Kyle dashed headlong towards a nearby goblin, before noting that Jacob seems to be aiming for the same one. He veered, picking a new target closer to the back of the milling group.

The goblins turned comically slowly. The designers must have intended goblins to be easy to surprise.

With a scream, more to psych himself up than to intimidate the others, Kyle lept into the air and brought the axe down with all his might. The goblin had only just barely started lifting his sword by the time Kyle buried his axe in its shoulder. The goblin immediately went limp, and Kyle struggled to hold his axe as the weight of the goblin threatened to pull it from his grasp. Gripping it with both hands, he planted a foot on the goblin’s face and kicked. The goblin’s body came free of the axe blade and rolled into his fellows.

Kyle was right. If you approached the combat in this game, with the right attitude, it was fun.

He immediately felt sickened he could find such violence fun.

He immediately repressed that sickened feeling. He cut a tree. A fun tree. It was okay. It was going to be okay.

Kyle spared a glance behind him. He was interested to see that almost half the players, Jacob included, were standing over goblin corpses, looks of disbelief on their face. The others were less successful; Kyle wasn’t sure if they had missed, hesitated, or what, but they were now duelling with an aware and defensive goblin. Mason hung back, scanning the crowd, watching to intervene if anybody started losing to their goblin.

Kyle looked back towards the remainder of the goblins in the cavern, who were staring slackjawed at the sudden carnage. Kyle roared, channelling his inner RPG player, owning his role. He was a barbarian. A hero. A god.

The goblins stared at him with wide eyes.

Then, eyes full of panic and desperation, they turned to run.

“What! No! No, you stupid…” This would ruin everything. Kyle wanted these players to fight for their lives and have a success experience besting a bloodthirsty foe, not chase down and slaughter goblins who were trying to flee. Attacking them should make them fight back! That’s what happened with Lumen, right?

Kyle turned to see the players surround and slay the goblins they engaged with their initial charge. Besides the ones inexorably locked in combat, the other goblins were fleeing too. The looks on the player’s faces were not what Kyle had hoped. Confusion. Insecurity.

There was no honor is killing helpless victims.

He looked back towards the goblins as they retreated. He needed to salvage this! He must have tripped some switch in their AI somehow…

“Kyle! Ranged attacks!” Aubrey shouted. “They think they’re safe running without getting shot in the back! They’re not desperate enough to fight!”

The goblins had nearly left the cavern. Kyle had only a moment to respond.

Kyle dropped his axe, and in one swift motion, he tapped his wrist-crystal against his hip and jammed his two fingers near simultaneously into his menu.

And ended up with a bowl of soup in his right hand.

And threw it without missing a beat.

It impacted the head of the closest goblin hard enough to whip his head forward. Eyes still full of fear, he turned, shrieked, and charged. The others skidded to a halt and turned to charge the group as well.

Kyle only had time for a backwards glance; the players had mopped up the first crop of goblins and were collecting themselves once more. He faced the oncoming foes.

“Countercharge!” Kyle shouted, scooping his axe from the ground. “Go! Go! Go!” He ran towards the ragged line of advancing goblins. Kyle was far ahead of the group. He was going to get surrounded. And for the moment, he didn’t care. He’d ranked resilience twice, and Aubrey was in the cavern playing support. He’d live.

Kyle swung his axe in a wide arc, scoring a shallow cut along the chests of the three goblins directly in front of them. Those goblins fell back, holding their swords defensively. The line of charging goblins folded around Kyle, surrounding him. Kyle swung his axe at one that seemed closer than the others, and that goblin withdrew as well.

Kyle heard the crash of metal on metal as the other players collided with the remainder of the goblins. As Kyle expected, he was far behind the enemy line, surrounded by six goblins. He turned his head, but couldn’t keep more than two or three in his field of vision at once.

He heard a feral cry from behind him, and turned, swinging his axe in the direction of the sound. A goblin changing him stopped abruptly, Kyle’s axe inches from its neck. The goblin fell back into a defensive stance once more.

From behind, he heard another goblin shriek. Again, Kyle flailed his axe in that direction, and again, that goblin stopped just short of being hit.

They were fighting defensively. None wanted to charge Kyle head on.

He heard another goblin’s shout and stopped its charge with another axe swing. It was polite of the goblins to signal when they were about to attack. But Kyle would tire himself out constantly trying to defend himself against attacks from his rear.

