of death has granted you a boon, you have gained Vampiric touch spell, Spend one MP to drain up to five HP from living target, if you kill your target with this spell there is a chance the target will rise again as a unbound undead.¡± ¡°Survive being hunted by a monster, Hunted becomes the hunter, gain the ability to sense blood lust from monsters if focusing on a monster.¡± ¡°Human slayer you have gained the detect human spell it allows you to see silhouettes of humans through solid objects within ten feet for one minute per five MP¡± Raven has seen this one before ¡°why does the system force some of these notifications on me to see but others they stay in the notification tab? I just seen one that I have seen before.¡± The man nods ¡°yes the system will prioritize some of them if it feels you need it to survive your current situation¡± Raven nods and continues


    ¡°murderer, you have killed some one or your lack of action has caused a death that was not necessary for your survival as such you have been branded a murderer. This title can not be refused and having it allows for bounties to be placed on you at an assassins guild, it also shows in the identify screen when some one identifies you.¡± Raven mutters ¡°oh¡­ um about the murderer title¡­¡± the man waves his hand ¡°don¡¯t worry I get it, being a monster humans are less likely to be friendly to you, I don¡¯t blame you for defending your self even if it could have been avoided, you would be surprised how many people have that one.¡± Raven nods again and continues with the notifications ¡°you have gained the title Crafter, having made continuous effort to craft all your crafting skills now work ten percent better than before, as well your crafting skills will now increase ten percent faster.¡± Raven grumbles under his breath ¡°that would have been nice to have a while ago¡­¡±¡±Visitor of the fay, you have gained this title by entering a zone of the fay realm, as such your MP regens ten percent faster and you have gained the skill Identify Spell, this can be used on items as well as people identifying spells they may be casting at the time.¡± ¡°You have gained the title fortress of the mind, having a being of immense power in your mind you have gained a resistance to mind effects, plus twenty percent to resisting mind effects from spells.¡± Remembering what happened with the dryad Raven shutters. ¡°Fatherhood, you have had a child one one form or another, as such you gain plus one to endurance. This title stacks.¡± ¡°So wait if some one were to have one hundred kids they would have one hundred endurance that''s crazy!?¡± blurts out Raven Malic quickly replies ¡°oh no, most stackable titles only go to ten then you have to get an upgraded title to continue gaining but your right having lots of kids is a huge boon to your stats and is why so many have lots of kids. Its an easy way to get stronger but keep in mind most can¡¯t afford to feed that many people so only the stronger families will take advantage of that title.¡± Raven responds with ¡° I see¡­¡± and continues looking at the notifications ¡°you have increased your running skill enough to level it from level two to level five.¡± ¡°You have increased your basic crafting one *stone age* to basic crafting three *Stone age*¡± ¡°you have been burned alive, more than thirty percent of your body has had third degree burns and as such you have earned the title Fire born, you gain ten percent to fire resistance and wounds caused by burns heals one hundred percent faster.¡± ¡°You have earned the title Adventurer, as such you have gained the mini map skill, the mini map will only show your area around you of one hundred feet and only show what you have seen anything unknown will show as black underground and gray in the open world.¡± ¡°Your god has granted you a boon for earning Deity points, you have been granted the Item box spell, anything in your hands can be sent to a dimensional storage linked to your soul, items pulled from it appear in your hands or can be equipped. The item box can hold your earned Deity points in kilograms.¡± Raven smiles finally he has somewhere to put all his gear. ¡°You have earned the title King of the Kobolds, Having found the crown of the Kobold it has marked you as its new owner and bound to your soul. The title Grants you the ability to subjugate lesser Kobolds into your service, if a lesser Kobold is within a ten kilometer zone it will be drawn to your location only ten can be summoned per use and can only be used once a week.¡± If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Finally done the notification back log Raven looks over to Malic, ¡°thank you for telling me how to do the notifications that took a while to sort through but I got a few good ones. I¡¯m going to check my Deity screen next¡± Malic nods and Raven opens the screen. Linked Deity: Rolland Father of the gods, Deity points one hundred and fifty. Looking next to the points there''s a question mark so Raven selects it (one hundred points earned for setting a settlement to your god. Fifty points earned for stopping a possessed being controlled by the death god.) Raven looks at it for a second then it hits him its referencing to the T-Rex, so he did earn something for killing it just not EXP. Looking at the rest of the screen it lists the other gods and their standing with Raven:


    God of Death The Fallen One- Neutral strange Raven figured he would be hated by this god yet it shows neutral.


    God of Life Lilia- Neutral Raven figures this is simply due to not having any interaction with her yet.


    God of Commerce Drax- Neutral Raven figures the same thing its due to no interaction with him or his followers


    God of Magic Odin- Neutral


    God of Time Falknor- Neutral


    God of War Felax- Neutral


    God of Monsters lijkith- Neutral Raven was worried about this one, thinking his race might have effected this or the fact he has been killing creatures fairly frequently.


    Father of the gods Rolland- Neutral This one surprised Raven, he thought for sure this would at least be liked or something of the sort, he has provided him with deity points and helped keep the death god held some what.


    Raven decides to ask Malic about Rolland. ¡°So the deity that summoned me seems to be Rolland it lists him as the Father of the gods, yet when I check my standing with him it says neutral I though it would be higher being his summoned chosen and the fact I¡¯ve given him some Deity points.¡± Malic and the others all look shocked. Malic replies ¡°Rolland is your deity!? That''s not possible, I thought he didn¡¯t interfere in the world since he created the god of monsters. He seemed to have left the world alone since then as if he had given up on it, everyone thought he was gone for good most don¡¯t even worship him anymore. But if he has a chosen maybe he''s finally coming back, maybe the world isn¡¯t as lost as everyone feared.¡± Raven asks ¡°is he that important, I know he''s the gods father and all but he is just one god surely he wouldn¡¯t make that big a difference in the world?¡± Malic shakes his head ¡°oh no he has the power to change the world with a wave of his hand, he only stays out of it because, well it widely believe that he simply does not care about the world having grown bored of his position everyone had thought he decided to go else where and start again. The last time he effected this world he made the god of monsters, now every few years new monsters come crawling out of the depths spreading across the world, they have caused mass chaos and death among human settlements. That''s not to say monsters didn¡¯t exists before that they did just in much smaller numbers and few races, and never in any organized manor but now there''s Kobold, Goblin, Orc, Troll, Ogre, Minotaur, Merpeople, the undead, and so many more not to mention the dragons which have existed since the beginning of time. He is no joke, you don¡¯t have to answer but its killing me what spell did the father of the gods grant you, it must be powerful.¡± Raven Laughs hard and loud at Malic ¡°powerful spell no, no it most defiantly is not, I got create water¡­¡± Malic looks confused ¡°you mean like you can create a massive lake on demand or blast a target with a jet of water?¡± Raven shakes his head ¡°I wish nope watch¡­¡± casting create water off to the side a globe of water appears in the air and drops to the ground with a splash. ¡°That''s it, that''s my spell¡­ impressed¡­ yeah me either¡­¡± Malic shakes his head ¡°that doesn¡¯t make any sense why would he give you such a simple spell? I guess if the others know your spell it doesn¡¯t really make you a target, I mean create water is a basic spell any adventurer can learn granted that did seem to create a lot more water than a normal spell, how much MP did you put into it?¡± Raven holds up a single finger and Malic nods ¡°ok well once you get your MP up you could create a lot of water at least, it seems to create one hundred times what a normal create water spell generates at least. But yeah I¡¯m not seeing much uses for that myself.¡± Raven bobs his head side to side in a maybe ¡°I did kill a dire wolf with it, granted the damn thing had me in its mouth at the time.¡± Malic bursts out laughing obviously picturing the image. ¡°I¡¯m sorry that must have been horrible. But that is impressive that you managed to use a simple spell like that as a combat spell. While we have you here do you know what this cave is?¡± Raven shakes his head no ¡° its an offering temple, anything you put at the pedestals of the statues is absorbed into mana and converted to Deity points to the god you left the items at. Some times gods will grant you boons if you give them enough points even if you are not a follower of them or one of their chosen, as long as you have not shown hostility to them or their followers.¡± ¡°Good to know¡± Raven responds. ¡°How about skill points I kind of get the idea behind them but not sure what they do.¡± Malic replies with ¡°So Strength gives you a 10% increase to your lifting capacity over 10 strength anything under that is a negative modifier same goes to all other stats, Endurance increases health regen by ten percent per point over ten, constitution strictly increases your health by one per point and gives a 10% resistance to disease after ten, Dexterity increases your speed at which you can move and react by ten percent over ten, Wisdom increases your mana regen rate by ten percent over ten, Intelligence is how much MP you will have and a general stat to show how fast of a problem solver you are, most find this skill lacking but MP is a huge need so any caster will up this stat Luck is a strange stat most have a luck of one some even have it in the negative most believe it increases anything to be more beneficial to you by ten percent per point over one.¡±


    Malic and the other humans seem to start getting restless and seem to want to get on with their journey ¡°any other questions we best get going before the one we are tasked to find gets to far away.¡± Says Malic. Raven thinks for a moment and asks ¡°for settlements is there anything you can tell me about them? I just started one I think and have no idea what to do with it.¡± Malic Raises an eye brow ¡°got anyone living in this settlement with you?¡± Raven shakes his head no ¡°well then there is not much you can do with it just yet, as you get more people living there you will get settlement points which can be used to unlock some things as I have never dealt with that screen I don¡¯t really know what is offered on it, sorry. I have heard you can get quests from the system from settlement screens which offer items EXP and coin rewards. Raven shrugs ¡°I don¡¯t really have any use for coins, the human settlement is not a safe place for me and I have yet to run into anyone willing to trade¡± Malic chuckles ¡°yeah sorry about that but we are traveling light have have nothing for trade and no offense but I doubt you have anything to offer us either.¡± Raven shakes his head ¡°nope I barely have a place to sleep little lone something to trade.¡± Malic nods ¡°that all you wanted to know?¡± Raven nods ¡°yeah that''s all I can think of right now I¡¯m sure I will think of something later but that''s all I got right now.¡± Malic replies with ¡°well it was a pleasure to meet you Raven, I¡¯m sure we will meet again hopefully you thrive out here, just please be careful not to piss off the dragons they are just as petty as the gods. I can sense one near this cave, its young and maybe can be influence to help you or it might just decide to kill you who knows, up to you if you want to risk it. As for the death gods statue here, we are going to destroy it, I suggest you not do this yourself as it will anger any god you do it to, they will likely try to curse you if you destroy a place of worship, but our god should protect us as it is part of our mission to prevent the spread of the death gods influence.¡± Raven nods and one of Malics men walks over to the death god statue, laying his hands on the base he casts a spell, Raven decides to use Identify spell as he casts ¡°desecrate- destroy a place of worship of a god.¡± And with a flash of white light the statue explodes into a thousand small pebbles crumpling to the ground in a loud crash. The man who destroyed the statue turns pail for a moment then color seems to return to his face, walking back to the group he says ¡°wasting disease was the debuff but its already cured.¡± Malic replies with ¡°good he doesn¡¯t seem to have much power yet he must not have many followers yet, I¡¯m sure that will change over time with the amount of reports of undead in the area on the rise. Right we best go, no sense staying here and making ourselves easy targets for the death gods agents, he may be weak right now but still has followers. I would leave this place for the time being as well, its not likely any will come as this place is in the middle of no where but you never know no sense giving them easy targets.¡± Malic and crew begin their trek out the cave. Raven waves good bye to them when he remembers one last question to ask ¡°how do I get a class?¡± Malic stops turns to him and chuckles ¡°you don¡¯t even have a class you really are hard up aren¡¯t you. You have to either go to a guild building and use their class crystal, I think a settlement screen can do it after a while too, other than that the only other way I know of is the system granting it to you with your actions, that''s how a lot of the lower class get theirs as it costs a lot of money to use the class stones at the guilds.¡± Raven thanks him and they continue on. waiting some time before exiting himself as to not draw them to his settlement just in case. Raven heads home to the place he now calls home in hopes the settlement stone may offer some more information.


