Squinting, I scanned the horde riding at us.
Goblin, Raider x10 – Level 1
Goblin, Ruffian x2 – Level 2
Goblin, Leader – level 3
Swiftscale x12 – Level 1
Swiftscale, Charger – Level 3
Math, math, math… I started doing calculations in my head. There were four of us, each level 3, making our party power level 12. The incoming goblins' power level added up to 17, plus there were another 13 levels when adding the mounts. Their grand total was 30. I didn’t like the odds of 12 to 30.
In the last fight, the mounts typically ran off once the rider was killed. I could now see their proper name Swiftscales. The Charger was called out by itself as a level 3. Discounting most of the mounts, we were still talking about power levels of 12 versus 20.
In either scenario, we were badly outnumbered. I looked around for anything in the landscape that might help. An outcropping of rocks just off the path to our right might help. It wasn’t much, but we could fight from it as a mini-fort.
I whistled and pointed to the rocks, “There’s thirteen of them and only four of us. We should defend ourselves from those rocks there.”
Max and Emme both nodded while Slade scratched his jaw. Without waiting for snailbrain to catch up I spurred my horse on the outcropping. The others followed. Slade brought up the rear, a bit reluctant to do anything that didn’t include charging the enemy straight on.
“Why are we running?” Slade yelled, “They’re all low-level. This should be cake.”
“Their combined levels are three times our own,” I explained. “They will wear us down if we aren’t smart about this.”
“Yeah, but we could charge our mounts right through them…” he continued as Max and Emma dismounted.
“You play shooters? Right?” I asked as he remained atop his mount. “Do you ever take cover?”
“Well, yeah. You kinda have to...”
“This little rock hill is our cover,” I said, then switched tactics. “Did you take any riding skills? Do you have anything that adds damage to a charge?”
“Uh, no.”
“Then let's play this smart and use this hill to keep them from charging us.”
“Emma, take my horse. If you take the horse behind the outcropping, it should be protected from the goblins,” Max said, handing the reins to her. I’m going invis.”
“How’s the hill stop them from charging?” Slade scratched his chin.
There wasn’t much time left. “Think of the goblins like a wave. This hill is the beach. They’ll have to stop or go around it. If we’re on top, it means they aren’t riding over us.”
“How about I stay behind with the horse and then charge when they break up?”
There was no more time, the goblins were less than a hundred yards away. “Whatever, just don’t get killed. We kind of need you.”
I crouched down, trying to stealth, but I didn’t fade out like usual. A cluster of eyeball symbols overlapping the goblins appeared in my vision. It only took a moment to figure out that I couldn’t stealth because they could see me. Darting behind the outcropping fixed this, and I slipped into stealth.
Emma pulled the three horses around behind the outcropping, and Slade followed atop his own.
Unseen now by the goblins, they reversed back and scrambled up the waist-high rocks. Max was there beside me. All I could see was a blue outline of him. I went into inventory and drew out my bow.
When the goblins reached fifty yards, I imagined a Hunter’s Mark on the leader. A glowing crosshair in a circle appeared, covering him and making him easy as all hell to spot. My bow tugged strongly, trying to keep lined up on him.
I knew from playing MMOs that we’d have a much better chance of whittling down the trash. Killing all the level 1 monsters would reduce the number of attacks the goblins could make. I really hoped that at level 3, we’d be outputting enough damage to one-shot of all the low-level garbage. I’d marked the leader, figuring Slade wouldn’t understand this and would just go mano-a-mano against the biggest guy he saw.
“Go for the level 1’s.” I hissed. “We need to take out the trash before we go for the bigger ones.”
As expected, Slade said, “The leader is mine.”
When the goblins were thirty yards away, I began firing. I fired three arrows, and then my stealth faded. The goblins now knew exactly where I was. The three arrows, however, each went through a different goblin, killing them instantly. Heck yeah, I was a badass.
Sneak Attack: Bonus Damage
Sneak Attack: Bonus Damage
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Sneak Attack: Bonus Damage
Spotted: Stealth Lost
They were right at the rocks now, just a few yards away. A cluster of goblins slowed to a stop, leaping from their mounts with spears and nasty-looking curved swords in hand. The other five kept riding around to the left of the rocks.
I fired two more arrows at the dismounted goblins. The first died instantly, vanishing into a blue cube. The second one took an arrow to the shoulder and screamed, running toward my rocky shelter. As he and three other goblins charged up into the rocks, I saw a blur to my right.
As one of the charging goblins split in half, Max slipped out of his stealth. He whipped his black katana around, killing the goblin with an arrow in his shoulder. That left two goblins on foot, but one of them was a tougher level 2 Ruffian. Overall, not a bad start for team stealth.
From behind and below my perch on the rocks, Slade howled out his warcry and charged. Busy fighting goblins myself, I could only see glimpses from the corner of my eye as he charged into six goblin riders. When I was able to glance again, he’d scattered them, killing one of the weaker ones. There was some clashing of steel on steel as he got mired in a melee with the remaining four.
Max was visible and the Level 2 Ruffian on foot charged him with a spear. It missed with the spear but shoved him with a shoulder, sending Max toppling sideways off the rocks. The Ruffian saw me crouched with my bow and came rushing at me.
I drew an arrow, but there was no time to aim or fire. The spear came down, and I screamed. I’d been stabbed in the right arm. Oh, it hurt, about as bad as I imagined a real stab to the arm would be. I scrambled backward, falling immediately off the rocks. Which also hurt.
