The sound of the horn blowing echoed throughout the entire forest warning of the death and violence to come. Even Herald looked scared. Andius quickly ran to Raizus and picked him up, looking at him with a serious expression, “Okay man, your time to shine. Just don’t get sent to respawn, alright?” Andius was completely freaking out, even if he would come back, he really didn’t want to die again. Herald was already gone in the tree-line hiding in wait for the goblins to come into view, so Andius did the same and climbed up a nearby tree.

Raizus drew the blade from his back and closed his eyes, immediately his veins started to glow an unnatural orange color and within a second his blade caught on fire. He stood there waiting as the sound of running got louder, and five small green men rushed to the trail. The looks on their faces were priceless as they saw the massive armored man holding a flaming long-sword with rage building in his eyes, and before any of them had a chance to react an arrow took one of them right in the eye and it dropped like a bag of rocks.

Raizus roared a challenge that was almost as primal and terrifying as the panther that had killed Andius only a few days ago before he charged into the group of goblins swinging his blade with reckless abandon and taking off body parts like a knife through butter. “Remind me not to piss him off…” Andius muttered to himself before walking along the branches to get behind the backlines. It wasn’t an easy task to find a place to drop in as the goblins just kept coming; his count of twenty was way off, there must have been close to a hundred!

Looking around, he found a place where their disorganized line had a gap, so he dropped from the tree with his blades drawn and landed right on one of the goblins, cutting it’s neck open with a quick motion! The ones behind him shouted in anger but Andius was already moving forward towards the absolute onslaught Raizus was sowing, cutting down goblins from behind with well placed stabs and slashes. One of the creatures turned around to face Andius and nearly got a shot in, but he dodged out of the way in time and put the length of his dagger into it’s eye-socket, getting a sickening pop. One of the pursuing goblins made it to where Andius was and smacked him in the back of the leg with it’s makeshift club, making the rogue fall to a knee just before an arrow wizzed by and saved him from being surrounded.

After that Andius had made it to where Raizus was, and he wasn’t looking great. He was covered in a lot of blood, some of it surely his own, but the look of insanity in his eyes made him hesitate for a moment. “MOVE!” Raizus shouted, making the small rogue dive out of the way just in time for a gout of fire to roar from his hands and engulf a whole group of goblins that had been coming up from behind!

Andius looked at the carnage caused by the blast with awe at the same time that arrows were flying from the forest and ending the lives of goblins in scores. “Well, can’t let you guys have all the credit!” he muttered to himself as he dipped his two blades into the jars of poison he had just bought. The blades came out dripped with the thick violet fluid and Andius went running towards the front line with Raizus, who was keeping up despite the fact his armor probably weighed more than he did.

Three goblins rushed forward to meet them only to be cut down in a single swing from Raizus’ sword, causing Andius to blink and rush ahead at another that was raising it’s spear in defense! It thrust at Andius but he simply turned to the side and slashed at it’s chest with one of his blades, the cut didn’t go very deep and the goblin just sneered at him before it’s face twisted in agony and it fell to the floor screaming. Andius winced as he saw just how much pain the poison was causing it and ended it’s life quickly with a slash to the throat, spraying green blood at his face! “Gah! This game is way too realistic, right Raizus?”

Suddenly searing pain shot through Andius’ body, and he looked down to find the head of a spear poking through his stomach!

——————

HP: 25/160(Bleeding -1.5 hp per second.)

——————

The spear was pulled free and he heard the cry of victory from the goblin behind him, only to be cut off by an arrow that ended his life. Raizus charged into their ranks again and blocked them off from attacking Andius, his shouts of rage terrifying not only to the goblins! Herald came running from the treeline to Andius and crouched down to him, “You’re hit? Here, quick drink this!” he ordered as he passed Andius a vial filled with thick red liquid. Andius didn't think twice, he immediately took the stopper form the bottle and downed it in one large gulp.

The results were amazing! The pain immediately left him and he could feel his flesh stitching back together, which was unfortunately very itchy.

——————

Minor health potion imbibed, regenerating 10 health per second for a maximum of 100 health. WARNING: Overuse of arcane potions may cause addiction.

——————

Well that wasn’t good, but it save his life in this situation, so he wasn’t going to complain about side effects right now! “My daggers barely cut deep enough!” He complained as he watched his health bar quickly fill back up.

“Because they’re not made for open combat! Play to your strengths!” Herald called back as he ran back into the tree-line. Play to his strengths? How could he do that in this situation? The back line! If he could get off backstabs, even if they aren’t in stealth, that’s a lot of damage.

