I woke up the next morning a bit earlier than usual and quietly packed my gear so I wouldn’t wake up my team members. After I finished I grabbed my spear and spent a few minutes practicing thrusting and slashing similar to how I’d seen Gary do them yesterday. As the rest of the team started climbing out of their tents a few minutes later I wasn’t sure if I made any progress, but I was sure it couldn’t hurt. We quickly ate and made our way towards the forest.
“I think I’m looking forward to today just as much as I’m dreading it,” I said to Zack with a chuckle as we reached the thick treeline. I woke up feeling sorer today than I had any of the days previously. Maybe it has to do with the increase in my attributes or maybe spending a day hiking through the forest and fighting goblins is hard work?
“Dreading it? Another light stroll through the forest?” Zack said cheerfully back. I heard Gabrielle and Aaron laugh behind me as we pushed our way into the forest and moved into our formation from yesterday. The day passed similarly to yesterday with us staying a bit farther back from the dungeon and hunting as many of the four goblins with one warg patrols as we could find. We spent about eight hours in the woods and managed to kill 44 goblins and 6 wargs, a good bit more than yesterday.
“A grand total of 18 coppers and 12 warg fangs today. That’s just under 10 coppers apiece, it looks like we almost broke even.” Aaron said as we grouped up outside of the forest. Considering this is only our second day out of eleven, I’m not too worried about earning enough money to cover our expenses for this trip anymore. The next three days passed in a relatively similar manner with us earning slightly more each day as we got more efficient at clearing our way through the patrols. On our fifth day after arriving at the Bloodfields, we decided to push a little closer to the dungeon entrance and see if we could find some larger patrols or groups to help challenge ourselves.
“Patrol ahead,” Gary whispered to the rest of the group after calling a halt. I quickly maneuvered so that my body would be hidden behind a tree from the direction the patrol was coming from. Everyone moved quickly and efficiently to an appropriate ambush spot that kept our formations integrity while we waited for the small group of goblins. After five days of hunting together, our team had improved drastically in our individual skills and teamwork. All of us expected to achieve our second level today, which would improve our strength exponentially. A few moments later the patrol arrived and Aaron sent a Drill Shot into the goblin on the far left, leaving a crater in the center of its chest. Gabrielle shot a fireball right in between the front two goblins, knocking both of them to the ground with painful burns. Gary charged towards the two goblins on the ground and quickly killed them both with a stab to the neck.
Druid Level 2 reached
“Yes!” I shouted as soon as Gary stabbed the last one, seeing the message appear telling me I finally reached level 2. I could tell the rest of the group leveled as well by the blank expressions on their faces as they looked at their status screens.
“Congratulations, everyone, but now isn’t the time to lose focus. Let’s head back early for the day and discuss our plans moving forward.” Gary said to the group after a second before leading the way back next to Zack. We only spent a little over half a day in the forest today, but all I could think about was unlocking my new skill when we get got back to camp. I tried to stay focused on our way back, and luckily we didn’t see a single patrol. We finally exited the forest before we hurried to our usual camping spot and set up our tents and campfire to finish our routine. Sitting on my pack with a grin I opened my Skills screen and unlocked Thornbolt with a thought.
Barkskin - Level 4\10 Upgradeable
Experience - 102\800
Thornbolt - Level 1\20 Upgradeable
Experience - 0\200
Immediately I felt the Essence in my core swirl around before it settled in a formation along with my right hand for a few seconds. The feeling quickly faded after it left an imprint of how to cast the new skill clearly in my mind.
“Thornbolt” I used the incantation and manipulated my essence into the formation. A dark brown thorn the size of my hand shot out and buried itself in the ground, which kicked up some of the loose sand. It felt like the spell used less Essence than Barkskin, which I could now cast 7 times in a row while full of Essence after leveling my Spirit once and Barkskin twice more over the past few days. For my statistic point after a few minutes of contemplation, I decided to add it to Spirit to increase my total essence storage, bringing it up to level 6. I pull up my Status screen with a thought to check my progress.
Eli - Lvl 2 Druid
Experience - 1\500
Strength-4 (+1)
Dexterity-3
Perception-3
Vitality-4
Spirit-6 (+2)
Willpower-5 (+1)
I leveled my Spirit on our third day hunting in the forest and my Willpower and Strength yesterday. My attributes have been increasing faster than seems possible recently, likely as a result of being constantly fighting and training. I noticed the experience required for level 3 had more than doubled from 200 to 500 and Thornbolt actually had 20 levels instead of 10 like Barkskin. I suppose that left me more room for growth before I needed to spend another skill point on upgrading it which I realized could be beneficial. Still, 20 levels worth of experience would take longer than I could imagine considering how long it took us to reach level 2.
