Timothy Nugent Author
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Chapter 15 - The Exploit
🕑 Added 2024-07-01 13:44:13 +0000 UTCTo Blake’s frustration, it took three hours to gather all the supplies he needed to create his new home. His parents insisted he wear some sort of disguise to the large store and stuffed him into a hoodie with a ball cap.
In his mind, he only needed to buy a tent, sleeping bag, and maybe a camp stove to warm up some canned beans. He had long ago learned to survive on bare necessities, and while he enjoyed the hot shower and comfortable bed at home, he could do without.
His mother, however, dissuaded him of that notion. He was loaded up with pillows, flashlights, a bucket with lid for his waste, and a shovel to bury it with. She bought him boxes of dehydrated food from the camping section, and multiple twenty-four packs of bottled water. Then, she dropped him off near the airport and helped him unload the vehicle.
When everything was extracted from the vehicle, he gave her a hug and waved goodbye. It was well after two in the morning, and he could tell she was exhausted. Unlike himself, she did not get a midday nap to recover her energy. With an LED headlamp equipped, he began to ferry the totes full of supplies to the trees near the portal.
It took another hour to set up his camp. By the time he finished erecting his tent, bringing his supplies inside, and unpacking, he was mentally drained. After he ate a snack and drank a bottle of water, he crawled into the sleeping bag and decided to catch up on some more sleep.
When he woke mid-morning, the ground was blanketed with a half inch of snow. Luckily, between the tent and the bag, he remained nice and warm. Although, it was a struggle to extract himself from the comfortable bag to prepare his breakfast in the chill air.
As soon as he ate his fill, he strapped on his sword, selected some snacks and a water bottle to go, and climbed up the rock face. With a leap, he once more entered the void.
You have re-entered a combat scenario you have already completed. Would you like to increase the difficulty?
No.
Defend the goblin tribe against their attackers to complete the combat scenario.
Shit.
This would be two horrible missions in a row. He was not upset that he would have to defend goblins. It actually felt good to come to their defense for once, rather than just murder them. Although, he would still likely be forced to kill their goblin enemies.
The scenario choice did not surprise him, though. Montgomery held a theory that the Architect tracked your mood and varied the tasks in order to keep one engaged.
Blake sighed to himself.
Most likely, their attackers were a rival tribe of goblins, coming to slaughter them. Just like humans, they fought among each other to gather power and control resources. If he were honest, besides the goblins’ diminutive stature and green skin, they were not much different than humans. Based upon their limited speech, he assumed they held a lower intellect. Yet, despite that, they responded almost exactly as humans would, which hinted that their intelligence may lie elsewhere.
No, what he hated about this type of mission was how long they generally lasted. He could be stuck inside this scenario for up to a week eating whatever mush the goblins ground up as food and bored out of his mind, waiting for the attack.
Blake was spat out of the portal and landed on hard stone. He quickly glanced around to ensure his safety before he took in his surroundings.
It was perhaps an hour before sunset. The sky was partly cloudy and his thin jacket did little to block out the frigid wind. He stood atop a parapet, at least ten feet off the ground, which overlooked a forest, just past the small clearing where they were situated.
Unlike back home, there was no snow on the ground, yet it felt colder here, regardless. The air was humid and quickly chilled him to the bone. Twenty or so goblins were clustered around him, clothed in thick animal furs. They shied away, no doubt terrified of his size and alien nature, despite the fact he was there to protect them.
However, they were both slaves to the Architect and were forced to do as they were told. When he did not immediately attack them, they seemed to lose their anxiety and a wide-eyed goblin approached him.
“You protect us?” it asked hesitantly.
Blake nodded. “Yes.”
It visibly relaxed. “Good. Big army here soon.”
Good, I might not have to wait a week.
“How big?”
“Big big,” it explained.
Blake sighed. Not every goblin could count or was competent with numbers. If he wanted an accurate assessment, he would need to scout them out on his own. “Which direction are they coming from?” he asked.
