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Lea pointed ahead, to one of the few and far between trees. "I'd say we walk for now, using larger objects as anchor points to orient ourselves. That tree back there looks like a start, and then we'll see. What do you think?"

"Sounds pausible, and I think that would be the best option." Nick gave his opinion in a somewhat grandfatherly tone, while Avan scratched his chin and looked at the surroundings.

"I have a feeling that the portals could be pointing to the center, so behind us in the back we have the end of the plane, while in front of us should somehow be the center. And that tree up ahead looks good, after all, we just have to start walking and see where we are relative to the center here." Avan agreed thoughtfully, and received a pair of nods of agreement from the other two, and they marched toward the tree a hundred meters away.

With steady steps but looking around cautiously, the three of them started walking towards the steppe tree. So far, Avan could not find another soul far and wide, which he did not find so hard to believe with only twenty-three surviving slaves, considering the sheer size of the first level alone.

The prairie had a diameter of two kilometers and was, according to the stories, set up in a circle.

A few minutes later, the trio reached the steppe tree, which towered a good fifty meters above them, majestically but with relatively few leaves.

After a few brief discussions, the three decided to continue walking in the same direction, as the sky looked the same everywhere and no wall or end of the plain could be seen anywhere, as the dungeon seemed to simulate infinite expanses, as could be seen in the sky that seemed to stretch for miles upwards.

Avan ran in the middle, while the female warrior in front of him ran with drawn weapon enthuisastically in front and Nick behind. The old man had shown considerable stamina for his age, and Avan had already noticed this in the weeks of training before, probably as a result of his soldiering past.

The group arrived at a small hill, and Lea abruptly knelt down and waved her hand to tell the other two to crouch down and come closer.

She pointed ahead to a small flat area where a herd of dungeon buffalo had gathered around a small pool and were drinking away, while a few of the larger specimens seemed to be nibbling on something or someone further ahead behind the pool.

"Okay, these are definitely not tame and herbivorous animals, guys. See the alpha and the other bulls back there? One of the slaves wasn't so lucky, it seems." Lea pointed with an outstretched index finger first at the larger animal and then a bit beside it at the other large dungeon buffaloes, which seemed to be feeding on one of the other slaves.

Avan and the other two observed the situation and looked around.

The old man ran his hands through his twenty-centimeter-long beard and let his gaze wander over the small valley of the plain before them. "I...would suggest we go around the herd. There's no point in messing with these animals and sooner or later we'd be overrun by the herd instinct. It doesn't matter if we manage to get a few off to the side, the rest will quickly realize that something is wrong and overrun us. I know these animals from other dungeons, and I know that without a company of battle-hardened fighters, we can't safely take on that many."

Avan nodded thoughtfully in agreement, having come to the same conclusion and unable to look at the horde before him without an oppressive feeling. Especially when he looked at the poor wretch, who had tried to do it on his own and apparently hadn't even brought down a single one of the animals before he became their food.

He knew that with his newfound dungeon skills he had an immense chance of slaying his way through here, but the spectators outside in the stands would notice that immediately, since from outside you could probably see everything on the levels from a bird's eye view and even zoom in, if he followed the explanation in his mind that they had all received.

Lea seemed to have a similar opinion, and jerked her head sideways to the left to signal that the three of them should go around the herd on the left side of the hill.

The group went back down the hill a bit, but stayed up high enough that they could take a quick step or two and glance down into the shallow valley to make sure the buffalo were still there and couldn't suddenly surprise them.

So the three marched quietly and carefully along the slope, breathing a sigh of relief when they reached the other side without further incident, until they encountered the next problem and sighed collectively.

"Of course, what else people." Avan groaned, earning a soft chuckle from Lea who looked at him amused over her left shoulder, and even Nick puffed briefly in amusement at the comment.

Ahead of them, at the foot of the hill and a good three hundred meters away was the center of the plain, but as could not have been otherwise, the portal was on a stone pedestal in the middle of a small lake, surrounded by a fortified goblin camp.