“Hey Zack, what skill did you unlock?” I questioned him after I finished looking over my status. He quickly grinned at me before looking around to see if anyone else was nearby.
“Watch!” he said as he walked over to stand a few feet away.
“Fortress.” As soon as he finished his incantation a large steel shield grew out of the ground in a circle around us. The shield surrounded us at about 5 meters away and a meter off the ground. The shield stayed even after Zack walked towards the barrier to study it. After a few moments of looking over the design and sturdiness, he decided to take out his mace and see if it could survive a strike. With a loud crash, the large ‘fortress’ crumbled all at once after he hit it.
“Looks like if it’s overpowered in any spot the entire thing falls at once. Still pretty damn cool and it should be very effective against large groups of goblins. Just what we need, eh?” Zack said while a huge grin was spread across his face. I honestly felt a little jealous at how impressive his skill was, my Thornbolt didn’t seem very useful compared to that.
“Incredible, I can’t believe that’s your second skill. If we decide to attempt the goblin camp that Fortress will be perfect in case they try to flank us with wargs like earlier today. I can’t wait to see how it improves as you level it, too.” I said back before we both headed over to Gary who was training with his spear a few meters away from our camp. It looked like he was going through one of the forms he had been teaching me in the mornings before everyone else woke up.
“Gary! Did you see my Fortress?” Zack said with a smirk as we walked up to him.
“I saw, it looks incredible, just what we’ve been missing to protect our backline in emergencies or when we’re being overrun. I assume you unlocked your Thornbolt, Eli?” I nodded in reply to his question. “Good, good. I unlocked a passive skill called Balanced Foundation which increased all my statistics by one. I hope that as it levels it will become an increasingly powerful ability.” Gary said.
“I agree, even if it doesn’t sound powerful now that skill could be amazing after a few more months of training. Let’s go see what Gabrielle and Aaron unlocked?” I said to both while heading back in the direction of our camp. Aaron noticed us as we walked over and stood with a grin.
“Nice Skill Zack, I unlocked a skill called Leap. Nothing too flashy, and it takes about half of my Essence to use. Watch.” Aaron said before walking a few steps away from us.
“Leap” Aaron jumped about 3 meters high and landed 12 meters away. My jaw dropped and I saw Zack looking just as surprised as me.
“That’s awesome! I better get a skill like that eventually, damn!” Zack was yelling as soon as he got over his surprise. Gary looked pretty impressed as well, he was just more reserved than Zack.
“Pretty cool, Aaron,” I called over to him as he jogged back over to the group. We all looked at Gabrielle to see what she unlocked last. She smiled and turned away from the camp before glancing back to make sure we were all watching.
“Wall of Flames,” She said the name of her skill slowly as she pointed her hand at the ground a few meters away and swiped her hand to the left. A wall of fire about 2 meters high and 6 meters long appeared where she pointed. “I can make it longer as well but it will take more Essence, that took about a third of my reserves. I can’t wait to level it further, this skill actually has 50 levels.” Gabrielle explained to the team. My eyes widened in shock after she said how many levels her skill had. If the experience increases at the same rate as mine I can’t even imagine how long that would take to master.
“Very impressive, Gabrielle. And everyone else. I was going to propose we look for another small team to work with and try to clear the dungeon we’ve been training near together. Even with our increase in strength, I don’t want to push our luck just to make a little more profit and experience. At the same time, I know that we need to constantly be challenging ourselves to keep up with our rapid rate of growth. What do you guys think?” Gary asked the group. I had been expecting us to go for the dungeon after we reached level 2, or a few days afterward, and that sounded like a good idea if we could find another group that was willing. I decided to say as much as everyone else was still thinking.
“I like it. I wanted to at least attempt the Goblin Camp that’s built on the entrance once we reached level 2, but I wasn’t confident that we should enter the dungeon. If we can work with another group I know I would feel much better about our chances.” I said in support of his idea. Aaron started nodding after he heard me talking and quickly voiced his agreement after I finished. Zack and Gabrielle agreed that it sounded like a good plan to both of them and we split up to go search for some allies. Gary, Zack, and I headed to a camp set up nearby with 4 members eating around a firepit while leaving Gabrielle and Aaron to watch our supplies.
“Good Evening. Do you guys mind if we ask you some questions?” Gary said to the group after we arrived. The four of them had already been studying us as we made our way over. All four of them were boys who looked around our age and had the slightly bloody and ripped-up clothes that pretty much every group of adventurers out here had on.
“Sure, what do you guys need? You don’t look too green to me.” One of the guys said in reply.
