It was strange sleeping in a tent with two others, she even had a place for her things, and the cot was honestly comfortable, even with her larger frame.

Morning came around. She got up with the movement and noise outside, and dressed in her padded armor and put the bag of holding onto her belt. She stepped out and was met with activity. The kids were sitting at a table with benches using slate boards to practice writing.

Amara stepped up to her, “will you be having breakfast before you leave?”

“Sure?” she said unsure if that was okay. But Amara lead her to Andral and she took a seat beside the elf.

“How was your night?” the elf asked accepting a bowl and bread from his wife.

Janet accepted the bowl from Amara. “Slept well I suppose,” she answered.

“You plan on going out today?”

Nodding she scooped the eggs up on her bread, “I need to get to work, I have much to do. What about you will you be going back to your banditry?”

“Oh aye,” Andral said. “Make quite the profit the last couple of days. Though I may send some lads into the city with the money we got to get more of the basics.”

“That sounds like a good plan… I will warn you, soon, there will be an influx of travelers, or Expatriates soon. If you mess with them too much they will gang up on you and your family here will be shown no quarter.”

Since the bandit hadn’t respond, that told her much of this world, and how bad it was going to turn if hundreds of thousands suddenly flooded into the world. Aether would be a wasteland within months.

The elf was quiet. “Like with the influx of the people of the heavens a week ago?”

“That, but more,” she said. “It might actually be a good idea to not do your banditry when that happens.” Looking out at the women and children, while she didn’t agree with his ways, she didn’t want him and his family to die either.

“I will keep that in mind,” Andral replied.

They finished their breakfast in silence. Amara took their dishes and Janet downed her water, before whistling for Fang, who ran over to her, tail wagging.

“Happy hunting.” Andral bid farewell.

She hoped she could find the camp again before night. But she made her way in the general direction of the cave that Andral took her to before. There were a couple of game trails that lead off into the forests.

I should try and hunt for my own food at least. So I am not taking from them.

She paused when she heard movement and then moved to one side. Hiding in the brush just off to the side, she saw some goblins carrying a couple of small wild pigs on a pole that they were carrying. They had a bugbear with them, and two archers.

Five.

She summoned her soul blade, and cast glacial knife into it for the added damage. She needed to take out that bugbear first. She waited quietly, hiding. A pop up appeared.

:: Skill learned Hide ::

She dismissed it. She will look into that later.

When the big goblin was just a step past her she leaped out from the brush, and impaled her scimitar deep into the creature’s side. It wailed in pain. She knew she staggered the creature as it moved to step away.

“Fang, attack!” she called in orcish and pointed to one of the archers. Fang leaped out barring his fangs, as she narrowly dodged the morningstar of the bugbear. A -5 came into her vision anyway.

She stepped out of the way of the two goblins with the stone daggers. An arrow flew towards her, as the other archer was screaming while Fang ripped into its face, literally ripping its nose off.

Summoning a second weapon to her free hand she thrust the blade out and stabbed it into one of the dagger wielding goblin’s open mouth. The stench of their rotten breath was something she wished she could forget. It turned her stomach, and she had eaten not that long ago. The dagger from the other goblin didn’t quite penetrate her padded armor. But the impact of it was felt.

Quickly she moved both weapons to block the morningstar, however the blow still sent her back several feet, and a whopping -10 appeared in her vision.

Fuck these bugbears seriously that hurts.

She groaned, she needed to take it down, but the smaller goblin was after her again and it thrust out with its dagger. She swung the icy scimitar at it and its leg fell off. It wasn’t going anywhere quickly. A quick look to Fang showed that her pup had taken one of the archers down, and was working on the second one.

She did a stupid then.

Rushing towards the big goblin. It noticed her and roared its challenge swinging the morningstar and grazing her side again. She grunted through it and stabbed both her scimitars into its gut. Toppling it over.

She stood up, letting go of her scimitars breathing heavily.

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“Hell,” she breathed and looked to Fang who had an arrow in his thigh. She touched it and it required an Anatomy of 5, which she had. So she pulled the arrow out. She then cast cure on Fang. The pup wagged his tail happily. “That was rough wasn’t it?” she asked and cast cure on herself. Debating for just a moment to over heal herself, she chose to instead save the mana.

Summoning a dagger to hand she cut the left ear off the goblins adding them to the ‘ear bag’ as she called it. Then quickly went over the bodies looking for loot or items. She stashed the few coins in the coin pouch.

It would be a shame to let the freshly killed wild hogs go to waste so she picked them up and made her way back to the gypsy camp.

Andral stood up as a couple of men went over quickly to get the pole. “You didn’t hunt those,” Andral said. “You look like you already took a beating and you’ve only been gone a couple of hou- are you leaving again?”

“Didn’t want the hogs going to waste,” Janet said. “I have a lot more hunting to do and there is a lot more day light.”

She headed back out. Walking this time along a game trail fore easier travel. The signs weren’t looking good. There didn’t seem to be goblin activity, this made her think that Andral was lying about what had happened.

That doesn’t make sense either tho. Why would he ask me for help fight against goblins that are more or less staying in their own area… sure its dangerous I guess. I wish I knew more.

She found herself back at the ramshackle’d huts and structures before the cave. She leaned a shoulder up against a tree, hiding most of her figure with the trunk while still being able to watch.

Many of them looked to be sleeping. She narrowed her eyes.

