Content Warning:

Violence, gore. Only for this chapter.

I ducked behind a rock just in time for an arrow to fly right through where my head had just been.

That was close. Dying to a mere goblin’s arrow would’ve been pathetic.

“Careful there, Mark,” our party’s bard said from next to me. He was a starchild, with the typical deep purple skin with faint lines glowing throughout. And typical of all starchildren, his eyes shone brightly. “I’m boosting all your defenses right now, but that won’t prevent death.”

Sanor was playing an intricate tune on his lute, channeling a spell through it. His unique starchild magic was creating haunting melodies that made him popular in every tavern he played in.

I nodded. “Wasn’t expecting such a fortress this deep within a cave. These goblins have had far too much time to multiply.”

“A surprise in every quest, eh?” he replied with a smirk, which I ignored.

From what we saw of the inside of the fort, their population is surprisingly low. There are still quite a few of them, but not as many as we had expected once we saw those walls.

Normally, only some of the much more difficult quests had inaccurate information like this. The only reason we decided to stay was that the goblins would see our trespass into their nest as an incentive to begin attacking humans en masse.

Right now we were still too far away to cause any real damage, and I was the only member of our party capable of long-range attacks. Allamyne was trying occasionally, but even her magic flames enhanced by her flame tiefling heritage didn’t have enough range.

Fortunately, I had plenty of arrows on hand. We’d only had to kill slimes and a few stray goblins on the way down, so my quiver was still full. What was unfortunate, however, was that there was little in the way of cover, so we didn’t have the element of surprise.

I shifted position, and in one quick motion, stood up, aimed, and fired. One down. I have to be quick with the remaining two, as their reinforcements can’t be far away.

I ducked back down and repeated my actions. Fortunately, goblins are poor architects, so even when they ducked for cover, there were gaps. And I was a very good shot.

The second one went down, and after a near miss, so too did the third.

“All archers down!” I yelled.

Allamyne immediately sprang into action. She rushed to the gate and with a great blast of fire, it exploded. She then fell back to stay out of range of whatever enemies might be awaiting us on the other side.

The final member of our party, Mallok, an orc master of dual-wielding swords and Sanor’s sworn brother, took the charge from there.

From the explosion and Mallok’s swift and fierce attacks, the goblins were in complete disarray and falling one after another.

Mallok darted from one goblin to the next, Allamyne took out groups with controlled blasts of fire, Sanor played a song of confusion, and I climbed up one of the crude towers and sniped any that seemed like they were in a position to do something dangerous.

After expending about two-thirds of my arrows, I jumped back to the ground, landing in a roll and immediately standing back up. I began attacking with my daggers while retrieving the occasional arrow where I could. I didn’t grab any of the goblins’ arrows, because those couldn’t be counted on to fly straight.

From the back of the small fortress emerged five hobgoblins and a goblin lord.

No wonder there are so many of them. Considering that there aren’t even more of them, it probably only just recently evolved.

I fired four arrows at the hobgoblins, and managed to take out two of them. They were better-armored and had slightly higher intelligence than the ordinary goblins, so that was as much as I could do before they changed to more defensive tactics. I also needed to reserve the few arrows I had left. If I could, I would save them for the goblin lord, but he was still protected by three hobgoblins.

The goblin lord roared at us, and all the remaining goblins broke free of Sanor’s confusion spell and ran to the lord to protect it.

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The hobgoblins and lord had some sort of repelling enchantments on their armor, so Allamyne’s flames were only effective on the lesser goblins.

One of the hobgoblins was a mage, presumably the one who did the enchantments, and was firing bolts of lightning at us. They didn’t look powerful enough to be deadly, but they would still certainly cause some real damage, enough to temporarily incapacitate us.

Allamyne’s flames were able to block those, so she created walls of fire for us to use as additional cover. Meanwhile, Sanor began rapidly strumming, in what I recognized to be a song of haste. We frequently train with each other, so we instantly adjusted to the increases in our agilities.

Amidst all the carnage, one of the goblins managed to slip past us toward Sanor but was deflected by the barrier crystal he kept on his person at all times. It wasn’t particularly strong, but it was more than enough to defend against a few goblin attacks before needing to be recharged. He also had his own armor and close-range weapons, but his specialty lay in support, so they weren’t frequently used.

