It were just a few minutes into Anda’s turn. Rasla fell asleep almost instantly after going back to her sleeping bag, leaving the Assassin alone under the fading night.

As the sun bloomed on the horizon, a black shape contrasted against the bright background. Anda noticed it was approaching, probably a caravan of merchants or soldiers, the usual kind of big groups you see on the road. However, as they came near, an omen of destruction filled the girl’s heart. Something was wrong.

Suddenly, a horn echoed.

“Orcs.”

The sound was too far to be loud, but Max was too familiar with it to not be awoken. He witnessed Anda staring at the distance, figuring out what to do.

“Anda! Wake up everybody! We must leave the camp now!”

She turned in surprise, not having noticed her companion.

“Right. Let’s pack what we can.”

The Cavalier looked again at the approaching mass, now much bigger than before.

“There’s no time, they’ve noticed us. We must only take our bags.”

Anda nodded, quickly calling Rasla, Harry and Erion.

…

Erion’s head was still dizzy, most likely due to the constant shaking of getting carried around like a sandbag.

“R-Rasla, d-drop m-me p-please.”

“If I drop you at this speed, you’ll surely break some bones!” She responded, looking back to see the distant shadows of the orcs.

“Calm down, Erion. We can’t slow down right now.” Max said.

“Maybe you should’ve waken up during the first call!” Harry told the cook.

“Dammit… All that food...”

Rasla growled, remembering the abandoned cart.

For countless minutes, they ran through the woods, jumping rocks, thick roots and dirty brooks. Slowly, whoever gave them chase started appearing farther and farther, with the unintelligible screams becoming background noise until the sound of nature was the only thing remaining. The apparent calmness wasn’t enough for the party to slow down, though. They kept running for a good while, only stopping due to the unavoidable fatigue.

Once again, Erion could set his foot on the ground.

“What the hell… We left everything behind!” He complained.

“It had to be done, unfortunately. Since they traveled during the night, it was already too late when we saw them.” Max said.

“What the hell are orcs doing around here?! Are they planning to raid a city?” Harry asked, sitting on a rock and rubbing his bare feet.

“I don’t think so. The road they were crossing… It was probably made by them in the old days. Something must have happened up in the mountains for them to use it, though. If they’re moving to the southern tribes, they’d normally use their tunnels.” Max answered.

Everybody went into silence, kind of mourning the loss of almost everything they had bought for the trip.

“Fuck! I wish I had the pleasure to crush their skull… My axe claims for orc blood!” Rasla shouted.

“Shhh! Do you want them to hear us?” Harry asked her “Plus, I doubt there’s much we can do against an entire battalion of them.”

“We could try...” She said, getting a grip of her weapons.

Suddenly, rustling noise came from an unspecified direction.

“Oh no, they’re here! How?!” The Warlock lamented in fear.

“If it were them, you’d have an axe on your face right now. Or an arrow if you’re lucky.” Max said, getting up from the log he was sitting on to check the noise.

“This forest supposedly has a quite vivid wildlife. It’s probably some slime sliding around.” He completed.

The Cavalier, fearless, went forward to unveil what was behind the bushes.

The surprise, however, did not come from where expected. The rustling noise repeated, but it was not heard as a much louder one came from behind the young chef, oblivious to his surroundings.

“Erion!” Rasla shouted while jumping towards him. She could not stop the green shadow, coming from behind a rock and wielding a stone blade. He deeply stabbed the cook’s back, showing his rotten teeth while hanging on the weapon.

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Before the Barbarian could slice the goblin’s head off or the Warlock could break all of his bones, hell, even before Erion could scream, a sharp blade crossed the air directly onto the creature’s head. An Assassin’s blade.

Only the dagger remained as the goblin instantly fell to the ground with a hole on his head.

Now it had been enough time for Erion.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!”

The other goblins did not wait for much longer. Soon enough, there were at least two of them for each of the party’s members. Not a large ambush, but an ambush nonetheless.

The creatures carried all sorts of improvised weapon and armor. Most were made from goods stolen from the people who crossed the forest, unaware of the countless little thieves hiding in the darkness. One of them wore an over-sized bronze helm, probably the leader of the ambush group.

“I guess my axe won’t taste orcs today, but goblins are good enough!” Rasla shouted, raising her signature weapon with a hand and carrying a short sword on the other one.

In silence, Max followed, readying his mighty two-handed sword. A single swing was enough to kill at least half of the goblins there, if they entered his reach.

Harry’s fingertips started to shine in purple. His Patron’s aura emanated – it did not intimidate the goblins as they could not understand the magnitude of a power from the Outer World.