Are goblins nocturnal?

She didn’t want to waste her day with only five kills. She summoned her scimitar and ice automatically coated it in crackling frosty white cracks. Looking at it for the first time, it looked like lightening in a black sky.

She lowered the blade and then started towards the outside camp, keeping to the brush and out of sight of the ones awake. If they alert the entire area, she would be in some serious trouble.

One of the goblin’s snapped their head up from their bowl of food and looked around. It’s long ears flopping, wide mouth in a frown as rotting and jagged teeth stuck out at different angles. She paused and watched silently.

It went back to eating after its glance around. She let the breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding out. Her heart was racing while she inched nearer. She could feel it in her ears, loud thumping. She wouldn’t be surprised if the goblins could hear it.

She made it to the back of the clearing and looked through the wood cracks of the building. She saw some goblins sleeping inside. Her goal however was the two bugbears that were sleeping.

Now that she was here she had no idea what to do.

A pop up appeared, and it nearly gave her a heart attack. Cluching her chest in panic she read its contents.

:: Coup de Grace – you will automatically preform a Coup de Grace by attacking a sleeping or helpless opponent. ::

She had heard of that phrase before, but she couldn’t place it right now. She dismissed the pop up and moved next to one of the bugbears. She saw in the corner of her eye a symbol appear, and then she swung down. The attack was quick and made just a small thud, as she severed the creature’s head.

They are just game monsters Jan, just some coding, thats all, they will respawn at some point.

She took the left ear and stowed it into the bag. That was much better than fighting the things. She kept behind the shacks as she went around and quicky coup de grace’d as many as she could. Collecting the ears as she went.

She nearly had all the sleeping ones taken care of and was next to the second bugbear when one of the goblin’s shrieked.

She turned to look as one of the goblins stumbled back with an arrow in their chest. She felt the impact of the fist against her face as the bugbear woke up. It wasn’t as devastating as their morningstars thankfully. But the -8 from a backhand was still bad.

Well she was in the thick of it now. She sliced at the bugbear’s chest, giving it a grievous wound, the gash was open and the skin flopped and moved about as blood soaked the thing’s fur.

She heard Fang behind her growl followed by the yells of a goblin.

She ducked under the second back hand of the goblin, but didnt move fast enough as it grabbed a fist full of her hair and jerked her head around.

She let out a pained yelp. But managed to thrust her blade up into the underside of the furry goblin’s chin and thrust the scimitar out, splitting the creature’s face in twine.

Turning to face the other goblin’s moving in on her position, she was slammed in the shoulder by an arrow. A -5 appeared in her vision. A small pop-up said she needed an Anatomy of 10 to remove the Elfin barbed arrow.

“Fuck.” she growled in frustration.

She gripped the arrow and pulled and her vision swam. A second – 5 appeared in her vision.

She had less than 10 health now, and she was looking at six goblins facing her, and another ten or so out looking for the archer that kept popping them with arrows.

She needed an AOE for moment’s like this. On her next level up she was going to look for one. With Fang’s help, she was able to cast cure on herself, before she started her attack on the goblins.

They weren’t warriors, so they went down with a single solid attack from her. It was now the warriors and bugbears she had to worry over. And while she didn’t see an exp bar, she wouldnt be surprised if they were giving her less now, or in a level or two none at all.

However the goblin’s isnt the only thing she was having to dance around and avoid the daggers of. It was also arrows flying towards her from the forest. She’s already avoided two, and they werent focused on her specifically.

She hid behind a building when her six were all dead. Fang had taken cover inside one of the shacks. She didn’t have time to collect the ears yet. While she was hiding she cast cure on herself again to give her just a little more of an edge.

She summoned a second scimitar to her free hand to duel-wield. She brought the blades up to her forehead and let out a deep breath. Opening her eyes she looked at the cave mouth, and her blood ran cold.

Andral said something about a hobgoblin looking like her with a flatter face and brown skin. Such creature was in chain mail, had a sword on his hip, oily black hair that was loose around his face. A squished face that reminded her of Persian cats, and jagged tusks.

They locked eyes, and she felt fear root her legs in place as the hobgoblin moved from the cave mouth. The hobgoblin stood in front of her and slammed a dagger beside her face. She saw a massive -15 in her vision from the grazing attack with a dagger.

Her eyes widened in horror and moved to the bone dagger and then back to the hobgoblin. She didn’t want to die this soon.

The creature grinned and then stepped away from her moving out into the chaotic field with the pot shot arrows. Janet wasn’t going to stick around, not after seeing that creature. She grabbed the bone dagger, and made quick work of grabbing her seven ears and put them away as she ran away into the forest. Fang on her heels as she just ran.

She didn’t go towards the camp, she didn’t want to lead the hobgoblin there. So she ran around and deeper into the forest until she a stream and she sat down on a rock.

Covering her face with her hands she took large gulps of air. Needing to catch her breath, or any breath that she could. She felt tears running down her face, relieved.

She was able to focus on the pop up now, she hadn’t even noticed it on her flight.

:: You have met a Hobgoblin ::

:: The Hobgoblin Kien Challenge ::

:: Become stronger and give Hobgoblin Kien a Challenge ::

:: The Hobgoblin has given you two weeks to get stronger before the hunt begins. ::

She reread the pop up a couple of times.

“Fuck!” she growled yelled at the stream.