“Rah!” I snarled in pain as I felt something stab into me, quickly seeing that a human Adventurer had managed to thrust a dagger into my ribs. Flinching away from the pain, I shoved the Adventurer away from me, the same instant I leaped sideways, deeper into the crowd and tearing the dagger free from the attacker’s hand, leaving it sticking out of my side.
[Unknown Human] [Sneak Attack II]’s you for 73 points of damage!
Fuck! Another one with a base class! I swore to myself as I caught the combat log’s message out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t help but cough a spray of blood as I tried to suck in a breath of air, feeling a disturbing watery sensation in my left lung as blood began to pool.
Reeling from the pain, I quickly grabbed the dagger with my free hand, roaring as I tore it from my flesh. Shifting my grip on the dagger, I promptly stabbed it deep into the kidneys of a dwarven Adventurer in front of me that had his hands in the air above him. Screaming in pain, the dwarf fell to his knees, a soft popping sound filling the air as the gleaming distortion above us vanished.
That was the mage! I looked down at the dwarf with a bit of surprise, subconsciously not expecting such an unusual race and class combination for a caster. Have to finish him off quickly!
Our of the corner of my eye I saw the rogue that had attacked me begin to desperately scramble in my direction before a thunderclap of magefire knocked him off his feet and scorched a handful of the tightly packed Adventurers that still struggled to find their feet after Drace’s assault had knocked them down.
“Thanks, Hal!” I shouted the same instant I slashed Razor into the neck of the fallen dwarf, sawing until I felt the blade bite bone, I was in no mood to take chances and wanted to ensure that the Mage was truly dead. His presence alone had been more than enough to render our ranged attackers ineffective, making it difficult for those trapped on the ramparts to fight back.
“Incoming!” A sibilant cry screeched through the air as two giant shadows leaped from the ramparts, slamming into the stunned group of Adventurers.
Fueled by the loss of their comrade, Cadmus and Helix fell upon the Adventurers with a level of ferocity never seen before, no longer prevented from joining in on the melee by the Force Shield’s presence. Cadmus’s deadly claws rent flesh as he pinned his victim to the ground, quickly biting deep into the Adventurer’s throat and tearing it free in spurt of blood. Helix roared as he swung his ax with rage, cleaving deep into the shoulder of one of the archers responsible for Myr’s death.
With a final slice of my blade, I ensured the death of the dwarven mage, throwing his body to the ground in front of me. An angry yowl had me turning quickly, in search of my familiar. Spinning, I first saw a brutally savaged Adventurer, the one that I had cut earlier, bleeding out slowly on the ground.
Continuing my glance around, I found that Amaranth had turned his attention to the rogue that had stabbed me earlier, having traded a pair of blows with the man. Blood flowed freely from a cut across Amaranth’s face, while the rogue held a mangled arm closely to his chest.
Before I could begin to move forward, the rogue flinched from twin impacts to his back as Sierra’s and Natasha’s arrows thudded home, quickly followed by a trio of azure missiles following the scout’s lead. Overwhelmed by the sudden magical and ranged assault, the rogue didn’t have a chance to avoid Amaranth’s brutal tackle, which had the Adventurer’s head disappearing in the creature’s maw, followed by a life ending crunch.
“How do you like it when we can actually fight back?!” Freya’s rage filled shout caused my heart to skip a beat in fear before I remembered that she was on my side.
“No! Wa-” The Adventurer’s cry ended with a stomach-wrenching wail, quickly followed by a wet sounding thrust.
With all the nearby Adventurers subdued or dead, I turned towards Freya’s shouting. I saw her standing like a blood covered Valkyrie amid a pool of blood and carnage at the foot of the rampart stairs. Her body shook with rage as she practically hovered on top of two wounded Adventurers, one forcibly held down by Drace, the other by Thorne.
Looking past her, I saw Abaddon lying on his back, his chest rising in a desperate quest for air as dozens of wicked wounds bled from his body. Theia’s hands were covering a massive wound on Abaddon’s chest and she looked towards us in panic.
“I’m out of mana and Abaddon is bleeding out!” she screamed. “He needs healing!”
“Caius!” I shouted at the Warlock, who had already begun to run towards the fallen party member.
“Where are they?!” Freya continued to rage at the two broken Adventurers by her feet, having placed the point of her bloody longsword over the heart of the struggling Adventurer that Drace held. “Graves. Carver. Where. Are. They?!”
“F-fuck you, bitch!” the half-elf Adventurer spat at Freya as he struggled to pull himself free from Drace’s grip.
“Wrong answer!” Freya shouted as she swung her sword up high, hefting over her head.
“Freya, wait!” I called out, knowing what was about to happen. I scrambled to close the distance between us, but I was far too slow to stop her in time.
Truthfully, a part of me wasn’t sure I really wanted to stop her.
With a yell of fury, Freya unleashed a brutal, coup de grâce, her sword biting deep into the head of the belligerent Adventurer, barely missing Drace in her swing.
Not missing a beat, she stepped towards the other Adventurer, her boot stepping on the man’s blood-soaked knee. “I’ll ask one more time. Where are they?!”