Anda did not need preparation. Her movements were naturally much faster than anyone’s else around. A step for a goblin was an entire battle movement for her.

They did, however, forget about their stabbed cook. While the four finished their preparations and stood in heroic poses against the evil little pricks, Erion fell to the floor, eating some dirt in the process.

“Oh no.”

Anda jumped to him, feeling guilty about getting too carried away by the goblin menace.

But they did not forgive the reckless movement. Instantly, all of the green beasts jumped onto the travelers, specially onto the two in the ground.

“Oh no, you won’t!”

Right as two of the goblins leaped into combat, Rasla ripped them in half with a powerful axe swing. More came right after, taking advantage of the Barbarian’s blow long recovery. Not a very smart move as a tentacle made of pure energy wrapped them around and squeezed their insides out.

Maybe the remaining ones were a little more intelligent, as they gave up their leaping strikes after seeing the others being decimated. Only if they knew that a ground assault would be even less effective…

In short and controlled cleaves, Max cleansed the soil. Green blood and tiny heads flew around. The goblin that went the farthest ran merely a few steps away from the Cavalier, only to be torn in half by a heavy vertical cut.

The remaining few had seen enough. While the swordsman focused on taking down those still rushing towards Erion, four or five of the green creatures started running away, however, goblins are not a quiet race and their escape was filled with screeches and them hitting each other. Harry’s tentacle was still summoned, waiting for the opportunity to strike again – the eldritch abomination stretched to the running ones, exploding their heads with a strong slap or pressing them until their eyes gouged out.

Anda looked at the dagger pierced into Erion’s back. Fortunately, it was not poisoned but the damage done was still pretty high. She touched the weapon and slightly moved it.

“Ouch! I’m still awake, you know… Just barely...” Erion said.

“Calm down, I’m fixing you.” She said in her usual tone.

“Wait… Are you going to kill me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, aren’t you an Assassin? I’d imagine that fixing me is something like getting rid of my suffering.”

“Just… be quiet.”

He trembled, afraid of what she was going to do. Slowly, Anda started removing the bandages in her arm, displaying several scars in the shape of short cuts. As the other three kept guard around them, the Assassin, with her sharpest blade, slashed a brand new gash near her left hand, letting it bleed for a few seconds. When the stream of blood started falling onto the ground, she collected some of it in her right hand and rubbed it on her forehead.

“Are you awaken? It’s going to hurt.” She alerted the still unconscious cook.

No response.

“Ok.”

Anda got a new bandage from her backpack and held it with her bleeding arm, positioning it near the dagger. With her other hand, she fully grasped the weapon.

“One, two...”

In a single pull, the blade was removed. The upcoming stream of blood was instantly held by the bandage in her left arm.

“Hey, you better hurry up, Anda. You’re losing too much blood.” Harry warned her, relaxing after the goblins had been long gone.

“I’m doing it.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, touching the deep cut with both hands. The words she said couldn’t be heard or understood by anyone other than her. It was an Old speech, from the origins of time. And it carried power on itself, changing the atmosphere and giving everyone around a chill on their spine.

What was a hole into Erion’s flesh started to close by itself. The blood on Anda’s skin became agitated, like the sea during a storm. As the bruise fully regenerated, the blood also began to disappear, leaving her skin fair as it was before and even though the cut on her arm was still open, the stream had ceased.

“It’s done… It won’t take long before he wakes up.” She said, out of breath.

“Fine. We’ll stay here for a while, I doubt those goblins will come back… And if they do, we’ll just use little bit more of strength.” Rasla said. “Rest with him.”

Anda nodded and rested her back in a rock, closing her eyes without effort.

“Are you sure we should stop, Rasla? We don’t know if the orcs really stopped chasing us. Hell, the goblins might even tell them where we are.” Harry said. “And there’s also the food issue… We have none.”

“We won’t stay for too long, it’s just for Anda to recover a bit of her energy. She’s very tired from the chase and healing, I doubt we’d make a lot of progress with both of them in that state.”

“Okay… Maybe I and Max should look around for some fruits or animals. We didn’t even have breakfast after all.”

“Sure. Just be careful, you saw who lives in these trees.”

“Don’t worry, we can beat them.” Harry laughed “Shall we go, Max?”

“Well, I didn’t even agree with your inclusion of my name… I must admit that I’m quite hungry, though.” The Cavalier answered.

“Oh, come on, get up already.”

The two men proceeded to exit the clearance, following a wild trail to check if there were any fruits or hunt around. As they entered the tree path, a green slime crossed their way, sliding while digesting a purple apple. They did not know, but it was an omen of the only thing which they would eat that day.