“We're getting close,” a girl in a petite woven frame said as she traversed the skewering branches of the forest canopy. The pattering noise of light rain muffled the jostling leaves as the girl sprang towards the tip, giving her a wide view of the landscape. Thick fog rolled across the jungle like a thunderstorm blocking out the sun, the humid smell of damp leaves mixed with the putrid odor of unwashed loincloths battered her nose as she tapped her pinky and thumb together on her left hand triggering a spell she had previously hotkeyed. Her eyes glowed a deep emerald green and yellow, slowly piercing the veil of the fog, giving her full vision of the enemies trudging across the dense jungle. Staring at the flashing yellow dotted outline, she blinked a few times, locking her sights to the target. “I can see three, 40 meters ahead of us.”

“Great Job Emmy,” Trent whispered, giving a thumb up towards the branches in a random direction. He tapped his index fingers to his thumb grasping at the longsword materializing in his hand. Hunching down towards the forest floor he gazed at the three targets Emmy had marked and decided he would go for the center. He leaned over toward a large gentleman standing almost seven feet tall grasping at a thick metal shield depicting a crescent moon inlaid in silver filigree. “I’m going for the middle one, can you take the one to my right.”

“You betcha,” the giant stated, tightly grasping onto his shield like a fortress.

“On your mark Emmy.”

Emmy perched on a thick branch, giving herself ample support to make her first attack. She eyes the target to the left and held out her hand mocking the grasp of a bow and pushed her index and thumb together on her right hand. The yew longbow manifested, the weight of it felt good, she took careful aim, waiting for the perfect moment for the wind to silence. Letting go, the arrow graceful glided towards the monster, smoothly embedding itself into the goblin’s head like an experimental 1000 degree knife through butter. The body dropped to the floor like a deflating balloon, its ally, mouth gaped wide open, hobbled away from the body.

“Graa-.” Before the monster could finish its cries for help, Trent dashed behind it, slamming his blade into the monster’s skinny neck. The goblin gurgled out a fountain of blood, muffled with the dripping rain, Trent drove the blade hilt deep. As soon as Trent started to pull his blade out, his body felt the pain of a train slamming into his ribs, sailing him forward towards the trunk of an enormous redwood tree that was as thick as a grain silo.

System: [Trent] Heath 32%

“The fuck?” Trent murmured, his eyes blurry from the unseen attack. Taking a few seconds to focus, he saw Break shuffle his back towards Trent shield out, ready for the next incoming attack.

“We have a problem,” Break noted, feeling the back of his feet touch Trent’s battered body.

“Have you lost your mind?”

Emmy silently landed next to Trent, she laid his hand over his back and lifted him towards his feet, giving a nod towards Break in the process. “Break saved your life Trent,” Emmy said whispering in his ear. “Get yourself ready, were about to have one hell of a fight.”

“What am I mis-” Trent next words were cut off as the metallic clang of a blade slamming into Break’s shield echoed with such fury the collected dew drop feel to the forest floor like a compressed soundwave. Trent shook off the daze that had overtaken him and pushed up towards Break’s back, keeping him from topping over as the monster relentlessly rain fury across the shield.

“Emmy, make us some room” Trent directed.

Emmy rapidly reascended the treetop letting lose a hail of arrows cascading towards the monster. Jumping back the monster made a low bellow that echoed across the air like a foghorn.

“Not good,” Break stammered. “That’s his shout ability, every monster in a two-mile radius will be on us.” Break leaned his back towards Trent and snapped his middle finger and thumb together, pointing his newly appearing spear forward, Break bolstered into a one-man falanx. “Got a plan?”

Hobgoblins where faster, stronger, and above all more intelligent than their goblin counterparts. Break recalled all the lore he had collected about them, not recalling any mention of them wandering the Durge Forest.