The goblin leader pointed behind him to the woods beyond. When Blake then summoned Metal, the leader stumbled backward in surprise. It had most likely never seen a human nor a wraith, and two new aliens on the same day was a shock to its system. He ignored the goblin leader and ordered his companion to explore the woods beyond.
Metal silently complied.
While Blake waited for the wraith to explore the nearby forest, he sat down, let his feet dangle off the inner ledge, shivered, and examined the crumbling fortifications. The rock structure looked like it was hundreds of years old. The out walls barely stood, and the inner partitions had already disintegrated. Hides were stretched and used to separate individual living spaces and for roofs.
Blake was not sure who built the structure originally, but he knew it was not this tribe. They obviously found the fortification and claimed it as their home. He was not even sure that goblins were capable of building something like this.
Were the goblins smarter in the past? Did some other intelligent race live here and build this? Or, is this what the goblin’s AI enhanced buildings look like hundreds of years later?
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a new notification in his interface.
Donna Summers: Are you awake?
Blake smiled. When he showed his mother how to use the social functions of the interface the night before, her eyes lit up in fascination. It was extremely intuitive and worked similarly to their own texting and social media. Matter of fact, there were so many similarities to their own technology, that he assumed the Architect purposefully mimicked it.
However, the biggest difference was that there was no keyboard to type on. Instead, you either spoke aloud or concentrated on what you wanted to say, and the interface converted it to text.
She had initially panicked when she realized the AI could read her thoughts, but he had assured her it did not care how much humans hated it. Blake himself had promised to eradicate the Architect if ever given the chance, yet the interface continued to function flawlessly. Montgomery, his old group’s mana user, regularly used the AI’s name as a curse word. Because of that, their aether user, Rajesh, had lived in constant fear of his life.
Blake Summers: Yes. I’m on the goblin planet right now. Do you want to see?
Donna Summers: YES!
Text was not the only way to communicate, it was just the most common. Holo-chat was great, but required you to speak out loud. Since only the people in the call were able to see the holograms through their interface and hear sound, you would often look like a crazy person talking to thin air. Blake, however, did not care if the goblins around him thought he was insane. His job was to protect them from a rival tribe, not befriend them. An assumption of insanity may keep them at a distance.
He converted the conversation over to holo-mode and a three-dimensional model of his mother appeared before him. Judging from her surroundings, she looked to be in a storage room of their restaurant. She sat on one of many large boxes of food and stared in wonder at the goblin planet.
Unlike video-chat on a smartphone, there was no obvious camera. Instead, nanomachines, which were invisible to the eye, captured the area from multiple angles while they hovered in midair. It allowed the interface to recreate a 3D image where the user could zoom in or out to change their focus.
“Is that a goblin?” Her eyes were the size of saucers now as she focused behind her son to the goblin leader nearby.
“Yep.”
“Wow! It almost looks like an alien!”
Blake smirked. “Well, they are little green men.”
Her brows furrowed. “Wait, I thought you said you have to kill them in these ‘scenarios’ or whatever.”
“Not these goblins,” he explained. “In this mission, I’m supposed to protect them.”
“From what?”
“Other goblins.”
His mother frowned. “This all makes no sense. I guess I’ll just have to take your word for it.” She continued to look at the world around him and added, “Are you sure you’re on another planet? It looks a lot like Earth.”
“Most planets do. Gravity’s a little weaker here, which gives me a strength advantage, the sun’s a bit bigger, and there’s two moons. But, if you ignore all that, it's pretty close to back home. Well, other than the goblins and weird animals.”
“Are you on the other side of the galaxy?” she asked in wonder.
Blake shrugged. “Not a clue. I could be at the next closest star to Earth, on the other side of the galaxy, or in a completely different one for all I know.”
He checked his map and saw that his companion had located the enemy. It had crisscrossed through the woods until it ran into its first sentry, and then pushed further in until the bulk of the goblin army was revealed.
“Hey mom, I gotta go. The battle’s gonna start soon.”
