Sylver Seeker

Chapter 41: A Hunting We Will Go

Jumping from branch to branch, Sylver was filled with a strange mixture of emotions.

On the one hand, there was a kind of giddiness at the thought of getting to do something that didnt involve killing and violence. Granted he would be violently killing them once he got inside, but before that he would be doing things peacefully and violence-free.

Right after he killed the goblins he was following, so he could raise them as zombies to help him get past the towers defenses. So there would be violence at the start, violence at the end, but the middle part would be peaceful. Peaceful-ish. The dark magic required to get past their barrier was not peaceful in the general sense, but peaceful relatively speaking.

With a slight scowl, Sylver thought about the last time he resolved something without the use of a dagger or hammer or by resorting to violence. And quite honestly he couldnt think of a single thing hed done since waking up in Cieges body that didnt at some point involve over-the-top savagery.

Breaking the cat curse? He carved a man up and then turned his still living and breathing body into a bomb.

Fixing his arms? No, that was literal human sacrifice. Very bloody and messy. But not that violent now that he thought about it. Not counting the man that exploded.

The prison? That was bloody and violent from start to finish with a very short break while he waited to catch Nautis, and then broke his arms and jaw to disarm him. And then let Novva beat the life out of him. And then put him into a coma by cursing a small part of his brain...

The Black Mane? The ants?

He didnt do anything too violent during his three days of school. Everyone was to some degree polite to him, and left him alone for the most part. Does suffocating a child into a short coma count? He could have easily just fiddled with the portals and turned them into cheese graters, ripping the boy to shreds when he tried to pass through them.

A suffocation induced coma wasnt just merciful compared to that, it was downright saintly.

In short, the first emotion was Sylver looking forward to finally doing something a little less bloody than what had become his usual approach. He didnt blame himself, since he was always open and willing to resolve things peacefully and without spilling any blood. Provided the other party took the initiative and was polite and quick about it.

And didnt do anything to piss him off...

And there was more benefit to resolving things peacefully than just killing them

And they werent part of an organization that had crossed him, and/or threatened the life and safety of what could conservatively be described as his soon to be born nephew.

Even now, if the mages hiding inside that tower all came out and peacefully surrendered, Sylver was more than willing to kill them all so painlessly they wouldnt even know they were dead. Sylver even knew several necromancers that retired to cities and were in charge of killing criminals painlessly. There were even some people that studied the subject purely to learn how to make death as painless as possible.

Sylvers biggest excuse, and the reason he didnt feel any remorse for how hed been acting since waking up, was that he was uncharacteristically not in control. And to some degree cornered. Frightened is another word that comes to mind to describe Sylvers general sense of being since dying and waking up attached to a tiny, easy to lose and break, brittle piece of metal. It was strange to admit that he was frightened but it was true.

Add on the fact that he cant do fuckall to increase his power until his soul completely settles down, and youve got a man whos in a perpetual state of highly controlled fear. Not to mention he still hasnt fully come to terms with everything that had occurred and was constantly on the lookout for a good outlet for his grief and anger.

Mostly anger.

A fairly large amount of anger.

He would even go as far as to say that hed been purposely holding onto the anger, so the grief didnt have any room to slide in and make itself comfortable.

With that in mind, Sylver has been more than reasonable in his encounters and dealings with people. Being in a constant mixed state of enraged and frightened wasnt enough to stop or slow him down. But it was enough that he was less willing to give his potential foe a chance to strike first, or take control of the situation before he could.

But on top of all that, there was a much simpler joy in hunting something down. Just silently stalking a group of goblins, stopping when they stopped, avoiding the traps they avoided, tracking them when he lost sight of them, and constantly being on the lookout for any potential patrolling Black Mane members.

So far everything was going swimmingly. Sylver practically strolled after the goblins, and with his newly available near invisibility he barely even had to hide. The goblins were on guard, as they should be when outside whatever hole they crawled out of, but Sylver was fairly certain they had no idea he was around. Otherwise, they would have at least zig zagged a little, or set up an ambush for him by now.

The shades came in and out of Sylvers shadow, informing him that he was alone in the forest. Not counting the goblins he was following, and a few large dog shaped creatures. Possibly wolves, but the shades didnt quite have enough observation functions to fully describe everything they were seeing, without Sylver actively commanding them to get more details.

