Zectas Volume III: Malediction of Veneficatl Valley (28 page)

Smoke stood his ground and rapidly released fire arrows at the assailing monster. Igniz followed Smoke's lead and threw fireballs at the goblin.
Another eight fire arrows then struck the charging Gobble Goblin's chest, but its life bar still indicated (45,600/150,000 HP).
Smoke aimed higher and focused on the monster's eyes. After one of his arrows pierced the goblin's left eye, it covered its face with its arm and kept on running towards him.
Smoke and Igniz relentlessly attacked the Gobble Goblin until it dropped down to the ground as its life bar became empty.
"Aaaahhhhhh!" Ledur shouted as the goblin he was up against grabbed a hold of one of his wings and started chewing on it.
The winged Tikbalang smashed the monster's head in with his hooves until it released his wing from its jaw. The goblin knelt down after receiving damage straight to the face.
Smoke and Igniz attacked the goblin's back and turned the monster's backside into a flaming inferno. The goblin turned around to see its new attacker only to feel black hooves come down on its spinal column.
Ledur killed the monster while pummelling it into the ground. Smoke, Igniz and Ledur then spread out as they helped finish off the remaining three transformed goblins.
"AYYIIII AYIII AYYIIII YIIII YIII YII YIII!"
Smoke heard strange noises coming from the other side of Igniz's firewall. He leapt high into the air and glided with his hooded cloak.
He saw that with only a fifth of their original numbers remaining, the thin green goblins panicked. Some of them had already escaped by positioning in a ladder-like formation and climbing on top of several other goblins in order to reach the top of the wall.
"Igniz, disperse your current firewall and create a new one over that wall." Smoke pointed at the earth wall which the thin green monsters were trying to climb.
The DarkElf called out to Ledur and the rest of his Tikbalangs, "Everyone, don't let them escape!" Smoke quickly descended towards the escapees.
He landed on one of these goblin towers and stunned ten monsters around him. His Cunning of the Dire Fox indicated that only sixty of these weak monsters were left.
In several fell swoops of his weighted chain and sickle, Smoke decapitated the stunned goblins near him. Ledur and the six remaining Tikbalangs followed Smoke's lead and went after the goblins' critical points.
As Smoke and his men fought, they made sure none of the goblins get an opportunity to transform. As soon as one of the goblins was killed, the goblin next to it would begin eating the slaughtered monster.
Smoke, Igniz and the Tikbalangs focused their attacks on those feeding goblins. The thin green monsters with life bars of only (50,000 HP) stood no chance against them.
The remaining goblins were finished off without any complications. Smoke leapt up and Igniz immediately flew after him. As he glided, he watched the escaped goblins run into the forest.
"Should we go after them?" asked Ledur as he joined Smoke in the sky.
"No, let's tend to the wounded first. We don't know if there are any other dangerous monsters nearby." answered Smoke as they descended towards the recovering Tikbalangs.
 

* * * * * * 

Smoke applied orange marigold paste on Tikbalangs' wounds. Ledur wanted to help heal his brethren, but his hooves were better suited for crushing the medicinal leaves.
Igniz flew in front of Smoke in a circular pattern. His dark ember sprite signaled him that the medicinal stew made from lemurcats' kidneys was ready.
Smoke, Ledur and the Tikbalangs who were not seriously injured fed the critically wounded. It looked like it would take another hour before everyone fully recovered.
Fighting alongside a large group made him miss his original private army members. Smoke was very proud of all the accomplishments they had made, but he especially remembered a cursed werebear.
With guilt and a myriad of other feelings swirling inside of him, he decided to call Sierra.
There was no answer. 'Phew! Sierra must be busy.' Smoke sighed with relief.
"Yes?" Sierra abruptly answered.
"Oh, hi." were the only words that came out of Smoke's mouth as his mind went blank.
"So? Is there something important to tell me? Did you already kill the witches?" Sierra asked in a monotonous tone.
"No, not yet. I was just calling to check up on you."
"Huh? But don't you usually call Adder or Thyrsus for that? Or do you call Laernea now?" Sierra asked in the same uninterested voice.
"Right. Actually, I just wanted to congratulate you on the great job you're doing. I hear the guild's doing great and Verbrannt has really developed." Smoke smiled as he spoke, hoping that his pleasant tone would be reciprocated.
"Well, I can't take credit for that. Most of the work was done by your private army members and the refugees you sent from Condortl and Pferde." Sierra's voice slightly changed, but quickly returned to its former monotony.
"Good, good. You and your werewolves are still strengthening the defenses, right?"
"Yes, and training the militia. I thought Adder already told you about it?"
"Oh, he did." answered Smoke.
Sierra spoke before Smoke could drag the awkward conversation on longer. "Listen, I understand why you decided not to talk to me and I completely agree with you."
"You do?" replied a surprised Smoke.
"Thanks to that, we both accomplished a lot of things in the short amount of time we have before facing the Duke. I'm more confident that we can save Centzo city now as well." Sierra's voice changed. Smoke could feel her sincerity.
