Chapter 90: Goblin Shaman (Part 1)
A few days later.
An eagle flew over the Obsidian Pass, a stretch of green wilderness ran beneath its wings. Gradually, columns of black smoke began to rise between the wilderness, trees were falling in groups, and nearby cottages were billowing with dark smoke.
Only the green remained unchanged; groups of green-skinned goblins traversed the hills. The eagle flew for a long time and had not yet left this green expanse.
Suddenly, a shrill scream came from below, and a group of goblins deployed by catapults, with leather gliders strapped to their arms, charged towards the eagle.
The eagle, startled, swerved sideways but did not evade. One goblin grabbed it with both hands, grinning with pride, tearing feathers from the eagle’s wings, but before his laughter could settle, he suddenly realized something serious: the leather glider was strapped to his arms, and his hands were clutching the eagle…
“Ahhhh!”
The goblin screamed as he fell from the sky.
On the ground, a group of goblins watched the falling goblin, excitedly jumping and waving their arms.
With a thud, the goblin crashed to the ground, his head tilting, breath coming shallow and uneven. The eagle in his hands miraculously remained alive.
The goblins clamored over, stepping on their dying comrade to fight over the eagle. The poor eagle screeched as they tugged at its body, grabbing clumps of feathers and tearing at its plumage. Before long, amid the eagle’s pitiful cries, it lost most of its feathers, revealing a bare backside.
“Get away! Let me have it!” One goblin, exceptionally strong, kicked and pushed through the crowd, snatching the featherless eagle, stepping on one goblin’s chest as he proclaimed, “Columbus specifically wants this featherless thing!”
Columbus was a goblin shaman.
The goblins grumbled in discontent, especially the goblin underfoot, who opened its mouth, trying to bite his calf.
He kicked hard, knocking out several bloodied teeth, sending the latter sprawling and unconscious on the ground.
He raised the featherless eagle high and asked, “Who agrees? Who opposes?”
The goblins formed a crowd, suddenly shouting in celebration, “Everyone agrees, everyone agrees, send Columbus something to eat!”
“Take me with you.”
The goblins excitedly surrounded him, taking the eagle and leaving.
No green-skinned goblin noticed that while this goblin was eager to rob the eagle to offer to the shaman Columbus, he had no idea where Columbus resided.
In any case, no one cared. Just like no one cared about the goblin who had previously caught the eagle; after being stepped on by several green skins, he kicked his legs a final time and died.
The goblin held the featherless eagle as proof and passed through the orc guards, boldly entering the crudely made shaman tent.
The odd-tempered shaman named Columbus, wearing a pointed black hat, was busy preparing several highly hallucinogenic mushrooms. Columbus looked up and shouted:
“Are you bothering me again? Do I need to feed you to the Skip-Skip?”
The goblin lifted the featherless eagle and said, “For you, come closer.”
“A chicken?”
“An eagle.”
The shaman Columbus became interested, took a handful of red mushrooms, approached, and giggled, “Come, let me give you a delicious treat.”
With that, he grabbed the eagle by the neck and shoved the red mushrooms into its mouth.
The eagle suddenly exerted immense force, breaking free from his grip, flailing on the ground while making “caw caw” sounds.
Seeing this, shaman Columbus burst into laughter.
The goblin sneaked behind the shaman and suddenly said, “Come, let me give you a delicious treat.”
“Huh?”
Columbus turned around only to be met by a blunt club that smashed into his hooked nose, crushing it. He fell to the ground, raising a foot, with his head tilting, unconscious.
The small goblin body shifted and transformed into a silver-haired half-elf, revealing Arcannis.
“Let me give you something good to drink.” Arcannis knelt atop Columbus’s chest and poured a tube of red-brown sleep-inducing potion into his mouth.
Shaman Columbus emitted low, moaning sounds before falling into a deep sleep.
Arcannis anxiously rubbed his hands together, waiting for a morally corrupt black-haired succubus to fulfill her promise.
This wait did not last long. Over the sleeping shaman, a cloud appeared, and a beautiful figure materialized from the cloud, navigating through it as if dizzy. After a few seconds, she looked up, her golden eyes glowing faintly as they met Arcannis’s gaze.
It was the succubus Jima, using her ability “Dreamwalking” to come over via the sleeping shaman.
“My good friend, wonderful.” Arcannis rubbed his hands together more excitedly, almost producing smoke, “Let’s get started, I can hardly wait; this place is the best fun I’ve ever seen.”
“You might have truly been born under the wrong star.” Jima said, taking out a ginger-colored potion from her waist, “Here, drink this.”
“What’s this good stuff?”
“The Enchantress’s Lie Potion.” Jima said, “It will make your lies more easily believed by others.”
Before Jima could finish, Arcannis downed the potion in one gulp, leaving nothing behind and even licking the inside of the tube.
“Okay, the next step is for you to impersonate him.” Jima pointed her spear at the unconscious shaman on the ground.
“Wait.” Arcannis suddenly said, “You wouldn’t be tricking me again, would you?”
