by Max Jager
They rushed through the back yard and onto the next street over, this street wasn't any better, it too was filled with goblins but the intersection ahead was clear. Mendelen spoke up "The city limits are just ahead, about two blocks away there will be a highway we can get onto that leads out of the city, it goes alongside a lake." He explained as they rushed down the street.
"I don't know how much longer I can keep running." Kaden panted.
"We're all exhausted. Just keep running." Estellese replied. The group raced down the street, they had a semi-clear path. There was a few groups of goblins ahead of them but they were small groups of ten or twenty, small enough to run around and get past before most of the goblins noticed them. But after running about one block they ran into another mob of goblins blocking the path forwards, forcing them to take a sharp left turn down another street, followed by a right turn a little further down the street to go around the mob. But, this didn't work either. There was another mob of goblins down this street, and the mob chasing them was getting dangerously close.
"Through the house again!" Mendelen called out, intending to repeat the trick they used last time. They took a sharp right turn and ran for the nearby house, and again Mendelen delivered a powerful sprinting kick to the door. But this door did not budge. Mendelen was sent stumbling back, "This one's made of a much stronger wood! I can't break it." he called out as he turned around to see the massive crowd of hundreds of goblins quickly closing in on them.
"Stay alive! I'll open the door." Zanath called out as he grabbed one of his duffel bags and threw it through one of the house windows, smashing the window open. Then in a flash he dove into the house through the window, skillfully slipping right through the hole he made without touching the glass. It would take everyone else a while to climb in without cutting themselves open on the glass, and they didn't have the time for that.
The three who were left outside spread out in the yard not far from the door, clutching their weapons cautiously as they watched the horde of goblins rush at them. "Cover each others' backs and wait for Zanath." Mendelen called out. It was all he could say before the swarm of goblins was on top of them. "And be careful!" He called out.
In an instant they were almost surrounded and had goblins rushing in from every direction except from behind them. Mendelen was in the front so he was the first one to be targeted and three goblins rushed at him. As the first goblin charged him he swung the makeshift club at the goblin's head, making the goblin jump back to dodge the blow. As he swung a second goblin lunged at him from the side, but he dropped his club and grabbed the goblin's shoulders to push the goblin back and off himself. But while he was pushing away the second goblin the third one lunged in and threw a punch for Mendelen' back.
Estellese was quick to intercept the goblin that was attacking Mendelen. Stabbing her knife into its arm to stop the goblin's punch and then kicking it to the ground. But as she kicked that goblin yet another goblin came rushing at her from the side. She was quick to slide her duffel bag off her shoulder though and swung the bag that was full of cans at the goblin, bashing it in the head and knocking it over before it could get within arms reach of her.
Kaden wasn't faring much better, another three ran after him. As the first goblin charged at him and dove in to tackle him. Kaden quickly sidestepped the goblin and kicked it in the head when it missed and hit the ground. But as he went to move away from the goblin, it grabbed one of his legs just as the second goblin was rushing in to punch him. Thinking fast Kaden dodged the punch by falling onto his back and quickly stabbed the arm that was grabbing him to force it to let go. The second goblin moved in to kick Kaden after it's punch missed but Kaden flipped back onto his feet to evade the kick and jumped backwards just in time to get distance on the two standing goblins.
Mendelen backed away from the two goblins he was fighting, and looked up to see ten more of them catching up and joining the fight. But Zanath finally got around to the door and got it unlocked and open. "Get in!" Zanath shouted.
"Door's open! Go!" Mendelen shouted as he began running back for the house. He stayed behind to make sure both Kaden and Estellese were able to safely run inside before he too ran into the house, slamming the door shut behind him. "That won't hold them for long, go, go!" He called out as he ran for the back door, taking the lead again. His three friends followed along behind him and mere seconds later they could hear the front door being smashed open by the goblins.
They got out through the back door and sprinted through the back yard, getting back on the streets. The four of them sprinted down the street, dodging the groups of goblins they passed on the way. It was just a short dash down another two streets before they made it to the highway that lead the way out of the city. "Right there, there's the highway! We are just about at the city limits." Mendelen called out as he lead the way onto the highway and began running down the pavement. But... It was then that they came across an odd sight...
"Wait... What?" Mendelen questioned. The highway went a few more feet, to the city limits, then it just stopped. The pavement came to an end, and there was a big, open field of grass ahead. "That's not supposed to be there..." He murmured. It looked as if someone had just copy and pasted Oline city in the middle of a big open field and didn't bother finishing the roads that went outside of the city limits.
"What do we do now?" Zanath questioned.
"Just keep running, they will have to give up and stop chasing us eventually. Run out into the field!" Mendelen called out. He knew it was a terrible idea to run out into an open field like that, but there was no going back now. There was too many goblins behind them to turn around and go back now. They could only hope the goblins would give up the chase eventually.
