Frank acted without thought. His body moved before he had even processed the situation, to come to Bill's aid. Three quick strides and he leaned forward, extending his arms slamming his staff straight forward like it was a spear towards the club-wielding goblin closest to Bill. The creature shrieked in alarm, clumsily interposing its weapon in front of the spear. The creature's placement in the ditch left it unstable, and the strength of Frank's thrust knocked it over, sending the club spinning away. There was a splash and a series of squeals as it fell on top of the unarmed goblins that were trailing behind, further toppling three of them. The two who had brought up the rear pulled up short for a moment, before moving around and continuing towards Bill and Frank. Meanwhile, the leader and his other armed flunky took the opportunity to press in on Frank.
The leader stepped up the ditch and its spear stabbed forward, aiming for Frank's side, while the club of the other one swung at his shoulder. There was no way to avoid both without leaving Bill to goblin ministrations. Frank chose instead to reverse his grip, flicking his staff out in the other direction to clash with the incoming spear. The butt of the staff collided with the spear, knocking it off target, but there was no way to avoid the club.
Frank took it on the shoulder, letting his knees buckle to absorb some of the force. That, combined with his gambeson, probably saved his shoulder from being completely disabled, but the cost of being hit was high. His shoulder blossomed with pain, obviously damaged, and his poor posture left him open for a follow-up. Frank grunted in pain, Fortunately, the goblin leader was off-balance from Frank's parry, and couldn't recover in time to take advantage. For the moment, Frank only had to react to one threat.
Frank crouched low as he recovered his balance, bringing his staff in an arc at knee height towards the goblin who had just clubbed him, forcing it to abort it's follow upswing. With his shoulder hurt and his poor position, he couldn't swing fast enough to hit it, so it safely jumped out of the way. Frank took the opportunity to spring to his feet and reset his posture, reversing his stance to protect his hurt shoulder. The goblin leader also recovered, but Frank's staff was three feet long, and so he managed to force it back into the bottom of the ditch with a quick thrust, not doing any damage but buying a few seconds.
Still aware of the other goblins, Frank used the gap he'd created to step away and focus in on the two who had avoided falling in a tangled mess. He lunged forward as they climbed over the ditch, cracking the closest one in the head. Even with one arm unable to provide extra strength, the metal tip collided with its skull, and the creature went limp, tumbling face down into the water at the bottom of the ditch. The other shrieked in alarm and slid back down of its own will to avoid getting hit, granting Frank more time before backup could be brought to bear on his fight with the spear and the club.
With one more out of commission, and four still untangling themselves, Frank decided to try and take one of the two biggest threats out. In a smooth motion, he pivoted and sprung forward, quarterstaff held in front of him. He aimed at the club wielder, using the weight of his body to provide force to the spear as it thrust towards the creature who had just begun to close in on Frank again. It looked like a deer in the headlights, it's hasty forward movement, likely intended to get to Frank before he could turn around, ended up rendering it unable to move out of the way and it took the blow right in the collar, two hundred pounds of moderately overweight human providing enough kinetic energy to shatter bone and slam it back into the ground. The goblin dropped its club on impact, and landed on it's back, unable to do anything but gasp in shorted, pained breaths as bone fragments dug into its lungs.
The leader, though still in the ditch, was close enough that it used the opportunity to stab at Frank. This time, there was no way for him to block the blow, and the spear point tore through the edge of his calf, right above the edge of his leather boots. Frank felt a searing pain as he reflexively whipped his leg out of the way, barely avoiding a critical injury. He completed the motion into a half spin, which turned him to face the goblin leader and conveniently left him leaning slightly forward, weight on his uninjured leg. The goblin once more stabbed at him, but this time he reacted and knocked the tip aside with his staff.
To Frank's side, Bill had managed to pull himself together quickly enough that he was now completely out of the ditch, on his hands and knees, attempting to get control of his breathing and stand. Somehow he'd kept hold of the knife. Frank didn't have the luxury watching though, merely having a moment to glance while the goblin leader reset. That it still stood on the incline of the ditch left its movements limited and its ability to bring to bear its strength reduced. One injured, an arm and a leg working at less than full capacity. The other in a disadvantageous position, they traded blows.
Neither was able to easily use enough force to challenge the guard of the other, but the reach advantage of a nine-foot quarterstaff against a six-foot spear proved decisive, as Frank forced it back into the ditch. Even as he did so, he could see the remaining goblins untangle themselves and climb to their feet, the big one scrambling towards him and the small ones converging on the struggling form of Bill, currently wrestling the one that had avoided Frank moments ago. He had to end this now.
Frank made his move, He stepped into the spear's range, so that he stood at the edge of the ditch, and using the leverage brought on by his height stabbed at the leader as fast and hard as he could. His shoulder flared out in agony and he couldn't help but shout in pain as he forced it to move as though it was uninjured. The goblin leader caught off guard by the extra power of the strike, waved his spear in front of it futilely. It deflected, but only enough that it caught the side of its head instead of caving in its face. It dropped like a rock, spear sliding out of its hands.
