"Die!" Gareth shouted as he kicked forward, knocking the goblin back to gain space. Growling, he charged after it, taking advantage of it being off balance to thrust his sword into its throat and ripping it out, spattering its black blood on the forest floor. The goblin clutched its ruined throat as it collapsed next to its kin while Gareth spun around, searching for his next target.

As the party's frontline tank, it was his job to press into enemy ranks and take their attention, but the cunning things baited him forward while the rest of his party was ambushed from behind. Several goblins lay unmoving with arrows sticking out of their bodies, but it wasn't enough. Sara dodged the swipe from a goblin's sword, her bow shattered on the ground. She sent probing attacks at the goblin with her paired daggers, but for all her Agility she struggled to make up the difference in reach of their weapons, and this goblin wasn't the only one seeking her blood. Several more pressed the attack, forcing her to give more ground and pushing her further out of position!

Cecilia, the party's other frontline fighter, held off another handful of the green skinned monsters with wide swings of her two-handed sword. The space around her was littered with corpses and her chainmail stained with blood, but not all of it was green, and she was still surrounded.

Corin and Lane fought back to back, fending off a pair of goblins each with their staves. Corin chanted an invocation as he blocked and swung, his amulet glowing with white light as the party's various wounds slowly knitted together. Lane's face was haggard, evidence of mana overdraw. The charred undergrowth and smoldering corpses gave proof where his mana had gone. He must have spent it all on [Fireball], the Apprentice ranked spell far too expensive for more than a few casts at his level.

"[Tremoring Charge]!" Gareth howled the skill's name as he shoved his mana into it. His muscles bulged as his body blurred, his steps leaving deep footprints and shockwaves in his wake. He charged through the goblins crowding Cecilia to intercept the goblins pulling Sara out of position, the shockwaves from his skill throwing them off balance for a moment!

Cecilia took advantage of Gareth's charge, spinning her sword around to slash through a goblin's throat while it was off balance before smoothly transitioning to thrust her blade through another's chest.

Gareth bashed a swung mace away with his shield then chopped into the offending goblin's leg as it let out a piercing shriek and dropped its weapon. He blocked another goblin's thrown axe with his shield and parried another's spear out of the way before Sara was there, chopping into the spear wielder's wrist with one dagger and stabbing it in the neck with the other.

Space made, the five party members got back into position as the goblins regrouped, their numbers diminished but still vastly outnumbering them. Gareth could feel his bruises slowly healing as Corin's healing magic did its work, but he feared it wouldn't be enough. The howling of more goblins arriving changed his mind. It definitely wouldn't be enough.

The math simply didn't add up. Lane was out of mana, his face drawn and his arcane focus dim as he took a spot in the frontline, his staff gripped in two hands. Sara's bow lay split in two and trampled in the bloody mud, her remaining arrows used up or spilled from her quiver as she dodged around. Cecilia's chest heaved and her face was covered in sweat, her helmet missing. Gareth was in the best shape of the five by far, his round wooden shield filled with knicks and gashes from blocked blows. A goblin's thrown axe still hung from the face, wedged into the iron banding of the shield's edge. The goblins hadn't been able to find the gaps in his plate armor, but they had taken to bashing him about, leaving his body bruised and aching.

"Gar, what's the plan? I'm almost out of mana!" Corin gasped, his amulet beginning to flicker.

Grim-faced, Gareth rotated his arms and squared his shoulders, tapping into his remaining mana and funneling it towards his skill. "I'll use [Tremoring Charge] again, throw them off balance. The rest of you run for it when I do!"

"Bullshit Gareth, no heroics!" Cecilia growled, readying her sword as the goblins began to spread out and approach.

Lane nodded, his face resigned as he tightened the grip on his staff. "I'm not fast enough anyways. Exercise was never my thing. Sara and Corin can make it though."

"I won't abandon you all without any healing." Corin's voice was firm, brooking no argument even as his amulet dimmed and he winced, the telltale sign that he was getting a low mana headache.

"Yeah fuck that, we live or die together!" Sara screamed as she flung her daggers one after the other and pulled her last two from her belt sheathes. The daggers found their homes in two of the approaching goblins throats, startling the horde for a moment before they shrieked and charged!

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Shrieking war cries in the goblin tongue, the goblins closed in on the party, their weapons ready to kill the injured and depleted adventurers. The grim-faced adventurers tensed, ready to make a desperate last stand as they faced down certain death.

Chaos erupted in the goblin's ranks as a swarm of light blue projectiles shot through the grouped up goblins from the side, punching through and dropping a dozen of them!

The goblin war band's charge collapsed in on itself at the sudden attack and the goblins fell into a panicked frenzy, their beady eyes searching through the forest for their ambusher.