He communicated with them via gestures. Mostly with his fingers, sometimes with tapping his foot, and very rarely through blinking. It was an unbelievably complex coded communication system, that excelled in its versatility and speed. They spoke with him in much the same way, either touching him on the shoulder or foot with a series of taps or gestures, or in cases where they were at a distance, sticking their hand out of the shadow to give their report.

Sylver would touch his thumb and pinkie together and that would be the start of a movement order. Then the appropriate number of taps in the air later, and the shade he had assigned as number 4, Dai in this particular case, would know that he needed to go ahead of the goblins and search for their cave. Number 5 would do this, number 6 do this, and so on and so forth.

This was actually one of the main reasons Sylver preferred shades over any other type of undead. Zombies needed either visual or verbal communication to be commanded, while shades could perceive almost anything, provided it was inside a shadow. Which meant they were the perfect force to be used in complete and total silence, and could be moved around at a moments notice without ever having to give away or reveal what he was doing.

Sylver learned what had ultimately become his personal language from a deaf and mute mage, who talked using his hands. Breaking the hand language down into much simpler and more specialized gestures, resulted in Sylver managing to command his shades with only a single hand.

Over the years the system was slowly altered and refined, down to the point he could communicate his wishes in their entirety with a single finger.

He sent the shades out with several yes/no questions to be answered. Were the dog things bigger than Sylver, were the dog things tails as long as their bodies, were the dog things ears pointy or round and etcetera.

And the answers that came back painted a clearer picture of what else there was around inside the forest. Sylver was about 99% certain these were just wolves, but the danger with this method of communication was that he wouldnt know something until he asked. Meaning if there was something he missed, he would never know it. Such as everything the wolves touching disappearing. Or lightning running through their fur, or that they had giant antlers or swords for claws. If he didnt ask, the shades wouldnt know to look, and would therefore never tell.

But aside from very rare cases, this method of information gathering was more than adequate. Not to mention once he made Fen fully sentient this would stop being an issue. Fen would be able to communicate with the shades much faster and more directly than Sylver could, and would then just translate and relay to him any relevant information.

If Sylver knew how to make a fully sentient shade from the beginning, he never would have bothered with this system. But Nyx never went all that deeply into shades, and therefore he spent an extremely long while relying on this. She was more interested in zombies and skeletons, than anything noncorporeal like shades or specters.

But that would need to wait until after Lola and Ciege were back. Sylver had originally planned to do it while inside the prison, but he was missing several key ingredients to do it. If he had enough raw mana he could force Fen awake, but it was too dangerous and not worth the risk at that time, even if he had the mana to use.

And it was, even more honestly, a little relaxing not having shades constantly bickering inside his shadow, questioning his every move and decision, and trying to tell him what would have been the more optimal thing to say or do.

He missed his 16 dearly, but it was nice to have peace and quiet from time to time, without feeling completely exposed. He never really considered them people to begin with, so the emotion he associated with them was closer to losing a favorite tool, rather than someone close to him.

Sylver watched closely as the goblins all stopped near a large tree and just stood there. He looked right at them, but for the life of him couldnt tell where they went. They were there, and the next thing he knew, they were not. Just gone. They had all disappeared at exactly the same time.

He waited a little before jumping down from the tree branch he was sitting on. Sylver walked up to the spot he last saw the goblins and felt around the area. He moved some of the leaves and dirt on the ground, and found the stone a little too flat to be normal.

With a small wave of his hand, the wind picked up and cleared away the leaves and dirt covering the ground, revealing a crude hexagram, filled with a bunch of sigils some of which Sylver had never seen before. A few looked like they could be dwarven in origin, another couple looked possibly elvish, one looked like the kind hed seen the merfolk use, but the majority he couldnt even guess the purpose of.

What was worse was that it didnt feel like magic. Even the shape was a little off. Sylver couldnt see how the circuit was completed, or even tell where the start or finish was. Coded frameworks werent anything new, but even then there were things you couldnt put in a magic circle. Most of the rules for frameworks were in reality suggestions but this circle was ignoring the few that were set in stone and may as well have been laws. It just didnt make any sense.

The only answer would be that these goblins discovered an entirely new branch of frameworks. And used it to teleport to their hideout. Which was very worrying.

