The group was incredibly lively while they traveled towards the goblin camp; Raizus and Andius talked about various things while they traveled, mostly about the game and what systems they enjoyed the most, while Herald just seemed annoyed. “You two sound like you’ve never even gained levels before today, have you been hiding under a rock or something?” Herald asked. All of the talking seemed to have made him a bit irritated, and Andius hadn’t even noticed, too engrossed in his conversation.

Andius and Raizus shared a look for a moment, it was the kind of unspoken question that was plain to see if you knew what to look for: should they tell him? Raizus wasn’t much help, just shrugging uselessly and looking forwards again, going silent for the first time since they had grouped up. Andius decided it was time for one of his specialties; making stuff up. “I guess you could say that. I’ve been kind of holed up all my life and haven’t experienced much of this world… In fact, I don’t think I know even as much as a child would.” He admitted, watching the trees on the side of the road starting to become denser.

Herald nodded a few times without saying anything, seeming to be mulling over his words for a time and leaving the group in silence for a few minutes. When he eventually spoke again his voice was void of the irritation that was there before, “Well, Charla might be able to explain some things to you then, I’ve never really been one to study much, so I’d only know what your average villager would.” He pulled out a map and looked at it for a few moments, before he suddenly moved off the road and into the forest. “I won’t pry, but if you two really don’t know much about the world, it might pay to study with her. Just be warned that she rarely does anything for free.”

Andius and Raizus turned and followed Herald into the woods, Andius immediately drawing his daggers and starting to look around for threats, while Raizus merely continued to walk casually, his heavily armored boots making his stride the polar opposite of anything that resembled stealth. “So like, people really don’t like magic, huh?” Raizus asked out of nowhere, his unnaturally red eyes furrowed in thought. “Cause I wasn’t really hurting anyone with my spells, I was just testing some stuff out when suddenly, bam! I was out cold.” Andius winced a little bit and patted Raizus on the shoulder for his bad luck, it could have been him in that situation after all, since the game never explained that magic was taboo.

Herald snickered up ahead and shook his head a little bit, “Only idiots hate magic like that, sadly the world is filled with idiots.” He explained, the irritation in his tone starting to come back again as he took the bow from his back. “In the cities things aren’t nearly as bad for mages, they’re valued more than generals if they’re strong enough, which probably tells you why they’re so feared. Not to mention the adventurers guild, who would pay a fortune just to get a fledgling wizard in their ranks.” He slowed his pace considerably and seemed to be looking for something, his words becoming more distracted as he watched the ground, “But in small towns like this, a mage having a bad day could mean the entire place gets wiped out. That’s why the college requires all mages to get a license from them to practice the craft… Focus now, we’re almost here.”

Andius blinked a few times, they had already arrived near the goblins? When he was looking for them before he had headed much deeper into the forest to find them, how could-…

——————

Tracking level: 1

Forging a new path isn’t always the only way to succeed; sometimes the best course of actions is to follow the one’s who’ve come before you. The tracking skill encompasses all aspects of following someone, tracks, scents, droppings, and more. You should definitely go sniff some goblin scat! Masters of this skill will always find who they’re looking for, no matter how faint the trail!

X(1)+Y(11)% chance to spot and follow a trail, where x is the level of this skill, and y is your wisdom.

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A set of footprints in the dirt seemed to stand out to Andius, and he almost groaned aloud when he saw them, they were a lot closer to the town than those caravans had said! He set aside his irritation for a moment and looked to the trees, the natural pathways above the forest would be slower, but the chances of him being spotted would go down dramatically. “Herald, I’m going to go into the trees and scout, if we’re lucky maybe we can take them all out without raising any alarms.”

Herald looked at Andius with a bit of surprise on his face, but nodded and said, “Alright, just be careful, goblins can climb like a squirrel so they might have some guards up there.” Andius nodded and walked over to one of the nearby trees and started to climb it. The skill may be low level, but it made climbing trees practically a breeze! The other two watched him go for a moment, Raizus looked like he was about to laugh, but Herald looked impressed. Herald turned to Raizus and gave him a serious look, “Alright, you’re no good at sneaking around, so I want you to hang back in reserve in case things go pear-shaped. You’re the only one here who’s actually suited for front-line combat, so I expect you to draw their attention if it comes to open conflict.” Raizus nodded with a grin and drew his long sword from his back again, holding it rather well.

Andius got to the branches of the tree and started to creep along them, moving slowly and carefully as not to make any noise as he crossed the natural pathways. Some of the branches in this part of the woods were too weak to support Andius’ weight, so he had to go roundabout ways at times to avoid falling, but he was able to keep a decent pace ahead of the other two as he scouted ahead. It wasn’t long until he smelled them; it was like someone had taken concentrated farts and mixed it with a giant vat of sweaty gym socks!

