Fireballs how do you make throwing a fire ball into a horde of goblins a boring topic. Pompous Ponce or Gavin made it so boring I had to pinch myself to stay awake. It was a glorious morning sunny and bright and I stuck in a class room with the most boring teacher i had ever try and teach me something. Gavin finished up “And so quests there is a list of quests and there rewards on the notice board. Remember that you need permission to do the dangerous quests”

I checked the list of quests the highest was 300 experience points usually granted. I grimaced it would take me about a month to level up one level if these quests were correct. Still all the quests were brew quests like brew 1000 light cure disease potions for 150 experience points. Brewing a thousand light cure disease potions was fairly easy. A litre of cure disease potion watered down could cure about 225 people of light diseases. Whatever power gave experience points accepted that 1 litre of cure disease potion was worth 200 doses of cure light disease.

So what i needed to do for 150 experience points was brew 5 litre's of cure disease potion. The school would also give you some silver for the potions but unless you were a master alchemist forget about even breaking even. What i needed was a way of getting my hands on a lot of the materials needed to brew the potion and pump the potions out. I looked around for Max who was taking basic battle magic class.

Max stood in a ring of admirers mostly female and smashed a

level 21 (magic knight)(Magic swordsman) flying. No surprise there Max was a level 49 chaos paladin. Max grinned at me and I nodded. It was time to head out. We had a meeting planed with Thorn in a sewer. We left the coos and blatant staring from the females were kind of creepy. Of course Max loved that. He did not love the couple of guys that were drolling over him. I would have liked to smirk at Max but i about to be in a situation where i could die if he was annoyed at me.

Getting to the meeting place was easy. You would think a bunch of thieves and killers would have had a more hidden hide out. All we had to do is follow the map to find thorn at the designated time. The thieves had not even bothered setting up a hidden entrance. Thorn was looking well in her new armour and she pulled my and Max's equipment from her bag of holding. She also pulled out the wanted posters and a map. “Alright here is thief hide out remember the main boss Jenkins is a level 65 (thief) (assassin) (villain) The villain titles and skills are fairly nasty. So how do we handle this?”

I pointed to the map “We smoke them out. The undead do not have to breath so we send in a couple of skeletons with smoke pots in there chest. If that fails Max can incinerate them.”

The goblin skeletons I sent in did not do so well. They walked past the darts that flew from the walls and ignored the poison crossbow bolts. But when they reached the door to where the thieves were hiding a massive stone golem appeared like magic from the wall and smashed them to pieces.

NameNullRaceGolemGolem typeStone GolemHit points356/560StaminaNullSkillsPower Blow Level 4/6NullLevel 0Special skillsTraitsMagic resistance-1Physical Resistancelv 3/4Dark VisionBadly Damaged

Effects: Lower Hit points, Slow, Some skills not usable

Old

Effects: Low Magic resistance

The golem was armed with a massive hammer which it held in both hands. It was old and battered but still a massive threat to most would be bounty hunters. Luckily Max was a high sorcerer. He cast a liquid flame spell and something that looked like liquid flame exploded from his hands an hit the golem on the foot. The golem tried to attack us but its foot broke off and it hit the ground with a thump.

It smashed into the ground and we waited for Max to regain his mana. Thorn pulled out a couple of shields and we waited I summoned another Goblin skeleton a shaman this time and had him cast fire ball after fire ball at the golem head. It took five minutes for Max to regain his mana then he incinerated the head of the stone golem. Thorn looked at me “Why did the Golem not at least try to crawl it could have pushed us back a bit.” I looked at the broken Golem “Cheap its a older Golem that was patched up. Its cost is low and its fairly powerful in a enclosed space. But it still had a lot of damage that was not fully repaired.”

I pulled two more regular skeletons from my bag of holding and sent them forward. The door to the thieves hideout slammed open and I cast bone wall. A wall of bones appeared in front of me. There was only one reason to open the door like that a ambush.

I waited until i heard my skeletons getting smashed up and cast corpse explosion. This caused the skeletons to explode and also sent flaming liquid everywhere in the room they had just entered. I grinned i had put two jars of oil in the chests of the skeletons. The Liquid turned to toxic smoke when heated. I felt my experience go up as the smoke cleared out the thieves.

The bone wall would vanish in a few minutes so i made the best of things. I used my magic senses to look for a dead body and I used raise dead on one of the armed guards that had coughed themselves to death. I looked threw his eyes and pretended to crawl backwards.

