"Haahaahaahaa." The three of them panted as they sat on the ground, exhausted. With Xavier's help, they managed to kill all the remaining goblins with no casualties or serious injuries. The most injured out of all of them by far, was Mickey, who was covered in slash marks all over his body. His wound from the previous day seemed to have almost completely healed, which made both him and Xavier a bit surprised at how effective the Stigma Window was.
"You guys collect the monster stones, I'm gonna check out the cave." Xavier said
"Why? We have more than enough monster stones here." Mickey said, as he had counted over twenty dead goblins on the ground, which excluded the three goblin warriors, two archers and the two scouts they had also killed.
"Curiousity, I wanna see what is inside the cave. Who knows, maybe I'll find something interesting, or better weapons." Xavier said and Mickey nodded his head. Xavier walked towards the cave entrance, and pulled out the spear out of the dead scout, before walking inside.
[You have entered the dungeon, Goblin Cave.]
Xavier blinked when this notification appeared infront of him, and he became even more cautious. As he knew that, whatever a dungeon was, it wasn't good for him or his friends. Walking cautiously through the narrow cave with dim lighting thanks to a few torches, Xavier didn't encounter anything but rough cave walls for a few minutes.
'So that's what they do to humans?' Xavier thought as he looked at the half eaten human remains lying on the ground. He soon found a rough looking stairs leading downward and held his spear in hand as he descended it. Careful not to make a sound, he soon reached the bottom, where he could see torches and copper coloured ore, faintly glowing on the wall.
Mystical Copper F+
'How convenient.' Xavier thought as he saw these orange coloured words floating above the ores on the wall. He continued to walk through the cave, and the further they walked, the louder the sound of someone hammering metal became and the sound of goblins talking. Xavier soon found a brightly lit cave, where goblin warriors, archers and scouts were seated around copper tables, eating human flesh and chatting. There were over a dozen of them, and Xavier slowly backed away.
'Okay, these guys are somewhat civilized. Good to know.' Xavier thought and slowly made his way back up the stairs.
"So, what did you find?" Mickey asked as he cut the monster stone out of a goblin
"Well, there are over a dozen goblin warriors, archers and scouts still in their. There is some kind of ore called Mystical Copper F+ growing inside the cave. Oh, and goblins eat human flesh." Xavier said and when he said the last part, Maria had a look of horror on her face.
"And that wasn't the first thing you said!!" Maria exclaimed
"It didn't seem as important." Xavier shrugged and Maria seemed offended by his words
"Knowing that we are considered food to those monsters didn't seem important!!" Maria said
"Look, even if I had said it first, what would you have done? Charged in their to save a bunch of scraps of human flesh? Swear that you would murder all humans?" Xavier asked in a condescending tone and Maria didn't have a come back. While the two of them were arguing, Mickey diligently carved out the monster stones, and soon, there were twenty seven monster stones sitting infront of them.
"We have thirty three goblin monster stones in total, and we only need twenty four of the normal ones which means we have nine left. Which brings the total monster stones in our secret stash to twelve." Xavier said as he looked at the small blue marble in his hand. The normal goblin monster stones were bigger than the Acid slimes, but smaller than the imps, the goblin archers, and the goblin warriors, which were all of the same size. The scouts monster stone was the same size as the normal goblins, and thinking about the variation in sizes, Xavier managed to reach a conclusion. He realized that the sizes differed based on the extra letters on the monster's name. Acid slime had F- beside it's name, while the goblins and goblin scout had F+ and the imps, the goblin archers and the goblin warriors had E-.
'Now that I think about it, the Warden based the amount of monster stones we should bring based on these extra letters, added to the name of the various species of monsters. But why? Maybe the number of points defer based on the extra numbers.' Xavier thought, but he knew he would have to use the Orb of Eldara to be sure.
"Let's move out. I want to explore the city before dark." Xavier said and packed up all the monster stones.