    >>>>>Chapter End<<<<<


    Stats Block>>>>>


    Name: Raven Hex


    Race: Kobald


    Class: not selected


    Level: 5


    Skills: unused points-


    Identify Spell, Allows you to identify spells on items and if used on a person casting can identify the spell being cast


    dagger 2 10% damage per level


    parry 1 5% parry chance per level once per combat,


    Survival 1 various crafts and knowledge as well as a 10% per level resistance to weather,


    Running 5 10% bonus to speed and a 1% bonus to duration,


    basic crafting 3 stone age crafting with 10% quality boost and 20% chance to make a masterwork item at level 10,


    Sneak 2 10% bonus per level to hiding in full cover,


    Physiological resistance 1 reduces damage taking by 2% per level as well as increasing your save chance from disease poison and illness. Affinity double resistance


    Psychological Resistance 1 resist Physic attacks and negative psychological effects by 5% per level *affinity double resistance*


    spells: create water Hero modified Level 1 1 MP generate 5 gallons of water,


    repel undead major knock back on undead creatures *from item*,


    Detect human it allows you to see silhouettes of humans through solid objects within 10 feet for 1 minute per 5 MP


    Vampiric touch- one mp does up to five hp damage on touch, if target dies there is a small chance target will rise as an undead


    Item box spell, anything in your hands can be sent to a dimensional storage linked to your soul, items pulled from it appear in your hands or can be equipped. The item box can hold your earned Deity points in kilograms


    Stats: Strength 9 *-10% regular lifting ability*


    Endurance 14*40% health regen rate*


    constitution 13*13 hp 30% disease resistance*


    Dexterity 12*20% reaction speed*


    Wisdom 12*20% MP regen*


    Intelligence 10*10 MP and basic problem solving skill*


    Luck 2*10% to probability*


    HP: 13 MP: 14+4 from magic item


    Dark Points: 1 Humans


    PK points: 11


    Racial bonuses to water breathing* able to swim for 30 minutes without coming up for air and swimming increases swim speed by double normal speed.  Fire resistance 20% low light vision heightened smell


    Titles: Gods Chosen, Gain 1 HP 1 MP regen per hour.


    Hunted becomes the hunter- be able to sense blood lust from monsters in sight.


    Murderer- Allows for bounties to be placed on you, also shows up when some one identifies you.


    Crafter- Crafting skills work 10% better and gain 10% faster


    Visitor of the fay, MP regens ten percent faster and you have gained the skill Identify Spell, this can be used on items as well as people identifying spells they may be casting at the time.


    fortress of the mind, having a being of immense power in your mind you have gained a resistance to mind effects, plus twenty percent to resisting mind effects from spells.


    Fire born, gain 10% fire resistance and 100% regen on fire wounds.


    Adventurer, gain the Mini map, areas known will be drawn in unknown will be black underground and gray on the surface


    King of the Kobolds, Having found the crown of he Kobold it has marked you as its new owner and bound to your soul. The title Grants you the ability to subjugate lesser Kobolds into your service, if a lesser Kobold is within a ten kilometer it will be drawn to your location only ten can be summoned per use and can only be used once a week.


    Resistances: 20% mind *spell*, 30% fire, 30% disease resistance

 Settlement Growth

    Finally making it home, Raven taking his time trying to hide his passage just in case the humans happen to be watching , Raven walks over to the settlement crystal and places his hand on it. ¡°Settlement Ravens Den, Power in crystal 82%, Field of lethargy, Mother of slime¡± skipping over the rest of the basic info Raven looks for any new info on the tab in hopes of finding the way Malic mentioned of class changing, finding Settlement Population bonus tab within the table Raven opens it, Population one Next level ten population. Current settlement points 0.


    Raven sighs as the list still seems lacking looking at the population numbers he sighs again, living alone for so long is really starting to get to him. Decided now is as good as time as any he activates the crowns ability of calling lesser Kobolds what ever that is to his location, as soon as he does a blue ring of energy blasts out from him in all directions. A few minutes go by and Raven starts to think it was not effective when he hears a ping, then another and another and another after a few minutes he hears ten pings in total, thinking that means the ability has found ten lesser Kobolds Raven starts to tidy up his living space to get ready for company. Kemo enters the tunnel with a squawk dropping a small deer on the ground and looking at Raven expectantly, Raven picks the deer up and begins cleaning it looking over to Kemo saying thanks ¡°thanks little guy¡± Kemo squawks does a small hop and runs out of the cave again.


    Raven finishes cleaning the deer cooking and smoking the meat, as he sits there cleaning up the left overs putting them off to the side for Kemo and if he doesn¡¯t want them he will give it to the slime. As he sits there cleaning he hears something at the entrance to his room, looking up from his work he sees a Kobold standing there half his size armed with a spear and wearing crude leather draped over itself. Raven greets it ¡°welcome to my home I¡¯m Raven, what''s your name?¡± The smaller Kobold looks at Raven cocks its head to the side and makes a barking growl sound. After that the Lesser Kobold walks into the the cave and seemingly makes itself at home, plopping down it starts working with the hide of the deer Raven just skinned, seeming to flesh it out and clean it. ¡°Oh you know leather working that''s good I haven¡¯t a clue what I¡¯m doing with that stuff. By the way there''s some clothing in a storage room below feel free to help yourself, it may be a little big on you but I''m sure it beats what you got on now.¡± The little Kobold doesn¡¯t seem to acknowledge Raven and simply continues on working away on the leather. A few minutes later nine more Lesser Kobolds walk into the room all doing much the same making themselves at home. Raven decides now that they are all here he should show them around, showing them down to the iron sandy mine and the storage room getting them their own clothing, a few seem interested in the pickaxes Raven nods at them and allows them to take a few, four pick up the pickaxes and walk over to the iron and start chipping away.


    Raven goes back up to the crystal placing his hand on it once again he sees ¡°settlement level up, one settlement point earned. Unlocking settlement upgrade screen. Settlement upgrades available for Level one settlement: Increased productivity I ten percent, increased Settlement influence I zone plus one hundred feet, Increased food production I within zone by ten percent. Wondering if food production would include the mushroom growth Raven selects it, with the increased population he is going to need it. Looking around the room the Kobolds seem to be working on small tasks always staying busy, cleaning, making arrow shafts sharpening tools and weapons, and collecting food and storing it in chests and barrels in the storage room, the Kobolds in the mine seem to be making some minor progress mining ore but don¡¯t seem to have a plan on smelting it yet. Looking around the sand it seems they have started making beds in the sand small circler pits in the sand lined with iron ore around the top counting out ten bedding areas within the mine. Looking to the miners Raven asks ¡°could you guys work on a new tunnel I feel we should expand slightly and we could use some stone for projects later.¡± The lesser Kobolds nod to Raven and all start to mine a new tunnel and path, working together in a cluster looks uncomfortable but it does seem to be effective not once does he see them stagger or almost hit another or tangle their limbs.


    Raven decides he should make his way to the lake and get some food stocked up as having more people to feed is going to be a problem quick, those mushrooms will not last. Getting to the shore and casting out Raven starts fishing in hopes of landing a few big fish, maybe he can catch another ray or something big like that. A few hours in and Raven only manages to catch a few small fish not seeing his luck improving he heads back leaving the fish in the camp for the others to eat and headed back to the forest in hopes of bigger game. Once in the forest he finds the stream with frogs following it deeper into the forest collecting what little of the frogs he finds along the way. An hour goes by and Raven collects ten frogs, he sees a few small rodent critters skittering about but doesn¡¯t have a chance with an arrow to take one, they are simply to fast for him perhaps he should make some traps later he thinks to himself. While following the stream Raven finally finds signs of bigger game, a deer track in the mud crossing the stream and headed deeper into the forest, Raven draws his bow and knocks and arrow following the tracks deeper into the forest.


    About twenty minutes of slow walking and tracking go by and Raven finally hears something moving in the brush ahead, moving slow and peaking over the bushes he finds a small clearing with three fair sized deer grazing in the sun bathed grass. Lining up a shot on the biggest deer Raven looses an arrow striking It in the shoulder with a bleat and a jumping kick in the air the deer all scatter, Raven gives chase on the one struck by the arrow holding back some distance but following it none the less. Following the blood marks on the ground Raven is sure he hit a vital spot as the blood gets thicker and darker as he gets farther along the trail, a few minutes later he comes up to the fallen deer still alive but no longer able to stand, Raven walks up to it deciding now is as good as time as any, looking down at the deer as it looks at him with fear in its eyes ¡°sorry about this¡± Raven says as he casts his newest combat spell fire bolt aiming at the head pumping five mana into it the bolt flies from his hand striking the deer in the face and blasting the head clean off in a rather wet plop. ¡°Ugh that was gross, well best not waste any time¡± getting to work Raven starts to clean the deer, as he cuts off slabs of meat he uses his storage skill putting the meat within, hopefully with it in storage he wont draw the attention of another T-Rex as he is lacking another slime, and he doubts that he would get a chance like that again. Having packed up the meat and hide Raven leaves the guts and bones behind as it wont take long for a predator to find it, It wont go to waste.


    Headed back to his cave he drops off the meat on the meat rack and he sees the other Kobolds get to work on it right away slicing it to smaller pieces and smoking it, some enjoying the odd snack as they work eating it raw. Thinking about it he probably could eat the meat raw too he is a lizard man these days, but not wanting to get sick has pushed him to cooking all his meals as of yet. Never know what kind of super parasites there are out here, he''s already been infected with one creature he doesn¡¯t want another. Remembering that the crystal absorbs magic items and he had a magic dagger he had yet to identify he looks the old dagger over ¡°Dagger of bleeding, any cut with this item will not heal naturally and will continually bleed. To Stop bleeding medical attention of some kind will be needed, or the use of magic.¡± Raven thinks to himself ¡°while that''s not bad in a fight that really wouldn¡¯t help much, that''s more a hit and run kind of weapon and that is not me, I¡¯m more the run and run kind of guy.¡± Tapping the dagger to the crystal a prompt pops up ¡°would you like the sacrifice the dagger to the crystal to power it? The dagger will provide five percent power.¡± Raven selects yes and the dagger explodes into blue glowing dusts that enters the crystal. ¡°Crystal power now at 87%¡± remembering the description of the crown he decides now is a good time to link it to the crystal, touching the crystal with the crown equipped he receives a prompt ¡°you have now linked your crown to your settlement, any Kobold in the area will now feel a natural draw to your area, they are not forced to come to you nor are they required to follow you, you may be king but a king of nothing is nothing. Grow your settlement and your renown and so too shall your number of followers.¡± Right after closing the message Raven hears another ping much like when he summoned the Lesser Kobolds, but after a few minutes of waiting nothing else seems to happen, with a shrug Raven decides its time to sleep for the day.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.


