[Lewd Traveler] 9 – Trapped

Shuffling in the forest around a cave, what looked to be several shambling corpses could be seen. These corpses moved around the cave, creating a sort of perimeter where nothing could get through without encountering one of them. Hiding up in the trees, various dead squirrels, birds, and even what looked to be other vermin sat, acting as a sort of surveillance of the perimeter.

Sitting outside the cave, however, were what looked to be multiple racks where meat was being dried and even a rainwater collector—not that it seemed to have collected any water.

Deeper inside the cave, however, was much different. Rugs made of animal hide and fur, a wooden bed made of logs and sticks, and what looked to be a makeshift workbench where a woman in tattered clothes was carving away at bone with a stone knife.

What she was making was easy to see, as dozens of arrowheads made from bone were scattered before her, along with dozens of arrows. Standing nearby were two child-like skeletons armed with small bows fashioned from some flexible wood and plant fiber. If there were other options, the bows would have been made of better materials, but now, this was the best the woman had.

The Undead Goblins, controlled by the woman, were incredibly weak—weaker than most of the other undead. So, she wanted to compensate for the Goblins' inherent weakness by giving them a way to attack from afar, hide away from any enemy, and attack via Guerrilla Warfare. However, as it seemed with all the Undead, they lacked intelligence, having only the capacity to follow simple orders and only a few at a time.

At the moment, the woman had focused more on Micro than Macro, as the Undead did not have enough self-awareness to attack everything alive on sight and defend the woman from any and all threats, making them quite poor soldiers. 

The woman was Salem, who had been trapped in this dungeon for almost two weeks. In this time, she has risen from level 8 to 15. Of the thirty-five attribute points she received, she allocated three to Intelligence, two to wisdom, five to strength, ten to agility, and fifteen to Vitality.

At the same time, she now had thirty Undead, which totaled half of her mana generation. Most of the undead were small vermin, which had a negligible cost for upkeep. Those that did take up two or three points of upkeep were the Greater Elks and Goblins. The rest of the Undead were a few scaled lizards, squirrels, birds, and Horned Rabbits.

Salem could have risen even higher in levels if she tried, but she had already spent a few days in the Dungeon and wanted to make up a camp she could retreat to and recuperate. While she focused on making a camp, that doesn't mean she wasn't scoping out the area. Already, she has encountered more Goblin encampments. She could not get a good number of how many Goblins were in these camps, but she assumed that they would likely be more than a dozen in number if the first Goblin camp she encountered were anything to go by. 

Finishing off the last few arrows, she slid them into their respective quivers, then gave the quivers to the Goblin Skeletons nearby.

"You two," she addressed the two skeletons, "Stay near me and attack any hostile with the bow and arrows I have given you. If I am in fatal danger at any point in time, you two are to sacrifice yourselves to hold off the enemy while I retreat."

Satisfied with the orders given to the Skeletal Archers, she got up from her workbench and exited the cave with the two  Goblin Skeletons following behind her.

Bringing her hand up to her mouth and whistling, the other undead came running to her.

Nodding, she directed them to follow and surround her as she began her first of many hunts.

...

Hidden within a clearing within the forest, a small encampment of Goblins could be seen, where nearly three dozen Goblins gathered around a few campfires.

A few Goblin sentries wandering around the edge of the camp, keeping watch. Near one of the said sentries, the sound of a branch breaking caught the attention of the sentry.

Moving over to the sound, the Goblin walked straight past the tree line, right into a trap, as an arrow pierced right through its temple, killing it instantly.

Within the span of a few minutes, several more of the sentries disappeared into the forest, never to be seen again.

Surprisingly, the Goblins had not yet discovered the disappearances, at least for the first hour, but by then, nearly all of the sentries had been taken care of.

When morning neared, the Goblins finally noticed. More than a dozen Goblins had been killed, and a group of goblins that were sleeping around a campfire were murdered in their sleep; only their bodies were found.

However, the next night, the entire camp was dead.

...

Turns out, Goblins were incredibly sloppy. Their patrols were filled with holes, their sentries were incredibly stupid and unalert, and the strongest Goblins in the camp were easily dispatched in his sleep with the other Goblins he slept with.

The Goblin in charge of this camp was in his mid-forties when it came to his level, but he was no harder to kill. All it took was a slit throat and an arrow to the eye, and he was killed before he could react. Come the second night, I simply attacked the entire camp with all of my undead at once. Luckily, I didn't lose any of my Undead due to how weak the Goblins were and the openness of the camp, allowing me to easily overrun the Goblins.

In the end, I leveled up three times to level 18. Without hesitation, I threw all fifteen of my points into Wisdom, raising my mana regen to over fifty points an hour, allowing me to raise an undead every two hours if I wished and had no other undead. Raising a single undead would take a few hours with my mana regeneration, as over fifteen points of my mana had been assigned to keeping my Undead active.

Enough about that. I knew of four more of these camps and two more Goblin Caves. I hoped I'd get to level 25 or 30 by the end of the week.

...

Soon arriving at yet another camp, I sat upon a tree overlooking yet another Goblin camp. This one was a bit larger than the last, with a few thatch huts scattered around the camp. There were at least four dozen Goblins, by my count, along with a rather strong-looking leader and a few Goblins around his side that seemed to actually have some decent gear.

The largest Goblin stood roughly five feet tall, while the other goblins ranged from three to four. I could tell from watching these Goblins that they acted much like Warhammer 40k Orcs. The strongest and biggest Goblins acted as leaders, and the strongest Goblin could be challenged by a weaker Goblin to become the new leader in a duel to the death. The goblin leader I was looking over was brutal, as I had already witnessed one such challenge where he bisected the smaller goblin that challenged him with little to no effort with the axe he had in hand.

Humming in thought, I observed the patrol routes of the Goblins. I did a tally of how many Goblins were inside the camp, with my guess ending in around fifty-seven goblins, fifty-six now, as I dropped down from a tree right onto a patroling Goblin and casting [Drain Life], turning the Goblin in my grasp into a mummified corpse.

Dragging the corpse away, I threw it into a ditch and looked up to the dark sky. I was glad that the Dungeon had a night and day cycle, but I found out the hard way that there was no weather. It was clear skies constantly, with some nights having some fog. Tonight was such a night, easily allowing me to dispatch multiple Goblins without a worry or much effort.

My undead were scattered around the edges of the camp, hidden within the fog, waiting for my signal to attack. Already, I found that the Goblins of this camp were slightly stronger than the other Goblins I had encountered, with the Goblin sentries that I had killed having ranged from level 10 to 16, yet they were still seemingly fragile and weaker than me. At least they were good EXP and targets for leveling my skills.

With the Goblins this strong, my goal of reaching level 25 or 30 by the end of the week seemed more achievable.