With the help of his homeowner and sleeping expert perks he was able to sleep off his head injury. Oddly enough his blood fountain perk also activated. It had reduced the negative effects of blood loss in his brain. He had slept about four hours, which was longer than he thought he would need to heal his wounds.

Since he was feeling better now he decided he still wanted to follow the goblins out of the valley, just to make sure they weren’t going to be a nuisance again. This could also double as a scouting trip for him. He still had never left the valley. During the tutorial he was physically prevented from leaving by an invisible barrier. After the tutorial he had just not thought it was worth leaving everything behind.

Kegan came up on the cliff that had given the baby goblins so much trouble. There was a problem. A bunch of baby goblins were still here. Definitely not a big part of the horde, but about a hundred of them, along with about a hundred corpses from goblins that must have gotten unlucky when climbing.

Part of Kegan’s memory of the earlier events was sticking out. He’d started to recognize when a memory was protected due to one of his memory perks. And the memory of the large goblins screaming at and threatening the baby goblins was sticking out. Maybe he could try the same thing, it was worth a try if it meant he got to avoid trying to climb suicide cliff again.

As he got closer more of the goblins started to notice him. They weren’t immediately swarming him, which was a good sign. These baby goblins almost seemed docile in comparison to others he had seen. When he got within ten feet they still hadn’t moved.

Kegan pulled out his club, took a deep breath and let all of his anger and frustration at the goblins flow out into a scream of rage. Most of the goblins immediately jumped back and gave him about 20 feet of space. He moved forward and they continued parting for him as he got to the cliff. He quickly started scaling the cliff. It was a much easier climb than suicide cliff. About 20 feet up he noticed that the goblins had stopped being afraid of him and were now trying to chase him up.

Only two of them caught up with Kegan, and he easily just kicked them off his leg. He rounded the top of the cliff. And took off running up the mountain. The goblins weren’t leaving as many clear signs of their passage, since the ground was mostly stone, and there was no longer a trail of trampled corpses. But there was only one real way to go, so he wasn’t worried about losing them.

Kegan had to run past the spirit and its shrine. It said something about about beating the first challenge, and saving my progress. But Kegan just ignored it and kept following the trail down the other side of the mountain.

The other side of the mountain was a more gradual incline, and the trees started almost immediately, so he couldn’t see very far ahead into the forest. The trail that the goblins took was once again very easy to follow. After an hour of following the trail he started finding his first few baby goblin corpses, and another hour after that there were stragglers. He barely stopped to deal with the stragglers, and they were spread out enough that it was faster to use his spear as a club than to just use his club.

The groups of stragglers were getting thicker when he started smelling smoke. He hooked up in the sky and could see a plume of smoke rising in the distance. Another minute of running and he saw a huge clearing in the forest up ahead. The fire was coming from the middle of the clearing.

In the middle of the clearing was a village, surrounding the village on all sides was a shallow pit a few feet wide. The fire was coming from this pit. The ring of fire was being fed by people on the inside, shoring up areas of the fire that were dying down. Taking a slow jog around the outside of the burning pit was the group of goblins that Kegan had been chasing.

Most of the scene was very confusing for Kegan. He knew intellectually that there might be other creatures like him, and the spirit had occasionally made hints at the existence of other “adventurers”. But seeing them in the flesh was very different.

The field was littered with arrows. Kegan thought of them as mini javelins, but they seemed effective enough. The horde of baby goblins was only half as large as its original size.

When he saw the large goblin and its guardians coming around the fire, he realized that the target of the villagers attack had not been the baby goblins. They must have been trying to take down the largest goblin, the other casualties just seemed incidental. The large goblin had a multitude of arrows sticking out of it. And while it seemed a little more sluggish, it was also still able to maintain a jogging pace with a half dozen arrows sticking out of it, and a swarm of baby goblins climbing on it. The arrows were even being used as handholds by the baby goblins to make their climbing easier.

Kegan considered his options. He no longer had the luxury of time. That fire around the village was too large to constantly maintain, and it was dying in quite a few places, despite the villager’s best efforts. The baby goblins became way more docile without the larger goblins to rile them up. They must have some level of information on goblins already, because they looked like they had been trying to take down the larger goblin as well.

Kegan’s javelins had more stopping power, but they might also not be enough. His spear to the creature’s heart or head might be the only thing strong enough to stop it. But that meant getting in close. He could survive through a baby goblin swarm, but the four elite bone armor goblins would be the real danger.