He looked over to where Raizus was fighting against the front line and winced at the level of damage he had taken. He was still fighting strong but it was clear he was starting to slow down, there was blood leaking through the seams in his armor and his face was covered in small cuts! “Raizus! Focus on defense!” before rushing off into the trees opposite where Herald had vanished. He was an assassin, so why was he trying to fight like a warrior?

From his spot at the side Andius could see that the goblins were running out of numbers, they had maybe another twenty members left, and the trail made for a perfect funnel to keep them from spreading out. Just before Andius was about to run out, a roar that shook the entire forest sounded out which even made Raizus stop in his attack. All at once the goblins turned tail and ran back into their camp, hiding behind tents or trees or anything else that would cover them from the attackers.

Andius crouched down in the brushes that he had found himself in and just watched the camp, Raizus standing in the middle of a field of corpses while Herald was hiding somewhere on the other side of the trail. There didn’t seem to be any movement from the camp for a while, so Raizus started to move forward. He didn’t get more than a few steps forward when a rope coiled around his foot and he was yanked violently up to the branch of a tree! As he dangled upside down the look of rage on his face became far, far stronger, and his entire body suddenly ignited in fire!

When the rope caught flame, it was almost instantly turned to ash and the metal-clad man fell to the ground on his back, armor turning red hot from the heat. He got to his feet quickly and roared in anger, rushing forward at breakneck speeds. “Raizus, stop!” Herald called out from his position, the tension in his voice enough to keep Andius where he was but it seemed that Raizus either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, and he quickly found himself falling into a pitfall the goblins had dug.

Herald rushed from his hiding place to the hole his companion had fallen into, producing a coil of rope and looking down. “Raizus, turn off your magic and climb u-” his words were cut off as he suddenly dodged to the side and avoided an arrow, one of his own flying out and taking the life of an archer who had been hiding the tree. “They’re using tactics, Andius look for archers!”

Andius didn’t waste any time scrambling back up a tree and scouting around. It took all of a few seconds to find the first archer, and they saw him as well, letting lose an arrow that Andius barely managed to dodge in time and leap from his branch onto the goblin, sending them both hurtling to the ground as his blade buried itself into the little green throat! The impact was harsh and made his entire body scream in protest, but his pain resistance skill kept him from crying out. Andius returned to his perch in the trees and found another three goblins that were ended in a similar fashion, but the fourth and final one managed to get him in the shoulder with an arrow and made him fumble his jump.

In a knee-jerk reaction, Andius threw one of his blades at the goblin as he fell, landing on the ground hard enough to knock the wind out of him and stun him for a few seconds. When the stars faded from his vision, he looked over and saw a dead goblin with a knife through it’s chest. “Well, guess this skill could come in handy…” He groaned out as he picked himself up and reclaimed his weapon, walking out to meet with the other two on the trail. Raizus had been pulled from the hole and looked a lot calmer

Raizus looked over at Andius and scowled, “Use your magic man, I can’t do this on my own!” He may not be on fire anymore but he was clearly still very angry, and now Andius was the target of his ire. “I saw you cast when I was about to be killed, so do it again! Don’t you have any offensive magic?!” Those harsh words made Andius flinch, and he just shook his head a bit sheepishly. Raizus groaned, “Look, it’s intent, yeah? So just… imagine killing them or something.”

Herald smacked Raizus on the back of the head, “Focus on the job. We’re going to have to go into their camp to finish them off, and I guarantee they have more traps lined up for us. Let me lead and follow my path.” The both of them nodded in agreement and set off. They avoided trap after trap, moving in a jagged zig-zag path that kept them alive while traversing the dangerous trail when suddenly something wrapped around Andius’ leg and he was starting to be dragged back towards one of the traps!

“H-help!” Andius cried out, looking down at his feet to see what looked like a bola wrapped around his legs. A goblin clad in quality looking leather ran out from the bushes with a knife in it’s hand and launched itself into the air, ready to plunge it’s blade into Andius on the way down. It was caught way off guard as a metal-clad fist struck it into the chest and sent it hurtling away with a bone-crunching impact!

“ENOUGH!” a voice called out across the battlefield, the sounds of heavy footsteps approaching making them all hesitate. From the thrown together camp came a massive looking man with gray skin and tusks protruding from it’s mouth. His giant body was practically marble, hard muscle covering as far as the eye could see. That was saying a lot since the man wore nothing but a loincloth and boots. His hair was shaved on the side but long in the middle, braided into a long strip going down his back. His startlingly black eyes looked over the entire party as he spoke, “You come to my camp, attack my soldiers, then have the NERVE to try to come in uninvited!?” His large hands gripped the pair of axes on his belt and hefted them out. “You will pay with your lives!”