Chapter 46 - Goblin camp (1/2)
”What is the drill bit for?” asked Tang checking the images of the loot that Shadow displayed.
”As the priest told they are mining at the hills and if there is one thing that goblins are famous for in any game are their engineering capabilities. It is expected of them to have drills and other machinery at their operation,” said Shadow as if it was obvious.
Shadow had already begun to move towards the location of the mine. It is going to take at least another 30 minutes to reach the enemy camp and he no time to lose as he is going to have his actual training with a new teacher in another 5 hours of the game time. He needed to improve his characters as fast as he can. He had his aim on a pair of unique daggers that he could obtain after reaching the White Heart city.
Along the way, they found few other goblins mining at iron ore veins whom they managed to easily pickpocket and kill. As they came within a 200 feet distance to the mine entrance. They say a camp of about 10 brown colored tents with a wooden fence surrounding it. There were elite goblins guarding the camp and a few goblins riding wolf patrolling the area around the camp.
[Lesser Goblin Guards] (Elite Monsters)
Level: 4
HP: 500
[Lesser Goblin Riders] (Elite Monsters)
Level: 4
HP: 500
”How are these level 4 elites? They hardly have any HP compared to level 3 players,” asked Tang who had about the same amount of HP as them.
”Their defence, agility and skill would be high enough to compensate for their lower HP. These aren't the common monster like the miner goblins we found outside. They might also call for reinforcement if they notice us, especially those riders,” explained Shadow.
They soon found a hiding place behind a boulder a bit closer to the camp and while the rest of the team waited behind it, Shadow went around the camp to scout the monsters and the patrols' patterns of the riders. A few minute later, a report of the details of the camp came in.
”There are over 12 riders patrolling the camp. Four guards in total, two at the gate visible to you near the tents and two more just at the entrance of the mine. A number of the common ones are all around place. Might be more common and elite monsters in the tents,” reported Shadow sending the location and patterns of the monsters on his map.
”So, we can't directly attack them. They outnumber us and there are higher-level elite monsters at the camp. It would be very hard with those numbers. We need some kind of plan to infiltrate the camp,” said Quite fire looking at the image of the map sent by Shadow.
”We also need to check and see if there are any monsters that would get out from the tents. It is very complicated pattern. Is this one like that special quest that you completed?” asked Blinding White.
”I don't think so. Special quests are not given by routine NPCs like the temple priests. They are given by unknown hidden kind of NPCs,” replied Shadow. ”As for the plan, I will try to thin the ranks near the other side of the gate and send my clone also to provide some distraction, in case I accidentally alert them.”
Soon, alerts of them receiving experience points filled up the team battle log. They were quite amazed at the speed with which Shadow was killing the monsters. But it looked like he was only attacking common worker goblins scattered around the camp.
In ten minutes time, they heard about 20 notifications of the common goblins kills. This can be considered to be very efficient as Shadow always looted them before casting cheap shot and killed them.
”Done with the common goblins. Will attempt to take the riders now. Might get discovered if reinforcements move towards me, attack the remaining ones. I can swap with my clone to escape successfully,” said Balthazar as he prepared to take down the wolf riders.
Wolf riders had one advantage that was very irritating. He needs to carefully attack only the rider and not the wolf that he is riding. If the wolf is hurt, then it will be a two-fold attack from both the wolf and the rider who wields a sword. The wolf rider is also very fast, even faster than blackrock wolves.
The rider also shoots arrows and inflicts long distance damage and has high perception. It is very difficult to approach them stealthily to use cheap shot on them. But luckily the mask of shadows provides Shadow Tyrant enhanced stealth as a passive which make sneaking up to the rider a lot easier for him.
The 500 HP of the wolf rider is divided between the wolf and the rider, 350 HP to the rider and the remaining to the wolf. The rider could also call for reinforcements. But if he manages to stun the rider, he could actually him down and release the mounted wolf. The mounted wolf usually would run away from the camp.
But Shadow wanted to try and pickpocket the riders. This in general is considered extremely foolish as the riders are continuously moving and the players are hardly skilled enough to pickpocket such moving targets at the beginning of the game.
It was something so hard that Balthazar heard of what he could obtain on executing pickpocket ability on the riders. The wolves were 3 feet tall with the riders wearing satchel on its side.
He quietly walked in stealth by a rider and carefully put his hand into the satchel and pulled out something. It was a Blackrock crystal! The rider gave Blackrock crystals not even crystal pieces. He directly obtained the Blackrock crystals.
Excited by his discovery, he began to pickpocket the riders without attacking them. He made sure that he didn't pickpocket from the same rider multiple times so that, he wouldn't get caught.
Meanwhile, the remaining members of the team were getting bored. They had been waiting for more than 10 minutes but there was no commotion or notifications of the monsters being killed.
Tang couldn't bear to remain in hiding any longer. ”What are you doing? Why the delay?” she asked in the team chat.
”Sorry was stealing from the riders and forgot to attack,” said Shadow sending an image of a stack of 15 Blackrock crystals in his inventory. ”Will start the attack now.”
He immediately chose a rider who was patrolling the area where his team was hidden. He waited till the rider reached a secluded where he used cheap shot to stun the rider and assaulted him to death. He used a shadow clone. Even with a white trash dagger and sword, his attack power and speed couple with his clone were high enough to deplete the riders' health to nothing.
The wolf mount of the rider ran off away from the camp once the rider died. He got a white trash dagger and 8 coppers from the dead body. The team also got a total of 40 experience points from the death of the rider.
[Goblin Dagger] (White Trash)
Level: 4
Equipment Requirement: Strength: 8;
Attack Power +10;
Agility +6;
Durability: 20/20
Though he managed to kill a rider without alerting anyone, it couldn't be done without the shadow clone which had a cooldown of 5 minutes. So, that implied that he would have to wait for 5 minutes before he attacks another rider. This would take a lot of time to kill 12 riders and by that time, the riders might realize that some of their companions are missing.