Oddly enough, I was only dazed for a moment when I felt a kind of effervescence burst through me. The pain faded, and my arm felt better than before. I looked up and saw the Ruffian rearing back to jump and land on me spear first. Without thought, I fired.
The arrow struck him square in the chest. It didn’t kill the slimy green bastage, but it did stop him for a moment. He had this Slade-ish expression on his face, and then I hit him with another arrow. As he staggered back, I shot him again. This time, he vanished, leaving a blue cube.
Getting back up to my feet, I saw Emma. She waved her hands, and streaks of sparkles filled the air. Max was just past her exchanging blows with a goblin who had a second health bar. The top one was red, its health bar, and it was mostly empty meaning it was near death. The bottom one was yellow and only a quarter empty.
Before I could fire a shot to help Max, he knocked the goblin’s sword away with his katana and sliced through the creature. There was an angry gash on his left arm, which healed as Emma chanted.
All safe here. I spun, looking for Slade. He was riding in circles frantically, still fighting four mounted goblins.
The lead goblin, the one with my Hunter’s Mark, peeled off from the fray. He rode in a half circle, distancing himself from the fight.
Slade smashed his axe into a Ruffian Goblin, knocking it from its lizard. When the Ruffian hit the ground the other goblins suddenly had yellow bars appear over their heads. I fired an arrow at one of the weaker goblins but missed. Max moved past me. He’d gone invisible again.
The leader, having enough distance, urged his mount to charge. It barreled through the melee, catching Slade's horse in the side with a fierce headbutt. The horse tumbled and screamed, and Slade went flying. My bow instantly locked onto the Hunter’s Mark.
I let arrows fly. I knew I should have focused on the trash, but my Hunter’s mark was just begging to be used. The arrows flew mostly true, two hitting the rider and one hitting the level 3 Swiftscale. In addition to a health bar appearing over the leader, all the other goblins’ yellow bars dropped to half.
The Charger turned to face me even though its leader rider yanked hard on the reins in the other direction. It eyed me for a moment and lowered its head. I knew it meant to charge. Panicked now, I fired arrows at it.
Slade bounced up from his tumble, warded off a couple of spear jabs and a sword blows, and swung at the Charger. He missed as the level 3 Scaleswift came bearing down at me.
There was a blur, and Max appeared. His katana sliced a huge red wound across the Charger’s side. It screamed a hideous lizard scream and spun, snapping its teeth at Max. The sudden turn caused the lead Goblin to tumble to the ground.
My Hunter’s Mark still had a hold of my bow. I put two arrows in the Leader, and he staggered and then fell.
The yellow bar on the other four goblins emptied. Then they ran. Rode off, actually. Scattered to the winds.
Slade got the killing blow on the Charger from behind, saving Max from some vicious bites. And it was all over.
Emma chanted, and the crisscrosses of bloody wounds on Slade’s arms faded away.
Gained: Experience
We’d won. I was slightly surprised, given that the math was not in our favor. Moreso, though, I was confused about why the last four had simply run away.
“And the Slayer sladeinates another victory!” Slade roared.
I winced in an internal type of pain. I wasn’t sure which was worse, hearing Slade stroke his own ego or getting stabbed through the arm. At least we’d won this fight.
Emma ran past me chanting. A moment later, Slade’s horse struggled back up to its feet, looking perfectly fine even after having taken a full-on headbutt from the charging level 3 lizard.
Max and Slade high-fived, and I joined everyone.
“Kicking ass and taking names,” Slade said.
“Victoria MVP for sure,” Max said, holding his hand out palm high. I gave it a slap.
“Victoria?” Slade said. “Did you see my charge?”
“Yeah, you killed one goblin.” Max said, “She killed six.”
“What? No way.” Slade looked like he was trying to add up his own killed in his head and having some difficulty. He murmured, “Pretty sure I killed four or five.”
“Sorry, buddy,” Max said. “Only one. And an assist with the Charger.”
“Killing blow,” Slade said. “That was totally my kill.”
The dick measuring was already starting to get on my nerves. “Guys. We did awesome. Altogether they had 30 levels. We only had 12. We did amazing. Slade is the hero here.”
Max looked at me with hurt puppy dog eyes. He’d been trying so hard to defend my honor. But even Slade looked a little turned off by what I was saying.
“I don’t need sympathy,” Slade said. “Any time you wanna keep score, you say the word.”
“Guys, who scores the kill doesn’t matter,” I explained. “It’s how we play our roles.”
Emma chimed in, “She’s right. I didn’t get any kills.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Emma didn’t kill or even hit a single one. But this fight would have been a complete loss without her.”
Max nodded, getting it, “Victoria would have been killed by the Ruffian if she didn’t get Emma’s heal.”
“Emma heals. She keeps us alive.” I said. “Max and I deal out the damage. And Slade, you grab everyone’s attention.”
“What the good is that?”
“How many blows did you take?” I asked.
“A bunch.”
“More than all the rest of us.” I said, “You had six goblins on your ass, and they could bring you down. Me and Max each took a single hit that almost ended us. You are a fucking tank. You’re made to take hits.”
Slade started to look like he was enjoying the direction of the conversation.
I continued, “It doesn’t matter who gets the most kills or who does the most damage. We each have a role to play. And I think we each did exceptionally well. This is a total win for all of us.”
“Maybe not a total win,” Max said.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“What do you think those three fleeing goblins are going to do?” Max asked. “They’ll tell the other goblins and come back with many more.”