Chapter 3
The jog through the woods took longer than I would have liked. I was not in shape but the terrain was relatively flat and surprisingly open under the canopy. The gun fire continued. There were two distinct groups, one scattered but more numerous to my left and one more disciplined ripple fire on my right. Igni veered slightly to the right where I found a small ridge maybe 30 ft. tall. I had never served in the military like my buddy Mike but I was a history enthusiast, so I crouch walked up the rise until I got close to the top then lay down to crawl the rest of the way up. Igni crawled next to me and we slowly peeked over the top.
What I saw was a battle under way. to my front and left were goblins, at least one hundred. Some larger ones in the back had what looked to be muskets. I watched one reloading and didn’t see any kind of measuring but it didn’t explode when fired so must have been loaded well enough. One in the back held a staff and my jaw slacked as he danced in a circle and launched a beach ball sized fireball. I followed it and saw who the goblins were fighting, what looked to be a wagon from around the western expansion from U.S. history. It was flipped on its side with good spilling out, the angle I was at allowed me to see behind the improvised barrier.
A group of what I first guessed were children but quickly decided were two adult dwarves and two actual children were curled up behind the cart. The man I guessed to be the father was sticking an odd three barrel gun around the cart the gun would fire into the charging goblins knocking down a few.
The fireball descended toward the cart and hit a blue barrier just above it causing the fireball to explode and the rest of the family to flinch while the father reloaded. More fire came from a rock cluster off the side of the road. In the rocks were nine men and one woman in uniform. Eight of the men had single shot rifles firing one at a time in a continuous barrage to try to slow the charge against the cart. Embedded arrows and a blood stain showed that the uniformed troops had tried to get to the cart but had been pushed back, but I was surprised to not see any bodies. The other man seemed to be some kind of officer. He had a revolver and I watched as what I assumed was a musket ball skipped off a blue barrier wrapped around him. He staggered back a step but appeared uninjured and stepped forward again.
A cry of pain brought my attention back to the cart. One of the children got unlucky an arrow had come down at an angle over top of the cart and hit her in the leg. The uniformed woman with a green arm band broke cover and ran towards the cart. The officer yelled an order and the rate of fire picked up including him emptying his revolver. The woman just makes it to the cart as the road behind her explodes with musket ball impacts. The woman pulled the arrow out of the girl's leg quickly and her hand glowed green. I couldn't see what happened but the light faded and the girl's crying got less frantic, the woman drew her own pistol and joined the father engaging the goblins.
A small nip on my hand from Igni drew me out of my frozen state and I snugged the rifle into my shoulder and looked through the 3x optic. The goblin I decided to call the shamen had a barrier up blocking his musket troops of what I decided to call hobgoblins and they were advancing behind the wildly charging main body. The defenders were only able to keep the infantry from closing and the hobgoblin shots were getting more accurate; it was only a matter of time before the defenders started taking major casualties.
“Not the right rifle for this but oh well it will have to do” I lined up on the Shamen and seeing how the barriers had been stopping rounds decided to go with the Mozambique approach. The crack from my rifle was a distinct higher pitch than any other.if there was a question about a new player on the field it evaporated when two 7.62 rounds slammed into the shield around the shaman followed by another hitting it at about head height. it didn't go through but the shaman was clearly staggered so shot at the chest twice more the shield slowed one round but the second clearly passed clean through. I shot him twice more just to be safe. “ Apparently four to the chest and one to the head here.” I mumbled to myself before switching aim. A single shot took down the hobgoblin I had targeted, two on the next one and one again on the third.
When the Shamen died the battle began to transition the regular goblins lost cohesion no longer charging in disorganized waves, some still charged alone, some looked for somewhere to hide most broke and ran. Six of the uniformed rifle men plus the guy with the barriers who I was going to call a mage. They began to advance three walked forward kneeled and fired and started reloading the second rank advanced passed them kneeled and fired. As they advanced I fired on any of the Hobgoblins that looked close to reloading still some found cover and were able to get shots off.
One of the riflemen went down and a group of three goblins charged from the bushes to try to finish him off I shot one lined up on another when the trigger clicked “fuck!” I cursed while reloading. Luckily for that rifleman the woman ran up firing a revolver killing the last two she kneeled next to him and her hands lit up again this time it took longer and she slumped over next to the rifleman who took her revolver from her and her ammo pouch and started reloading as best he could one handed.
Between the remaining rifleman and my shots the last few hobgoblins routed into the woods and the fire and single goblin assaults slowed then stopped. The rifleman back in the original position began to limp out while mage began giving orders and helped the healer up and handed her a vial. She drank it and after a few seconds later she was able to stand on her own again. Two of the rifle men helped the injured one back up and he handed the pistol back to the healer. Everyone regrouped around the flipped over cart and the mage turned towards my section of the woods and shouted something I couldn't understand. He waited a few minutes then yelled again in a different language, this one seemed somewhat familiar. I sighed and decided to respond. I double checked my rifle to make sure it was loaded then stood up.