“We’re not. We’re looking for another group to ally with us for an attempt at a dungeon we’ve been training around. There are five of us and we’re all level 2.” Gary explained our position to the group and they seemed to look interested.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Well only 2 of us have reached level 2 for the moment, but we’re definitely interested. Hard to make money out here, even just enough to pay for our rations. I’m Jack and this is Dorsey, Finn, and Paul.” He said while pointing out each of them in turn. I tried to see if I could match each of them to the weapons they used but none of them had their packs nearby.
“How about we meet here tomorrow morning with the sunrise, then?” Gary asked the group before getting nods in agreement. We walked back towards our camp and split up to do our own training in the hour or so we had before sunset. My Essence was finally full so I was going to see how many times I could use Thornbolt.
“Thornbolt” I cast one at a time and shot into the ground slightly farther each time. By my sixth cast, I could tell the maximum distance was around 50 meters before it started to fall. I finished ten casts before running completely out of Essence. Not too bad for level 1, tomorrow I would get some opportunities to see how strong it was. With that pleasant thought, I crawled into my tent and quickly went to sleep.
The next morning after going through the spear forms that Gary instructed me in we walked over to join the other team at their campsite. The four of them had all of their gear already packed and sat on their packs as they waited for us to arrive.
“Hey, so how’re we planning on doing this?” Jack said after putting on his pack. I could see a small wooden shield attached to one side of his pack and a sword sheath attached to his belt.
“Let’s stay together until we get to the goblin camp and then we’ll discuss our tactics when we see what it looks like. If we move as one group we can up our hiking speed since we won’t have to worry about the small patrols and we should get there in a little over 2 hours.” Gary said to both groups, getting nods from everyone. We set off hiking through the forest in our usual formation with the other team staying close on both sides. We killed three different patrol groups on our way there and stopped about 300 meters away from the camp to let Aaron and Finn go scout. A few minutes later both of them came back at the same time and gave their reports.
“I saw at least 15 goblins outside with 4 four buildings that could have more hidden inside. I only saw three wargs and they were all standing on guard near the entrance to the dungeon which looks like a wide staircase that heads into the ground. Finn?” Aaron finished describing what he’d seen.
“That marks up with what I saw as well, but there’s definitely more goblins in the buildings. I saw through one of the doors and I could tell it wasn’t empty. There are no walls and we could possibly use the buildings to give us a choke point to hold for the battle.” Finn gave his report as well, confirming that there would be more than 15 goblins. The biggest patrol we had ever fought had 5 goblins and a warg, so this was going to be another magnitude harder even with an extra 4 members with us. If there are another 15 goblins in those buildings I’m not sure we’ll have a chance even together.
“Hopefully those buildings aren’t all full or this could be more than we can handle. Can the four of you tell us what roles you normally have so we can prepare a better strategy?” Gary asked the other group while looking at Jack. Normally adventurers don’t share skills outside of their own teams, but hopefully, they wouldn’t mind giving us some information since we are at least temporarily allied.
“We can do that. Dorsey and I usually hold our frontline, me with my sword and buckler while Dorsey takes my side with his spear and shield. Finn stays in the backline with his short bow like Aaron over there and Paul can create walls or other formations out of the earth.” Jack replied back. I wonder if it’s better for us to work together or attack from two different sides to split up the goblins.
Gary looked over at Paul, “How long do your walls last?”
“They stay until they’re knocked down, all I’m doing is rearranging the ground already below us. It takes a lot of Essence, though, so I can only build so much before resting.” Paul answered back. What an incredible Skill, I couldn’t help but think, to create permanent structures at level one. I wonder what type of class would give you a skill like that.
“I think we should stay together and hold our position in front of those two buildings. Paul can build walls to either of our sides to create a bottleneck and hopefully, they’ll come at us primarily from in between the houses. My team will hold our position on the left and yours on the right, helping when needed. Eli can use his skill on the four of us front liners to increase our defense before we begin. Any questions?” Gary directed both teams. The plan sounds all right to me and it should leave me enough Essence to cast Thornbolt 5 or 6 times depending on how long we fought for. I tried out Thornbolt once earlier on a patrol and unfortunately, the only way it would kill a goblin in one cast is if I hit it in the neck or head. I would save Thornbolt for emergencies, especially if they sent goblins behind to flank us.
