Before the couple had even fully regained consciousness, an unknown distance away, Luna popped into existence in her Nothing form. She just floated, external sensory input gone again, but she still felt.
She felt the sharp pain of losing her newly formed party.
They didn’t even get to go on a real adventure together.
Literally their first time out, and they were dead.
Well… not dead now, she guessed, but they were probably going to have some psychological effects from being eaten alive by wild hogs.
She herself still felt sick seeing them like that. She wished they could’ve had some kind of debrief, some kind of “going out for drinks after a shitty day at work” moment where they could all sloppily proclaim, “What a day of suck, right guys?”
But no. She was whisked off to who knows where before she got to even have a glimpse of them.
Luna sat in her mind for a while, asking herself what she could’ve done differently.
Even if she’d been there, she doubted there would’ve been a big difference.
Just a single hog about took their party out.
Still…
She decided to address her emotions like any well adjusted adult would: ignore them completely in favor of focusing on her career.
Her career, in this case, being getting stronger and never letting what had happened ever happen again.
With that decided, the best way she knew to get stronger…
was to go hunting.
…
Luna found herself in another forested area. Definitely not the same one, because this one was severely lacking in wildlife.
She hadn’t run into a single rabbit, salamander, deer, weasel, human, dragon, echidna, two- or three-toed sloth…
Okay, she was getting a little antsy.
She had only recently acquired the gifts of sight and sound, and now she was once again reduced to flailing her mind swords around to perceive the trees, and more trees, and bushes, and more trees around her.
Luna Caine
Race: Nothing (1)
Class: — (locked)
Level: 1
Health: n/a
Mana: 10/10
Mana Regen: 0.1/s
Abilities: None
You are a conceptual being. Good luck.
Fuuuucckkkkkkkk…
The only thing she had mana to summon was her non-seeing, non-hearing sword, and even then she no longer had the Summoner class to try and use summon points to give it eyeballs or something useful.
It took Luna about nine years, probably, of searching before she finally whacked into a creature, and creature it was.
Luna had been getting better at seeing with her swords, so good that she could now pick out some features if she really tried. It was kind of like pointillism.
“Finally, prey!!” She mentally exclaimed as she made out the image of a classic fantasy goblin.
(Adding a cool pointillism goblin picture here would be pretty sweet)
Luna opted for the tried and true method of sword + gravity to get the party started.
Fencing Sword Lv. 1
Damage: 1d4 Piercing
Ohhh, she almost forgot how much this sucked. She was once again reminded how long it took her to summon a sword, miss her target, unsummon her sword, regain the mana needed to resummon a new sword, find her target once more, and continuously repeat the process in hopes of doing 1d4 damage on a creature with an unknown amount of HP and who knows what kind of HP regen rate.
Luna had definitely drawn blood on the short, big eared, big toothed creature, but it seemed to be taking most of the hits in stride. It also seemed to catch on to her antics after some time. It had begun to keep eye to the sky at all times in order to better dodge her attacks from above. This resulted in her hit rate decreasing all the more. Thankfully, the goblin seemed to be getting tired. By Luna’s count of many many cycles of attempts at the creature’s life, Luna estimated that she had been at battle with this creature for around two hours.
The goblin seemed to decide that it needed to switch tactics. Instead of running and dodging, it began to creep along in areas with more densely branched and leaved trees.
It would wait until Luna attempted a sword missile that would be greatly slowed by the branches of the tree before harmlessly bouncing to a stop before doing any damage to the creature. The goblin would then move for a ways before finding another tree to shelter under to await the next attack.
Luna had to admit, she was pretty outclassed here. She was hoping that the goblin would get tired and slower until she could just repeatedly drop swords on it to kill it. Instead, it had gotten smarter… she would have to do the same, it seemed.
Luna hadn’t had to come up with a new creation in a while. The bow she had made for Sidd was pretty cool, but ultimately she had just leaned hard on her Summoner class to generate a standard bow then slap some summoner points on it to make it cool. She would truly have to make something from scratch with this one, and it would be a doozie.
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(ASCII art of a simple spear.)
Okay, it was just a spear, but goblins love spears, right? This wasn’t to drop on its head either…
Spear Lv. 1
Reach weapon
Damage: 1d4 Piercing
It was for the goblin to use! Why try to gain XP on her own when she could let the goblin do the hard work for her? She modeled the spear after the exact spear that the goblin was currently holding. How creative!
