“So, you think it was both?” Adam asked. The three were sitting around a campfire in the corner of the first way station. The station’s lodgings were already full when they arrived, but there was space within the walls for them to sleep. Martin would have to take a turn at guard duty for the evening, but they were otherwise ignored.

“Yes. Cut to the Heart will be amazing eventually, either way, but I still think it was mostly the small size and weak nature of the goblins that made it so effective.” A bit of a smile showed on his aged face, but it wasn’t particularly nice. “How about tomorrow you look for something a little larger to fight, and we’ll see how well it works then?”

Scoffing, Adam replied, “What, like a troll? Screw you old man, even as awesome as I am, we don’t have the tools to kill trolls.”

Martin laughed, pleased that his apprentice was feeling comfortable enough with him to act out. It was good for him. The pensive look on Adam’s face suggested something more serious was incoming though.

“What’s the plan if we do run into a troll?”

“The same as everyone else’s plan. Run.”

There was silence for a while. Both looked to Jay, asleep by the fire. Quietly, Adam said what they were both thinking. “He can’t outrun a troll.”

“No. No he can’t.” Martin sighed. It wasn’t pretty, but it was the truth. And they needed to be ready to le-

“I won’t leave him behind.”

Once more the older man sighed. Of course he wouldn’t, he thought. “No. I don’t suppose either of us will.” He rummaged around in his pack, searching. A muted clink announced his target, and he pulled out a small satchel. Opening it, he handed two of the small vials to Adam. At his curious look he said, “Trollburn potions. You have to get them onto a fatal strike, or they are simply painful for the troll. Heart, head, neck, you get the idea. They aren’t immediately deadly, so don’t let up if you manage to get one downed and burning.”

Adam nodded, thankful that there was some sort of plan. Looking at the potion he realized a severe problem in using it, and motioned it back towards Martin who looked surprised that it was being returned. “Can’t exactly use it in bear form now can I?” The old man shook his head ruefully. “You’ll have to douse one if I can get it down.”

Martin bounced one of the vials on his palm. “Probably for the best anyways. They’re very expensive.”

Laughing, the two snuffed the fire and turned in for the night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day saw them venturing straight into the forest instead of staying on the road. Martin had paid the caretakers of the way station to watch over his cart and horse while they were away. It wasn’t anything out of the norm, as small adventuring teams and training classes of all sizes did the same thing regularly.

Jay was shaking as they walked through the woods, even more terrified than he had been the day before. In the beginning of their trip the monsters were imaginary, but with real experience under his belt they were now all the more terrifying for the visceral reality of the situation.

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Neither of the other two had quite anticipated the amount of fear Jay would face out in the world, but they were prepared to make use of it either way. It wasn’t that they weren’t scared, but they knew a child with no class, no training, and no experience would be worse off. Martin’s job was to keep Jay as calm as possible, and corral him if there was trouble while Adam fought. Due to the System Assistance, Adam actually had to stay a fair ways ahead of them unless he wanted to spend the entire trip trying to calm Jay down. He was also the main caretaker of the boy when they weren’t in imminent danger.

Shhhhh was his not so secret weapon in this entire horrible plan. No one wanted to be in the situation they were in, but the duke would have ordered them to go if needed and that would have been a disaster. Martin would have been free willed, but that wouldn’t be enough for the Blue Sea Forest. If Jay showed signs of rebelling, running away, or drawing too much attention from the monsters then he’d jump into action with Shhhh. They’d already proved that it could calm and silence the boy when he was being hysterical, so there were good odds of it working as needed.

Monster activity in the Blue Sea Forest was high, but manageable. The trolls were the most common of the high danger creatures to be found in the forest, as most of the rest were deep within the forest's depths. Goblins, wolves, and spiders were all common monsters to be found in wooded areas, and weren’t the highest of threats unless they came in even larger groups. It was a common area for Apprentice combat classers to work on their skills and levels.

While Adam was to do the majority of the fighting, Martin was no slouch and could take care of nearly anything the forest could throw at them. That wasn’t to say that he would. Just like Adam, he too had his orders, and they didn’t include doing all of the fighting or scouting for enemies. The Mother would have to find things to fight on his own, a difficult task for a class that had no tracking skills, and was primarily defensive and utility in skill set. Even Adam’s favorite skill, Mother Knows Best, would be hard pressed to help him as much as he had been relying upon it to lately. Martin would only act in the case of dire need for either of the boys, and would prioritize Adam over Jay.

Once more Adam was running into the great wall of experience. His knowledge skill was filling his head with all sorts of interesting tidbits about how to track, how to move through the forest quietly, even ways to tell weather patterns by plant growth. It was much like reading a book on the subjects. You could read all you wanted about how to track a deer through the woods, but until you actually do it for hours upon hours upon days upon weeks over and over again you’ll never be able to track a thing. So he did the exact opposite of what all of that knowledge was telling him to do. He made noise, he looked unprepared, and he brought a small child with the stench of fear wafting from him into the shadows of the canopy.

And it all worked exactly as planned.

The first day he killed goblins and wolves. The second was more gobs, and a small clutch of spiders. All in all, he learned that despite Martin kicking his ass on a regular basis, he had gotten much better at combat. He still wasn’t as good as someone who had spent decades fighting, obviously, but he was at the level of a gifted newbie, which was enough for goblins, wolves, and spiders. It helped that he had already fought all of those monsters before and let Mother Knows Best do its thing when he thought back over those fights, so he knew what to expect.

Doing better wasn’t the same as without being harmed. He took a lot of knicks, cuts, and scratches, but only two larger wounds, both from spiders. The eight legged bastards just had so many limbs he was having problems tracking them all at first. Eventually he learned to delegate parts of his thinking to Multi Task, and just sort of oversee everything. Or at least that was the plan. Like much else he did, it was a work in progress. Real progress with spiders came when Martin reminded him of what Cut to the Heart did to the goblins, and he turned it on the spiders’ legs. Cutting off a whole side’s worth of legs really reduced the number of ways a spider could stab him.

As he grew in confidence, they traveled further and further on each day. The third day brought the first bit of trouble they’d yet seen, but it wouldn’t be the last.