Gaia's Gambit: Evolution Online I (A LitRPG)

by D. L. Harrison

  “Numbers?” Gwen asked.

  Rylla replied, “From what I saw, about six hundred. The good news is that only about two thirds of them have a full armor and weapon set. A third of them just have a sword, or a bow, and no armor at all. We can also assume they’ll be raw and untested level one goblins, and lacking experience. They’ll also be the fodder in the front.”

  Six hundred. I whistled.

  “Shamans?”

  Rylla shrugged, “They’re favored in the tribe, they’ll stay in the cave in comfort until the march is about to begin. I have scouts watching, and they’ll get the five of you that information right before the attack. I don’t imagine there could be more than five or six. You’ve already killed seven of them, and there just aren’t that many in each generation.”

  I nodded, “That gives us three tries at each of them, so that’s good news, if it’s true.”

  Lyre asked, “Will we need that many?”

  I frowned, “Maybe? Depends on what they’re protected from, or even if they are. Only one of us should use fire at once though, just in case. You want to use air, or should I use water?”

  Lyre shrugged, “It doesn’t matter to me, I’ll use air.”

  Wynn said, “We should all have time for two attacks. Use air and water first, and if one of those doesn’t work, or both, switch to fire. If it does work use the same attack again to finish him off. If we’re lucky, we’ve already killed all the Light sphere lesser shamans.”

  Yeah, I wasn’t going to depend on that, but that would be nice.

  We scarfed down our meals, and then hit the trail. The elves and myself could see fine in the dark by the stars, and Gwen used a darkness spell to see in the dark. It took us maybe fifteen minutes to walk the two miles.

  The fortifications were more involved than I’d been expecting, and my worries we’d be overwhelmed lessened, though not completely. No plan was foolproof, the enemy tended not to do the expected some of the time.

  There were a lot of stone walls, and trenches in three rows, about ten yards apart. The walls were high enough it would make it impossible for the goblins to just jump the trenches on the run. When they slowed down to maneuver over or around the first obstacles, we’d hit them twice and then run. There were also pit traps in case the goblins tried to go around and hit our flanks. Either way, we’d have plenty of time to fire two spells, or two arrows, and hoof it a quarter mile and reset the trap and the next set. The problem was, with sixteen of them over four miles on the way to the outpost, it gave the goblins a lot of opportunities to adapt, and come up with something the elves hadn’t considered.

  Time would tell.

  “The only flaw I can see is if the shamans hang back in the rear of the formation. The fortifications range a hundred feet, if they hang back too far they might stay out of our range.”

  Out in an open field, a bow and spells had an effective range of three hundred feet or so. But in the forest there was only so far we could see before the trees just became too thick. That wouldn’t be a problem for this first ambush, we were right on the northwestern corner of the forest and could see out of it just fine. There was also a bonfire out front, just in case the goblins might have missed us. A terrible tactic against a human army, but we wanted the goblins to find and charge us.

  Wynn nodded, “If we can’t see any shamans, take out as many goblin soldiers as you can with two spells. That might eventually bait them to the front.”

  Right. That made a certain amount of sense. If the goblins in the front were truly level one, they’d have around a hundred hit points, and I could kill two whole groups if I used all of my mana. So could Lyre. Well, anyone within nine feet of my target goblin would die.

  “Got it.”

  Wynn said, “Try and get some more sleep, it’s still over two hours before dawn.”

  I sat down and leaned back against a tree, which was uncomfortable. I grabbed some moss, and grew myself a nice soft backrest.

  Gwen laughed at me, “Comfy?”

  I grinned unrepentantly, “Very.”

  She slapped my legs apart and sat down between them, and then leaned back into me.

  She sighed, “So am I.”

  Her leather armor wasn’t exactly soft against my chest, but it wasn’t too bad, and I tried to get some sleep…

  It looked to my eyes like a hell of a lot more than six hundred, but as I counted sixty in the first line, and saw that there were ten lines, I realized that impression was purely the intimidation factor. They’d roll over us without a problem, which was why the plan was to get in a few nasty shots, and hoof it to the next ambush point.

