“You're not gonna die, how much do you trust me?” Lance asked as he quickly began to disrobe the archer goblin. He pulled his axe from its head where he left it. A deep suction pop was made and as he pulled it out brains fell into the dirt. He took a couple chops into its breastplate, severing each side of its ribcage from another. He stuck his hand in and quickly felt around for the heart. He grabbed the experience gem and set it aside. Then he quickly grabbed his knife and went for the goblins tongue and ears.
“I trust you kid. You've made me have fun here. Not going to lie, this was probably going to be my last attempt.” King said, looking into the dirt. “ I grew up with games played with controllers, this VR stuff. It's, so real. I feel like I'm here. I feel like I'm dying… isn't that.. funny”
“ Good, and yeah, this is pretty real feeling. That's why the food tastes so good.” Lance had cut out the goblin tongue and chopped it up. He wanted to pan sear it but he kept thinking about whether to add the spider or weeds, he didn't want to burn it like last time.
“ The brains, use the brains. High fat content that can be oil.” King said, pointing to the open skull of the goblin.
Lance for the first time sat up and looked at the goblin. He really looked at it. It sunk in for a second, he killed this thing. No hesitation. He was cutting into, cooking it and eating it while it was warm. For some reason, grabbing the brain in his hand felt wrong. It felt morbid. He threw it on the pan. He grabbed his waterskin and rinsed the goblin tongue and then his hands, then he grabbed his sling and the other ingredients for his salad. He diced the weeds, mushrooms and spiders. Leaving the moss nice and spongy. He tossed the salad in the box, then threw all of the spider experience gems he had, and the singular goblin one onto the pan.
“Cook- Pan Sear”
His pan grew red hot quickly and he set it into the dirt, the glow dimmed. The brains were really runny almost like water and quickly the white matter turned into an oil that sizzled and popped. The tongue and sliced ear tips seared in the wake of the oil, Lance took his knife and pressed the meat into the pan giving it just a touch more sear then flipped it. The experience gems originally had acted like bite sized chunks of season, but Lance watched as they melted like butter being liquefied and absorbed by the meat, he grabbed and broke the bread into chunks then laid it on the pan to make sure he soaked up all the experience he could. King was lying back listening and smelling the meat being cooked staring up at the cave roof. Lance dumped all the pans contents onto the salad in the box. He got a notification but ignored it for the moment. He grabbed Kings leg and removed the shirt bandage. He took the square corner and gave King a knife sheath from the dagger wielding goblin to bite down on. He pressed into the wound for a couple seconds searing his wound causing King to yelp out in pain. He dumped some water on the wound saving just a few drops which he handed to King to sip on.
Lance looked on at the salad, it looked like it was glowing softly. Goblin tongue and spider bites atop a cave medley. The oil and experience wetting the mixture like a dressing. His mouth drooled. King sat up more, alert but looking drained, he had a soft glowing throb of red to him. An indicator that a party member was low on health. He also looked at the salad longingly. Lance took the knife across the center of his box dividing the food equally. They both began to dig in with their hands.
They both began to receive notifications. They didn't care. The cave medley covered in goblin and spider was something they would never forget. The juice and tenderness of the meat, the citrusy spongy texture of the moss and hints of spice from the weeds, the piney mushrooms, the brain buttered bread croutons. It was so good that they both found themselves making subtle noises of glee and nodding at each other. Then didn't stop until the entire box was emptied. The torch went out. They both looked at each other. And then at the bodies of the goblins.
King inspected his leg, it had healed and so did his shoulder. He was full and happy, he looked into his menu and his jaw dropped.
Lance did the same thing he opened his menu. And checked his notifications.
Recipe created “Cave Dwellers Salad”
First Language Learned - Goblin
Tavern quest available
Goblin drop shame tier
Level Up
Level Up
New skill
New passive
“Holy crap” Lance sat up straighter. He looked over at King. King was deep in his menu, he could see him moving through it and reading some things. They both obviously had a Darkvision buff, when Lance looked at his buff, he mouth fell open even more. “12 hours?! Wait that's more time than I have, does it carry over?” He quickly looked over the recipe first.
“Cave Dwellers Salad”
+2 hp per min for 10 minutes. +1 mana per min for 5 minutes
Darkvision - 12 hours
Goblin language
Grade: Novice Chef
Description: A cave salad great for regeneration, a cave medley of mushrooms, moss, and weeds, topped in a goblin tongue and ears, spider thorax, and oily goblin brain coated croutons, finished with an experience dressing. Perfect for a fresh adventure into the Goblin caves of Eld. Pairs well with Slime Soda or Goblinalco.