“Okay honey. Love you, and BE SAFE,” she emphasized.
“Will do, mom. Love ya too. Bye.”
When his mother disappeared, he turned to the goblin leader. “I’m going to leave and go attack the invaders out in the woods. Whatever you do, make sure no one leaves this fort.” he pointed down at the rock wall.
The leader nodded. “We stay.”
“Good,” he muttered to himself and dropped off of the ten-foot wall to the ground below. He landed lightly in the weak gravity.
He mused to himself as he began his trek. With his achievements granting twenty-two percent higher attributes, he was at the upper range of what was humanly possible. At this point, he was most likely the strongest and fastest person to ever exist, if he ignored his old timeline, and had an incredibly resilient body. Even his stamina was the equivalent of an Olympic athlete, no matter how much he complained about it.
If he had not been far more powerful before he traveled through time, he would be in awe at how strong he had become. As it was, all he felt was frustration. He knew what was possible and was annoyed that his body was incapable of keeping up with what he needed it to do.
When he fought the swarm of over fifty goblins the day prior, he used his maximum strength and speed to slaughter them. However, after over an hour of non-stop fighting, his body had begun to fail him, despite his high stamina. The event only cemented in his mind that he needed to raise his physical stamina attribute once he raised his power over ten.
Blake strode through the thick woods, confident that no enemies were near thanks to Metal’s reconnaissance. He used his transparent map to navigate toward the closest sentry. As he walked, he recalled his companion to his side. When he was only a hundred feet away from the closest goblin, he stopped and silently communicated with the wraith.
Float past that goblin and become visible when you pass it. I need you to distract it, so I can sneak up on it.
Are you sure this plan is wise, Master? I am not able to defend myself and will be in danger.
If it attacks you, just phase through everything until I kill it.
As you command.
Blake huffed in annoyance. The wraith was literally unable to be hurt without magic, and yet it complained anyway. He could understand its reticence if they were in a level one or two scenario, but at level zero, no magic existed. Using his companion was too big of an advantage to forego, and would allow him to demolish this army before it reached the walls.
He unsheathed his longsword quietly, as well as his dagger, and held them at the ready. When he heard a short squeal of fright ahead of him, he trusted that Metal had followed his orders and rushed forward at full speed.
A moment later, he saw the backside of the goblin sentry. It held a bow in its hand and desperately attempted to withdraw a crude arrow from its quiver. Its wide eyes remained on his companion and it fumbled the endeavor. It was so distracted by the wraith that Blake ran up behind it unnoticed, and cut it down without ever drawing its attention.
Okay, that worked great. Now we’ll use the same strategy for the next sentry.
The wraith did not respond. Blake sighed to himself and once more gave his companion a direct order. The performance was repeated, and just as before, it worked flawlessly. Without having to slowly sneak up behind each goblin, he was able to kill all six sentries in the same amount of time it would have taken him to kill just one by himself.
This feels like an exploit.
Using his companion as a scout and a distraction made the low level encounters trivial and would allow him to complete the scenario in record time. The goblin army’s sentries were dead, and the main force would have no warning when he finally attacked.
Metal returned to his side. As he stalked through the woods towards their encampment, he had little fear that he would be discovered. They trusted their scouts completely, and not a single goblin glanced at the woods which surrounded their clearing.
Regardless of how inattentive they were, he hid behind a bush to observe the rival tribe. There was no point in risking discovery when it was so easy to remain undetected.
Looks like sixty-two goblins.
If he added the six he already killed to the number, there were sixty-eight total in this scenario. He had no desire to fight all sixty-two at once, like he had done in the cave the day before. It would quickly tire him and was far too great of a risk. All it would take was a lucky strike or arrow, and he would be injured and likely killed.
Instead, he needed the army to separate into smaller bands for him so he could whittle down their numbers. It would allow him to recover his energy between fights and with only a few goblins arrayed against him, it was far safer.
Looks like you get to be a distraction again, Metal.