    Waking some time later Raven sits up from his bed to find a figure standing in the hall way to the outside, a adult Kobold by the looks of him he seems to be fairly old and haggard his cloth robe tattered and what can be seen of his skin scarred with deep scares leaning heavily on a staff topped with a purple gemstone. ¡°So your the new king are you? Not much to look at, hardly even fully grown just a pup still. How old are you boy? And where did you find the crown?¡± Raven shakes his head in disbelief ¡°you can talk? Oh thank god I thought I would be stuck with the non verbal Kobolds, I¡¯m Raven, I am twenty three years old, and I found the crown while doing some exploring in the mountains. Who are you, are you here to join me? Please say your here to join me, I didn¡¯t think I could ever miss other people but I really, really do!¡± the elderly Kobolds eye seems to twitch at Ravens responses ¡°you¡­ ¡°Found¡± the crown¡­ and where was the previous owner of the crown when you ¡°found¡± it?¡± Raven frowns at the tone of the elder and responds to his question ¡°ok¡­ so I did do a little grave robbing while I was in the cave. Not sure if that''s a big deal here but I''m just going to put that out in the open so there''s no confusion, I found a coffin,  I opened said coffin, I looted said coffin, and presto crown sword ring. Found a few other items there and brought them back here. There was a giant metal door there with a bunch of art carved into it that I haven¡¯t explored yet was going to go back and take a look later.¡± The elder seemingly perking up at the mention of the door ¡°DO NOT OPEN THAT DOOR!¡± he shouts ¡°that door is closed for a reason do not open it ever! Dark dwarves live on the other side of it, they have not pushed passed the door in a long time and I hope that truce holds even with the last king dead. While they are not evil per say they do not like to share, if they find you have something they want they will come and take it by force.¡± Raven blanches thinking how he had almost opened the door on a whim ¡°well guess its good I didn¡¯t open it then, however I did find something disturbing when I was there it seemed like the Kobolds of the area were trying to summon something and it either failed or worse worked, everyone in that place was killed. I even found a room with a few Kobolds that seemingly put their soul energy into a crystal, not sure what that is used for but I really did not like the feel of that room.¡± The elder nods ¡°yes our king was desperate his followers were dying from illness and war, and with the humans coming he felt he had to do something drastic, he was attempting to summon a demon and bind it to this plain and force it to follow his command, I guess it did not work.¡± Raven nods ¡°so I take it you were working with the last king, are there more of our kind near by would they be willing to join us here?¡± The elder shakes his head no ¡°sadly I¡¯m the last of our tribe, the disease took everyone who stayed and those who did not went deeper into the mountains in search of a better life with the older dragons. I¡¯ve been wandering for a while now looking at our old outposts in hopes of finding some of our kind but sadly they have all been abandoned long ago, and the few of our kind I find are usually Lesser Kobolds and incapable of speech or complex thought. No more than the work horse of our race really, sad but that''s how it is. As for me living here, for now that would suit my needs as I¡¯m far to old to hunt for myself and travel is to hard on my old body, while I wont be of much use to you I can offer some wisdom as the need arises. My name is Keel, I am a mage of sorts but with my age my power has diminished dramatically since my youth. I have some simple healing spells that I can still use, and can cast fire bolt and fire ball but not much else, from time to time I can cast some earth spells as well but as I am not well attuned to earth magic it takes time and a lot of MP for me.¡±


    Raven being happy to finally have some one to live with and talk with decides he should make the old man comfortable, offering his bed to the old man Raven gets to work making a new one for himself. Using the T-Rex hide and a few other hides laying around Raven makes himself a some what comfortable bed raised off the stone floor. Raven shows Keel around his small home showing him the mine, storage room and slime room. ¡°Oh my a Slime Mother, if it was not contained in this room you would have a nasty foe within your home, avoid hitting it with any magic as it will instantly separate into many smaller slimes, usually a slime when hit will separate into one slime per level but with a mother slime its ten times that, and looking at how large this one is, that would be hundreds of slimes if not a thousand.¡± Raven shutters at the thought and then it dawns on him ¡°ooooh crap¡­ I took a piece of the mother and threw it into a T-Rexs mouth, the Rex died and a big slime came out of it, I''m guessing the slime leveled up, and it attacked me, I hit it with a water spell and it exploded but I didn¡¯t get any EXP for the kill I''m guessing it separated into a bunch of smaller slimes and ran away? How strong are slimes should I be worried?¡± Keel thinks about it for a minute ¡°no I think you will be fine, the water likely dissolved some of them, and slimes are dumb creatures simply moving and absorbing anything that comes into their path, usually they end up stuck in caves unable to get out as they fall in holes or slip through cracks, they don¡¯t really need food so they just exists stuck forever.¡± Raven thanks Keel for the info and continues showing him around, bringing him up to the upper level with the moss crabs and water tunnel.


    Keel looks the room over ¡°its a shame your not a potion maker you could make some mana potions with this stuff, I¡¯m sure the crabs are infused with mana too so I¡¯m sure they could be used for something as well. As for this water tunnel it worries me, this is not a natural formation, see the cracks around the entrance and exit, its almost as if something forced its way through the stone, which to me screams rock worm. They are large creatures that burrow through solid stone, they hollow out areas of stone and weaken the roof of their den so if something were to step on it in the tunnels above it would fall into their den where they would then eat what ever it is. If they are traveling they have been known to cave tunnels in to trap pray waiting for their pray to weaken or let their guard down before attacking. They could be a problem if they decide to come here again, they are strong creatures and heavily armored. The best way to kill them is with magic, Acid works or explosions, they do breath so you could drown them if you can prevent them from burrowing out.¡± Raven looks at the water tunnel with worry ¡°well lets hope they don¡¯t come back I doubt we could take one with what we have currently. As for the moss should we start collecting it then if we can make potions with it? I could always try my hand at making some I guess.¡± Keel shakes his head ¡°no, no point they rot fast once removed from their source of power. But I¡¯m sure we will have use for it eventually.¡± Raven sighs, so much to do and so much he can¡¯t do he really wishes he could find more people to help out.

 Tunnel Breach

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

 The Orcs March Forever on

    Having spent several days recovering from the dungeon fight Raven feels the need to get out and explore he has noticed his own regeneration has started to heal the scars he has from the Fire Drakes breath weapon but it is slow, at this rate he will be back to normal in maybe a month. Getting dressed with some of the common clothing he found before and Stepping from his tunnel to the outside once again he finds the weather has turned for the worse snow has started to fall and the air is bitter cold which hurts on his scars, but pushing through the pain he goes for a walk to the lake to see how the water is handling the cold. As he walks he finds he can see much better now that all the tall grass is being pushed down by the snow, for now only a few inches of snow but with the way its falling it wont take long for it to build up keeping a mental map of the mountain to try and keep some what of a mental path to his tunnel just in case he continues on. Getting to the lake edge he finds that the water has not froze yet but the shore is looking a little crunchy this morning casting out his line using a frog as bait he sits down to relax for a bit of early morning fishing. A few hours go by and he finally catches his first fish a decent fish that appears to be something like a salmon, skinning it making a fire and cooking it he decides to eat it right away as hunger starts to set in. After his meal he decides to pack up and head back to his tunnel as he gets close Kemo stops him, jumping up and down and squawking at him Raven asks ¡°what''s wrong bud did Timmy fall down the well?¡± Kemo Chuffs at Raven then jumps a few more times then dashes off up a rough rocky trail up the mountain Raven decides its probably best to follow and does so. After an hour of rough trail and some rock climbing they get to a rock face over looking the valley in which Raven has called home, with a smile he looks over at Kemo ¡°yeah bud this is a nice view thanks I needed this.¡± Kemo chuffs again jumps onto Ravens leg and pushes off almost knocking him over, then Kemo seems to glare out towards the rocky hills Raven has yet to explore. Raven turns and looks towards where Kemo is staring snow still falling hazing the sight but in the distance Raven can see what appears to be bonfires, hundreds of them. ¡°Oh¡­ that''s what you wanted to show me, sorry bud. What''s going on there I wonder.¡±  Kemo hisses the direction of the fires puffing its self up to look bigger and looking to Raven. ¡°You think there''s danger there huh, your probably right, that many bonfires could mean a lot of people, lets hope its not the human camp expanding our way.¡±


    Deciding he should check it out while he can activating stealth and headed off the direction of the fires he tells Kemo to ¡°stay buddy not this time its dangerous.¡± Kemo pouts but it returns to the tunnels, Raven makes good time sliding down the trail and headed towards the fires, sticking to the mountain side as much as possible he gets closer to the visitors. Once he is within a few hundred feet of he fires he can hear talking laughing and some fighting, once he finally gets a visual of one of the people at the camp he''s speechless, the man far in front of him wears leather armor has a large axe strapped to his back and his skin is a light green, his hear in braids and from his mouth tusks protrude on either side. ¡°Is that a freaking orc? Wonder if they are good guys or bad guys here¡± Raven thinks to himself. Before he even has a chance to make himself known he feels a dagger press up on his neck and a woman''s voice from behind him says ¡°and what do you think your doing hiding like some kind of sneak thief.¡± Raven sighs raising his hands ¡°I mean no harm I simply seen the fires from the mountain so I came to investigate I had hoped you were not the humans but judging by the knife to my throat its no different?¡± the Orc woman behind Raven pulls him to his feet with a laugh ¡°that''s a good one scaly, us Orcs as bad as humans, that''s funny.¡± Raven shrugs ¡°well I was always told I was funny, why stop now right?¡± The Orc pushes him forward ¡°ok funny man lets go see the chieftain I have orders to kill humans on sight but he hasn¡¯t said anything about lizards¡­ yet¡­¡± Ravens shoulders slump and he begins walking looking at his surroundings he notices there are half a dozen Orcs in his intimidate area all looking at him, he never stood a chance.


    The Orcish woman guides Raven by the arm to a large tent made of leathers sown together inside a fire roars in a fire pit in the middle as a rather large male Orc argues with a smaller female Orc wearing a feathery head dress. ¡°Chieftain Zutar I found this lizard sneaking around our camp what would you like to do with him?¡± says the Orc woman guiding Raven by the arm. The Chieftain looks over to the pair, looks Raven up and down and chuckles ¡°now the Kobolds are coming out of the wood works too? What brings you here little dragon kin, this war is not for you and yours.¡± Raven raises a questioning eye brow ¡°war? What what?¡± all three Orcs slowly turn their heads and look at Raven like he just said the dumbest thing possible. ¡°The war with the humans, they have landed in the south in force and are pushing into our lands killing everything they find like a plague on these lands. We have already lost two villages to them and dozens of warriors, it must be answered in blood!¡± Shouts the Chieftain. Raven responds quickly with ¡°I was at the settlement in the south, or at least just outside it, I saw a large ship off loading people seemed like thousands of people I was hunted by a few of them but I managed to kill them and get away.¡± The Orcs seem to smile at that, the Chieftain nods ¡° good, good any human you managed to kill is one less we have to, this war will not end till all humans die. Do you have a force to muster perhaps a dragon you can call on for aid?¡± Raven shakes his head ¡°sadly no, I¡¯m new to the area and only just started setting up a camp, I only have a few under my command and they are not fighters, and if I¡¯m being honest I¡¯m not a fighter either, most of my fights I almost die or have to use tricks to win.¡± The Chieftain smiles ¡°play to your strengths we Orcs prefer direct combat but no sense throwing your life away uselessly if its not what your best at, anything to win the battle.¡± The Orc woman with the head dress looks at Raven questioningly ¡°your Mana seems different, out of place, what are you?¡± Ravens surprise shows on his face ¡°nail on the head huh, yeah she does that¡­ don¡¯t worry, she''s quirky but harmless, well not harmless she''s terrifying in combat but you know what I mean.¡± Raven slowly nods his head ¡° I¡¯m not from this place, I was summoned here by a god to be his chosen, Rolland summoned me and I¡¯ve only been here for a short time.¡± The woman with the head dress laughs ¡°wonderful you must be powerful then to have Rolland as your god, you should join our fight!¡± Raven shakes his head ¡°I wish I was powerful but no all I got from Rolland was a swift boot in the ass really, he hasn¡¯t shown me anything and only granted me one weak spell and a storage spell. Like I said I¡¯m not really a fighter, I¡¯m¡­ a survivalist maybe?¡±