“That sounds doable to me, it will only take me about 10 seconds for each wall, although I won’t have much essence left after that,” Paul replied back. Everyone was already prepared so we moved out as one and quickly came to a large clearing in the trees. I saw four goblins and a warg directly in front of us, blocking our path to the two large buildings we had decided to use. Aaron and Finn quickly shot off an arrow each, wounding two goblins and alerting the rest to our presence. One of the goblins immediately lifted a horn and blew through it, alerting the rest of the goblins in the camp. Gary charged forwards, stabbing one of the wounded goblins in the neck and swiftly killing it while the rest of us ran to catch up. I glanced at the warg as I ran, seeing it already had 2 arrows sticking out of its head. By the time all of us arrived the four goblins and the warg were already dead and we quickly moved into our positions between the two buildings. Paul started working on a wall along the backside of the buildings while the rest of us spread out to arrange ourselves in our regular formations.
“Done! Push them out of the front and I’ll build the second wall.” Paul yelled over the sounds of fighting. Two wargs and 6 goblins rushed around the corner of the buildings and saw our group waiting for them. Gabrielle saw and quickly used her wall of flames spell to hold them off for Paul to build his second wall. The goblins stayed back behind the flames, screaming at us and waving their spears in the air as more and more goblins joined their ranks. I heard a shout from behind me and turned away from Paul working near the front to see three goblins rushing through the small gap in the wall we left behind us. I pointed at the one in front, steadied my hand, and aimed directly at its head.
“Thornbolt” I chanted quickly, watching the hand-sized thorn shoot forward and slam into the goblin’s chest and neck. The goblin fell to the floor, bleeding and screaming while the other two ran around it and reached me and Aaron. I lunged forward with my spear, aiming for a goblins torso and getting parried by the one next to it. Aaron shot the one that parried me point-blank in the face and it dropped dead to the floor. The second goblin slashed my arm before I could get it out of the way, leaving a three-inch-long cut across my forearm. I grimaced in pain and slammed the side of my spear into the smaller goblins frame and then stabbed it as it stumbled to the side. I looked up and saw a warg and five more goblins rushing through the gap.
“Gabrielle!” I yelled, dragging her attention from the battle happening at the front. She whipped her head backward, looking behind her at the rushing goblins a few meters away.
“Fireball” she cast her skill as the three goblins in the rear pushed through the gap at the same time, the warg and two goblins in front already through. I couldn’t spare any more time looking at the goblins in the back and knew I had to focus on the warg before it got to us.
“Thornbolt” I cast again as I aimed at the wargs head, but it moved quicker than I thought and I only hit it in its upper body. I readied myself to try and stab it as it lunged at me but Paul dashed up to my side with a bloody spear taken from a goblin and stabbed it through its head from the side before it could jump at me. The two goblins were directly behind it and one stabbed Paul in the side as he was pulling out his spear while the other took an arrow from Finn and fell to the ground. I quickly stabbed the goblin on the ground and looked at Paul to make sure he was all right. He held his hand to his side and I saw blood dripping through his fingers and gushing down his side.
“Get to the middle and wrap that with a bandage!” I yelled at him, before turning my attention to the other goblins that Gabrielle had hit with her fireball. All three of them were laying on the floor with arrows sticking out of them, dead. I didn’t see anything else coming through the gap so I turned around, eyes widening in shock as I saw our frontline. Zack and Gary were still fighting goblins that were standing on a pile of corpses to get at them. I looked and saw Jack face-down on the ground, a pool of blood all around him. Dead or seriously wounded, I thought with some fear and tried to force it down while I focused on how I could help. I shot two Thornbolts towards the goblins in the front, wounding two and taking some pressure off Zack and Gary. I couldn’t see any more goblins rushing in from either side and it looked like they were fighting 6 at the moment, with Dorsey slashing one's legs with his sword and then stabbing it in its skull. Five left.
“Thornbolt” I used the last of my Essence to shoot one of the goblins standing atop the pile of corpses through the skull and then rushed forward to help Jack since they looked like they could handle the last few. I reached his side and knelt down on the blood. I quickly studied his body and looked for wounds. He was laying on his front and I didn’t see anything other than small cuts on his body after a few seconds so I decided to roll him over. There was a gash that went from his collarbone down to his waist, deep enough to spill out his intestines. I gagged and threw up to the side, unable to hold it in while looking at such a gruesome wound.
“Everything clear!?” Gary yelled from the front while he looked around to find more enemies. Aaron jumped up and pulled himself onto the roof of the building before looking around to see if there were any Goblins or Wags left.
“Clear, I don’t see anything,” Aaron yelled down from the top of the building and I felt some of the tension drain from my shoulders. I stood up and walked over towards Paul who was sitting down leaning on a wall with his hand pressed to his bloody side. I pulled my pack off as I rushed towards him, digging through it to grab out bandages.
“How deep is it? We need to wash it out quickly before we bandage it so it doesn’t get infected. Take off your shirt.” I said as I kneeled down next to him.
