The wave started the same as the others had, with a wave of beasts coming from one direction. By this point, we had discussed what we were to do and everyone had their assigned roles. I was part of the group that was in charge of moving the spikes into place and anchoring them into the ground to make sure they wouldn't move. Everything was already planned out ahead of time and every direction had markers for where they were to be placed.
We even practiced doing it during training a few times to make sure we could do it quickly and efficiently. Granddad was nothing if not thorough. With the direction known, we all got to work moving everything to the west. People were shouting in the background and people moving back and forth getting everything pointed in the right direction and ready. My Dad and I carried our section of spikes into place and used the back of our axes to hammer it into the ground. The anchors were about a foot long and made sure that it stayed in place no matter what rammed it. The angle of the spikes made it unlikely, but safety measures were in order.
In under two minutes, we had set everything up and were ready to go. The mass of bodies wasn't even close to being in firing range so we had time to spare. We couldn't carry both the spike wall and the javelins, so some of the older kids were tasked with taking the javelins to every warrior on the front lines. Anna ran up to me carrying a bundle of javelins huffing from exertion.
"Here you go, Uncle Topher." Anna chirped.
"Why thank you." I said while grabbing three of them off of her stack. I stuck two of them in the ground beside my right foot for easy retrieval, while keeping one in my hand. Anna then scurried over to my dad.
"Here you go Pawpaw."
"Thank you, little one." He said while patting her head. He then relieved Anna from a portion of her stack and copied my actions. She moved on down the line and after her stack ran out she ran back to the shelters we had built for the non-combatants.
That was a subject of hot debate; what to do with the kids. Some of the older kids, being in the ten to twelve range, wanted to help but their parents vehemently refused. There was not a chance of them participating in the fight. The extent of what they were allowed was to help run little things around before the wave got started, like javelins or arrows.
The shelter that was built for them was the most sturdy of anything that we had built so far and had a lot of work put into it to make sure that nothing would be able to get through. We used whole logs for the sides and set them deep into the earth. There was no way anything was getting through.
It all started when a parent was worried that something would get by us and target the kids, which led to a discussion about the possibility of flyers or something extremely quick that could run past the defenses. There was a slight panic as more and more ideas were thrown out, but Granddad squashed the fervor when he suggested the bunker-like shelter so the kids would stay safe.
It took a lot of work and multiple hours of toiling and everyone chipping in, but it was done. The parents were especially happy that the kids were safe. It also had the added benefit that the kids didn't have to watch us slaughtering animals.
"Level 3 and 4 White-tail Deer numbers around 80. Boss is a level 8 White-tail Buck. The boss is about 5 feet tall and looks twice as strong as the normal deer. It also has an impressive rack with what look like sharp spikes pointing forward." Kyle shouted out so everyone could hear.
That was another thing that was discussed. Granddad tasked Kyle with the job of relaying the pertinent information about the wave to everyone. Level, estimated numbers, and boss description were what was decided to be the most important.
It was a good thing that we made the spike walls because I'm not sure if we could have taken a head-on charge from that amount of mass. The spikes should hold, -should being the keyword there- at least for the initial charge.
What proceeded was the same as the last wave, with rangers firing first when the deer were around 90-100 yards out. The mages unleashed their volley when the deer were 50-60 yards out. They were a good amount better at hitting shots from that distance than a week ago. Watching a deer go down from the combined firepower of the magic projectiles was a sight to behold. After dying, the body didn't just fall over, it dug into the earth while flipping over itself skipping along the ground before coming to a rest. Dirt and sod went flying everywhere, along with blood and body parts when the explosion was especially violent. The body dug grooves into the ground that dug up the grass, leaving furrows multiple feet long. The best part was the deer behind them couldn't stop in time and tripped over the bodies in front of them, flopping around and trying to get back to their feet. It didn't stop the charge of bodies coming toward us, but it blunted some of it.
The mages and rangers continued until the deer reached the first marker in the field. It was placed early this morning when we were training our javelin throws. With our strength, we could throw somewhat accurately to about 100 feet. We couldn't hit a specific deer, but the collective throws of all of us would hit something. We practiced our throwing and placed markers at different distances to help judge the distance needed. We had one at 100 feet where we would release the first volley, along with another at 75 and 50.
Inside of 50 wasn't necessary, we could judge that distance fine. Depending on how fast the beasts of the wave were, the second volley would be somewhere between the last two markers. The last javelin was for right before we needed to ready our weapons. When the deer hit the 100-foot marker-
"Fire!" Granddad bellowed.