    The Orcs ask a few questions about Rolland which Raven is unable to answer ask about his journey from the south to the middle of the island which he fills them in on even mentioning the Death god. The woman with the feather hat speaks up at the mention of the death god ¡°he is a god not to be trifled with having destroyed one of his seals he might give you favor but now you protect another one as part of your settlement he wont like that. He might send monsters and his chosen eventually to attack you depending on if he can destroy more seals or not, my guess is if he can get even more more seal its likely he will come after yours.¡± Raven nods ¡°yeah he already tried once but I managed to defend my home it was close though.¡± The Woman raises an eyebrow ¡° and you say your not a fighter, you fought off the humans a giant spider, dire wolves, and the death god. I think you under estimate yourself¡± Raven shakes his head no strongly ¡°no just lucky, I used a slime to beat the dino he was using.¡± They all chuckle and at once reply with ¡°a slime?¡± Raven blushes slightly ¡°yeah¡­ it was trying to eat me so a threw a slime into its mouth, the slime dissolved it then tried to kill me so I killed it.¡± The Chieftain strokes his chin ¡°interesting use of a monster to kill a monster. That''s not a bad idea actually, shame slimes are rare they tend to end up falling into small crevices and disappearing forever in the depths of the earth. But enough about that, we have a war to plan for, Feel free to talk with my men but if you are not here to help with the fight please stay out of the way. I trust you are not a spy and as such wont just kill you.¡± Raven nods ¡° thanks I appreciate the not killing me, that''s how I like myself¡­ not dead¡­¡± he replies nervously before he can make a bigger fool of himself the first female Orc yanks his arm and pulls him from the tent once outside she gives him a nod and walks off back to her work.


    Raven looks around the camp and finds it has well over two hundred Orc warriors all in armor and weapons ready for war, even spotting the odd what he thinks are casters far out numbered by the warriors. Walking up to an Orc that is sitting alone at a bonfire cooking a deer on a spit he looks over at Raven nods and waves to a stool by him. Raven thanks him and sits down on the stool ¡°Hi there I¡¯m Raven, I just arrived at this camp and was allowed to visit by your chieftain.¡± The orc simply nods as he cooks his food. Raven coughs and says ¡° don¡¯t suppose you could tell me something about your people, anything really I¡¯ve never met an Orc before.¡± The Orc sighs loudly ¡°Look I just want to eat my meal, if you want some ill share otherwise please leave me alone, I don¡¯t want a buddy I simply want to get this fight done so I can go back home.¡± Raven replies with ¡°oh right I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t mean to intrude.¡± Standing up to leave the Orc stops Raven. ¡°Sorry I¡¯m being rude sit, sit, share my meal and ask your questions, ill try to answer the best I can, my mind is just on the coming fight maybe a light conversation can take my mind off it.¡±


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Raven sits back down and begins ¡° where are you guys from? I have not seen Orcs before.¡± The Orc nods ¡°we live in the swamp lands north of the mountains, we were sent south by our leaders to deal with the problem south before the humans get out of hand while they fight humans in the north. It has not been going well, the humans have sent far more people than we expected to the south and their settlement is already protected by a fairly large wooden wall and its expanding every day, our scouts even have been having troubles getting eyes on these days with so many humans wandering around.¡± Raven sighs ¡°yeah I¡¯ve had a few run ins with them, ran into a hunting party that wanted to rob me, and ever since they have been hunting me. Managed to kill a few humans but they are never worth anything I don¡¯t get EXP just PK points which I have no idea what those are¡­¡± the Orc chuckles ¡°ah yes the points for killing sentient beings anything that follows the gods really are PK points you can spend those at an alter of your god in exchange you can get deity points items spells or boons, or at the assassin guild for much the same but monster races rarely have them since we can use the alters and we don¡¯t have much use for bounty contracts, if some one gets bad enough to need a bounty we just kill them.¡± Raven shrugs ¡°that doesn¡¯t really make sense though does it? Why get PK points instead of EXP?¡± The orc pokes the deer cooking with a stick and turns it responding to Raven he says ¡°I think it has to do with the gods taking over your essence I think they get it so in exchange they give people PK points in return. Helps promote conflict a little while giving the gods some power and spending little to reward some one.¡± Raven shakes his head ¡°yeah that doesn¡¯t make sense to me but I guess the gods work in mysterious ways¡­¡±


    The Orc finishes cooking the deer taking it off the spit and carving chunks off handing Raven a leg and taking another leg himself he starts to eat, Having started his meal Raven decides to wait on any more questions for now. While they eat a few shouts in the distance can be heard, slowly the noise gets louder and more and more shouts add to the sounds the Orcs start running around grabbing weapons and gear and heading towards the sound, The Orc eating with Raven jumps up ¡°time for battle little brother lets go!¡± with a shout the Orc storms off into the night turning and looking the direction the Orc ran off to a heavy snow storm can be seen coming in and night has fallen upon the lands. Raven gets up and starts moving the direction of the commotion in no real hurry, watching as the Orcs run around when a light flashes from the direction of the sounds and combat can be heard. A shout sounds out from the fighting front ¡°Push them back! Don¡¯t you dare dying your tribe needs you!¡± Getting to the battle Raven can see roughly two hundred Orcs fighting roughly the same amount of humans, however the humans are on Dire Wolves and seem to be better armed. Raven does notice however that they have no ranged units and no casters where as the Orcs have many ranged units and a few casters. Drawing his bow and loading a fire arrow Raven finds a rider in the back and fires, striking the man in the thigh the arrow explodes in a ball of fire engulfing the rider and wolf the human in full plate screams in agony as the wolf bucks him off to the ground running off while on fire, Another arrow from an Orc strikes the man in the neck and he goes limp dropping dead.


    A flash of fire explodes in the middle of a few of the human riders fire spreading across the battle field their wolves seemingly afraid of the fire panic a few running off with their riders still on them and a few bucking their riders off as the riders fall the warrior Orcs charge up and end them with a strike from their war Axes and war hammers. A horn sounds from the back of the humans line and the humans begin their retreat. The Orcs shout in victory celebrating as the humans flee, a few arrows and spells chase after the fleeing humans but only finding one human and killing them. As the humans disappear from site a red glow appears from their direction, shortly after the red glows fly into the air and start getting bigger and bigger with a howl of wind the glowing orbs impact the ground around the Orcs an explosion of fire sends several Orcs flying through the air killing many instantly and wounding dozens. The panic in the Orcs number is evident as they start collecting their wounded and retreating, Another red glow growing in the distance quickly flying through the air it slams into the ground near Raven exploding and bathing him in fire the impact throwing him several feet, Raven rolls to his side coughing holding his side as pain shoots up and down his body, looking down he finds a branch sticking out of his lower left side, Raven stands coughing some more looking around, finding the Orc he shared a meal with beside him burned badly and very dead, Raven draws his sword and uses its ability on the fallen Orc unsure if it will work as he is not a follower of his. The Orcs body shakes violently for a moment then begins to stand, with a raspy groan the Orc stands picking up his axe once more the Orc looks at Raven for a second then charges towards where the red glows have been coming from.


    Raven retreats with the other Orcs falling back to the camp to regroup and treat their wounds, looking around the Orcs seem to have lost roughly fifty warriors but Raven is unsure how many humans have died in the fight. As the Orcs regroup the howl of the wolves can be heard coming closer the Orcs reform their line and prepare for battle once again, Raven joining the line as he is fairly sure trying to run at this point would be death. The humans come charging through the smoke of the last battle in full charge towards the Orcs once more, as they come into sight the few spell casters the Orcs have blast the human line with spells, a few fire balls fly through the air slamming into the charging humans killing a couple, a black mist spreads in front of the charging humans, as they enter the mist the wolves start frothing from the mouth a few of them dropping dead instantly, as the wolves fall dropping their riders into the mist a couple of the fallen humans drop to their knees holding their throats as they slowly die. The remaining humans clash into the front line of the Orcs, blood from both sides flies through the air, as screams of pain explode through the night, A shout from from the Orc camp echoes throughout the night almost rupturing Ravens ears at the sudden loud noise and a feeling of dread washes over the battlefield, a moment later some of the fallen humans and Orcs bodies start to shake then begin standing. The humans who were previously winning the fight are instantly on the back foot as the dead charge the human line from behind, a second horn sounds and the humans push through the line of dead and begin  their retreat, as they begin the retreat a red glow slams into the ground between the dead and the humans bathing them both in fire, Screams of pain sound out from the battle field as the humans try to run many humans knocked off their mounts from the blast the Orcs pushed forward massacring what few humans are left. An explosion sounds through the night from where the red glows have been coming from, one explosion leads to another and another then a large mushroom cloud of smoke and fire erupts from the blasts a shock wave from the blast battering into Raven. Rocks and burning debris begin raining from the sky the pained moans of the fallen humans can be heard scattered about as the undead stumble around ending the wounded.


    As the smoke clears the Orcs regroup roughly seventy Orcs in total lay dead or stand as undead, along with the the humans Raven counts fifty undead humans and around one hundred dead laying on the ground. With a shout from the Orc with the feathered hat the undead charge the direction of the fleeing humans, the rest of the Orcs begin collecting the dead that remain and begin burying them. The Chieftain walks up to Raven ¡°you did well little one, you helped us fight off the human scourge when you didn¡¯t have to we appreciate the help. I seen you raise a undead warrior like our shaman here, haven¡¯t seen to many with that ability.¡± Raven shakes his head ¡°I don¡¯t have the spell its an ability on my gear is all, I didn¡¯t even give him an order he went off on his own, I¡¯m guessing hes the one who blew up their siege equipment, doubt he survived that blast though. He was a good man shared a meal with me just before the fight and even answered some of my questions.¡± The chieftain nods his head ¡°I¡¯m sure he knew what was needed of him and decided to get it done while he had the chance. Our undead will chase what is left of the humans down and kill them then march on the human settlement, they wont achieve much verses the settlement but it might keep them back for a while, they will lose their life either way shortly so may as well do some good while they can. Maybe they will catch a few of the bastards flat footed and get a few kills.¡± Raven frowns ¡°I¡¯m not a fan of the idea of sending mindless undead to fight unknown humans in the distance, what if they come upon a child or an innocent, they will still kill them right?¡± The Chieftain nods ¡°yes any human they will kill, a child Is just a human not mature enough to fight us yet, killing them early prevents them from killing us later. I know it sounds rough and uncaring but we have been at war with them for hundreds of years it wont end till one of our races is ended for good.¡± Raven Sighs ¡°I do get it but I can¡¯t be a part of senseless massacre, I will protect me and mine but I won¡¯t go out of my way looking for a fight.¡± The Chief chuckles ¡°I get it, I do. Thank you for the help¡± The chief goes back to looking after his men.

 Death echoes

    Raven decides he should head home before another human raiding party comes, eying the gear the humans wear as the Orcs pile supplies from the dead he decides its best not to ask he had very little to do with this fight. As he walks home Kemo comes running up beside him, seems like the Dino was watching the events and came to walk home with Raven ¡°Kemo I told you to go home, but its good to see you¡­ I think we are going to need to build some defenses on our home and soon¡­ the humans are close.¡± Kemo bobs its head as it walks and Raven laughs.