Andius resisted his urge to gag and looked around, his eyes watering and stinging with the smell. At first he didn’t see anything, but then a bit of movement a few trees over revealed a small humanoid standing about with a bow in it’s hand. These things were almost a perfect stereotype of goblins, around 4 feet tall with green skin and massive ears, it’s feet larger than it’s body. The thing was looking at the ground in his direction, so Andius wasn’t able to move much towards it, he had to go around or risk being caught. A grin spread across his face as an idea came to him, and he reached out with his mana, making a tendril of shadows form behind the goblin and brush across it’s back before vanishing instantly.

The goblin shuddered and turned around with it’s bow drawn, looking spooked. Andius decided this was the perfect time to test out his own bow, and slowly pulled it from under his cloak, drawing an arrow and pulling back the string. The bow was a lot heavier than he had expected, and he strained to pull the string back all the way, before taking aim and firing! The arrow wizzed by the goblin’s head, making the creature jump and turn around. Andius' eyes went wide as he quickly knocked another arrow and drew back as the goblin pulled out a horn and took a deep breath.

Before it managed to blow the horn, Andius’ arrow embedded itself in the creatures shoulder, throwing it off the branch and hurtling to the ground with a sickening crunch. “Note to self, don’t try new things in stealth until you know how to use them..” Andius muttered to himself. He looked down to see the goblin was very much dead, green ichor leaking from it’s head down in the underbrush.

——————

Archery level: 1

Few things are deadlier than an archer, while some people may prefer to do things up close and personal, archers don’t give their opponents a chance to get a strike in, taking them out from long range. Masters of this skill can take out entire squads from hundreds of yards away, without ever putting themselves at risk.

X(1)+Y(27)% increased accuracy when using a bow and arrow, where X is the level of this skill and Y is your dexterity. X(1)% increased damage with bows where X is the level of this skill

——————

The skill gain was nice, the archery skill seemed like a really powerful one, especially if he combined it with his stealth skill, but he was still cursing himself over the fact he had missed a stationary target with his first shot. Well, it wasn’t like he had ever fired a bow before, and the skill he just gained would make him a much better shot in the future. “Still… maybe I should avoid using it for now…” Andius looked down and noticed that the rest of his team had caught up, so he quickly climbed to the top of the tree he was in and looked around. Climbing to the very top was hard, the tree got thinner and the branches more obstructive the higher up one went. He managed to get to the top and he surveyed his surroundings.

There wasn’t much in the area aside from the town, but he could see the faint trail of smoke nearby, probably from a campfire. the fire wasn’t too far, maybe another two minutes walk from where they were, so he quickly climbed back down - nearly slipping - and whispered down to the two below. “Hey, camps not far ahead. I saw smoke from up above.”

At first he thought that they hadn’t heard him, but after a few moments of silence Andius heard Herald’s voice, “Good work, I saw you take out that goblin. Keep that up and we might be able to do this quietly.” The two started to move forward again, Raizus’ footsteps agonizingly loud in the quiet forest. Andius decided to follow suit and started to move forward again, keeping an eye out for more goblins in the trees. It seemed that luck was on their side today, because there weren’t any more archers on the way there, and within a few moments they found themselves at the edge of their camp.

The camp wasn’t anything grand, there was a rough wall made of wooden spike surrounding the entire thing, with only one way in or out of it, and there were a few tents set up around a cooking pot. The part that made Andius completely hesitant about this attack was the sheer number of goblins walking around; he counted more than twenty of the little things, all with their own bows or spears.

At the front of the camp were two goblins that looked weaker than all of the others, a spear in both of their hands as they lazily looked out towards the forest. Herald appeared in the trees beside Andius and looked out at the camp, a frown on his face, “There are more of them than there were last time I checked, they must have met up with another tribe before the attack…”

Andius looked over at Herald with a surprised expression, “Wait, you mean they’re planning on attacking the town?”

“Of course they are, have you never met a goblin before?” Came Herald’s reply, getting only a shake of the head from Andius. With a shake of his head, Herald motion for Andius to follow him and made his way back down to the ground where they met up with Raizus. “Okay, so Goblins are really weak, but they always fight in numbers and they’re damn crafty. So we do this quietly while we can so we don’t get overwhelmed.”

Both Andius and Raizus nodded at the same time, and Andius could feel his pulse quickening with adrenaline; this would likely be the hardest fight he’s been in yet. Andius had fought enough times that combat wasn’t anything new to him, but it was almost always against a single target, never this many.

The group got ready for their attack and split up, when suddenly there was a loud crash just to the left of Andius. Looking over, he saw Raizus flat on his face and groaning. A horn blared to life near the camp which made Andius’ blood turn to ice, all hell just broke lose.