Joe focused back on the here and now and looked to the chatting kids… might as well call them what they are: apprentices. He clapped his hands and brought their attention back to him, smiling brightly at his good fortune.
“Right. Good news… well, wait. It’s good news for me. You didn’t get the King Killer titles, sorry. You guys wouldn’t have lived…”
“Ohh! Master’s a King Killer now!”
“That’s right! Master! Amazing!”
“Goblin King killer!”
The three apprentices began calling out excitedly before Joe quieted them quickly.
“Shhh…. Guys. Remember. I want this to be… quiet, OK?”
The three quickly quieted and he brought them back on track, once again.
Goblin Throne Usurper (Title): You sat upon the Goblin King’s throne. Gain the ability to tax goblins. Any goblin defeated in combat will have a one percent increase in chance to drop items.
Goblin King Killer (Title): You have killed the Goblin King. Lucky for you, goblins feel little loyalty for their king. While attacking goblins, gain a ten percent increase to all stats. You can now tame goblins as a pet or a summons for appropriate jobs. You gain great boosts to any skills and spells that directly benefit any goblin pets or summons. (Error: No job currently available.)
“Right. Let’s focus. Please. The second title… Feat you got was from sitting on the goblin’s throne: Goblin throne Usurper. Please click on it. Ah… right,” Joe took a quick glance at each of the three’s titles and saw them identical to his, “Welp. That’s a bit useless but hey. The Goblin Throne Usurper titl…Feat, sorry guys… I’ll need to get used to that. The Goblin Throne Usurper Feat allows you to gain more special loot, um… items, from when you kill any goblins. It doesn’t guarantee it, but you get some more. A little more. It’s not… that great.”
“It doesn’t matter! We have two Feats. That is a great honor! A great honor!” Zilnek jabbered in excitedly, almost cutting Joe off at the end.
Joe smirked and let the excitement continue a little longer before he cut them off again, “Guys. I know you’re so excited. But I’m so tired and I want to sleep soon. Let me finish this and we can go to bed. You can talk while we’re in bed if you want. Kilniara, you can just leave your door open a bit if you want to talk to the two of them. Me, I want to sleep. OK? Let’s just get this done.”
The three of them chorused out a ‘yes, master’ and Joe had to remind them once again to simply use his name. Joe pulled out the items he’d stashed rather quickly before settling on the edge of his bed. He first pulled out a nice looking parchment made of some animal skin and unrolled it, looking at it with a bit of confusion before he looked at the top and a bit of excitement came to his eyes. It was titled quite stylistically A Map of the Goblin King Dungeon. It was basically blank, but Joe could only guess that it would show the appropriate floor when they actually reentered the dungeon. Magic map! Ha! So cool! Hopefully we’ll get a job to do that though. Relying on loot drops or chests for it… blargh!
Joe handed the map to the three so they could look at it, “Not much right now, but it’s a map for the dungeon. It’ll be nice to have for the fourth floor tomorrow! OK?”
The three apprentices took the map in cautious excitement before growing quite bored when they realized all they had was basically a blank hide. Joe ignored their antics and took out the other three items they had gained. Garnedell carefully rolled up the magic map while Joe took out the last three items. Two were identical and seemed rather bland while the last was a fancy looking medallion with a rather well carved image of the goblin king with the opposite site having a simple script stating it was the sigil of the goblin king. No matter how he twirled it or played with it, nothing seemed to happen. He handed it around to the apprentices, but like the map, the passed it on quickly because nothing seemed to explain it. Man, I could really use an analyze or appraise skill, if there is any.
The last two items were intricately carved wooden rings that still, somehow, managed to be absolutely bland. Joe couldn’t figure out how something so intricately carved with such detail could appear so… plain. He fiddled with them a bit, but found nothing that could indicate what they were. Need an appraise or analyze skill, I guess. That’ll be important! Man… change job skill or job, analyze job, or appraise one, weapons jobs, job guidance job, check, I guess… language job, check. OK. Well… two out of… eight? Isn’t too bad. Joe chuckled to himself then decided to open up his stat window and just see what the rings did. Given their identical look, he hoped they were basically the same.