"I'm glad you understand. So, I'll let you get back to what you were doing. Good..."
CLICK
"...bye, Sierra." Smoke spoke too late as the line had already been cut off.
'That went well enough.' Smoke thought. He regretted not explaining the real reason for not calling her earlier. He knew that if he did, he would lose focus on the game.
He forcefully pushed back thoughts about Sierra as Ledur walked over towards him. "There are no more severely-injured Tikbalangs. All of my brethren should fully recover ten minutes earlier than expected."
"Alright." Smoke answered in a plain voice.
Ledur stared at the DarkElf, whose eyes seemed distant. "Uhm...Smoke? You said you had something to ask me about earlier."
"Oh, I'm sorry, Ledur. I've been a little absent-minded lately. Yes, I'd like you to take a look at this. I found this parchment on one of the goblins, but I can't read it. I thought they were some kind of runes at first, but it seems to be written in a different language."
"Yes, this is written in Gobberish, an ancient Goblin language." said Ledur while looking at him with a worried expression.
"I see. Have the other Tikbalangs found anything else in the Gobble Goblin's encampment?"
"Nothing, just that same parchment. You know, if you have the Translate ability, we could easily read what it says."
Smoke grinned as soon as he heard the word
ability
. "Where do you suppose I could get that ability?"
"Only those with the Job of Linguist have it. In the old days, all villages used to have at least one Linguist." explained Ledur while staring blankly at the parchment.
"But when the Reptilians took over the world thousands of years ago, they forced their language upon all of their conquered subjects. I suppose it was one of the few good things those bastards did during their reign."
"What? So, the language that all books are written in now is Reptilian?"
"Yeah, you didn't know that? I mean, you're reading and speaking it just fine, but now I'm guessing you don't even know the name of the language you're using?"
Smoke shook his head. Ledur proceeded to educate Smoke.
"It's called Lacerta. Everyone in the explored region of Zectas uses it. At first, everyone hated losing their native tongues, but when Lioumereans did business with Humans, they were surprised that they easily understood each other when they both spoke Lacerta."
Smoke nodded as he could imagine how convenient it must have been for different races to interact with each other.
"Since then, all of us have been using Lacerta. Due to this, the Linguist Job has become almost extinct." Ledur tried to stroke his chin, but stopped as a black hoof appeared instead of his hand.
He appeared to be agitated by his cursed form once more. Smoke didn't have a clue where he could find a Linguist, so he put away the parchment and quickly changed the subject.
"The Gobble Goblins are really strange monsters. When you're fighting them, they seem to be really barbaric and wild, but they're different towards each other."
"Huh? What do you mean? They eat corpses of their dead. How is that not barbaric?" asked Ledur as he crossed his arms.
"Yes, they did do that, but they were organized when they tried to escape. None of them harmed the other goblins in order to save their own skin."
"Sorry, I don't follow." said Ledur while raising an eyebrow.
"Normally, if someone was running for their life, they would disregard everything else. Animals, and even Humans, trample one another in such situations." explained Smoke.
"Another strange thing is that, if they get stronger by eating their kin, why don't they cannibalize each other from the get-go?" Smoke wondered out loud.
"If what you say about how they escaped is true, then maybe they don't ever want to harm each other?" proposed Ledur.
"Yet they rushed over to eat their dead kin with no hesitation whatsoever." Smoke countered.
Ledur shrugged his shoulders. Smoke's curiosity over Gobble Goblins grew more. Yet, he had more pressing issues at hand. The entrance to the cave on the side of a steep mountain was now clear of monsters. Smoke wanted to go explore it right away.
As most of the Tikbalangs had recovered up to 80% of their life bars, Smoke decided to venture into the cave by himself. The winged Tikbalang tried to stop him.
"Smoke, it is not wise to go into that cave alone." said Ledur while blocking Smoke's path to the cave.
"Don't worry, Igniz is coming with me. Besides, I want you to create a defensive wall around the cave in case the Gobble Goblins come back." said Smoke as he thought on his feet.
"Very well, but don't hesitate to call us if you need help."
"Of course." Smoke patted Ledur's shoulders and went inside the cave.
Igniz illuminated the dark cave. Smoke could see rough rocks sticking out of the walls of the cave. The cave's natural jagged passageway that was ten meters high and four meters wide felt spacious to him.
A hundred meters in, Smoke noticed the walls of the cave becoming smoother. Fifty meters more and red marble had replaced the smooth cave walls.
However, he reached a dead end. Smoke checked his map and saw that he was still a few meters away from the temple's exact location. He touched the red marble's surface and felt deep gashes in the wall.
'What is this?' Smoke wondered to himself.
He went back a few meters and gathered as much dirt as he could. Shortly afterwards, he returned to the wall and applied the dirt into the gashes.
Smoke thought he could barely make out what the gashes on the red marble wall represented. They looked like letters for a moment, but the dirt didn't stick and only slided down the wall.
He thought that he could try using water to make the dirt muddy enough for it to stick. Sadly, there was no water source nearby and the little water he had for drinking wasn't enough to test his theory.
