“All right, team. While we’re inside the Bloodfields keep talking to the minimum and everyone stays focused. We move together slowly with me and Zack in the front, Eli in the center, Gabrielle and Aaron in the back. Eli, use Barkskin at your discretion, for now, we can’t leave it on permanently or you might be out of Essence when we need it on all five of us. Zack, try and focus on keeping the patrols’ attention split between the two of us. Aaron, once we make contact keep your eyes open for ambushes while you take whatever shots you can from behind. Gabrielle, try to get an opening cast of your skill before they get close if you can so there’s no collateral damage. As long as we keep focused we’ll be in and out in a few hours.” Gary efficiently told each of us our positions and what our roles were, leaving me impressed. I could tell the rest of the group was just as impressed as me, each of them agreeing quickly to his plan.
With a nod to each other, Zack and Gary took the lead and pushed through the entrance to the forest. I followed a couple of steps behind them and heard Gabrielle and Aaron taking the rear. The trees seemed much less packed together with a few steps deeper and there was plenty of room to walk under the canopies. The two in front walked slowly while all of us studied our surroundings for any signs of life or movement. After thirty minutes Zack raised his hand in the air with his palms open causing all of us to stop and listen. There was a faint sound front our right side that was rapidly getting louder.
“A patrol from the right, get ready,” Gary whispered as we rearranged our team so that Zack and he were facing them. I cast Barkskin Zack and Gary quietly as they walked past me, deciding I’d rather play it safe for our first battle, although I didn’t cast it on anyone else yet. I swallowed my suddenly dry throat as I heard them get closer and suddenly I saw Zack step out from behind the tree he was behind and slam his mace into the surprised shoulder of a short, skinny green goblin. I stepped out into the open and saw three goblins, each of them carrying bronze-tipped wooden spears and loincloths. The one Zack hit fell into a pile on the ground, either dead or dying. A fireball slammed into the one next to it, who was getting ready to lunge forwards towards Zack as he settled in behind his shield. The goblin hit with the fireball screamed and stumbled back for a second before an arrow jerked into his forehead, killing him instantly. Gary used his Charge skill and it looked like he teleported in front of the last remaining goblin who was staring in fear and yelling as he turned to run as Gary's spear stabbed into his chest. The goblin let out a hiss as it fell off his spear and bled out on the ground. I stared in shock at the dead goblins in front of me and recoiled in disgust as I smelled blood and feces mixed. I threw up after a second of trying to hold it back and turned away from the gruesome sight.
“Good job, everyone. Let’s walk a bit away and take a quick break.” Gary said, a surprising look of shock and disgust on his face. We followed Gary for a couple of minutes, warily checking our surroundings and moving quietly. We stopped a short distance away and sat next to a couple of trees before I pulled out my water to distract myself and hydrate.
“Well, that was surprisingly easy, I think,” Gabrielle said from the ground next to me, attempting to put a smile on her face.
“It was easy, but let’s not get overconfident. We saw what happened to other adventurers, none of us want to end up like that.” Gary said to the group. “Besides, that was only a group of three goblins that we managed to ambush. If we see a group with goblins and a warg it will be tough to keep all of them focused on just Zack and me. Everyone ready?”
“I want to go grab one of those spears that the goblins were holding, I need something to defend myself,” I said as we all got back up after our short break. Gabrielle nodded too and said she’d like one as well, just in case. We headed back to the pile of three dead goblins and grabbed a spear for each of us. The redwood spear was about five feet long and had a small bronze blade at the tip. Aaron searched the bodies for any pouches with coins or any other type of valuables but didn’t find anything before he backed away, shaking his head at the smell.
“All right, let’s move out,” Gary said after we finished and we got back into our formation and headed further into the forest. Another fifteen minutes passed with no sign of anything living before Aaron yelled out to wait. At the same time, two goblins jumped out from behind a tree that Zack just walked past and stabbed into his leg while the other stabbed towards his head. Zack got his shield up in time and bashed the other spear away. I hurriedly looked around and saw three more goblins coming from behind us.
“Three more behind us!” Aaron shouted out right before I was about to. I glanced back to the front and saw Gary disappear in the telltale sign of him using Charge.
