“, , .” The two spells wouldn’t necessarily help, but excess information never hurt. I quickly and silently rose to my feet. “Be alert, don’t be too loud. The spell I’m going to cast will make you want to move a bit strangely, but it guides you into making less noise.” I cast twice more on the brothers, whose eyes were widening.

“What is it?” Ross asked, moving his jaw around. What an odd nervous tic.

“I can’t tell, it may be nothing. Better safe than sorry though.” We spoke in hushed tones as I scanned the area. ’s range was nothing great, and the occasional dying plant produced some null grey or sickly green patches, but since the forest grew thicker and nearby trees obstructed a rather wide arc of vision it still had its use.

 As a reminder, this isn’t actually a type of visual sight, this is just the best analogy I can give. Maybe it can be called a sort of hearing as well, since things I’m not facing can still be sensed, but as looking in the direction makes it more accurate, I settled for vision. This reminder is to tell you that with the excess stimuli, it took concerted effort ‘looking’ around.

“Can you set up some light? Those creatures will have an advantage in the dark.” Troy seemed much calmer in his evaluation of the situation than his brother. Calm may not be the best word, rather he seemed more energetic. Not in the battle junky way, or shivering with nervousness, just much more willing to try something that would tip the the scales in his favor.

“I will once I detect something, we don’t want to draw their attention if we can’t handle it.” My natural darkvision was at least the 60 foot version. That may not have been my eyes so much as the way I could process contrast in my head though. Having a light pop up wouldn’t be too bad for my darkvision, so long as I didn’t make it blinding. I mentally formed the spell shape, even if it would only give a split second advantage in speed. Time is hitpoints.

A slight crack in the distance gave a hint as to where the was directed. With that clue, it took a bit more concentration to actually notice the small amounts of Death Aura in the distance, 35-40 meters away. A practically nonexistent quantity of the red aura, and none of the other kinds, shaped into points. Weapons?

They numbered three that I could discern, but given how convenient that was and the faintness of the aura, to be safe I doubled the number for threat estimate. I didn’t know what creature they were for certain, but given the small and slightly varied shapes I presumed them to be armaments of a small creature. Since I knew the approximate dimensions of a goblin, that became the most likely option. I may have made use of the availability heuristic, but in the mind the opponent had already been generalized to small, numerous, and tool-using.

Troy said they would probably have the advantage in the dark, but the vegetation was still rather thick. I could sense the group moving in our direction, off by a few degrees. They stuck together instead of fanning out, but even so they would be able to catch us even if we tried not to attract their notice.

“I can pick out several smaller enemies, goblins most likely. How well would you guys do in a fight against them? Pretend I’m not here, but you have some light.” Soundlessly shifting to Troy’s side, my voice lowered to an alteration in pitch of the exhale. 

“Two and we probably won’t get hit. Three, and there will be a few cuts. Four is pushing it, any bad luck and one of us...May the Patriarch protect us if it’s any more than six.” I listened, and tried to match their evaluation of strength against the goblins and what I knew of my own abilities. Troy wouldn’t be trying to overstate his abilities in this situation, he had the mid level boss fight mentality of if he loses, there’s no respawn. He probably included some margins of error in his guesses already, but if I tried taking that into account it could put him and Ross in danger.

Those two weren’t strange like myself, an injury or crippling wound might be something they could never recover from. Their muscles might burn from strenuous work, but that was a completely different sensation than severing or impaling damage. I certainly don’t enjoy pain, but with all the combat games I’ve played, there’s no doubt that I was much more mature in my reactions toward it.

Necromancers were a support caster, and these two would have been meat shields in any game. I didn’t want to put myself in risk either. But being a hero is all about making stupid decisions for the benefit of others, isn’t it? Even if there were six, or perhaps even eight, I had confidence in my plan. Well, I guess not so much a plan as running tank myself and having the brothers be DPS.

 “Alright you two,” I beckoned them into a huddle. “I can sense three. There may be more, expect six. I’ll cast light, and shoot them as they approach. Don’t get too far in front of me, basically watch my back. Focus on doing damage, while I draw their attention.”

“What?” In a harsh whisper, Ross struggled to restrain his voice. “What do you mean, you’re going to draw their attention? Can you really fend them off?”

“I may not be able to fend them off completely but I...am very good at not dying after being hit.” Trying to explain the concept was a bit difficult, so I didn’t. “It’s not like I’m immortal though, so don’t slack off, but as long as I don’t die I’ll be fine. Watch out for yourselves first. Right now they’re about 30 meters away. Take a deep breath; are you ready?”

Something that couldn’t be understood in the darkness flashed in their eyes. Not the time to think about their reactions to the plan, I counted down.

“” I called out.

Hitting the start button on an arcade style game, things didn’t begin instantly. The movement of the auras in stopped for a moment and hesitated, before moving towards us. Readying , I had time to unleash two before holding on to the third. 

The first to reach revealed its presence by noise, its weapon not possessing an aura of death. As expected a goblin broke through the underbrush, rusty sword in hand. Not waiting for it to finish leaving the bush, I fired. Aiming towards the center of mass, I fired before shifting backwards.