    Getting home Raven lets Keel know what has happened and he agrees defenses are going to be needed on the settlement. ¡°For now I will throw a hide over the entrance and dye it with some crushed stone and tree sap. It should help with hiding the cave for now at least, but I would invest in some traps and doors.¡± Raven agrees and they start work on covering the tunnels entrance. Working on some trip wire traps Raven hoists a large log up where the slime caved out some of the stone building a large swinging log trap attached to a trip wire. Raven also has the miners mine out the area where the slime exploded mining down making a pit, using planks to cross chipped away from felled trees attaching a rope to better help pull it back if need be, making a sort of draw bridge that can be retracted leaving a large and deep pit, Next Raven asks the Kobolds to try and make some stone bowls the larger carrying capacity the better. Raven gets the Kobolds to use the stone bowls to transport small parts of the slime filling the pit at the entrance half way, it takes several hours but there isn¡¯t much else for them to do. Raven also builds a few simple wooden spike traps placing them in the tunnels every so often, anything and everything to help defend his home.


    Raven then tasks the Kobolds with building a false door in the dungeon room to hide it, making it a sort of panic room if anything were to happen. Having some spears made with stone points placing them around the area of the draw bridge for weapons and a barrel full of arrows and large stones, anything and everything to help defend. Collecting a large amount of fire wood Raven asks the Kobolds to mine a small storage room to hold the wood in the upper level Raven hopes he wont have to set the top floor on fire but seeing the amount of humans and the viscousness they showed in their attack Raven doesn¡¯t want to chance anything. Raven and the Kobolds spend several days building up defenses, making wooden walls throughout the tunnels where they could take cover from arrows and defend with spears and arrows, getting torches ready, making arrows with stone heads, even making a pull trap that will cave in a part of the tunnel with rubble. A few days in while Raven works Kemo comes running up to Raven jumping and making strange sounds then turns and runs out of the tunnel in a hurry, Raven decides it¡¯s best to check what Kemo is panicking about. Stepping outside the tunnels Raven finds the suns bright in the sky most of the snow melted and green grass and rock showing through, Kemo a bit away from the tunnel looks towards the lake Ravens eyes follow Kemos and Raven finds a camp on the far side of the lake very visible from his home, a hundred small tents and many small camp fires, On the tents there are purple and white symbols painted on the side of the tents and small green beings can be seen moving around the camp. The first thought Raven has is ¡°oh more Orcs thats strange must be their backup¡± but that thought quickly falls away as a small group of the green people pop out of the forest across from his tunnel, the size of ten year old humans but hunched and green with little to no clothing on they crawl around some on all fours and others walking, the ones crawling sniff the ground when one finally sees Raven and Kemo, Pointing their direction and shouting in a strange language the small group looks up and they all seem to grin staring at Raven. One of the creatures quickly runs off towards the camp while the others, Six of them start walking towards Raven drawing daggers and chittering to one another. Raven decides its time to fall back to his tunnel telling Kemo to fall back for now, as they fall back to the tunnel the creatures start to charge up to his tunnel. Raven gets inside and to the first barricade turning around and drawing is bow knocking a fire arrow and waiting, The first creature charges into the tunnel sees Raven and screams as it charges at him, Raven looses an arrow, the arrow strikes the creature between the eyes and its head explodes in a ball of fire bits of burning flesh splashes across the walls and roof. ¡°Congratulations you have killed a level three Goblin hunter but gain no experience.¡±


    Raven loads another arrow waiting for the apparent goblins to continue their attack but the first one dying in such a fashion seems to have scared them off for the time being. Raven falls back deeper into his tunnel coming to his sleeping room he decides to build the fire up next to the draw bridge, retracting the bridge and arming the Kobolds with the spears, Keel prepares to cast a few spells and Kemo sits on Ravens bed shaking. An hour goes by and Raven starts to think they have given up when he hears it, War drums and horns sounding outside the tunnel. Raven lights his torches in his room piling wood next to the draw bridge they brace for a fight, within minutes the first goblin comes charging in carrying nothing but a old rusty dagger it tries to jump the pit falling short it slams into the rock face and slides down into the pit with the slime, as soon as it enters the slimes body it tries to scream filling its insides with the slime almost instantly dying. One after another they seem to blindly jump into the pit and die almost instantly, after the tenth one dies they seemingly wise up slowing down stopping at the pit and glaring at Raven. Keel takes this chance to send a fire ball down the tunnel, with a bang several goblins die and several more go running on fire fleeing the tunnels screaming. It takes a few minutes but the persistent creatures come back yet again this time the next group seems a bit better equipped some of them wearing leather armor and welding bows they begin raining arrows through the tunnel, arrows that miss bounce around the tunnel deflecting everywhere till they strike something softer be it flesh or wood. Raven orders the Kobolds to retreat to the mining tunnel tossing a torch into the pile of wood setting fire to the stored bridge and filling the room with thick smoke.


    Retreating to the mining tunnel Raven prepares for a fight many fortifications are built through out the sandy room all the Lesser Kobolds are armed with crude bows and spears. As they sit there waiting they can hear screams as goblins die up top from traps fire smoke and the slime, when finally a lone goblin comes running down the tunnel into the mining pit, as it enters the room all the Kobolds including Raven fire arrows at the goblin dropping it instantly. A moment later a couple more come charging into the room arrows fly and they drop to the ground dead this happens a few more times killing a dozen goblins in a few moments. After that the goblins learn their mistake and a few come down the tunnel slow pushing wood barricades in front of them peaking over them and looking to Ravens small group they smile with sharp teeth. The Kobolds fire a few arrows each but Raven puts a stop to that quickly as ammo is limited, Raven fires a fire arrow but it does little damage to the wood structure setting it on fire but the slow burn of the wood offers little hope to destroy the cover in any useable time. As they sit there staring at the goblins a small group charge out from the burning cover and are instantly hit with arrows they drop one makes it to Ravens cover but is dropped with a spear sticking into its throat.


    As they pick off another two dozen goblins as they run into the room just to die to arrows and spears a horn sounds off inside the upper tunnel, and with that a hundred voices scream out and they can be heard charging down the tunnel as the first goblin can be seen charging into the room Raven pulls a rope at his feet triggering a trap dropping rubble from the roof onto the charging goblins crushing several. The dust clears and goblins are already climbing over the rubble loosing arrows as they move, as the Kobolds return fire from behind cover but the number of goblins climbing the rubble just keeps climbing, Raven orders the retreat sending the Kobolds to the dungeon room as Raven and Keel prepare to fall back as well, A horn sounds and several goblins come charging over the rubble wearing what appears to be chain mail holding small round steel shields and short swords, Raven looks to Keel and gives him a nod and with that Keel casts a fireball blasting the rubble the goblins stand on and without looking back they both flee to the dungeon ordering the Kobolds through the dungeon door.


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    As they enter the dungeon Raven quickly orders his men to follow as he starts running down the tunnel ignoring the traps that he can and avoiding the Gotchas that he can making it to the Drakes Den quickly, waiting to enter Raven awaits the goblins to catch up. He can hear them entering the dungeon when a voice enters his mind ¡°Dungeon capacity limit reached, creating separate instance for additional challengers. Current limit fifty challengers. Difficulty modified based on average level of challengers.¡± ¡°Ugh 38 goblins, this is going to suck.¡± Raven says with a frown. He hears a Goblin scream and hear a few shouts and arrows being fired but after a few minutes can hear the goblins walking down the tunnel. The Kobolds seem scared but ready their arrows. A group of ten goblins come charging at Ravens group with shields and swords wearing chain mail, Keel smiles and fires off a fire ball striking the center of the group, in a explosion of fire the goblins scream and before the fire even clears the Kobolds loose their arrows into the group dropping all ten of them.


    Raven orders his group into the boss room ¡°stay close to the walls and make your way to the other door, get ready this is going to be rough, stay low and stay quiet.¡± The Kobolds nod and rush into the room Keel follows them, Raven looks down the tunnel and sees a Goblin female wearing a human skull as a helmet holding a staff with bones and gems decorating the gnarled wooden stick, Raven decides to send a fire bolt her way but the bolt slams into a shield surrounding the female Goblin, She smiles at Raven as he turns and runs into the boss room.


    Raven instantly spots the Drake on the roof but it does not seem to move, making it to the door on the other side he tries opening it but its locked. Turning and facing the other door way he finds the other twenty eight goblins walking into the room, the female and a larger male wearing plate armor holding a large shield and a long sword. There are ten with bows and leather armor and sixteen with simple daggers it seems the forward guard were the best armed and they died at the start. The goblins all sneer at Raven and his group appearing to have the upper hand at last trapping them in the dungeon the goblins advance into the center of the room, as soon as they make it to the center the door behind them closes and Raven smiles. ¡°Fifty enter twelve may leave!¡± the dagger equipped goblins panic looking back at the closed door being the once farthest forward they are the ones that get hit first, Fire rains from the roof bathing the sixteen goblins in red hot fire in a screech the goblins all drop dead. The goblin archers look up in horror spotting the drake, they take aim and fire the arrows striking the drake but the majority of the arrows bouncing off. The drake drops from the roof directly onto the archers flattening two with its body biting one in half and smacking another goblin with its claws tossing it against the wall in a splat the drake stands on its hind legs and roars in the face of the goblins. The last six archer goblins run behind the leaders and continue firing arrows at the drake seemingly having forgotten about Raven and his group the Plate covered Goblin charges the drake slashing at it and the female Goblin starts casting a spell, a few moments of the plate goblin fighting the drake go by when the spell finishes, a dark purple mist explodes out from the female goblin and as the mist touches the dead goblins their bodies start to shake and they start to stand even the charred corpses stand wielding their daggers.


    The sixteen charred goblins jump onto the drake stabbing at it and the archers continue to pelt it with arrows the plate goblin slashing at the drake, The drake takes a gasp of air and blasts fire at the female goblin the fire hitting her shield, As the fire stops the female goblin drops to a knee still alive but visibly exhausted, Raven knows that look her MP must be almost empty. Deciding to take advantage of the situation Raven looses an arrow striking the female goblin as she stands there with an arrow sticking out of her chest she looks down grins and goes to pull the arrow out as she lays her hands on the shaft she freezes as a shocked expression crosses her face then the arrow explodes in fire killing the caster instantly her body launched from the fire slamming into the door with a limp plop. The goblin in plate looks back at the corpse of the caster and screams in anger, its eyes glow red and its arms seem to grow some and the armor creeks with strain. The goblin looks over to Raven with rage in its eyes but the drake sits between them, it charges at the drake slicing one of its wings clean off, the drake swings its tail at the goblin as it rushes past but it misses. The Goblin charges directly at Raven with murder in its eyes as it comes running up the Kobolds all fire their arrows striking it in several spots it stumbles slightly but continues its charge. Raven draws his sword and meets the Goblin swinging high the goblin easily parries the attack swinging its own sword striking Raven in the gut with a slash.


    Raven holds his stomach as blood runs down his clothing looking to the drake it seems to be occupied fighting the left over goblins but it does seem to be making quick work of them, Raven decides to draw the plate goblin back towards the drake, Running towards the drake the goblin gives chase, surprisingly quick for some one in full plate. As Raven runs a few arrows whip by as his Kobolds continue to pelt the goblins and drake with arrows, Raven ducks a claw from the drake sliding on the ground hitting a goblin with a quick cast of vampiric touch killing the goblin instantly and healing his gut wound slightly. As Raven stands a fire ball strikes the drake on its side killing several goblins and doing some damage to the drake, as Raven admires the fire the plate goblin swings its sword at Ravens head, he ducks it and kicks the goblin in the stomach pushing it back, and thrusting his sword he stabs the goblin in the arm pit of its left arm causing it to drop its shield, with a loud clank the shield hits the floor and the goblin snarls in pain. It charges Raven again this time with a double handed stabbing motion with the sword Raven side steps, touching the goblin on its shoulder draining it with Vamperic touch. The goblin stumbles coughs up a large amount of black bile and drops to a knee, it takes its helmet off looking at Raven and smiling it reaches into a pouch it has on its belt pulling a orange vile from it popping the top off the glass vile it downs the contents as it laughs. Raven takes a step back looking at the goblin questioningly, the Goblins wounds start to close with light shining from the wounds Raven looks to the drake seeing it finish the last goblin it was fighting he decides the best thing to do is to get these two to fight and pick off the last survivor.