The goblin had continued its run and hide method, even though Luna had stopped the bombardment quite a while ago.
It eventually made its way in a winding, looping way back past the direction that it had started in, then continued on until it reached a camp. At first Luna only saw the single small hut made of natural materials. By making a loop of her own she took in dozens of buildings that, at a preliminary look, seemed both residential and communal. Handfuls of other goblins milled about completing various tasks such as fighting, feeding, fleeing, or finding the company of others.
There seemed to be a whole society of the creatures. Luna returned to the goblin that she had been tormenting, hoping that her plan would be enacted soon. The goblin dug up some meat that it had hid below its leafy bed and went to town on it, no doubt worn out from being continuously attacked from above. The goblin got halfway through its hunk of meat before passing out, drool and meat juice slopped down its front.
Lunas few scored wounds on the goblins body seemed to be slowly healing as the creature slept. Luna took in the steady healing of the goblin with her fine poking of her mental sword shaking her head at the recovery rate.
Jealousy aside, now was the time to implement her genius plan to expertly convince the goblin to use her spear instead of its original when it woke up.
The goblin had placed its spear next to itself on the foliage covered ground when it turned its attention to the mostly finished meat hunk. Luna expertly summoned her spear a couple inches closer to the goblin than its original spear. That was it. That was the whole plan.
A plan that worked perfectly.
After foreveerrrrr, the goblin woke up, now healed and rested. It scooped up Luna’s creation and headed out of the hut, stepping over the other spear, seemingly not giving it a single thought.
“Success!”
…
The moment the goblin had speared his first fish with her weapon, Luna had felt the familiar tug of experience. Multiple successful spearings later…
You have slain — Fish Lv. 2.
Level Up.
Choose a Class —
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Summoner, not even a question.
Luna Caine
Summoner Lv. 2
Health: n/a
Mana: 20/20
Mana Regen: 0.2/s
Summon Points: 1/1
This goblin was quite the fisher goblin. Within a few hours of fishing, it had killed multiple fish. This most recent Level 2 fish brought her to her class selection.
Finally… time to blow this goblin’s dang mind.
She would have to do it sneaky and tactfully-like.
Luna immediately dropped the summoning of the dinky, bad, Level 1, not upgraded spear, then immediately summoned a cool Level 2 spear with flame decorations in the now unoccupied hands of her spear champion. Sure, Luna had no way to know what kind of magic would come about using her summon point, but flames were cool no matter what.
Spear Lv. 2
Reach weapon
Damage: 2d4 Piercing
Magics: Bait — release the smell of food into the environment to attract animals/monsters. Activation cost: 1 mana per bait bolus.
Not super flashy, but goblin fisher and I are about to poppp offff.
…
Luna and George, that was the goblin’s name she had decided, had a pretty successful evening of fish killing thanks to the Bait ability. She mostly let the goblin use its own mana to activate the ability, but would supplement with her own as needed.
She didn’t know how aware the goblin was of their relationship, but it was going well.
Luna Caine
Summoner Lv. 3
Health: n/a
Mana: 29/30
Mana Regen: 0.3/s
Summon Points: 1/2
She hit Level 3 within the day, as most of the fish that the goblin killed were Level 1s, with a few Level 2s in there no doubt being responsible for the majority of the XP.
On a particularly experimental feeling moment, Luna blew her mana pool on baiting the water, resulting in a crazy amount of fish showing up. Some Level 3s and a Level 4 even showed up to the buffet of lower level fish that were drawn in by the skill. Size wise, the Level 1 and 2 fish were like sunfish and catfish respectively, whereas the Level 3 fish that showed up were either much larger than the 2s or showed off with some basic combat and movement abilities. The single Level 4 that showed up even turned its sights on the goblin standing knee deep in the water. It damn near teleported over them claim the soggy green drumstick attached to her XP machine.
Thankfully George threw himself backward onto shore before losing any appendages. Luna learned to not over bait after that.
Another thing that Luna discovered during their hours of fishing was a previously unseen page of her menus regarding her race.
Race: Nothing — Achievements
? Reach Level 5 as a Summoner: 1 Nothing Point.
Nothing Points may only be gained/redistributed during resets. Available unallocated Nothing Points may be distributed at will.
Available Nothing Points: 1
“Hell yeah, meta progression!”
