The monster goblin stepped fully out of the longhouse and bellowed a loud challenge. It eyed it’s dead and dying and it’s eyes seemed to glow red briefly. The giant goblin stood almost 6 feet tall. It had several hoops of gold piercing it’s nose, lips, eyebrows, etc. Gold and silver chains ran through some of these and when it opened its mouth large yellowed sharpened teeth were exposed with bits of flesh still clinging to them. Must have some seriously rotten breath… It wore a breastplate of bone and leather, with the skulls of coyotes for shoulder guards. Underneath that was a yellow silk robe with geometric patterns on the arm cuffs and a hem that fell short of the knees. A bandoleer ran from the left shoulder to right hip and was full of pointed throwing knives. A thick leather belt around its waste carried two wicked looking falchions with black serrated blades. I barely had the time to analyze it, a GOBLIN PATRIARCH, LVL 15*, before it was moving at us.

“Looks like the boss fight. Lets -” that was all I had time to say before the monster dropped down into a sprinters’ stance and charged straight at us. The giant boiling cook cauldron and fire was directly between us and the oversized bastard hit it at full speed and flipped it into the air at us and charged straight through the fire.

My perception made the cauldron tumble through the air in seemingly slow motion as the brown murky boiling water began to fly towards us. I noticed various parts of bodies and limbs tumble out at the same time. Human limbs and body parts. These fuckers were eating people!

When the realization snapped into place time resumed at its normal rate and I was moving to avoid getting too much of the boiling liquid on me. Alyssa had already faded to shadow and Johnny and his coyote were repositioning to my right flank. The Patriarch continued its charge through the fire pit flinging burning logs to either side of him. He looked around and settled on me. That’s right fucker, come get me.

I dropped to one knee and activated STEADY SHOTS and began to fire controlled shots at him. A green barrier flared to life every time he was struck. “FUCKERS GOT A BARRIER!” I warned my teammates. He was walking my way monologuing in that weird goblin barking and yipping language when Alyssa appeared from the ground and struck out with the hatchet to his ankles. Her attack bounced off the barrier and the shock caused her to drop from the shadows.

Before she could move the Patriarch mule kicked her hard. She flew back through the path the Patriarch had just taken and tumbled ass over head through the door of the longhouse.

“CONTROLLED BURSTS” I intoned and began to stitch the Patriarch and his barrier. Johnny was preparing another lightning storm and I suspected if I could put enough damage into that barrier I could bring it down before Johnny’s lightning storm hit. That would be a good thing.

As Johnny completed his chant the Patriarchs barrier flickered and it stopped not less than 10 feet away from me. He didn’t look so much surprised as he did curious. Then the first bolt of energy came down on his head and now he definitely looked ‘shocked’. And so did I when the energy of the attack jumped to me and flung me backwards through the air for a good 10 meters. It was my turn to tumble ass over head into the dirt. Guess friendly fire is a thing.

I gathered my senses as the lightning storm raged on and the patriarch was hit two more times directly. He wavered briefly and shook his head as the hair on top smoldered gently in the wind.

Before he could completely regain his senses Alyssa appeared from the shadows behind him once again but this time brought both her weapons down on the base of his neck where it connected to the muscled shoulders and screaming “I SAID I’M TIRED OF GETTING THROWN THROUGH BUILDINGS AND SMACKED AROUND BY FUCKING MEN!”

The Patriarch flinched at the attack but didn’t fall. Alyssa pressed her feet to his back and pressed hard wrenching her weapons from his shoulders with a spray of blood and landed a perfect backflip that ended with her once again slipping into the shadows. The Patriarch stumbled and spun to find Alyssa had already disappeared.

Johnny’s coyote had been circling closer to the Patriarch and was now diving in from his left attempting to take his legs. The Patriarch spun a back hand across the animals nose and the coyote tumbled back whimpering.

“SELECTIVE AMMO: PLASMA” I murmured and pulled the trigger. The barrel glowed red hot and a bolt of white hot energy streaked at the Patriarchs back and struck it just under his left shoulder and burst through the other side leaving a smoking charred hole in his back. He roared in rage and pain and charged me faster than I had been expecting. I fired off two more rounds before he was on me and lifting me into the air by my neck. WHAT THE FUCK!?!? Then I felt my body go weightless for a moment and then found myself slamming into the palisade behind me.

I stood slowly, coughed up a glob of blood and saw that my health had dropped to a little above half. Not good Karl. It also seemed like the Patriarch was done playing around and drew his falchions into his meaty hands.

He made to finish me with a large overhand chop but was stopped when Alyssa appeared with a knife in his armpit. It seemed to pin the shoulder in place not allowing him to complete the swing. “CRIPPLE” she calmly stated then savagely wrenched the knife out of the Patriarchs armpit opening the wound wider and allowing his blood to spray the ground beneath his feet. The falchion he had been holding in his left hand fell to the ground and he swung with his right spinning around in an attempt to bisect the young girl.

