The weather had gotten cooler, the field he came across became a golden color with occasional patches of purple. The leaves in the trees transitioned from green to red and gold. The build up of leaves on the forest floor provided unwanted resistance. The man pulled a wagon through the forest along an abandoned road. He wore his dark brown cloak with the hood down. His hair had gotten longer, but he kept his face clean with the impossibly sharp blue metal dagger. It had been two months since his departure, and around nine months since he came to this world.
He had found one abandoned outpost along the way. The journal spoke of its daily lifestyle until it spoke of the approaching armies. Anxiety could be felt in the commander’s writings as the day of battle approached. There the journal ended. The rest of the story could be told from the skeletal remains found in and around the outpost. The only thing found worth savaging was a half-barrel of wine, which had turned into vinegar. Evren had silently loaded it into his wagon and moved on from the fort.
He had also come across a ruin, which according to one of his maps was a dungeon. He tried to gain access to it, but the entrance had collapsed some time ago. He remembered from his conversation with Anomaly that dungeons were alive, and it probably wouldn’t let the entrance remain sealed like this if it were still active. So, Evren left the ruins and continued on his way.
His sensory field had improved during these last two months. If he focused on a specific area, he could get more specific details than general shapes, but if he spread the field out more, the shapes would get more distorted. It would act well for an early warning system though. It wouldn’t tell him if there were an enemy, or even an alive creature, but if something were moving within his range, he would know it. The biggest problem with this expanded sensory range was the fact that he could only use it for a short period of time, as he would get a headache if he used it for too long.
It was during this expanded sensory range check that he found a group of small presences running through the forest. Their movements were chaotic and seemingly random. Some of the shapes leapt onto trees as they passed, some climbed into and out of bushes. They didn’t seem to be heading in his direction, but they were getting nearer as they moved.
Evren stopped pulling his wagon and retrieved his sword from its sheath, which was hanging from the front of the wagon. He turned his body towards where the presences were located and closed his eyes so he could focus more on their movements. The group had stooped as well and scattered individually. It seemed as though they had found something but wasn’t sure where it was. Some of the creatures quarreled amongst themselves as if disagreeing with each other. The one closest to him started running in his direction.
Evren opened his eyes and waited for the group of six small creatures. He stepped forwards away from the wagon, into an area that was cleared of trees. The grasses in the roadway were only about knee height, but it was tall enough to hide the creatures as they ran across the ground. Occasionally he would see on of them leap up to grab onto a tree and then back down into the grass.
They were a mottled shade of green and brown. Their ears were large and pointed outward from their savage faces. Their noses were long and hooked below crazed eyes, and above a toothy smile. They wore no clothes and in their hands were crude weapons like clubs and spears. The voices that came from them were surprisingly low pitched, and their speech seemed to be made up of chittering and clicks.
The leader of the six clung to a tree with one hand and both feet. In its free hand it held a rock, which it used to point at Evren while calling out. As the others approached, it threw the rock at Evren and leapt down from the tree. As the rock approached, another dashed out from the grasses with a wooden spear towards him. As Evren reacted to the rock and spear, another creature behind him hit him with a club on the back of his leg. He turned to look at the one that had just struck him, but it was already gone back into the grass.
Another rock came flying towards him from his blind spot and struck his back near his right shoulder. Instead of turning to where the rock came from, he turned to the opposite way were one of the creatures stepped out of the grass. Before he could strike at the retreating creature, he was stabbed at his right leg with a spear. The spear slid off his armor without penetrating, but it caught him by surprise.
He was surrounded and was being played with. “These must be the goblins I read about. They certainly are more dangerous than they appear to be.” He said to himself as he was struck from behind again, this time on the side of his left thigh. They were quick to strike and retreat again. They used the terrain and distractions to their advantage. The damage was low, but it would eventually wear down their target. They were clever enough to coordinate their attacks. If the focus was shifted to one of them, they wouldn’t get close and would instead throw a rock or disappear into the grass.
This is how they fight. The book he read stated that one shouldn’t fight goblins alone, as they always act in groups. When fighting with others, the tactic is to fight defensively with using ranged attacks or magic being the preferred method of retaliation. Many a person has underestimated goblins for their diminutive size and paid the price with their lives. Evren had left his bow on the wagon intentionally, as it was too strong to fight such a quick quarry. He also had magic, but he was unskilled with it.
He spun around with his sword out, intending to reap the grasses around him. At the end of his swing, he released a spell called “Wind Blade” to cut down more grasses. It only traveled out two meters, but it neatly sliced through the grasses in a straight line. He spun around in the opposite direction, finishing the cutting of the grasses around him to give himself a wider area to fight in. As he rose back to his fighting stance, he was struck from the left with a rock on his jaw.
A small cut appeared on his face where the rock hit. From the sound of their chittering, it appeared the goblins had got excited from that. Without wiping away the blood, he chanted “Heal Cut” to close the wound. His vigilance remained high and now that he had opened the area around himself, he hoped it would increase the time he would be able to react to their movements.