Oh, what he’d give for a wall to put his back to! But he was surrounded. There was no way to get to one of the cavern walls without going through a goblin.

But then… he could go through a goblin, couldn’t he?

With a shout (it seemed to scare them last time) he charged the nearest goblin, axe held at his side in both hands, ready to swing. The goblin, eyes wide, pulled away to avoid the sudden attack. From behind, Kyle heard multiple shrieks as the goblins tried to take advantage of Kyle’s recklessness. Heart pounding, Kyle didn’t stop his charge. He dashed for the nearest wall, not looking back. He didn’t trust himself to maintain the speed while turning his head; he could only hope that he was keeping ahead of the goblins and would reach the wall before they reached him.

After a harrowing few moments, he reached the wall, and skidded to a stop, turning towards the goblins and swinging his axe. The goblins were only a few yards from him, and stopped abruptly, swords held guardingly in front of them.

“What'cha gonna do now,” Kyle said, fierce determination on his face. “Can’t flank me now, huh?”

The six goblins fanned out as much as they could around the wall, but Kyle could keep track of them all just by shifting his gaze.

Finally, they seemed to overcome their hesitancy to attack. All six cried out and charged simultaneously, presumably relying on sheer numbers to best Kyle.

He knew if he was hit by all six at once, he couldn’t block them all, so he ran to the side to intentionally engage one of them first. He swung his axe sideways, hitting the goblin in the gut and knocking it against the wall, then swung it the other direction, catching another goblin in the side.

But there were just too many. A goblin struck him in the thigh as he pulled his axe back; he felt another bite through his armor in the back of the shoulder, another in the side just above his hip. The pain wasn’t nearly as bad as in the starting dungeon, both because of the armor and the ranks in resilience, but it still hurt like crap. He swung his axe wildly, more to try and get them to back off than to damage them.

His carelessness showed. The goblins didn’t back off; instead, Kyle impacted one goblin with the flat of the axehead, doing nothing more than putting him off balance as the other three continued hacking at Kyle. He felt more sword blows. He couldn’t tell where, exactly; the pain from all the wounds was starting to blur together. Panicked, he thought to flee, but now he was surrounded with a wall behind him. Maybe the wall wasn’t the best of ideas. He heard someone shout his name in alarm.

Desperate to escape, with his axe twisted awkwardly in his hand, Kyle threw himself to the side, knocking into a goblin with his shoulder. It grabbed on, weighing Kyle down and ruining his balance. He fell down on top of the goblin, narrowly avoiding impaling himself on its sword.

Kyle grabbed the goblins arm with his left hand and rolled over so his back was to the ground. He kicked at a goblin trying to stab him, knocking it back as another two replaced it.

This would be a really good time to know how to use his fire mist spell with a single flick of his hand.

Jacob suddenly leapt into Kyle’s field of view, felling a goblin that was apparently too focused on Kyle to notice his arrival. The other goblins fell back, turning away from Kyle to face the newcomer.

The goblin Kyle was lying on took advantage of Kyle’s position and put Kyle in a chokehold from behind. Kyle’s vision started to swim. He laboriously stood, encumbered by the goblin. As things started to fade to black, he rammed his back as hard as he could into the cavern wall, slamming the goblins head between the wall and Kyle’s own skull. He heard a crack, and the back of his head hurt like hell, but the goblin fell off him. Kyle’s vision started to return to normal, and he saw Jacob and another player surrounding and finishing off the final three. Kyle surveyed the rest of the cavern. All the goblins had been killed.

They had done it. And even better, not a single player had fallen, though most bore thick pink lines. Aubrey ran between them all, hands glowing, treating them as fast as she could and warning people not to loot the bodies before she could record their contents “for statistical purposes”.

“Six goblins?” Jacob shouted, pulling his axe out of the goblin’s chest. “Six goblins, man? Kyle, you think you’re a gamejacker or something? Come on!”

Kyle looked at the crowd. Raising his voice to address them all, he replied “We’re all gamejackers now. In fact; we’re more. Not even a gamejack offers this degree of realism. We’re beyond gamejacks. We’re just not very good at it yet.”

Kyle straightened and strode forward, ignoring the pain diffusing through his body. “But that’s going to change!” he shouted. He held his axe up high. “To your first victory! And may there be many more to come!”

Jacob shouted and clapped, bless his soul.

And slowly, all the other players joined him.