They reached the goblin camp without any issues. Nathan had the rest of the group wait a bit further away while he checked if the goblin numbers and positions remained as they were. Some of the guys grumbled about the delay, but they relented. He’d also borrowed Bruce’s shortsword, as the spear wasn’t very practical when sneaking.
And it was lucky he did, because he caught one of the low-level goblins wandering around the outside the camp perimeter. While the goblin didn’t make a lot of noise, it didn’t make any effort to stay quiet either. Nathan could hear it from far away and set up in a dark spot with some extra cover. Using his new dark brown cloak as camouflage, he knew he would be virtually invisible until the goblin got close. Or he would be if this were real life. He didn’t know how that worked here, but he assumed a goblin would have lower perception than your average human. Although they were hunters of a sort, so he could be mistaken. He’d find out one way or another, as he was committed now.
Having judged the path of the goblin correctly, it was perhaps three meters away when Nathan decided to act. Using an old videogame trick, he lopped a small rock into the bushed on the other side of the goblin. It didn’t make a lot of noise, but enough that the goblin stopped and looked at the empty bush curiously. At that point it was the easiest thing in the world to stand up, take three quick steps and swing the shortsword into the back of the goblin's head.
[Attack] You critical hit [Feeble goblin] for 8 slashing damage (4[d6] x 2). It dies. Party gains 10 XP.
Apparently, the whole party shared the XP. He checked his character to be sure, confirming that he himself only got 1 XP. That was a little irritating, but it would probably even out in the long run.
He dragged the goblin into some vegetation on the off chance another goblin would happen by before he continued his reconnaissance.
The camp looked much the same, but there seemed to be more goblins. Not substantially more, but possibly as many as ten. Luckily, the increase looked to be in the lower levels, and in Nathan’s opinion it was not enough to change the plan.
Nathan went back to the rest of the group, gave a brief update, and reminded them of the plan. He guided them the rest of the way and ensured that all of them were in the correct place, ready to form a line when the time was right. As he returned the shortsword to Bruce, he whispered some words of encouragement and stressed the importance of keeping the line intact. He then grabbed Semishade and moved forward to a nearby elevated position with clear sight of the camp.
When in position, he raised his crossbow and took aim down the shaft of the bolt. He panned back and forth trying to find a viable target he was guaranteed to hit to get things started. With a rifle this would be as easy as reaching out to touch someone. With a normal modern crossbow, it would be quite as easy, but not a major challenge. With this crossbow –which didn’t even have any sights- it would be like spitting over a bus and hitting a bucket. Very unlikely.
He looked over at Semishade and noticed that his partner's crossbow looked to be of a higher quality than his own. It was a simple hand-drawn medieval variant and looked sturdy and reliable. Unlike his own, it did have a small iron sight.
“Do you think you can hit the goblin over there?” he asked and pointed to a goblin half-sleeping around 50 meters away.
“Probably not,” Semishade admitted. “I’m not the best shot. Anything over 25 meter is gone be tough.”
“That’s fine. Once the alarm is raised there’s gone be a crowd, so there is no need to aim. Just point it at the biggest group, shoot, reload and repeat until I say otherwise. My bow is even worse than yours, so if it’s ok with you, I’d like to borrow yours for the first shot? Ensure that we get a good start.”
"Sure, if it will help.”
Nathan put his own crossbow to the side and received Semishade’s. With the help of the iron sight, he was much more confident that he would be able to make the shot. He first aimed at the chest of the goblin, and then raised it a bit to account for the drop and hopefully hit the goblin in the head.
“This is a nice weapon. How did you get it? Did you buy it somewhere?” he asked as he gently applied pressure to the trigger.
“No, it was a quest reward for helping a farmer with...”
The bolt flew in a soft curve, hitting the intended target low in the stomach. The goblin let out a shrill shriek, and then remained quiet. Nathan checked the log, which confirmed that it was a fatal blow despite being a bad hit.
[Attack] You hit [Feeble goblin] for 5 piercing damage (5[d6]). It dies. Party gains 10 XP.
“Nice shot!” Semishade cheered.
“Thanks. This did all the difference,” Nathan said as he handed back the crossbow, not taking his eyes away from the camp.
The now dead goblin’s shriek had been noticed, but there was no immediate urgency as another goblin walked in the direction of the body. That changed as it came closer, and it rushed the last meters while yelling and pointing to the bolt sticking out if his clanmate. Pretty soon the whole camp was alert and looking around, while a small group gathered around the first casualty.
While the goblins tried to figure out where the bolt came from, Semishade readied a new bolt, while Nathan tried to find an acceptable shot with his own less reliable crossbow. The gathering of confused goblins qualified. “Time to kick the hornets' nest once more and see if we can get the result we're looking for this time,” he said as he took the shot.
The behavior of the first bolt gave Nathan a good idea of how he needed to shoot. As his crossbow had lower power, he more or less lobbed a bolt into the goblin gang. By a stroke of luck, he hit pretty good, catching one of the goblin warriors in the back of the head.