    Raven charges towards the drake once again the plate goblin hot on his heals as its wounds seem to have all closed, Raven swipes his hand across the bottom of the drake as he runs by the drake crunching down on the last goblin it was fighting before the spell takes hold hitting it with vamperic touch black ooze pouring from the drakes mouth. The goblin charges at Raven again but the drake bites down on the goblins arm throwing it across the room whipping its tail it smacks Raven in the chest launching him the opposite way as the goblin, with a groan Raven stands coughing some blood up and looking to the drake, it is fighting the goblin with a blast of fire it starts cooking the goblin in plate, Raven loads an arrow and fires it at the drake hitting it in the back of the head, the arrow bouncing off but cutting off the fire breath it whips around and glares at Raven. Firing another arrow at it the arrow finding a soft spot on its throat, the drake growls and breaths in, Raven charges at the drake in hopes to dive under it again to avoid the breath, fire blasts Raven in the face as he slides taking the breath directly for a brief second, skidding to a stop under the drake Raven reaches out with Vamperic Touch draining what he can from the drake to heal his wounds, The drake screeches loudly and tries to jump away only managing to get a few feet away before collapsing to the ground black bile pooling around it. ¡°You have killed a level ten drake and gained 150 EXP.¡±


    Raven stands fully healed but his skin still stinging looking towards the goblin in plate he sees it standing and glaring at him. Several arrows ping off its armor and it looks over at the Kobolds with anger in its eyes, keel strikes the goblin with a fire bolt but it does little and Keel seems to be struggling his MP must be low. Raven charges the goblin redrawing his sword and shouting to get its attention he rushes the goblin. Both Raven and the goblin clash their swords together grunting and snarling at one another, Raven kicks at the goblins legs and the goblin bites at Ravens arms but they are in a stale mate. Raven jumps back forcing the goblin to stumble forward as it does Raven reaches out and uses Vamperic touch once more draining the goblin of some life force, the goblin face plants onto the stone floor Raven stabs his sword down as hard as he can into the back of the goblin, it screams and struggles but slowly it starts to weaken and die. ¡°You have killed a level ten Goblin Chieftain, you gain 150 EXP¡± ¡°congratulations you are now level 7.¡± Quickly spending a point on intelligence Raven increases his stat to 11.

 Clean up

    Looking around the dungeon Raven starts to collect what gear he can find, including the goblin shaman staff, the goblin plate and dungeon completion award ¡°you have completed the Tunnels of Terror and are awarded two potions of healing two potions of mana two potions of fire resistance and a scroll of far walker and one drake heart.¡± Checking the other goblins gear it seems to have been mostly destroyed the daggers not worth anything and all the leather armor and bows are now just ash, looking over to his people he sighs in relief as no one in his group seems to have been hurt. Deciding its time to check the damage to his home he gathers his group and exits the dungeon.


    With a flash of light Raven and his group appear back in his cave, looking around he finds goblins still within looting destroying and other wise making a mess of the place,  as they step out from the room they count twelve goblins who pause in stunned silence as they step out, Raven gives the order and arrows begin flying through the room as the arrows strike their targets the goblins begin to scream and scatter but are far to slow to act and are quickly killed. Raven orders the group to secure the lower section of the tunnel while Keel and himself head up to face anything left up there, heading up the tunnel Raven can hear goblins screaming and fighting one another.


    Coming to his sleeping chamber he finds three goblins fighting over what remains of his bed shredding it to pieces as they try pulling it from one another. Raven sighs loudly as he sees this drawing the attention of the goblins but before they can react Raven fires a fire bolt in the face of the closest one blowing his head clean off his shoulders with a wet splat the remains splash the wall sizzling as it drips down. ¡°You have killed a level one goblin gaining no EXP¡± The last two scream and go to run out the tunnel but keel hits both of them with a small fire ball stopping them in place as they scream on fire, Raven walks up to each of them with a vamperic touch they begin to melt. Raven tells Keel, ¡°stay here and cover the entrance I¡¯m going up to clear the moss room hopefully they haven¡¯t done much damage there yet. Keel nods to Raven and moves closer to the exit to get some fresh air, the air very much smelling of burning flesh and rot.


    Raven enters the moss room on the top of his tunnel and there he finds a group of five goblins trashing the place, killing the crabs that wander about and ripping up moss and throwing it around. Raven scowls loading a fire arrow into his bow and firing it at the farthest goblin striking it in the chest and with a bang fire erupts from the arrow and sends the goblin flying the fire catching two other goblins on fire. ¡°You have killed three level one goblins and gain no EXP¡± Raven scowls even harder at the notice there has to be an easier way to get EXP there just has to be. The last two goblins turn and charge at Raven with their daggers drawn, as they close in Raven draws his sword and swings it early one goblin ducks under the swing but one takes the swing in the neck freeing its head from its shoulders. ¡°You have killed a level one goblin and gain no EXP¡± the last goblin stabs out with its dagger but Raven simply kicks the goblin in the stomach, it falls to the ground holding its stomach and vomiting on Ravens feet. Raven looks down at it with disgust casting a fire bolt point blank into the goblins face as the goblin explodes in a hot mess Raven regrets adding extra points of MP to the spell. Raven looks over the damage, over half the mass was up rooted and several but not all the crabs were killed, Angry Raven stomps back down to Keel, he finds him hanging his head out the cave looking around the outside. ¡°See anything out there Keel?¡± Raven asks him, but Keel shakes his head ¡°nothing no movement what so ever out there its eerie after all that has happened. I wonder if any of the goblin groups that followed us into the dungeon will be able to complete it and exit?¡± Raven chuckles ¡°I seriously doubt that, they are not organized enough and even then their strongest units I feel were in with us and they were not that much trouble the drake will wipe all the groups. What happens  to the dungeon after its killed so many though?¡± Keel strokes at his chin in thought ¡°well in theory it will grow, now having gained a fair amount of its own kind of EXP it will likely evolve making the dungeon either bigger with more mobs or harder leveling everything within up. As long as its not to strong we should be fine, but if it were to level up to much and we couldn¡¯t clear it that could be a problem as then creatures could start coming out of it. And with the goblins dying in there it should now be able to spawn them within, we will have to make sure we clear it regularly.¡±


    Raven looks to the mess of a home goblin bodies everywhere blood gore and filth Raven feels a bit sad to see his home in such a state, going back down the tunnel to his other group he orders them to begin moving the bodies to the slime room any gear is to be piled in the store room and all the mess to be cleaned and damage repaired, move the rubble outside the tunnel and begin remaking some defenses just in case, The lesser Kobolds get right to work dragging corpses and moving stones. Raven heads back up telling Keel ¡°wait here and cover the tunnel I¡¯m going to head out to their camp and see if there are any left there, hopefully we got the majority of them, but it¡¯s better to be safe than sorry.¡± Keel nods in agreement and Raven heads out the tunnel into the dark night.


    Raven follows the tracks of the goblins in the snow all the way back to the camp across the lake from his home he can still see some camp fires burning and some movement within the camp, Raven activates stealth and moves in making it all the way into the camp hiding among the tents he sees several smaller goblins running around along with a few goblins in leather armor with short swords, even a few with bows, In total he notices about twenty more goblins armed and maybe thirty of what he thinks are children. The Armed goblins are gathered around the central fire and appear to be arguing with one another but Raven does not understand their language its mostly screeching grunting and biting the air. Raven moves tent to tent looking within to see if there is anything worth his time here most of the tents appear to be rough sleeping areas one larger tent holds weapons of crude make not worth the iron they are made out of, rusted chipped and cracked these weapons would be a hazard to the user more so than the person you try using them on.


    Raven comes up to the tent next to the main fire, the largest tent in the camp and finds only two beds within, better made than the grass pile beds in the other tents these ones are made of leathers and furs piled next to one another and in the far side of the tent there is an iron cage with a lock on the door, within appears to be five elven women who appear to be all very pregnant the hollow look in their eyes tells all the story Raven wants to know anger growing Raven turns back towards the bonfire and the goblins around the fire, loading a fire arrow he fires from within the tent into the fire in the middle of the group with a flash the fire explodes with even more flame two goblins standing to close are engulfed and drop to the ground dead before they even knew what hit them. ¡°You have killed two level five goblin warrior and gain no EXP¡± the goblins all screech at the fire looking around confused but have yet to notice Raven, taking the time to channel some MP he casts create water while holding the shamans staff forming a water ball above the fire the ball grows and grows only once it is the size of a small car does one of the goblins look up and notice it in the night air shining from the fire, the goblin points up and yells drawing the attention of all the goblins. Raven decides now is the perfect time having pumped ten MP into it dropping on to the fire and goblins surrounding it, Instantly the dark night over takes the camp the fire instantly going out and shooting hot steam from the fire covering the area in a burning fog for a short time, the goblins scream in pain as the steam burns them, Raven uses this time to charge out with his sword running to the screams of pain he begins to pick them off one by one. The cold winter air slowly freezing the water and generating even more fog the soaking wet goblins begin to feel the cold night air as they scramble trying to figure out what has happened. ¡°You have killed five level six goblin warriors and gained 150 EXP¡± Raven makes short work of the few goblins he finds but as they realize they are under attack they go quiet, the last two goblins with bows begin firing arrows towards any sounds as they begin grouping together in front of the goblin chiefs tent. Raven takes cover in a small tent, putting his sword away he draws his bow once more loading another fire arrow and waiting for a clear line of sight to make the shot, the fog so thick in this area that visibility has been lowered to only a few feet.


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    Fourteen Goblins stand on guard in front of the chief tent trying to stay close together to cover one another, two with bows in the back and the other twelve with a mix of axes daggers swords and three with broken wooden shields. Raven runs from the tent he was in firing an arrow and diving behind another, the arrow striking a wood shield then exploding in fire the fire only hurting the goblin with the shield it panics and starts waving its shield around as his armor burns, Raven lines up another shot on the same goblin striking it in he groin, a bit lower than where he had aimed for. The goblin shrieks in pain dropping to its knees then the arrow explodes in fire this time striking the other two with shields and even catching one of the archers in the chaos Raven charges up stabbing one of the unhurt goblins in the face with his sword, reaching out he hits another with vamperic drain dropping it as well, pulling the sword from the face of the one goblin Raven swings his sword at another hitting it across the chest, then swipes at the feet of the burning goblins with his tail then begins to run for cover. ¡°You have killed four level 6 goblin warriors and gained 100 exp¡± Raven smirks as he runs for cover happy he is finally gaining some EXP when he feels an arrow strike him in the base of his tail Raven howls in pain as he tumbles to the ground, scrabbling for cover another arrow hits the ground near where he fell.


