Half an hour later and we were still lost in this overgrown jungle, during that time we had fought three more packs of thorn wolves but had found nothing else of interest. Each fight was easier than the last as we got more accustomed to how they fought and figured out how to counter them. I was starting to think that all this floor had were stupid Thorn Wolves when a tree we were passing by shook a little and a second later a pod of purple slimes fell onto our heads.

Unlike the wolves who usually focused on just me and Taren, they decided to evenly attack everyone, although there was an extra slime and an ooze. The extra slime fell onto Taren so that he now had two to deal with while the Ooze fell onto Brior. The Ooze’s acidic body started to corrode his cloak and dealt continuous damage to him. The slimes didn’t have an acidic body though so they covered themselves in a barrier, turning themselves into gravity assisted cannon balls.

The only slime that didn’t do any damage was one of Taren’s slimes who bounced off of his hastily raised shield. The slime hadn’t done much damage to me but I had a decent constitution unlike our three magical party members so they were worse off than me. The first to react was Baerwynn who sent three blasts of water at the slime closest to her, the first blast shattered its barrier the second got rid of a bit of its goo letting the third one blast through and into its core, shattering it.

As I saw the slime turn into a purple puddle Hel buffed me and Taren. Taren then used his extra speed to swing at the slime twice. Both swings hit it, the first easily shattering its barrier and even doing some permanent damage while the second made it lose a lot of goo but not killing it. The slime then retaliated by ramming a purple wall into Taren, who met it with his shield. The barrier shattered on contact but it looked like Taren wasn’t unscathed as it was forced back a few feet.

Brior couldn’t cast anything as his head was in the ooze so he was trying to wrestle it off of him, unfortunately he wasn’t strong enough so the monster remained glued onto him, slowly whittling down his health. I wanted to go help him but I had my own slime to deal with first so I used [Fire Ancestry] to engulf my glaive once again in fire before stabbing at the slime in front of me.

Slimes aren’t particularly dextrous so I managed to easily hit it with the first one before it could react, cutting through its barrier like butter and sending a chunk of goo flying. It then tried to leap backwards but it was still in my range so my guandao went straight into its core, killing the second slime of the encounter. I then started to run to Brior to try to help him but before I could get to him three more purple barriers flew out of the slimes.

One of them struck Taren’s right side from a blind spot, causing him to stagger a bit but he stayed standing. The second went for Hel but she easily dodged to the side but the third smashed into Brior, who was too preoccupied to dodge the attack. In fact the attack surprised him so much that he fell on to the muddy floor, letting the ooze cover even more of him.

Now free of any distraction Baerwynn was able to start helping Brior. Water flowed out of her wand like a small but fast stream before reaching the ooze and stabbing into it before solidifying. She then started to pull on the wand, it didn’t manage to get the ooze all the way off but it was back to only barely covering Brior’s face. Hel didn’t have any offensive abilities and she was already buffing me and Taren so she didn’t have enough mental capacity left to debuff the ooze so instead she just focused on healing Brior.

Taren tried to swing at the slime in front of him but he was still knocked off balance so he missed. He tried again and this time he managed to hit the slime and kill it before running to also help Brior, not caring that this let his other slime hit him in the back. Just before I reached Brior he finally managed to get it off of him with Baerwynn’s help before casting some sort of spell.

I couldn’t see any magical effect but the ooze shook violently before starting to lose its form. Brior was holding it in place so I easily stabbed it twice with my inflamed spear, finishing it off. With the major threat dealt with I got in between Brior and one of the slimes just as three more purple transparent walls were sent flying at us. Taren smashed the first one with his shield then I sliced the second one in half, sending it flying off harmlessly.

The third one got past us and hit Brior in his gut, winding him. From the looks of it he was almost out of health but the fight was almost over so he just had to last a little longer. Baerwynn encased one of the slimes in water before squeezing it, shattering its barrier and leaving its core with a few cracks. Brior sent a thin slice of air that easily cut the trapped slime in half.

Taren then charged at a slime before pinning it with his shield and shattering its core with a swift strike from his sword. I rushed down the last slime before lunging into it, I was once again too fast for it so the lunge easily landed. I then raised the temperature of my fire that was in it until it couldn’t stand the heat anymore and burst, coating everything, including me, in goo. We checked on Brior but he said he was alright to carry on so after a few minutes of Hel healing him we were once again moving through the thick jungle.

After that ran into a few more slime pods but we were expecting them now so they weren’t particularly difficult to defeat. We also ran into a pack of thorn wolves but other than that we were starting to get into a good rhythm until a wave of arrows flew at us from our flank. Two hit me, another two embedded into Hel, one pierced through Taren’s armour and another two hit Brior while the last one flew over his head.

