Nature is a beautiful place, especially at night when I can see the stars. A view that I never quite got to see when I lived on Earth, the light pollution smothered out so much of the night sky to the point where only the brightest of stars were visible. It was something that had filled me with awe when I first arrived, but now it is simply part of my life, the beauty no longer moves me. Nature no longer moves me and that makes me sad. Which might be better than hate, but honestly I can’t find it in me to explore said thought.

The only reason that I am out here now is to stumble across something dangerous or otherwise put myself in an environment where I will suffer enough to have the chance to burn some Vitality but not enough to be puppeted somewhere safer. It would be a bit of a hit or miss with these woods due to the rising monster population, but with said risk of losing bodily autonomy comes the opportunity to die faster.

I rouse myself from my thoughts when I feel a slight tugging on my mind and body. My patron has decided that I must go somewhere, likely to heal someone. I contemplate for a moment turning away from the guidance of my patron, to force them to make me travel, but I toss that idea away like the garbage it is. I don’t have a choice in this matter, I never do when it comes to their guidance. I tighten my grip on my staff and start putting some real effort in moving. If I do this right then I should be able to overexert myself before being puppeted which means I will have to use some of my Vitality.

I let myself run with wild abandon, not caring for where my feet are placed, only the direction I travel in, and several times I feel my step shift away from where it was originally meant to go. I feel the pulling grow stronger. Whoever needs healing needs healing soon, and more importantly whoever needs healing is important in some way. I have no idea why someone important would be out here in the woods close to some backwater village far away from any major city.

A scream.

The pulling has vanished and my body is no longer under my control. I exist as a prisoner in my own body. I would have panicked if not for the fact that I am long since used to this and have learned that resisting will only make things even more difficult. My stride lengthens as my body starts using every ounce of force that it has to speed up my travel. My steps are perfectly placed in just the right way so that nothing impedes my travel.

I burst into a clearing to find a gathering of Goblins surrounding a group of teenagers. Three females and a male. All of them well outfitted, but the Goblins outnumber them to a large degree so some attacks are breaking through their guard, as seen by one of the female teenagers having a stab wound that was likely coated in feces of some kind. Her teammates won’t be able to help her in time due to the remaining Goblins.

Something about this group makes them important, it might just be the downed teenager, or it might be the entire group. Regardless, I have to save them. As I reach into my existence, my body continues to run towards the Goblins, staff brandished and ready to smack some heads in. I make to grab all of my Vitality only to find that I can only grab 4 sparks. Disappointing, but spent Vitality is spent Vitality.

I externalize the sparks and weave them into three spells. Two sparks for offensive, one for defensive, and one for healing. I cast my shield first, creating a dome of protection around the teens, I then release my attack. Before me a wave of flame spreads and quickly engulfs Goblins, burning them down to the bones within seconds. I extinguish the spell once I close the distance and cast my final spell upon the downed girl.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

My patron stops the puppetting and I barely manage to get my staff planted on the ground in time to stop me from falling over. I try to dip into my Vitality and find that once again my access is restricted. I feel like shit but that's about par for the course in my life.

“Thank you so much! I thought we were all going to die.”

The boy wants to talk, how quaint. I let out a grunt turn around and start hobbling away. I don’t want to talk to any of you and just want to continue on my way. Leave me alone.

“Sir, please come back, could we at least treat you to a meal as thanks for saving and healing us?”

“No.”

“How about-”

“I said no kid.”

I let out a sigh and point my hand in the direction of the village.

There is a village about 15 minutes walking southeast of here. Head there and warn the village of how close the Goblins were to the edge of the forest and their numbers. If you can get the word out to your fellow adventurers or the guild, then do so. Now stop bothering me, I have places to be.”

“Can we at least have your name?”

“No, you can’t.”

I continue my hobbling away as I can hear the party squabbling a bit behind me. I know not what their argument is about, nor do I care. I have some woods to traverse and if I come across another gathering of Goblins then I have a perfectly good reason to use up even more vitality.

Things however do not go my way. I snap out of my thoughts when I hear a branch snap behind me. I whirl around only to find that the party is now following me, and doing a bad job of trying to hide it.

“Children, why are you following me?”

One of the teenage girls speaks this time, cloaked in mage garb with a wand and several pouches around her waist. One who studies the Arcane, I thought it odd that she chose to be an adventurer rather than a non-combat role as most mages prefer.

“You are an old man wandering the woods without any protection. Even if you are a powerful mage, if you get ambushed you’ll be killed.”

I can’t help but laugh, I want to die, their concern is unneeded and unwanted.

“I have yet to meet anything that can kill me, girl. I welcome everything in these woods to try, it would make my day. Now go back and do whatever it is you adventurers do.”

I try to grab some vitality and as I suspected, my access is blocked. I really don’t want to deal with these children. I don’t want people in my life. I don’t want to risk getting attached. I move to leave and the children start to follow me.

The male speaks.

“Could you help us exterminate the Goblin camp we found? With a mage of your power such a thing would be a breeze.”

I raise an eyebrow, they managed to find the camp? That certainly would explain why there was such a large group after them. This also presents an opportunity to use up some Vitality.

“I question your intelligence if you went looking for such a thing with as small of a group as yours, but I am listening, child. Tell me the location of this camp.”

“It's about 30 minutes of running…. north of here.

“What do you know of the numbers there? Are there any structures? What about fire? I need to know these details.”

“Uhhh. not sure about the numbers, we are all somewhat new to this, but we did see two tents and a fire?”

This is much worse than I thought. Enough that I do not want these children near the coming battle.

“Go home children, you will not survive the coming battle, the Goblins are propped up by a greater force. Leave and warn the village. I will go on ahead and do my part to rid the world of these creatures. You all will do nothing but slow me down.”

I turn around and leave. There are Goblins to slaughter, a potential demon to kill, and Vitality to burn.

The children do not follow behind me.