We were now in the main lobby of the building our office was located in staring out the full pane glass door.
“OK let’s go over a few things before we go out there.” I said. “When we get out there we need to be careful and
stay alert. If a fight breaks out.”
“What do you mean if a fight breaks out?” Melissa asked. “Who would attack us?”
“I don’t know there are too many variables involved but we should be ready.” I said. “Now if a fight breaks
out, Samantha, Jackie, you two are our tanks, our front line, it’s your job to keep the enemies attention focused on
you.”
“Wait a minute why us?” Jackie asked. “I’m the only one with a healing ability shouldn’t we be focused on
keeping me safe?”
“In theory,” I said. “But you have 44 HP and chainmail, I have 12 HP and a glorified housecoat. 5 HP of
damage coming at me is just shy of 50% of my HP, 5 HP of damage going at you is just over 10% of your HP and
that’s before your chainmail blocks some of it. Understand?”
“Yeah,” Jackie said. “I can take the hit you can’t.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Now Candice and Melissa you two are our DPS, that’s damage per second. Your job is to
actually kill the targets that Jackie and Samantha keep distracted.”
“Wait, kill?” Candice asked. “I’ve never killed anything besides a bug before.”
“Same with me,” Melissa said. “Except for that cat I ran over when I was 17, and I cried for like a week after
wards. Oh my god, I’m a cat now. What if somebody runs me over?”
“Melissa, calm down,” I said. “I agree, killing is wrong, but if a fight breaks out it’ll be us or them, and I don’t
know about you, but I don’t intend to start any fights out there, but I sure as hell don’t want to die either.”
This calmed her down, I could tell because she was at least part cat now and emoted heavily with her ears.
“Attack from the sides and the back to be most effective. Preferably without exposing your own to the
enemy ranged attackers if they have any. If we run into any archers or magic users we have to fight, use
Samantha and Jackies shields to get close, or sneak around the sides if you can. In the interest of improving
teamwork, Candice and Samantha fight in front of me to my left, Jackie and Melissa fight in front of me to my
right. Eventually you’ll get better and better at reading each others moves and will be more effective in combat.”
“What if something gets behind us while we’re fighting?” Jackie asked.
“I’m the eyes,” I said. “I can’t do much else right now, so listen for any instructions I give and follow them.
I’m fairly decent at strategy games so we should be good. The basic plan if something comes up from behind
when we’re in battle is for one group to switch to the back and the other having to focus on the entire front, not
ideal but it’s gonna have to be our fall back plan. Outside of battle Candice, Melissa, you two are more mobile
than the rest of us and have better senses, you need to keep your senses open and pay attention, if we see
potential threats before they see us we’ll have an advantage, you’re our scouts. We can do this.”
Samantha and Jackie stepped outside, weapons drawn shields up, Candice and Melissa right behind them
with their twins sets of twin daggers drawn and ready. They stopped in front of the door eyes and ears peeled for
trouble.
“Good work,” I said trying to encourage them. “Is it safe?” I could clearly see that the parking lot was clear
of enemies, barring some hiding behind the vehicles, but I wanted to encourage them so I asked anyway.
“Clear,” Jackie said lowering her hammer and shield.
“Nothing but dead cars,” Samantha said lowering her shield and axe.
“I feel like that would have looked really cool if we had been seen coming out from the outside, but
completely wasted given how unlikely it was that somebody was waiting to ambush us right as we came out the
door.” Melissa said.
“No it was good, you need to get into the practice of doing that,” I said. “I was a good exit and any ambush
waiting for us would have been far less effective. So who remembered to bring their car keys?” I said pulling mine
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out of my pocket.
“Steve took them all when he figured out his peoples cars weren’t running,” Jackie said.
“What the hell gave him the right to do that?” I asked.
“His ego,” Candice said flatly.
“Well good thing everybody forgets the IT guy until something breaks,” I said starting to walk over to my car
parked in the back under some trees, I didn’t get too far before Jackie stopped me.
“Every tire in this parking lot is slashed,” Jackie said.
“What?” I asked looking around and at my own car, sure enough every tire was slashed. “God. Damn. It.
Steve.”
“Why would he even do that?” Melissa asked.
“To screw us over,” I said. “He gains no benefit from it, but we get screwed by it.”
“Why does it matter?” Samantha asked. “They didn’t run anyway.”
“Yeah but with non flat tires my first plan was to use Robs truck,” I said pointing to a big black pickup truck.
“Put Heather in the bed of it, pop it into neutral and have you push it.”
“I like how you just volunteered me to do that,” Samantha said.
“47 strength score remember?” I said.
Samantha gave a slight flex and smiled. A scream coming from across the parking lot interrupted anything
else she was going to say.
Two small green creatures that stood about 3 feet tall and wielded small swords and shields had just come
around the corner of the building.
“Goblins,” I said. “Formation now.” I ordered and sure enough they got into formation, weapons drawn.
Ten more goblins came around the corner and charged at us. They were all moving at different speeds so the
now twelve total goblins would arrive at us at slightly different times. I took a quick look behind us to confirm that
there was nothing behind us, once I did I assessed the situation.
“What do we do we’re outnumbered?” Melissa asked.
