After getting Lannah into the storage room and everything sealed off, I started my climb. I knew that the goblins would see me, but my hope was I would be far enough away that they wouldn’t hit me.

I was also hopeful that Blink would show back up, but I still wasn’t sensing her. All her stats went up twice, so my thoughts that Blink was in a dungeon by herself were reinforced. I wish I knew why she ran off and if she would be around to help me out.

My climb was mostly uneventful. The one exception to this was the fireball that exploded about 15-feet behind me. I only saw the flash, and there wasn’t even any heat. I hoped that I was out of range and not that they were playing with me.

It was about thirty minutes for me to climb up. I took everything off and placed it in my pack. Then I secured my staff to the side and my short sword in the bag. It was heavy but better than trying to wear everything.

When I got to the top, I gave a quick look back. I saw that the goblins had split into two teams. One group had carried branches to the cliff’s edge and were now climbing up. The other, led by the orc, was heading downriver.

My climb had managed to move everyone out of position. If I ran, I might be able to beat the orc’s group to the washout where I fought the goblins before. If I could get there, I could still catch most of them in the rain. The problem was the orc might be able to leap out of it.

The ones heading to my home wouldn’t be much of a problem. Lannah was safe, and if they climbed the 80 feet up to me, they would be tired when they got here. Unless, of course, they had a high enough climbing skill. Even so, they shouldn’t be able to catch me between the two groups.

I armored up and made my run. I needed to cover about thirty minutes of trail in about twenty if I would catch the orc’s groups as they crossed.

I started a slow feed of mana from Lannah. I needed to refill what I had so that I could make my attacks, and she was the fastest way I had to replenish. She also generated mana at about four times the speed which I did.

I ran as fast as I could and was breathing hard when I got to the washout. I had beaten them to the ravine; I heard them approaching. The horde was loud, grunting and yelling.

I moved into the bushes where I could hide and caught my breath. My stamina was almost out, and I needed it if I ended up fleeing.

The spell “call rain,” works by drawing rain from clouds to where the caster was. When I did the “fire rain” runes, it called the rain to where the rune stones ended up. My throwing them moved the center enough that I was able to avoid getting wet with fire.

I would wait until the attack group was in the ravine. The orc had with him around two dozen goblins. It appeared to me that all the gremlins were left behind.

As the last one hit bottom, I stood and threw the three ruins for a strong fire rain. I pumped all the mana I could into it, using first from the weighted skirt and then my personal mana. I dropped 45 into this one casting. That would leave me with just five and what I had left in my staff. If I had to fight here, I wouldn’t do well.

The rain came down thick on the monsters. If it hadn’t been fire, it would have been like rain from a pop-up afternoon thunderstorm in the south. It was fast and hard, and I couldn’t see through. As the monsters were in a washout, the fire water pooled and ran down towards the river burning as it went. The brush that had been near them caught on fire, and the undergrowth was now smoking.

The smoke from all the undergrowth and greenwood choked up the air. The screaming from the goblins we horrible. It was far hotter in there than before, but I saw them still coming at me.

I pulled hard on the connection to Lannah, asking for a full refill. I hadn’t checked to see if she even had that much. I saw my mana shoot up to the max as I pulled out a second set of runes. I had chosen to change what I was doing and cast used Rot and Rain at the same time.

The drops changed to green and red as the fire continued, but decay entered the mix. It was something that I had seen the necromancer do. Using magical rot would cause natural healing to stop until magically treated. It was a disgusting thing to do as the burns wouldn’t heal, so they would lay open and fester. Unfortunately for them, this was either them or me, and I had to do everything in my power to beat them.

I heard a deep bellow from the middle of the rotting flames and knew that the orc was moving. It had only been a few seconds from the start of my casting until now. If the orc caught me before his wounds had a chance to slow him, I would be doomed.

I turned tail and started to run back. There were a few places that I could perhaps ambush from again. The best would be if I could get him to trigger a unnt trap. It was a long run, but it might work. It all depended on how much I hurt him and how much stamina I had.

For the second time in the same number of hours, I wished that Blink was with me. She would be able to attack this guy from behind as we passed by. It would slow him down, and she would just vanish again. If she was here, then this all would work out. Now I wasn’t sure.

I was about five minutes into my run back up the trail when I heard the orc behind me. He was gaining but not by much, and he was alone. I didn’t know if that was because he was faster or if I had finished everyone off.

