Watcher's Test

by Sean Oswald

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “Oh, that goblin is so cute.” —No one, ever.

  Once his forces had reached the bridge, Draznei’kai instructed the goblins in what he wanted them to do. He intended to send the remaining goblins into the town first and told the shaman who questioned him that it was so that they could get the first chance at killing the sleeping humans. He said that he would then send in his skeletons, which now, after spending a good size chunk of his stored-up mana equaled fifty-four walking sets of bones. One good thing about Eloria was that even if the corpses were a few hundred years old, he had never been in a location where there weren’t the remains of sentients laying buried in the ground. The skeletons were the weakest of the undead, but they would be perfect for what he had in mind here.

  He watched as the goblins arranged themselves in a staggered line and began crossing the bridge. First, he sent the two scouts. Then ten minutes later, he sent the six rogues in one by one. The goal being to use their Stealth to get into the sleeping town and start to kill as many humans as possible. The scouts were first to check for guards, but from what had already been reported, he didn’t believe there would be any to be found. After the rogues, he sent the eleven remaining skirmishers in pairs, with the shaman paired with the final skirmisher. Thinking of the shaman caused a dark cloud to cross the death knight’s mind. That one was up to something, but he didn’t know what it was, and honestly, it wasn’t like he had anything to fear from one so weak. Anyway, the skirmishers were sent ten minutes after the rogues. He knew it was killing the goblins, especially the brutish skirmishers to move so slowly, but the one thing he didn’t want was for their surprise to be spoiled. There were over one hundred humans in this little town and even though the vast majority of them were unleveled, they were still strong lumbermen. He was too close to the next phase of the plan, and he wouldn’t let anything cause it to fail.

  Walking slowly so as to be stealthy, it would take the smaller goblins over an hour to cover the two miles into town. The scouts had left some twenty minutes before and were probably faster than the rest of the goblins as they were more accustomed to moving like this. Then the rogues would be the next fastest. While they were good at stealth, it was more for creeping into a room not for traveling any sort of distance without being detected. Watching the last of the goblins head out, he was pleased. For once, the shaman seemed to be doing what he was told even if he had acted oddly. Perhaps he could learn something new, but then again it didn’t really matter. The death knight waited until the last of the goblins were out of sight then checked with his esoteric sense to confirm that they were far enough away. Once he was sure, he ordered his skeletons to start tearing the bridge apart. None of the goblins would be using it again, so there was no need for it, and it fit better with the planned narrative for the bridge to be destroyed.

  Dave had started to walk out of the house when Emily grabbed his arm. “Wait one second, I need to get you something.” With that, she walked over to her backpack and pulled out a belt pouch. “I had this made for you as a gift. I was saving it for before you go hunting again, but it seems like now is a better time.”

  Taking the pouch from her hands, Dave opened it and found ten vials inside, five of them blue and five red. They looked like the mana and health potions from every MMO he had ever played. “Are these what I think they are?”

  “If you think they are potions to restore your health and mana, then yes.”

  “These are great, I can’t thank you enough. Now go before I change my mind about this crazy plan of yours.” Emily kissed his cheek and then turned away.

  Watching her walk away Dave knew there was no viable choice but for them to split up, but it didn’t make it any easier. He was going to have to trust the safety of the kids to Emily. They both had a role to play in this, and it was time that he got to his. As he ran out and headed toward the edge of town to act as the first line of defense, he crunched the numbers on mana regeneration in his head. From what he remembered, Emily had told him that the potion she had used restored 10 mana per minute. He already had a mana regeneration of two and a half per minute, so the mana potion was a dramatic increase for him. Dave paused long enough to pop one of the blue potions and was greeted with a confirming notification.

  You have consumed a potion: Tincture of Mana Regeneration (Standard Quality)

  Effect: Increases Mana Regeneration by 10/minute for 20 minutes

  Hopefully now, he would be able to use his esoteric sense more to pinpoint enemies without being afraid of running out of mana when he needed it for a combat skill. For now, though, there was no time to delay. He needed to intercept whatever force was incoming and hope that he could delay them long enough for Talvenicus to be able to get the town evacuated.