“Aaaah! What the fuck?!” the Adventurer screamed as Sierra ground her foot into the wound, the reduced pain threshold the last patch had modified not enough to completely mitigate the sudden spike of pain. “They’re inside! In the hill! Please stop!”
“We know they’re in the Tower, you idiot!” Freya hissed, leaning harder onto the wound. “Stop wasting our time!”
“N-no!” the man stuttered. “Not in the Tower! In the hill! There’s an entrance in the Tower they dug out that leads into the hill! Graves, Carver and the others disappeared into it early this morning!”
“What’s in there?” I asked while watching Caius quickly run past me and up the stairs to tend to Abaddon.
“I don’t know! We weren’t allowed to go in there!” The Adventurer’s eyes clung to me as if he had found a life raft while being lost at sea. “We were told to watch the perimeter!”
“What about the goblins?!” Freya barked, causing the Adventurer to flinch in fear.
“Some went in too, but others are in the Tower!” The Adventurer tried to pull his leg out from under Freya’s boot. “They know you’re here! Please, just let me go! I-I’ll disappear and leave you all alone!”
“Lyr!” Caius called out to me, first tapping his ear, then his heart, and pointed towards the tower. “Abaddon doesn’t have much time, I won’t have much time afterward either.”
“I understand Caius.” I looked at the Warlock, giving him a slow nod. “Do what you have to.”
“What’s going on?” The Adventurer struggled to look backwards at Caius, who stumbled weakly down the bloody stairs. “Are you letting me go?”
“In a manner of speaking…” Caius whispered weakly as he placed his hand on the Adventurer’s shoulder. “…yes.”
“Oh…” the Adventurer said as Caius’s hand flared red. “…good.”
***
“I’m fine, Lyrian,” Freya replied to my question testily as we stormed up the crude stairs the goblins had built into the roof of the tower leading inside. After a moment, Freya sighed and continued speaking at a whisper. “No… I’m not fine, but I will be. When Myr died, all I could remember was our trip here with Graves and how angry I felt at being helpless.”
“That’s understandable,” I replied softly. “But what Myr did, it saved Theia’s life and possibly Abaddon’s too.”
“I know and I would have done the same in her place,” Freya said with another sigh. “It’s just getting harder and
harder to remember all of this is just a game.”
“I hear you there.”
Not wasting any time after Caius’s warning that his Bloodsense had picked signs of life from the Tower, we quickly ensured that none of the enemy Adventurers remained alive, their bodies quickly dissolving into dust a few moments after they died. We then continued our assault, leaving the now burning goblin settlement behind as we entered the fallen tower.
Climbing up the stairs and into the massive hole the goblins had carved into the Tower, we found ourselves running through what once was the rafters of the tower. Activating my True Sight to pierce through the gloom, I noticed dozens of wooden beams missing that would otherwise be helping to support the weight of the roof, scavenged by the goblins to be used as building materials.
I couldn’t help but notice that there was a lot more material missing from the rafters that the tiny huts and palisade would account for.
As we ascended upwards, the stairway joined a thick supporting pillar at the very center of the room, just long enough for us to sprint along, serving as a makeshift bridge as it spanned the length of the rafters. It lead towards a large door, set in the middle of a wooden wall, that by my guess, was once an access hatch to reach the rafters and affect any needed repairs on the roof.
Moving with urgency, Drace led the way through the access hatch, with Abaddon, Cadmus and myself close behind. We stepped out of the rafters onto a crude four-foot wide scaffold hammered into the wall that spanned the entire length of the room to our left, before circling around the distant wall and joining another scaffold set upon the opposite, stone wall that inclined upwards, leading to a higher level of scaffolding above.
Well, that explains where all the material went, my brain was instantly caught off guard as we entered into a massive room that completely defied expectation. What was once a flat, wide open room at the peak of the Tower was now a narrow, multi-leveled network of scaffolding and platforms. Quickly glancing around the room, I guessed that the chamber was around sixty feet wide, both in height and width, yet was only fifteen feet deep. This room is like you stood a coin on its edge. Tall and wide, but also very thin!
Before we could even begin to make sense of all the scaffolding and platforms that the goblins had built into the room, a hail of arrows suddenly rained down on Drace and Abaddon from above and to our right, piercing deep into their shoulders.
“Fuck!” Drace shouted in surprise, raising his shield up high to cover himself and Abaddon from a quartet of goblins on a scaffolding positioned perfectly to cover anyone entering the room.
“Don’t stop! Circle around!” I shouted, making a snap decision as I came to a stop and looked up to the goblins readying another volley. “Go! I’ll cover you!”
Triggering Blink-step, I instantly reappeared on the scaffolding in the middle of the four goblins, surprising them all with my sudden arrival and nearly cracking my head off the underside of a ramp that led even higher into the room.
Desperately waving about, I was able to disrupt the aim of three of the goblins closest to me, their arrows harmlessly flying off into the distance. The fourth and furthest goblin, however, merely shifted his aim firing an arrow at me from near point blank range. I didn’t have a chance even to tense for the blow before the arrow buried itself into me, a few fingers above my hip.