Trent grabbed the back of Break’s armor and perched his feet onto the tall man. “Charge him,” Trent breathed, holding onto Break like a bull rider. Break stammered his feet, set his sight on the monster and pushed the accelerator, his body mechanically plowed forward like a steam engine as Trent’s grip loosen with every step. The monster easily sidesteps the obvious attack with such ease it momentarily pauses Break giving him chills about their odds of making it out alive. The monster let out a howl as Trent slid off of Break mid charged and pushed his blade forward, like an assassin, aiming towards the monster’s ankle. Falling to one knee, the hobgoblin let out another roar, this one so loud, Trent thought there should have been an in-game warning for ear protection. The monster’s eyes smoked with vengeance, dropping the falchion blade, the monster clenched its fist, dark green light piercing between the fingers.

“Oh, shit,” the three said in unison as Trent braced himself to restart his character. Break pushed his pinky and thumb on his left hand, his feet beginning to glow a faint yellow, as he moved faster than any man his size should be allowed too. Grounding his feet between Trent and the monster, he readied himself to lose a precious friend. The monster opened its fist, the green light collapsing into a floating gelatinous orb hovering above the monsters palm, taking careful aim, the monster hurled the ball of swirling sewage. It splashed onto Break’s shield, droplets of the ooze streaming down the face, the pungent smell of rotten eggs seeped into the forest air. Break unhinged the straps holding the shield attached to his forearm, and gently threw it to the forest floor like a pair of keys after a long day at work. The shield smolders, a bit of the silver filigree curled up and became a chromatic shade of melting liquid.

System: [Break] Health 82%

“Nooooo,” Break shouter, clutching as his forearms as droplets of the acid bit away at the inner cloth.

Trent saw a smirk creeping on the hobgoblin’s face, its hand began to glow dark green again as it let out an inaudible sound like a chucking hyena. It aimed at the sobbing man, but before the second ball could be released, a crack from the branches above slammed an arrow to the monster’s back. Whirling around, it glanced above, surveying the canopy for the new recipient of its attack. Trent noticed the monster lose focus, and in that split second, pressed his pink and thumb together on his left hand. His body faded, disguised by the mist and sounds of the sprinkling rain, he leaped towards, grasping onto the arrow that jutted from the backside, he pushed his leg into the back of the monster’s knee. It let out a cry as it tumbled to the forest floor along with the splattering of what Trent would describe as a wet bowl of jello, landing on its own magical attack. Trent’s foot laid atop the monster backside bearing it deeper into the melting green liquid. Ceasing movement, the body dispersed into an array of dust, leaving behind a small pouch floating just above the green goo.

“Grab it, we need to get going before we get surrounded,” Emmy said, descending from the branches, grabbing the other two pouches that once laid the bodies of the defeated goblins.

“My beautiful Luna, there will never be another one like you,” Break mourned, building a makeshift burial mound with an upright stick he had stuck in the middle.

System: Shield durability 3%

System: Shield durability 2%

System: Shield durability 1%

System: Shield durability 0%

The shield quickly dispersed into a pile of ashes, Break eyes glazed with a layer of water as he stood up and laid a gentle hand on Trent’s shoulder “Thank you, at least she got due justice.”

“Sure, we can mourn after we get out of the forest.”

Break nodded towards Trent and Emmy, giving one last look at the mound of dirt.

“You guys smell that?” Emmy asked, gripping her bow tightly, “smells like rotten fish.”

“I smell it too,” Trent replied.

“Not good,” Break answered, “From what I recall in the lore, only a few monsters emit this smell, and if I'm correct only one lives in this forest.”

Break hustled towards what used to be a trickling stream, but through the course of the heavily increasing rain, became a torrent of murky water. “We need to get past the bridge if we want to make to back to town,” Break yelled, over the noise of the battering water. He glimpsed unnatural bubbles lingering in one area defying the crushing push of the river.

Traversing down the river, the hair on his back stood up from the burst of cold wind and the memory of his last encounter with this creature.

