I had several problems. One of which it turned out was what I always called tunnel vision. I could get so engrossed in just one issue or one facet of the problem that I completely neglected everything else. This tended to be okay at work because I could finish one task and move to the next. However, in my personal life, it meant that I would go long stretches without talking to a friend because I was focused on other things. In battle, this meant that I missed the goblin-sized axe to the back of my knee.

As I was grinning like a battle manic and driving my sword into the heart of the middle spear goblin, I was brought back to the understanding that I wasn’t perfect nor likely to live through this mess. That understanding was given to me courtesy of a tomahawk to my unprotected left knee.

This brought me crashing to the ground. The pain was huge, but I was likely to be able to work through the pain. The problem was the severing or near severing of my hamstring. I was bleeding badly, but I was able to roll over even with that. As I did, I saw the little devil with his tomahawk coming overhead to strike down again.

I was all jumbled up with the dead goblin I was on top of and the live one still holding on to his spear that the only thing I could do was raise my sword. With my outsized strength, I lopped off his arms. While that wouldn’t altogether remove him from the fight, it all but did.

The one last spear holder chose that moment to forget his spear and jump for my exposed back. Once again, I was thankful for my coif. His nasty mouth would have taken a chunk out of my neck without it. As it was, he just pulled me over because of the sudden addition of weight.

My half-seated self rocked back, and the goblin scrambled over me to start to claw at my face. As he was pulling back his claws, another goblin was swinging at my downed head as well. The beauty of bad timing for both of these events was lost on me. Because of the blinking light of my health saying I was almost dead.

As the now dead goblin fell from my face with his ally’s long knife in his back, I was rolling over, trying to drop my pack. I needed to get into it and pull my health potion out so that I wouldn’t die. I had no idea what it would do to my leg, but I guessed it would be better than death.

The backstabbing goblin looked slightly aghast that he had killed his ally, and then he stepped back. As he did, he tripped into the two that were coming to support him. This gave me just enough time to get my bag off my back and my hand into it. My health was now flashing and looked like it was empty.

I yanked out my health potion and chugged it down. As I did, I felt pain almost as bad as when my knee was sliced out from under me. The bleed debuff vanished; however, my limp debuff remained. I wasn’t going to die from blood loss; now I had 2/3rds of my health points back, and so I stood.

I had only been in the room for around thirty seconds at this point, and five of the dozen goblins were down by my hand. Happily, when I stood, I saw that Blink had dropped four others. Which meant that my count of twelve was either wrong or more had shown up. As the 2.5 in front of me had turned into another 6.

My dazed debuff was gone, and so I was able to turn on my dance again. I moved forward with a noticeable hitch in my left leg. This hitch seemed to give the training goblins the feelings that they could beat me. So as they rushed, I danced.

My hatchet was being used to catch and control weapons as my sword started to move with cruel accuracy. My first step forward, dragging my gimp leg behind, had me locking a spiked club and sliding my blade into the goblins armpit. Then, as I pulled my sword out, I flicked the tip and sent blood into the eyes of my next foe.

I spun on my good leg while dropping low to bring my hatchet around and into the chest of the temporally blinded one. As I did, I watched the next one lunge at me with his stiletto. I brought my sword up and around and, with the flick of my wrist, sliced into his right wrist. The point of his blade dropped as he screamed. I followed the flick with a nasty backhanded cut letting his head fall low.

I rolled forward to recover my position as my wounded knee still couldn’t hold me and felt my left leg get hit again. This time it was to my armored shin; a goblin I hadn’t seen clocked my leg with a mace. If it had been my right leg, I would have gone down as that was where most of my weight was. As it stood, however, I roared in pain and brought my hatchet down across the monster’s back.

The hit had dropped me out of my dance again and returned me to a dazed status. However, the impending doom that I felt when impacted didn’t come to pass. Blink had been busy, and the goblins that had been working on taking me down were ripped to shreds. I honestly thought that she was trying to be extra bloody as there were spray marks everywhere.

The only goblin that was still standing was the tin can. He was standing just about where he had been when the fight started. All around the room was blood, but on his armor, there was nothing. However, he just stood there clicking his hammer on his shield.

“Blink, what do you think his deal is?” I asked as I looked around the blood-splattered room.

“Bait.” She sent via the link.

“He’s bait, or you want me to go fight him?” I asked with a slight smile. I was hurting; I knew that. My left leg was barely moving, and my head was swimming from the blood loss.

“Yess,” She replied.

I sighed. She was right, of course. She couldn’t get through the armor with her claws or teeth, so I had to fight him. But, also, he was also bait of some sort. The dungeon wanted me to try to fight him first, and the rest of the goblins here would have killed me, or something else would trigger when I beat him. Either way, he was bait, and I would fight him.