“When have I ever tricked you? Speaking of tricks, in Marlin City, I was momentarily deceived by you.” Jima accused, “Afterward, I merely retaliated a bit.”
“Heh heh, even though I tricked you in Marlin City, when I exposed my true identity in front of you, weren’t you overjoyed, like you’d drawn an SSSR? It was so much fun.”
“Ha.”
“I have a question.” Arcannis said, “This lie potion you gave me isn’t very useful; if I’m impersonating a goblin shaman, there’s one part that’s most difficult.”
“You can’t use green-skinned shaman spells, right?”
“Right, a shaman without shamanic abilities is fake, even if true.”
“Simple.” Jima pulled out a light green potion from her belt, “As long as everyone believes you’re a shaman, then you really are one, especially if they are green-skins.”
Arcannis took the potion and casually asked, “Are green-skins that special?”
Jima explained:
“Did you not notice why many of the green-skins’ devices, which look as if they would fall apart, still work? For instance, those war chariots, with just two goblins shaking on top, they can run, and if you add a pair of small wings, they run even faster.”
“I get it, because they eat mushrooms and are strong!”
“Don’t go against the grain.” Jima knew he was deliberately being silly, “Research has shown that green-skins have a certain dream-fulfilling power. The more green-skins gather, the stronger this power becomes, scientifically termed as Waaagh energy, which enhances the power of green-skin spellcasters.”
“So, as long as enough green-skins believe you’re a shaman capable of casting spells, then you really can cast some green spells. And I have also set up a few things to help you act.”
Arcannis expressed gratitude, “You really are my good friend, the best friend ever, even better than Furist.”
“Let’s not kid ourselves; he was the one you beheaded.” Jima said, “It really stinks here, a strong smell of green-skin; I bet those green-skins have left a heap of dung in the fallen city. I’ll go ahead; good luck, bye.”
Arcannis eagerly clicked his fingers, and a pitch-black dagger appeared in his hand, called “Blade of Shadows,” capable of stealing the identity of those it harms.
He first stripped the unconscious shaman Columbus of his clothes, then stabbed the dagger into his heart and twisted it forcefully, killing him. His body then transformed, becoming the shaman Columbus.
Jima opened the entrance to the dream palace, and the body of shaman Columbus, reduced to nothing but his underwear, was tossed directly into the entrance of the dream palace. Soon after, Jima hurriedly stepped into the entrance of the dream palace.
“Wait.” The voice sounded strange as Arcannis, now with the appearance of a goblin shaman, called out to Jima, “There’s one thing, if I understand correctly, you can also let me impersonate an orc shaman, right?”
The succubus, adorned with horns and a bewitching face, nodded.
“Then why let me impersonate a goblin shaman?”
“Because he was the best candidate I calculated precisely.”
“Thank you! You really are my good friend.”
“Just kidding.” Jima said, “Because I think goblins and you are a perfect match.”
With that, she hurriedly stepped into the entrance of the dream palace, and soon, the dream entrance resembling the eye of a typhoon disappeared before Arcannis.
“Damn.”
Arcannis lowered his middle finger, donned the pointed black hat, then bent down to pick up the shaman’s staff— a staff bound with a large, clawed spider with a skull at the top.
It smells terrible… but much better than the underground sewer I lived in as a child. First, think of a way to deceive those green-skins; it would be so much fun to make them kneel one by one.
Before Arcannis could think of an idea, a series of footsteps suddenly approached.
The blood on the ground hadn’t been cleaned yet, a red smear, and Arcannis hurriedly kicked some dirt over it. As he flung open the tent door, he jumped in, stepping on the bloodstains.
A bent orc kid poked his head in, looking a bit timid, but the next moment his eyes fixated curiously on the blood beneath Arcannis’s feet.
“Why is there a pool of blood here?”
“What’s it to you?” Arcannis waved the spider-bone staff in his hand, the staff swaying unsteadily, “Want a whack?”
The orc boy shrank back, saying, “I came to tell you, the Great Shaman is notifying you to go perform a ritual.”
“What ritual?”
“To get that big rock, you know, the one that gets raised up.” The orc boy’s voice was naive, “We can smash the shrimp’s formation this way, and they won’t be able to block our big, big blades.”
Arcannis felt guilty all of a sudden; it sounded like a big deal, and he had only been a shaman for less than three minutes—could he really make a bunch of big rocks stand up?
“Why me?” Arcannis asked, “I can’t handle this big task.”
“The Great Shaman said.” The orc boy replied, “Since we all said you could lift the big rocks, then let you come, he’ll watch from the side.”
Arcannis secretly felt uneasy; it seemed that the so-called Great Shaman was using him as a scapegoat to establish authority.
Wait a minute, how could anyone think he could lift big rocks? Could it be that succubus did something?
Arcannis asked, “When did you say that?”
“A couple of days ago, we all said you can lift the big rocks better than the Great Shaman.”
Arcannis’s eye twitched.