A flare of hope rose in the chests of the beleaguered adventures at the sudden assistance and they straightened their backs, adjusting their grips on their weapons as the goblins hunkered down.

A new projectile came from the forest to the party's left and popped a goblin's head, showering the disorganized mob in foul smelling brain matter. A second goblin's chest exploded as another projectile launched into it, filling the air with a green mist of goblin blood.

The goblins shrieked at the renewed assault, looking about for the unseen enemy killing them. One of the goblins shouted something in the goblin tongue and pointed at the exhausted adventurers, urging its kin forward to kill the enemy they could see. The rage-filled goblins resumed their aborted charge on the adventurers' formation!

The brief respite filled the five adventurers with renewed hope and determination. Bellowing a war cry, Gareth countercharged and crashed shield first into the remaining goblins, scattering their diminutive forms with the weight of a well trained, heavily armored adventurer. A rusty axe bounced off his chest plate and a bone spear shattered on his thigh armor, leaving bruises and dents behind but failing to pierce. His sword sunk into the axe holder's chest and got stuck in its ribcage. Giving up the weapon, Gareth turned and caved in the spear wielder's face with his shield as he yanked his dagger free from his belt.

To his right, Cecilia danced among the goblins, her heavy blade chopping into arms and legs. Sara followed behind, her daggers finishing off the wounded goblins left in Cecilia's wake. Lane fended off a lone goblin with his staff, a light blue shield spell blocking the goblin's blows until Lane could push the goblin off balance and cave its temple in with a lucky strike. Corin's amulet went dim as he sagged to the ground, panting with his robes soaked in sweat.

The forest around them was destroyed, littered with corpses and painted in gore, but with no living goblins in sight. Despite the lack of visible enemies, the party remained tense and on guard. Those spells had been enormously powerful. Who or what helped them, and why?

The answer was soon in coming as a fallen branch snapped from something stepping on it and the bushes to their left, where the spells had come from, started to rustle. Gareth sheathed his dagger and freed his sword from the goblin's chest then turned with the rest of the party to point their weapons towards the shaking bushes. Muttered grunts and curses could be heard coming from vegetation as something tore a path through.

A silvery blade thrust through the leaves, followed by a pale hand holding the weapon as a girl tumbled out from the bushes and landed on her rear.

The adventurers froze as they took in the new arrival. Her clothing was tattered, and left little to the imagination. She was wearing rags that once might have been a shirt and skirt, but now covered her most important bits and little else. Gareth's face grew warm as he eyed her, propriety demanding he avert his gaze but practicality and common sense telling him she could be a threat and not to take his eye off of her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw as Sara, Cecilia, and Lane tensed as well, their body language screaming that they were treating her as a potential threat.

He heard the rustle of robes and a few quick steps behind him before Cecilia's voice let out a hissed command that Gareth could barely hear. "Hold off, she might be a threat!" Though she hadn't named him, Gareth was sure it was Corin. It was always Corin.

Gareth regarded the scandalously dressed girl in front of him again as she wiped mud out of her eyes. She had a slender frame that almost looked underfed, with barely any fat on her bones but decently muscled. Her long hair was messy and filled with leaves and mud, as if she'd been living out in the forest for some time. A light traveler's pack was held by a single strap across her back, the other seemingly ripped away somehow. The most interesting thing about her was her weapon still tightly clutched in her right hand, the blade gleaming in the dappled sunlight of the forest. A war wand. Gareth had heard descriptions of them, but rarely seen them, considering the expense and restricted nature of such weapons.

She was the picture of an escaped captive of a goblin raid or fugitive slave, or perhaps a street orphan who had fled town to live in the woods instead of signing on with a guild or the kingdom. Except that the war wand changed things. Something like that should have been in the hands of only the most wealthy and powerful of nobles, high level adventurers, or the kingdom's elite combat magi. Not in the hands of a lone girl seemingly lost in the outskirts of the Forest of Kresh with such revealing clothing that seasoned brothel workers would hesitate to wear them. That made him think her a thief that had gotten extremely lucky and thought to flee justice through the forest. She wouldn't be the first.

The swarm of spells that'd shattered the goblin horde out of nowhere had been powerful, likely the innate spell in the war wand. That made her a possible criminal and fugitive from justice, as well as a potential threat to himself and his party. As a knight of the realm, he had a duty to apprehend dangerous criminals, and this strange girl seemed to qualify, even if her intervention had saved their lives.

A single good deed did not erase her wrongs, but he didn't know for sure. He would be cautious and question her, and if he didn't like her answers he would apprehend her. Dead or alive.

Gareth stepped toward the girl, his sword pointed towards the ground though he could run her through in a blink if she proved an enemy. Mustering his most authoritative voice, he set his suspicions and doubts to the side as he questioned her. "Who are you?"