As we continued down the road, I looked into the forests. It was just getting towards dusk. So we could still see a good distance inside. But beyond maybe 100 feet, it started to get indistinct. We crested a small hill, at the bottom was a pull out divot. I yelled out to Keith. “Let’s pull off up ahead, i’d like to see if I can get some divine inspiration.” Keith slowed a little, pulling into the little opening. It was just large enough to park. I jumped down, I began surveying the area. I kept thinking I needed to listen for birds, or lack there of. But I was not in the boyscouts long enough to learn more than archery, rifle skills, and how to eat a brownie.
I closed my eyes thinking towards Mythra. “We need an area nearby that has low level monsters we can fight.” Over, and over in my head. I repeated the mantra. After a few minutes I felt a slight tingle, as I continued turning it vanished. I turned slowly back towards where I had felt the tingle…I felt it again. Slowly turning just a bit left, than a bit right, I zeroed in on where the tingle was strongest. I opened my eyes to see the truck. I walked around the truck to try again. It worked the tingle was in the woods across the road.
I called up to everyone, to grab their gear. Once everyone was near me with what gear they had, I said. “There is something in that direction the goddess wants us to investigate. Keith your our tank, your in front. Erica please take his right side slightly back. If we see something we can send you in first to scout. I’ll be right behind Keith, Katie please take the rear your our eyes back there. So we don’t get surrounded. Aiden your right behind me. Your our guy if we need elemental damage. But remember its not a game, make sure you don’t hit allies. If we get ambused, Keith draws threat, try to corral them. Erica takes their backs. Katie, and Aiden use your spells only after Keith has threat. Unless you see a life threatening danger we don't. Everyone good?” They all nodded.
We started out moving slowly towards the trees. As soon as we entered the tree line, we found just how inept we were in forest walking stealth. I’ve done my share of hiking, granted it was when I was younger. But I swear we looked down on a clear path, but every step behind us had a stick or branch broken. They seamed to appear underfoot right before we stepped down. So we snap, crackled, and popped our way down the path. Every 20 feet or so, I would have the group stop. So I could scan for the correct direction. The path suspiciously followed in the correct direction.
We walked for a long time. Or at least it felt like a long time. Our generation really did get lower attention spans. If we were not on our phones, ten minutes doing nothing felt like hours.
Maybe it was just me, maybe it was the tension. I don’t know, but it was causing me to freak out at every noise. Since we were still being treated to the sounds of walking on breakfast cereal at every step, it wasnt easy. My stress was starting to get the better of me. Than I had a realization. Maybe it wasn’t stress, maybe I could feel the danger. As soon as I had the thought I got a tooltip box.
[You have unlocked the danger sense ability. As you approach danger, or places of power. You will feel a sense of that danger the closer you get. This is a passive ability, it costs no mana to use.] I was right! I whispered. “We are getting close, everyone look around for movement.” We all glanced around seeing nothing, when a sound was heard ahead of us. Everyone jerked their head in the direction of the sound.
I softly tapped Erica's shoulder whispering. I hoped just loud enough for our group to hear, but noone else. “Shadow, and scout ahead please. If you get discovered, or it’s much too dangerous. Come back to us, we will cover you. It’s up to all of you to decide if we move forward. I won’t put your life in danger without consent.” Noone said anything, but I could see the excitement in their eyes. We had played games for years, fighting digital monsters. This was our first time on purpose. We were planning on attacking monsters in real life.
I nodded to Erica, she disappeared. Surprisingly there was no sound as she moved. I frowned thinking it must be part of her ability, to hide the sounds of her passage.
What seemed like two days of waiting later. Erica popped back into visibility right in the center of the group. I will not lie, and say noone was surprised by her sudden appearance. But ill give it to the group noone screamed. Erica was slightly out of breath when she said. “We have ourselves a group of goblins. I counted about five of them. Spaced out evenly in front of a dark cave. I tried going inside to scout, but there’s one standing right in front of the entrance. I didn’t think I could slip by with how little space was between us.”