  The first three lines were shirtless, with a ragged pair of breaches and some were even barefoot. They had swords or daggers in their hands. That was only one hundred eighty of them, so I supposed they found a few more suits of armor to pass around this morning.

  The five shamans were in the back, I’d found that out from a scout when we were woken up. I couldn’t see them though, but I knew they were there. We were going to have to draw them forward before we reached the palisade if we could.

  The goblins had about four feet of separation between them in all directions. I decided I’d hit the second row deep if I could. That would take out my target, and the eight around them as well, putting a nice big hole in their formation. We’d only get two hits before running, so I planned to put a hundred twenty-five mana in each one. If they were really level one, I’d kill eighteen just myself with two exploding fire blasts. Ten for the area of effect, would leave a hundred fifteen for damage, added to my intelligence and level was a max of one hundred forty-six.

  I shook my head, and cast assess life, which was all the verification I needed. I couldn’t see their hit points, but I knew level one goblins had far less than that.

  Wynn said, “Fire!” as the goblins made us out just inside the tree line, and started to charge.”

  My fire blast shot out and hit the second goblin in the middle of the lines. An explosion of white hot fire billowed out and engulfed him and the eight around him in formation. The damage filtered into my mind, and I knew they were all dead.

  Gwen shot her bow deeper into the lines, four deep with a curse. It wouldn’t be enough to kill one of the tougher armored ones, but it had the same effect. The goblin roared and attacked the goblin to the right. The surrounding goblins put him down fast, and efficiently.

  Lyre similarly to me, took out nine of them in an explosive blast of fire.

  Wynn and Anlyth fired an arrow and stone spike, wounding one and killing another.

  Then all hell broke loose, as twenty more cursed arrows shot over the front lines, from the elven scouts, and twenty other arrows were loosed at the front line from the soldiers.

  The front line disintegrated in fire, air, water, and earth attacks. The flashing explosions made it hard to see what the scout’s arrows had done, but I could make out the sounds of sword fighting within their ranks.

  Even with the overlapping fire, we took out at least forty in that first volley, eighteen of them by Lyre and me alone.

  We all fired a second volley, then turned tail and ran for it, without waiting to see the effect of our attack. The nine damage reports sliding into my mind however, told me I’d taken out nine more. We weren’t subtle as we hoofed it, and once again I was the slowest one. This time out of forty-five, not just five. Still, I could hear the charge behind us falter as they ran into the wide trenches with walls.

  I could imagine them running around the fortifications, instead of going through them, and I heard a few guttural war cries turn into cries of shock, anger, and agony as they found the pit traps.

  Our first ambush had been hellishly effective, but I didn’t believe for a moment that would last. The goblins would be far more careful about not falling into those traps again. We’d killed at least twenty to thirty more. Problem was, we wouldn’t be killing as many at once when they ran out of level ones. We’d have to start concentrating our
fire on the tougher goblins.

  We made it to the second ambush point, and I was already full up on mana. The ninety second full out run had been more than enough time to regeneration my mana. I was breathing like a damned bellows, and Gwen patted my back in encouragement. I was fine, my heart was racing, but I’d be recovered enough for the next leg by the time we had to retreat again.

  I started to make out movement in the trees, headed our way. The goblin lines were broken, and they weren’t marching in formation. They looked more like a swarm. Arrows and spells from our side filled the air. I cast my two spells again, this time only able to target a group of three, and a second group of two. Then we were running again. Damn, fourteen more of these runs? I was going to run out of gas.

  On the run, I estimated we’d taken out another thirty or so. That was one sixth of their entire force dead, and we had fourteen more ambushes. No new cries of agony reached my ears, the goblins had already adapted and were avoiding the pit traps. Still, the point of those traps were to slow the enemy down, so we could stay ahead of them, which was still accomplished by their caution.

