The goblins stared at my orc warrior in shock. Half of them seemed to be frozen in fear, the other half were scrambling to their feet and practically worshipping my orc. The only one that seemed to have a reasonable reaction was the goblin shaman.

I looked at the goblin shaman curiously. He was one of the goblins lightly wounded by the bear earlier but seemed to be mostly functional. Somehow he had found the skull of the coyote from earlier and stuck it on the end of a spear making a crude staff. He had also made an outfit from various skulls and herbs that he had found. Stepping in front of my orc avatar he raised his staff up.

“Shaman Skullshaker greets the mighty avatar of our dungeon. How may goblins serve you?” The shaman said and then knelt down in front of the orc. I was quite surprised when I checked his stats.

Male Goblin Shaman – Shaman Skullshaker – Level 4

Primitive skull staff (allows channeling of primitive level magic)

Primitive shaman clothing (3 armor)

Attributes:

Strength – 4

Constitution – 4

Dexterity – 5

Intelligence – 8

Wisdom – 5

Charisma - 1

Luck – 1

Magic Spells: Primitive healing, shove

I stared in shock when I saw that the shaman’s intelligence attribute was an eight. It was two points higher than Chief Sharpstick. At this point I was pretty sure that ten was the average for humans. A score of eight on intelligence was getting pretty close.

Even more amazing was the fact that the shaman had some magic spells. One was a very minor heal, which explained all the chanting every time he used herbs on a goblin. The other one seemed to be a weak telekinetic ability capable of shoving objects around.

I was going to have to see if I could get a few more shamans in order to manage the rest of the goblins. As Shaman Skullshaker started dancing around crazily, I quickly changed my mind. I’d caught him purposely dosing himself with spore shrooms a couple times already. If the other shamans were half as crazy as him it would probably create more problems than it would solve.

Either way I needed as many goblins as possible at full health. I was pretty sure my blood magic healing was better than the shamans primitive healing. “There is going to be a great battle today. I’ve come to make sure that you are all ready to fight. After that we will prepare for battle.”

I reached out and grabbed the shaman. His wound was surprisingly easy to heal. It didn’t even cost me mana since I gained nearly as much mana from the wound as I was using to heal it.

While I was thinking about it I also designated my shaman as my second boss. Instantly his attributes doubled. If ten was a human average the shaman was now smarter than the average human.

Half an hour later I had healed all of the goblins. Due to being unable to heal bones with blood magic there were still a couple injured goblins. For instance the one that had been shot in the chest still had a cracked rib. I was pretty sure the one that was bashed in the skull by Jeff had a minor skull fracture, which made it kind of surprising that it had survived.

As I finished healing the last goblin I nearly celebrated as most of my goblins respawned. This included Chief Sharpstick. I breathed a sigh of relief as he joyfully greeted Shaman Skullshaker. It would have been trouble if those two didn’t get along. In fact Shaman Skullshaker looked ecstatic that he no longer had to order the other goblins around and quickly departed for what I had dubbed the garden room.

That left me with only three dead goblins. I felt like I was as ready as I’d ever be for the sheriff. Of course the sheriff took over an hour before he actually showed up.

Everyone from the day before was with them except for Doug and the man that had been drugged by the spore shroom. There were also another six people with them bringing the group up to eleven.

I looked at the party as a whole and tried to judge their threat to me. In addition to the sheriff and park ranger there were now three deputies in the group. There were also five men decked out like hunters or some other outdoor enthusiasts and were carrying rifles. Two of which I was pretty sure were semi-automatic.

The last member of the party drew my attention. They were female and totally unarmed. Instead they were carrying a backpack and two durable looking bright pink cases. I also noticed two of the men carrying a larger bright pink case that seemed to be about the size of a cooler. After a moment I realized that it looked like at least half the men were carrying a case or backpack for her.

I couldn’t help but smile as I looked up and down her body and tried to decide if I considered her attractive or not. She was bundled up in enough coats and gear that I couldn’t tell for sure. At the very least she was tall and had a pretty face. Plus I had a thing for women with glasses and long hair.

“Perfect. Set it down carefully. I want to get as many samples as possible.” She said to the two hunters.

“Professor I’d really prefer if you just told my men what you wanted them to gather. We are more than capable of handling the task. I’m not sure you understand how dangerous this place is.” The sheriff said in a concerned voice.

“Don’t be ridiculous Joe. I don’t understand why everyone keeps on freaking out about all these new creatures and plants. Nothing we have run into is as dangerous as people. You can’t convince me that whatever is in that cave is more dangerous than a bunch of drug runners that want to rape me and slit my throat.” The Professor said back angrily.

The sheriff gave the dungeon a nervous look. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that Professor Hanson. Two men already died in there yesterday. And the doc says that Frank is probably going to keep on hallucinating for at least a day. He said that whatever he got a whiff of was comparable to a designer drug specifically made to mess with people’s heads.”

Professor Hanson was nodding eagerly. “Exactly why I need to go in there. I examined the plants your men brought back yesterday. One of them showed some amazing potential for healing cuts. Another one showed never before seen compounds capable of blocking pain. The potential for medical advancement is extraordinary. And who knows what else is in that cave. Unfortunately half the samples your men brought back yesterday were in terrible condition.”

By the end of her spiel Professor Hanson was basically jumping up and down in excitement. As she jumped up and down I decided that I definitely considered her attractive. Even more so when she finished putting down the rest of the gear she was carrying and took her coat off. She definitely had a nice figure. No wonder those drug runners wanted to have their way with her.

I revised my orders to my various minions. They were not to harm her. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do, but I didn’t like the idea of killing her. Besides, she wasn’t carrying any weapons. I’d rather my minions focused on people that were armed.

The men finally got themselves organized. The professor ended up near the back only carrying a couple of her smaller cases and a backpack. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get any of the men to carry her stuff inside the dungeon. She finally relented when they agreed to help her carry everything inside after they made sure anything dangerous in the cave was dead.