Sylver just stared at the magic circle, and got down on his hands and knees to look at it closer. It wasnt freshly carved, that was for certain. At least a few months old. But he couldnt feel any mana coming off it. Or at least nowhere near enough to signify it was recently used. Which was only possible in the event it was as near to 100% efficient as possible. There was some wear on the stone, but it seemed to be from blood being spilled on it.

Considering that currently Sylvers own magic was at best in the high 40s in terms of efficiency, this may as well have been a dagger through the heart for him. That goblins, of all things, were better mages than he was. If it was anything else, he would have accepted it with no issue, cats, wolves, snakes, fine, but goblins? The creatures known only for their-

Sylver flinched as the arrow bounced off the back of his neck, the cloak redirecting it away at the very last second, and merely cutting his skin with the crudely sharpened stone arrowhead, instead of piercing his spine. Getting back up on his feet Sylver looked around and was completely surrounded by small green bodies, each holding a bow or a sling in their hands and looking right at him.

[Goblin (Mage) 16]

[Goblin (Mage) 11]

[Goblin (Mage) 21]

Not a single one moved as Sylver slowly turned around and appraised them. The highest level among them was 24. And every single one was a goblin mage. It was most certainly the same group he was following. He recognized one with a large scar on the top of its bald head.

Sylver had not heard or seen any signal being given, but the goblins all launched their projectiles in perfect unison. As Sylver watched the mana enhanced projectiles approaching, he tapped his foot on the floor, and a thin stone cylinder rose up from the ground surrounding him, shielding his body from the oncoming onslaught. Tapping his foot again caused the ground underneath him to open up, Sylver dropping downwards a few meters.

Inside the cylinder, Sylver dug lower and closed up the ground above himself, as his shades got to work. The screaming was immediate, as the goblins own shadows started to materialize and slaughter them.

[Goblin (Mage) Defeated!]

[Goblin (Mage) Defeated!]

Sylver found it odd, as he sat comfortably in his small underground bunker and waited for the shades up above to kill everything, that he wasnt getting a message for every goblin killed. He could feel 3 souls trying to detach themselves from their dead body, but only got 1 message for a defeated goblin.

Am I not getting any experience for killing things too far below my level?

Sylver waited them out as the shades finished off any remaining stragglers and Sylver opened a hole above him and crawled out. All over the place, the ground was covered in goblin corpses. And in the middle was Fen standing on top of a screaming dark skinned child-like creature, screaming its head off as Fens foot on the back of its neck kept it pinned to the ground. It clawed at the ground, its nails carving through the stone and breaking and splintering, shaving the skin off the ends of its fingers.

Sylver walked over to it, and grabbed its hand. The creature screamed even louder than before as the appendage turned into black ooze and the rotting filth traveled up its arm, stopping only at the shoulder.

Sylver walked over to the other side but the goblin was waving its hand around too much for Sylver to grab it. Fen pressed down harder with his foot, and a very faint crackling could be heard, as the goblin started to scream even louder and louder, its snot, blood, and tears mixing into the puddle of rot underneath its pinned head.

Sylver finally managed to grab its hand again, and let the rot go all the way up to its shoulder, both disarming the creature completely and making sure it didnt bleed to death from this.

Sylver took a few steps away from the creature, as Fen released his foot and disappeared into the shadows.

As the crying thing ran as fast as its piss-soaked legs could carry it, Sylver jogged after it. He left 4 shades to gather up the bodies for him, and kept in mind where exactly the area he left was. There was only one place something this panicked and hurt would go.

The screaming and crying goblin finally arrived at another giant tree, this one with a giant mess of dark roots making up the entirety of the ground around it.

The screaming goblin bashed its head against one of the roots, screaming in its high pitched and guttural language, most likely begging for help, as a small wooden spear poked out from underneath it and stabbed the poor thing through the skull.

I know you can understand me. Come up and talk. Sylver said, already sending the shades down into the underground tunnels.

There was a series of short squeaky sounds from underneath the tree roots, before Sylver saw a long thin nose pop out, followed quickly by a flat and slimy face and completely black eyes.

[Hobgoblin (Mage) 29]

The two maintained eye contact as the creature slithered its skinny body out from underneath the roots and stood at barely half Sylvers height.