This made her feel even more confident in her decision to reset, not that she wouldn’t have saved the couple anyway. She had just now learned about Nothing points after all.
Scrolling through the window, it seemed like she could use the points to “buy” things like upgrades to her mana pool, mana regen, decreased summoning costs, and even abilities such as perception upgrades, telepathy, and telekinesis.
Luna liked the idea of telekinesis, but the low cost version only allowed her to move one pound of material one foot per second. The math scaled up to 100 lbs taking 100 seconds to move one foot. She guessed she could take an afternoon to raise a 100 pound rock up into the air and pull off a cartoon anvil kill, but it wasn’t really worth it at this point with her summoning abilities.
Telepathy, however…
“Hey George, it’s Luna the spear, just checking in on you,” Luna gently intruded into the mind of the goblin resting next to a small pile of punctured fish.
“Huuuhhh???” George startled to his feet as he grasped the spear, ready to defend himself. “My fish!” the goblin shouted. “You want, you trade!”
The goblin searched around himself for the source of the voice with no luck.
“Yeah, good job getting those fish,” Luna gently praised. “I can’t eat so they are all yours.”
“Yeah, good job me,” George agreed proudly while lowering his spear a bit. “Where you?”
“I am the spear in your hand,” Luna explained. “I want to help you hunt and get more good food.”
“You help get more food…” the goblin pondered. “You good spear.”
It seemed quickly decided that the two would be party partners. With that came some privileges.
Goblin Warrior Lv. 4
Health: 40/40
Health Regen: 0.12/s
Mana: 20/20
Mana Regen: 0.2/s
Abilities:
Claw — 1d4 slashing damage + 1d4 poison.
Bite — 1d4 piercing damage + 2d4 poison.
Tribe Frenzy — The stink of allied goblins amps up a warrior’s poison glands.
For every allied goblin within range, poison damage is increased by +10%, up to a maximum of +100%.
Luna inspected the shared information, taking in the interesting stats. George had very little mana for his level, but he was a physical fighter with no spells after all.
The health regen though… damn. That’s probably why she couldn’t make much headway just trying to drop swords on his head. Even if she had done the max damage of 4 piercing, the goblin would be back at max HP in 34 seconds. The health pool itself wasn’t double like the human hunter Sidd or the wild boar, but for the goblin’s size, about the size of her big rabbit, it was pretty solid.
After another round of fishing, George seemed satisfied with the now even larger pile of fish that had been amassed with Luna’s help. He strung the fish corpses along the shaft of the spear, threading the spear through the gills and mouths like he was stringing slimy, scaly beads.
Almost immediately upon reaching the village, the sight of a successful hunt brought out admirers.
Luna, not having a body with eyes, took in the scene with multiple mental swords that now constantly rotated around herself. She had pretty much been practicing all day during the fishing trip.
“Wow, you fish good,” a shorter, more slender goblin said as it approached George.
Luna let George be her ears as he heard and thought about the words that were said. The method created some delay from the sword visual of the goblin talking and George processing what was said into his own thoughts, but it got the job done.
“Good fish day,” George beamed as he carried his spear load towards the center of the village, joining a stream of others.
Many in the group also carried food items, whether that be vegetation, more fish, woodland animal parts, or whole corpses. The assortment was vast.
The group eventually made it to a large flat… table? I guess you could call it. There were many large planks of wood lashed together on the ground forming an oversized dining table. Those with food piled the offerings haphazardly anywhere there was room. Those without food to place peeled off and milled about.
“George, is this a potluck kind of situation?” Luna questioned, hoping the idea telepathically translated correctly.
“It big food time,” George said matter of factly.
“So, family dinner where everyone shares?” Luna tried to clarify.
“Yes, family shares,” George agreed. “I not hungry, we not hungry.”
Looks like they got a society going here.
Luna doubted all of these goblins were George’s immediate family, but there was a good chance they could all be at least loosely related. It wasn’t likely that they kept written records of their family trees, so why not treat the whole tribe like family. Plus, if they had abilities similar to Tribe Frenzy that George had, it made sense to stick together. The success of the tribe was your success and all that. Feeling through the party connection, she could feel George’s Frenzy skill tick on to max with so many allies present. She was sure glad she didn’t have a nose to fully experience the combat potential.
“Big food, big food, big food!”
It seemed like the whole village was gathered and chanting. Luna couldn’t exactly see what time of the day it was, but she assumed it was nighttime with the many fires going and small groups of goblins huddled up.