She dodged back out of his reach then quickly closed the distance with a chop from her hatchet that sunk meatily into his thigh. I pulled the trigger on my rifle and heard a faint click. Damn it. I dropped the weapon on it’s sling around my neck and drew my pistol and began moving to my left and created a bit of distance. The Patriarch took another swing at Alyssa that she dodged, she moved in again like she had before but this time was caught by a kick from the Patriarchs good leg and was thrown back with force.

I started dumping rounds in its back and looked over its shoulder, shoved its remaining falchion into the ground and reached up to its chest. Faster than I expected a trio of throwing knives spun towards me. I moved, but not fast enough and screamed when one sunk to the hilt into the top of my thigh and another caught me in the left bicep. The third made a “thunk” sound when it buried itself in the wood palisade where my head had been.

I wrenched the knives out of my person, reloaded my pistol while Johnny took the opportunity to smash the Patriarch sideways with a strike to the head from his staff. “He does not seem to want to die.” He said flatly.

I checked my status effects and noticed I had a 5 second crippling status, so rather than try to limp ahead I activated CRACK SHOT and pulled the trigger. The round struck him in the back of the head but didn’t penetrate. His head rocked forward and a red furrow formed where the round was deflected by his thick skull. With the blow to the head from Jonny’s staff and my shot to the back of his head he was severely stunned.

He wavered and the grip on his falchion loosened. Then Johnny’s coyote and Alyssa struck at the same time. Alyssa activated CRIPPLE and severed the tendons in the patriarchs knees while the coyote lunged in from the front, mouth wide and latched on to the patriarchs head. The Patriarch was already falling forward when this happened and extended his arm to halt his fall. The coyote didn’t give him a chance to fall and began to violently shake him like a chew toy. The Patriarch tried to grab the coyotes jaw but the coyote was having none of that and shook him more viciously. A loud snap caused us to flinch involuntarily.

“Well, that’s done…” I said with eyes wide in shock, but nothing prepared me for what happened next. The coyote was apparently not done, even though the Patriarch had gone limp in his mouth, he proceeded to tear his head off and swallow it whole. Then the coyote raised its head back and howled into the darkening Arizona sky. The coyotes that were still in the crude goblin pen at the back of the camp responded in kind.

I walked over to Johnny who said as I approached, “Now it is done.”

“No shit, huh?” Alyssa responded as she plopped down on the ground in exhaustion.

Johnny placed a hand on each of us and shared some of his healing energy. We were both grateful. We then all went to the grim task of gathering the spoils of the battle. We all looked up at the same time as the notification appeared in our vision.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE COMPLETED YOUR FIRST LOCAL QUEST! YOU HAVE BEEN AWARDED 1000 BONUS EXPERIENCE!

CONGRATULATIONS! YOUR PARTY IS THE FIRST TO COMPLETE A LOCAL AREA QUEST IN THE LOCAL AREA [WINSLOW]! YOU HAVE BEEN AWARDED 1000 BONUS EXPERIENCE!

LOCAL QUEST: CLEAR GOBLIN ENCAMPMENT COMPLETED! YOU HAVE BEEN AWARDED 2500 EXPERIENCE AND 500 UMC FOR EACH MEMBER OF YOUR PARTY.

The current area will become a safe zone for the next 48 hours. At the end of this period monsters will begin to respawn.

Everyone gained several levels from the fight, I was now sitting at level 8 and Alyssa and Johnny were both on the high end of level 7. We began moving through the camp looting anything we could. Alyssa walked over to the now headless Patriarch and grabbed his swords. She gave the black falchions a test spin and smiled. “I think I am going to keep these, any objections?” She flashed us a dangerous smile. We both shook our heads at the increasingly dangerous young girl. She laughed and handed me my hatchet and knife back then pulled the belt that carried the sheaths for her new toys and put it on. It automatically sized down for her.

Johnny headed over to the coyote pen with his own mount and I headed into the longhouse to see what fun stuff I could find. The interior was much as I suspected, various animal skin rugs blanketed the ground and torches lit the spaces across the walls. Shelves lined the walls with a various collection of animal bones, spices, and liquid filled bottles. A wood and bone throne of sorts sat at the opposite end of the longhouse where the Patriarch presumably held little goblin court.

I examined several vials of liquid that sat on a shelf next to the throne.

MANA POTION (BASIC) - Restores 300 MP over 30 seconds.

STAMINA POTION (BASIC) - Restores 100 ST over 10 seconds.

HEALTH POTION (BASIC) - Restores 100 HP over 10 seconds.

There were 2 of the mana and health potions and 1 of the stamina potions, I stuffed them all in my spatial inventory and continued examining the room. I walked around the throne and found what I had been hoping for. A small green stone levitated over a pedestal and glowed with a faint internal light.

