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.