He slipped a ring on his finger while watching his stats like a hawk, but saw nothing change. He squinted with some frustration then blinked with surprise and sat back when saw a popup flash in front of him.
Please state which weapon in which you wish to be proficient.
Ooh! Does that mean … wait. Help, does that mean I can use the weapon or that I have mastered the weapon. Even as Joe finished asking the question, the popup in front of him wavered a bit and rewrote itself.
Please state which weapon you wish to be able to wield.
Whelp. That answers the question. It just lets you hold the weapon. Not much use for me… unless I don’t get the weapons jobs unlocked before a year is up… maybe… wait! Help. Can I change the weapon as many times as I wish with this item? Joe waited patiently for a response but nothing came back and Joe grimaced, cursing silently under his breath realizing that he wasn’t able to trick the help into some free information. I’ll have to figure it out some other way, I guess?
Joe slipped that ring off and put the other on, and saw the same prompt. OK. Same rings I guess. Not much use for me now but… Oooh! I can have the kids start using and practicing with serious weapons!
Joe smiled at the thought and tossed the ring to Garnedell, “Put it on, Garndell and just say ‘sword.’”
Garnedell frowned but did it and said sword. Joe pulled out his sword and handed it to Garnedell who looked at it with some trepidation as if he was looking at a poisonous snake.
“It’s OK. Take it, Garnedell.”
Garnedell grabbed it gingerly, while Joe held it firmly and carefully. After a few moments, Garnedell took the sword with more confidence and soon stood and smiled, waving the sword in front of him a few times.
“Woah! Woah, woah! Slow down, Garnedell. Don’t want to hurt anyone.”
The three apprentices began babbling excitedly, watching Garnedell hold the sword, this time with Garnedell as excited as the other two. Huh. Next test.
“OK. Take the ring off and put it back on, but this time say ‘spear.’ Oh, hey. Give me the sword first.”
Garnedell did as he was told, and Joe gingerly held the spear out to him. As before, he was able to grab the spear and hold it up, smiling like an idiot as he waved the spear around. All three were giddy with excitement as Joe took the ring and weapon back before they settled down.
“Awesome! So now I can give you guys some real weapons. We have two rings. Maybe I’ll kill the king again tomorrow and see if we can’t get some more. It would be nice if I could start teaching all three of you how to use a real weapons from now on, although, it’ll take quite a bit of time… Garnedell, your staff is actually a really good weapon so…” But… hmm… I need to think about this. I don’t want to take time off to train them. I’ll need a good six months to a year and I can’t afford that, I need to work on my stats. I could… no… hm… Joe felt a bit conflicted, struggling to know what he could do in the current situation. Right now, they could use a weapon, even if it was a rather poor one. But if he swapped them out, they would be completely ill prepared. And there was no time to really spend outside of what he was already spending in the dungeons as they all needed their rest. I guess I could train them and then also spend a full day in the dungeons, but that’s…
Joe sighed and mumbled under his breath, “Hello, burnout!”
Besides, he was exhausted from the long day and really needed rest. As the other three were quite excited, Joe packed everything up to allow the three to excitedly talk before shooing everybody to bed. He was tired, and it was high time he got some sleep. It had been a long, long day. He shooed Kilniara off to her room, although he left it open a crack so as to not allow her to feel rejected from the group and the three apprentices continued their excited chatter as he blew out the lamps in the boys room before collapsing into bed. As he snuggled into his sheets, Zilnek called out to him.
“Master! I didn’t know you had an appraisal skill!”
“Oh. I don’t. Not really. I just was able to guess what the ring did.”
A silence descended after this, a kind of shocked horror seem to fill the room that Joe didn’t really understand, and he questioned the others, “What? What’s wrong?”
“Master. Aren’t you worried about being cursed?” Garnedell asked.
“Cursed? Why would I be cursed?”
“Some items are cursed, Master. It’s… very dangerous.”
“Ooh… wow. OK. That I didn’t know. Sorry about that. I’ll try to be more careful from now on. but… hey! Please stop calling me master!”