Looking around no one was down but that had taken out a lot of our health and we didn’t even know where exactly they were coming from. Looking around and activated [Minor Prediction] pumping as much mana into it as I could. Even though it only let me see five seconds into the future I was still able to see a bunch of goblins explode out of a bush from our side in time to shout, ‘To our left!’ and warn everyone.

I rushed to where they were coming from just in time to block two goblin warriors and a hobgoblin commander from attacking our fragile mages and healer. They tried to barge past me but every time I did I would stab at them, forcing them to back away. Two more warriors burst out of the shadows just as Hel started to buff the usual two giving Taren enough extra speed to get in between them and our backline. He even wounded both of them with a couple of quick jabs.

Now that we were aware of them Baer started to send barriers of water to the sky above us to stop all the arrows coming our way. Unfortunately each barrier could only stop a few arrows each before shattering so she had to constantly replace them, meaning she wouldn’t be able to attack back. I heard Brior curse under his breath as a giant light rose from his staff.

It lit the whole battlefield so we could now see where the archers were but they also had an easier time of seeing us. It turned out that archers had climbed a tree and were all on one branch that looked particularly sturdy. The two warriors that Taren had blocked weren’t just sitting back and letting him block them as they were viciously attacking him, most of their attacks were repelled by his shield or armour but a lucky swing found a gap between one of the plates and embedded deep into his chest.

I covered my blade in flames before drawing a line in the ground in front of me and under the goblins, setting it on fire and creating a barrier between them and us. One of the warriors managed to hop back in time to not get burnt but the commander and other warriors weren’t so lucky. It didn’t do too much damage but any little helped.

The hobgoblin didn’t want to get burnt itself but knew that it had to do something about me so it shouted at the other two warriors in a guttural language I didn’t understand. I could easily guess at what it had said as the two warriors jumped through the flames, getting burnt even more, before trying to swing at me. I still had my [Minor Prediction] up though so I was expecting it and managed to dodge all of their attacks.

The fight between Taren and his goblins was still in full swing but it looked like Taren was slowly pushing them back as the goblins had a bunch of wounds now while they couldn’t even get a single hit through Taren’s defence. Meanwhile Baer was stopping most of the archer’s arrows although a few were still getting through her defences and since they could tell it was her protecting us all of the arrows were flying at her.

She was now practically a pincushion as four arrows jutted out of her body, one of them incredibly close to her neck. Brior finished casting his next spell and this time wind rushed around him before flying to the branch the archers were standing on, cutting through it and causing all the archers to fall to the ground taking a bunch of damage.

One of the warriors in front of me was still on fire and distracted trying to put itself out so I easily stabbed its chest twice. The second lunge caused it to go limp so I swung my guandao around so that the corpse flew back through the fire and at the hobgoblin who roared in rage before charging through the fire itself. Meanwhile Taren stabbed one of the warriors in its chest, causing it to fall to one knee and letting Taren finish it off by cutting its head clean off.

The archers were just starting to get back up and were still clustered so Brior’s next spell sent a blast of greenish grey energy that exploded, engulfing all of them. The blast then recondensed before rushing into Baerwynn. The arrows embedded into her were all popped out as her wounds were mostly healed by the life force sucked out of the archers.

Looking at them only one archer was left standing, letting Baer focus on offence again. She didn’t waste a second as three blasts of water left her wand and barrelled at the commander. It bashed the first one away with its huge claymore, the second missed entirely but the third managed to hit it right in its chest, leaving an imprint on its armour and forcing it back a few feet.

I followed up by lunging at the commander, the first one was swatted away again but the second one managed to get past its defences. My guandao embedded into its belly, forcing it back so that it was now almost in the literal line of fire. The hobgoblin tried to desperately get my weapon out of its body but its hands were too slippery so nothing it tried worked.

Hel could tell that the fight was almost over and no one desperately needed healing so she rushed next to me before smashing the monster in the head with her quarterstaff. The hit gave the extra little bit of force to send the commander into the fire, causing it to slowly burn to death. As soon as their commander fell the three remaining goblins lost all cohesion and were easily finished off.

With the fight over we walked over to where they had come from before starting to collect their loot. A few minutes into our looting I bent down to pick up a tooth when I noticed something weird about the ground beneath it. I swiped the undergrowth and dirt away to find some brown pebbles that I recognised as copper ore. I picked some up before calling everyone over to me and showed them what I had found.

We came to the conclusion that the goblins must have been guarding the ore and had just attacked us when we got too close. It was an incredible discovery as the town would now have a reliable source of metal so we pocketed as much as we could easily pick up. It wasn’t much as we didn’t have a pickaxe but it would still be enough to have a blacksmith test it to see what quality the ore was.

Ten minutes later we had picked up all the loot and were moving when we noticed a glow we recognised as the portal. We immediately ran to it as we had spent at least three hours lost in this humid jungle and wanted to leave. There may still be a few more things to find here but that could wait for another day as we needed to return to the Guild immediately and report our findings.