With our plan set, we followed Aaron’s lead as he led us towards the back of the group of trees we were in. We crossed the clearing out of sight and entered the nearby trees that we watched a large patrol enter earlier. Gary motioned Aaron back once we arrived and we moved cautiously through the dense, blood-red trees that we passed everywhere in the bloodfields.
“There,” Zack said quietly with a motion for us to stop. I saw bodies moving in the distance ahead of us after we stopped moving but I couldn’t get an accurate count. I quickly cast Barkskin on all five of us since it seemed to be a large patrol from what I could tell.
“Let’s go,” Gary said quietly and led the way forwards determinedly as he stalked forwards towards the goblins. Gary and I moved evenly with him and we continued for a few more moments before one of the goblins noticed us. It shouted and pointed through the few remaining trees left between us.
“Drill shot,” Aaron shot it directly in its leather-wrapped head when its arm was still pointed towards us. I rushed forwards and entered the beaten path that the goblins were patrolling on. I stopped hesitantly beside Zack and Gary as we saw how many goblins were ahead of us.
“We can handle this,” Gary said quickly as the goblins grouped up ahead of us. I counted in a rush as I watched the goblins form small groups in front of us before all twenty walked towards us. The goblins were a few meters away now and I noticed some of the goblins carried weapons other than spears. The larger goblins held swords, spears, maces, and a few shields, compared to the standard spear they always had before this. I swallowed and focused on the group of four goblins heading towards me.
“Don’t spare any Essence, kill as many as you can before they get to us,” Gary shouted as I was preparing to cast.
“Haste”
Aaron cast Drill Shot four times in a blur of speed and I watched the four goblins in front of me fall to the ground at nearly the same time.
“Wall of flames,” Gabriel cast and sent a six-foot-high wall of fire blocking off half the remaining goblins heading towards us.
“Fortress,” I heard Zack cast from beside me as a massive shield covered most of the rest of the area in front of us. He left a small gap that two goblins charged through right as the spell finished.
“Impale,” Gary cast and he lunged forwards at one of the goblins. I moved to the side of the other goblin and stabbed while Zack blocked its thrust with his shield. I heard blows hitting the sides of the Fortress but I didn’t have time to ask Zack how much longer it would last. He finished the one we were fighting and two more goblins headed through the gap. The Goblin swung at me with his mace and I had to dive to the side to dodge the blow. I positioned forward since I was confident in defending with my shield, but I was worried a blow from that mace would break my arm, even behind my shield. As I was standing back up my team had already taken out the two goblins with a rush of skills.
“It’s coming down,” Zack grunted out from my side. He had mentioned before that he could constantly send Essence into the skill and I assumed he just spent his entire core of essence on the spell to buy us time to whittle them down. Zacks Fortress came down all at once and a wall of goblins rushed us from in front of us.
“Thornbolt,” I cast at the goblins directly in front of me first so that I could turn and help Gary or Zack, but unfortunately the leather caps these goblins were wearing made it take two shots to kill one of them. I killed the first one I aimed at in seconds, but the second one blocked my first thorn with his shield and I only landed a second on his chest. I didn’t have any more time to prepare and I darted quickly to the right side further away from Gary and Zack to limit the number of goblins that could hit me at once. Two goblins attacked me with swords and I managed to block one hit with my shield and the other I parried with my spear. I couldn’t push forward to attack since the goblin I hit in the chest with Thornbolt was coming from my side. I blocked the spear thrust from the wounded goblin and immediately felt a block behind my back and was knocked painfully to the ground.
“Fireball,” I heard and felt Gabrielle cast a spell over me to buy me some time and I painfully rolled back over and stood up. Two goblins had fallen from the fireball and were getting back up a few feet away while the last one attacked with a slash towards my head. I ducked under the blow and stabbed the goblin through its stomach.
I turned to face the remaining two goblins and I barely flinched to the side as a spear stabbed towards my chest. The stab tore painfully into my side, but I could tell it was only a fraction of an inch deep. I swung my shield as hard as I could into the sword of the goblin as it came from my side and it lost its grip from the hit. I moved quickly around that goblin and stabbed it in the neck. I turned to focus on the last goblin and I saw an arrow send it stumbling to the side. I finished it off with a thrust through the head and turned to face the rest of my teammates worriedly.
“Charge,” Gary charged from one goblin he finished with a thrust to the last three that Zack was painfully defending from. He moved like he was in rough shape and I ran over to help support Gary as he drew some pressure from Zack. Aaron sent arrows from the side after he leaped 30 yards over to land behind them. Once I arrived Gary was fighting the last goblin and I sunk my spear into its skull from behind to finish it off.
Druid level 4 reached
I had felt myself level during one of the first few goblins but I hadn’t allowed the notification to appear to distract me during the fighting. I sat down with a grunt and focused on my Essence as everyone gathered together. I had less than half of my Essence remaining and I still needed slightly over half my Essence to cast rejuvenation.
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“Injuries?” Gary asked shortly after I had sat down.
“I got stabbed in the side but it didn’t penetrate too deep,” I spoke up first. “Also got hit by a sword in the back, but I don’t think it cut me.” Gary nodded and turned to Zack.
