Chapter 17 - Goblin Village

Jack starts to mull over if he should attack the goblin village or not, White Dragon-Phoenix Village needs a lot of experience to level up which can only come from taking over villages. Jack isn't too sure if a goblin village will be considered an actual village for this purpose so he'd like to try it out.

Hilda and Bane are now near Jack who is talking with Drakon, they also have the opinion that this would be a good opportunity even if it's rather risky to do this at this point in time. The goblin village is close enough that it'll become a problem sooner or later. Jack hands the teleportation crystal to Hilda otherwise he will just be keeping it within his pocket.

Jessica can be heard playing the flute in the distance, she is playing it rather melodically now compared to earlier. Jack didn't specifically leave the flute there for her to play with like a toy, Arwen said it was rather special but now that she seems to be rather good at it, Jack smiles at the thought of her enjoying it.

Jessica's life could be considered pretty hard when compared to Jack's, her village was destroyed by bandits not too long ago, she didn't have anyone to rely on growing up and the people she thought to seek refuge with were the cause of everything. She was nearly snatched by someone who gave her no chance to fight back. Her life could be considered rather boring right now but she's finally free from all those worries and can spend time just playing around with a flute.

Jack spends sometime discussing options with Drakon, Hilda and Bane when at some point, Jessica must have realized that Jack is back. She appears close by riding one of the horses, she seems to be getting rather proficient at riding saddle-less but it could be because the horses are much smarter than normal ones. Almost the instant she is near Jack, she jumps from the horse and into his arms.

He is totally unprepared for this and is almost knocked to the ground. She holds him close taking in his body odour making sure that he's really back, Jack is just standing there in an awkward position trying to maintain balance. One of the people around them clears their throat, this brings Jessica back to the current situation and backs away.

"I see you're good at playing the flute, what other secrets are you hiding?" Jack asks pointing to the flute within her hand. Everyone nearly chokes on their spit; they were there when she started playing and it sounded like someone drowning a cat with a bird stuck in its throat.

"Yeah I'm the best in the whole village, why would Arwen even give you a flute clearly I'm the best at it" Jessica says bringing the flute up to her mouth, everyone moves to stop her because it's not really the time but before they can, a melody resounds in the area, a rather chilling melody filled with sorrow, filled with longing. People can feel their hearts move; they all have people that they have lost.

Jack's heart starts to beat quickly in particular and he reaches out to stop her from playing, he isn't ready to hear the rest of the tune just yet. Jessica stops playing and notices that everyone has a rather sad expression on, she feels excited that she is able to make people feel like that but at the same time wondering why she would play a tune like that.

"So ummm…. What were you guys talking about?" Jessica tries to bring everyone back to what they were discussing before she showed up.

"Oh, Drakon said that there's a goblin village close by that we can try to take down so we're trying to work out what to do" Jack replies.

"Ohhh, goblins? Those disgusting little green men…." Jessica recalls memories regarding goblins, "They would always tell us around Dragon Peach village that goblins are evil creatures that try to kidnap women to breed with because there's no goblin women and that if you can't give them babies, they'd eat you. Sometimes they'd even eat their own babies so whenever a goblin was seen around the town, there would be big bands of hunters from everywhere come together and try to kill them, so I think we should kill them" Jessica explains her experiences from the local region.

Jack listens to her words with intense interest, the others are just nodding their heads. He makes a decision; he doesn't want a village of creatures that are even rumoured to do that sort of stuff uncontrolled so close by. He makes the decision that if he is unable to subdue them, he will simply kill them all.

They make a decision that only Drakon and Jack will be participating in this. They start to formulate a plan but quickly run into a problem, they have literally no resources. They are stuck on a grassy plain with very few trees that are normal sized, they have a few pieces of leather that have been produced from some skinned rabbits but that's about it. They have no weaponry, they have no armour, they have no saddles and virtually no healing items.

Jack is starting to second guess this operation; they really are unable to do anything to the goblin village like this. Their village has around 40 wolves and 4 horses they can use, no soldiers and no militia. Drakon then points out that Jack is forgetting the weapon being reforged within the city heart.

The group heads over to the city heart to watch Jack pull out the sword. He feels somewhat embarrassed that he has this group of followers hanging onto his every step but he has to adapt to his new position of city lord and future Emperor. They reach the black and white orb that is the City Heart, the Phoenix statue is still standing near it with the same inscription that Jack hasn't actually looked at yet.

Jack walks over to the statue and looks at the inscription as he's curious about it now, he reads the inscription and his heart is shaken, he feels painful in his heart as though he has forgotten something but is unable to remember what. He spends a few moments lost in thought but pushes it to the back of his mind, he has a purpose for coming to the city heart. This statue will be here in the future and maybe more will be revealed later on.

The sword hilt is sticking out from the city heart and Jack pulls it out, it comes out very easily and the sword is massively different. He couldn't see the hilt while it was still within the city heart but it was just covered with a light, looking at the hilt it is carved with an entwining dragon and phoenix coloured in their respective black and white. The blade itself has transformed from its previous length to become roughly 70cm long with a slightly flared edge, the blade itself is smooth but has a faint fire qi lustre.

Jack holds the sword in his hand, he feels slightly disappointing. He was hoping for either a samurai sword or some European-style broadsword, looking at the item information:

[White Dragon - Phoenix Sword]: Grade: City Lord Armament – Level 2, Stats: Strength +20, Intelligence +25, Constitution +10, Agility +15, Description: A sword forged in a mutated City Heart, it has been imbued with two opposing fire element qi.