[Attack] You hit [Goblin warrior] for 6 piercing damage (3[d6-2] x 2).
That got their attention, but just to be sure Nathan stood up and howled.
He was soon joined by other voices, as that was the signal for the anvil team to make their presence known. They also banged their weapons together as they moved the last steps to the predefined positions.
Most of the goblins acted as expected, by charging. The closer low-levels came running in a couple of groups of one and twos, followed by a larger group containing most of the rest. The goblin leader gathered his warriors around himself, though, and they advanced slower, happy to let the fodder go first.
At the same time, ‘Havoc the Decoy’ charged forward while screaming a string of curses. Two others got caught up in the rush and started to follow, but they reluctantly stopped as Robert shouted them back.
Discovering that he was alone, ‘Havoc’ both sounded and looked a bit less sure of himself than earlier, but he was true to his word as he tore through the two first goblins with wide swings of his sword.
The two next goblins rushed in without any care, one of them accidently impaling itself, dragging the players sword to the ground in its death. ‘Havoc’ was forced to drop it as the other goblin got inside his reach, but he was able to finish it with some short heavy punches without allowing the goblin any good strikes.
While fairly efficient, ‘Havoc’ wasn’t able to do this quick enough to avoid creating an opening for the two club-wielding goblins coming next, whom both landed a couple of solid hits on him before he was able to pick up and shake the dead goblin loose from his sword. At that time, he already looked worse for wear, but he was able to dispatch them after a bit back and forth with the help of a timely crossbow bolt from Nathan, receiving just one more blow in the process.
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His bravado ended around then, as the large goblin group was nearly upon him. To his credit he tried a fighting retreat back to the others, but injured as he already was, he never really had a chance. He managed to kill two more goblins, before a level 1 goblin took a bite out of his throat and sent him back to the real world.
Nathan found the death wasteful, especially since the XP was shared, so there was really nothing gained by the solo charge. ‘Havoc’ could clearly do some damage, and had he worked with the rest of the group he would have been a great asset. Alone, he had been a potential liability. Still, he couldn’t avoid being impressed with what ‘Havoc’ had done. He had killed 8 goblins almost single-handedly. Although all of them had been low levels, it was still more than his share.
For the group, his doomed charge hadn’t achieved much of anything. I'd had delayed the goblins long enough so that Semishade and Nathan had time for two extra shots each. Between them they had managed to kill two goblins, wounding two more.
That left 18 low-level goblins in the group about to engage the 5-man line, with another 11 goblins of higher-level following close behind.
Nathan instructed Semishade to keep firing as quickly as he could, and to reinforce the line if needed. He himself ditched the crossbow and ran to rendezvous with the ‘hammer’ group while extracting his spear from his pouch.
The ‘hammer’ group consisted of Bluelock, a tough looking girl, and a small nondescript man named Margos. Not a very big hammer, but if they were able to catch the goblins in the back, they should be able to quickly do some damage.
The girl looked to be in her early twenties –if not younger– and was equipped with twin knives with spiked full guards. She was wearing cotton knickers, a blouse with the arms cut off at the biceps, and a leather vest. She also had some sturdy sandals, and even standing still, she looked quick. As her name indicated, she had a lock of blue in her pixie haircut.
The man looked to be in the mid-thirties. It was hard to describe his features, as he looked average in almost every way. Even his short machine haircut looked nondescript. He was dressed much like a farmer and had a machete and a small buckler. Both of them looked eager to get involved.
“Are you ready?” Nathan asked as he approached. He received confirmation from both before he continued. “The goblin warriors are protecting their leader at the back, so we will face tough opposition while outnumbered. They are armored, so go for unprotected areas. Strike and move. It is better to pull back and reengage if we get too much attention. Follow!”
Nathan led them into the goblin camp behind the goblins before they turned so that they had a clear path to the back of the goblin groups. The goblin warriors were about to join the other goblins, so they were just in time. He analyzed one of the warriors to see what they had to deal with.
Goblin warrior
Level 5, Monster
Health 10/10
Damage Resistance: 1 / Partial
The yelling and battle noises from the front covered their approach, so the goblins were utterly taken by surprise when he lowered his spear and charged. He didn’t even have to stab, just brace the shaft against his side and aim in their general direction. When the blade hit the first goblin in the back, it easily pierced all the way and transferred the kinetic energy to the goblin as it hit the spear guard, throwing the goblin forward hitting some of the others. Nathan knew instinctively that it was a fatal hit.
He quickly stabbed another goblin twice, downing it before it was able to react to the new threat. He saw that Bluelock and Margos had killed one goblin each in the initial charge and was now busy with their own fights. An opening presented itself to the left and he managed a swing with the shaft to unbalance the goblin facing the dual-wielding woman, creating an opening she promptly took advantage of.
The leader yelled some instructions and he, along with four of the five remaining warriors, turned around to face them. Over their shoulders Nathan could see that the line still held, although both Robert and Semishade had joined in, and they were all bloodied. At a quick glance it also looked like one player was missing.
