POV Kidnappers:
Rays of morning sun passed through the thick canopies of the trees, illuminating an old muddy road. Colourful leaves playing in tones of red, yellow and orange were sewn all over the road, rustling in the slight draft.
A carriage rode down the old unmaintained road, mud and water splashing from under its wheels. Arrows were sticking all over it. Its wooden structure was cracked in multiple places, with marks after sword slashes sewn through all over it.
Four horses dragging the carriage galloped down the road, sweat running down their bodies as they ran the whole night.
The players in black robes, stained with blood and mud, stood all over the carriage. One stood on the roof while two held on the back of it. The two more sat in the front. Their usually shiny masks were dirty and covered with scratches.
The sound of horse hooves drumming on the road came from behind them. No, one could see its source through the thick forest, but they knew they were likely enemies.
The tall white peaks occasionally poked through the holes in tree canopies and kept getting closer and closer.
“Dammit, they must be these jerks from sewers again. Why can’t they just give up?!”
The sounds of horses kept getting closer and closer, quickly catching their carriage. Everyone sprung to attention, grabbing their ranged weapons and aiming them towards the road behind them.
Suddenly more sounds came from both of their sides, more and more horse sounds resounding through the forest around them. Panic seeped through their bodies as they realized that they were surrounded.
“Shit, they are surrounding us. They must have come in bigger numbers than before. We are dead.”
Their mood dropped even more, the grip around their weapons tightening as they realised that this was their last chance with the update coming soon.
PunkGuy stood up, balancing on the front of the fast-moving carriage, grabbing his bow and nocking in an arrow.
“Stay around the carriage. They can’t unleash strong ranged attacks if they don’t want to also blow up those they want to save. We are close to home, and I already send a message. Reinforcement is on the way. We just need to hold up!”
He unleashed his arrow. The glittering arrow whistled through the air as it blasted between the trees, all of the leaves around it rustling under the wind that was blowing along it.
POV Vesuvius:
The dragon, covered in heavy volcanic armour, was resting on the top of the tall black tower. Suddenly he stirred and opened his golden eyes, the sun already rising in the sky. Something was wrong as he felt something or someone quickly ascending his tower. Their quiet steps on the stone stairs sounded like thunderbolts to the sensitive hearing of the dragon.
The dragon stirred, turning his head towards the stone floor glowing from heat. His eyes immediately caught a familiar aura.
‘That small elf, what does she wants.’ Vesuvius dropped his alert, resting his head on the blazing hot stone.
While waiting for the small elf to climb up the tall tower, he checked his XP bar, his mood immediately growing through the roof with the glow in his eyes becoming even brighter.
‘I need just a little bit more.’
Finally, the small figure of the elven girl rushed out of the entrance to the roof, her long blonde hair in a mess with blood staining her dress.
She immediately squealed, “Your Highness! It worked!” her heterochromatic eyes twinkled with light like small stars, her heart beating louder than usual.
The dragon turned his head towards her, his eyes bigger than her whole body fixed upon her as he tried to figure out what she was talking about.
“You Highness, it didn’t blow up this time!” she kept squealing, impatiently wiggling like a child that wanted to show her mother what she had made.
Finally, the dragon realized what it was, his mood immediately changing, “Did the transplantation work?!”
“Yes! Yes! Come quickly and take a look. It is amazing!”
Vesuvius would be lying if he said he wasn’t also excited, his curiosity growing as he tried to think about what happened to the goblin.
His armoured hand turned into a blur as his large palm snatched the elf, closing around her small body softly, Vesuvius making sure that he didn’t turn her into a pancake.
“Giiia!” she only managed to make out a squeal before vanishing in the dragon’s hand.
The dragon jumped from the tower and spread his wings. His body blasted into the distance like a rocket as he quickly descended towards the gaping dark crack in the ground under him. His eyes brightly glowed, and the wind soared around him as he abruptly slowed to dive into the dark cave.
His large body crashed into the cave, cracks spreading from his landing site with the whole cave shaking. The bright light filled the cave, radiating out of his body.
He stepped forwards, the cave shaking under his heavy steps as he rushed towards the secret chamber for experiments. His body moved like a blur through the expansive tunnels.
Finally, he reached the brightly lit chamber filled with cages containing gory viscera and burned remains.
He lowered his hand and opened it. Alesia slowly stumbled out of it, her hair in an even bigger mess, her steps unsteady. She looked like she had just finished a ride on an extreme rollercoaster.
“Oh, my head is spinning…” she slowly stumbled into the chamber before pointing her blood-covered hand towards the corner.
There were no traces of a goblin. Instead, a bipedal reptilian with a height of an adult human lay on the ground. Its body ripping with muscles was covered in black scales with an orange glow of magma coming from minuscule cracks between them.
Its head no longer looked like a deformed human but like a head of a lizard with a small horn growing from its snout with two longer ones from above its eyes. The horns were small and curled, looking like they were made of blazing hot iron with lightning crackling around them.
A short black tail covered in scales grew from its bottom back, and smoke rose out of its nostrils as it breathed.
Its powerful, dragon-looking legs ended with three massive blazing hot claws that looked like they could tear through the armour as a hot knife through butter. Each of its hands ended with four clawed fingers.
Vesuvius was stunned. The change was much more drastic than anything before. There was no semblance of the goblin that it used to be.
Vesuvius slowly approached the reborn goblin and used his analysis.
Ding!
//
Analyze result:
Name: <Unnamed>
Species: High Kobold
Occupation: NPC/Experimental Subject/Minion
Level: 30
Danger level: none
//
The dragon already had his suspicion, but he became highly excited now that he had confirmed it.
‘It is not a draconified goblin or anything like that. It changed into a kobold and a high one on top of that. How is that possible? Goblins and kobolds don’t have anything in common? Or do they?’
Vesuvius felt his mind going kaboom as he started to formulate a weird theory, ‘What if original kobolds were also born from goblins? They are not high ones, so whoever changed them wasn’t likely a true dragon. Maybe wyrm? That would fit. They are the only draconic species that could use their innate curiosity to suppress their pride and use their blood and maybe something more for experiments.’
In the end, he shook his head, feeling like there were too many holes in his theory, ‘How would they even get to the idea of transplanting their bone marrow, and how would they do that? Maybe they used some alchemy to increase the effects of their blood. Nah, I am just overthinking that. They could just be made from goblins directly by the dragon god.’
Alesia brought him out of his thoughts, returning him back to the material world, “Your Highness, what do you think?”
Honestly, Vesuvius was excited with the results, but he had to maintain his image, “The result is great. Try to replicate the results. That gets me to my question how have you accomplished it?”
“I tried to feed them your blood before injecting that golden thing into their bones. The blood caused some minor transformation, and the marrow finished it.”
Vesuvius kind of felt angry at himself as he felt like it was an obvious solution making him not understand how it took them so long to get to it.
He looked back at the kobold, ‘Level thirty isn’t bad for a base of intelligent species, and it is much higher than that of regular humans and goblins. On top of that, they can train their physique and magical powers allowing them to grow. There is just a question if they count as monsters controlled by me as that would allow them to level up.’
Suddenly the kobold stirred, opening its eyelids and revealing a pair of reptilian eyes.