“We’ve got company up ahead,” Jack informed his mount in a low voice. “Up near the river, hard up against the trees lining the shore. We could probably avoid them, but that’s not really a choice, is it?”

He concentrated on Detect Life, as he walked the spirit stallion in slow circles, bringing the splotches in what he considered these days to be his mini map into focus. Six pale, yellowish orange blotches, clearly defined. Familiar now that he’d encountered enough of them. Goblins. The single most common low level mob in the western end of the zone. Probably rank five or six, given the color, but maybe as low as four or as high as seven. He doubted they’d be any higher way over here. West of Mokkelton, maybe, but not here.

Along with the goblins, a though, larger blotch, deeper red, its edges blurred, like blood wicking into gauze. Something large and unfamiliar. Not yet fitted into his internal bestiary. Still, deep red, not maroon or, worse yet, black. So, not something that’d kill him just by looking at him, but still dangerous enough to warrant caution, and not something he’d expected to encounter this far east. So what did that say about the ranks of the goblins?

They were still a good ways ahead. He could see the treeline with his physical eyes off in the distance. Maybe half a mile, maybe a bit less.

He dismounted, looping the reins around the saddle horn, leaving a good span of slack so Ebon could move about on his own. Time for some prep. He wasn’t about to wander into the fray in his shirtsleeves. That Jack had died back at the ferry station.

Unstrapping his belt, he looped it around the horn as well, leaving his oversized belt pouch dangling at six o’clock along the saddle’s fender. He opened the top flap and tucked it behind the body of the pouch. Then he undid the toggle on the right that held the front panel in place. Unfolding that exposed a like toggle on the left.

With the top and both sides folded out, he was presented with a considerably larger opening than would have seemed plausible to the casual observer, and had a clear view of the dark, shimmering field that spanned the mouth of the pouch, normally hidden from view. The opening into the extra-dimensional space of the bag’s true interior.

Shrugging out of his vest and shirt, he stuffed them in through the field, bringing forth a rattier tunic of lightweight, undyed linen. No sense ruining a good shirt if he didn’t have to, right? A patched, tight fitting and faded blue rank fourteen arming doublet enchanted against piercing came out next, which he shrugged into, quickly buckling and lacing it up to the neck. It had an upgrade slot, but he hadn’t gotten around to filling it yet.

Upgrades weren’t exactly laying around in the street to pick up in the lower zones these days. He still wasn’t sure whether they were potential drop items. If so, he hadn’t run across any yet. For all he knew, they’d need to be created, purchased, or commissioned.

Reaching back in, he brought forth a red, rank ten arming cap, with a minor speed buff worked into it, tying the strap around his chin.

Full legs came out next. Rank twelve, enchanted against crushing, with two upgrade slots each, one of each with a Nimble upgrade, with the other empty. He strapped them on and laced them to the doublet so they wouldn’t sag, twisting uncomfortably to get all the points laced and tied. The whole thing was a colossal pain to rig without help, but not nearly as painful as a rusty spearhead through the femoral artery. Not mentioning the goblins’ love of stabbing people in their legs just for the fun of watching them try to crawl away while having hunks of flesh gouged from them as the greenskinned little bastards ate them alive.

Next out came a reasonably clean, though much repaired short sleeved, rank thirteen riveted chain hauberk and coif with only a few gaps here and there where links were missing. It had a pretty high level durability enchantment baked in, although that hadn’t helped the last guy who’d worn it when FoeSmite had been whaling on him.

Carefully, then, he winkled a rank fourteen steel breast and back free, testing the limits of the bag mouth’s dimensions. This one was enchanted with a durability buff, and had two upgrade slots, both filled. One with Anti-Pierce, the other with Cushion, which mitigated crushing damage.

Full arms, next. Rank twelve, both with the Nimble enchantment and a single, empty upgrade slot. These were even more of a pain to lace up, given the need to put them on one handed and lace them to the doublet beneath the sleeve of the mail shirt. He wound up with one end of the lace in his teeth before he was done. He was, per usual during this stage of the process, heartily missing the ability to bring up his inventory menu and poit between gear sets with a mouse click or two.

The rank fourteen steel paulders were easier by a bit, as they laced up, at least, over the top of the mail. No enchantments, but they were good, heavy, case hardened steel.

And a sallet. Not his original, but a much more highly ranked one, with a long, chain aventail and two upgrade slots. Both filled with Featherweight which, together with the Featherweight enchantment baked into the helm itself, made the thing feel like wearing a ball cap on his head rather than a trash barrel filled with horseshoes.

He gave himself a couple of good shakes to see could he easily jangle anything loose. He nodded when everything stayed put. He still looked like a walking yard sale with all of this scavenged gear, but that was the only similarity to his initial venture out into the wilds.

