…

Enchanting the barricades was an easy job for Capra… so long as he kept a lookout for any flying logs. He completed Workdidi’s first request with ease and was asked to enchant yet another barricade, then another— until eventually he had to stop. His stone essence was limited, and five barricades was all he could do for now.

When Workdidi saw that Capra had ceased to enchant he stormed over to demand that he continue. Every minute on the battlefield goblins died, and Workdidi knew that the stone barricades could drastically increase their survival rate. So naturally, he was furious.

Workdidi stomped and shouted his way over to Capra, “Hey, youz! Human! Why youz stop?”

Capra stared.

They’d just met, but Capra could tell Workdidi was an unpleasant NPC to deal with. Workdidi had been making requests for the last 20 minutes, but he had yet to give a single reward for Capra’s efforts. He left Capra with a terrible impression— but still, he figured it would be best to give the little green man an explanation before he ended up hexed or turned into a frog.

“I can’t continue” He said, “ I’m out of resources.”

At Capra’s response Workdidi calmed down almost immediately. He then eyed Capra suspiciously, and spoke an octave higher.

“Reeesources?” He said, with squinted eyes. “What... reeesources... you need?”

Workdidi had heard that humans could be very tricky and greedy creatures. His tribe elders had told him stories of humans looting bodies mid combat, or putting their comrades at risk because of greed or negligence. He’d even heard of a man that rushed wildly into a dragon’s lair filled with the creature’s offspring, and for no good reason— the man's name was Lee something, he recalled.Knowing these things he was wary of Capra’s need of, “resources.”

Capra began to speak, “I nee..” But Workdidi interrupted.

“No gold. ” He stated..

“No, I don’t nee..”

“No weemen either!” Workdidi yelled as he pointed at Capra and clutched his feathered staff rather tightly. His eyes darted between Capra and some goblin females hiding in a nearby house, they eyed Capra curiously from the home’s entrance.

After a few moments the goblin women gave Capra the most charming smiles any green, yellow-toothed, sharp nosed, bald headed goblin women could give— and Capra nearly threw up on the spot.

“Ugh!” He yelled, “All I need is stone!”

“Stooone?” Workdidi asked. “You mean rock?”

Capra rubbed his temples.

“Yes. Rock.”

Workdidi squinted his eyes further, and positioned himself defensively in the space between Capra and the goblin women.

“Only rock?” He asked once more, and for a split second Capra thought it wouldn’t be so bad to blast Workdidi with a chaos bolt, but he thought better of it.

Instead of answering him Capra picked up a small stone and essence siphoned it. The stone soon became particles that floated off into the wind. Workdidi saw the process and didn’t have a clue what Capra had done, but if all Capra needed was stone then he could give him plenty. It was an added bonus that he got to keep his women, after all most goblins would’ve bargained for at least two.

Apparently humans weren’t greedy, just stupid... A young goblin batrider flew towards the battle in the sky, but before he could gain much altitude Workdidi called to him.

“Goo’thor!”

The batrider spotted Workdidi, pulled on his reins, and headed his way. Within a few seconds he landed, clumsily dismounted, and bowed.

“Goo’thor see zhaman, what zhaman need?”

Workdidi puffed his chest at Goo’thor’s gesture, he raised his staff high and spoke.

“Take hooman to mine, bring back wen hooman fineeshed.”

Goo’thor eyed Capra strangely. He looked him up and down and was about to question Workdidi, but Workdidi slammed the bottom of his staff into the ground. Goo’thor remounted his bat in a flash and gestured for Capra to get on, and just like that Capra was off to the mines.

…

Within a few minutes Capra could see it, and boy was he glad.

The ride to the mines was a short one, but bats were disgusting creatures so it was unpleasant. Capra knew a lot about bats from all the episodes he’d watched of, “Crikey Gov’na!” So he’d hoped they were different in Chaos and Fame, but his entry into The Lowlands had clearly proved that wasn’t the case.

Bats smelled foul, had horrible hygiene, and were prone to acts which won’t be mentioned. Goo’thor’s bat was no exception.

Once they made it to the mines Capra jumped off before Goo’thor could land properly and ran with his nose covered. Goo’thor tried to call after him, but Capra had run too fast, and he could only stare as Capra’s silhouette faded into the distance.

“Weird hooman…” he muttered.

…

Capra didn’t waste time once he was in the mine, he could’ve, but he didn’t want to. He needed to do something to get his mind off the smell of bat, so he found a small quarry the goblins had been using and chose a random spot to “dig” at, although it wasn’t so much digging as it was essence siphoning.

System Notification: [Essence Siphon is successful]. You have gained [Stone Essence Fragments] x 2.

System Notification: [Essence Siphon is successful]. You have gained [Stone Essence Fragments] x 2.

System Notification: [Essence Siphon is successful]. You have...

...

In no time at all Capra had dug out a hole the size of a person, and thanks to his vastly increased mana and mana regen he rarely had to take any breaks. He noticed that the area he could essence siphon and the speed he could essence siphon at, had both increased. He was like a drilling machine. Apparently one of the stats he raised affected that— he figured it was most likely wisdom, although that wasn’t in the skill description.

A quick mental calculation told Capra he needed to get at least 400 essence to fortify the remaining barricades ,and at the rate he was going that wouldn’t take long. He was gathering about two stone essence a second, so he’d have enough within the next 200 seconds.

…

A few moments later as Capra neared his goal of 400 stone essence,he encountered a new material and his essence siphoning speed slowed down drastically. It was a crystal blue rock which shined slightly. He could go around the rock but it seemed valuable, so he waited patiently for essence siphon to do its job.

System Notification: [Essence Siphon is successful]. You have gained [Unknown Essence Fragment (1)] x 50.

