Keeper

by Tom Larcombe

  His bow came up and he released his first arrow a few moments after Allie did. The goblin archers, realizing that they had opponents with missile weapons as well, split their attention. Two of them continued to fire at Dominic, who had raised some sort of shield that was drastically slowing the arrows before they reached him, and the other two split up with one firing at Eddie and the other at Allie.

  Jern yelped with pain and Eddie looked over to see that one of the warriors on him had landed a hard strike. Tiana was still working on Dominic, so Eddie paused firing for long enough to take a few steps forward and drop a Nature's Binding on Jern.

  “Thank ye laddie,” the dwarf called out. “They hit a bit harder than I thought they would.”

  Tiana noticed the interchange and frowned. She cast one more spell on Dominic before hurrying over to the dwarf.

  “I used Nature's Binding on him,” Eddie said, firing another arrow. “It should stack fine with your heals.”

  Tiana nodded and started casting again. Dominic, convinced that his shield was going to protect him from the arrows, launched another fireball. This one landed in the middle of the goblin archers' ranks, dropping three of the four. As Eddie and Allie managed to drop the first warrior they'd focused on, a fiery arrow shot across the battlefield striking, and dropping, the last of the archers.

  Jern was now on the attack again, he'd gone defensive for a short while after taking the blow that Eddie had healed. Eddie cast Fox Fire again, on the warrior that was farthest away from Jern. Another one was trying to circle around the dwarf and Karl shimmered into view as he struck that warrior's back. When the warrior spun to face the scout, Lucky leapt up from where she'd been crouched on the ground, raking her claws across the warrior's face. Karl used the distraction to land another strike on the warrior. Allie was firing at the glowing warrior but Eddie changed targets. The warrior on Karl and Lucky had its back to Eddie and he couldn't resist the broad, barely moving, target. He landed an arrow in it, staggering the warrior, then turned back to help Allie focus down the glowing warrior.

  Lucky snarled as she struck again, this time darting between the warrior's legs and clawing across his poorly protected hamstrings. When the warrior staggered from that attack, Karl swung his swords, striking with both and dropping the warrior for good.

  Eddie and Allie quickly focused down their warrior now that they weren't having to dodge arrows from goblin archers. The last two warriors were in too close with Jern for them to fire at, so Eddie chose the one Jern was attacking and tried a Fox Fire on it. This time, the warrior resisted the spell.

  Lucky came darting in to attack the side of a warrior and when Eddie turned his head he couldn't find Karl any more.

  Good, he thought, I'm not going to go into hand to hand without permission, I don't want to hear about it, but Lucky and Karl should help clear those two out quickly.

  He'd utterly forgotten about Dominic though so when a fiery arrow struck one of the goblin warriors, Eddie jumped. Unwilling to stand there and do nothing, he caught Allie's gaze. Drawing his sword a couple of inches, he gestured his head towards the remaining goblins. She shrugged, then nodded, drawing her own sword.

  Eddie charged in, drawing the poor quality shortsword that was his main melee weapon. He attacked the one that Jern wasn't attacking. Lucky was helping Jern already and Eddie knew that too many attackers on one opponent would end up being a problem. He'd only landed a single strike, compared to Allie's two that she'd hit with, when the warrior staggered and fell, Karl pulling his shortswords from the warrior's back.

  “Point in backstab,” Karl called out gleefully.

  Eddie's own notification lights were flashing, but he wasn't going to look at them until the battle was over. He tried another Fox Fire on the last goblin and this time it took. Jern and Lucky both landed hits a moment later and the warrior toppled and fell.

  “Alright, loot and rest,” Allie called out.

  Eddie was only down some mana and stamina so he started to help with the looting. Dominic sank down to a sitting position against a tree.

  “I don't remember the goblin archers hitting that hard before,” he said.

  Eddie glanced over at the arrows Tiana had pulled out of Dominic and those that had caught in his magical shield and ended up on the ground. There was something odd about them and it took him a moment to realize what it was.