  The next four ambushes went similarly, and although I couldn’t be sure, I believed we’d killed all the level one goblins, and quite a few of the more powerful ones. The last ambush, I’d had to hit a more powerful goblin with all my mana in just one attack to take it down. So far, we hadn’t seen the goblin shamans at all, they were just too far back. Kind of the same way I was trailing behind our warriors, they probably just couldn’t keep up. Still, we had nine ambushes left, and we’d already killed a third of them in raw numbers, if not in power. There were probably four hundred left.

  I heard a cry of agony ahead, but it wasn’t guttural. Damn it, I hated being right. The goblins must have broken off a force, and sent them circling us outside the forest which was only fifty yards to our right. We hadn’t been able to tell because their formation was nonexistent, and in the forest we could only see the vanguard of their force. We’d stopped for thirty seconds every quarter mile, which let them outpace us. They were behind our own fortifications, in front of us. They were the anvil, and the hammer was in hot pursuit. Two more elven cries reached my ears.

  An arrow whipped past my face.

  Wynn’s voice called out, “Out of the forest, and make for the outpost!”

  Damn, a full out run for two and a half miles was going to kick my ass. I veered to the right, and there were two more elven cries as we burst out of the forest and ran our asses off toward the outpost. Still, it’d been partially successful, we’d killed a third of the enemy, which put us below ten to one odds for defending the heavily fortified outpost.

  Of course, our second primary objective had not been met. We hadn’t killed even one of the five shamans. Hell, I hadn’t even seen one of them.

  Two elves started to lag behind, fortunately I was in the back, being all slow like I was.

  “Pull out the arrows!” I ordered.

  One of the elves obeyed me for some reason. I formed the heal spell in my mind and pushed it into his stumbling body. He straightened up almost immediately as my mana flowed in to heal his wounds. It was a bit awkward to do on the run since I had to touch him, but neither of us wanted to stop. The second elf obeyed after seeing what I’d done for the first, and I healed him as well.

  Then I started to look through the crowd of elves running ahead of me, and incidentally pulling away from me since I was so slow. No others were dropping back, and I saw none being carried, but I’d heard five elven cries in the forest. Three must’ve been dead.

  It was a hell of a trade, three elves for over two hundred goblins? It still seemed like too much to me, they wouldn’t come back like I would. I also knew it wouldn’t be the last death today. Ambushes always favored the ambushers, the siege would be a different story, and cost more lives. I took a deep breath, and tried to push that out of mind. It wasn’t my fault, though that didn’t stop me from finding a reason to blame myself. I should have been more persuasive, but Wynn had been so damned sure it would work sixteen times in a row. Hubris. Even goblins weren’t that stupid.

  Still, this world was violent, and I didn’t make it that way. It wasn’t really my fault, I knew that, and in war people died. I just needed to accept it.

  I looked over my shoulder, and the goblins were pouring out of the forest and in pursuit. They were far enough back I thought we could make it. Even I would make it, they were at least a quarter mile back. It’d taken them time to realize we aborted our charge to the next ambush point, and to give out orders to pursue.

  “Slacking back here with the slow kids?” I said flippantly, although I’m not sure I pulled it off, since I was gasping for breath. My heart thundered in my chest, and my legs were rubbery. I knew I’d be alright, but it didn’t feel that way.

  Gwen chuckled, annoyingly not out of breath at all, “I felt guilty leaving you behind.”

  Way to make a man feel manly. On the other hand, she hadn’t killed nearly as many as I had in the ambushes, we both had our strengths. I was happy enough being a glass cannon. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to up my strength a little at some point. We did an awful lot of running, and it would bring my hit points up. I’d figure it all out when I hit level eleven, it all depended on how enchantment worked, and if I could up my strength, agility, or willpower without sacrificing pluses to intelligence and wisdom. I already knew I could wear more enchantments on my body, in other places. Not amulet or rings, and my robes were already enchanted, but on my wrists, ears, and feet.

  “Understood.”

  And I did understand, I’d rather die than leave her behind. It also gave me a lot more impetus to finish this crazy two-mile dash. Not that I needed it.