And as if that wasn't hard enough, the three of them could immediately make out about a hundred goblins, some of which manned the three meter high wooden pallisade, the lookout towers in between, and some of which scurried back and forth between rough tents in the camp.

Sneaking up on them would prove to be very difficult, since far and wide exactly one steppe tree stood to the left of them alone on the level and even this was still a hundred meters away from the pallisade.

After a short briefing, the trio ran crouched and taking every narrow bump for cover to the left over towards the tree.

They continued to run crouched and with the tree in front of them as a screen to the goblins towards the tree and reached it a short time later. This steppe tree was several meters larger than the first one they had seen, and the trunk itself had a circumference of almost ten meters, behind which they could comfortably hide from the goblin camp to plan their next steps.

Before they could plan anything at all, however, a slave vaguely known to Avan ran openly at them from diagonally behind them and, unlike the group, used no cover and waved his arms wildly.

"What the hell! Guys, behind us!" Avan had noticed the guy first and quickly tapped his two group members on the shoulder to alert them to the new problem, while he himself quickly became aware of what was happening and where this was headed.

Lea spotted the guy next and cursed loudly and obscenely, making even Avan wince at all the threats she was making. "Are you kidding me??? What is this fucking idiot doing! Everyone in the camp will see him, and he's running right at us!"

"And that's exactly the goal... That's one of the two lackeys from the guy who took advantage of the others in our fight against the Chocs and sent them to their deaths to save his own ass and watch!" Avan explained, cursing, as the slave's face became more clearly visible at a hundred meters away.

Screams and noise could be heard from the goblin camp, and a glance around the tree confirmed the fears of all three. The goblins had also spotted the guy by now and a company of goblin soldiers marched out of one of the two gates to run in a relatively orderly fashion towards the slave and thus towards the tree, one of the much larger varieties in front, a hobgoblin.

As soon as the arm-waving slave saw this, he turned pale and spun around to run back the same way as fast as his feet could carry him.

"That was a diversion to lure some goblins out of camp, and at the same time to set a trap for us! That fucking bastard, when I get my hands on him I'm going to rip out all his arms and legs and shit down his fucking neck!" Lea yelled angrily and the three of them ran off as well, since it had become pointless to stay by the tree when the goblin horde was about to run past them.

Again screaming and loud war cries suddenly rang out from the goblin ranks behind them, as the running horde became aware of three more humans who suddenly ran out from behind the tree and were also running away.

The three sprinted hastily after the other slave and ran for their lives, the goblin company right on their heels.

The slave in front of them made a slight right turn and disappeared behind another small hill and a few minutes later the three sprinted over it, following the guy who ran behind the hill to the right, out of sight of the goblin company, which was still a hundred meters behind the group.

Slowly but surely, the slave in front of them was slowing down and running out of breath, which could be seen in his stumbling steps and the slower and slower pace he was setting.

"Keep running!" Avan shouted to his two friends and sprinted again a little faster, directly towards the man who had lured them into this trap.

As Avan yanked the guy to the ground with a leap, Lea and Nick ran past him, giving him only a knowing sideways glance as Avan bent the slave's arms backward and pushed him face-first into the ground.

"You little son of a dog... Was this the plan of your glorious leader yes? To sacrifice you to lure us to our deaths?" He whispered somberly into the right ear of the futilely kicking guy below him. "Only he made one mistake, you know? Only one of the two things will happen. And that's that you're left here as a sacrifice!"

And with those words, Avan slammed his already lunged right fist sideways into the man's temples, knocking him unconscious with a hammer blow.

"Well, that worked right away... Wonderful!" He remarked, much to his delight, as he had not been sure if it would work and had never tried it in his life and had only read or heard about it.

He quickly turned the unconscious man around so that he could be better seen by the approaching goblin horde, and continued to run after his friends. The whole thing took only a few seconds.