    Ten goblins remain two injured from the fire arrow and now shield-less, Raven feeling the arrow in his rear pulls it out, as he does he downs a healing potion and a mana potion, bringing his HP to full and MP to half. Raven peaks back at the tent and he scowls, the fog has finally faded away and the goblins are looking directly at his hiding spot, the last archer with an arrow loaded and waiting, Raven decides he needs a distraction loading yet another fire arrow he fires it at one of the sleeping tents off to his right setting it ablaze, doing the same to a tent to his left the camp is lit ablaze as the tents start to catch fire. The fire begins to spread quickly, the goblins lower their guards for a split second as they look at the burning camp unsure if they should fight the fires or fight the intruder, in that second of hesitation Raven fires another fire arrow in the center of the group the fire catching three goblins lighting them on fire, they scream and run from the fire but quickly drop to the ground dead. ¡°You have killed three level six goblin warriors and gain 75 EXP¡± ¡°congratulations you are now level 8¡± putting the stat point into intelligence quickly then firing yet another arrow into the group. Another splash of fire but this time only killing two goblins ¡°you have killed two level 6 goblin warriors and gain no EXP¡± Raven grunts as the last five charge directly at him, Raven draws his sword and readies himself for the fight.


    Five goblins snarl as they charge Raven, Raven braces with sword in hand ready for the fight when he hears a familiar sound, Kemo squawks as it jumps from behind a goblin dragging it to the ground and savaging it with its claws, the goblins turn to the new threat ready to attack when Raven dashes forward running his sword through one goblins face and blasting another with a fire bolt in the chest ¡°you have killed one goblin warrior level 6 and gain no exp¡± Raven growls even louder as he fires another fire bolt into the goblin again this time  dropping it. ¡°You have killed a level six goblin warrior and gained no EXP¡± Kemo rips the throat out of the goblin its fighting and the goblin stops moving. The last two goblins glare at Raven and Kemo as Raven sneers at them ¡°end of the road you fucking monsters time to die.¡± The goblins scream and charge Raven both, Swinging his sword a goblin loses its head and the second jabs its rusty dagger at Raven just nicking his side Raven grunts punches the goblin in the face and activates Vamperic drain killing it. ¡°You have killed two level six Goblin warriors and gained no EXP¡±


    Raven looks over the camp as it burns noticing the fire has spread to the chief tent Raven rushes in running to the cage and casting Unlock Basic Lock the lock clicks and drops to the floor, Raven pulls the cage open and starts to gather the women who seem to walk like zombies no light in their eyes and unable to process what is happening around them, herding them outside the tent just in time as it collapses in a burning pile Raven decides its probably best to get them to his camp they wont survive out here. Looking back at the camp as he leaves it he can see the goblin children running around trying to put out the fires with their hands and feet, Raven shakes his head and heads home. It takes several hours to get them to his tunnel as they don¡¯t seem to be able to do anything themselves but stand and walk if pushed, arriving Keel stands outside the tunnel seeing Raven he waves then sees the women with him and frowns. ¡°Raven I get you want to save these women but you do realize what has happened to them right? They might be better off dying, what has been done to them will haunt them forever.¡± Raven nods ¡°I¡¯m hoping we can help them, I¡¯m not sure how just yet but I cant just kill them, that''s not right they deserve at least a chance right?¡± Keel nods ¡° I do get it, but not only are they traumatize but likely carry Goblin spawn within their wombs, those will have to be dealt with and soon, not only that but they are Elves, they are generally spell casters and in general not friendly to our people, they see us as monsters to be hunted and killed.¡± Raven sighs ¡°I¡¯m sure this will not be easy but we have to do something, I¡¯m no bleeding heart but at the same time how could I leave them to die especially after what has happened to them, do they not deserve at least a chance to recover.¡± Keel sighs and helps the women into the tunnel, looking to Raven ¡°this also means there are more mouths to feed and the goblins have destroyed out stock piles, we also will need bedding for them as well as clothing and medicine and soon.¡± Raven nods ¡°I know, I know, I will work on that tomorrow, but for now we need sleep, to much has happened and I¡¯m dead on my feet.¡±


    Raven enters his home to find it still filthy the upper area has yet to be cleaned, so deciding its best to move to the sandy cavern they move everyone down, getting to the iron mine they find the goblin bodies are all gone and a small pile of swords leather armor and a couple bows and a few arrows are stacked in the center of the room most of the rock rubble has been removed as well, Raven has the women sit down in the sand for now to rest while he tries to get some rest, they will need help soon but for now sleep is what Raven needs before he can even think of helping anyone. Gaining levels seems to take a fair bit of energy and having gained two in one day Raven is feeling like he has been up for a week, unable to keep his eyes open any longer Raven falls asleep in the sand, his workers quietly working around him cleaning the area.


    Ravens eyes open abruptly some hours later to screaming women, Raven looks over and instantly can tell all ten of the women are giving birth to their children here and now, Raven runs over to help any way he can as Keel assists as well, the Lesser Kobolds gather around curious as to what is happening. As the first child is birthed Keel raises it up, a Goblin male with its sharp teeth and beady eyes, Raven scowls at it ¡°what do we do with these? I don¡¯t really want to kill a child¡­¡± Keel nods his head ¡°I shall take care of it. We cannot let them live as they will simply try and kill us, we cant release them to the wild as they would either die anyways or again regrow their tribe and try to kill us again.¡± Raven nods sadly, Keel begins to place the new born goblins side by side in the sand each woman gives birth to many of the monster by the end over thirty newly born goblins sit in the cave making all sorts of noises.


    Keel gathers them all up in a sack and heads to the slime room, Raven can feel himself starting to feel sick to his stomach but turns his back to the room and focuses on helping the women. A few minutes go by and Keel comes back and kneels next to Raven helping the women casting his healing spell as much as he can to help. Raven helps the women with clean clothing offering up the kobold clothing he found a while back, while small fitting on them it will have to do for now, Raven asks one of the Kobolds to modify the cloths so they fit them more comfortably and it gets to work with what it has. Raven also assists the women with bathing as they are covered in awful and blood, using his create water spell on each of the women a few times helping them get clean none of them seem to react, Raven and Keel help them dress, Raven doing his best not to look as he helps. After they are clean and dressed Raven looks them over, all ten are absolutely gorgeous elven women, long golden blond hair pointed ears blue eyes and are thin, skin pale white and almost seems to slightly glow like the glow of moon light. Raven feels anger boil up again thinking of what has happened to these poor women ¡°you have nothing to fear anymore, we are here for you and will help you get back to feeling like yourselves, we will not harm you and you are free to leave any time. I hope that some day we can help you over come the hardships you have faced and maybe in time recover from your trauma.¡± None of the women make any movement or even blink just staring off in the distance with blank faces the thousand yard stare.

 Ripples in the depths

    Raven leaves the elven women in the mining cave and heads back to the upper room, looking at the crystal he finds the power of the crystal down drastically power currently at 15/100, trying to think why it might have gone down so much the only thing he can think of is having so many goblins in his cave must have drained it, or perhaps the goblins some how drained the crystal. Either way he is in desperate need of magic items to sacrifice, food, clothing and gear. Deciding it¡¯s time for another adventure in hopes of finding supplies he gives Kemo an order to go hunting, as well as the other Kobolds in hopes to find supplies.


    Raven heads down to the lake looking for new caves to explore and quickly comes up on a few, two simple dens currently empty but filled with old bones. The third cave Raven comes to seems promising, lots of foot prints in and out of the cave bones discarded along the caves path. Raven enters the cave with a shrug, only one way to find what he needs and that''s to push on.


    Following the tunnel for a few minutes it slowly starts opening up from just big enough to walk side ways to get deeper to being able to walk normally to eventually two people side by side could walk together, after a few more minutes Raven hears grunts and shouts from ahead and the glow of a fire reflecting off the stone walls. Raven activates his stealth skill and moves forward as silently as possible.


    Looking around a quick bend in the tunnel Raven peers into a room a fair sized room roughly the same size as his mine in the middle of the room is a small fire, around the fire ten goblins push and shove one another arguing with one another over what little food they still have. Ravens eye catches the meat they fight over, a foot of something humanoid, Looking around the room Raven finds cages pushed to the far side of the room within there lays a few elves ripped apart non still alive ten bodies of elven women lay strewn along the back wall parts mixing with one another.


    Raven feels the anger growing within as he draws his bow, taking aim and waiting once one goblin gets pushed Raven looses an arrow striking it in the head as It falls from the push the arrow pieces its head stopping it from standing again ¡°you have killed Goblin Level one and gain no experience¡±. Now stand nine goblins oblivious of their fallen friend they continue fighting one another. One goblin walks towards the cages with a meat cleaver as it get close Raven looses another arrow striking this goblin in the chest it wheezes loudly as it drops and dies, none of the goblins seem to have noticed yet. ¡°You have killed a Goblin Warrior level five and gain no experience¡±. Now stand eight goblins standing around a fire fighting over their elven meat when of of the goblins kick the downed goblin by the fire and grunts something it seems to realize what has happened and turns to alert the others when an arrow appears between its eyes, its right eye twitches for a moment then the goblin drops dead in a pile. ¡±You killed a level three goblin and gain no Experience¡± The other goblins look over to the third dead goblin seeing the arrow sticking out of its head they all scream scrambling to their feet and looking around.


    Raven loads a fire arrow and fires it into the camp fire, the fire roars and explodes in a huff of flame two goblins swallowed by fire dying instantly, two others burned badly but the other three roll away from the fire. The five remaining goblins glare at Raven and shout at him drawing daggers but before they can even charge at him another goblin drops dead with an arrow in its chest. ¡°You have killed three goblins level five and gain no experience¡±


    The last four charge at Raven as they run Raven drops his bow casts a fire bolt then draws his sword in one fluid action the fire bolt hitting a goblin in the face taking its head off in a sizzling splat. ¡°You have killed a level five goblin and gain no experience¡± as the last three get to Raven they seem terrified two still badly burned and the last one looks very young, Raven swings his sword at the smallest but misses with the follow through of the strike he catches one of the burned goblins in the ribs, it screams in agony and drops to the ground dead. ¡°You killed goblin level three and gain no experience.¡±


    The last burned goblin swings its dagger at Raven missing, Raven kicks it in the stomach and it drops to a knee vomiting all over itself, the Young goblin dashes at Raven as he puts its leg down from the kick not expecting the goblin to strike, a dagger pieces Ravens thigh gritting his teeth he looks down at the goblin, fear in its eyes and tears rolling down its face Raven scowls and beats the goblin in the face with the hilt of his sword a loud scream and a popping sound coming from its face it drops to the ground holding its face in pain, Raven fire bolts the burned goblin on its knees in the chest. ¡°You have killed goblin level three and gain no experience¡± walking up to the last one he stares down at it. ¡°Time to die monster, I hope you suffered at least a little for what your kind does.¡± The goblin looks up at Raven its face a mess nose broken eye bulging from its socket it raises a hand to protect its self from Raven but a fire bolt through the hand and into its face is all it receives. ¡°You have killed a level one goblin and gain no experience¡±


    Looking around the corpses of the goblins he finds nothing worth while daggers are old rusted garbage no supplies to speak of but coming to the elven bodies in the cages they all appear to be female from what''s left of the bodies, their clothing for the most part gone but coming to one he finds she is still wearing a white robe with silver lining it is in rough shape covered in blood and cuts all over the cloth but while Raven inspects the garb he realizes the cloth is self repairing and the blood seems to drip off leaving no stains. Emptying the body from the robe Raven lets it drip clean then inspects it ¡°Robe of clean living, this robe will self clean and self repair, it is also enchanted with cut resistance 10%.¡± Looking around the cave he finds a small door way covered with sticks and debris by the cages removing the covering and moving into the small passage way he crawls his way through the tunnel.


