《Queen Of Alcaria》Chapter 24 - Sceptre of Deceit
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Talia remained silent upon sighting the Goblin Shaman as it appearing in front of her wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
She knew just how troublesome of a mob it was to deal with by itself never mind alongside two elite Goblin soldiers, and that was whilst having a party of players supporting her as well.
Directing her gaze onto the item grasped in the Shamans arm, she instantly knew what it was with it being one of the reasons for the Shamans rapid increase in power.
It was discovered by the players that the source of the Goblins strange mutation was an inheritance from a powerful mage which they have unwittingly stumbled across, the Goblin tribe did not truly know what they found, only that the magic potions and materials contained inside the tomb rapidly lead to a direct increase in their intelligence.
Although Goblins are usually smarter than your average monster, for human standards they were considered fairly stupid.
Yet the potions had enhanced them to each be compared to your average human, although most of the magic potions found by the Goblins were only directed at such an attribute, it was one of the things in which the Goblin was lacking greatly in comparison to humans.
The one who had benefited the most from their discovery though was the Goblin Shaman himself, a Shaman was already both rare and are geniuses among Goblins, so the enhancement towards the Shaman itself was the most apparent.
It became comparable to a prodigy in human standards and its advancement on Magic improved leaps and bounds compared to before.
Because the inheritance contained the rare, unusual illusory Magic, the Shaman progressed through this branch of magic instead, and with the potions alongside already having decent magic talent, it progressed greatly.
One of the most lacking things for Goblins was due to them being a tribal species, with powerful races such as Humans, Elves also destroying any form of the gathering of Goblins before it bore fruit they had no knowledge which was passed down.
Therefore the Shamans of the Goblin race had no inheritance to follow and progressed through Magic blindly which compared to other races was greatly inefficient.
This Shaman was given such a lucky opportunity and continually progressed leaps and bounds from the inheritances teachings.
Luckily, according to the players it had at most half a year since the Goblins had taken the inheritance, otherwise, they would be even more formidable.
However, Talia knew exactly how tricky dealing with this Shaman was, because not only was it fairly strong for its level, but its abilities were further amplified by the item held its in the palm, a magical item known as the ’Sceptre of Deceit’, a tool which increases the strength of illusory magic.
Fortunately, a strength of a beast soul master as they had naturally strong mental resistance which involves illusory magic as a result of containing a beast soul which provided enough protection to ensure she was not helpless before the Shamans illusory magic.
Though she knew that it would still be too dangerous to attack the Shaman with the presence of the two guards, the Shamans threat level is increased with the more aid he has alongside it, by itself, the Shaman is far less intimidating.
This was the reason behind her current patience, as she waited for a while, the Shaman continued to bark orders at its guards for several minutes before requesting something from another Goblin who had just appeared, it then once again re-entered the room.
Even though Talia knew that her time was pressing as the Goblins may notice the strange disappearance of the Goblins she dealt with any moment now, she still made no further movements.
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Talia knew that she can not deal with every Goblin within the cave banded together, but her main target was the Shaman as once it was dealt with, the threat of the Goblins as a whole would be reduced dramatically.
At the same time, she can easily retrieve the evidence for the Bluewood Merchant Group that she dealt with the problem of the Shaman, so she didn’t need to worry about the remaining Goblins, it was especially why she knew that she cannot mess up this chance as an alerted Shaman would make things much harder than it needed to be.
After the Shaman re-entered the room, she slowly approached the two armoured guards.
In the game, the room that the Shaman had just entered was a sound-proof section of the lair which was made for it to carry out some experiments.
Therefore, it will not hear any outside noise because the Shaman was overconfident that the base is undetectable.
At the same time, it believed that it would be impossible to arrive here without both triggering traps or alerting the guards on the way there, meaning that it had ignored such a crucial loophole of not being able to detect any outside noises from inside the room.
And this was something Talia planned to take full advantage of.
Creeping towards the guards she ensured that she was once again battle-ready before this time preparing a full charged essence bolt, as she wanted to discover the extent on just how sturdy the enchanted armour the Goblins are wearing is.
Finding that the ‘Essence Bolt’ was filled to the maximum amount of power that she could safely control, she launched the bolt directly at the two heavily armoured guards who stared in shock as a rapidly, glowing projectile rapidly flew towards them.
*Bang!*
The collision of the charged ‘Essence Bolt’ and the armour of the Goblin caused a loud noise to sound as the Goblin was sent stumbling back, falling onto the ground from the force of the blast.
Yet the sight which she saw once she went to inspect the damage astounded Talia, as the only damage she managed to inflict was a fairly large dent at the centre of the armour.
From what Talia recalled every enemy she had attacked with the ‘Essence Bolt’ so far had all been injured, with it tearing through whatever armour in its way, this was the first time that an enemy emerged relatively unscathed.
Though this did not distract Talia at all as she already began moving in preparation of the second heavily armoured Goblin that she did not hit.
The weaknesses of these Goblins was apparent, which was their speed, they were slower than your average Goblin, but unlike the rest both their endurance and strength was far higher, one hit from one of these Goblins would do more damage than ten hits of a regular Goblin, so she wanted to avoid them at all cost.
Evading around the Goblin she began to prepare a second spell with quick haste as the armoured Goblin noticed what she was doing and began to move towards her.
However, she prepared the spell perfectly in time for it to collide in the location in which it would do the greatest damage, which was with the momentum of the charging Goblin only increasing the strength of the spell.
This time she let off another essence bolt, but it was far less charged than the other one as she did not have the leisure in having the to charge the spell in time with the Goblin running directly at her.