  It only took him a few seconds to reach the town square. Once he got there, he decided he didn’t have any choice. His Esoteric Sense wouldn’t tell him friend from foe. It would only alert him to the presence of the bodies. Maybe at a higher level or with some practice, he would refine the ability, but not right now. So his best opportunity to use it again would be before too many of the villagers were up and moving around. So reluctantly he spent another fifty mana and got another second of insight. He could immediately recognize his family moving and what should be Talvenicus moving near Conrad’s home. He also saw three figures moving in between the homes just to the north of the town square. Based upon the position of the figures from his early burst of expanded senses, he was assuming that these three were the two foremost of the invaders and Aloysia. Besides those, he was able to identify six more figures fairly close to town and at least two other pairs at the very edge of his burst of expanded awareness.

  Well, since stealth was his enemy’s goal, he needed to interrupt that. Tactical lesson 101 from his time as a marine: never let your enemy control the engagement. Don’t let them control the where, when, or how of the battle. Whoever dictates the conditions has all the advantages. Moreover, since noise would only serve to help wake up the town and might even accelerate the evacuation he decided to go loud now. He didn’t have the number of troops that they obviously did, so all he could really do was try to interrupt their plans. It was a plan of desperation and he didn’t like it, but it was all he had. So here goes.

  With that thought, he charged at full speed toward the location of one of the three moving bodies in the nearby houses. Rounding the corner of the first house he was greeted by what any gamer would automatically identify as a goblin. Not quite five-foot-tall, gangly, green arms and legs with an oval-shaped head atop the shoulders. It was dressed in a crude loincloth held up by a leather cord. In its hands was a sling, which started to whirl around as soon as it saw him. Unfortunately for the goblin scout, Dave was able to both cast Assess Enemy and close the five feet between them before the sling could be ready to use.

  Goblin Scout: Level 5. Health: 80

  It showed up in a light blue color indicating a minor threat. As his shoulder drove into the chest of the scout, Dave couldn’t help but laugh. Eight or twelve or however many there were of these scouts wouldn’t pose much of a threat. The air exploded out of the goblin as the force of Dave’s tackle sent it slamming into the wall of the house behind it. The noise woke the family that lived there. While the impact hadn’t caused much damage to the goblin per the notification that Dave got, it had stunned the little creature. Without hesitation, Dave pulled out his new longsword and thrust forward into where he hoped the scout’s heart was located. After the briefest bit of resistance, the razor-sharp blade slide in and all the way into the wooden wall the goblin was slumped against.

  Congratulations you have made your first coup-de-grace. This is a death blow against an enemy unable to resist. The damage of a coup-de-grace is automatically quadrupled. You have hit Goblin Scout for (211) damage. 15*1.68 (Strength) * 2.1 (long blade/weapon spec) *4 (coup de grace).

  You have begun a military-style event: Defense of Eris’ Rise. You will only be abl
e to receive XP at the end of the engagement, assuming that you survive. Should you be driven from the city you will gain no XP. XP rewards will be reduced for every citizen who is killed. Potential Event Rewards: Faction points with Kingdom of Albia, Duchy of Holstein, Town of Eris’ Rise. Additional reward unknown and contingent upon the degree of success.

  Looking down at the small corpse before him, Dave felt no remorse. A part of him wondered about that. He had had to kill men in Iraq. He remembered feeling somewhat detached in the moment, but how it always plagued him afterward. He couldn’t help but wonder if this would affect him the same way. This was really the first humanoid creature he had fought so far. The treant had been vaguely humanoid, but it wasn’t the same at all. This was a creature who was intelligent enough to have some sort of military structure and to wear clothing and use weapons even if they were crude. He had never felt any remorse when killing goblins or any number of other humanoid races in various MMOs he had played in the past, but then again, Eloria was hardly a game. Either way, it was something he would have to deal with later, assuming there was a later.