I am called UrsMalok, leader of the-

Where did you get that magic hexagram? Who made it? Sylver interrupted, walking over to the creature so it was having to look up to look him in the eye. It neither moved away nor tried to reach for the sword strapped to its back.

You want inside tower. Yes? We have way inside! Trade! The hobgoblin said, getting absolutely no reaction from the masked person standing in front of it.

What do you want? Sylver asked, cocking his head ever so slightly.

Together! Kill magic men together! Share! No hurt! the hobgoblin offered, doing its best impression of a friendly and open grin.

You want to help me kill the mages? Why? Sylver asked, already having come to a decision.

Eat magic man! Grow strong! Move fast, The hobgoblin answered, swaying on its feet.

You get stronger from eating mana saturated flesh I see. Sylver answered, turning slightly to look behind the hobgoblin and towards the darkness underneath the roots. Is that where you got the hexagram from? Some sort of rare class? Sylver asked.

The hobgoblin just looked at him with confusion painted clearly on its face.

The magic circle near the big tree. The one your guys used to teleport. Sylver simplified. If there was a goblin mage here that knew how to combine various frameworks like that, Sylver would not only help them, he would offer them work and protection. Even if they were goblins. Knowing how to build a full framework is a rarity of itself, but knowing how to combine frameworks of multiple languages? Sylver only knew 11 people who could do that, himself just barely included.

Yes! Big circle! Trap! Magic man confused! Sit and look! We kill! The hobgoblin explained, holding himself back from jumping as he spoke.

Its part of your trap, I get that. But who made it? Could I speak to them? Sylver asked.

Together! Copy from books! Magic man confused!

Copy from books?

Could I see the books?

No books! Books burned! Magic men have books!

Youre saying all the books you used to make the circle are inside the tower? But who carved the circle? Could I speak to them? Sylver asked, walking a short distance back from the hobgoblin so it had room to move around.

Together! Build trap together! Many books! Good trap! Magic man confused! The hobgoblin repeated.

Only after seeing 3 more goblins pop up from underneath the roots, by teleporting, did it finally click.

Now I get it. Every single one of you can teleport. And that magic circle was just random nonsense to confuse the mages. Right? Sylver asked, trying hard not to let the anger be heard in his voice.

Yes! The new goblins cheered along with the hob, laughing together at the stupidity of magic men.

Im not going to lie, you really had me worried for a second there. Sylver said, as his robe stretched out and one of the daggers inside it stabbed the still laughing hobgoblin leader through the neck.

[Hobgoblin (Mage) Defeated!]

Do you know how disgusting it was to think that goblins managed to unlock magic that was inaccessible even to Aether? Sylver asked, as Fen continued to strangle the one closest to Sylver to knock him out, and Reg and an archer just stabbed the other two to death.

[Goblin (Mage) Defeated!]

[Goblin (Mage) Defeated!]

Compared to that, having teleporting goblins arent the worst thing in the world, Sylver said, mostly to himself, as he grabbed the unconscious goblin out of Fens hands and used a thin scalpel to carve sigils into the goblins chest.

Sylver completed the framework quite quickly, and had to spend a little over 600MP to get it to activate. The sigils lit up with yellow smoke and fire and quickly extinguished with the goblins pale blood leaking out of the charred lettering.

Sylver handed the goblin to one of the archers, as it started to violently shake and jitter, its body disappearing and reappearing in the archer's hands.

Teleporting goblins, I can handle. Teleportation in general I can deal with. Its annoying, and difficult, but there are ways to deal with it. But my fucking skin is still crawling from thinking about goblins having access to 100% efficient magic. Sylver continued to talk as he took one of the other corpses and it started to melt in his hands.

Sylver lifted his mask upwards for a moment as completely black smoke came out of his mouth, wrapping itself around the melting goblin corpse and entering inside of it through the mouth and nose.

Sylver waited a few seconds for the goblin to start shaking and expanding as if it were a leather wineskin, and with two shades pulling the roots apart, dropping it down below the tree into the goblin nest.

Sylver kicked his foot forward and a layer of earth moved onto the roots and sealed up every gap that he and his shades could see.

The goblin the archer was holding started to disappear and appear even quicker, now almost entirely blurry as it blocked teleportation after teleportation, keeping the goblins underneath from escaping.

[Goblin (Mage) Defeated!]

Sylver heard very high pitched muffled screaming from down below, and made a full circle around the giant tree as he waited to make sure he got everything.

