Looking over at Sienna I nodded to her and watched as she started forming a fireball in her hands for the first time while switching my hold on my dagger to grab it by the blade so it was ready to throw. I was hoping she could take out the spear goblins in one shot before there was any sign to alert them. If this were a game and I was leading the party, I would be throwing everything at the mages to burn them down as fast as possible. But these goblins don’t have an aggro meter, we didn’t have any CC and I couldn’t afford for three of my team to get focused on. So that meant taking out the spear men in the first strike, siccing Gaian on the magicians hoping he could tank their strikes, and hoping Aspen could keep the goblin tanks at range with his spear while I rounded up the fodder before they could get to the girls.
I was sure it was going to be a shit show, but all of my other plans seemed worse in my head, and anything more complicated would snowball fast. We were already violating the KISSS principle way too much for me to be happy. But to be fair I’m leading three children and a bear to attack a numerically superior force that can’t wait to sink their fangs into us. So comfortable had left the building a long time ago.
Watching the enemy mages carefully, I was ready to act the second it looked like they sensed our own was forming a spell. We had about twenty-five yards left to run before we entered the room, which meant Gaian and I needed to make it through the entryway before the bashers blocked it off. I was sure the bear would be able to force them back eventually, but by that time the enemy casters would probably be able to get their own first strikes out, and we couldn’t afford for that to hit anyone but the bear. Not that he would be happy to tank the strikes, but he has the healing spell and can regen without it taking him out of the fight. Thankfully he understood when I explained it to him and seemed happy enough to take care of business.
Speaking of the bear, Gaian was softly padding forward as with his paws he was the quietest. While the rest of us had to continue to wait as Sienna finished charging up her spell. I wanted to look over and see how the fire looked in her hands, the hamster in my brain was anxious to know if the spell would look different than when it did in its former master’s hands. But I forced myself to leave it alone. I know how the universe works and the second I turn my head to look, that will be the moment a goblin notices something and it all goes pear shaped. But if I continue to stare straight ahead, the universe will let her finish building her spell to full power and launch it.
Once she gave me a nod to let me know it was ready to go, I started counting to five in my head slowly as we had agreed that after she was ready to cast she would give me the time to get closer. I was moving as soon as I hit the fifth beat, but I hadn’t even managed a full step into my sprint when the glowing orange and yellow ball came flying over my shoulder. Part of me was amazed, I could feel the heat blistering my face as it passed letting me know that friendly fire was a thing in this world. I was still having trouble getting my brain to accept this was part of reality despite everything I had seen so far. Forcing myself to ignore that for now, I continued running awkwardly with my pack in my left hand, debating in my head, what would be the optimal time to throw my dagger.
While I debated on when I should throw the blade I could only watch in horror as the fireball that looked to be perfectly aimed at the spearman, burst into its explosion early. One of the bashers picked the worst time to finally overpower the other and sent him into the dangerous magic’s path. I cursed as the universe got back at me for refusing to give it an opportunity to mess with my plans earlier. Sending the dagger flying through the air at one of the spearmen, I was quickly reaching into the pack I was carrying for one of the three backup clubs. Throwing it at the other before I could even see if the dagger had any effect I only had one more step to go before I broke the threshold of the room.
Gaian had already made it in, had scooted out from his packs, and was charging for the mages who had their own hands already moving in front of them. Grabbing a second club, I set my bag down on the opposite side of the entryway to hopefully give the kids some additional cover once they made it in. It would suck if the bags got destroyed, but while I might be willing to sacrifice part of my own body to protect the bags knowing it could be healed. I wasn’t willing to extend that same offer to the children, even though I was getting the feeling that they would happily volunteer. They were so eager to prove that they could manage an adult’s burden that I feared they thought I would leave them behind the second they weren’t able to pull their weight.
Choosing to throw the club at the spearman my dagger had only managed to scratch, I hoped this one would do more damage. The fodder goblins were already charging ahead, and I needed to clear the path for the kids to get in the room. Throwing the last of the extra clubs sidearm into the path of the larger group of fodder who were on my side of the room, I skipped it off the hard ground so it went spinning into their legs. While it only connected with two of the smaller goblin’s legs, all five went down in a heap as they got tangled up in the confusion.
Crossing over to the side of the entryway that Gaian’s packs were on, I was doing my best to grab the two backup spears and clear the way for the kids. I wanted Sienna to start working on another spell as quickly as possible. Taking in the whole room as I did so, I couldn’t help but curse in my head. Gaian had just managed to reach the magic users and had gotten his jaws around one of their wrists, but the shaman had managed to cover himself in a brown shield that seemed to be holding off the massive jaws for now. It looked like the other user was some kind of nature caster, judging by the vines coming from the ground that were wrapping around the bear, pulling at his fur, and trying to entangle him.
