What in the hells above? How is the orc still alive? Every time Gara thinks the strange man, Liam, will be brought down he somehow luckily evades a downing blow. Most frustrating is that the skill that he is displaying is nowhere near her clan. Yet he is still fighting.
The fierce battle cry of the orc full of passion and vigor took the first two goblins out of the engagement. They are not as battle tested as the rest of her goblins, so it was easy to see them go down when confronted with raw ferocity. The ferocity will be tempered though.
Stumbling in his defense the orc manages to get a hold of a goblin ice lancer and swing him into position to block attacks aimed at the spider. A lucky balancing act saves the fighter from falling to the ground and conveniently protected the spider for another moment.
Like a wounded tiger, the orc fights with all his strength. Though unpracticed, the strong orc can swing his staff around with power and speed. Time after time the classless rook barely avoids his end. Every time it is by chance, or her goblins get in their own way. Liam has enough speed and strength it is hard to discount the luck keeping him alive.
Understanding that her numbers are not an advantage at the moment, Gara orders ten goblins to stand back, allowing only five to attack at a time. The drifter never leaves the spider's side, taking blows with his staff or even body when he needs to. Even now the man is barely standing with arrows piercing his shoulder and thy where he was only able to save the spider with his body. Foolish man. And now he is on the verge of crumbling before Gara’s might.
Gara winces as Cots overextends. The orc gets his cloak snagged on the warrior’s wind spear. He stumbles to the left pulling Cots into the rock that flies at the orc's head. Cots falls to the ground; his spear pulls the orc forward. Once again, Liam merely escapes the fire spear aimed at his back from Jill’s strike. Liam uses his staff to catch himself. The planted staff angles the fire spear attack enough that Noin must dive out of the way.
Noin’s dodge puts him within reach of Liam, who grabs Noin’s studded leather armor and pulls himself back to his feet. His pull causes Noin to get tossed into Jill entangling the two. As they pull themself back to their feet, Liam swings his staff around catching the two in the apex of its swing. Noin and Jill fall to the ground.
Gara motions for three more goblins to replace the fallen. By the time they get there one more goblin trips over a fallen comrade and meets a staff strike. Leaving the number at four attackers, Gara keeps the seven goblins in reserve. Glump lands a blow to Liam’s back with a stone war hammer. Liam, protected by thick bone armor, does not break from the blow. He is launched forward and trips into Loits. With a crash of heads, Loits falls to the ground. Liam is about to fall but again uses his staff to catch his falling body.
Off balance, he swings his staff at Glump. Glump is already out of range. Unfortunately, the attack moves Liam out of fireballs thrown by Bill. Liam is quick with his staff and sends another attack at Glump and the earth lancer drops like a stone. Recovering from his unbalanced attack, Liam grabs Glump’s hammer and hurls it at Bill. As Bill dodges Liam swings his staff with two hands and happens to take out Triss who’s about to land a sneak attack. Triss flies into Coal. Coal stumbles into the dodging Bill and then both meet the quick end of the spear.
“Enough,” Gara shouts, fed up with all the lucky foolishness. “This ends now.”
****
My back is aching. I am stuck with a couple arrows. Blood is dripping, making my grip on the staff slick. The spider is still breathing but the ichor on the rocks makes for some slippery footing. I have just brought down another round of goblins when Sil shouts something and everything goes dark.
This time, I am still awake when the dark encompasses me. My smile flashes. The assassin thinks she has pulled the wool over my eyes. A little bit of cover from all the eyes is all I really wanted. Right now, they still think me a fool. And they are right. I am a fool. It just plays to my strengths if others are in agreement with me. Some fools are too smart for their own good. Not me though. I’m a fool through and through. Pure fool to my core.
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Under the cover of darkness, I let Silent Night make the first move. It’s a waiting game and I patiently look about the dark as she slowly makes her way to my back. When she gets close, I trip on one of the many downed goblins. My foot forces the goblin to slide back into Gara. The trip happens too fast. As she’s adjusting for her strike, she misses the body that’s kicked into her feet. She stumbles forward enough for me to catch her with the end of my spear.
As the dark spell fall, I can feel my power becoming accessible. Quickly, I use my light healing skill to heal the spider from the arrow wound. I am not sure if it works internally. Externally, the pierce wound is healed. For good measure, I keep healing until the remaining goblins surround us.
Knowing that I have overstayed my welcome I pull myself and the spider into my shadow. The thirty minutes of running and fighting have given me enough time to recover. I put the spider over my shoulders, grab the supplies the spider was carrying in my other hand and sprint up the mountain.
Gene meets me a mile away. She takes the supplies and pulls us into her shadow. I spend some time healing myself and the spider some more and then we run towards that hideout Gene found.
We travel in shadow for another fifteen miles before we reach the other spiders.
“That was something,” Gene speaks when we are no longer running.
“Right?”
“So did that go the way you thought it would?”
“More or less. My entrance and exit could use some work. I think the middle part was good though.” Was the plan perfect? No. Did it work? Mostly. It could have been better. It could have been worse. Sure, I didn’t think Sil would greet me with open arms. I also didn’t expect to waltz right into their camp.
“Is that how we can expect the rest of your plans to go from here on out?” Gene asks with a bit of mockery in her voice. Not the hurtful kind of mockery.
“Yeah probably. A little bit of order, a lot of chaos, and mostly just winging it.” I am not a strategist and will not act like I am. Sometimes plans work. Sometimes plans need heads to be smacked for them to work. Most of the time plans just need to be ditched before things can get out of hand. “Probably should have dropped the plunder part of our plan. It was so hard to pass up on the goods when they were right there though. Next time, I will practice more caution.”
“Wait, you think the plundering part was the hole in your plan? What about wandering into the camp and passing out? What were you doing to your mouth the whole time anyway?”
“Oh, you saw that?” I have to shake my head out of shame. I wish that part had gone unnoticed. “Well, you see, I was trying to wrap my words in pure mana, thought my breath would be more substantial than words. Tried to wrap my breath and it, more or less, worked. Couldn’t breathe for a bit and tried to stab out an air hole. Didn’t realize I was walking the whole time. Other than that, I thought playing the role of the fool was perfect. Sil got to get even for that time she got kidnapped. I got to get even for that time she gave me inaccurate information. Then she loaned me her food as a promise to repair relations.”
Gene’s mouth is agape, which if I were on her side hearing my bull, mine would probably be as well. To her credit, she shakes her head and chuckles. “You think the spiders will want some food as well?”
“Don’t think so. They are more into juices.” I get the hint and start pulling out some food. What good is all our hard work if we don’t get to celebrate? We are tucked deep into the woods between mountains. Rocky cliffs keep us hidden from the east, north, and south, leaving us only exposed to the south.
After I pull out the food, I check on the wounded spider. Despite all the healing, I have pumped into it, the spider is not looking good. “I’m sorry,” I tell the remaining spiders. “I tried everything I could for her.”
All six of them reply with a hiss and then in unison, they begin devouring their fallen sister.
“Spiders are so weird,” I whisper to Gene. She nods her head. Through unspoken words, we both decide to not eat and put the food away for another time.
“So now what?” Gene asks.