All of us threw when he gave the order. The same as we had practiced. While the projectiles were in the air, we all retrieved our next one before looking up to watch. It was glorious. For a moment in time, there were 4 arrows accompanied by 7 magic bolts of varying elements and 20 javelins flying through the air together. It was cool to watch, I felt like I was in a fantasy movie standing on a castle wall watching an arrow volley get loosed. Yes, there were only 30ish projectiles, but it was cool all the same. When they landed it caused even more of the deer to fall, with the effect cascading to those behind them. I heard a chime, which meant that I must have got one of them.
The second volley was soon in the air and the scene repeated itself, quickly followed by the third. We whittled down the number of enemies by a third, and more than half had various injuries with arrows and javelins sticking out of them. Some had signs of magical damage with scorch marks, ice shards, or different injuries.
After the last projectile was loosed, I unsheathed my axe and readied my shield. I was standing behind a row of spikes, ready to get this over with. As they got closer and closer, I found myself starting to get excited. I wasn't afraid of the charging beasts, I was ready to start swinging my axe at anything that came in range. I was confident the spikes would hold, I had helped make them and knew how heavy-duty they were. It was a stark difference from when the tutorial started a week ago when nerves were making me sweat and rethink everything. There was none of that now. I was ready for what was to come. We trained this countless times over the past week, now was the time to do it for real.
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The leading deer ran straight into the spikes and ran themselves through, the deer following them pushed them deeper onto the spikes leading to their doom, sealing their fate. After the charge broke, we ran in between the gaps in the sections and started attacking. I charged through the spikes and landed a full power swing with Power Strike to a deer's leg and crippled the limb. I could hear the bone break. I repeated the action to the other leg and the same thing happened. With the deer effectively out of the fight, I moved on to another enemy. I waded through the torn-up earth with the rest of my family fighting for our lives. Something in me was waking up, I could feel a heat in me that I never had before. I was having more fun now than riding a roller coaster at an amusement park.
I don't know if it was a mixture of nerves finally breaking or whether I was truly enjoying battle. I was sliding in between attacks like what a veteran warrior would. It felt like I was unstoppable. That all ended when I spotted the 5-foot, muscled form of the boss charging straight at me with its horns leading the charge. There was no time to dodge, and I wasn't fast enough to turn and flee. I got too reckless, and this was gonna hurt. I was overconfident.
"Well, shit." I muttered as I lowered my stance and braced my shield for the impact to come.
It hit me like a runaway train, and even though I had [Fortified Body] activated, I went flying. I could feel my arm break when the force impacted my shield. The pain didn't set in immediately because of the shock and the adrenaline kept me conscious as I weightlessly sailed through the air staring up at the clear blue sky. Huh, there isn't a cloud in the sky, was the only thought I had before the ground came up and hit me. Hard. It knocked the breath out of me and left me gasping trying to get it back. I couldn't move my left arm, nor most of my body. The most I could do was turn slightly as if to roll over. My whole body hurt and I wasn't in a rush to add to the pain, so I stayed still. My axe was lost at some point in my travels and my shield was only attached by sheer luck.
I heard a scream before I landed, but couldn't tell where it was coming from. Soon I could feel a soothing energy throughout my body and I opened my eyes to two of the healers kneeling over me.
"His legs are moving so it doesn't seem like he broke his back." One of them said.
When I hit the ground my head whipped back from the impact so I couldn't see straight right now. I couldn't tell which of my family members it was. I could only guess from the voice.
"Did you see him land? He definitely has a concussion." The other healer said, "And his arm is definitely broken."
"You know what we have to do, reduce the swelling in the head and we'll deal with the rest after this is over." The first healer said that I was pretty sure was my Aunt Sam.
We weren't related by blood, but she married my uncle years before I was born, so it never really mattered. We were closer than some of my relatives on my mother's side. She had been a nurse for decades and recently retired after turning 60. Now she did different things, and various jobs until the time came to actually retire. Well, I guess not anymore.
The other healer was her daughter Ashley. She had taken after her mother and went into the nursing field after getting her degree. She was currently a nurse at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and had the rare off day to attend the family gathering.
"I know what to do." Ashley said in an exasperated tone.
The soothing energies soon concentrated on my head and I could feel the grogginess going away and my vision clearing up. It felt relaxing and took my mind away from the pain briefly. As soon as it started, the energy stopped.