Jack waves the sword a few times and flames appear in the air as he waves the sword, the qi in his body is slightly reduced while just using the sword normally like this so this is clearly a weapon that he is unable to use very often. The little snake wrapped around his bicep can sense this fire and slides down his arm.

The little white snake flickers its tongue as though it's trying to work out what this sword is, it reaches Jacks hand and touches the sword. The sword suddenly emits a bright white light as the snake disappears into the sword. Jack can feel something change within the sword and he lets out another sword slash.

*SHINNG*

A sword light flies out of the sword while a massive fireball shoots out not far behind the sword light, leaving a trail of fire and destruction in its wake. Everyone's eyes immediately go wide and back away after seeing this, if this struck any one of them, they'd either be dead or majorly hurt including Drakon.

Jack has a smile on his face, he is no longer disappointed with the sword but he can feel a massive drain on his qi with that single strike. It only went 100m or so through some grass and he is only able to use it at most another two times today but he finally has some self-defence options.

He makes a decision, a risky decision but looking at the wolves that have gathered and how massive Fenrir is, he feels that it won't be too hard to play a little trick on some goblins. Jack tells his plan to everyone else; they agree that it's likely to work but they need to be prepared in case it doesn't.

Shortly after gathering some of the few supplies they have, Drakon and Jack each mount a horse and trot off leaving Jessica and everyone else behind. Sleipner is staying behind in case they need protection as he's able to use the heavenly lightning ability he has previously and given the distance they're travelling will be able to spot it.

The goblin village is roughly 50km away from where Jack has setup his city heart, they will often have a simple village either setup within a cave or really simple grass huts. They will also sometimes setup in abandoned areas, of which there are a few on the plains.

As they're trotting there at a leisurely pace, Drakon is running Jack through some simple sword strikes to get him ready. Jack has no training with a sword and has suddenly acquired a very powerful sword that has innate abilities, it's the equivalent of giving a child a flamethrower and expecting them to use it responsibly and not hurt themselves. He could very well cut off some limbs given how easily the sword light could pass through them earlier.

It takes them roughly an hour and half to reach the location the Goblin village is, Jack is inwardly praising himself that he found some horses and was able to capture them early on. Drakon and Jack hide in the distance while Fenrir implements the plan that Jack had communicated with him previously.

The plan is essentially; the wolves will scare the goblins from the distance forcing them to retreat into their village and defend it, not allowing them to run away and escape. Jack will then scare them into submission by slashing out with the sword.

*AWOOOO*

A howl can be heard in the distance, Jack and Drakon are hiding around 1km away from the village amongst some long grass. The goblins can be heard shouting and panicking, rushing to return to their village.

Some of them try to rush to the other direction away from the wolf howl but find out there is another wolf coming from that direction so they also rush back to the village. There are roughly 30 of them, little short people with green skin and pointed ears. They look roughly 60-70cm tall wearing various hide and grasses. They seem to be rallying around the tallest goblin holding a spear.

The leader goblin attempts to rally the goblins to defend their location, they grab whatever weapons they can and start to form a defensive line. It looks rather primitive but the wolves stop advancing, one of the goblins at some point has taken up a bow and has let loose a shot hitting one of the wolves but not seriously hurting it.

They goblins cheer and start to feel more confident, taunting the wolves to come closer. Jack smiles as he watches this reaction, this is what he wanted. He wanted to give them some confidence then completely crushing them. He signals for Fenrir to step forward.

Fenrir approaches getting larger step by step, half way there he is double the size he started and roughly 100m away from the goblin village he has grown to over 3x the size snorting fire. He is roughly 6x the size of any of the goblins, they're all terrified but the leader goblin steps forward with his spear.

Jack can see that they're making their last stand and if he doesn't crush them immediately, he will have to just kill them all. He steps forward and lets out a massive sword strike into the air, pouring all his remaining qi into it.

*SHHHIING* *WHOOOOOSH*

The sword light disappears into the sky followed by a massive fireball, the fireball lingers in the air and slowly changes form into a dragon. The fire dragon looks similar to the one that appeared above the city heart previously but is much smaller and weaker.

It only lasts a few moments but all of the goblins can see it very clearly, nearly all of them immediately start to kneel on the ground kowtowing towards where the dragon appears, the goblin leader also does the same kowtowing towards the sky and speaking towards Fenrir .

No one is able to understand the goblin language but Jack can see that they've all dropped their weapons, he looks towards Drakon and he nods his head signalling that it's ok to go forward now. The two walk forward without their horses, step by step their footsteps are the only thing that can be heard.

The goblins are all pressing their heads against the ground still afraid to move even the leader. Fenrir is still snorting fire, almost laughing at them and their weak position. Jack comes to the front of the goblin leader and places his hand on his head.

The goblin leader's skin is very rough and coarse as though he has weathered countless years, Jack isn't sure what this goblin village has done previously but if they're willing to come join him. He will be willing to accommodate them.

Jack attempts to fix his posture and puts on some regal airs around him as he speaks, "I am the future lord of this region, are you will do join me or be destroyed?" Jack says bluntly while lifting his hand. The goblin leader looks up at him, all the other goblins are looking towards their leader.

He goblin leader looks Jack in his eyes and can tell he isn't lying; the goblin leader makes a decision and a prompt appears in front of Jack's eyes:

'Green Brook village would like to surrender to you, do you accept?'

Jack has a smile on his face and accepts the prompt.