“Just a ton of small cuts and bruises all over, I had five of those goblins on me at the end there,” Zack said from where he was leaned up against a tree.
“None of them got to me or Gabrielle,” Aaron said with a nod towards us. “Good job holding them back, guys.”
“Yeah, that was incredible. All of us are improving so much,” Gabrielle said with a smile and a nod towards us.
“Definitely. Just a week ago, I doubt we would have survived that fight,” Gary responded after. “Now, we’ve handled a band of goblins 20 strong with no major injuries at all. I assume everyone reached level four, too?” Gary asked. I nodded along with everyone else in the team and we all shared a quick grin.
“Let’s loot up and move back to the main bloodfields to heal up for now,” Aaron suggested and we quickly grabbed a few coin pouches from the goblins before heading slowly back out of the clearing. I was able to cast rejuvenate on myself a few minutes later, which made the walk much more bearable, although still painful. We hiked for over half an hour, and I was able to cast rejuvenate once more on Zack along the way back.
“All right, let’s break here for now and grab some food. We can decide what to do after we finish healing up and study our statuses.” Gary said after we reached an easily defensible area to stop in. I dropped my pack and pulled up my status after I unlocked Entangle and put my free statistic point into Spirit.
Eli - Lvl 4 Druid
Experience - 120/5000
Strength-7 (+1)
Dexterity-7 (+1)
Perception-5
Vitality-6
Spirit-8 (+1)
Willpower-8
Barkskin - Level 6\10 Upgradeable
Experience - 540\3200
Thornbolt - Level 4\20 Upgradeable
Experience - 420\1600
Rejuvenation - Level 3\10 Upgradeable
Experience - 510\800
Entangle - Level 1\5 Upgradeable
Experience - 0\100
As much as I wanted to test the spell out immediately I had to save essence to continue casting rejuvenation until we were all completely healed. I immediately noticed that it would only reach level five before it would need to be upgraded, although I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing yet.
“Food’s ready,” Gabrielle said a few minutes later and everyone got up from studying our statuses.
“Thanks, Gabrielle. Did everyone see the experience to reach level 5?” I asked as I grabbed a steaming bowl of stew and sat down on my pack beside everyone else.
“Yeah, I didn’t know about that from my brother. The last time I saw him he was level three, although he must be higher by now.” Gary said.
“So what skills did everyone get?” Aaron asked after a bite of stew.
“Entangle, hopefully, it will be a good one,” I responded although I was sure I had told everyone what skill I had available a while back.
“Flame Attunement,” Gabriella said with a grin. “It’s a passive skill that increases the power of all of my flame-related spells.”
“So, every skill?” Zack said and everyone laughed. “That sounds strong, I know my passive skills have made a huge difference for me. I unlocked Empowered Strike.”
“Good, you were missing a skill that helped you take out stronger targets, that will help out,” I said encouragingly.
“I got Heightened Senses, a passive skill that will increase my Dexterity and Perception constantly,” Aaron spoke up next and I realized everyone besides me had at least one passive skill by now. I wondered if my class would give me one next. Active abilities felt more powerful for now but compared to Gary’s Balanced Foundations that gave him a total of six statistics for each level it gained and Zack with two passives that increased his statistics I felt like I was falling behind.
“Sounds strong, Aaron. Similar to the Vigor skill that Zack got on his last level,” Gary said supportively. “I gained Flurry, I assume it allows me to strike quickly sort of like Aarons Haste spell.”
“Hopefully my class grants me a passive skill for my statistics soon," I said after everyone finished congratulating each other. I couldn’t help but worry that my body and spirit would fall behind soon without a skill to help out.
“Yeah, I think you’ll get a Spirit and Willpower focused passive soon, Eli,” Gabrielle said from where she lounged against her pack nearby.
“That would be incredible, now that my attributes have reached levels 7 and 8 my growth seems to have slowed down significantly,” I said after letting out a sigh.
“Wow, my highest statistic is only seven,” Gabrielle said with some surprise. “Which ones have you leveled up to eight?”
“Willpower and Spirit are both eight now, although Spirit only reached it from the Statistic point that this level provided us,” I explained. I was surprised that her Spirit and Willpower weren’t at the same levels as mine. We continued discussing what we had been doing to try and increase our Essence amount and regeneration for the next few hours while Zack, Gary, and Aaron discussed something else nearby. I continued to cast rejuvenation on my team for the next few hours until we were all completely healed.
“All right, looks like everyone is ready to go and we still have a good half the day to fight.” Gary started speaking after we all picked up our packs and stood. “I think we should go take another look at the goblin village and make a decision from there. They seemed more intelligent than the normal dungeon goblins, so there might be a reaction from the village now that we’ve killed so many of them.”
“That makes sense, hopefully, we’ll be able to find another few patrols before they start trying to hunt us down,” I said thoughtfully to Gary's observation. None of us could tell from what scouting we could do from earlier, but it looked like there had to be at least a couple hundred goblins living in the village. We had killed over thirty and they must have noticed by now.
“Let’s get moving, then. I want to see what effect my new passive will have on my spells!” Gabrielle said excitedly and we all nodded in agreement. Maybe this level would give us the strength to take out the large village, although I wasn’t convinced that it would be enough.