The spear holders were both unsteady on their feet, but still retained their weapons and were slowly moving forward, while one of the bashers was down and smoking. But the victor who had caused the snafu was already recovering from the explosion that had knocked him down. Standing back up, club and shield in hand; he made his way in front of the spear users. He apparently was happy to abandon the magicians to their fate with the bear and join his fellow knuckledraggers in attacking the kids. Having to make a difficult decision I scrapped the plan and sent my two spears hurtling through the air while yelling my changes to the bear. Hoping for the best I pulled my last two weapons and went charging at the four fodder to the left of the room, having to just hope the children could manage to defend themselves against the mess I had left for them.
It seemed they were just as eager to get to me as they were charging to meet me, fangs open in eager smiles in their desire to sink them into me. With my right hand through the loop of the paracord I had fixed into this club so long ago. I let the club drop and use the cord to whip the club around my head. Lowering my arm so my follow through would go swinging through the group, the monsters paid no attention to my attempt at cleverness.
Pushing and shoving, the pack came charging forward, but I had managed to time my swing perfectly. I felt a smile start to creep across my face as I watched my club crush the skull of one, before continuing on to the next. This one was only knocked out as the club unfortunately had lost enough momentum killing the first that it wasn’t even able to stun the third. Driving my left arm forward, I met the outermost’s leap with sharpened steel to his throat, accepting that one of them was going to get its teeth into me. Screaming out wordlessly in pain, I pulled out my blade as quickly as I could, before burying it multiple times into the final goblin who was ripping chunks out of my belly. The only saving grace was that I still had a dad bod with all of the high calories food I had been eating. So he only managed to rip out some chunks of fat, leaving my more delicate organs untouched for now.
I was screaming again in pain, this time from having to pull away the dead goblin’s body with his teeth still clenched in a death grip on my side. Turning back to see where I needed to help out next, I took a second to survey as I dropped the body of the rabid monster. Gaian had finished his charge at the woozy spear goblins and already one of them was down with his throat ripped out. The second one however had managed to bury his blade into the bear’s stomach and was doing his best to maintain his grip on the haft as the bear continued to try charging forward to get to him. It was apparent the bear had lost any sense of reason and was counting on his regeneration as he continued to charge forward into the weapon in his effort to get his jaws around the tiny creature that had wounded him.
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The nature shaman was down with the spear I had thrown in his chest. I had sent the weapon through the air before I had taken my fight to the fodder hoping to free the bear so he could switch targets and it seemed like that part of my idea had managed to work. Unfortunately, my second throw hadn’t been as effective as the other mage seemed to have managed to block it and already his hands were glowing again as he continued to gather the power for another spell.
Aspen was doing a miraculous job as he managed to hold off the three remaining fodder goblins and the basher that was trying to reach him and his sisters. He was sending his spear sweeping through the air with surprising control and had apparently yet to overreach. I watched in awe as he managed to hold the attention of the four monsters, giving his sister time to charge up another fireball. It was looking like she had just finished as she sent it winging out toward the three undamaged fodder.
I started feeling the experience from the kills streaming into me and with nothing around me, I let it drag me into my core for a second so I could see if I could power up my own spell so we could end this fight with only the bear and I sustaining injuries. Diving in, I did my best to focus on the mana I felt moving through my channels. I believed that I was getting closer to seeing something where I could feel it moving heavily, but it also could just have easily been wishful thinking on my part. Trying to focus on sending it around the area I knew the goblin core I had fixed to be. I saw a tiny speck begin to glow in the darkness of my massive core. I focused on sending more mana flowing through that area until it began to glow with the intensity of a small star.
Before I could even begin to try and get back to my body on my own, I felt an intense pain in the back of my legs, that ripped me out of my coresight. I came back to my body as it was falling to the ground now that my legs were no longer able to support me with chunks of my hamstrings ripped out. Rolling on the ground with agony, I managed to shake loose the three scrabbling fodder goblins that had somehow gone unnoticed when I had made my plans. Swinging my club from my back I focused on activating the spell as they all jumped for my vulnerable belly that their compatriot had already gotten a meal from.
I could feel it as the spell activated, my club seemed to fly across the side of my body, crushing through the skulls of all three of them. It was obvious I had managed to activate the spell, as I managed to not only kill all three of them, compared to the two I had managed before from a superior leverage point. No, I didn’t just kill these, I obliterated them turning one’s head to mist. The second one was almost as bad, as there were only fragments of skull and hair left of his missing head. While the third goblin’s face looked like a smushed lump of clay as the club broke every bone in his face, even his fangs were shattered and sent scattering across the room.