“Sanor!” Mallok yelled, then leaped back and decapitated the creature. He spare a brief moment to make sure his brother was okay before returning to the fray.

We’d all worked with each other for about three years now, so there was little need to call out our plans to each other in the middle of combat.

We enacted one of our common strategies for dealing with mages. Allamyne used less damaging, but more distracting blasts of flame that were big and bright. I used that moment to dart to the side and managed to sink an arrow into its exposed calf.

It cried out and fell, and she used that window of opportunity to blast it in the face. I gained a sick sense of satisfaction out of that, as goblins were known to cook and eat people, and even each other.

Only two arrows left.

With only two hobgoblins remaining, the goblin lord raged and charged at Mallok, who then became stuck dueling it while Allamyne and I were left to deal with the remaining hobgoblins.

Fortunately, they were distracted by their lord’s battle, so Allamyne was able to blast one of them to death. With the one remaining now focused on her, and quite terrified by this point, I was able to sink a dagger into its neck. It fell to the ground, gurgling blood.

With only the lord left to deal with, we pretty much now just had to leave it in Mallok’s hands. None of the rest of us were strong enough to fight that thing head-on.

Orc and goblin lord clashed again and again in a quick flurry of blades. The lord was using two axes against Mallok’s swords, and though its technique was lacking in comparison, the sheer strength and speed of its strikes more than made up for it.

Allamyne could only distract it with the occasional small blast of flame, and I only had two arrows. It was too well-protected, too fast, and too close to Mallok for me to risk firing them. Allamyne’s flames were pushing things a bit, though they were able to ever so slightly affect the battle.

That’s right, arrows. I collected the few that were in the area from when I killed the first two hobgoblins. It was as I was collecting the third that I yelled out in pain and fell to my hands and knees.

“Mark!” Allamyne yelled, then heard her running past me and blasting one of the hobgoblin corpses. The mage had apparently still been alive, but was near death and wanted to take one of us out with it.

The fucking thing wasn’t a corpse yet!

Unfortunately, that was just enough of a distraction for the goblin lord to change tactics. It wasn’t able to get rid of Mallok, who had only been bruised so far, so it used that moment to break away from him and try to finish what the mage had started.

I staggered to my feet, but there was still only just a moment before I would be struck down once more. No one in my party was in any position to help me. They were all too far away.

Fuck. I spent the last seven years saving every copper I could to buy that stupid fucking Elixir, and when I was only a few months away from having enough, I get killed. This is such horseshit. I didn’t get to live even a single day as myself.

I hadn’t yet fully recovered from the lightning spell, but still managed to feebly bring my arms up to mount whatever defense they could.

The creature’s axe rushed toward my torso, and as it did, something green fell from the ceiling, right in the way of its attack. It was a slime.

Slimes are weak and pathetic creatures, but even so, the slime that fell from the ceiling in search of food, attracted by the warmth of Allamyne’s flames, was just enough of a hindrance and a surprise to redirect the goblin lord's attack.

Instead of being fatally struck, I was only near-fatally struck. The rough edge of the axe ripped through my left arm, tearing it off, and carried its momentum into and through my torso. And the slime received just as much damage and was burst all over me.

I fell on my back while my party yelled and did what they could to get the goblin lord away from me. Because I was on the ground, Allamyne was able to much more easily blast it with fire. Between that and Mallok catching up to it to slash and stab it some more, it didn’t get to finish the job.

Sanor rushed over to me and began playing a song of healing. It took him a couple moments to get it right, due to how panicked he was.

I was barely hanging on, but with my remaining arm, I managed to reach to my side to grab my potion of greater restoration. It had been quite expensive, and I’d had it for a long time, but it might just be enough to save my life.

I shakily pulled it out and struggled to pop the stopper out of the pouch with one hand. Sanor knew that I had had that potion, but the fact had slipped his mind in this situation. He grabbed the pouch from my hand, yanked the cork out, and poured it into my severely mutilated flesh.

Fortunately, potions don’t all need to be drunk, because I don’t think I could’ve managed that right now. As it spread through my wound, it felt cold and hot at the same time. Restoration potions aren’t supposed to feel like this…

I lifted my head to see the gore the goblin lord had caused, and slowly, things began to regenerate and knit back together. I also saw a lot of green spreading over me. Apparently, the slime was still alive and being healed as well.

The hot and cold feeling intensified and spread, and between the blood loss and the pain, I fell unconscious.