Value: 10 Dull experience gems, or 1 Dim experience gem.
“Whoa. Wait just like that? A whole language? The price for this is massive. It must be because of that right? I mean the regeneration Is awesome but 12 hours of Dark vision is an entire gaming session. This is awesome.” Lance had been muttering to himself. King was still reading something but he paused to listen to Lance's explanation, he kept reading and let Lance continue to look at his menu.
Languages - Common, Goblin
“ Okay, simple. I guess I just do.” Lance raised his brow.
Tavern quest “Save the Prince!” available
Lance didn't say anything, he just looked over at King and gave a side eye. “Which of us is the...” He thought.
Mailbox- Shame tier drop available.
Lance looked over at the goblins, “ I think we have plenty here to go through. I'll wait on this.” He thought.
Sammich level 4
38/400
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Chef
Role - Fill
Health - 17 ~~ 30
Attack - 6
Defense - 2
Agility - 1
Mana ? ~~ ?
- 2 available stat points
Gear stats
+4 attack
Active Skills -
Cook level 1 - Create food, Taste determines an amount of mana, health, and stamina restored by product. 0 mana
Pan Sear level 1-
While holding a pan, heat its bottom without a fire for a flash sear finish.
Active time 1 minute - 1 mana
Enstone Lv1 - Rare Racial Skill - Troll
Description: Encase a small object in the surrounding stone.
Activation - 1 Mana
Dinner Bell - Create a dinner bell that when rang bolsters your party, giving them a party buff of - Hungry. Lasting 2 minutes
- Hungry- For Tank roles allows Damage reduction, Dps increased speed of attack or spell casting, For Healers increased mana pool, party must have assigned roles to receive buff.
Activation - 3 mana
Curse Skill- Hidden
Class Passives -
Full stomach - While full you can determine more ingredients when using class skills, as well as Regen 1 health per 2 minutes.
Discern Ingredients - Determine edible ingredients from your surroundings.
Scent - Determine quality of ingredients by smell.
Lance was extremely happy. By the time he finished reading all of his spoils, he finally looked at King, who seemed to be awaiting to meet his gaze.
“ Well.. I'm gonna go ahead and say thank you first. Secondly, I know why you wanted to hide who you were, that cooking is damn good. Dungeon Chef huh. Hahaha Damn right. I'm level 3” he raised his hand
“ I'll be your tank whenever you need it if I can get patched up like that!” Lance shook his hand and laughed a little.
“ Well add me, but I have a couple conditions for you. Like I said I have a couple friends waiting for me on the next floor. They're going to be some of my main members, you too if you are down. But we will be a guild, and this food is our secret. At least until people figure out how to use experience gems in other ways. Consider yourself lucky cause you're only the second person to gain experience from my food. I want to be clear, our goal is level 200. We're beating this game, on hard mode. Are you in?” Lance spoke seriously
King didn't think twice. “ Yessir. Let's win that money. KingCockroach is my username.”
Lance pursed his lips. “Oof… well too late I guess.” he thought. “ I thought it was King?” he said.
“ Yea it is, in the dungeon. You're gonna tell me you're really named.. Sack.” King raised his eyebrows.
Lance coughed* “ No … I'll have to find a better name.. it's Sammich.”
King laughed. They both stood up and dusted off.
“ Hey what stats do you have? I have Attack, Defense, and Agility, I don't know if mana counts.” Lance asked.
“Agility? Interesting. I have Attack, Defense, and Intelligence. Maybe they are based on classes.” They both looked at their menus and they both populated spaces for Agility and Intelligence respectively, however the stats for each other showed zero in their fields. “Huh, well maybe it just comes with time, or knowledge.” King said, closing his menu. “ We should see what we have here. Go hit that checkpoint then double back and finish the rest of the plan.”
Lance agreed. He looked down at the goblins and for the first time he felt a bit of remorse. The goblins told them to follow or die. Lance couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't a threat, more like a warning. Before he could respond King went into action and the fight began. There wasn't really any turning back from that point, even if they had, how much could his understanding really allow for talking with them. Only now did he supposedly know the goblin language. He'd have to test how that worked, but he assumed the same as understanding Reilly, the game translated it for him. He looked down at the goblins and removed their attire. In all he received two goblin longswords; which were more like a machete than anything, the goblin bow and arrows; the goblin only had 7 left, the two goblin daggers, and two sets of goblin bat leather jerkins; too small to be worn by anyone but a child. They decided that at least being leather they could be cut and repurposed. He cut into the goblins and took the remaining three tongues, all four pairs of ears, and into the three remaining for their gems. Afterwards Lance for the first time decided it best to bury the remnants.