He stood close to the red marble wall, in a conundrum as to what to do next. Igniz acted as usual and orbited around him. By chance, the dark ember sprite's flaming body grazed the wall and a small flame remained in one of the gashes in the smooth red marble.
Smoke made a wide grin as he looked at his symbiote. "Igniz, attack the wall with your fireballs."
Without delay, Igniz showered the red marble wall with fireballs. Smoke raised his right hand after a couple of seconds and made a fist. The dark purple symbiote immediately stopped.
Flaming words appeared on the wall and Smoke immediately read the message.

As soon as Smoke finished reading the flaming text on the wall, the gashes shifted towards the center of the wall and the fire within them merged into one big orange flame.
The orange flame on the wall spoke. "BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Someone has finally dared to take the trial of Vigilantez. No one has been here for years."
Smoke pushed his dark ember sprite backwards and took two steps back himself. He wasn't sure whether the orange flame would suddenly attack.
"Hmm. And who might you be, DarkElf?"
Still on alert, Smoke answered, "My name is Smoke and this is my symbiote Igniz."
"A DarkElf with a symbiote, huh? I thought DarkElves hated to share their Mana." the orange flame flickered as it spoke. "I suppose you want to get in now?" it asked.
"If it isn't too much trouble, I'd love to go in." said Smoke in a pleasant tone.
"No, no trouble at all. Although, there's this one rule we have to follow before I let you in." The orange flame reciprocated Smoke's pleasantries.
"A rule? Sure, what is it?" Smoke asked with a smile.
The flickering orange flame replied, "I have to ask you a certain question and you just have to answer it." The flame's intensity increased and it proceeded to speak in a more serious tone.
"What is your heart's greatest desire? Is it perhaps wealth? Overwhelming power?"
"Hmm. Before I answer, is it alright if I ask you some questions?" Smoke inquired.
"Sure, ask as many questions as you like, but know that I'll only allow you to answer once. If you don't get it right, then it's over." The flame sounded playful once again.
"Just once, huh? First off, I'd like to know your name, please." Smoke tried to raise his Intimacy with the flickering orange flame.
"My name is Verite, but over the years, people have shortened it to V." answered the flame.
Smoke scratched his head as he thought about other questions he could ask that would help him answer the question. "So, I just tell you what my heart really wants, right? My answer doesn't have to be a choice between saying 'wealth' or 'power'?"
"Hahahaha. You're a tricky one, aren't you? You're already trying to check whether your answer is correct. But that's right, I just want to hear what your heart truly desires."
'V must be using the same principle as the casting circle of truth.' theorized Smoke.
"V, what happens if I don't get the answer right?"
"I will simply revert to being a plain wall and you will never get to activate me again. Basically, you kiss your chance at one of the pieces of Vigilantez goodbye."
"I see. Then I think I'm ready to answer." Smoke said with conviction.
"Fire away, DarkElf."
"I want a good life for my entire family..." Smoke said solemnly.
V changed colors from white, green, blue and then back to orange. "Hmm. There is some truth to that answer, but not enough to allow you to enter the temple."
The gashes on the wall started to separate, along with the flames that formed V.
Smoke couldn't understand why V would not allow him to enter. That was what his heart had always wanted...a good life for his family.
'What else is there?' he thought to himself as he racked his brain for answers.
As he did, an image of a smiling cook with curly red hair came rushing to his mind. 'Ahh.'
Only a small portion of the orange flame remained in the center of the red marble wall.
"Wait, V! I wasn't finished."
The scattered orange flames merged once more.
"But you are. You gave me an answer and it wasn't truthful enough to grant you access to the temple."
"I was giving you my answer, but you didn't let me finish." Smoke said with desperation.
"Fine. I'll indulge you. Go on then, finish your sentence." said V.
Smoke steeled himself and answered once more. "I want a good life for my entire family and to have Sierra be a part of it."
V's flame changed color several times and then intensified before it spoke. "Seems like that was truthful enough to open the door. Well done, DarkElf." Immediately afterwards, the red marble wall started to shake.
V's flame scattered to the corners of the walls and the marble began to part right in the middle. Smoke moved backwards as dust and small rocks started to fall due to the wall's movement.
Smoke stepped inside the parted wall and saw a five-meter-tall statue of an imposing figure with two bent horns and four wings. He then noticed flames appear on the ground and spreading towards the statue.
The statue caught fire. Orange flames appeared on the statue's head and became its wavy flaming hair. The flames then shifted towards the four wings and gave the statue a dreadful appearance.
With Vigilantez's wings illuminating the room, Smoke could clearly see the sharp claws, similar to a lion's, on the djinn's hands and feet. He thought that Vigilantez truly looked like a lord of hell.
After Vigilantez's statue was engulfed in flames, an amber crystal appeared at the base of the statue. V's voice was heard from the flaming statue. "DarkElf, take this Essence piece. You have earned the right to carry it."
Smoke instantly ran to it. He grabbed the amber crystal with much enthusiasm and happily read the notification window that popped up afterwards.