The group of goblins was passing in front of him, and soon their backs were turned to him. He pulled out one of the six javelins he was carrying, got a decent running windup and hurled it as hard and accurately as he could. The javelin flew true and struck the back of one of the elite goblins. Their armor was made out of the rib cages of some creature, and each of the ribs on the back left small gaps. Kegan had been using these javelins to hunt deer and wolves, long before any goblins arrived, and he knew that if they were thrown with enough force there was a good chance of going through a rib cage.

The goblin screamed in agony, reaching around to grasp at the spear sticking out of its back, but it fell to its knees and was soon covered in baby goblins. The other three elite goblins whirled around and screamed in anger when they saw Kegan and their comrade with a javelin in his back. The large goblin kept lumbering away, and the baby goblins kept following it.

As the three goblins were charging Kegan he pulled out another Javelin and threw it at one of the charging goblins. To Kegan’s amazement the goblin had a quick enough reaction to turn to the side and use their club to deflect the throw.

Kegan pulled out his club and a javelin to wield in his off hand, and ran screaming at the goblins to gain his own momentum.

The goblin he had taken down first had a spear, that left one more goblin with a spear and two with clubs. Kegan was more worried about the spear.

They closed the ground quickly. The remaining spear goblin was on Kegan’s right. Just before they clashed Kegan made a half hearted throw of his javelin at the center club wielding goblin. Then Kegan moved hard to his right. The center goblin was distracted and his momentum thrown off trying to block the thrown javelin, and the center goblin blocked the left goblin from moving to surround Kegan.

Kegan had a half second with the right side goblin, and it was all he needed. The goblin’s spear thrust towards his center mass. He used his now free hand to divert the spear enough that it glanced off the center of his chest, the sharpened wood only glancing off of his hardened hide armor. But it also brought him within striking distance and his club connected with the head of the goblin. The goblin’s skull helmet shattered, and maybe his skull shattered too. Kegan didn’t have time to check before the two club wielding goblins were upon him and raining blows down on his body.

Kegan was returning a few of the blows with his own club. Neither he or the goblins were concentrating on defense. It was a battle of attrition progressing in the span of a few seconds, who could take the most blows from a club. Kegan barely dodged a club as it swung past his mouth. After only a few seconds of this back and forth realized he wasn’t going to win the battle of attrition, their chest bone armor was pretty good at deadening club blows, and he was having trouble getting a headshot in.

He jumped back to give himself a little space and threw his club at the face of one of the goblins. It struck him knocking him back but probably not out of the fight. Kegan rushed the other goblin, grabbing its club in one hand and pulling out a wooden dagger with the other hand. He rapidly drove the dagger into an opening in the chest armor, stabbing the goblin below its lungs multiple times.

Then a very solid blow connected with the back of his head. His Bone Head perk had definitely activated. The blow sent him falling forward onto the other goblin. He immediately rolled off just in time to see a club landing where his head had been. The standing goblin leaped closer to him and lifted his club to swing it down on Kegan. With his dagger in hand he rolled closer and jammed the dagger into the goblin’s calf. It screamed in pain but still swung its club landing hard on his back. Kegan grabbed its other leg and pulled. The goblin couldn’t support itself on its wounded leg and fell to the ground.

He pulled his dagger free and began stabbing his way up the goblin’s leg as it screamed, kicked at him, and tried to crawl away all at once. Kegan saw the other wounded goblin getting up, clutching its bleeding stomach in one hand, and club in the other. Kegan rolled away and got to his feet. The adrenaline pumping through his body was barely doing enough to mask the pain. He likely had multiple broken ribs, he could feel the back of his head bleeding heavily down his neck, and his left forearm was probably fractured from deflecting a club blow.

He ran screaming at the goblin, eager to end this fight. Kegan was surprised when the goblin stole his own tactic and threw its club at Kegan’s face. He got his hands up to block it, but immediately after the goblin slammed into him, tackling him to the ground. It had grabbed his right arm that was holding the knife with both of its hands and then bit down on his forearm.

Kegan screamed in pain as he felt the goblin’s teeth puncture his skin and grind against the bone in his arm. With his free hand he started punching the goblin in the head, at some point it had lost its protective bone helmet. But it still held on, so Kegan grabbed at its eye socket, jamming his hand into the soft tissue, the goblin screamed and released him, but it was effectively dead a moment later when Kegan’s hand went deeper.