  “That might be because of the arrow heads,” Eddie called out.

  He walked over to the arrows and picked them up. What had caught his attention was the triangular shaped, barbed arrowheads on the arrows.

  “These are broadheads, not field points,” he said. “Broadheads do a lot more damage, here look.”

  He held out one of his own arrows with the conical pointed tip, then held the flat, triangular arrowhead from the goblin arrow next to it.

  “See? Bigger wound, more damage, and it tears stuff up better too with the barbs. Both on the way in and the way out,” Eddie said.

  Allie held out a hand and Eddie gave her the broad head arrow.

  “This is new,” she said. “I mean in more ways than one. The arrowhead itself is still pretty new, no wear and tear on it. Plus, the tier two villages never had these when I was here before. Never heard of the villages having broadhead arrows.”

  Eddie stared at one of the broadhead arrows he was still holding.

  Evaluate, he thought.

  Arrow (broadhead-barbed)

  Weapon (Missile)

  Attack: 18

  Dmg: 5-30

  Crit: 20%

  +2-5 dmg if quickly removed from wound

  “Those are nasty,” he said. “More damage initially, plus if you just pull it out the barbs damage you even more.”

  “These archers have more of them too,” Allie called out, having gone over to check them after they'd discovered the fired broadheads.”

  Karl was checking out the shortswords and Eddie noticed that he'd swapped his existing ones out for some of the ones on the warriors here, now Karl spoke up.

  “These swords are much better quality also,” he said. “Out of the five of them two were ranked uncommon quality and the other three were common. I never saw anything but poor quality on all the goblins I've killed so far.”

  “Me either,” Allie said. “As a matter of fact, my backup weapon is one of those poor quality swords. Let me see these.”

  Karl blushed.

  “Well, I already grabbed the uncommon ranked ones, here you can have one if you want,” he said, starting to draw a sword.

  “No, keep them,” she said. “You're the only one whose primary weapon is the shortsword and since you dual wield it makes sense that you get the two uncommons, but I will swap out for one of the commons. How about you Eddie?”

  Eddie pulled out his poor quality sword and exchanged it for one of the common ones.

  “Hey, save the poor ones though? You can give them to me and I'll hang onto them,” he said,

  “Why?”

  “Opron is melting them down for the metal. Sounds easier than mining for ore to me so I figured I'd help him out.”

  “Oh, in that case, here,” Karl said, handing over his two old swords. Allie added hers a moment later.

  “I can't wait to have a smith who can craft the weapons we want and maybe even get higher quality ones,” she said. “So I'll make sure to hang onto any of them I find to give to him.”

  “Thanks guys,” Eddie said. “Opron might not be staying around, but he is talking with Delgar, another hammer dwarf player that showed up recently. He's a smith as well, so I think they'll end up sharing the smithy, those two plus an NPC apprentice I asked Opron to take on. That way even if the players are gone we'll have a smith who can do at least some of the things we want.”

  “This changes things,” Allie said. “Knowing that they might have better quality weapons, do we still want to do this?”

  Karl smirked, and pulled a small cask out of his inventory for a moment, showing it to her.r />
  “We've always got our backup plan,” he said.

  “Yeah, but we got less experience and hardly any loot doing it that way last time,” she replied.

  “I'm all for it,” Jern said. “It just means we need to keep on our toes. Keep right with the plan and we'll be fine, lass.”

  Dominic nodded his agreement to Jern's words.

  “If we wait until we're all full up on health, mana, and stamina then I think we'll do fine,” he said. “And if not, we can always run. Even Jern is at least a little faster than the goblins and we should all have more stamina than they do.”

  “I'm in,” Karl said. “Like I said, we've got a backup plan. We can just burn the whole thing down if it looks too tough.”

  Allie was lost in thought so Eddie spoke up.

  “If everyone's willing, then I am also. But I don't want us to do it if anyone has any doubts or doesn't really want to do it.”