A [Goblin Stalker] hits you with [Focused Shot I] for 97 points of damage!
I felt my guts curdle from the impact of the arrow, causing me to howl in pain as I wildly swung Razor in an arc. My wild swing missed all of the goblins in front of me but managed to buy me some much needed time and space until the pain from the Goblin’s attack subsided.
Instead of cowering before me like the goblins outside of the Tower did, the four goblins all dropped their bows and drew wicked looking daggers from sheaths hanging around their necks. Without even a glance between one another, they leaped towards me, intent on carving me to pieces. Caught off guard by their sudden ferocity, two of the goblins landed long, slicing cuts across my arm and leg respectively.
Oh damn! These goblins are definitely a cut above the rabble we fought outside! The small tags in my vision noting all four of the Goblins to be Level 9 Stalkers. I quickly found myself without any room to maneuver on the small platform, the goblins moving to surround me in an arc with my back exposed to the edge of the scaffold. I fervently worked Razor through a complicated parry to keep all four of the goblins daggers at bay. They’re going to carve me up before everyone gets here!
Hoping to buy myself time, I channeled a Shocking Touch into Razor, causing it to crackle with electricity as I slapped the blade against the dagger held by the right most goblin threatening me. With a squawking cry, the goblin instantly let go of the dagger as the electricity shot through its body, affording me the chance to pirouette and shift myself away from the scaffold’s edge placing my back to the wall.
Following the lessons that Drace had taught me the other day, I planted a vicious kick on the Goblin that had instinctively bent down to retrieve its fallen weapon. I felt the jagged edges of the arrow still embedded in my hip tear at my insides as my foot made contact with the Goblin’s shoulder, but judged it a fair price to pay when I saw the goblin sail clear off the edge of the platform.
One down and three to go! I recounted to myself, feeling a sudden weariness overcome me. Concerned, I quickly scanned my health bar, only to find it at 60% and falling, fast. What the hell is going on?! Why am I losing so much health?!
With a mental thought, I brought up my combat log the same instant I cut a slice along a goblin’s forearm, hoping to keep the trio at bay a few seconds longer.
You take 6 internal damage from a [Goblin Stalker]’s [Serrated Arrow]!
You take 4 internal damage from a [Goblin Stalker]’s [Serrated Arrow]!
You take 9 internal damage from a [Goblin Stalker]’s [Serrated Arrow]!
The fucking arrow deals damage every time when I move! My hand bent down to grasp the half still sticking out of my hip, feeling a jolting pain shoot through my body as I touched it. Wrapping my hand around the wood, I steeled myself before sharply yanking it out of my body. Even then the pain nearly brought me to my knees as I swore I felt the tip of the arrow grate along my hip bone.
Despite having knocked one of them off the platform, the other three goblins showed no hesitation in taking advantage of my sudden spike of pain, each of them attacking all at once. While no longer being hampered by a twisting pain in my guts, there was little I could do to evade all three attacks with so little space available to me.
I only managed to parry one dagger, knocking the blade out of the way, the other two moving far too fast for me to react to. The second dagger sliced a thin line across my stomach, its sharp edge cutting through my armor, serving as a distraction for the third as it nearly buried itself in the same spot I had just pulled the arrow from.
“Ugh!” I felt the goblin’s dagger quickly punch in and out of me, the goblins quickly retreating back as I cut upwards with Razor, in hopes of catching an outstretched Goblin arm in front of me.
Okay! I’m getting my ass kicked here! The latest two blows from the goblins had sent my health spiraling below 50% and I had barely even managed to scratch the trio. I just didn’t have enough room to effectively maneuver around their attacks, especially while my head was cramped under the ramp above me. This place wasn’t built with regular sized people in mind!
Casting a look over the edge of the platform, I tried to come up with a plan of action to escape from the goblins in front of me. Looking down through a mess of scaffolding far below me, I confirmed Drace’s earlier fears that the Goblins had made a home within the tower. There was easily a dozen goblins below that were rushing up similar ramps set into the walls as they moved to join the fight.
Can’t go that way! I’ll end up in even more trouble! My eyes fixated on the scaffold below me and towards the center of the room, the one that I had just teleported from a moment earli
er. A quick scan told me that the rest of the party had made great use of my distraction, having already managed to circle around to the far side of the room. Alright! That’s enough! I need to fucking go!
Sweeping Razor in a wide cleave, I bought myself some precious space as I turned to leap off the platform. Thankfully, the distance between the two platforms wasn’t far, roughly ten feet lower and twelve feet further from my current perch, well within what I considered my normal jumping range.
What I didn’t account for, however, was the strength of the kludged together platform, or the relative lack of it.
After leaping away from the Goblins and sailing through the air, I slammed into the edge of the platform and grabbed hold, with the intention to pull myself up. The impact of my landing, however, tore an entire length of the crudely designed platform from the wall, causing my grip to falter as wood cracked and snapped as it pulled away from the wall.
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