Beginner Enchanting Mastery (lvl. 2): +10.

Capra almost jumped on the spot. He was disappointed he was unable to recognize the crystal, but he was surprised he gained so much proficiency. It had been a while since he had gotten any enchanting proficiency and he had begun to think that maybe the effectiveness of essence siphoning was wearing off, but apparently not; however, as much as he wanted to find more crystals he’d have to look into it after battle, goblins were dying after all —so he headed out to find Goo’thor.

…

Within a few minutes Capra was back on the battlefield. Once again he dismounted the bat before it landed and ran off with his nose covered. After he gained a safe distance he surveyed the battlefield.

In his absence the battle had taken a turn for the worse. Despite only being gone for maybe 20 minutes the razor terrors had begun to overwhelm the goblin fortifications. With the exception of the ones Capra essence forged – the remaining barricades were being bitten to pieces.

Off in the distance Workdidi was busy casting large area of effect curses from behind one such barricade, and when he saw Capra his eyes lit up. If Capra didn’t know any better he’d think they were old friends.

Before Workdidi could say anything Capra went to work. In no time at all Capra was next to the barricade casting [enchant], meanwhile the razor terrors launched themselves into the barricade haphazardly. If they weren’t chewing, then they were being skewered.

It was strange, the terrors had been far more cautious when he fought them with Baba, but as the battle progressed they became more and more aggressive. It was like they were more willing to die than to go back, and Capra could only hope that wasn’t the case.

Anything that could frighten a razor terror into a suicidal frenzy couldn’t be good news. Luckily Capra was able to finish essence forging rather quickly under the protection of Workdidi, and the razor terrors were unable to continue forward from that location— granted some still tried.

The completed enchantment gave the goblins behind the barricade a lot of breathing room, a few goblins who had been busy repairing and replacing the barricades started lobbing bombs, while others erected new barricades nearby. For the next two hours Capra focused on essence forging, but eventually he ran out of essence and had to run back to the mines for more.

This continued for a long time. Every two hours he would depart to get more essence, then he’d return.

...

Eventually the goblins got an overwhelming upper hand due to their increased defenses. The razor terrors were frenzied but not completely stupid. They saw that they couldn’t chew through the gray barricades so they started prioritizing the wooden ones. In a normal battle that would’ve been a decent course of action, but the goblins had spears, and bombs, lots and lots of bombs.

As the razor terrors all gathered at the wooden barricades, those barricades became choke points. It made the incoming terrors easy targets for bombing and by this point Capra hardly needed to enchant any more, so he was able to focus on grinding levels instead.

System Notification: You’ve defeated a [Razor Terror], awarding experience points and +5 Karma…

System Notification: You’ve defeated a [Razor Terror], awarding experience points and +5 Karma…

System Notification: You’ve defeated a [Razor Terror], awarding experience points. +5 Karma…

System Notification: [Chaos Bolt] becomes level two.

…

More time passed and eventually Capra felt that he was fighting a battle where his enemies jumped into a meat grinder all on their own. Capra’s [Chaos Bolt] couldn’t do as much damage as a goblin bomb, but it was still highly effective given his recent level increases. He could now cast a chaos bolt every 1.4 seconds instead of every 1.5 seconds, and his damage was high enough to kill a razor terror with one blow.

The only real downside was that chaos bolt was a single target spell. Capra would have to try and remedy the situation when the battle ended. It was unlikely that there were any skill trainers in the goblin village that could teach him enchanting, so Capra would have to get creative. Enchanters didn’t really have any area of effect damage spells anyway, so a trainer wouldn’t do him much good anyways.

…

The battle continued for several hours, by now Capra was practically casting chaos bolt with his eyes closed, and he’d turned off his notifications long ago because he knew what they would say,

“You’ve defeated a razor terror, awarding experience points. +5 karma… yatta yatta yatta.” He muttered after killing a razor terror.

Capra knew that grinding was an inevitable part of the game, but he never thought he’d find himself in a situation where his enemies could hardly fight back. It wasn’t exciting at all. Eventually he got so bored that he decided to enchant all of the remaining barricades, and even some newly erected ones.

Capra traveled from battlefield to battlefield fortifying barricades and killing razor terrors, and now the barricades formed a long wall around the goblin village. It was nearly impossible for a razor terror to get in.

Thanks to Capra’s efforts the goblins had been able to effectively rally their forces on all sides, and the situation on the ground stabilized; however, the battle in the sky was ongoing. Countless flying horrors swarmed forth, only to be blasted to smithereens by goblin batriders.

As time progressed the battle in the sky grew closer and closer to the goblin village. A few flying horrors fell to the ground wounded, and were blasted to bits by goblin bombs, but Capra could tell that they were a lot more durable than the razor terrors.

One particularly bear like flying horror fell to the ground and tried to barrel through the barricades, but they held. Its body withstood countless spear thrusts, but after a few bombs it collapsed dead on the ground.

The situation repeated itself countless times, but because the barricades were reinforced the horrors and terrors couldn’t move forward. On the rare occasion they managed to break a reinforced barricade Baba or a coalition of goblins were able to subdue the beasts— then Capra and the goblins were able to quickly replace and strengthen the barricade that had fallen.

There were several occasions were Capra thought to last hit a flying horror for the experience, but he decided not to risk it, if he accidently healed a flying horror many goblins would die. Soon more and more wounded flying horrors fell to the ground, but Capra and the goblins prepared fortifications ahead of time and were able to overcome them.

Eventually the battle became one sided in the goblins’ favor and a deep guttural roar reverberated in the distance. The remaining razor terrors and flying horrors paused in place, and then after some hesitation they all reluctantly evacuated.

...

Within a few minutes light trickled its way back to the world, and as day broke Baba and Workdidi approached Capra.

...