  He was pulled from that self-reflection by the sounds of fighting a short distance away. Without thinking about it, he wiped his sword against the goblin to remove the blood and ran toward the struggle. After passing two more homes, he saw Aloysia and another goblin scout in a knife battle. Well, if a one-sided slaughter could be called a battle. By the time he got there, Aloysia was pulling her dagger from where she had buried it in the goblin’s throat.

  Turning to Dave with a smile Aloysia said, “Ugh, goblins are so ugly. My father had described them before, but I never imagined I would see one so far from the border.”

  “So is something wrong with goblins being here?”

  “Every Albian is told that we have the border barons on the west to hold back the goblin hordes from invading the kingdom. In fact, the very reason that this town exists is to supply lumber for the war effort, but that is all the way on the western side of the kingdom.”

  “Don’t forget, we aren’t from around here. Exactly how far are we from the western border?”

  Then as Aloysia started to answer, “Wait, never mind, as curious as I am right now, we don’t have time for this now. We need to deal with at least ten more of these things.”

  Aloysia shrugged as she bent to clean her dagger against the fallen goblin’s skin, “Have it your way.”

  “What I do need to know is if these two goblin scouts are typical of the goblins we will have to fight or if there are stronger ones.”

  Shrugging again, “I don’t know much about the details, but I have always heard stories about goblin warriors with big axes or maces and even about shamans who could hurl fire or ice from their fingers.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of, but I guess nothing could ever be this easy.” Dave grimaced as he spoke with a sullen reluctance. “Well, the next batch could be here anytime. They weren’t that far behind these first two.”

  As if on cue then, Dave felt at the last minute as a goblin lunged out of the shadows between two houses with a crude iron short sword. Only his preternatural reflexes from the initiative bonus he had gained with his Mind trait, allowed him to avoid taking a full-blown sneak attack. He was still struck along the arm (5) as he moved to avoid the thrust. The damage only counted against the temporary health he had from Emily’s blessing. The mage armor he was wrapped in kept him from being cut, but the force still caused damage. A part of his mind wondering why the passive 6th sense from his Esoteric Sense skill hadn’t alerted him sooner. Even as he was dodging, he saw Aloysia being stabbed from behind by another goblin. A reflexively cast, Assess Enemy told him these were Goblin Rogues: Level 6 with 80 health and still light blue cons. The difference being that these goblins obviously had some combat skills to be able to attack from the shadows like that.

  Dave had to ignore his ally and her predicament for now while he crossed swords for the first time. Having sidestepped the worst of the attack he brought his sword up to block the backhanded slash made by the goblin as it moved forward. The attack was clumsy, but still a bit scary to Dave. The knowledge of how to wield a sword had been downloaded into his brain, but knowing it and doing it are not the same thing. Up until now, he had been using a sword against animals who had no means to block. Now he was in an actual sword fight and experiencing competing emotions of fear and excitement.

  Initially, Dave wanted to take the measure of his foe, so he just continued to block. Every thrust or slash was turned aside with the clanging sound of metal on metal. Each pass made Dave feel more comfortable. The goblin was fast, maybe even faster than Dave was, but its sword was half the length of his and didn’t give him much range. The creature’s strokes were also sloppy and from Dave’s downloaded knowledge, he knew that his foe was no swordsman. Maybe the rogue was an assassin of sorts, good at striking in ambush but not at a straight-up fight. This conviction was borne out by shrieks the creature was making which even if Dave hadn’t taken goblin as a language, he still would have been able to understand as frustrated cursing. Since he did speak goblinese, it almost made his face red at the creative vileness of the little creature’s cries. Finally though, Dave knew he had to help Aloysia, so he put a lot more Strength into his next block, and as planned, it caused the goblin’s sword arm to fan out widely to its side, leaving its front completely exposed. Dave aimed for the exposed chest and thrust hard.