But they had succeeded in taking me out of the fight as I found myself unable to do anything other than flop around on the ground. I knew I was out for the fight. I could only look on and trust the rest of my team to handle the rest. From my spot on the ground, I could see that the other three fodder Sienna had shot the fireball into were in even worse condition than the ones I had taken out. It looked like she was in the process of trying to summon up another spell, but it was obvious that even if she managed to finish forming it, this would be her last one of the fight. Her face showed her exhaustion clearly, but she was carrying on with her teeth pinching her bottom lip as she scrapped from the bottom of the barrel for one last spell to save her siblings.
Aspen had managed to get his spear around the basher’s shield, putting a big gash into its right leg. Now he was dancing around it, forcing it to try and spin without collapsing in the pain I knew it had to be feeling. The smallest part of me felt a bond with the evil monster as I now knew what it was like to have your legs no longer able to support you when you needed to fight for your life.
Lotus was screaming in rage again. Dashing forward, she was running with her club raised as she targeted the two fodder whose legs I had broken at the start of the fight.
Gaian had finally managed to knock the spear from his chest and despite the blood streaming forth, he was battering his opponent down. But it seemed like the remaining shaman had chosen the final spearman for his target, a brown shield was stopping the bear from completing his attacks and venting his anger on his target. Reaching up, the bear was standing to his full height before bringing both paws crashing down in his effort to break through the shield that was between him and the object of his fury. I could see the mage shudder every time the paws hit, but he managed to keep his focus and maintain the shield.
With everything too close to call for now as the spearman used the opportunity given to him to dive down and pick up his spear. I found myself racking my brain for anything I could do to tip the scales in our favor. Feeling the exp bite into me, I focused on my breathing to stop it from invading my soul. Looking at the green energy forming as well, I held out my hands and started pulling it into me while I wasn’t able to move. Thinking about the broken cores inside of me I knew another one I had absorbed was the healing core. Taking a moment to gather up the willpower I needed, I forced myself to trust my team to continue the fight that I was out of. I let myself be pulled away from the situation I was no longer able to contribute to into my center, where I hoped to find the means to fix me back up so I could charge forth to save the day!
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Diving in, I looked at the green energy coming up my channels. If I looked close enough I was able to see that there was something moving through the more substantial energy. Finally, I was able to get a hint at what this world used to power spells. I wasn’t able to see much, but if I focused hard enough on the green energy I could see that there were swirls and eddies as it flowed around something that was invisible. Trying to focus on finding the mana caused me to notice something about the green energy that was coming up through my channels. I had already noticed that it was dropping small motes off into my muscles. Now I could see that there were smaller amounts entering my bones and nervous system as well. Part of me thought that I needed to figure out a way to keep the green energy circulating through my channels until it was fully absorbed into my body. But I put off that thought for now, as I needed to focus on sorting out my own healing spell so I could get back into the fight.
Looking at the channels that were being carved through the thicker green energy, at first I thought there was nothing there, but as I looked deeper I was able to see the tiniest glowing specks in the nothingness. As I felt myself getting dragged deeper into my core, I managed to focus on one of the specks long enough to see that it wasn’t just one mote. Instead, it was made up of five smaller parts, one of which resonated with the energy it was passing through, causing it to glow the slightest bit brighter than the other four, which was what had drawn my attention to it in the first place. Noting it for later, as I took it to finally confirm my earlier theories, I let myself get fully dragged to the core.
Once I was there I was happy to see that despite my pain, I had managed to fully integrate my chaos pulse that was dragging around the ribbons of the energy I had captured. It was continuing to chew up the exp into its baser parts, sending what it couldn’t devour back out into the universe. Following one of the green-tinted order bricks back to the spot they always seemed drawn to, I saw the remains of the two other cores. Neither of which hadn’t anywhere near the fullness of the Mighty Blow’s core. Instead, they both had the flatness of a skipping stone and I could tell it was going to be a much more difficult job finding out which pieces went together. Apparently, they also had nowhere near the strength of the first one I had managed to fix, as there were about forty pieces between the two. While the globe-like core only had five much larger, and rounder pieces. Which explained why it was so much easier to reform.
Looking for pieces that had lines running through the middle. I quickly began separating out all of the pieces that looked to have been upgraded by the evil I had dragged out of the troll’s core. Eventually, I found fifteen that I thought went together, which I took to indicate that this one must have been slightly stronger. The other core I had came from one of the smaller goblins so maybe that explained why it had broken into more pieces. Before I started putting the healing core together I noticed that the other pieces I had put to the side only had a couple of small lines running through it and my energetic hamster was telling me that it was something important. But I couldn’t figure out why my subconscious thought that it mattered. Forcing myself to focus on putting the healing core back together, I found two pieces that looked like they went together.
Picking them up, I pressed them together only to have them fall back apart, refusing to stick.