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Frank turned to Bill to see him beset by three goblins. One of the smaller, unarmed ones lay unmoving, neck bent unnaturally, while the bigger one Frank had disarmed was curled off to the side, also still, the pocket knife he'd tossed Bill jutting from its neck. Bill was struggling though, having not caught his breath, he was currently just trying to protect his neck from Goblin teeth as they mauled him.
Frank moved quickly, fighting through the pain in his leg as he shambled over. His staff popped the one at Bill's throat in the stomach, knocking it away, and a follow up blow left only one still attacking him. Without the other two threatening him, Bill quickly recovered, and just used his much larger mass to wrestle the creature underneath him and suffocate it. Frank dispatched the two he'd dislodged, and it did not take long for Bill to finish off the other. When blue motes of light started rising off the defeated goblins, Frank relaxed, awkwardly lowering himself into a seated position and immediately opened his pack. A system message tugged at his awareness, and he brought it up to check.
Goblin Raiding Party defeated. 190 EXP awarded. 140 EXP awarded to Frank, 50 EXP awarded to Bill. A crude spear awarded.
Frank dismissed it, pulling the health potion out of his pack and twisting off the lid. The thick, flavourless goop made him gag reflexively, but he forced it down. Immediately, he the pain in his shoulder that had started shooting down his arm after he forced himself to use it subsided, and his calf stopped bleeding. A tingling sensation, almost an itch, but somehow how not unpleasant, began to emanate through his body, centring on the two injuries he's sustained. With moments, his leg had closed up, and his shoulder merely felt sore. A feeling of fatigue washed over Frank then, the potion's effect depleting his stamina as it worked. He looked at his status.
Frank HP 41/45 Level 6 Human (65/640EXP) MP 0 Assassin(4/5) SP 12/40 Strength 10 Knowledge 6 Agility 8 Intelligence 9 Constitution 7(4) Stability 9 Vitality 6(5) Wisdom 4
Dismissing it, Frank looked over at Bill. Bill was bleeding, but not heavily. The wounds were likely superficial. He was panting from exertion though, and given that his feet were still sore he would probably be out of gas once the adrenaline of that frantic situation had worn off. Slipping back into the ditch, Bill retrieved the spear the system had deigned to leave behind. He would be fine for now.
Frank got up and retrieved his knife, which simply lay on the grass where the goblin had been, and put his pack back on, gripped his staff, and hopped back across the ditch, onto the road. Bill scrambled up after him, his shoes and pants wet from stepping into the bottom of the ditch to retrieve the spear. There wasn't time to waste.
"We need to get out of here," Frank said.
"Yea no kidding. Fucking aliens are after us for sure. Once we get to town though they won't be able to act so freely. They probably aren't ready to reveal themselves to the world yet." Bill replied. It had somehow transpired that Bill's delusions so far had conveniently led him to make good decisions.
Both of them set off for Redstone, this time at a faster pace. Bill would have to deal with the consequences. Frank too, given that his stamina was so depleted. The safety of shelter loomed large on Frank's list of concerns.
"What as the stuff you drank? You were bleeding out the leg and your shoulder was funky, and you downed that and now you are fine." Bill asked him.
"A health potion, the system gave it to me for completing the tutorial."
"Fuck, if I'd known that's what it was I would have taken that thing with me. Saw it there on the ground but figured it was some sort of bullshit mind control stuff. Now that I know this is all to help us fight off the aliens I wish I had. Probably some sort of fuel for the nanomachines so they can fix you up faster."
Frank shrugged. He didn't know what the health potions were or how they worked. Bill's rationalization was about as plausible as anything, given the information Bill had access to. The adrenaline of the fight that had temporarily buoyed Bill's fatigue wore off after a while, and he lapsed into silence, using his spear as a walking stick and forcing himself to keep up with Frank.
Franky thought to himself, that if he was going to risk his life to save Bill, the prudent thing would have been to just give him the potion. Then they both could have easily outran the goblins. No risk at all. At any point during that fight up, until he took a spear to the leg, he could have cut his losses and abandoned Bill. Logically, if Bill wasn't worth a health potion, saving him and then needing to take a health potion after made even less sense. But he'd done that, risking himself and consuming the potion. Yet he didn't feel bad about it at all.
Why was that, wondered Frank. Usually, a mistake, the knowledge that he could have handled things better, left him in a foul mood for days. Yet, right now, he felt satisfied. He mulled it over as he trudged on. His thoughts went back to the past, and he came to a realization. Yes, he'd made an error. His judgement conflicted with his sense of what is right, and he'd chosen a middle ground that was worse. But, he realized. He'd succeeded. He'd saved something. It'd been years and years of slow failure, ameliorating losses, watching as his hopes chipped away without anything resembling real success. Yet here, in this situation, he'd managed to win. A victory. He wrapped his mind around the fact, and his face betrayed the hint of a smile.