I headed back for the door we came through. As I moved, I kept my eyes on him, I was wary of him charging, but he didn’t. Instead, he just slowly rotated as I moved around the room. My limp had a count down now, showing that I would keep this for the next 45 minutes.

When I got to the door, I slid my sword back into its sheath and picked up one of the spears. Unfortunately, swords weren’t that great at breaking armor. Unless his armor was very thin, and it didn’t look that way. In fact, it looked like it was thick enough that I might not be able to skewer him. However, I wouldn’t let that nagging feeling keep me from trying my best to Indiana Jones’ him.

I slowly moved up a few feet to ensure that I was outside his reach and threw the spear with all my might. It flashed out and predictably bounced off. However, the large explosion where the spear hit and the flame shooting out from the goblin for six feet in all directions was far from what was expected.

I was knocked back through the doorway. My exposed hair had all burnt and curled a bit. My face felt tight like it was sunburnt; I was coughing again because all the air had been knocked out of me.

I muttered and coughed, “Dang-nab-it!”

Blink was sent pain and anger across the bond me. “Hurts!”

“I’m coming Blink!” I yelled as I worked to get back to my feet.

I hobbled back into the room and saw Blink. Which was the first thing that worried me as she should have been hidden. However, the second problem I saw, and more likely the problem that I would have to deal with the most, the goblin knight, was still there.

His armor was missing where the spear had hit, and the area around was charred. But, whereas before, he was just standing there clicking his hammer on his shield, he was now slowly moving. Just enough that he could take a small step toward me.

“Blink, you okay?” I yelled across the room!

“Yess, angry!” She sent back as I saw her vanish.

“Okay mister reactive armor. Let’s play.” I said with a smile.

I looked around the room and noticed that the whole thing was shaped in such a way to angle an explosion back toward the hall. If I had stuck at him first, then most of the other goblins would have been fine, and then I would have been killed. So he was both the bait and the trap.

“Head around behind him and see about going up the tunnel a ways!” I yelled as I snagged the last of the spears.

I hobbled around to the exit tunnel. First, I would see how this guy reacted to a strike from the back. Perhaps his armor was only reactive from the front. Either way, the angle of the room would help to keep this spot from taking as much damage as the other side.

I was hoping that this dungeon was wrong and that I wouldn’t encounter goblins like this in the real world. Of course, it would be a mess, but then again, it would be funny if I could make one explode and take out all his friends. I chuckled at that thought and finished limping around.

I pulled back and threw the last of my spears. I had doubled the distance between us, but he was still not moving, so the target was easy. My spear clipped his arm, and then the awaited explosion came. I watched as it grew out of the metal. The fire moved out along the path that the spear had contacted and not back in the direction of attack. I watched as the flame went flying off his right arm and little bits of his armor went flying around the room.

The little steps that he had been taking grew just a bit more. It was like every time I hit him, he would lose enough weight to move faster. Which, since he was just coming for me, meant that he was like one of those horror-show villains that just walked. He would catch me if I slowed down enough.

“Blink, I am going to loot everyone and we are just going to leave this guy. If we aren’t force to fight him I don’t want to make him fast enough to become a problem.” I said as I edged back into the room.

I heard Blink do a lizard laugh which was more like a bunch of hissing and wheezing. “Hunts nows”

It took me a few minutes to look through everything. The two spears I had thrown at the exploding goblin were ruined, which wasn’t a bad thing, just a thing. Of the other weapons, the only two that I thought would be worth bringing along were the tomahawk and the stiletto. I got eight silver and a cotton shirt when I looted the goblins. The shirt was the thing that surprised me the most. It was off-white with a lace-up front, just like I would have expected to see in a pirates movie. It was also immaculately clean, which I guess I could understand since it was loot and wasn’t carried by the goblin.

I picked up the first spear I had thrown and headed out the way the Blink went. The goblin with armor was just banging on his shield. I smiled; he wasn’t in time with himself, unlike Sam’s clock.

As I moved up the tunnel, Blink sent me an image that worried me some. Sure we had just taken out 17 goblins, but they were a piecemeal grouping. Even then, I almost was killed by a lucky shot, and I had to use my healing to live. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get much more in the way of extra healing beyond what I could do with my spell.

The image showed that the next room up ahead had opened up into a large cavern. In the middle of the open space were mounted goblins. Five boar riders, each wearing armor and holding a lance. Well, a goblin lance, so a light spear. But nevertheless, the mounted goblins were going to be a problem that I didn’t want to deal with.