“I think we should bury them, I don't feel that bad about it but I don't know if they were hostile, until we were.” Lance said attaching a Goblin longsword and dagger to his hip and boot respectively.
King looked up curious, also attaching a sword and dagger to his hip. “ What do you mean?”
“I don't know, they said follow or die but I get the feeling it was more a warning than a threat, before I could stop the fight it was too late. Not at all mad about it, you and I were on plan. Just something to think about. What's weird is I know they were speaking goblin, I could understand it but barely. I have encountered goblins that could speak, but they were certainly hostile. These guys didn't speak common but those others could. I think at that time it was more likely because it was a tavern quest.” Lance explained
“Hmm. Well I guess we can try and find out. Don't think we should try it on this floor though. They'll see this gear and recognize it. Unless you just don't care about this stuff.” King said.
Lance understood it became a gamble on which would bear more fruit. The goblins may have led them somewhere but what if it was a trap. What they got by taking them out was pretty great, but what if it wasn't a trap? Goblin city.. he thought about that more. It was something he wasn't sure he should mention. It made all of this more brutal than he wanted to think of himself. If these goblins were civilized, he'd been more barbaric than literal goblins.. He needed to talk with Reilly, he needed to understand more.
“Let's go to the checkpoint. If we leave the dungeon we can still requeue back in. I think we should sell some of this stuff, and get a bag. I also need help with something else. Plus there's more crates back there right? Might come in handy.”
King shrugged, “ Sure don't see why not it will give us a chance to get out of here with something, plus I wanted to discuss this new ability with you, I appreciate your input with the armor, I'd never have thought to step out of it leaving it active. That was brilliant and an amazing decoy.”
Lance and King then moved off the path and began to dig holes for the goblin corpses all the while speaking of their new skills with each other. Once buried they piled stones atop the shallow graves. They both walked back to the checkpoint with all of their loot in hands. After reaching the checkpoint the torches flickered their blue blaze to red. They grabbed the crates and both left the dungeon via their menus. Once in the bar again Lance sent an invite for King to enter the bar.
“ Hey Wellyn you don't care about me inviting people here right? I meant to ask last time but since it's your bar I felt bad about it, not like you're really making any sales and I probably owe you a few for the slime sodas.”
Wellyn turned to look at Lance from the bar, he had been reading a book. He slapped it closed in his palm. “ Sammich you realize this is your Legacy space and that’m just a facilitator. And I won't be here for long anyhow. Once your carts begin to roll I'll be off. The slime sodas free, just a bonus for you fresh meat, ta heal your wounds.”
“ It's my what? Wait wait, this is my.. Oh. So you're going to leave then.. well that's unfortunate. When?” Lance looked at Wellyn “I guess he really was just a tutorial npc. Bummer I was gonna finally ask what liquor I could buy with these gems…” he thought.
“ It's up to me really. When I think you're well and learned. Most facilitators just up and out around level five, I'm surprised ya figured out how to level faster before then. Half my battles over haha, be careful though. Too quick or too high will throw problems your way. Considering you're still bumming around level one I'd say you're quick to think but slow to act, which ain't all bad. Acting like a true fill. And there's more to you that I'm interested in, the memories you've found, so I'll play it by ear.” Wellyn moved to go and grab some mugs and tap some slime soda into them.
A few seconds later King poked his head in through the front door. Lance had still been standing at his Dungeon door with a crate in his hands. King walked over and set the other crate on a table in front half of the tavern.
“ Dang Kid. This place is pretty alright. I like it. Certainly more habitable than mine. So what are we gonna do with all this stuff?” He noticed Wellyn “Hello sir, Im King” King said with a nod at Wellyn, as he pulled out the goblin jerkins, water skins, and bread.
Lance walked over and placed his on the table beside him. “ King, this is Wellyn, he's my err.. barkeep. And I was thinking of posting these for sale. I'm not sure that destroying them for strip leather is better than a gem or two. These, well I haven't looked at them enough yet. One second.
Lance began to use his Appraise skill. Checking the weapons and jerkins.