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Even still this spell was no less devastating than the one before as the lumbering Goblin was sent stumbling backwards as the force of the collision between it and the spell lead to it similarly fall to the ground and like the other Goblin, but this did not last long as it already had risen to its feet alongside it companion who was also now rushing towards Talia.
She sighed in annoyance at the sight, but she did not pause her actions as the two Goblins who appeared mostly unaffected by her attacks continued to hound her.
Talia nimbly used her speed advantage to dance around the two large Goblins, she tried to use her claws a few times to cause some damage, even aiming for the weak areas in the armour, however, the Goblins protected these areas well, and did not give her much of an opportunity with her in the end only leaving a few claw marks on their heavy armour.
The revelation of the sheer durability of the armour frustrated Talia as she knew she needed to find a way to break through their defence before other Goblins may arrive at the scene, after pondering for a while a rough plan formed in her mind.
Leaping away from the Goblins she began to draw some distance between them leading them to a tight spaced area which she had passed through on the way there.
She knew this area was clear and that the heavily armoured Goblins would likely pursue with their confidence in their armour.
Squeezing through the gap, she discovered that the Goblins briefly paused upon realising that only one of them can come through at a time, but believing that Talia had no means to break through their armour, they still followed her.
However, this was the chance she needed as she began to prepare the only spell she did originally plan to use, ‘Ice Spear’.
Originally she knew that the armour would be too difficult to penetrate for this spell so she did not plan to use it, though now that she was within closer proximity of the two Goblins it gave her an opportunity for her to target the weak point of the armour at point-blank range.
Aiming towards the visor which has a small hole exposing the eye sockets of the Goblin, she shot an ‘Ice Spear’ directly towards the face of the Goblin.
The Goblin only realised its folly far too late as the spear was sent crashing into the visor penetrating through the exposed opening which contained far less reinforcement compared to the other areas of the armour tearing directly through, splattering the Goblins head inside causing it to fall slowly to the ground.
Now, the other Goblin who saw its companions fate began to back away slowly now realising Talia had the means to hurt it, but this time Talia did not need to target such a weak point as without the other Goblins to cover each other she could more easily take advantage of her speed.
Zooming around the Goblin, she continued to push back the large armoured Goblin as she attacked it routinely, dodging out of the way of the lumbering, slow movements as the large Goblin who swung its sword mightily at her.
It tried to bash her with its shield a few times, but the large shield seemed to only serve as an accessory as she moved far too nimbly for the Goblin to catch her, eventually, the Goblin began to be slowly worn down as its movements began to slow.
Eventually, the Goblin decided to abandon the shield as it seemingly served no use against her anyway, but this gave her a great chance as she once again dodged one of its vicious strikes jumping onto the back of the Goblin who had now slowed down enough to no longer be able to stop her she stuck her claws under its helmet as she began tearing at its face.
The Goblin roared angrily as it attempted to pry her off its back dropping its weapon in the process due to sheer desperation.
However, Talia did not let go no matter how strong the Goblin was as she continued to attack the Goblin no matter its resistance.
Eventually, the Goblin finally fell to its knees, not before bashing Talia savagely a few times in an attempt to remove her off it, but it was no use as the Goblin finally breathed its last.
Talia huffed in tiredness as she searched around the dead Goblin for any valuables before deciding to take the enchanted shield and sword, deciding to leave the armour as she only had so much storage space, and she also knew there was plenty of goodies more valuable within the Shamans room.
Casting the ‘Cleansing Aura’ once again she quickly recovered to a suitable state and began to walk towards the Shamans room, once arriving outside of the metal door, she breathed in deeply before prying open the large door and making her way in.
Straight away without the sound-proof enchantment in the way she heard loud noises which sounded like mini explosions within the room as a hunched back Goblin was standing over a table with numerous vials and alchemy equipment all over it.
The Shaman was cursing in annoyance the failure of its experiment alongside detecting the presence of an intruder into its room whilst it ordered for itself not to be disturbed has truly angered it as it turned around with rage burning in its eyes.
Nonetheless, its eyes widened in shock after seeing the figure of Talia walking into the room, after all, it did not even think that an intruder could infiltrate its lair this deeply.
“A blue lizard?” The Goblin Shaman croaked confusingly not recognising the type of magical beast Talia was.
However, for some reason despite being technically right the Goblin still somehow managed to anger Talia inner pride as her Beast Soul protested angrily at the disrespect, ‘we are a magical beast with a faint ancestry to Dragons, we are not just some mere lizard!’
Upon seeing anger flaring within Talia’s eyes the Shaman only replied with a roar of laughter as it said, “Ah! A little beast such as you can show such emotions, you will make a good accessory to our experiments.”
After it announced that Talia found that her surroundings had seemed too rapidly changed and that the Shaman disappeared as she suddenly found herself in an unfamiliar forest.
‘Damn! I got caught in an illusion straight away!’ She muttered with annoyance at being caught in one of the Shamans traps.
Luckily though some of her resistance shown as the Shaman could not hide for long, even though the surroundings had completely changed which made it difficult to detect the old Goblin, the Shaman could still be seen if it stood directly in her line of vision.
The Shaman seemed to widen its eyes in astonishment as it found she could locate it and it roared, “How can you see me! Well, so be it, so what if you can discover me? You think this is my trump card, little beast! Let’s see which of me you want to protect yourself from, let us see if you can guess correctly.”
Instantly multiple Goblin Shamans seem to surround her and similar to what the Shaman gloated she could not detect even the slightest hint of a difference between them.
‘Shit!’ She thought inwardly as all of the Shaman copies each surrounded her, all of them lifting their weapons before they brought them down launching an attack towards her.
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