[Goblin (Mage) Defeated!]

Message after message popped up as the infectious darkness made its way into every single nook and cranny of their little hideout, instantly killing the weaker goblins, and slowly decaying the few unlucky enough to have any resistance.

[Hobgoblin (Mage) Defeated!]

[Goblin (Mage) Defeated!]

A wooden club broke through the earthen seal, a tiny amount of black smoke seeping out of it before disappearing under the sunlight. Another kick from Sylvers foot repaired the tiny hole as the goblin took too big of a breath of darkness and fell back down into the hole.

Sylver noted that once again he wasnt getting a message for every single death. Which was upsetting because there was something nice about getting a confirmation for killing a goblin, but good since he now wouldnt need to worry about being flooded with messages in the event he killed a large group of low-level enemies.

Spear tips poked through the earth seal, a few glowing, others spinning, and each were kicked and broken by the foot of a shade, after which Sylver simply closed up the hole.

Do you know how fucked the average mage would be if he was ambushed like that? If it werent for the robe and the fact that I just so happened to check my surroundings right at that time, I would have been dead. Like all the other mages that stopped to look at the impossible magic circle and were hit with an attack from behind. Sylver complained, as Reg and Sho stomped on the small fingers of a goblin trying to claw its way out of the earthen seal.

And the mages! I mean sweet Thoth I dont know if theyre the smartest mages who ever lived, or the dumbest ones! It didnt even occur to me to check if the barrier went all the way underground. Who would put that much effort into making a giant powerful barrier like that, surround it from all sides with golems and traps, and then leave a giant hole at the very bottom? Am I the idiot for not checking? Sylver asked, walking over to a hand Reg had grabbed and was holding in place

Grabbing it by the wrist Sylver drained the creature dry to replenish some of his mana.

[Draining Touch (II) Proficiency increased to 9%!]

You know what it is? Its the system. It makes some things too easy for people. Youve got the mentally challenged wielding power only the gifted should dream about, let alone actually have. This whole place is fucked if you ask me. Sylver continued to grumble, mostly to himself, as the messages never once stopped blocking his vision.

Sylver looked to the side and saw the anti teleportation goblin corpse completely fizzle out of existence.

And the very next second he was surrounded by a giant group of goblins, every single one at least partially blinded, screaming or coughing, and pieces of flesh falling off their bodies.

Sylvers robe caught a crude iron dagger and broke the attackers wrist as it twisted it around and stabbed him through the neck with its own dagger. Sylver kicked a screaming hobgoblin armed with a large hammer in the stomach, and his foot exploded out of its back spraying the ones behind it with blood, spinal fluid, and intestines.

The shade archers fired down from above, starting with the goblins and hobgoblins nearest to Sylver, and making their way outwards. Dai and Sho appeared on either side of Sylvers back and cleaved the small screaming bodies into pieces, as Sylvers robe caught another goblin by the head and twisted almost all the way. Sylver grabbed the creature by the bumpy neck and it withered away into nothing in barely a few seconds increasing his mana almost to three quarters.

White ice spread out from all along the floor, immediately freezing the goblins feet to the ground. A few had reacted too quickly and had already teleported away, but the ones that remained found themselves unable to break out of the ice, or teleport.

The other melee shades appeared in a perimeter around Sylver, making their way inwards through the struggling and confused goblins, smashing their skulls, slicing them into pieces, or just stabbing them through the head.

After a few seconds, the fight was over and Sylver stepped out of the pile of frozen intestines he was standing in, and walked over to the large tree, under which the goblins had made their nest. With another kick, the earthen seal moved back to where it had come from and Sylver peered down into the large hole below. All along the floor and walls were dead goblins, each in various states of damage, their faces frozen in indescribable horror and surrounded from all sides in slowly dissipating black smoke.

Sylver lifted his mask upwards for another few moments and blew another cloud of smoke downwards into the tunnels, this time with the smoke faintly flashing yellow on its edges. It split into small streams and forced its way into the mouths and noses of the dead goblins, causing them to glow bright yellow for a few seconds, before escaping and moving onto the next.

Each goblin corpse had a bright yellow crack form over its heart, slowly spreading outwards towards their arms and legs. A few were already done and opened their glowing yellow eyes.