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“Go!” I commanded, and with only minor hesitation the two brothers ran forward swinging. “Back!” I called right after they each threw a glancing shot. After saying so, I realized they could have taken the time for a coup de grace, but I’d already ordered them to back up. The goblin was severely wounded and its capabilities diminished, but it was still there. It started letting out a strange string of gurgling squawks from the ground; instead of stopping it, I turned to the next arrival with my half-haft in hand. I really should have finished the first one for the weapon.

This goblin held a complete spear, and the tip was one of the three aura bearing weapons. Now that it had gotten close, I realized that the claws and teeth of the goblin were coated in even fainter red. In an attempted parry the half-haft broke once more, forcing the goblin’s relatively superior spear into a blunt thwack instead of a jab. Taking minimal damage I threw the fragment of wood into its face.

“Watch your right!” I called, charging forward. We were outnumbered, and attacked from multiple fronts, my idea of tanking was quickly being washed away. At least with these two down there might only be two or four goblins left for the brothers at the moment. Troy’s evaluation of their abilities didn’t give me a lot of hope though.

Agh, my tactics have gotten rusty. That’s why I wanted to pick up necromancer wasn’t it?

Letting the two to focus on the three emerging goblins, I body slammed the goblin. 8 strength or no, a goblin was only around four feet high, and spears were a reach weapon. Being the one who initiated the attack, I was prepared. Another marginal amount of HP were shaved away by the claws as we fell, and when we impacted, but I wasn’t dazed. Yet, I didn’t have the opportunity to take advantage of the goblin’s gasping state and rolled left. An attempt was made to take its spear, but I only managed to wrest the weapon from its grasp, dropping it on the ground.

Rather than grab a weapon that could be gotten later, another sword slashed near where I had just been, grazing the downed goblin’s arm. I frowned a little. This newest sword goblin didn’t have any death aura, and only one of the three fighting the brothers had it as well. That meant there were at least seven. Doubling wasn’t enough for an estimate, how hard was it for the red death aura to form?

“!” Taking advantage of the few seconds, I snatched up the spear. Incomparably sturdy compared to my last, I figured it might be able to last a whole five or six blows. Aiming a hard jab for the arm, my weak strength tripped me up. Only about as tough as leather, I still couldn’t generate enough force for such a crappy weapon. Instead of penetrating, it skid along the sword goblin’s shoulder, though I was thankful some injury was caused. 

“Watch out!” Troy shouted, and glancing out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the goblins that had been against them move towards me. Sighing, at least I was good at aggroing. Two...the brothers should be able to handle two.

Five? No problem you guys, I got this. Anyway, it’s not like if you die in the game you die for real.

Having been fighting conservatively trying to buy time for the woodsmen to do DPS, I realized that I probably should have told them to go the other way and solo the encounter. Instead, with a fifth opponent approaching, I started to burn Stamina at a more appreciable rate.

Did I say fifth? What I meant to say was sixth and seventh, because the world hates me. Well screw you world.

Taking a tally that’s two sword users, one partially disabled; two unarmed, one being a disarmed spear user; two additional spear users; and one with a club. At least two were mostly crippled, and the opponents didn’t seem to have exceptional teamwork.

When they all reached me, I ended up dodging and weaving like the luckiest epileptic alive. They were a bit close for my modest understanding of the spear, but jabbing into a thicket of goblins hit surprisingly often however little damage it did. For the most part the spear was a defensive tool to keep them off me as I whittled them down. Whittling them down meaning finishing off the already wounded one.

A thousand different games and ten thousand different playstyles; as quick as I could pick them up, I couldn’t perfect my style in this world during my second real confrontation. Overextending during a thrust, the sword goblin caught my arm before I could retract it. Feeling the chipped edge, I sincerely hoped that tetanus was not something I had to worry about. 

The strike landed for about 7% damage, putting me at 90% health. Worse than the damage, despite no crippling effect I ended up dropping the spear.

“Alric! Yah!” Troy called out, having noticed my distress, but the club goblin facing him took advantage of that moment to start hammering away. This suppressed him to the point where Ross’ sword opponent decided to back up and land a grazing blow to his side. 

“Focus!” The wound didn’t look terrible from where I stood, it certainly lacked the amount of blood my arm was showing off, but I couldn’t tell how severe it was for Troy. Even if it wasn’t all that bad, it managed to tip the scales in favor of the two goblins facing them, forcing Ross to double down to help defend his brother.

One of the goblins facing me looked back over its shoulder to the brothers. There was a cruel flash of inspiration of a level above animal cunning. With a warbling squawk it informed the other goblins and turned to go face the brothers.

So not only had I underestimated their numbers, but their intelligence as well. This one would turn the tides to overwhelm the brothers, then three would come back to face me.

Outnumbered? Doomed? At this point, it didn’t matter if we were, the only way out was to fight.

A phrase from long ago, repeated innumerable times by our predecessors rose up in the back of my throat, as I reached for the goblin who had begun turning away.

“*BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!*”

A/N:AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! Well thanks for playing along Growl, I look forward to your review. For today, I invite Dragonborn to leave a review! Dovahkiin, what is a more detailed of your opinion on the sidestories, I see how you voted...Explain yourself in a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Review!