Coming to, Jarrod took a moment to realise where he was and what was actually happening. Groaning he staggered to his feet, took a step forward and promptly fell over a now cold goblin corpse. Looking around at the devastation that surrounded him, there was one now large pool of sticky green blood pooled beneath the three corpses, with a sickly coppery tang to the air. Through some sheer luck where he had collapsed, not a single drop of goblin blood was on him.

Pulling up his system notifications he realised how lucky he had actually been!

Potion of Healing [Tier 1] consumed +45 HP

-4HP from poison

-3HP from poison

-3HP from poison

-3HP from poison

-3HP from poison

-3HP from poison

-2HP from poison

-2HP from poison

-2HP from poison

-2HP from poison

-2HP from poison

-1HP from poison

-1HP from poison

-1HP from poison

-1HP from poison

-1HP from poison

You are no longer poisoned

You have gained a level. You are now [Tier 1] [Level 2]

Achievements have gained experience towards their next tier. No new achievements unlocked.

Your longsword proficiency skill had advanced to level 4.

You have unlocked the light armour proficiency skill.

His status showed him as 10HP/80HP, now that he had moved up to 8 Constitution with his most recent level up.

Grabbing the goblins satchel, he rummaged around to see what else there was, beyond a potion with a dark blue liquid, with flecks of silver floating in it he also found a small coin purse, the side-blade made of the same material as his dagger, and he considered one of the bows. Unfortunately, he had never actually used a bow, he had no training in a bow, he felt he could barely use his sword competently and it would make more sense to actually pass on the bow.

The coin purse held 16 silver and a golden coin. An actual gold coin, Jarrod had never seen one before in his life! His parent’s monthly pay was around 14 silver coins to his Dad & 27 to his Mom. With 1000 silver coins to a single gold coin due to the absolute scarcity of gold, silver was the coin that most people used. Small items such as bread may get traded in copper with a rate of 100 copper to 1 silver, but gold coins simply didn’t exist below noble ranks or people sat at Iron or Steel tier. This dungeon was well known for rewarding around 25 silvers for the final boss, at least in its normal setting.

He couldn’t stop staring at the golden coin, he was sat in the middle of the clearing potion forgotten, simply staring at the golden coin and rubbing his thumb over it again and again tracing the crest of the Empire. How the goblin had gotten a hold of this was anyone’s guess, it could just as easily have been placed here by the system as part of a reward for this tier of dungeon after all.

Stowing his new side blade, placing the dagger into the goblin satchel along with the coins and the potion Jarrod stood, slung the satchel over his belt and fixed it to one of his spare loops and set off towards the hut. The potion itself he was a little disappointed with he got very little information from the system on it.

Potion of Night

Your identify skill is not a high enough level to glean any details of this potion.

Trying the door on the hut itself, Jarrod was found disappointed. He gave it a solid shake and whilst it rattled in its frame, it was certainly locked solid. The wood itself was made of such dense, sturdy wood he would have no hope of cutting through it with his longsword. Sighing to himself, he once again re-adjusted his armour and set off towards the only gap in the woods he could see, assuming it would lead to the 2nd grove of the dungeon. Just as he stepped away from the hut, he got that tickle at the back of his head that wasn’t a warning of danger but was more of a persistent tickle. He was definitely missing something; he just had no idea what it was.

Turning back around he took a very slow loop around the hut, there were no windows, there was no other entrance than the front door. Can it be a front door if there’s no back door? Surely, it’s just the door. Deciding to go back around the loop the other way, just to check Jarrod this time noticed there was a patch of slightly dryer, dusty earth just outside the hut. Bending down he found an old rusty iron ring that was set into a hidden trap door. Pulling firmly on the ring the trapdoor lifted smoothly on its hinges, without a single squeak or protest. Looking down into the earth and dirt below he saw nothing that looked like anything other than a regular cellar. Taking the steps down, that is exactly what he found himself in.

A large space, with shelving units around all of the raw dirt walls. The space in the middle of the room empty and made of packed soil. Above, there was no ceiling for a ground floor, there was a void straight up to the ceiling of the hut, what was built above was a total decoy. The stairs he had taken was the only ingress or egress point to this cellar. Checking what was on the shelves, Jarrod found mostly preserved food and drink, very little of which he had use for, although he did spot a couple of bottles of what he thought could be firewater. He had never been allowed to drink more than watered down beer at home, so he grabbed those as well. No one would be able to tell him no when he got out of here. On the bottom shelf of some long forgotten dusty back corner, he found some odd items as well, he found a tome so thick with dust he couldn’t see the title, even if there was one, nor what colour the leather binding was supposed to be. He found a wax sealed scroll tube, a gem that was incredibly green, even in this dim light but was uncut and finally a necklace.

If he had one real frustration, it would be that his identify skill was only the basic one granted by the system, and that same system didn’t really give him any information on how to elevate that skill to any new heights.

Necklace of?

This necklace is made of silver, with 3 gems set into it. The central gem hanging pendant like is a sapphire, with 2 much smaller rubies set on the outer spiral.