    Crawling along this tunnel for a few minutes when the angle of the tunnel drops suddenly Raven slides down the tunnel unable to stop himself on the slick stones. As he slides the angle of the tunnel continues to descend to the point where Raven is free falling down. Raven hits the ground with a loud thud, pain like molten lava cracks through out his body spreading and throbbing Raven moans in pain. Rolling over he looks at his surroundings and finds filth, bones and gore everywhere goblin bodies elven bodies even orc and human bodies, over a hundred corpses lay under neath Raven piled in a room that doesn¡¯t seem big enough to hold so much death. At the bottom of the pile dark colored water ripples with movement splashes and the sound of Jello wiggling. Raven looks around the room, the bodies all equipped in battle gear, the pile slowly wiggling, a body rolls from the pile splashing into the water, as the body hits the water Raven can see eel like creatures swarm the body tearing and burrowing into the body.


    Raven starts to panic not able to escape the pit, he starts running through his options, can he climb out? No the walls are to steep and the hole out is in the middle of the roof, can he escape through another tunnel, not that he can see this place is just a giant circler room with no other tunnels, He can¡¯t call for help he killed all the goblins and there''s no one else around, or could he? Looking to his crown he looks it over once more.


    Crown of the Kobold: ¡°Crown of the Kobold, if you link your crown to a settlement you will be declared ruler of that area starting a faction with you as its king any Kobold without a leader in the area will feel drawn to you and are more likely to follow your lead.¡± With the title King of the Kobolds, Having found the crown of he Kobold it has marked you as its new owner and bound to your soul. The title Grants you the ability to subjugate lesser Kobolds into your service, if a lesser Kobold is within a ten kilometer it will be drawn to your location only ten can be summoned per use and can only be used once a week.


    Raven decides to activate it in hopes there is a Kobald near by that can save him from this pit and hopes they come to him and not the settlement location. The ping goes out and for a long minute Raven hears nothing then all at once he hears ten pings return and he sighs in relief in hopes that they come to him.


    As he waits the pile seems to shrink in height as the creatures in the water slowly devour the bodies, Raven decides action is better than inaction and begins scaling down the pile at the waters edge he can see the eel like creatures surface once in a while so he tests their strength waiting for one to surface he hits it with an arrow, however when the arrow strikes all the eels seem to react lurching in place then diving deeper into the water the sounds stopping and the water going still, a cold chill runs down Ravens spine as he sits in the cold dark hole in silence waiting.


    A few minutes go by and Raven hears a loud shark squeal that makes his ears ring, looking around in confusion he tries to find what is making the sound but as quickly as it started it fades away. Small ripples begin again in the water as something begins moving near the surface again, looking at the water Raven can swear he saw an eye the size of a basket ball go by under the water ¡°yeah¡­ nope!¡± Raven starts climbing the pile of bodies again in an attempt to get away from what ever is in the water as he gets to the top the water starts to thrash around him then the eels come out of the water well over twenty feet long and standing on end eight of them stand surrounding him, mouths on the heads circular with sharp pointed teeth all the way around like razor blades.


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    Raven fires an arrow at one striking it in the mouth and it dives into the water but quickly comes back up having removed the arrow from itself, Raven gulps and the eels strike like whips they swing biting at him as they pass, able to dodge a few Raven shifts jumps and ducks as the fight starts looking for any way to fight these monsters.


    Dropping his bow and drawing his sword he slices one of the eels in half it drops to the ground still trying to bite as its body waves in the air spurting black blood everywhere. As the eel swings around bleeding the others seem to recoil for a moment then continue on attacking. As he fights and dodges Raven hears a voice below him ¡°can you take your fight away from me and stop stepping on my damn face please¡­¡± Raven stumbles looking down, one of the bodies is looking back at him, the face very clearly dead with chunks of his face missing and yet his eyes follow Raven as he fights.


    As Raven looks down at the clearly undead human distracted is when the eels strike one hitting Raven center mass and throwing him to the water, with a splash the eels all dive on him at once. As he sinks he can feel one bite onto his right thigh another still attached to his chest and a third striking his left shoulder, Raven struggles as the eels drag him down looking around is when he realizes what he truly is fighting, the ¡°eels¡± are not actually eels but tentacles attached to what appears to be a giant squid which is drawing him in to its maw.


    Raven feels the arms starting to bite into him, he swings his sword wildly in panic trying to free himself, only managing to cut the one on his shoulder he starts to cast vamperic touch and grabbing the one on his chest, as he pumps mana into it he feels the tentacle lurch and try to retract but he holds on as it starts to thrash in around in the water like he''s a piece of tape stuck to its hand.


    Raven can feel the life force draining from the creature as it swings him around the water, holding on for dear life Raven starts to worry about having to come up for air soon, and just like that the tentacle raises him up out of the water and slams him hard onto the pile of bodies driving the air from Ravens lungs.


    Raven finds himself on the pile tentacles retracted and leaving him laying their in agony, He sits up pushing himself up with his hands when he feels something move by his hand, looking down he sees the undead human looking up at him again. ¡°Ugh!, sorry didn¡¯t see you.¡± Raven retracts his hand in disgust. ¡°You got his the creature is on the ropes I believe in you¡­¡± the undead man says with very little believability.


    Raven struggles back to his feet avoiding stepping on the undead this time readying his sword and looking around at the frothing water. Just as he''s starting to relax another arm shoots from the water striking him in the chest and sending him flying back into the water. As he splashes down looking around is when it strikes the full body of the creature comes flying up from under him swallowing him whole, as he sits in its stomach the water voids from inside the beast and a green gel begins dripping from the walls of the stomach.


    As Raven looks around he can see a few body parts and gear laying about, as the green gel touches the junk laying about they start to sizzle and smoke, the smoke starts to fill the stomach and Raven starts choking on the fumes. Raven decides its  time to do some damage and casts fire bolt and running some mana into the spell he fires into the other end of the stomach the fire bolt strikes the stomach and explodes in fire the fumes igniting and spreading the fire even more but quickly goes out.


    The fire burns the stomach and slightly singes Ravens cloths as the gel gets closer to Raven he decides standing on some gear will save him for a short time. As he is tempted to cast vamperic drain again he looks to the walls and they are now coated in gel as the stomach starts to fill. Raven loads a arrow to his bow sheathing his sword and fires it into the stomach he does this several times before anything happens, the mouth opens and fills the stomach with water once again and that''s when Raven notices it, the burnt stomach parts start to slowly heal while the water is in the stomach.


    The mouth shuts yet again but the water remains this time, Raven is starting to panic unsure of how to beat the beast. Deciding on a really bad idea to at the very least try and get free he casts fire bolt and pumps as much mana into it as he can without passing out as the bolt forms the water around it starts to boil, with a gulp Raven releases the bolt and fires it across the stomach again as it travels it seemingly going in slow motion the water around it boiling and the temperature of the water rising quickly.


    The fire bolt reaches the other side of the stomach and explodes the concussion of the explosion knocks Raven off his feet causing him to open his mouth in a cough of blood some of the dark water flooding into his mouth. As the water temp rises he can feel the creature thrashing about but is still alive and already healing again, drawing his bow in the water loading a fire arrow and loosing it, it strikes the same spot as the fire bolt and explodes in a small poof of fire increasing the water temp again. Raven fires five more arrows when he sees waves in the water like heat coming off pavement as the last  arrow flies and explodes the water pressure expands and the feeling of being crushed covers Ravens body.


    A hissing sound starts and he sees the mouth start to open, as the mouth opens the pressure is released and all at once as the water floods out the mouth it flash boils to steam burning the creature and Raven. Raven finds himself rolling out of the maw of the creature into the water again, he looks over to the creature and can see it thrashing around in the water the beak of the creature seems to have been blown off in the chaos of the fight.


    Raven decides now or never and swims to the creature drawing his sword yet again and drawing a dagger from his belt using the dagger to anchor himself to the creature he stabs repeatedly with his sword as it thrashes he gets flung from the creature but quickly swims back this time stabbing his sword into the creatures giant eye. As his sword pierces the eye the purple blood and goo oozes from it, Raven continues to stab at it when he hears a whoosh of water behind him. Turning around just in time Raven finds a tentacle slapping him in the face sending him flying into the body of the creature, Thankfully the teeth didn¡¯t catch him this time.


    Raven swings his sword out slicing the body of the creature again and again filling the already dark water with more blood making it near impossible to see anything. Blindly swinging about he feels his sword sink into something soft and gets stuck, with a lurch he gets flung yet again this time clear out of the water and into the air swinging his arms in a cart wheel Raven flies through the air landing on top of the pile once again with two grunts of pain, Raven finds his ass directly on the undead mans face. With a quick ¡°sorry¡± Raven jumps to his feet sheaths his sword and draws his bow loading his second last fire arrow and waits for the monster.


    After a quick moment the creature fully arises from the water lifting itself from the water with its tentacles and boy does it look pissed. One eye a mangled mess and two of its arms cut off its beak a mangled mess and blood pouring from its mouth. Raven smirks at it ¡°what''s the matter indigestion? Maybe its something you ate.¡± ¡°Lame!¡± replies a voice behind him. Raven scoffs then fires the arrow striking the beast in its last good eye, quick loading another arrow he fires it at its mouth both arrows fly true exploding in a puff of fire on its eye and mouth.


    The creature roars in agony but is still alive, the creature pushes off with its arms and approaches Raven, what''s left of its maw snapping towards Raven, Raven decides its best to take the fight to it, Diving into the water Raven finds one of the arms and slices it with his sword cutting it clear through.


    As the arms is cut the body of the creature starts to list to one side and falls down in a loud and heavy splash. Raven is temporarily stunned by the splash shaking his head and clearing it he swims to the creature jumping onto it and stabbing it many times, the arms of the creature slap towards Raven but he manages to dodge the arms striking its own body ripping chunks off, this happens several times as Raven stabs away at the body.


    As Raven stabs away he feels a sudden pulse shoot out from the creature into him. ¡°You have killed level twenty Krakken and gained 350 EXP.¡± ¡°You have killed a chosen of the God of death and are granted the spell absorb life.¡± Absorb life: as a creature dies you can use one MP to absorb their very soul healing you for ten HP and recover mana at a ten times recover rate for one hour. ¡°You have earned 100 deity points towards your god¡±


    ¡°You have leveled up to level nine¡± Raven smiles and spends the point on his intelligence again. Swimming back to the pile Raven digs out the Undead man while he digs ¡°so your undead¡­ are you going to try and eat me once I get you free?¡± the undead man dead pans ¡°you just killed a monster I¡¯ve been hiding from for weeks, yeah no I¡¯m not going to fight you¡­ besides we are trapped down here if we work together maybe we get out of here.¡±


    Raven nods ¡°alright give me a moment and ill have you free¡± After a few minutes Raven digs the man out and helps him out of the pile. ¡°I¡¯m Raven, who are you and¡­ how are you¡­ you?¡± The man laughs ¡°I¡¯m Jake, and I am a zombie, I was cursed in life by another undead so when I died I was raised as an zombie. Its a whole thing¡­¡± ¡°right¡­.¡± Replies Raven glaring at the zombie. ¡°So your not going to eat me? If you bite me do I become a zombie? How does that work?¡± ¡°no no no, bites don¡¯t turn people I don¡¯t know where that myth came from, it takes a curse from either a spell caster or a strong level undead or some items have been known to do it as well, there are cursed lands as well that raise undead.¡±


    ¡°Any chance there''s something we could use here to get out? I¡¯m sure some of these bodies have adventuring gear on them they all look like adventurers¡­ other than the goblins that is¡­¡± Raven says while greedily looking over at the bodies covered in gear. ¡°I¡¯m sure they do but how is that going to help get out of here the exit is in the middle of the room and even then it is an angled tunnel and I didn¡¯t notice any grooves we could hook something to, which means free climbing to the hole and out, I don¡¯t think that''s possible.¡±


    ¡°I have some helpers coming hopefully they don¡¯t fall in. But even if they did I¡¯m sure they could help us.¡± Raven remarks as he stares to the hole in the roof.