SMALL SETTLEMENT CORE

"Alright Veep, we got the core, anything else we should do?”

“Excellent. I would suggest pressing ahead and clearing the Kobold Dungeon. It’s only a half mile ahead by the river. You should be able to locate another settlement core there. And experience is always good too.”

I thought about that for a minute and decided I should pose the option to the others. “Alright, I’ll consider it, have to pass it through the others. Any benefit for grabbing another settlement core?”

“Yes, with one small settlement core you can begin your settlement and designate a 1 square kilometer area as your settlement. Each additional small core increases your claimable land by another square kilometer. On the other hand, you can convert the core into settlement points, SP, that can be used to upgrade your buildings and facilities. Alternatively from that you can combine 5 small cores to make a medium core. This can be used to gain 10 sq kilometers of land, or 2x the SP you would get from the equivalent number of small cores. Converting small cores gives you 1000 SP.”

“Ok, let's go outside and decide what we want to do with the others.”

I stepped out of the longhouse and saw Alyssa swinging her new falchions. She stopped practicing when she realized I was paying attention to her and blushed furiously. I smiled and turned the corner and saw Johnny walking our way with two more coyotes in tow. One was a dark charcoal color and the other was colored more like the first coyote mount Johnny adopted.

Alyssa joined us Johnny and the trio of coyotes reached me. “What’s going on there Johnny? Make some new friends?”

He smiled a toothy smile and responded “I have. Brother Coyote has convinced these two to offer us their services.”

“REALLY!?!?” Alyssa squealed. “BEST. DAY. EVER.” She ran up and gave Johnny a big hug then made a beeline for the Charcoal colored dog. It rose from casually and greeted her with warmth in its eyes and a large tongue across her blood crusted face. She giggled and rolled under the assault. The verdict is still out on just what is exactly wrong with that girl.

“Hmph. Not bad.” The larger of the coyotes padded up to me and appraised me as much as I appraised him. Suddenly my vision began to waver and my head swam. Our gazes were locked and I realised that a battle of wills had been initiated. I knew deep down that the ultimate outcome of this contest would determine who served who. The large white brown coyote in front of me seemed to search my soul, weighing the actions of my past and passing judgement. Then I could see the life the coyote in front of me had lived before the system.

This was an Alpha. The leader of his pack. A cold blooded killer. A ruthless hunter. A protector. A father. He was all of these things and more. And his life spun in my vision and I felt my own will slipping. I couldn’t break his gaze and I began to panic. Began to question my previous life. I was going to lose.

NO! STEELY GLARE! My skill activated and the Alpha coyote flinched. It hesitantly lowered it’s gaze and collapsed to the ground and rolled over exposing his neck and whimpering in submission. I kept my eyes locked with his then came up and began to scratch his large neck. The tension in his body eased and he lapped his tongue across my face leaving it wet with slobber. I laughed and dragged both my hands across his belly. He was mine. And he needed a name.

Kaia.

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE CREATED A SOUL BOND WITH THE ALPHA COYOTE “KAIA”! Your soul bonded companion will share in your experience and level with you.

Alyssa was oblivious to what had just gone down between Kaia and myself, though Johnny patted me on the shoulder and gave me a knowing look. I stood and took a deep breath to balance my emotions, Kaia rose to his feet and rubbed his muzzle against my shoulder.

“Ok, I have something to share as well, two things actually, first, more loot.” I summoned a health, mana, and stamina potion from my inventory. Alyssa’s eyes popped open and ran over to me and stopped with her hands behind her back and started batting her eyes at me. Did she really think that would work on me!? I was almost insulted by her actions. “I found these potions in the longhouse. I figured you could use the health and stamina potions, and you Johnny could use the mana potion.”

Alyssa snatched the potions I indicated from my hand and went back to cuddling with her coyote, Johnny accepted the mana potion with an appraising eye. “This will be useful, I can summon more aid from the spirits with this, what else did you have for us?”

“A choice.” I stared at the setting sun and continued, “I got us our settlement core. But Veep says the Kobold dungeon is not far from here and we could get another core. There’s benefits to having another core.”

“What kind of benefits?” Alyssa asked while stroking the cheek of her mount.

“We can claim more territory, or we can convert it into a special currency used for buying buildings and such.” I left out the benefits of saving them up seeing as we currently only have the opportunity to claim one more.

“It is getting dark, we may want to return to the apartment complex. Although as per the previous message this is now a safe area for us. Maybe we rest the night and then push on for the dungeon in the morning.” That was the most I had heard Johnny say. And all of it was valid.

“I… I will go wherever you decide. I have.. Nowhere else to go. But I would like to hit this dungeon.” She had a sad smile on her face, I hadn’t gotten around to discovering her story. I didn’t know if I particularly cared, but there was definitely a story there.

“I would also like to get the extra core. It could definitely come in handy. So what say you Johnny?”

“Let us rest tonight and go to the dungeon in the morning.”