“Barkskin” I cast my skill on myself and rushed forward to the three goblins in the back that Gary had just charged towards. He stabbed one in the stomach and caused it to slump to the ground, but the other two goblins were on his left moving to surround him while he tried to finish the first one he stabbed. Before I knew it I was next to Gary, with the two goblins shrieking one of them stabbing towards my leg and one at my chest. I swung my spear at the top one and overpowered the weak thrust, while the other goblin hit my shin, which caused me to shout in pain. I slammed the tip of my spear awkwardly into the goblin’s neck that I had blocked and quickly looked at the last one to see an arrow sticking out of its arm, making it drop its spear and turn to run. Gary quickly stabbed it in the back before it could move more than a step away from me, and I checked to make sure the one I slashed in the neck was dead. Blood was draining out of its neck in pulses and it was dead and bleeding all over my boots and pants. I jerked back and turned around to make sure Zack and the others were all right. Zack was walking over towards us and didn’t look like he was injured much from getting stabbed by the goblin. I looked down at my shin, seeing a small cut about two inches long and not very deep. My Barkskin skill had minimized the damage or else I doubt I’d even be able to walk right now.
“Is everyone alright? Thanks for having my back, Eli, I would have been in trouble if you didn’t move forward and cover me.” Gary said as he clapped me on the back lightly.
“No problem, good thing you have that Charge Skill or we would have been in serious trouble before you got there. My shin got stabbed but it’s not too bad, if I hadn’t cast Barkskin on myself I wouldn’t even be able to walk I think.” I said back with a weak grin.
“I got stabbed right in the side here and I only have a small cut like your shin. That stab would have been bad, maybe even fatal if it went deep enough. I’m glad we got you on our team, man. Thanks, I mean it.” Zack said from my side. He stretched out his hand for a handshake and I could tell he was being serious, he might have died right there if I wasn’t here. The goblins didn’t seem too dangerous but we nearly died in our second fight of the day, I could tell we were all thinking about how close we just came to dying. Aaron went through the bodies again to check if they had anything worth taking, but all they had were the same spears and loincloths the first three had on them. We quickly left, staying in a bit tighter of a formation now, with all of us quiet and searching the trees intently. Another hour passed before we heard what sounded like growling and goblins talking from in front of us. We all stopped and Aaron motioned that he would try and scout it out quietly. The longer he was gone the more nervous I got until I saw him slowly making his way back a few minutes later.
“There’s a group of 4 goblins and a warg about 200 meters away and they’re staying in the same spot. I think we must be pretty close to the dungeon and they’re scouts or something. Two of the goblins had armor on but I couldn’t get a good look at them or the other two.” Aaron quietly reported his findings to us.
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“All right, we move in our formation towards them. Aaron focuses on taking out that warg immediately, Gabrielle sends Fireballs at the goblins any time you have a clear shot. Zack and I will take the front with Barkskin and Eli will stay near the front in case we need you to support us.” Gary said quickly before leading the way in the direction Aaron had pointed. We walked quietly towards them for a couple of minutes before I saw the warg from behind some trees about 30 meters away. The warg saw me at the same time and howled immediately before the goblins started rushing towards us with it in the front. A fireball flew past me from my side and crashed into the leading goblin, sending it falling onto the ground and screeching in pain. An arrow sprouted from the side of the warg but it shook it off and led the way for the goblins. The warg was about 5 meters away from Zack, who had his shield ready to block the charge when an arrow slammed into the warg with a loud bang, sending it into the ground where it whimpered in place. The other three goblins got to Zack and Gary in the front right after the warg fell and it was a melee of swinging arms and grunts for a few seconds while I struggled to make anything out. Another fireball flew forward and slammed one of the goblins in the side, allowing Gary to stab it in the neck. Zack managed to slam another with his mace at the same time, and an arrow appeared in the last goblin's forehead with another loud bang. I moved forward and slammed my spear into the warg’s neck, quickly putting it out of its misery. I looked up ahead and saw Gary had charged forward and killed the last goblin with a thrust of his spear.
“Good work, everyone,” Zack said as we all gathered together. I looked everyone over and saw that no one had any injuries from this fight. Even with a warg and the slightly better-armored goblins they didn’t give us any trouble as long as we worked together and kept our cool.
“Yeah, we handled that one very well. Good shots, Aaron, that drill shot is impressive, you completely neutralized that warg. Gabrielle, good work too, your fireballs may not have much strength but they’re great at disrupting them so we have time to hold the front line while Aaron gets some shots in. Zack, good work focusing on defense, as long as you can hold them in front our team can handle whatever we run into out here.” Gary said to the team. I didn’t mind that he didn’t say anything to thank me, considering I didn’t do anything this battle. I’m looking forward to unlocking Thornbolt, although with me needing to save my Essence for Barkskin, I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to use it. I’m under half Essence and I haven’t even had to use Barkskin on everyone yet, I’ll need to be careful about managing my Essence correctly. Aaron and I walked over to the bodies to see if they had anything on them, and I examined the leather armor the goblins had on. They looked like strips of toughened leather that they wrapped around their bodies to offer a little protection, but they were covered in goblin blood and pretty cut up so I didn’t bother taking any.