Kegan shoved the twitching body off of him, but he was greeted by the wicked smile of another goblin holding a spear. Before he could do anything the goblin stabbed down, driving the spear into Kegan’s stomach. His mind exploded with pain as his abdominal muscles clenched around the length of wood sticking out of stomach.

His eyes had clenched shut from the pain, but his muscles relaxed and the pain temporarily abated. Kegan opened his eyes to look up at the goblin, but the goblin had a confused cloudy eyed expression, it was looking down at its own stomach and there was an object protruding from it: a metal spear tip covered in goblin blood.

The spear was suddenly jerked back through the goblin only to get stuck on the rib cage bone armor. The goblin was turned to the side and then forcibly kicked off the spear by a large grizzled man. He was covered in thick hide armor, with strips of metal sewn in for extra protection. He had a short thick brown and grey beard that it covered almost his entire face, and hair down to his shoulders that was popping out from under his helmet.

The man looked down at Kegan and the spear jutting out of his stomach. “Damn, I don’t know how you are alive after taking that blow to the head. I’m sorry I didn’t get out here in time, I didn’t think anyone was crazy enough to face down four goblin elites all on their own.”

The man looked up and then back down at Kegan. He suddenly seemed much more urgent. “I’ve seen wounds like that before, you’ll suffer for a week, and then the wound will rot and you’ll die. The goblins are coming back around, so I can either end it for you now, or drag you back to the village for your slow death. What will it be brave stranger?”

“Pull it out”

“Eh, that is the worst option, the goblin swarm will eat you inside out, or you will bleed out as I carry you back.”

“Do it!” Kegan growled.

“Alright”

Without waiting another moment he stepped forward and yanked the spear out. Kegan winced and then let out a breathe he had been holding in. He’d almost forgotten how good it felt to not have a spear sticking out of stomach.

Kegan rolled onto his stomach and got on his hands and knees. One hand he clutched to the wound in his stomach and activated his fire starter perk to start cauterizing the wound. He could see the horde of baby goblins getting closer.

“I see that you are hoping for a warriors death to die in battle. I will leave you so you can meet your gods. The village thanks you for your sacrifice.”

He turned and fled back towards the village without another word. Kegan was a little stunned by the man’s last words. “Does he think I’m was crazy? I don’t want to die again.” But the man was too far away by the time Kegan thought to shout after him. Communicating with another creature was still a new concept to Kegan.

The wound had partially finished cauterizing from Kegan’s fire starter magic perk. He must have lost his own spear at some point, so he picked up the spear that had been in his stomach less than a minute ago. He did a quick inspection of the spear. The quality was pretty shoddy, there was a knot in the wood near the base of the spear, making it slightly off balance and introducing a weakness in the structure. The point was sharpened differently than Kegan’s spear. He usually designed his spears and javelins with the idea of deeper penetration, so the points were tapered and much longer. This spear had a short point, so it wouldn’t have to go deep to cause a large wound.

It would work fine, he was just distracting himself from having to think about what a stupid thing he was about to do. The huge goblin was lumbering towards him. Kegan only came up to about its belly. Kegan got his javelins out and threw three of them until he got what he wanted. The first two had impaled baby goblins and were only loosely in the skin of the huge goblin. The third was a solid hit high in the chest.

Kegan got in position. The lumbering goblin was just ten feet away when Kegan thrust forward with the spear into its stomach, and then he dug his end of the spear into the ground. The huge goblin’s own momentum worked against it, driving the spear even deeper. It made a weird deep throated noise of confusion and displeasure, its arms were groping at the spear sticking out of its stomach. Before the horde of goblins came around to the ground, Kegan leapt off the ground with a dagger in one hand, and his hand grabbing for the javelin he’d managed to throw into the creature’s chest.

Before it could react or even take notice of him he did a half pull up on the javelin and drove the dagger into the creature’s eye socket. It didn’t die immediately so he pulled it out and drove it in the throat and face three or four more times. It still wasn’t dying, but he felt a huge hand grab his chest and fling him away.

He landed on his arm wrong, and it bent the wrong way and something snapped painfully, he rolled to a stop a few meters later. He was laying stomach down, on top of his left arm which was mangled from the fall. His head was facing the direction of the goblins. He could see all the small goblins creating a giant mound covering the large goblin.

He laid there dazed for some time. The adrenaline in his body slowly drained, and the exhaustion of his four hour run and few minutes of intense combat were catching up to him. He drifted off to sleep.