Mismatched, his armor might be, but it was all near the highest rank he could readily make use of without himself ranking up, and what enchantments it bore were solid. Almost as an afterthought, he hauled his old, raggedy green cloak clear and draped it over the armor. He’d get rid of it before engaging, but he wanted it for the stalk. He wanted them to see him when he decided they would, and not before.

Keeping his eye on his mini map, he reached in to retrieve the jaeger drop sword and the ash dagger made from FoeSmite’s tree, strapping them around his waist on a heavy belt.

“You stay here for the time being,” he ordered the spirit horse as he re-rigged and closed his belt pouch, swinging it around his hips just below his weapon belt, sliding the pouch around behind him. “If I don’t come back in two hours or so, feel free to head back to Rosaluna’s. I probably won’t be coming back.”

The spirit blew and shook his head, scuffing at the loam. It wasn’t happy at the order, but he obeyed.

Jack regarded the group through narrowed eyes. He was on one knee, crouched low in the tall grass, his outline blurred by the tattered green cloak.

The goblins were about what he’d expected. Four of them with spears, two of those with rough hide shields. The other two carried short swords that looked to be iron rather than steel. Fortunately, none of them was waving around any of those wicked little horn clad short bows goblins were so fond of, so that was good. While they wore conical helmets, none wore any other armor that mattered. Not even shoes.

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

That other thing, though. That thing confused him. He’d never seen its like on Mund before. Not to say it was unfamiliar. It was clearly an orc, straight out of an old 2nd edition monster manual. But hadn’t Tiarraluna told him she’d never heard of them?

It was taller than him by a good six or eight inches, grey skinned, and muscular. With a brutish face that featured red eyes, extended lower canines, and pointed ears at the sides of its head. Maybe that was it, he thought. It was a traditional, western style orc, and not the anthropomorphic pig variant that Japanese anime seemed so fixated on. Maybe the translation to Tandrian had missed the identification because of it.

Whatever, it wasn’t running around half naked like the others. It was wearing heavy, segmented iron plate on its torso, although its arms were bare. It had a pointed, conical helmet with an extended nasal mashed down on its head. It was wearing rough, leather pants with iron plates riveted along the legs, and iron shod boots with rough looking spikes at the toes.

And it was carrying a jagged backed sword much like the one Chi had been carrying when she’d first entered the guild hall. He’d have to remember to ask her about that. No shield, which was something of a relief.

The monsters were moving east in an unruly gaggle, roughly paralleling the river and keeping to the edge of the trees. He’d led them on his way in, angling to get ahead of them, so he was able to watch them approach. He waited for them to get closer. Now that he knew they’d no ranged weapons, he was considerably less worried. At least about the little guys.

Once they’d closed to within a couple of hundred yards, he lay FoeSmite in the grass beside him, pointing an index finger down at her. “Stay,” he whispered before unpinning the cloak and shrugging free of it.

He stood up straight and stepped forward and to the side, whistling.

The goblins started as one at the sound, turning towards him in unison, long, batlike ears pricked. With a series of loud cries and zero hesitation, they charged, spreading out into a disorganized fan.

Jack moved ahead and to his left at a leisurely pace, drawing the jaeger drop sword and ash dagger, but allowing them to hang from the ends of his arms, not yet moving either into a guard.

The orc shouted out in some gutteral language Jack couldn’t understand, whether at him or the charging goblins, he didn’t know. Whichever it was, the goblins ignored it, and the orc held its position, throwing up its hands and looking skyward.

The great thing about goblins was that they were predictable. They weren’t bright enough, on the whole, to engage in tactics, or take the time to gauge the strength of their prey. At least at these lower ranks. They understood charge and run away. That was it. In large mobs they were still dangerous, but six wasn’t nearly enough to activate their Overwhelm special.

The trick was to keep them in the former state until it became too late for the latter. You didn’t want them running off and gathering up more of their kind. Anything more than about a dozen and they started to be a problem.

The fastest goblin was nearly on him, so he finally brought the sword up into seconde, a low guard, holding the dagger up and away in quarte. As the spear came in, he swept the dagger blade down and around, capturing the shaft behind the head and sweeping it clear as he lunged in, driving the tip of his sword straight in through the creature’s gaping maw and out the back of its head.

The second goblin was already thrusting its sword at him, so he swung the still impaled spear carrier around bodily into it, flicking the corpse clear of his blade even as he drew back and drove the point into the second goblin’s chest.

The third had arrived, and Jack slapped at its spear shaft with the dagger blade, sliding it between his arm and body, hooking his forearm under the shaft and jerking the far end up as the spearhead squalled against his cuirass. A quick slash had the goblin’s head bouncing along the ground. He allowed the spear to fall.