[Zombie Goblin (Petty) Raised!]

[Zombie Goblin (Petty) Raised!]

[Zombie Hobgoblin (Lesser) Raised!]

[Zombie Goblin (Petty) Raised!]

Sylver let the messages continue to almost blind him as he made his way back to the ambush site and inspected the neatly laid out bodies.

It seriously blows my mind that mages that were competent enough to make such a good solid barrier, surround it from all sides with relatively advanced golems and traps, werent competent enough to make it a full sphere. Granted, it is a very fair assumption to make that no one with the skills or know how to cause any damage to the barrier wouldnt believe it possible that it isnt complete. Are they geniuses for not having it in the one area no one would think to look because of course its a full sphere or am I overestimating them? Sylver asked, getting a blank stare from Reg as he threw the last corpse onto the pile.

Sylver once again lifted his mask slightly upwards as a stream of black smoke with yellow streaks going through it, covered the pile of dead goblin bodies and forced itself inside them.

I had a whole plan to gently crack the barrier open. But now that I know the goblins have a tunnel leading straight down into their secret exit, I dont know if I want to. Sylver continued as he made his way back to the giant tree and entrance to the goblins hideout.

As he walked past the carving they used to distract mages, he was surprised that he was led in a full circle without realizing it. They must have known he was there all along and were just waiting for whatever skill or perk they use to teleport to activate.

[Raise Zombie (II) Proficiency increased to 19%!]

The one time I thought I would finally get to do things in a calm and peaceful manner, they leave a giant hole in their defences for me to exploit. Im half tempted to pretend I dont know about it and just try to break in how I originally planned to. Sylver said, as the goblin zombies all slowly made their way out of the hole and grouped together into formation.

He looked at his small army of 93 goblins and 22 hobgoblins standing at attention and spoke with a scowl.

No, you know what? Ill do something peaceful another time. Everyone get into a single file line, grab your weapons, and follow me. Sylver ordered, as he jumped down into the hole underneath the roots and walked towards the tunnel leading inside the tower full of mages and hostages.

There was a time I would have pretended I didnt see this. Let my pride get in the way and all that. But now? I honestly just want to get this whole thing over and done with as soon as possible. I genuinely feel sick that I got played like that. Twice! Once by goblins, and again by low level mages! In my defense, Ive never in my old life heard of goblins being able to teleport like this. But its the same thing as with the pale ones inside Tuli. Youre sharing skills or perks or something. Which is absolutely insane if you ask me. Sylver complained as his robe caught him from falling down into the slippery floor making up the small tunnel.

With all this class and skills and level up nonsense, I wouldnt be surprised if you got it from eating a hundred ladybugs or something. In hindsight, I should have kept at least one of you alive to find out, but Im fairly certain the conditions to get the skill or whatever, are going to be different for a human than they are for a goblin. Or an undead human in my case. Sylver continued as the tunnel got smaller and smaller and narrower and narrower, causing him to have to lay down and use the robe to hold his body entirely and move him forward like he was a worm.

The tunnels split into various directions, constantly going back up or lower down, left and right, but since Sylver had the shades already scout the entire thing out he knew exactly where to go. They found the tunnel leading to the tunnel leading inside the tower in literally a couple of seconds.

A short while later, after having to expand the tunnel slightly to allow his large frame to pass, Sylver jumped down into a beautifully open area. Wooden boards lined the walls and ceiling, the floor was made up of extremely dense and compacted dirt, and small magical lights made the whole thing extremely well lit.

Sylver looked up at the piece of loose wood he had moved out of the way to come out and stretched his body and checked all his daggers and darts were in place. One by one the goblin and hobgoblin zombies dropped down from the ceiling and one by one got into formation.

Alright, Sylver said calmly and almost in a whisper. Hows everyone feeling? Comfortable? Walking undead corpses with no regard for their safety and completely without fear? Armed to the teeth and under the leadership of a great and powerful necromancer? About to attack potentially unarmed, off guard, unprepared, and most likely low level and idiotic mages? Sylver asked, getting a completely blank stare from the over 100 pairs of glowing yellow eyes.

Good. In that case, let's go. Sylver said, marching his army forwards and walking a short distance behind them.

There was an extremely small chance this was all intentional and a trap, but Sylver had an entire army full of disposable bodies to take any and all damage if that was the case.