"Ugghhh" I let out a groan as the pain reasserted itself.
"Oh be quiet you, what did you think was going to happen? You're lucky you aren't dead. If it was any worse we'd be scraping your splattered body off the ground. Being stupid never helped anybody." Sam chastised me.
I was laying here with a broken arm and the remnants of a concussion and she still took the time to berate me. She's always been like that. Trying to beat out the stupid ideas from my thick skull. She would always tell stories of babysitting Austin and me when we were younger and we acted like hooligans, always up to no good. There was a saying that she always brought up around us, 'I would know something was wrong if it was quiet, it was never quiet with you two around.'
Before Ashley could start up her skill again, Sam interrupted her.
"That's enough, there's nothing life-threatening. I used Body Scan and there wasn't any internal bleeding. We should save our mana in case something worse happens."
"What? We should just leave him here like this?" Ashley sounded perplexed.
"We'll come back when this is over. He won't die between then and now." Sam said.
I could hear them get up and walk away after leaving me with that cheery thought. I didn't blame them, it was my own stupid fault. I didn't know if the cause was a lapse in judgment or a deeper feeling of heroism, but I knew I wouldn't be doing that again. The small amount of healing I received got rid of the ringing in my head, and I was left staring up into the sky while I heard the sounds of battle around me. I felt useless, and it didn't make me feel good.
I have to get better. I couldn't keep making stupid mistakes like this. I was fortunate that the mistakes that I'd already made hadn't led to serious consequences. A broken arm was serious, but not as bad as it could have been. The realization that I could have died weighed heavy on my mind.
The sounds of battle got quieter and less frequent before ending completely. It was about 15 minutes after the noise stopped that the first healer came over to me. In the meantime, I opened up the notifications that I received.
You have slain {White-tail Deer – Level 4}. 16 Points earned.
You have contributed in slaying {White-tail Deer – Level 4} 6 Points earned.
You have slain {White-tail Deer – Level 3}. 9 Points earned.
You have contributed...
...
You have successfully defended your claim! Extra experience awarded. 90 Points to all who participated.
Congratulations! You have leveled up.
*Skills Available*
The energy moving throughout my body took my mind off the pain. I could feel it improving my body, strengthening it. It didn't heal anything, but I figured the increased vitality helped all the same. I added my free point into Vitality for the same reason. Looking at the points, I noticed that all together I added another 131 points to my total. I didn't get any participation for the boss, unfortunately. That was 64 points split between whoever killed it. Usually, it was split so many ways the only person who got anything worthwhile was the person who landed the killing blow.
We had built makeshift stretchers with some branches and cloth that were bought from the store that some of the non-injured fighters helped roll me onto before lifting me. I was brought to the 'hospital' that we built, which was really a tent that was kept clean with a heavy usage of [Cleanse]. There were a lot more injuries than the last two waves and the structure was crowded with people moving about with bandages and glowing hands.
I wasn't currently bleeding and other people had puncture wounds or other wounds that were oozing blood who were seen to first. With the severity of all the injuries, the healers ran out of mana. It was the first time that the healers had run out of mana and that made people panic. There was some yelling and cries of alarm before a loud voice cut through the rest.
"Everybody who isn't injured, GET OUT!" Sam's voice drowned out everyone else's.
She said it with such authority that they couldn't help but comply and quickly began making their way out of the tent. In the same way that Granddad had the drill instructor tone when giving orders; Sam had the same for running a hospital. It came from experience.
The tent wasn't sound proof so when everyone who wasn't injured left, the discussion started again right outside. When some of us reached level 4, it revealed the next skill options. People were saying that the healers should be forced to take Meditation so their mana regeneration would increase. That quickly got shut down when the knowledge of how healers leveled came out.
I had never asked or wondered how they leveled. I figured they leveled like all the rest of us, from killing things. But my Uncle Mark, who was married to Sam, told everyone.
"Sam told me that they don't gain levels from just standing there. We have already figured out that you only get experience from a beast that you were involved in slaying. They didn't participate in the fight except to throw something at the beginning. Their experience comes from healing people after the battle, and since that hasn't finished yet. They haven't gotten their next level yet, so they won't be able to get a new skill." Mark said to the group.
That was not ideal. If they couldn't get Meditate it would take longer to regenerate their mana, and if it took them longer to regenerate mana it would take longer to heal everyone. If it took longer to heal everyone, I would have to lay here with a broken arm for far longer than I thought I would.
"Fuuuuck me"