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Next chapter: Discovering the Emory Forest.
Chapter 5: Discovering the Emory Forest
~~ Chapter 5 : Discovering the Emory Forest.
The four Alphas came sprinting out of the city, running right out into the big, open, grassy field with the hordes of angry goblins right behind them. They ran for what must have been another hour or two, it felt like forever and the endless fields of tall grass seemed like they stretched on for ages. Their bodies were sore and exhausted, they couldn't run much longer, and then like a gift from above they spotted a forest ahead of them.
"Oh thank god! Something other then grass!" Estellese breathlessly called out as they ran for the forest. The rest of the group was staying focused on running and did not speak. The four of them ran straight into the forest, cutting off the goblins' vision of them, then thinking fast Mendelen made an order.
"Everyone!" He panted. "Climb a tree, quick before the goblins see us. They seem stupid, they won't think to look up in the trees and will run past us. We only have a few seconds." He panted, then in a flash he jumped up and grabbed onto a branch, then pulled himself up onto it and turned around, holding out a hand to help someone else up.
Estellese was right behind him, she grabbed onto his hand and he helped her pull herself up onto the branch with him. Zanath was right behind her, he jumped at a tree, kicked the bark of the tree and sprang off it, then grabbed onto a high branch and flipped onto it. Kaden was in the back, being the slowest in the group. He jumped up and grabbed onto Mendelen' hand and he too was pulled up onto the branch with Mendelen and Estellese. Once they were all up the three of them quickly began climbing a bit higher, on the other hand Zanath didn't need to since he was already high enough to be out of sight.
They barely made it up in time, just moments after they climbed up the branches the massive wave of goblins came running past. Just like Mendelen predicted, they were not looking up in the trees, they were looking forwards and just running towards where they thought the humans had gone. It felt like it took forever for the whole herd of goblins to run past, once they had all passed the group looked around at each other, and Mendelen shook his head, holding his hand up as if to signal "stop", he wanted to make sure they stay
ed in the trees for a little while, just in case the goblins came back or in case there was a few lagging behind.
They silently waited up in the trees for about thirty minutes, just to be clear that there was no more goblins going past, or coming back through. "Alright, I think it's all clear." Mendelen finally said before he began climbing down the tree, with Estellese and Kaden following moments after him.
"Alright, we're in a forest now. Now what?" Zanath asked, before jumping straight down from the branches, and tucking into a roll when he landed to break the momentum of the fall without breaking his legs. "Think this will be safer then the city?"
"Well, nothing is attacking us yet. And we don't have a dragon over our heads ringing a dinner bell." Kaden replied simply, he was still breathing a little heavily from all the running. He just walked over to the base of the tree and collapsed onto his butt, leaning back against the tree.
"We had moments in the city where nothing attacked too though. Doesn't mean we are safe." Mendelen pointed out.
"True." Kaden replied. "But for the moment, we are in the clear. We should take the time to rest before something else finds us." He stated.
Mendelen shook his head. "We just had thirty minutes of rest, we need to keep moving and find a safe place to hold up before night falls." He replied. "This forest seems to grow thicker in that direction, which I think is towards the center. We should head that way and see if we can find an area with a lot of trees grouped together that we can use as cover for the night. The tight space will hinder crowds from swarming us, and stop bigger creatures from getting in."
Estellese nodded briefly and turned to look where Mendelen was pointing. "Sounds like a plan. If we can find some supplies to set up a makeshift camp that would be useful too." She said.
"Come on, we just got away. We can't rest for a while?" Kaden complained as he stood up, knowing very well that they were right, they had to keep moving. Any time spent resting was time not spent finding safety, and every second they weren't finding safety they were putting their lives at risk.
Mendelen shook his head and began walking, leading the group. "Yes, we can rest when we find a safe place to set up camp. A place where we won't be ambushed and killed. Or, at least a place that's a little denser and easier to defend then this." He explained. The group quieted down as they followed his lead into the woods. They walked for a while, it was a nice lull in the constant danger they had been in before.
As they walked deeper into the forest they noticed some odd herb-like plants on the ground. They definitely were not any type of plant from the real world, they had a red stem and thick white leaves. Thinking the plants may be poisonous, and worried that they could be poisonous to the touch like poison ivy the group decided not to touch them. Although Kaden, being Kaden, was rather interested in the odd plants and had picked a few of them.
He was inspecting them closely, the first one he picked apart the stem and ground the leaves down between his fingers, noting that the white leaves left a reddish powder when ground down. The next herb he grabbed then sniffed and bit a small piece of a leaf off. He wasn't really watching where he was going, but thankfully he was in the back of the group so nobody really noticed him tripping and stumbling over tree roots, bumping into trees, and playing with the strange plants. Well, not until he spoke up. "Hey guys, these smell and taste a lot like the healing potions."