“I found some copper pennies, one of them had a small pouch attached to its belt. Also, a small knife that looks like it was taken from an adventurer, it looks like a city forged weapon.” Aaron said as we walked together back to the team waiting near a tree a few meters down from the smell. I grabbed the knife from his hand and looked it over, impressed with the quality. It had a wooden handle with leather wrapped around it to improve its grip and a long 4-inch blade.
“At least these goblins have something useful. Can I have that knife? I’d like a weapon other than my bow for emergencies.” Aaron said as we reached the group. I handed the knife back over to him with only a little bit of regret. I don’t blame him for wanting a melee weapon he can use in case he needs it, and I already have this spear which is better quality than it looks.
“Yeah, good idea. It looks like a decent knife. Did either of you grab those warg fangs? They were on the notice board at the Guild, I think they’re an alchemy ingredient or something.” Zack said as he pointed back towards the warg. I forgot about that notice, I think they were 5 coppers per pair, so one copper each for every warg we kill. Every little bit counts, considering we need to make at least 150 copper just to break even from this trip. After Aaron went and cut off the wargs fangs we once again moved out deeper into the forest. In only another fifteen minutes we came across a small patrol of 2 goblins and quickly cut them down with an arrow and a stab from Gary. After finding nothing on the two bodies we moved deeper and after ten minutes we could hear a lot of noise from in front of us.
“That must be a camp, like what that group of adventurers told us was guarding the entrance to the dungeon they found. I don’t think we should risk getting any closer, let’s head back and see if we can find some more patrols if we take a slightly different direction.” Gary said after we listened for a few minutes. All of us agreed and we started making our way slowly back towards the exit of the Bloodfields. Another hour and a half passed before we saw a patrol with a warg and 4 goblins. We started the fight from an ambush position behind some trees and easily killed them with a similar fight to the last group. Aaron looted the goblins and found another small pouch of coppers and the pair of warg fangs before we started moving again since none of us wanted to take a break. Another hour of slowly hiking our way through the forest and we once again saw light peeking through the forest in front of us. We all quickly hurried out of the forest and stopped in a circle after we were a few meters away from the thick tree cover.
“Good work, everyone. We did a great job for our first day together, and I think our team has potential.” Gary said to the team as we all dropped our packs and sat down, drinking some water and taking a well-deserved break after the long day hiking and fighting in the forest. I took a moment and pulled up my Skills screen with a thought.
Level 1 Druid
Barkskin - Level 2\10 Upgradeable
Experience - 144\200
Wow, 144 experience from just one day of using my skill in combat. That’s more than I got from two days of constantly casting it, even though I only used it a handful of times today. I guess you do earn a lot more experience from fighting than training. I pulled up my Status screen with a thought, wondering if it would show me my progress towards reaching level 2.
Eli - Lvl 1 Druid
Experience - 40/200
Strength-3
Dexterity-3
Perception-3 (+1)
Vitality-4
Spirit-4
Willpower-4 (+1)
One-fifth of the way to level 2! I stared at my status screen for a minute with a grin, before realizing not only had my perception gone up one point, willpower did as well. It seems like not only do skills increase faster in combat, attributes will as well. I looked over at Zack sitting beside me and decided to ask if he had improved as well.
“Hey, did you make much progress today? I increased two attributes and earned quite a lot of experience.” I said with a proud grin. Zack looked up at me from where he was looking off into space at one of his status screens and matched my grin.
“Damn right! Increased my strength, vitality, and dexterity, not to mention I finally leveled my Vigor skill. A few more days like today and we won’t even recognize ourselves.” Zack said, looking around at the rest of the group to see if they had made similar gains.
“Nice work, Zack. I leveled my Fireball, Spirit, and Dexterity. We earned much more experience than I thought we would, even if we only grind through the patrols slowly like today we should all reach Level 2 in our classes way before we have to head back to Gorok.” Gabrielle said with a smile. She didn’t seem to mind the dirt-stained clothes and sweaty body odor that I know my mother would not have been able to handle. I chuckled to myself for a second before looking up to see Aaron speaking up.
“I leveled my Drill shot to level 3, as well as Dexterity and Perception. Gary?” Aaron said with a hint of a smile.
“Good work, everyone. My charge, Strength, and vitality all increased today. Let's set up camp a bit further from the edge of the forest and get some food, I’m starving.” As soon as Zack finished talking I stood up with a groan, realizing how hungry I am. The five of us walked a few hundred meters away to near the area where we camped the previous night, gathered firewood, and made food. The rest of the night I spent going over our fights today and thinking over what I could do to improve. I didn’t use the spear other than to finish off a few monsters once they were already gravely injured but I liked having a weapon. Maybe I should spend some time learning how to fight with the spear?