All of a sudden, the chanting stopped as a large figure emerged at the head of the ground table.
“Very good job, everyone,” the double height, double width goblin spoke. “Again we get to eat big food together.”
The crowd of goblins cheered while banging on the table or stomping their feet.
“We grow together, starting small.” He gestured to the group of what must be kid goblins all in a huddle to his left. “Then getting tall,” he highlighted by pounding his muscled chest.
“For the tribe, eat!”
What proceeded was the politest feeding frenzy Luna had ever seen. Dozens of goblins pounced on the pile of food, tearing sloppily into whatever hunk of food they got their hands on.
There was, however, a little light fighting. What small scuffles did take place, such as when two goblins would get ahold of the same piece of meat, a subtle look from the chief ended the conflict before it really kicked off. In these cases, the piece of food was left alone by both, with a third goblin allowed to take it.
How diplomatic. The art of letting go, goblin edition?
Notably, no adult goblins encroached on the kids’ corner that was personally watched over by the big chief goblin.
It seemed like this was half a manners class and half a way to make sure that the next generation was well fed.
The chief had to intervene in a more hands on way whenever disagreements between the kid goblins occurred.
“That my meat!” the small boy goblin yelled as he ripped what looked like a whole raccoon out of the hands of another boy.
“It mine! Give back or I eat you!” the scorned party yelled, extending his dripping claws and gnashing his envenomed teeth.
Here, the chief quickly intervened as if he had been anticipating the interaction. He easily separated the boys with a firm hand on each of their napes.
Both boys stiffened up, knowing that physically fighting against their chief would be futile.
“Words like that never for tribe,” the chief scolded, getting down on the boys’ level.
“Yes, chief,” the boys assented as they hung their heads.
“Now share, then eat!” the chief boomed with pride at the feast before them.
Together, the boys offered the raccoon to a third kid goblin before turning towards separate meals.
“Damn,” Luna thought, “more civilized than my family.”
…
Luna and George fell into a routine of fishing, eating, and leveling.
Fishing Spear Lv. 4
Reach weapon
Damage: 4d4 Piercing
Magics:
Bait — release the smell of food into the environment to attract animals/monsters. Activation cost: 1 mana per bait bolus.
Tether — upon activation of this ability, a spectral rope physically tethers the spear to the user. Cost: 10 mana. Duration: 1 hour.
Seeking Spear Tier 1 — infuse mana into the spear to magically steer the thrown spear into your target. Cost: 1 mana per second.
It almost seemed like the magics weren’t completely random and could be influenced by the environment or the history of use. Either that or she was getting real lucky? Did the name change because of the magics or were the magics because of the path to the name? Maybe the upgrades could eventually branch or go through evolutions…
Something more for Luna to experiment with.
In the past couple weeks, George had become quite popular. Most hunters were fairly inconsistent, as everyone had off days and showed up empty- or light handed for big food. Everyone in this case did not include George. Between the Bait magic luring in fish, the Tether for quick recovery, and Seeking Spear for an insane throw to kill ratio, George had garnered some attention.
“You really good fish day!” a familiar looking goblin praised George as he made his way to the big table carrying not one but three full spears of fish. The other two spears were only used for cargo, as all other spears paled in comparison to Luna’s creation… except maybe the chief’s. That thing looked gnarly.
“For the tribe,” George said proudly as he unloaded his haul. Most onlookers seemed impressed, but with Luna’s ever evolving mind sword based perception abilities, she could pick up on some jealous looking goblins, especially other adult males. She also picked up on a few females that seemed to have other feelings, but Luna was more concerned about the former.
During a lunch break between spear fishing sessions, Luna poked George with some light interrogations.
“Hey George,” Luna prodded.
“Hey Luna,” George replied. He had slowly been picking up Luna’s way of talking over the last many days as they spent most of their time together.
“Do you guys ever fight?” Luna questioned.
“I fight now,” George said, puffing his chest. “What we fighting?”
“No, like between goblins,” she clarified.
This got George thinking. “Sometimes other tribe come and try to take our stuff.”
“How about if someone within your tribe tried to take your stuff?”
“Chief not let that happen,” George assured her. “No hurt tribe allowed… or else end up part of big food.” George shuddered at the thought.
“I see,” Luna said to George’s definitive answer. “Then I wonder what those guys want.”