There were five living people waiting on the other side of the door. Two mercenary guards and Jenkins the level 65 (thief) (assassin) (villain). The other two people were Sara a level 31 (witch) (mage) and Thomas lv24 (noble) ( slave merchant)

Sara was holding the barrier that kept the smoke out so I crawled over and released the dead mercenary with instructions to kill Sara. There was a scream as the dead mercenary attacked Sara. I cast raise dead on another body and looked around Sara was screaming and had loosened her hold on her magic. Everyone was attacking the dead body i had just used to attack Sara. They were all sticking low to the ground to avoid the smoke.

I reached up and smashed a nearby mug into the testicles of one the guards. The guards grunted and I reached over to block his mouth. Jenkins tossed a dagger and it struck one of my eyes. I was so glad i was remote controlling this body. Time to finish this off I picked up the guard i had just smashed in the testicles crossbow and shot Sara with it.

My bone wall was about to vanish so I cast wind wall. The wind wall was much harder to hold than the bone wall but i needed the practise. With Sara Dead the smoke would quickly kill the others We all sat waiting until I got bored and we all headed off to eat. I sent the goblin shaman inside with a spell scroll of greater thunder bolt and ordered him to kill anyone besides me and my party that came around. I pulled out another goblin skeleton and armed him with a crossbow and had him guard the entrance to the thieves hide out. I could not sense Jenkins or any life besides our own but Jenkins might have had a skill to hide from me. If we came back later and the skeleton crossbow goblin was smashed up we would know Jenkins had done it. We came back a hour later and looked over our new hide out.

Max starred at Jenkins Corpse “So when do we turn Jenkins over for the reward?” i shook my head “We do not. He is valuable as a corpse. I can try and squeeze secrets out of him. Plus this is a thief hideout more thieves are going to be showing up we just have to tidy up and kill them for gold and experience when they come around. Then i can squeeze them for information like the locations of more hideouts.”

I looked around the dump. “Also we want to investigate for smaller dungeons. I want to start collecting and growing herbs that grow near the dungeons. Thanks to that girl fan of Max we have a list of dungeon herbs and where they grow.” Max started looting the dead bodies. I took the Mage Max took the slave dealer and Thorn the thief leader. The mage had a small spell book nothing else of real value. Max cursed his luck all he got was a decent belt. Thorn grinned as she pulled out a large purse and a good to superior quality black dagger.

I looked around at the thieves base and had a thought “Lets set up a bunch of these safe house just in case. Ok Thorn i will leave a skeleton shaman down here with my light heal ring. And a couple of archers to help you in case of trouble. Clean the outside Anyone comes around capture them and interrogate them. ”

I pulled out a book and began to question the dead bodies. I got a record of safe houses and people who took bribes. I took a last look around the pit that was my new base of operations and decided that i wanted curtains and a decent bed if this place was to become my permanent base of operations.

I headed back to my room in the mages guild. I went to see the alchemist main lecturer or i tried i got landed with a apprentice . Kenya went over the rules again and explained that it was very hard to honestly get the herbs I planned on using to brew the potions I was planing on brewing. I pinched myself as Kenya went on. “the only way to gather those herbs honestly is to kill the thieves that hide near the lesser dungeons. You should hire a party to clear out a few thieves nests. That way you can harvest all the herbs you need.”

I nodded “I have a couple of friends who just got a bounty from some thieves I am going to have a friend collect the herbs for me.” Kenya's eyes glowed “Thats great i will assist you if you agree to give me some of the herbs. I can show you how to alter the recipes to increase potency ”

I grinned and pulled out some herbs I had gathered in the Goblin dungeon. “I also have a friend who gathers herbs from a goblin dungeon. How about we find a lot cheap herbs that we can mix with these to brew some potions. I need the experience I just want to break even.”

Kenya nodded “Your in this for the experience then like me. Brew up a lot of potions to increase your level. I have the plant growth mage sub class i might be able to increase the yield on the dungeon herbs ”

I nodded and decided to ask the hard question “Listen I have a couple of negative titles. Poisoner and plague bearer i poisoned a bunch of goblins. The title seems to have gone but it might have been adsorbed by a dark one title.”

Kenya eyes lit up “That would mean you have a natural poison right? Thats great there are higher level quests to create rat poison and insecticide. You could milk your abilities for two or three thousand experience points. ”