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I gave her a thumbs up. “Good job, thank you for playing it safe. It’s better to get the info so we can plan. Than have you rush back with them on your ass chasing you.”
Keith quipped “Even if it’s such a nice ass, I don’t want it poked full of holes..err more holes..umm ok that got away from me.” All but Erica were shaking their heads in exasperation. Erica was smiling giving Keith big eyes. I said. “OK we can play grab ass later.” Keith quipped “Some of us literally.” I sighed. “I’m surrounded by children.”
I got Ericas attention than said. Erica can you draw in the dirt a general layout of what we are looking at?” Erica turned to us grabbed a handy stick. She started drawing. She was no Picasso, but it was very military in scope. She drew the cave, the positions of the goblins. Plus what looked like a big rock, or hole in the center of the group.
I pointed to the circle saying “What’s that?” She replied. “Cookpot, didn’t get close…the smell was too nasty.” I looked the map over than decided to open up the floor for discussion. “OK, so we have different options here. Option A, we have Keith run to here.” I pointed the stick at the approximate center of the clearing. Have him make allot of noise to draw them in. Good news, they won’t know anyone else is with him. We can snipe from a distance while concealed. Bad news, if our attacks miss, or don’t kill in the first attack. We will draw targets away from Keith. It could get ugly.
Option B: same as the first, but opposite. We set up choosing the three on the edges as ranged targets. Try to kill em from a distance, as they get close Keith jumps out taunting.
Option C: we setup with Option B the same, but let Erica get in position by the cave first. To try ganking anyone coming out of the cave, or stopping anyone from running inside to warn backup.”
I turned to Erica "Option A and B, allows you to attack those coming at us, after Keith taunts. Better chance at experience for you. Option C, has the potential to deprive you of any experience from kills. But has the benefit of possibly stopping us from being overwhelmed by numbers. You all talk, let me hear your opinions.”
Noone really had much to say at first. Then Erica spoke up in hushed tones. “I’ll go with Option C, i’d rather miss out on a little bit of xp now, than getting swarmed.” I looked at everyone saying. “Any arguments? Complaints?…No? Then Erica your up, head out now we will give you five minutes to get close. Then we will try getting close without alerting the goblins. With the noise we make I expect them to be rushing us, before we can choose targets. So make sure Keith is the main visual target for them. After you see him blocking attacks, pop out to the sides. Let’s take em down.”
We waited the five minutes, again it was agony waiting. Silently I informed the group it was time. We started to attempt a silent approach…we failed…miserably. On the good side the goblins didn’t expect us, they probably thought it was a wild animal. So they didn’t try running away.
About five feet from the clearing we saw our first goblin. It was about three foot tall, green florescent skin, full of warts. Big floppy ears, over sized mouth full of sharp pointy teeth. His eyes showed bright red. He was wearing a loin cloth that flapped around as he charged towards us. Yes, we could tell it was a he. The loin cloth did nothing to hide its gender. He had what looked like a sharpened stick. He tried stabbing at Keith with a guttural scream. But it was kind of pathetic, the stick just splintered on contact. The shield slam in return sent… well, parts of him in many directions. The second goblin tried following up with an attack. Unfortunately a torso…including ropy innards wrapped around his... everything. It caused him to freeze.
Aiden leaned out casting fireball. Before the goblin got over the shock of his friends innards covering him. A flaming ball the size of a walnut blew right through his chest. The goblin took one last step, than dropped. The other three goblins stopped charging. They stood there, looking at each other. I’m guessing to see who would volunteer to die next. Katie cast wrath on the one on the right, I cast holy light on the one on the left. While Keith rushed forward, chopping the middle one down. A few seconds later faint motes of light drifted up to enter our bodies.
I leveled up. I gained two points to spend. I immediately put them into intelligence, giving me a twelve. I saw my mana bar go up another twenty points. I saw the joy on everyone’s faces. Knowing Aiden, and Katie at least had leveled up. I couldn’t see Keith’s face, as he was walking away towards the cave. He said over his shoulder. “Its not over yet, we've got a cave to clear.”