My mana was making its ever slow climb back up. I needed more, and I couldn’t work the screens to check to see how much Lannah had. So I yanked the bonds again and saw that my mana bar filled up about halfway.

Not two minutes later, I heard the sound of heavy running behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a burned orc chasing me. The flesh on his arms and legs was black, cracked, and with blood and puss oozing out. He had a snarl on his face, and his armor was off of him. In his right hand was a four-foot axe.

There was no way that I was going to make it. I was ten minutes away from the unnt traps, and he would be on me in less than two. I had with me my staff and my short sword. The staff would do better at blocking the axe but worse at doing damage.

As I ran, I saw the break in the woods from where the ogres had trashed everything. That would give me some options. Not the best, but better than on the ridge trail like I was. I would at least have some toppled trees that I could move around. I might be able to prolong the fight long enough for the burn and rot to slow him down some.

I turned down into the maze of destruction, hopping over trees and under others. If he hurt like it looked like he should, then the obstacles should slow him.

I hazarded another glance back to see that he was just going over where I was going over and under. I watched as he slipped, roared, and then sailed over about twelve feet of debris.

He was still gaining. I was getting desperate now. When this was just an attack run against goblins, I felt secure in my victory. However, as soon as the orcs showed up, I felt doomed. Now that he was hurt and still gaining on me, I was sure I was right.

I didn’t want to just give up, so I needed something, anything that would slow him down. Then, I saw a spot where a tree was uprooted ahead of me. There was a hole that looked like it went deep.

The branches were breaking behind me as I ran forward. I was trying to get to the hole as fast as I could. I could see what looked like animal claw marks around the hole’s edge, so I figured it was a den of some sort.

I jumped over the last tree trunk before the hole like I was some crazed parkour runner. But, unlike a real free runner, my bottom foot snagged, and I put my face right into the ground on the other side of the tree.

As I jumped, the orc bellowed, and right where my back would have been if I had made my jump, his axe swung through. I heard the unmistakable sound of an axe blade glancing off the tree. Then he yelled again.

I scrambled up in time to be knocked back down by both his feet hitting my chest as he jumped the log. I rolled over my back and shoulder to come to my feet. I had lost my staff on the lousy jump, so I pulled my sword.

I had never fought with a straight sword. All my training had been with a katana, so I missed the reach I wanted and the curve. In addition, I knew that this was not a drawing weapon but rather a hack and stab, much more like the knife work I had done.

The orc and I started to circle. He beat his chest with his left arm while swinging his short axe with his right.

I had to jump back slightly to dodge, which caused me a slight stumble. Fortunately, I recovered before he could follow up on his attack, and I lunged in with the point of my overgrown knife.

He blocked with the heft of his axe and countered by punching me in the face. I rolled with the punch and came back to my feet. His hand had broken open, and blood was flowing freely from it now as the burned skin had sloughed off.

I shook my head slightly and struck toward his weapon hand. When I had learned to fight with knives, I had been taught to defang the enemy. So that is what I began to do now. My blade skipped off his axe again just above his hand as he moved and blocked.

He was good. I could tell that he knew what he was doing but also that he was only going forward with rage. That last part was because he once again hit me with his left hand.

This time I failed to roll and slapped out on the groundbreaking my fall. I rolled to my side to start to get up when he stepped in and brought his axe down.

I yanked my sword upon a block only to feel it pushed down by his power. I had slowed his attack, but he still hit my chest. His axe blade glanced off my ribs and slid into the ground.

The orc roared and went to yank his axe out, but I grabbed it with my left hand and stuck with my sword. My blade sliced into his hand, and I watched as his thumb slid off the rest of his hand.

I pushed myself up only to catch his left foot in my sternum. I went flying back. I hit my head first on the tree that stopped my motion and then on the ground when I bounced off of it.

My health was flashing with under an eighth of it left.

I groaned as I started to push myself up. My head was spinning, and the debuffs I had filled the top of my vision. The orc held high over his head his axe in his left hand and was stomping toward me.

My vision started to close in on me. It was the same feeling I would have right before passing out from too much mana draw. I knew I would be dead soon. The orc had won, Lannah would die from the goblins, and Blink would be alone.

Right as I was passing out, I could have sworn I heard a little girl say, “Leave my dad alone.”