As he continued to run, he kept looking back and was pleased to see that the goblins did indeed stop short at the man and that he was quickly lost in the crowd of goblins, until shrill screams rang out, which Avan paid no further attention to and continued to run up the next hill, behind which Lea and Nick had just disappeared.

The three of them stopped just behind the hill and gasped for air, while the two of them gave him questioning looks and Avan just puffed and lifted his right arm and gave them a gloating, grinning thumbs-up.

Satisfied with the short break they had bought themselves, the three looked ahead of them at the wooden pallisade and realized what the man responsible for their misery was doing. Two figures were at the foot of the wooden wall and were just sneaking through the second entrance into the interior, taking advantage of the commotion that had arisen at the other gate and distracting the goblin guards.

"We should hurry and use the time as well!" Nick remarked this time, visibly struggling the most with the fact that he was no longer the youngest and his stamina the worst of the three.

The three sprinted as fast as they could across the hundred and fifty meter distance to the pallisade, each praying and hoping for themselves that the goblins would continue to be distracted long enough not to notice their approach, and that the goblin company behind them would take a little longer to not suddenly notice the three fleeing.

Panting and still out of breath, the three also arrived unscathed at the wooden pallisade and leaned briefly with their hands, panting and gasping for air, while they glanced nervously back at the entrance and checked to see if it was still unguarded.

Fortunately for them, it seemed to be, and they crept quietly, but still out of breath, into the interior of the camp.

What they found was not good at all and the three of them quickly threw themselves inside the camp to the right behind one of the outer tents to avoid the searching eyes of other goblins, who were beside themselves with rage looking for the murderers of their clan. At the feet of the goblins, directly at the edge of the small lake and not ten meters away from the stone pedestal with the portal on it, lay three dead goblins with slit throats and stomachs.

The group was more than aware of who was responsible for these dead goblins and cursed once again at the stones placed in their path.

Avan beckoned his two friends to follow him and crept along behind the tent. He had spotted another tent, which suited his short-term plan best, and crept behind the third tent, which was further toward the center of the camp.

With careful movements, he cut a slit in the sewn-together pieces of the tent at ground level and waved his hand again, telling them to follow him, and crawled on all fours, flattened on the ground, into the interior of the tent.

Inside, he quickly crawled to the right to make room for the other two and lay flat on the floor behind some crates. With a short gesture next to him, he symbolized Lea and Nick to do the same and the two looked around with interest and wide eyes inside the tent, while they also lay down next to him.

"How did you know?" Lea whispered the obvious question to the two and looked at Avan in surprise.

Avan grinned back fatuously. "I briefly saw some of the workers carrying goblins' things into this tent, especially the things of the deceased goblins." He explained to the two. "And I thought it safest to hold out in the camp's storeroom for now, until the initial commotion died down. Then we can see what happens next. And I think here it is still the safest in the entire camp and we are not immediately discovered. If we are, then the three of us can certainly take out one or two goblin workers silently without anyone else outside hopefully noticing too quickly. What do you think?"

The three of them consulted briefly and agreed to the idea of waiting a bit to have a chance to get to the portal undetected. Where they weren't sure either was whether the goblins could follow them into the portal if they just ran off with the pack glued to their heels.

"And if we can't get through, or they put more guards on the lake, then I'll distract them." Avan ended the discussion and looked at the two of them without listening. He had a little plan in the back of his mind, which was gradually forming, and he knew that although his access to his mana had been cut off, he was still getting energy in the form of experience from the kills in the arena, which he had felt around through his dungeon mana.

So a few more kills to create a distraction for Lea and Nick was also in his own interest, especially with the small but subtle plan he was working out step by step and taking more shape.

And so the three of them waited behind the stacked crates and goods of the goblin camp, while outside the goblin party had returned and a small commotion had broken out, a few thumps could be heard and many goblin feet were scurrying around.

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