He let out a slow, wheezing chuckle before meeting my eyes. I winced as soon I looked into his eyes, seeing pain, shock, and resignation in his gaze. He was dead, and he knew it, I thought with trepidation. I’ve never seen people die right in front of before this and now Jack is dead and Paul will be any second. As I watched his eyes slowly closed and he stopped breathing. I gulped loudly and stood up to check on my team.
“Let’s get everyone inside that building, come on Eli.” Everyone else was looking at me as I got up, already gathered and ready to move. I nodded and walked over to them. We walked through the back wall and entered one of the large buildings we had fought between. I looked around the dark square room and only saw dirty bedspreads and an empty rack that looked like it was for the spears all the goblins carried. I looked down and realized I was still holding the bandages and water jug in my blood-covered hands and arms. I saw the gash on my arm, winced, and then sat down to clean and bandage it since it looked like everyone was sitting down.
“Here, just hand me the bandages” Gabrielle knelt down next to me after I washed off the cut and took the bandages from my hand. I tried to give her a smile in thanks but all I could manage was a grimace. I zoned out for a few seconds as she wrapped my arm a couple of times and then took a seat next to me with a groan.
“Are you all right?” I asked after she sat. I turned my head to look her in the eyes. She had bloody streaks running across her face and neck from a couple of small scratches and blood caused her brown hair to clump up all around her face.
“I think so. You?” She smiled with a corner of her mouth for a split second before it disappeared.
“I guess,” I muttered back and looked over at Gary bandaging Zack’s thigh and Finn bandaging Dorsey’s shoulder. Everyone was covered head to toe in human, goblin, and warg blood. All we did was clear out the entrance to the dungeon and almost a quarter of us died and most of us were hurt. A few minutes passed by in a blur and I watched everyone walk over towards me and Gabrielle and sit in a circle.
“I’m sorry about Paul and Jack. We didn’t know them very well, but they seemed like good guys.” I said towards Dorsey and Finn, both of whom looked like they were still in shock. Finn just nodded his head back and Dorsey looked towards the floor, not responding.
“We need to decide what we’re doing next,” Zack said to fill the silence, echoing everyone’s thoughts.
“I don’t think we can handle the dungeon. If the camp outside was this difficult, who knows how tough it will be inside.” Finn said after a moment. Aaron frowned after hearing Finn wasn’t confident in continuing on, but I didn’t blame him. It seemed unlikely that Dorsey or Finn would want to assault the dungeon after half of their team just died. I’m not even sure that I wanted to continue after that experience.
“How about we put it to a vote? I don’t want to have fought our way to this point for a few warg fangs split between seven people. Especially not when we lost two of us to get to this point.” Gary said with a somewhat subdued voice compared to his normal. Clearly he still wanted to continue and face the dungeon.
“Show of hands for those who want to face the dungeon?” Aaron cut to the chase before we could discuss it anymore. I looked around and met Zack’s eyes and after a second he shrugged and slowly raised his hand. I glanced around and saw Gary already had his hand in the air and Gabrielle exhaled loudly and put her hand in the air. I looked over at Finn and Dorsey who still looked out of it and saw Aaron looking at me with one eyebrow raised in the obvious question. With a shrug, I raised my hand to show solidarity with the rest of my team and quickly saw Aaron nod and put his hand up as well.
“If the two of you would like to head back there’s no shame in that. Our team is all here and we’re going to push forwards and do our best to defeat this dungeon before more patrols come back or the dungeon sends more goblins out to occupy the camp again.” Gary said as he stood up, gesturing for the rest of us to join him. “We’ll leave everything of the monsters out here to the two of you to take back if you decide to return for now.”
“All right. I’ll head back, I need some time to recover.” Dorsey said as soon as Gary finished talking. Finn looked at him as he spoke and nodded along with a slight look of regret on his face. He probably wanted to attempt the dungeon with us but didn’t want to leave Dorsey alone after they lost the rest of their team.
“Let’s go, then. I’m sorry it turned out this way, maybe we’ll see you guys back at the edge of the forest once you defeat the dungeon?” Finn said as he reached out and helped pull Dorsey to his feet. Dorsey's shoulder was bleeding through the bandage already so it must have been a fairly deep wound he took from one of the goblin spears. The decision to head back immediately made much more sense to me, especially since they would at least earn a decent amount between the two of them from the pile of goblins and wargs scattered outside.
“Thanks for joining us, I wish it went better. Sorry again.” I said as the seven of us headed out of the building and the two of them headed towards the bodies scattered around the ground. Our team walked the other direction towards a large hole in the ground in the center of the camp where a wide staircase descended into the dark.