Estellese stopped and turned around, only to see Kaden with one of the white leaves half in his mouth and a leafless stem in his hand. "Seriously? Didn't we just agree not to touch those because they may be poisonous?"
"I dunno, did we? I wasn't really paying attention." Kaden replied simply.
"Must you try eating every strange thing we find?" Estellese questioned him. "Seriously? You're gonna get yourself killed."
"Not everything, Only the things that look like they are good for you." Kaden said simply. "I inspected it first, it smells like the healing potion, and looks like it may be an ingredient to it, there was a powder similar to what the ground leaves look like in the pharmacy. I even feel a little numb after eating a small piece of one. Just a little."
"Can we please kill him before he dooms us all with his stupidity?" Estellese questioned.
Mendelen sighed softly. "Come on you two, no fighting." He stated. "Kaden, how sure are you that its an ingredient for a healing potion?" He asked.
"About eighty percent sure." Kaden replied simply "But I would need to test it, and would need more then one to test it, the effects of just one seem to be minimal and hardly noticeable." He explained.
"Alright, well don't eat any more. We'll figure out what they do later if you're willing to be a test dummy." Mendelen said simply.
Estellese was shocked. "You're joking right? He eats a random plant off the ground and you are going to tell him to eat another later?"
Kaden nodded "Yeah, I'm up for it. I am pretty confident that these are used in the,- DUCK!" he shouted out.
The four of them dropped to the ground as fast as they could, and with a loud swoosh a massive metal battleaxe flew over their heads and slammed into the tree behind them. "What the hell was that?" Estellese questioned. And she got her answer sooner then she may have wanted.
With a loud roar a ten foot tall, half human, half bull, hulking mass of muscle came stomping out from behind the trees on the right side of the group. The minotaur gave them a death glare and snorted loudly as it stomped it's hoof on the ground. They had trespassed into the beast's territory and the beast wanted them out, now.
The group looked down at their weapons, these tiny kitchen knives and fragile clubs, then looked back at the massive beast in front of them. "We probably can't even effectively damage it..." Zanath spoke up. "Bulls have strong hides, these tiny kitchen knives aren't going to do more then scratch it."
"It's not attacking, I think it just wants us to back off." Estellese pointed out.
"Then lets do that." Mendelen replied. "Quickly."
The Minotaur was getting impatient, it slammed its hoof into the ground again and let out a low growl as it suddenly started charging at the group. Causing all four of them to make a mad dash away from the beast. The minotaur gave chase, but only for a few more seconds before it stopped and went back to get its axe.
The group did not turn back, they just continued running as fast as they could to get away. They ran deep into the woods and didn't stop until they were sure that they had run very far away from the beast. They finally came to a stop near the center of the woods, where the trees were all close together, the forest was cramped and hard to maneuver through here.
Mendelen slowed down to a walking pace once they arrived, "Alright, spread out a little and find a spot where there's enough space for us to lay down and rest. We don't need a lot of space, I don't see anything around here we can really use to make a tent. Not easily at least. And while you are searching grab as many of those odd red and white plants as you can."
"Are you sure it's safe to stay here?" Estellese questioned. "If we run into more of those things we could be in a hell of a lot of trouble." She stated.
Mendelen nodded. "The minotaur has hooves, and was pretty big. I don't think it would be able to easily maneuver around this dense area, or slip in between the trees like we do. Plus it was slow, so we should be fine. We will meet back here by night fall, and hope someone found a place for us to stay" He replied before he split off from the group, not going too far, and began searching for a good place for everyone to rest for the night.
Kaden and Estellese also went off their own separate ways, and then Zanath too split from the group and began searching the woods. Out of everyone here he was having the least difficulty traveling through the denser and thicker woods. He scouted through the woods for a while, it was slowly starting to get dark and he knew he was considering heading back to the meeting point soon to find the others. But he suddenly heard a quiet growling coming from his left. He turned a little and spotted three gray wolves slowly stalkin
g towards him. They were bearing their fangs and growling, slowly circling him as the small pack tried to surround him. He grabbed all seven of his knives in one hand and adjusted them so he was holding one between his thumb and pointer finger, and the rest in his palm. His other hand grabbed his makeshift club and he waited for the wolves to make a move. He considered calling for help, but decided that he would be fine on his own.
Suddenly, the wolf in front of him, the leader of the pack, started the attack. The wolf lunged at him, trying to tackle him to the ground. But Zanath was quick to bash the wolf out of the air and onto it's back with the makeshift spiked club. As the wolf flew back he threw one of the knives at it with deadly accuracy, piercing the wolf's throat and killing it with the very first knife he threw.