I push myself further away from the front lines, and turn as a loud thud next to me attracts my attention. “Health on the left, Energy on the right.” Marie then sprints away, grabbing more supplies for the archers that are somehow running dangerously low on ammunition. There were so many arrows there… we don’t have nearly enough for this to go on. What will we do when they run out? We didn’t plan enough… so many contingencies and fallbacks and we somehow didn’t plan enough. Damnit.

I grab a Health potion, but reconsider and grab an Energy one instead. Better to leave the Health for the people who can’t use Energy. The potion restores 9 Energy, roughly, per swallow, meaning it’s one of Lauren’s potions. Mine barely manage to restore 5 per swallow. Unfortunate, I should be going through mine first, so we have more effective ones later… but it’s not like we can label them- duh, check with the system. I put Laurens potion back and pick out one of mine, and drain it. With about half of my Energy restored, I quickly get to work on my leg as the sounds of frustrated barking, fearful yelps from the enemy bounce around the small space.

Where it was loud before, now it’s a cacophony. Samuel easily holds the line on one edge of the pit, and on the other side, Seth uses a strategically placed barricade and his ridiculous strength to knock any monsters that approach into the pit. The archers stand in the middle, effectively preventing any of the rank and file from making the jump across. A quick glance in the pit makes it clear that the press of bodies as they moved to follow our retreat pushed a fair number of them into the dark below. Though they’ve stopped callously throwing their own into the pits, they don’t have the room to get a running start, and even creatures as fast as these require some time to build up speed before they can clear the pit.

I pull myself to my feet, and someone shoves something into me. I half turn, and see Tom is there, pressing some kind of clothing into me. “Put it on, boy.” That’s all he says before he runs back into his forge. The fucking madman is forging midfight. Truly, we don’t deserve him. Or Marie, for that matter.

[Leather armor (Augmented: Dwarven Steel) - A hurriedly made and experimental combination of light leather armor and heavy steel plates. The plates overlap and are non-contiguous, lowering its resistance to piercing, but providing substantial range of motion and slashing and blunt resistance. +10 Health.]

Hell yes. Probably a bad idea to wear new armor during a life or death struggle, but I’ve been training with weighted clothing these past two days, so it’s not totally foreign to me. The armor covers my vitals with thicker, solid plates, and leaves the rest less defended for the sake of mobility and weight. The armor stops at my collar, forearms, and below the knee, but it’ll ensure that anything short of a headshot won’t kill me.

I could join the fight again, but I opt to let my Health creep all the way back up, and my Energy return to near full. When I relieve Seth, I’m likely to not get another break for a long time, so I have to make sure I’m at full.

Suddenly, a Lieutenant pounces on Seth, staggering him slightly and biting deep into his arm. With a roar of pain, Seth drops his hammer, grabs its body, and twists. The crack echoes over the din, and he tosses the beast into the pit to join the others. He moves to continue fighting, but his arm is bleeding heavily. Too heavily. I rush over, yelling: “Seth, don’t hit me while I heal you!” and don’t wait for a response before getting to work.

It seems as though he tries to reject my Energy at first, not responding with a counter attack, but simply not letting me through, but within moments I smash my way through. There’s no time for comfort. With my Light Energy leading the way, I set to fixing the myriad of small wounds he’s accumulated. Everything from torn muscle fibers and small scratches, to what looks to be several broken ribs and dents in the bones of his forearm where the monster bit him. Within moments, I’ve repaired the muscle damage and scratches, and before the minute is up, all his sundered flesh has been knitted back together.

Clearly feeling revitalized, he yells back to me: “I knew there was a reason we kept you around! Haha! This is truly excellent!” He booms the last part, causing a few Carnine in front of him to flinch away before his hammer hastened them into the void. I quickly run back and start chugging bottles of Energy potion. I have a sense that something bad is coming. The Carnines aren’t charging forward as quickly… in fact, they seem to be backing up. Creating space, but…

Definitely not retreating.

Four large figures appear in the midst of the sea of bodies. The same kind of monster as the Werewolf from earlier… and as they emerge from the throng, I can see one of them is dragging something.

