Thorin ran in front of the skeletons, leading the charge against the goblins surrounding the cave. The skeletons were making a large amount of noise as they ran through the woods, there was no element of surprise in this fight.

The goblins instead of rushing out to meet Thorin and his skeletons, were hesitant and stayed together near the cave's entrance.

Thorin and his skeletons clashed with the front line of the goblins, his momentum and larger body actually caused three to be pushed to the ground. His skeletons on the other hand didn't have much mass and their charge was less effective.

Thorin quickly lashed out at the three Goblins on the ground making sure they'd never get back up, before bringing his sword up and blocking a club coming from the next goblin. He threw all of his strength into the block and overpowered the creature causing it to lose its weapon. With the return swing of his blade he cut across its midsection causing blood to spew from the goblin as it was disemboweled.

The blood hit Thorin and he felt his blood lust activate and he let it take him, he would need all the help he could get today to win this battle, he felt a rush of power and ran at the nearest goblin. He fought like a man possessed, swinging his blade wildly and full of strength to overpower his opponents. He waded into the goblins killing them as he went, otherwise he would be unable to move. He was surrounded by them but still fought on. Small wounds gathered on his body but were slowly healed as his body absorbed the blood that was constantly splashing on him.

For a period of time Thorin lost sense of time. Everything just became a red blur as he cut down goblin after goblin, alas he was only human. He began to slow down and tire. His blade started to swing with less strength. Thorin couldn't sustain this fighting style for long. Using his momentary weakness, Thorin willed away the state of bloodlust and regained control. The aggressiveness in his eyes died out and along with it more of his strength. Pain flared up around his body suddenly, as each of the wounds he had sought attention.

Thorin willed himself to keep on moving, to keep on attacking and blocking. This time he moved in the direction of his remaining skeletons. Luckily many of the goblins were rather scared of him now. Instead of blocking his path, many would run to the side avoiding him. Only a couple of goblins trying to prove something would charge at him. These goblins were slain with some difficulty, but eventually Thorin made it back to his skeletons.

There was about fifty of them left. Compared to the goblins remaining one hundred and twenty left it would still be an uphill battle for them. Having exhausted his physical strength, Thorin decided to begin using his magic. He started out using energy siphon to heal up the minor injuries accumulated during his romp at the front lines. At the same time he drained the enemies mana. His body absorbed the energy greedily, healing all of his wounds and reinvigorating his stamina. His mana pool was steadily replacing all of the mana used to hastily create the skeletons.

After draining twenty or so goblins, Thorin decided to start raising skeletons from the goblin corpses spread across the battlefield. He decided to not save his mana and casted the at the faster pace, burning through his mana. He finished the first spell, and a skeleton popped out of a corpse. The corpse was surrounded by goblins who all panicked and as one of their fallen shed its fleshy exterior. The skeleton wasn't equipped with any weapons and had to resort to clawing at them with its hands. It created a big deal of commotion and disrupted a decent amount of goblins before getting cut down. He continued to do this a couple more times, but the goblins caught on and started removing the skeletons easily after the surprise wore off.

Thorin realized that by themselves these skeletons couldn't do much and wouldn't be that effective. He was about to switch back to casting energy siphon, but came up with an idea that could deal a large amount of damage to the goblins.

Thorin once again started casting the raise skeleton spell, but instantly commanded the new skeletons to do nothing as soon as it finished. The skeleton did as it was told and didn't move an inch and remained inside the goblins flesh.

Seeing it successfully remain unnoticed by the goblins around it, Thorin continued on to raising the next one. As he continued to summon more skeletons, he was looking over the battlefield and gave out commands whenever necessary. As time wore on the battle was going more towards the goblins side Thorin eventually had to start speeding up his casting. Eventually had about twenty skeletons ready to be used.

He commanded them all to get up and attack at the same time. There was only one way to describe what happened next.

Bloody.

All of the skeletons exploded out of their bodies at once it creating a shower of gore. Each of the skeletons started clawing at the nearest goblin and scenes of goblins having their throats torn open or being dragged to the ground by what was once their allies was seen across the battlefield.

This created a panic in the goblins’ front line. Thorin's remaining thirty or so skeleton soldiers used this opportunity to cut down a large amount of goblins who were distracted by the sudden appearance of twenty skeletons in their own line. The destruction caused by the twenty skeletons individually was very small but the chaos they created allowed for Thorin's troops to push forwards. At the same time Thorin had the skeletons remaining in the cave push out. They were a small group but their quality made up for it. Each crimson skeleton was worth ten normal ones easily.

These movements created a three way attack. Thorin's troops, the twenty new skeletons and the crimson skeletons all were attacking the goblins at the same time. While they still had the advantage in numbers the goblins began to panic and lose cohesiveness.