The party of six stood valiantly against the four fishman that stood at the edge of the riverbank. Break charged at the fish, along with two other swordsmen following his flank. The fishman turn to the group and gaped with wide mouth open as they spit out a slimy translucent liquid catching Break and the two swordsmen off guard. Break’s body began to grow weaker as the weight of his shield grew too heavy to bear. “Do something,” one of the swordsmen yelled at the two archers and mage before being dragged by his feet towards the river. The ranger shot his bow landing a glancing blow towards the scaly hide of the fish monster as he saw his companion gradually sink deeper into the cascading river, the last of the few bubbles displacing the surface. The mage held her staff to the air and caused a small blast of wind to strike the closest fishman. The monster reeled back from the attack, regaining its balance, it sprayed a goo of green liquid that caught the girl by the leg. She fell down clutching her right thigh as it began to melt into a puddle of skin and blood. Both archers looked at each other, with a shake of their heads, they darted away leaving Break and the other members to their watery grave.

“What are we dealing with?” Trent asked keeping pace with Break.

“Fishman.”

“What?” Emmy queried.

“Fish... man, an amalgamation of a fish and man, eight to ten feet tall, stands on two feet, and can rip you to shreds.”

Break spotted the bubble trailed the party as they arose to a sturdy built bridge spanning the 30-meter distance. “Once we get acr-”

“Fallback,” Emmy yelled, watching a large bubble expand across the river exploding into a fume of mist. A school of fishmen plopped onto the bridge, unblinking eyes staring at the party. Emmy drew her bow back pointing at the closes one, Break’s grabbed the tip of the arrow aiming it towards the floor, he gave her a quick shake of the head.

“They shoot acid, so it's better not to provoke them.” Break whispered as he stood like an unmoving statue.

“How do we get cross?” Trent asked, mimicking Break’s posture.

“I can deal with this, you guys just need to put some faith in me and promise not to do anything unless I tell you too.”

Break was never the greatest at combat, but when it came to game lore, he was a patch note of facts. If you ask him what was the easiest way to kill a goblin, he could give you the break down of every goblin type ever documented, their eating, sleeping, and even mating habits. The one downside of Break’s infatuation with the game was the price. Veterans players knew that undocumented monsters and their drop tables were valuable and coveted by the majority of the playerbase, this in a way drove Break to seek information like an addict finding the next wave of pleasure.

Break opened his inventory pulling out small vials of used health potion and laid it on a large flat rock. Using his gauntleted fist, he pounded the vial into a fine glass powder, used for basic glass blowing.

System: You have created [glass powder]

He then removed a pouched that jingled with the chime of small metal balls, grabbing a handful of ball bearings, he motions Emmy to open her fingers as he placed the spherical objects into her cupped hands. Next, he pulled out five small banded rings, and them in Trent’s hand, whispering “Do as I do.”

“Lululululululululu,” Break pitched, walking up to the fishmen holding the fine powder glass in his hands.

“What,” Emmy replied.

“I don’t know either, but he’s still alive, and that counts for something,” Trent said blaring out the same weird noises.

Emmy’s face glowed a pale red, her cheeks brightening, as she thought to herself, “Why do I have to do something so embarrassing, and in front of Trent”. She let out a timid noised that somewhat echoed the robust sounds that came from their unashamed tank.

“Louder Emmy, and jingle the balls more,” Break heed, approaching the interested fishman.

Coming from anyone else, that might have elicited an arrow to the face, but from Break, it felt like an observation of lore. Even though this was something she could never live down, at least they were doing this as a group, she thought to herself.

Break places the shiny powder under the feet of the fishman and began to slowly shuffle towards the other side of the bridge. Trent and Emmy imitated the motion while looking at each other awkwardly. They stood next to Break and waited for him to make the next gesture.

“What now?” Trent asked, looking over at an empty plot.

“Dude, run,” Break shouted.