We killed a few more wolves as a group, with me keeping their attention, Venja stunning them before we all unleashed our combined attacks in that moment. The experience-points were a little meagre, at least for time spent killing the enemy, but on the other hand, the ability-gain was insane. Each of my class-abilities, at least those that I used in the fights, gained at least one rank, making killing the wolves quite useful.

Sadly, after we had killed our sixth wolf, we had to change tactics, due to the simple fact that there were no more wolves that I could charge, at least without attracting multiple wolves which would be bad. The solution for that was to have Menja attack one wolf with his spell, letting it come to us. I considered trying to simply charge it as it came at us but decided against it, mainly because I wasn’t certain that the longer run-up for the wolf wouldn’t allow it to win the initial clash, bowling me over and ravaging me, dealing massive damage to me.

Instead, I moved close to Menja, ready to step in front of him and use my lance to stop its charge, by bracing the buff of my lance against the ground, using its momentum against it.

The wolf came at us, gathering speed and, a few steps away from us, it jumped, trying to bowl Menja over, just as the wolves liked to do. But in the air, it was unable to avoid the sharp blade of my spear and the impact made me very glad that I had braced it against the ground, otherwise, it might have jolted it from my hand. It was even worse than when I charged into it, due to the weight of the wolf being completely in the air and thus, being transferred into the lance.

But the damage was quite impressive, a tad higher than it had been when charging at them. It made me consider getting some sort of ranged weapons, maybe javelins, to make enemies come at me instead of charging them. Just from the situation we had been in, with the wolves too close together to be safely engaged, would make such a step worthwhile.

“Shit, Incoming!” Menja called from close behind me when Venja and I had beaten the wolf we had been attacking down to about twenty percent, shortly before Venja could have stunned again, to finish the wolf off.

Using the active part of my dodge-skill, I got some extra distance between me and the wolf we had been fighting, allowing me to get a look around and there was another wolf, quickly moving towards us, mainly towards Menja. It must have had a path that brought it near our position and now, it was coming at us.

It took me a precious second to decide what to do, a second the wolf we had been fighting used to leap at me, hoping to drag me down. I responded with a jump-kick and, right when my foot made contect, I activated the charge-skill, hoping to push myself off from the wolf with increased force, giving me a bit of additional acceleration and maybe even a damage-bonus to the kick.

To my surprise, it worked just as I had intended, the wolf couldn’t take my weight, getting knocked over by the impact and suffering some damage. while I flew a step or two in the opposite direction, somehow managing to stick the landing and keep my feet beating the ground beneath me, to gather even more speed.

My crazy stunt had given me enough speed to get to the wolf, just before it jumped at the retreating Menja and this time, I even had the balance to bring my lance to bear, impaling the wolf from the side and carrying it with me for a step or two. The wings of my lance certainly did their job in this fight, preventing over-penetration and allowing me to stop my enemies and keep them at a distance instead of just pushing through them.

As the charged wolf got back to its feet, I took a few steps back, trying to get the wolf I had fought originally into my sight, otherwise, it would certainly attack me from behind, which would cause me to perish.

What I saw looked promising, the original wolf had managed to get to its feet while Venja had used the time it had been stunned by my attack to pound it mercilessly, and now, just a second or two later, it was down to fifteen percent.

“Menja, attack this one, stun incoming!” she shouted and Menja did just that, casting his vine lash-spell to add damage against the wolf. Venja used her stun to knock it back down and in those two seconds, both of them got more damage in, before it could get back up and either go after me to attack or go after Venja.

But I couldn’t watch, I had to use my lance to keep the wolf I had just charged away from me, it looked rather angry, and Menja was busy dealing with the other wolf and healing Venja. I had used quite a bit of Stamina, especially the mid-combat charge had taken more than I was comfortable with, but still, a combination of quick, yet normal backsteps and uses of the dodge-skill allowed me to keep the wolf at bay, not allowing it to get in more than glancing blows and those only due to the way the game worked, in an actual fight, it wouldn’t have managed even that.

After a few of those exchanges the wolf had lost some more health, enough to bring it down to seventy percent, after the original charge had taken a good twenty percent, while I was still going strong at sixty percent, despite fighting alone. But that changed, I had noticed the message that I had gained some experience and just moments later, Venja jumped into the fray, pummeling the wolf with everything she had and Menja tossed out a heal, bringing me back to eighty percent.

Smiling, I allowed myself to go into the offensive, using not just the very tip of my lance to ward off the wolf, instead grabbing it almost in the middle, which allowed me to mix swift stabs with the tip and blunt strike with the butt of the weapon. I had gotten the idea to try if I could emulate some of the fighting style I had seen in a chinese fantasy-movie once and to my surprise, it worked quite well. I took more damage than I had taken when fighting carefully but I also dealt more damage. And, more importantly, it was incredibly fun to experiment just how I could bring either end of my weapon to bear, how I could get some additional momentum into strikes, how I could use the fact that my attacks went through the enemy, not getting stuck or bouncing off, essentially, I was experimenting with the fact that it was a game and as such, I could get away with things that wouldn’t work in the real world. Well, some of them would be physically possible but exposing your back to an enemy and accepting that you’d

take some damage would be suicidal in the real world, where a single attack could be more than enough to kill you.

We managed to strike down the second wolf without completely draining our resources but it was quite obvious that trying to fight two at the same time would be quite challenging, if not downright impossible. Maybe if the group was composed purely of ranged-attackers that could keep the wolves at a distance and slowly whittle them down, but even then, a single mistake would be enough to get you killed. No, killing wolves one by one was the best way to go about it, unless you had a full group of five people, but even in a full group, things might be challenging.

Once the fight was over, I noticed two blue boxes and focused on them.

You gained a new skill - Brace!

You ready yourself for an impact, allowing you to remain steadfast even in the face of a massive attack.

Cost: 10 Stamina

For the next two seconds, you brace yourself, becoming unable to move but increasing the effect of Endurance for the purpose of knockback-resistance by 200% (Based on your Athletics-Ability)

You gained a new skill - Counter

You are able to use your Polearm to keep your enemies at bay, dealing damage to them without letting them get to you. This is especially lethal if used against charging enemies, allowing you to use their momentum against them.

Cost: 5 Stamina

For one second after using this attack, you take reduced damage from glancing blows by 25% (Based on your Polearms-Ability)

If used while braced, you can brace your Polearm to counter a charge, allowing you to use the opponent’s momentum to deal damage to them.

I had to smile at the two new skills, both were quite useful, if completely contrary to the way I had mostly played before. But they were clearly based on the actions I had taken in the fight before, making me wonder what other skills I was missing with my rather direct playstyle of smashing things. I would have to ask Venja and Menja, maybe they knew about some more thanks to their Beta-experience. If not, I’d have to research on the internet, or maybe just experiment on my own. But now, we had monsters to loot and needed to regenerate the resources we had depleted, there was no guarantee that no other wolves would decide to crash our party.