After finishing his meditation, Thorin opened up his status menu to see if how many levels he gained from the last battle. It was getting tougher to level up now. Goblins were worthless exp now, but he managed to kill a large number of them. Enough to level up three more times, giving him another fifteen status points to distribute. Before spending any, he quickly checked the number of corpses available.
‘Right now I have twenty three normal skeletons and three crimson ones. With the extra sixty two corpses, I would need eighty eight will power to raise them all.’ Thorin thought while counting up all the numbers in his head.
After checking his status screen he saw his current Willpower was at eighty two.
‘Alright let's add six more to that, next I should spend the rest improving speed.’ Thorin thought.
In his pursuit to create a large enough skeletal force, Thorin had forgot to improve his personal fighting capabilities and his stats ended up a bit unbalanced.
After thinking about it for a while he add three points to endurance, stamina, and dexterity. Unlike strength and vitality, these ones were raised by his class bonus and were painstaking to raise through training.
‘Time to get to work.’ Thorin thought as he stood up and stretched. He began to methodically take out a corpse and then raise it into a skeleton and move on to the next one. After a twenty or so the cave started to get quite crowded. He ended up having to start sending skeletons back into the dimensional storage to make room. For the next two hours Thorin just slowly replaced all the corpses in his storage into skeletons.
He started to hand out weapons to the goblins, but even he didn't have the stocks to arm that many. He eventually ran out and had the skeletons use the goblins’ inferior weapons. After he finished he decided to meditate for a bit longer to recover enough mana for the next fight. He also had to take time and maintain his health. This included getting something to eat, replacing his shoulder’s bandages, and shaving.
After he was done he got up and went outside of the cave to meet with the remains of his force from the last battle, who were either standing guard or fighting each other for training. It gave him pride to see his minions being so diligent. It was a crisp night and Thorin was only able to see them because their white bodies reflected the moonlight quite well. The Crimson skeletons on the other hand were harder to see unless you spotted their flaming eyes.
Thorin decided it be better just to use his mana vision in order to see during the night. When doing this Thorin's skeletons and anything alive lit up in his view, their brightness based off of their strength. It took a bit of mana to keep up the vision, but not much. Thorin first realized he could do this after entering the trance to learn enchanting.
Before gathering them Thorin emptied everything from his dimensional storage, but the supplies he need to survive. The first thing he removed was the wagon he was still currently carrying in there and used it to store the rest. He still had some larger weapons also, but they were too large for the goblin skeletons to use. At the end of this purge he had most of his storage empty. Hopefully by the end of this attack he would need all the space possible to carry goblin corpses.
He gave a command and they all got together and started to make their way back to the goblins main camp. Now that Thorin reached his minion camp he decided to change his tactics up. Before, he was worried about finding ways to increase his forces, but now that he had them he could just go all out.
Thorin walked with his minions around the goblin area until they found a clearing big enough for the fight. Once they got there Thorin ordered them to get in a rectangular formation of eight rows of ten, and sent five skeletons out to lure the goblins. This left Talon, Lauros, and Roland out in front of them all so they could do more damage. He didn't want to send Lauros out to lure them this time incase they were ready for an attack like this.
Having ambushed the goblins before, Thorin expected them to be more cautious. They might even mobilize the entire camp to chase after the five skeletons. If that happened he could only order a retreat and have his untiring minions run way. Either way they’d send more goblins, or maybe the leaders of the goblins would come out and deal with him. Anyway, Thorin didn't expect to win this one, in fact he counted on it.
With all of his skeletons in order and the other five on their way to anger the goblins Thorin made his way to the edge of the clearing and found a steady
tree to climb up. He wouldn't be participating directly in this battle. Instead he would hide and command the skeletons formation so their fighting potential is maximized.
He climbed quite a ways up so he could see the entire clearing. Looking across the forest while that high and using mana vision was beautiful he could see the mana spread out all over the forest. While he waited for the goblins to make there way to the clearing Thorin just spent his time study the forest’s flow of mana.
Eventually he started to hear the yells of the goblins and their movement in the brush. Due to his mana vision he was able to see the goblins before they entered the clearing and estimated their number to be about two hundred.
‘They still underestimate me. They will regret that.’ Thorin thought as he order his skeletons ready. A a couple of seconds passed when finally two of the five luring skeletons burst through the bushes and ran to the army. Behind the goblins started pouring into the clearing.
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Upon seeing the eighty skeletons standing there waiting for them they quickly stopped. There was a moment of silence where the goblins didn't do anything, but trickle into the clearing and group up. Eventually the goblins were all together, but still just looked at each other unsure of what to do next. A couple of goblins decided to run back to camp and get more reinforcements. Now the battle had to be finished in twenty minutes before the entire goblin camp made its way to crush us.