  After speaking his piece Eddie finally pulled up his flashing notifications. He'd gained a point in both Fox Fire and short swords. With a mental cheer, he dismissed his notifications, then paid attention again because Allie was speaking.

  “I'm with Eddie here. If everyone is willing, let's do it. But if anyone isn't, I think we should pass,” she said. “Tiana, you're the only one that hasn't spoken up yet.”

  “I used a quarter of my mana on this fight. Will I have enough mana to keep everyone healed?” she asked.

  “I can back you up,” Eddie said. “At least after we start clearing some of the goblins.”

  “Plus, we've got Eddie's healing bread,” Allie added. “Everyone keep that in mind, if you need healing badly and Tiana or Eddie can't get to you immediately, eat a piece of the bread. It's not a lot of health to start, but it keeps going for a bit and might keep you on your feet.”

  “Then let's give a try,” Tiana said. “Eddie, if I need you to heal someone I'll let you know, alright?”

  He nodded.

  Once everyone had fully regenerated they all continued along the path.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Okay, Karl, I need you to stealth and go check out their outpost. I want a basic layout, numbers, and types. Got it?” Allie said, once they'd neared the point that showed a village on the map.

  He nodded and slipped off into the undergrowth, disappearing from sight.

  They waited patiently for his return after getting off the path and out of sight themselves. When Karl reappeared in their midst, Eddie wasn't the only one that jumped and reached for a weapon.

  Karl chuckled for a moment, then knelt down and sketched out the village in the dirt.

  “Don't know what's going on there, but something is. There's a big goblin speaking to a crowd of the normal ones from the village. Couldn't Evaluate the big one since I don't have that skill, but he's kitted out like a warrior, and his equipment looked even better than what we just got from the patrol.”

  Eddie stared at the sketch.

  “Were there any other goblins you saw that weren't gathered around him?” he asked.

  “Nah, they were all in these two spots between the buildings, here and here,” Karl replied, pointing. “If there are any more, they were out of sight.”

  Eddie grinned.

  “Let's do this the efficient way then. Allie, Karl told me you'd made flaming arrows. Are you just as accurate with those?”

  “Close to it, why?”

  “I'm just thinking, if we get Dominic to fireball one of these areas they're congregated in and we throw that cask of oil out into the other one, can you shoot the cask in the air and ignite it?”

  “It won't explode or anything, it's just lamp oil,” Karl said.

  “Yeah, but if we toss it high enough won't it shatter and splatter when it lands?” Eddie asked.

  “Ah, I get it, you want the splash damage, plus a big pool of fire in the middle of that clearing?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Think that would work?”

  “It might at that,” Allie said, “and I'm sure I can hit that in the air with the flame arrow, especially if it gets tossed nice and high.”

  “I'm guessing Dominic's fireball will do more damage, right? So he should target the area with the big goblin in it. I'm betting we'll need a lot more damage to take him down,” Eddie said.

  “Sounds about right. Keep an eye out for archers and don't spare the broadheads, we need to take those archers down fast if they've got broadheads also,” Allie said.

  “Got it,” Eddie replied.

  “Okay, we go in here, here, and here,” Allie said pointing. “Dominic, you're in the middle there, Jern, you take the path, Eddie, you're on the far end. Karl and Lucky? Wait until after fireball goes off, then get in there and get some back attacks. Tiana, go in with Dominic so you're in a central position to get to anyone that needs healing. I'll be right behind Jern, providing support for him. Am I forgetting anything?”

  “Yeah, who's tossing the barrel?” Eddie asked.

  “Jern, I'm guessing you've got the highest strength here, you up for that?”

  “Let me see the cask,” Jern replied.

  When Karl handed it over, Jern took it, bounced it in one hand, and nodded.

  “Twenty feet up or so work for you?” he asked Allie.