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I decided that I should go forward and make contact. I could try to learn about where I found myself and no better time than after helping the locals fend off an attack. I remember my grandfather's friend Terfan, a short bearded man who played dwarf fighter in the campaign my grandfather ran. In hindsight it was obvious that Terfan was in fact a dwarf and I remembered the greeting he taught me when I played with them over a summer. It supposedly meant I was a wanderer who didn’t know the lands or customs but was a friend of the clan Durifran. I remembered it because he and grandpa would often speak in that language when they wanted to say something they didn’t want me to hear and that was the only words they had taught me. I had always thought it was Russian or some other eastern block language. I walked out slowly with the rifle slung but hands on my vest near the pistol and said the only phrase I knew.
The Dwarf male tilted his head then turned to the uniformed mage and spoke more in that first language. The mage nodded his head and turned to me. He tried a few more sentences then seemed to give up. He gestured to one of his men and the guy came over. He cast a spell on the guy and nothing seemed to happen then he pointed at me and seemed to ask permission. I hesitated for a second but then decided it was worth it and said yes while nodding. I felt a tingle as the man's hand glowed then it seemed to settle on me like the world's lightest sheet. Then the mage spoke again “can you understand me now?”
“ Yes I can” I answered the soldier from earlier nodded to the mage and said “ yes sir he can understand you.” the mage frowned and said “ definitely not a language I recognise, curious.” the mage seemed to cast the same spell on himself. “ I am Mage lieutenant Toalson, head of this detachment, this is Sergeant Neal. We thank you for your timely assistance, adventurer…”he leaves the end of the sentence hanging in a clear invitation to introduce myself.
“ Jack Mikelson, we just happened to be in the area when I heard the gun fire.” the mage cocked his head “we? Are there more people with you?”he inquired in a curious tone “no it’s just me and Igni” I looked around for her but didn’t see her anywhere. “Igni?” I called out and I heard barking from further back up the trail the way the goblins had come. I don’t know how I knew but I could tell from the bark Igni needed help but wasn’t hurt. I took off and I heard the officer order two men to come with me. I broke through the tree line and stopped. There was a cart with prisoners in place of horses tied to a tree. Near the cart was Igni harrying a pair of goblins to keep them from approaching a group of tied up prisoners. One of the prisoners had used her chains to strangle one of the escaped hobgoblins and was trying to reload his musket with her bound hands. The three of us quickly dispatched the two goblins and secured the area the cart was full of random supplies that looked looted.
One of the soldiers looked back at the other “ run and get Karmichael he mentioned he was a thief before enlisting. Hopefully he can get these people free.” The other Soldier turned around and ran back and Igni came over and sat by my foot. I reached down and scratched her behind the ear. “good find girl” I praised her. The guard looked on in surprise, “ a fire wolf? Rare to see those bonded” he had put extra emphasis on the word bonded but I missed it. “ yeah I found her being attacked by goblins the other day near my house and I took her in.”
Another of the rifle men arrived and got to work with a set of lockpicks to release the prisoners. He quickly got them free, the woman who I could now see was an elf finished loading the musket while I noticed three others grab weapons and armor from the cart. “ I am Alandra, a bronze rank adventurer. These are Misha, Vermilion, and Kindra, a copper rank party. We were on our way to the Tifferian dungeon when a shaman got the drop on us and hit us with a sleep spell. When we woke up we found ourselves surrounded by hobgoblins with muskets.” I could tell who was on guard duty that night by the way Misha glared at Vermilion. The Soldier nodded “ yes the goblins suddenly having access to firearms even the older style ones is disturbing, the king has been stepping up patrols to find out where the supplies are coming from.”
We escorted the adventurers and other ten prisoners back to Toalson whose group had managed to get the Dwarf family's cart back up right but one of the wheels was damaged. The soldier reported what they had found. “ Damn it” Toalson cursed “ it's good you found them but now we are in more of a predicament it's almost sundown and it's four days hard riding back to the newest outpost the king has set up. I was going to load the Orebreaker Family up on our horses and just ride hard through the night but we can’t do that with this many people.” his eyes met mine. “ Oh and here before I forget is your bounty paperwork sorry I only have a little gold on me right now” he handed me a small bag with coins and a piece of paper “ 3 per hobgoblin 15 for the shaman and a silver per regular feral goblin. The bag has 10 gold which covers all your regular goblin kills and two of your hobgoblins the crown still owes you 28 gold which is what that note says so don't lose it. Unfortunately it's five days by horse to the nearest adventure guild where they can pay you. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.” I took one of the gold pieces out. I was no expert but I knew gold coins could be worth a decent amount of money if the gold was pure. “ We will need to find a place to bed down tonight then I can send a rider back to gather enough troops and wagons to transport these people back. But we can’t travel too far with the wounded and those prisoners look half starved which healing magic can't fix.” I looked at Igni then came to a decision, in for a penny in for a pound “ I know a place.”