The number of goblins were reduced, although not as drastically as he’d hoped. A bit less than half remained, and the ones remaining seemed high on bloodlust. This now looked to be a battle of attrition, and they had to finish it quickly if they were to come out on top.
He returned his focus to the goblins in front of him, just as two of the warriors attacked him. He managed to dodge backwards, just staying outside of their range. His spear was longer than theirs, though, so he was able to score a weak hit, and continued to keep them at bay with a couple of short jabs.
To his left, Bluelock didn’t have the advantage of range, and took a vicious hit to get into striking distance. Once there, she managed to stab the goblin facing her in the throat but lost her grip on the knife as another goblin hit her in the thigh. She yelled out and went down to one knee. With the remaining knife she barely managed to parry another spear thrust as she stumbled back to her feet, just as the goblin leader shoulder charged her, piercing her with several of the bone spikes on his pauldron and throwing her away. She remained lifeless on the ground.
Margos was doing better. Not just because he only faced one goblin, but also because he handled himself better. The goblins, despite their eagerness, weren't very skillful, and Margos moved well. He deflected a strike down into the ground and literally disarmed the goblin with a downward swing to the wrist and sliced open the goblin's head on the backswing.
Seeing this, Nathan got more offensive, so that the goblins would focus on him. Instead of stabbing he started to use wide swings. One of the goblins ducked below the swing and forced Nathan to accept a shallow cut to the side, but the plan succeeded. The goblins had tunnel vision, and Margos could just walk up and run the one furthest away through from behind. Together they finished the other one.
Just as Nathan had reduced the number of warrior goblins to one, the leader came rushing in again, this time targeting him. He flopped sideways to avoid the spikes, dropping his spear in the process, ending up belly down on the ground. A rapid roll to the side made the leader miss by a hair's width as the bone mace struck where he’d been lying just moments before. An upwards kick to the goblin's midsection gave him time to stand up but didn’t look to have done any damage.
Desperate for a weapon, Nathan pulled out the axe still at his waist. Compared to the mace his opponent was wielding, it didn’t look like much. Including the length of their arms, they had about the same reach, but he’d put money on the mace doing more damage. Still, seeing how the goblins fought, he was confident he could win if he just got close enough to use his hand-to-hand skills, but all the bone spikes on the goblins armor made him pause. He did not want to get into a grappling match with a green hedgehog.
He looked around for other alternatives while waiving the axe dramatically in the air in front of him to discourage the two goblins.
Margos had started too systematically chop down the remaining low-level goblins. There were only two still fighting, but the number of players facing them was also reduced to two. One player was hunkered down behind a large shield, and another one was kneeling in the dirt, both hands covering an abdomen wound. Without Margos help they would probably both have perished, but now it looked like victory was still within their grasp. He just had to keep their attention on him a little longer.
The lesser goblin lunged with the small spear out in front, but Nathan had baited him with a body feint, and as the spear passed him on the left, he reached out and grabbed the pole just behind the tip. He gave the spear an abrupt tug, intending to disarm the goblin. It worked even better than intended. The goblin refused to let go, and was pulled forward, landing flat. The goblin looked up in surprise, just to see an axe descending one – two times. And then nothing.
The goblin leader came in, forcing Nathan to spin away with a blow to the ribs. He felt a dull throbbing in the side but didn’t think much of it before he remembered that pain was reduced in this world, and that the damage was probably much more than he thought.
He managed to take a quick peak at the log.
[Attack] [Goblin leader] hit you for 4 blunt damage (4[d8]).
Health 4/11
That wasn’t comforting. He wouldn’t survive another hit like that. Perhaps he didn’t need to. He’d managed to keep both weapons as he got hit, and he’d ended up close to where his spear was lying on the ground. Having the rough outline of an idea, he threw his axe as hard as he could at the goblin’s face.
The goblin blocked the unbalanced projectile with the bracers on his offhand. It sneered at Nathan as it lowered his hand, not seeing that Nathan had also thrown the borrowed goblin spear. The spear pierced the bone armor just below the collarbone. The leader snarled as he gripped the spear sticking out of his chest and ripped it out, tossing it to the side, maintaining eye contact with Nathan as he was doing so.
Nathan had managed to create enough time and space to pick up his own spear, and now felt much more confident. He took a step forward and yelled. “Come on then, you fuck. Let’s see what you got!”
The goblin responded eagerly and was about to move forward as it was pierced from the left. It lashed out blindly, hitting and destroying the remnants of a shield instead of the player behind it. At the same time, it was cut from the other side. It spun around, facing Margos. It screeched and lashed out but hit nothing but air.
The opening was clear as day, and Nathan calmly took two quick steps and stabbed the goblin through the side of its neck. While it was still impaled, he spun the spear up and around, throwing the goblin off as the spear tip made a large gash in its throat. He thought for sure that would do it, but as he walked up the goblin still clung to a sliver of life.
“Yous think this mean anything?” the goblin suddenly croaked while spitting blood. “The horde comes. You are all food. Food for worms!”
Nathan didn’t need to hear any more. He stepped forward and ended the fight.