  “That's good. Let's go then,” she replied.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie crouched, hidden by the undergrowth at the edge of the goblin village. He was waiting on the fireball from Dominic that would signal everyone to attack. His targets were already picked. There was a trio of archers on the edge of the crowd closest to him. All the goblins appeared to be listening to the warrior Karl had mentioned. Karl hadn't been exaggerating either. The warrior stood a head taller than the other goblins and was clad in a hauberk of chainmail that nearly reached his ankles. The sword slung over his back was much longer than a standard goblin sword, long enough that it would qualify as a longsword and not a shortsword.

  As Eddie stared at the warrior, he wished he were closer. He was just out of range of his Evaluate skill, but he didn't want to move too much and give away his position by trying to get closer. Instead, he nocked an arrow and waited, impatiently.

  An eye-scorching line of light connected the undergrowth at the edge of the village with the center of the group of goblins nearest to the big warrior. It expanded into a fireball, one much larger than the others he'd seen Dominic cast. Several of the goblins in that group dropped outright, but the big warrior seemed to shrug it off, looking around for the caster who'd attacked him.

  Eddie launched his first arrow, planting it right in the back of one of the archers he'd been watching. Meanwhile Jern's voice roared out, insulting the goblin race as a whole and the goblins present even more. Several of the scorched goblins turned and immediately raced towards the dwarf, but even more of them turned back to the big goblin, obviously waiting for something.

  The cask of oil went flying towards the middle of the second group of goblins, a flaming arrow striking it in mid-air. When it hit the ground, the staves on the cask snapped, the oil splattering all over the place. The rest of the oil spilled out into a big pool on the ground which instantly ignited from the arrow's flames. As the flames spread, they caught on the splatters that had gone everywhere, including many of the goblins.

  The waiting goblins got what they were after a moment later. The big goblin screamed out orders, splitting the goblins up and sending some of them after Jern and more to search for Dominic. Evidently the big goblin was either unaware that Eddie was there also, or simply unworried about him.

  Eddie released arrow after arrow, rapidly dropping the three archers he'd seen by using the broadhead arrows. When the last archer fell, he retargeted on the goblins that were still searching for Dominic.

  And Tiana, he thought, remembering that she was with the wizard. Hell no, that's not gonna happen. If it looks like they're about to find them I'll step out and use myself as bait.

  He fired as quickly as he could, switching
back to his field point arrows after he'd fired the last of the broadheads. Meanwhile, fiery arrows were coming out of the undergrowth at a pace of about three a minute. Each one came from a different location though, so he was sure that Dominic was staying on the move. Tiana was probably moving towards Jern and Allie by now.

  Eddie stepped out of the undergrowth. He no longer had any good targets from where he'd been concealing himself. Now he could see the goblins searching for Dominic better and he started shooting them again. The big goblin had moved to the central point of the encampment now and he caught sight of Eddie. He started to move in Eddie's direction until another series of insults echoed through the courtyard, Jern bellowing them loudly enough that Eddie's ears were ringing even with the distance between them.

  That decided the big warrior, who turned towards Jern and started moving. As he pulled his sword off of his back, Eddie realized that he was close enough to evaluate him.

  Evaluate, he thought.

  Elite Goblin Warrior (male):

  Type: Monster

  Level: 10

  Armor: 63

  Health 172 (+/-)

  Attack: ?

  You are currently unable to obtain more information about Elite Goblin Warrior (male) with Evaluate.

  Oh shit! he thought. Gotta let them know.

  [group chat: Eddie – Watch out! That's an Elite Goblin Warrior, Level 10.]

  [group chat: Allie – That's a problem. Can anyone hold him for a bit? I only need a minute]

  Eddie gulped.

  [group chat: Eddie – I might be able to, but I won't be able to do anything else. Someone keep them off of me when I fall over, okay?]

  [group chat: Tiana – Eddie, no!]

  It was too late though. The Elite was already attacking Jern, but that meant that he was right at the edge of the path, among the trees, vines, and undergrowth of the forest. Eddie raced along the edge of the undergrowth until he was close enough for his plans, then stared at all the growth at the edge of the path.