Thorin had regained some of his stamina while casting spells and decided to join his troops in the fight. The odds had fallen in Thorin's favor now. He had a total of about seventy skeletons now against the goblins hundred. With Thorin and the crimson skeletons there to help, the battle was coming to more favourable conditions.

Upon entering the fray, Thorin didn’t let the Blood Lust activate and fought in much more controlled manner. He stayed with his skeletons and started to do his best at reducing the casualties his side faced. After a couple of minutes Thorin saw that the twenty skeletons he spawned in the middle of the goblins were all gone and the goblins became a bit more organised. The damage was done though. Now the skeletons and goblins numbers were about equal and fifty. Thorin had pretty much already won, now he just had to finish it. It took another twenty minutes or so of hard fighting before the remaining goblins were finished off. It became significantly easier when a group of ten or so goblins decided to run from the battle leaving their fellows there to die.

They weren’t running back to the other Goblin group, just into the forest, so Thorin didn't care if they got away. Eventually the last goblins were killed and Thorin was victorious. The skeleton who got the final kill was actually the reanimated orc who used his war axe to cleave into the goblin's head. He ended up with twenty four skeletons remaining. Eighteen of them were a part of his group. Each of the Crimson skeletons survived and had three normal skeletons with them. Thorin was honestly worried about sending in that group and didn't want to lose any of his higher tiered skeletons.

Roland approached him before kneeling and giving him a report on the goblins initial attacks and their defences against them.

“You did well” Thorin praised, while having the skeleton stand up.

‘It was a tough battle’ Thorin thought, noticing the various cuts and cracked bones on Roland. Matter of fact when he looked around all of the skeletons looked to be in bad shape. Thorin frowned, he wouldn’t able to take these skeletons to fight the goblins war group like this. It would be sending them to their deaths, or their second deaths, actually. There is no way he would have time to catch the Goblins if he took the time to repair the skeletons and raise another eighty of them. He was already tired and drained. Perhaps it's time to call it off. The goblins would make it to the plains and then in three days they’d attack the town.

He can’t show his skeletons yet, it would attract too much attention too soon. He could help defend the town, but in the end his skeletons were done for now.

He turned to his skeletons and issued out his last command for a while.

“Stay here, guard the cave, train. Touch this stone when hurt. I’ll be back in a week.” Thorin said while holding up a mid sized stone.

He began to focus and a mana flame appeared on his finger. It was the large and unruly flame created when he didn’t use his blood. He began to bath the rock in the flame not focusing on anything. He learned this trick while fiddling with his magic on the way to the forest. By simply infusing an object with mana that didn't have a purpose it would either explode if not strong enough or absorb the mana. The mana not being used would slowly then leak out of the object and into the surroundings.

Thorin poured all of his remaining mana into the stone causing it to start to glow faintly. He tossed the stone to Roland who took it into the cave and put it in the middle. Roland then sat down next to it and put one hand on the stone. Nothing dramatic happened, but slowly the injuries on his bones began to mend slightly. The rest of the skeletons followed suite and entered the cave with him.

‘That stone should be enough to fix most of the skeletons up.’ Thorin thought as he turned towards the direction of the town. Now it was just a race to see if Thorin could make it back to the town in time to warn them and help fight.

He was about to go when he noticed Lauros standing there next to him.

“What is it?” Thorin asked quickly feeling the need to start moving as soon as possible.

“Master, I am uninjured due to my ability to dodge. Wouldn’t it be safer for you to go with someone to watch your back?” The skeleton boldly asked.

Before Thorin could respond. Cynar manifested near by.

“I second the idea. You can’t save your stupid town if you die in your sleep. Take him, it won’t slow you down and can keep watch due to not needing to sleep. Simply put him in your storage when you get to the town” Cynar said agreeing with Lauros.

“Fine, I was planing on just taking you, but you're right he could be useful.” Thorin replied to the shade.

Lauros’s lit up a bit brighter, happy that he had been accepted.

Thorin checked his supplies quickly before turning and starting off through the forest.

Name: Thorin Black Class: Necromancer Lv 16 89/160 XP Health 460/460 Mana 0/1730 Stats: Strength: 42 Vitality: 46 Stamina: 22 Endurance: 19 Intelligence: 73 Willpower: 92 Agility: 17 Dexterity: 19 Skills Summon Familiar Rank S Skeletal Fusion Rank C Energy Siphon Rank D+ Summon Skeleton Rank D+ Blood Lust Rank D Talents Affinity with Death Dimensional Storage Head Start Magic Reserves Strong Soul Blood Lord Thorin's Forces Skeleton 21 Crimson Skeleton 3