There was disturbance in the crowd of goblins and a larger figure pushed his way to the front. Thorin rubbed his eyes it was an orc. It was tall and was wearing fur clothing. Every part not covered up by that fur you could see rippling muscles covered in war paint. The orc threw its hands into the air and shouted at the goblins. Due to the appearance of the orc the goblins regained their morale and began let out their own shouts. The orc took out a metal axe and pointed it towards the undead before leading the goblins charge.
‘Roland and Lauros’ Thorin said as he quickly connected mentally to the two crimson skeletons, as soon as the orc appeared.
‘Yes my liege’ They responded.
‘I want to both to work together and take down that orc when he falls the goblins will lose their fighting spirit once again and will be weakened. Be careful though he will be a strong opponent.’
‘He is dead already Master’ Lauros replied.
Both of them shifted position to intercept the orc, while the rest of the skeletons prepared for the goblins charge.
It only took the goblins a couple of seconds to cross the clearing and make contact with Thorin’s skeletons. The area was filled with the sound of goblins clashing against the skeletal lines. Luckily the goblins were light and couldn't topple the skeletons, and their charge didn’t accomplish a lot. Perhaps a couple of skeletons fell due the charge but thorin quickly ordered the ones behind them to fill their spot. He also moved the reserve skeletons to areas where the line was under strain or there was a large amount of goblins. Talon was used to stop any major breaks in the line and to slaughter the enemy goblins. They were slowly losing skeletons, but the goblins were also taking casualties.
Seeing the battle field stabilized Thorin turned his attention to Roland and Lauros battle with the orc.
*Pov Change Roland*
I quickly raised my battle axe horizontally to block the orc’s downwards chop. The blow shuddered through me as the impact slides me back an inch.
‘ A strong opponent’ I thought as i quickly adapted a more defensive stance.
The creature just continued to wail at me as I blocked and waited. I wasn’t the only one waiting. Lauros who was pretending to fight a nearby goblin, dashed in and cut the orcs back after it over extended during an attack. Despite my dislike for Lauros I have to admit he is useful.
The orc, enraged by the injury, turned to slash out at him, this created an opening for me to chop down with my battle axe. The orc noticed my movements and quickly moved to block it. The block was clumsy and the orc was unable to stop Lauros from slashing his back again, due to the awkward position it left him in. Being attacked twice without being able to do anything further enraged him, but he kept his composure and didn't try to attack Lauros knowing I would then attack.
This fight was much different from what I have done before. Usually, I am just taking the lives of clueless goblins who rush to their death. Today though I had a worthy adversary that master trusted me to fight.
The orc knowing he was out numbered switched to a more defensive stature. The wounds on its back weren’t going to kill him, but he knew they would weaken him if he Lauros continue to do so. I noticed the orcs change in posture and decided to go on the offensive. Master wanted him dead before we had to retreat.
Seeing me approach the orc smiled showing off its sharp teeth before spitting at me. I ignored it and attacked using overhand chop containing a large amount of strength. The orc moved its axe up to block and tensed its body to receive the blow, but before it could Lauros from my side whipped his hands forward and threw a dagger hitting the orc in the hand. He let out a roar of pain and glared at us both. To my opponents benefit, he didn’t drop the weapon. Instead it flew from his injured hand when my axe blade hit it. My chop didn’t lose much momentum and continued down and split the orcs head, ending his struggles. After the goblins saw the orc die, they slowed down like they didn’t believe it. Only a couple cowards fled the fight, the rest continued to fight against the regular skeletons.
I dislodged my axe from his skull and looked up to see the state of the battlefield. While we were fighting the orc the our line was deteriorating. Talon was struggling to hold them together against the large amount of goblins. I realized I wasn’t done yet and ran to go kill more goblins.
Everywhere I twirled and slashed my axe cutting down goblins, eventually they learned to avoid me, so wherever I went they clearly moved away. I used this to help maintain the battlefield by moving wherever the goblins were making headway. After a minute or two of doing this I received the command to retreat. There was only twenty one normal skeletons alive, and most looked ragged, but we did enough. I gave one more initial burst of energy and pushed back the goblins in order to give our forces the chance to escape. After that, I then turned and ran to catch up to them.
Name: Thorin Black Class: Necromancer Lv 12 24/120 XP Health 318/330 Mana 1459/1640 Stats: Strength: 34 Vitality: 36 Stamina: 22 Endurance: 15 Intelligence: 67 Willpower: 88 Agility: 14 Dexterity: 16
Skills Summon Familiar Rank S Skeletal Fusion Rank C Energy Siphon Rank D+ Summon Skeleton Rank D Blood Lust Rank D
Talents Affinity with Death Dimensional Storage Head Start Magic Reserves Strong Soul Blood Lord
Thorin's Forces Skeleton 21 Crimson Skeleton 3