Growth took time; or a ton of magic. Of course, there were ways around everything and trade-offs that could happen that would make it take less time. But, when it came down to it, you needed either more time than I wanted or more magic than I had. Perhaps just better magic. Which brought me to where I was, hunting for the trees I wanted.

My goal was to turn my landing into a lovely little grotto while I obscured the Shrine for the Sisters. I already had my hut there, so perhaps it could count for the lodging that I was going to need for “The Faithful.” I also wanted to secure some of the top area above the waterfall just so it was harder to see and get to the landing.

The gremlin patrols hadn’t decreased any, and so the whole top ledge was crawling with them. The odd part about my entire mission to obscure the Shrine was that the goblins knew where I was. They even threw things down at me. The good thing about that was they were too weak to get anything out the twenty feet they needed to in order to reach my ledge. However, me just covering it up didn’t seem to mean anything, but that was what I needed to do.

However, at this moment, I was up where the gremlins were trying to dig up trees. I was after young fruit and nut trees. I was using my plant empathy to help loosen roots so that I could pull out the two and three-year-old trees. Then I was taking them back through the dungeon and to my ledge.

The dungeon had changed when I took it over and moved it. It was now down to a single floor but working on another since I told it to. It was also building for me Master quarters and passages. I didn’t ask for them, but since it had a master, it was a required part of the build. So until everything got finished, the dungeon still was basically the one tunnel that I had built.

Blink was on the lookout for anything larger than a gremlin. Those she just out and out killed. The hierarchy of the orcish armies seemed to make the loss of gremlins an expected part of the day. After all, I had watched an orc kill a gremlin for getting too close. So it was likely that the reduction of their numbers wouldn’t alert anyone.

However, it was the loss of goblins and perhaps orcs that I was worried about. I was more concerned about running into orcs than I was them knowing I was off the landing. I was happy that I rescued Lannah, but the recent increase in danger because of it wasn’t something that I was pleased about at all.

I had just finished digging up my last load of trees when Blink alerted me to the arrival of a group of goblins. The image that she sent over to me didn’t make me happy at all. There was a group of twelve goblins coming up the game trail. Now that I had fought in the dungeon, I wasn’t as worried about that number. However, of the twelve, 3 of them were shamans, and two had crossbows. They had learned that they needed range to mess with me.

I started to run back to the dungeon entrance; if I pushed hard enough, I might be able to beat them there. If I did, then we could just duck into the dungeon, and I could finish the work I was doing. If not, then I was going to be in a bad way. The dungeon opened up to a clearing, and so there wasn’t any cover. This meant that if I got into a fight, there were 5 ranged damage dealers that I would need to deal with.

I thought over to Blink, “Head back to the dungeon, we will see if we can give them the slip.”

As I was running, Blink sent more images. Somehow they had slipped past her, and there was already a group of gremlins gathered near the tunnel entrance. Which meant that no matter what, we were going to have to fight. Then as I was still trying to figure out what to do, she sent me one word. “Bait.”

I didn’t have my complete kit on at the moment. I had my full armor on, but I had left the spear and bow in my hut while I was out digging. I took a quick look at the cloudless sky and sighed. The only ranged attacks that I was going to have today were my throwing knives. My external frame pack was heavy with trees and a few bushes that I wanted to try to work with.

As I closed in, I saw that the gremlins weren’t waiting on me; but instead, they were just milling around the area. They also weren’t alone this time. It appeared that they had a few handlers with them as over half were tied with leashes going back to goblins.

I slowed at the tree line and muttered under my breath, “these guys are all sorts of wrong.”

The plan had been to beat the goblins here and slip away. But, since that wasn’t going to happen, it was time to move in and try to clear as much of this mess as I could before their heavy damage dealers showed up. So I dropped my pack so that the trees wouldn’t get damaged. Then I chugged enough of my tea to pregame a slight health regeneration boost before I dropped the waterskin onto the pack.

It was go time. The plan was simple charge in, throwing my daggers at the goblins. My hope, as thin as it was, would be that the goblins seized up and didn’t let the gremlins go. Barring that, it was to hack as many of them down and get the group that Blink had seen first running so that they would pass her by. Then if I understood the idea of ‘Bait’ correctly, she would take out the mages.

I put my sword in my left hand and drew out my throwing knife of pause, and started to run. I will give the gremlins and goblins this; they take breaks with the best of them. If any of them were watching, they didn’t bother telling anyone. They looked like that group of beat-down workers who were taking their required smoke break on a hot day. Not one of them was looking up, and they all seemed highly depressed. It was just what I wanted.

I was ten feet away when the first one saw me. It was one of the little gremlins, and he yelped. The funny thing was they were all making dumb noise, so it wasn’t like any of them noticed until the first goblin got a knife in him. Now unlike those little things that I always saw in the knife stores in the mall, this was designed to go deep. So when the throwing spike hit the goblin, it went into its chest a good three inches.

If it didn’t pause the guy in place for a second, he would have yelled. As it was, I took another two steps and threw a second one. This one, much to my great shame or low level, hit the goblin on the head. Of all the places one shouldn’t aim at a goblin, it happens to be the head. They are like a hickory nut, all shell, and little substance. So the spike just cut a line across the forehead and applied rot.

Now the one who blocked with his forehead chose to yell and yank on the half a dozen leashes he was holding. This caused all the little gremlins he was holding to grab at their throats. However, the yell also caused the rest of the gremlins to look. When I started my advance, I had thought that there were only four in this group. However, with the yelling, another two stood up. This brought my current arrayed enemies up to 6 goblins and around twenty gremlins.

The fun thing about the party that I was crashing was that all the goblins held gremlin’s leashes like they were hunting dogs. What this meant was that the goblins didn’t have out weapons. So what I first assumed was a group waiting for me might have been waiting to start a hunt.

I was passing the first goblin as I drew my sword. I once again was wishing that I had a katana, if for no other reason than the draw cut. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to free my sword in time to strike the paused one, but I was able to remove the head of the one who practiced blocking with his skull. Then I was in the mob. The goblins were trying to let their gremlins go but were getting yanked around too much by them. Some got free, others got tangled, and one of the goblins even had his group turn on him.

It was a delightful mess, and so I fell it good to yell, “Praise Chaos!”

Then I was moving through them. Any that were close, I was attacking. With my raised stats and the close range, I was more than a match for this group. They didn’t even truly have any hope. Yet even as I was finishing them off, I felt the sting of magic. I had forgotten in my slaughter about the group coming up.

The ball of lightning hit me from behind, and I found myself trying to close my mouth before I slammed into the open throat of a goblin. It was kind of surreal as I went flying. Just a few weeks ago, that type of hit almost killed me. Now because of my armor, I only lost about an eighth of my health. I still picked up the debuff of convolutions for three seconds. I also picked up a fun new debuff when I didn’t close my mouth before landing on the bloody mess. I picked up the disgusted debuff, which seemed to make me want to heave.

As I was flopping around on the ground, I saw the area turn to fire. The hair I had left was singed off in the flash of heat that set the dry land on fire. Then as I was trying to stand, I was hit again with a ball, but this time it was a magical bowling ball that cracked my ribs. As I fell back to the ground, one more lightning ball slammed into me. My day, which had started off great, sucked. With stacking debuffs, my vision faded away.