Tome of?

This is an old tome; written in a language you can’t understand. You have no idea what it is about.

Uncut Emerald

This is an emerald that has not been brought to its full glory. It remains uncut, lacking in lustre with any appeal from it in its potential.

And the wax seal, he couldn’t even get off the scroll tube. How ridiculous, who had ever heard of a scroll tube that defied being unsealed, especially when it was only sealed with wax. Also is the system gently mocking me. That description on the tome in particular feels like I might be being mocked. Jarrod internalised this as he was stowing everything in his goblin made satchel and heading back up the stairs to the forest.

Jarrod knew to continue in this dungeon he would need to allocate his 5 new stat points being human granted him from levelling up but doing so sensibly. Thinking about it, his LUCK stat had definitely been the key to him surviving the combats so far. He knew he needed to be faster, stronger and able to take more blows if he was to survive this particular challenge. To this end, even though it would make it his 2nd highest stat, and exactly half of his LUCK, he put 1 point into reflexes, and 2 each into strength and constitution. He now had a round 100 max HP and would be able to hit slightly hardy and slightly faster.

Pulling up his basic stats he saw.

Name: Jarrod Shatterstone

Race: Human

Class: Lucky Warrior [Uncommon] +++

Level: 2

Achievement Points: 16

Stat points to allocate 0

HP: 57/100

MP: 60/60

STR: 10

REF: 10

CON: 10

INT: 6

CHA: 7

INS: 6

LUCK: 20

With that taken care of, Jarrod sat himself down in the sunshine outside, partook of a meal from the free provisions downstairs as well as ensuring he was fully hydrated before walking through the gap in the trees towards the 2nd grove.

When over an hour had passed, Jarrod stood and traversed the gap in the woods to the 2nd clearing, stopping well before crossing the threshold and taking a careful look around.

This clearing too appeared to be empty, not even a hut was placed in this one, either intentionally or haphazardly.

Taking a very careful slow and methodical look around, Jarrod still came up short for what the challenge might be. Figuring, as long as he went slow and steady, he would have time to react to anything he strode forwards, prepared to dive the moment he crossed the threshold. As he crossed the threshold he felt a tautness, and resistance against his lower leg, something was making him put just a little bit of effort in to move forward. Looking down he saw what was in essence a hunting tripwire slung across the entrance to the 2nd clearing, and before waiting to see what would happen, he dove forwards and to the right. It was a very timely dive as well, the moment he touched the tripwire, a hidden log trap had been triggered. It was already swinging down with enough force to turn him into paste as he had hit the deck. The displaced air as it “whooshed” over his head would’ve been enough to drop him to the floor if he wasn’t already there. More worryingly for good measure, the log at the end of its swing didn’t just dangle there as he was expecting, but it hit the ground and caused another impediment to get across the clearing.

Now on the lookout for tripwires, he managed to avoid two more before succumbing to another trap. This one was much more insidious, even if it was much simpler. A patch of loose leaves had been covering a hole barely three feet wide. He had missed that this could be a trap entirely, and whilst three feet wide wasn’t enough to fall down bodily and was narrow enough that throwing your body to one side as you went through meant you could catch the upper lip, it was still more than wide enough to scrape your legs on sharpened points that lined the hole as Jarrod found out, much to his dismay.

-37 HP

Clambering out of the pit and sighing in resignation Jarrod looked across the clearing and estimated he was about half the way across. Now he had come into this planning on being methodical and slow, but that wasn’t really working out for him. He had two options, continue doing so, avoid the traps he had already triggered but potentially fall for more, or he could just run, as fast as he possibly could and hope for the best. His LUCK was easily his highest stat, it had to count for something outside of fights he assumed.

Steeling himself for what could be a monumentally painful run Jarrod took a deep steadying breath, ensured his equipment was tight to him so it wouldn’t flap in the wind and set off at a dead sprint. So focused he was on where we was aiming for, and where his feet were stepping to avoid pitfalls and tripwires, he missed that there were large branches hanging down across the pathway with about 10 to 15 feet to go. One of them caught him in the chest and ended up picking him up into the air and dumping him unceremoniously on the ground.

-2 HP

“Oof” as he hit the ground, all the air left his body, and he laid their winded. He was physically unable to get up and move, even if he had wanted to. This ironically is likely what saved his life as he fell, he had fallen flat on a section of packed soil that depressed as he landed. As it clicked, over a dozen darts flew through the air above him from around 18 inches off the ground all the way up to 6 feet, clearly designed to hit anyone who was walking through the clearing!

Once he managed to catch his breath, he continued on, this time making it to the edge with no further misadventure, and he could see the path towards the third clearing. Stopping short again this time it appeared his next challenge was much more obvious. Stood in the centre of the clearing staring at him was a tall goblin, standing at nearly 5 feet holding a long spear and rippling with muscle. It was naked apart from a fur loincloth and was clearly in much better shape than Jarrod. As it had seen him, he saw no harm at all in identifying what it was to see if the name would give him any help in guessing its abilities.

[Goblin Champion] [Level ???]