“Don’t panic,” I said giving myself an extra second or two to think. “Stay calm, move away from the cars,
they’ll get more benefit from them than we will. They’ll be coming at us at staggered times so we won’t have big
numbers if we take them out quickly, go for kill shots as fast as you safely can.” Their movements were hardly
synchronous but after a few steps we were far enough away from the cars so the goblins couldn’t use them for
cover or a jumping platform. The first goblin approached Samantha, she swung her ax back in a wide arc to swing
it and hit Jackie in the face with the head of it knocking her down.
“Oh shit sorry,” Samantha said turning to help her up.
“Focus on the enemy Sam!” I yelled. “Candice support Sam, Melissa pull Jackie back so I can give her a
healing potion. Sam protect them.” Samantha hesitated for a moment, and the goblins that she intended to hit
with her axe jumped on her and landed on her left arm. “Candice get that goblin off her.” I ordered as Samantha
dropped her axe to grab at the goblin. Melissa had finished dragging Jackie back to me and I dropped to my knees
and materialized a Puny Healing Potion in my hand from my inventory, pulled the cork out of it and poured it into
Jackies mouth. “Melissa get back in there.” Candice had stabbed at the first goblin before Samantha could grab at
it. Samantha turned her attention to another goblin and kicked it with her right hoof sending it flying back. This
caused the other goblins to pause just slightly, enough for Samantha to reclaim her axe from the ground. “Form a
line, Sam on the right, then Melissa then Candice. Take them as they come, watch your friendlies.” I took a quick
look around to make sure that nothing was sneaking up on us, then turned my attention to Jackie. “You good to
get back in there?”
“Yeah,” Jackie said getting back to her feet.
“Jackie get on the left side of the line,” I said bringing the battle back into focus. They had already taken out
3 more goblins. They were doing good at the moment so I didn’t say anything for fear of distracting them. It
wasn’t long before Jackies hammer came down on the skull of the last goblin. When the goblins died their corpses
laid where they fell for a few seconds then disintegrated into light which formed into a crystal that floated in
place. “Theres only eleven crystals here, there were twelve goblins, where is the one Samantha kicked away?”
“Why does it matter we beat them?” Melissa asked.
“We don’t want him coming back with reinforcements,” I said. “Spread out and search for him. Samantha
you’re with me.”
It didn’t take Candice long to sniff him out hiding underneath a car. “Come out here you little runt,” She said
diving under the car after him.
“No don’t,” I said too late. There were several yelps and screams coming from under the car and then
Candice popped out with the goblin impaled on her daggers and dropped him to the ground to turn into a crystal.
“So what are these crystals?” Jackie asked.
“Probably loot,” I said. “Our reward for killing the goblins.”
“Reward for killing,” Candice said. “Don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to,” Jackie said grabbing the crystal. “What do we do with these?”
“Give me a minute and I’ll have an answer for you,” I said reaching out for a nearby crystal. I grabbed hold
of it, but try as much as I tried I could not move it, it just floated there. “Oh come on I know my strength score is 1
but come on.”
“Let me help you with that,” Samantha said with a laugh grabbing the crystal and not being able to move it. “The hell?”
My mind raced trying to figure out what was going on. “Who killed this one?”
“I think I killed the one that landed in front of Lindas car,” Jackie said.
“Come over here and try to grab this crystal,” I said. Jackie walked over and grabbed the crystal with no
problem.
“Well that’s going to be annoying,” Melissa said. “Having to keep track of who kills what.”
“We never formed a party,” I said closing my eyes and focusing on my interface. Sure enough there it was in
the corner, Party Utilities, there was a lot of extra stuff but the stuff I needed was there, party invite, and looting
options. I set the looting options to let anybody in the group loot anything the group kills. “I’m inviting you all to a
party, please accept the invite.” Their names along with their HP, MP and SP bars appeared in my interface on at a
time as they accepted the invites.
“Did anybody else level up?” Melissa asked, Samantha and Candice both spoke up with an affirmative
response, Jackie did not. I looked at my own xp, Titleist 1 2/100.
“There’s some kind of icon next to my class and level, what does that mean?” Samantha asked.
“I don’t know I can’t see it as I didn’t level up, what does it look like?” I asked.
“Looks like a star,” Samantha said.
Try focusing on it, see what happens,” I said hoping nothing bad would happen.
“Woah,” Samantha exclaimed. “Now I’m Warrior 2, and my stats went up, ha, ha, 51 strength score now.”
Samantha stood there flexing with her eyes still closed. “Also I have a window labeled newly leveled skills now, I
think I got those before my level up though. 1-Handed Weapons Novice 4/100, Axes Novice 4/100, Axes (Hand)
Novice 8/100, Shields (Small) Novice 2/100 Shields (Defensive) Novice 1/100, Unarmed (Basic) Beginner 1/100,
Combat Expertise Novice 1/100.”
“Yeah those are pre-level up,” Candice said. “I have 1-Handed Weapons Novice 6/100, Daggers Novice
2/100, Daggers (Twin) Novice 4/100, Dual Wielding (Beginner) 2/100, Duel Wielding (Twin) 4/100, Combat Expertise
Novice 3/100. I’m still Rogue 1 but I have that star icon next to my level.”
“Same here,” Melissa said. “My numbers are lower though, I also have a Battle Assist Untrained 1/100.”
“The numbers are probably lower because you did less fighting, and you probably gained Battle Assist for
dragging Jackie out of danger so I could give her a potion.” I said. “Just to confirm that skills and levels are
independent, Jackie did you get any skill ups?”
“Yeah,” Jackie said. “No surprises, combat expertise, battle hammers and shields, nothing for getting
smacked upside the head by our resident cow though.”