Zilnek and Kilniara apologized sincerely but Garnedell actually chuckled a little before offering a simple ‘sorry.’ However, Zilnek and Kilniara looked towards at each other with curious interest, obviously confused by their Master’s lack of knowledge about the basics of this world. Joe sighed quietly to himself. I really need to get the master idea out of their head. Can’t have them seeing me as all wise. It’s only going to get me in trouble on of these days, like blindly putting on an item that might be cursed!
“Ahh… it’s ok. But really. I don’t like being called master. Just call me Joe, please.”
The kids agreed and Joe asked a last question, “So then, where do we go to learn about items?”
“There are appraisers available at the Dungeon guild and Adventurer’s guild.”
“Huh. OK. Maybe will stop by there tomorrow morning before we try to conquer the Goblin King Dungeon. Have a good night. I’m sooooo tired.” Although, there’s no point. I think I’ve learned what they are? But… the medallion! Maybe… I could just wear it? Like a necklace? But should get it appraised first! But, wouldn’t … the appraiser will know who killed the goblin king then… Joe grimaced, wondering whether he should try to remain secretive, or try to figure out what the medallion did.
The other three quickly offered bed time salutations, slightly odd ones Joe wasn’t used to, but he accepted them just as well before he rolled over to head to sleep. Let me at least check what I got my cudgel skill to, and my basic stats. Oh! Hey! Made level twenty one on my commoner job and didn’t even know it? Joe looked at his job gains with some surprise before flipping it over to his available skills tab. This brought a grimace as the news wasn’t near as pleasant. Seriously? Only got it to forty five percent? I mean, I was hoping it would be close to sixty? Joe sighed in irritation, but his exhaustion was so great that he quickly found his mind wandering on to other things.
Ok. To-do list for tomorrow. Get another two rings from the goblin king. Appraise the rings we’ve got. ‘Conquer’ the dungeon, whatever that means. Level up my… my… my… The sound of gentle snores were heard soon after even as the three apprentices still gabbed excitedly with one another.
Status
Blessings
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Joe McConnell
Status
Physical Resistances
Magical Resistances
HP
21.00
Physical:
Wind
2.10
MP
21.00
Piercing
0.00
Water
2.10
Attack
21.00
Crushing
0.00
Ice
2.10
Defense
21.00
Slashing
0.00
Magic
21.00
Magic Defense
21.00
Strength
21.00
Dexterity
21.00
Agility
21.00
Commoner
21
Speed
21.00
Endurance
21.00
IQ
21.00
Wisdom
21.00
Learning
21.00
Luck
0.00
Status
Blessing
Current Job
Available Jobs
Current Skills
Available Skills
Log
Job
Skill
Lev
Skill
Lev
Skill
Lev
Skill
Lev
Skill
Lev
Commoner
21
Char: Cudgel
0.45
Calculate Taxes
Villager
10
Farmer
10
Use Plow & Scythe
Waiter
10
Balance Glasses
Bartender
10
Calculate Tab
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Chief
10
Day Laborer
10
Inn Keeper
10
Reeve
10
Popular
Forester
10
Read Plants
Trapper
10
Read Animals
Fisherman
10
Read Pond
Hunter
15
Char: Bow
1.11
Find Trails
Silent Stalking
0.6
Miner
10
Read landscape
Baker
10
Make Flour
Bread
Cook
10
Grains
Flour
Metropolitan
20
Basic Self Defense
Calculate Taxes
Basic Attack
Burgher
10
Waiter
10
Balance Glasses
Bartender
10
Calculate Tab
Day Laborer
10
Cook
10
Grains
Flour
Baker
10
Flour
Bread
Groom
10
Becalm Horse
Butcher
10
Butcher
Inn Keeper
10
Sign & Logo
Merchant
10
Becalm Horse
Citizen
20
Adv Self Defense
Adv Attack
Specialist
20
+50% Agility
Char: +50% to Learning
.02
Educated
20
%$ @#$!*
Scholar
20
IQ + 50%
Wisdom +25%
Philosopher
20
Theorist
29
Job Guidance
.05
%&*$ #)($ !)#@)
%&*$ !*)@ ^*
Double Learning
.01
Linguist
26
Read Heart Family of Lang.
Polyglot
20
Language Expert (1)
0.09
Language Expertise (2)