He didn’t anticipate them simply changing their tactics slightly. Thus, the cleared area was not providing him much of an advantage. More rocks flew in his direction, with the occasional spear joining. If the spear missed him, it would be retrieved stealthily, but if the spear struck him and fell at the grass, it would be picked up when his attention was diverted elsewhere. He suspected the rocks were recovered similarly. He noticed several of the rocks had jagged edges on them.
Sighing, Evren invoked his sensory field. He did so with a close range, and low details to reduce magic consumption. His eyes lost focus as his perception shifted. One of the goblins was about to throw a rock, another behind him was about to attack with a spear. As the rock started flying towards him, the goblin behind him leapt from the grass, while another from the same direction as the rock started approaching to attack if he turned around.
Evren shifted his position to avoid the rock and swung his sword in a sweeping circle behind him. The goblin was in the air, poised to strike when the sword hit it. As the sword struck, Evren spun his other leg around and shifted his pivot to the opposite foot. This continued the swing and got him further away from the goblin that was approaching from his new blind spot. The goblin that had been struck was carried along with the sword and eventually slid off it to send it flying into the distance. The sword had cut it deeply, nearly bisecting it.
Another rock was flying towards him, but this time he caught it with telekinesis, and diverted its route to the goblin behind him. It didn’t hit the goblin, but it did cause it to back off. Evren regained his fighting stance and returned to the center of the area he had cleared. He took a quick deep breath and “watched” the goblins scurry around him.
One was approaching him from the rear to strike him from the rear, and another to his left was approaching for a follow-up strike. As the goblin moved to strike him, a rock flew in from his front right. Evren stepped forward and feigned to the right before spinning around to the left and dropping to one knee, thrusting his sword forward at the goblin approaching from his left. The one behind him swung down it’s club at Evren’s head, which he blocked by simply raising his left arm up and catching it with is forearm. The sword struck dead center of the goblin’s chest, killing it immediately and impaling it on his sword.
The other goblin that had attacked him had already begun to retreat while two rocks were flying towards him. He stood and backed away from the fleeing goblin and moved his head to avoid the rocks. A goblin charged towards him from behind with a spear, aimed low. Evren swung his sword at the goblin, but the weight of the goblin impaled on it slowed his swing, allowing the attacking goblin a chance to back off before it could be hit.
Evren frowned at the goblin on his sword and stepped to avoid a flying rock. He dropped the point of the sword towards the ground so he could step on the lower half of the goblin and pull the sword out of it. He pivoted on the foot standing on the goblin corpse and pointed his left hand at the goblin approaching from the rear. “Water Ball” was chanted quickly and a ball of water the size of a softball appeared from his hand. It launched itself almost immediately, striking the approaching goblin in its upper chest, knocking it back. He pulled his sword out and resumed his defensive stance.
Evren knew the damages caused by the water ball weren’t very high, but it was enough to knock the goblin back, which is what he was aiming for. There were four left. Evren had read goblins were cowardly and would retreat if they felt they couldn’t win. They were still circling him, so he figured they were pretty confident in their success.
One of the goblins leapt onto a tree behind him and started to say something to the other goblins. Evren didn’t plan to let it say much as he launched a rock from the ground at it. The rock flew towards the goblin low to the ground, through the grass. It struck the goblin in the leg, causing a sound that made Evren to believe it had broken a bone. The goblin fell from the tree spinning like a wheel.
Evren turned to where the goblin flew off to and smiled. He got hit with a rock on his back for it, but he felt it was a fair trade. Now one of the four was injured and probably unable to participate in the fight.
A rock came flying from behind with a goblin following it, spear held high. In the front of him, a goblin had leapt at him with a spear in hand, aiming towards Evren’s chest. Evren caught the goblin with telekinesis and jumped forward and right to avoid the goblin and stone behind him. As the held goblin flailed in the air, Evren swung at it and watched the other goblin retreat. Evren hit the held goblin in the neck, separating its head from its body. The head fell to the ground, but the body stayed in place, spinning in the air with blood pinwheeling from the corpse.
Evren launched the goblin towards the side with a look of disgust on his face. The two remaining goblins had begun to flee back towards the direction from where they came from. The injured one too followed running on its one leg and his arms, like an animal. Evren ran to his wagon and grabbed his bow. In the time since he left town, he had made a few throw-away arrows to use as practice or hunting small game. He used those now to shoot at the fleeing goblins.
He took aim at the injured goblin and let an arrow fly. “Nope, missed it.” He said as he drew another arrow. As he was about to release, the goblin jumped up onto a tree and spun around to look back at him. Evren released the arrow and said, “Thanks, moving targets are still a challenge.” The arrow struck the center of the goblin’s chest, going completely through the goblin and sticking into the ground 20 meters behind it.
By the time Evren had knocked his third arrow, the other two goblins were out of sight. He put the arrow and bow away and grabbed a cloth from the wagon. He used this to wipe down the sword and his armor of blood. When he finished, he put the sword back in the scabbard and hung it on the wagon. He went off to recover his arrows then. The first one had struck a tree with a glancing blow, cracking the shaft, while he couldn’t find the second arrow. He also gathered up the goblin corpses into a pile on the side of the road. He pulled a shovel from the wagon and buried the corpses before packing everything up and continuing down the road.