  “Any idea who we lost?”

  Gwen shook her head, “No one we’re familiar with, two of the soldiers, and one scout.”

  I nodded. We hadn’t spent much time with most of them. Wynn, Lyre, Anlyth, and Rylla were okay. The only other elves we really knew beside that was the smith Danell, and Ceara in the general goods store. Not that it made it all that easier, I just felt more guilt for being glad it hadn’t been one of my friends that had died.

  My legs were burning as we approached the palisade. The large doors started to close when we were still fifty feet away, the rest of the force already inside. They’d timed it well though, and we slipped in between the doors when they were still four feet apart. A moment later the doors slammed shut, and large logs were lifted to bar the gate.

  I started to walk slowly, and gasped for breath as we headed to the ladder, and climbed up to the top of the walls. The goblins looked deadly, and there was still a hell of a lot of them. At first, I thought they’d come in heedlessly, but as they neared weapons range at about a hundred yards, I heard some loud guttural orders. The charge stopped, and they started to form up.

  There were a little less than four hundred of them. Six rows deep of sixty goblins, and about twenty more on a seventh row, so three hundred eighty in total. I wondered where the goblin shamans were, but then saw them way far back, approaching at a slow jog.

  That wasn’t a good thing at all.

  The walls I stood on suddenly seemed a whole lot less sturdy.

  We’d have to take them down fast. Easier said than done.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The goblins organized quickly, and then waited as the shamans slowed to a walk, and started to wend their way through the ranks. I wasn’t really sure what I’d do, until I saw I what their plans turned out to be.

  When the shamans reached the front lines, the goblins yelled their war cries and charged the gates with the thunderous sounds of their footsteps. The shamans stepped forward just far enough to be in range, and launched two fire, two stone, and an air attack at the gate.

  Now that they were in range, we didn’t hesitate either.

  I fired an ice spike with half my mana, that would do double damage over five seconds.

  Their attacks hit the gate, an
d the large explosions led to tearing and burning of wood, but didn’t break the gate on their first volley. Though admittedly they’d weakened it quite a bit.

  My ice spike reached the goblin, and I sighed in relief as the damage started to pour into my mind, the bastard was good as dead.

  Lyre too had fired, her attack one of air that ripped into the goblin shaman and started a whirlwind of blades that at a guess would last five seconds to double the damage, not to mention the arrow’s damage that accompanied the spell.

  Anlyth fired an earth spike from his hand, which impaled the third goblin shaman, and exploded in spectacular way that tore the goblin apart. I could only assume he’d put all his mana into that one attack instead of holding back like Lyre and I had done for a follow up.

  My Gwen, hit the fourth goblin shaman with a cursed arrow, and Wynn’s arrow hit the same one. The shaman screamed in rage, and joined the charge.

  The two Lyre and I hit were already dead, it was just a matter of a few seconds, but those two along with the untouched shaman had more than enough time to get off one more spell. A fire blast and two stone spikes flew toward the gates. This time, the gates lost the contest, and blew inward in splinters as the two shamans Lyre and I hit collapsed dead to the ground.

  Shit.

  I sent my second ice spike, which was joined by air and stone, which totally obliterated the last standing shaman. There was one more below in the charge, but he wouldn’t be casting anything until the cursed rage ran its course.

  The elven scouts and warriors hadn’t been idle all that time, and had sent two deadly volleys of magic into the charging hoard of goblins. Explosions of fire, whipping wind blades, explosions of stone, and shards of ice ripped into the charging goblins. The nineteen scouts had used their alternate sphere instead of curses, so all thirty-seven of the elves left tore into the enemy with the four elemental spheres.

  At least fifty goblins died in those two volleys, but there were still three hundred and thirty of them charging toward the gates, and they were close. The shamans were neutralized, but they’d done their damage, and I wasn’t regenerating mana fast enough to be able to build a significant enough ice wall to replace the main gates. Anlyth didn’t have anything left either. It wouldn’t take long for me to recoup it, less than a minute, but that was a long time, too long.