He spun, then, intercepting an incoming short sword with his own sword’s blade, far back at the strong. As the goblin’s arm swung wide under the impetus of the blow, Jack hauled back and kicked it in the chest with one heavy boot heel. It hurtled backward into the fifth and sixth, who’d finally managed to close the distance.

It was the work of scarcely a second to skewer the bunch of them one after another as they writhed around on the ground, struggling to untangle themselves.

That was the thing with goblins. Even when they were in groups, it was still possible to take them one at a time. But he still got his class buff from fighting while outnumbered. Win-win.

When the last of them had gone still, Jack took a couple of steps back, and further to his left. He’d been keeping a weather eye out on the orc, who’d just stood by and watched, shaking its head as its companions had been slaughtered.

Jack stopped moving then, taking deep breaths, waiting to see what would happen next. He’d never faced an orc before without a either a mess of dice or a controller in his hands. He wasn’t sure what its rank might be, or its strengths.

He’d used the sword and dagger on the goblins because he was trying to rank up his sword skills, and goblins were like XP farms. But he was pretty sure he wasn’t up to fencing against something that much bigger than he was and holding a sword that heavy like it knew what it was doing.

Still, he held to sword and dagger for the moment, not even glancing in the direction of where FoeSmite lay, no doubt eager to join the fray.

“Hah!” the orc spat in its gutteral voice. “Goblins, hey? Dey never listen!”

Jack was taken aback. “You speak Tandrian?”

The orc tucked its chin and quirked a lip.

“Right,” Jack chuckled. “Stupid question. How about a better one? What the hell are you doing way out here? Aren’t you supposed to be way the hell and gone west of here?”

The orc snorted. “Kill,” it said, walking slowly closer. “Eat. You rank fighter, how you no god stone?”

God stone? “You mean life crystal?” he wondered. “Never needed one. Why are you running with goblins?”

The orc rolled its shoulders. “Penalty? Figger boss not want be too easy.”

Jack had to grin. Yeah, he’d had privates like that back in the ‘stan. Like command forcing him to play a roguelike on hard mode.

The orc took in the grin and answered with its own, toothier smile. “I Dangoch Ur,” it slapped its chest with the fist holding the jagged backed sword. “I Drugand mal. You strong. I kill you now. Eat you. Take you strong in me.”

Jack shook his head, resheathing his sword and dagger.

“What?” the orc, or drugand as they were apparently called here, demanded, pausing his approach. “You surrender? No! Taste better if fight!”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Jack answered back.

The drugand scowled and lurched forward, its pace quickening.

Jack gave him a full, toothy smile. Between his buffs and his armor’s enchantments, he was operating close to two full ranks beyond his given eleven, and he was going to make use of that fact while he had the chance.

He held his right hand straight out to his side, while pointing at the onrushing drugand with his left, tracing a quick outline with his middle finger. “Flare,” he whispered.

A pinprick of light lanced out from his fingertip, straight for the drugand’s face. As it came in contact with the end of the bulbous grey nose, electricity sparked arc white, enveloping the creature’s entire skull and momentarily blinding it. Dangoch Ur’s head rocked back, its free hand clawing at its stinging face.

Lesser Flare may have singed a few nose hairs, Jack knew, but there’d be no real damage done. It was more for clearing clouds of mosquitoes or flies than actual threats. But it did serve as a fine, temporary distraction.

FoeSmite slapped into his right palm even as the drugand’s hands were working at its eyes, trying vainly to clear them. Jack spun to his right, rolling with the impetus of FoeSmite’s momentum. Still holding her at her tail end in one hand. Two full, dancing spins, arms wide for balance, like a circus performer, and FoeSmite’s far tip was moving too fast to see as it intersected the side of the drugand’s face just below the rim of its helmet, and tore its jaw and chin clean off, sending bone fragments and broken teeth flying amidst a cloud of gore, and rocking its head to the side near hard enough to break its neck.

Another spin, and FoeSmite slammed into the reeling drugand’s right thigh, snapping it cleanly and sending the brute to the ground.

Jack danced nimbly back, breath coming hard. That was how you took down higher ranked enemies. You didn’t give them a chance to fight.

The drugand, Dangoch Ur, gore running from the ragged maw beneath its broken upper teeth, tears running from its red eyes that glared absolute hatred up at its tormentor, hot breath rattling unevenly past its lolling tongue, rolled half over and raised its jagged backed sword, preparing to lunge with its remaining limbs.

Jack smashed the sword arm aside, stepped in, flipped its conical helm clear with FoeSmite’s tip, and calmly crushed its skull.

He took some time cleaning FoeSmite’s shaft of the blood and bone fragments with a rag drawn from his belt pouch, looking around. Detect Life showed him to be clear of further threats. Nodding, he reholstered FoeSmite and started back for Ebon. He’d clean up the mess, loot the bodies, and perform Soul Release after he’d retrieved the spirit horse and crawled out of all this armor.