The pulped corpse of the one I killed. The archers care nothing for their slow strides forward. All they’ve done is single themselves out as important, and one of their number is immediately struck with a deluge of arrows, forcing it to begin evading and entirely ruining any image of strength they were trying to maintain. It gets wise to the shots, and grabs the next two out of the air, snarling “You’re going to have to try harder-” before another shot, moving faster than any of us can track, embeds deep in the center of its chest. I can imagine Lynn’s smirk vividly.

“Which of you… did this?” The one carrying the dead werewolf speaks calmly, but with a strong air of violence. The sounds of the other monsters dies off in the wake of it speaking, leaving the hall extremely quiet.

I step past the archers. The temperature around me drops substantially as Energy flows into my sword, reacting to my anticipation. “I did you the favor of weeding out that weak trash. What of it?”

The werewolf with the arrow sticking out of its chest let loose a low growl, tugging at the arrow in a fruitless attempt to dislodge it, before snapping off the fletching. The first one tosses the body casually into the pit. “I recognize your strength. True, he was overzealous, but he wished to prove himself, and he did so. Inadequate. However, strong or not, you understand that you cannot be allowed to live… ah, apologies, you never were, but now you will be made to suffer. I regret this deeply.”

“I invite you to try.” The air around me shivers slightly, warping, and a small fog starts to flow off my sword. The temperature plummets, but to me, that’s only an irrelevant piece of data while I do my best to pick apart my future opponents.

They’re going to swarm us, all at once, and the one who spoke will try to maim me so that he can make good on his threat once everyone is dead, meaning I’ll be the first target. Two will take me on, or that one if it’s confident enough. No, too calculating, it’ll use overwhelming force to ensure I survive. I’ll lose that fight, but they’re underestimating my comrades, and they won’t expect me to heal back in time to rejoin the fight. The one being hit by arrows will attempt to take out the archers first, so I’ll get in its way, maybe causing the three to trip over each other. The last one is a wildcard. Hopefully someone else handles it.

River’s Source activated without my prompting, greatly increasing the efficiency of my thought process, but also creating an easy segue into River’s Flow. Now that I have my plan, I can fall into my battle trance and let the critical thinking drift away. Every second they stall only makes me stronger. Let’s dance, fuckboys.

The monster continues to talk, but my mind is wholly focussed on the tension in their muscles. The one still under an onslaught of arrows wants to attack immediately, and is poised to do so, but seems to be waiting for the talkative one to take the lead. The other two seem relaxed, however, I’ve seen how fast they move.

The leader drops its hands, having used them to gesture during the time it was speaking, and the moment its hands stop, they all spring into action. All… except the leader. Shit. The two others launch directly towards me, as anticipated, and the third lets out a wild roar as it careens towards Lynn and Amy. The leader remains on the far side, a wolfish smile on its face. Just like that, the world fades around me until all that remains is what I need to know to fight. I dash towards Amy and Lynn, slicing into the unsuspecting third werewolf. It foolishly believed I would wait to engage those coming for me directly, and is taken entirely by surprise.

My strike redirects it into the wall of the cave, and my instincts scream at me to dodge. Instead, I jump towards where I know my attackers are, taking two glancing blows against my armor, and swing my sword over my head in a quick semi circle. Both werewolves dodge, but it allows me to move past them without taking any more hits, and assault their backs. I land a trivial slash against one, but the other has already turned to face me by the time I turn my blade against it, and bats it away forcefully.

Unfortunately for it, that deflection tears a chunk of its hand away, as well as one of its claws, as the frigid temperature of my sword immediately freezes anything on contact. It howls in pain, and I once again step between them, aiming to get closer to the archers. Lauren appears behind them as I move, taking full advantage of their distraction by planting large daggers in both their backs. She was clearly aiming for their spines, but the blades are entirely deflected by what must be incredibly dense bone.

The one that hadn’t just lost its claw to me was able to whirl fast enough that she can’t withdraw the dagger, but she does manage to distract both of them from the immense threat I pose. The one that turned to Lauren rears back for a strike, but finds the arm it meant to swing with entirely missing. It falls gracelessly to the floor as I open up a large wound in the side of the one who dared strike my sword away. Lauren starts to use the chaos to fade back into the background, but something moves quickly. Too quickly.

Her scream echoes throughout the hall. Clutching the bleeding stump of what was her arm, murder in her eyes, she snatches the dagger from her own hand and tries to drive it into the leader, who hadn’t taken kindly to us turning the tide, and decided to handle things itself.