  Just as the sword tip was about to pierce his foe’s skin, the rogue triggered its Dodge ability and the otherwise successful attack passed harmlessly through the air. Crap, he had to be smarter than that. Dave silently berated himself while pivoting and pulling his blade back quickly to block the predictable counter strike. In his new position, Dave was able to see Aloysia on her back trying to parry away strikes from the other goblin. While Dave had the advantage of length with his longsword of the goblin short swords, Aloysia was in exactly the opposite position trying to defend herself with only a dagger in hand and a heavily bleeding wound in her abdomen.

  Dave felt a grim smile worm its way onto his face. The fights up to this point with the beasts of the forest had for the most part been simple life and death struggles of brute force. This fight was no less deadly, but it had a different feel. He felt strangely alive doing this dance of death. One part of him was occupied blocking the clumsy attacks of his opponent while another part of his mind was trying to formulate a plan to help his fallen ally. “Time to be a hero,” he thought to himself. While still blocking, he pulled one of his new daggers out of its sheath on his thigh and hurled it at the goblin standing over Aloysia and cast a quickened Minor Binding. Nothing like testing out techniques in the middle of battle. He had tried the same thing against the Drake Hound Alpha back in the dungeon, but he was trusting that this goblin rogue didn’t have a magical shield. The magic of Dave’s instant spell bound the tip of his dagger with the skin of the rogue’s neck. In an instant, the dagger flashed across the ten feet that separated them to sink to its hilt into the unprotected throat.

  You have landed a sneak attack! You have landed a critical strike! Damage- 5*1.68 (strength) * 2.5 (sneak attack) * 2 (critical strike) = 42 damage.

  With the wonders of how combat worked in Eloria, the dagger to the throat wasn’t enough to instantly kill the goblin. At least it had given him a bleeding debuff as the lifeblood pulsed through the clawed fingers trying to pull the dagger from its throat. Apparently, it counted as a sneak attack since the goblin hadn’t seen the attack coming. Bleeding to death caused enough distraction that it allowed Aloysia to stand up and finish it off with her own dagger. Either way though, after throwing the dagger, Dave had turned his full attention back to the goblin in front of him. Superior range and strength made the fight a quick one. A couple of deep slashes into its arms and chest slowed the goblin down, and it soon had a foot of steel sticking out of its back. Dave didn’t even bother looking at the XP notification but waved it away as he turned to check on Aloys
ia. The party interface showed him that her health was very low and continuing to fall. She only had a little more than a third of her 150 max health and had an insignia next to her name for a bleed effect. He could have clicked on her and drawn up more information in the interface, but that would have been silly with her kneeling just a few feet away.

  “Do you have any healing potions?”

  When she turned to look at Dave, there was fear in her eyes. More than anything, that look reminded him that just because he was able to deal with combat didn’t mean that everyone else was suited for it. Not to mention that while she might have been a full-blown adult in this world, she was only twenty-one and didn’t have much experience with actual life and death combat. Even in their little hunting party, Dave had taken the brunt of all the wounds and worked to keep her and all the others out of harm’s way. Instead of answering, he just reached into the pouch of potions and pulled out one of the red vials.

  “Here take this. I haven’t tried any of them yet, but Emily got them from Gertrude so I don’t think it can make you any worse.”

  Smiling gratefully, she took it, popped the top and began drinking it down immediately. Just as quick as that, Dave saw another icon pop up next to her name on the party interface. This time he took the instant required to look at what the icon was: Status Buff- Heal over Time. 20 health/minute. Excellent, at that rate she would be healed up to full in five minutes. Even still, he didn’t want her risking herself now, and so he ordered her to help wake people up and get the evacuation going until she was at full health. Then, she was to go find Mira and help with any of the goblins that got past him. Based upon how easy the fight had been so far, he was almost second-guessing the need for evacuation, but in the end, he would rather apologize for taking too many precautions than bury any of the villagers.