It was only a few seconds of a sprint to cross the 80 feet of shoreline. The goblins had littered the cliffside with branches which aided their climb but slowed mine. Not much, but still enough that Blink was up the cliff before me.

As I gained purchase on my ledge, the sky above opened up, and rain began to fall. In the fight, I hadn’t even noticed that the sky had gotten dark and that rain was falling.

Gremlins and goblins alike were bunched up near the storage room door on my ledge. My lean-to’s awning was shredded, and my sacked stones for my house had been knocked over.

I drew air into my lungs as deep as I could, not thinking about what I was about to do. Then, I yelled, “May Chaos take you!”

Why I yelled, I wasn’t sure. I might could have fished out a rune stone or two. But I know that I did scream and then turned and charged.

Goblins don’t fight in ranks; they are a gang of bullies. Gremlins aren’t even that organized. First, I questioned why they weren’t running from me, and then I remembered that they needed to be within 5-feet. I also had the amusing thought that bullies got braver while they were around other bullies.

Where Blink came from, I wasn’t sure. But, somehow, she managed to jump down on the last of the goblin shamans. Which meant she was now working from the back of the battle forward.

This meant that as the goblins got close enough to scare from my sword, they would turn and see her fighting behind. Then they would have to pick. The fear of my sword or the fear of the lizard.

There were over 40 of the goblins when we engaged. There was no rational reason for me to have attacked as we did. The only thing keeping me going was an aura of fear that the sword was putting out.

Some of them would freeze up; others would run. The common reaction now the gremlins gave was freezing in place like a deer and then peeing all over the place as I lopped off their heads.

I knew that I was running through mana at rates I couldn’t understand. There was no way that even with my link to Lannah that my sword should still be charged, but it was still causing fear and festering rot on every hit.

Not to say that I wasn’t taking damage. I was, but it wasn’t going down like normal. The goblins that would hit with a hammer or club weren’t doing much. It was just minor damage, and my health as it would fall would rise back up almost as soon as it would hit halfway.

I got cocky and went to block with my staff, only to miss the boar spear that was used on me. My left leg got run through as I impaled the tip of my sword into the goblin’s eye. I ripped my sword back out and watched in horrid glee as the eye sailed towards the yelling mouth of another of these invaders.

While I was in pain from the large spear in my thigh, I couldn’t help be but amazed at the bad luck the goblin who was yelling had. First, he was about to hit me with a spiked club, but now he was choking on the rather large eye of his ally.

I stumbled back a step and dropped my staff. I reached down and yanked the spear out. They tell you not to do dumb things like that because you could bleed out. The reason is the blood and how much will start pumping out. The human body wasn’t meant to have holes in the front and back of a leg.

I saw blood begin to squirt out like oil from a busted engine. I clamped my left hand down as hard as I could but felt that the blood was still coming out the back as well. I had two bleed debuffs that would see me dead in a matter of minutes if I didn’t do something.

I saw Blink get hit on the head by a hammer, and she started to go down. This wasn’t working out. This was bad. While I could take out a goblin by myself and had dropped over a dozen already, they would get us through attrition.

I felt a wave of healing pass over me, and my leg closed up. My health jumped again and not a moment too soon. While my sword might make those around fear me, wounded removes fear.

Two goblins were advancing at me with clubs. They brought with them a pack of gremlins that were oddly enough on leashes. The goblin holding the leashes yelled and let go of them, and the gremlins darted at me on all fours.

They ran right at me and then jumped on me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good count as they piled on me, weighing me to the ground. I grabbed one with my left hand and threw it off as I got bit in the ear.

I had flashbacks of my dreams where I wanted to kill all the goblins where I wanted to die. I felt a desire to end everything, and then a calm took over me.

I didn’t know why I was healing, only that I was. Blink was down and being beaten. I felt anger rolling off of the bond with her and pain.

I stood back up with the eighty-pound of nasty feral monsters on me, biting and clawing. I grabbed the one that was biting my ear and yanked it off. As it pulled free, I lost my grip on it, and it sailed at the goblin that had been holding its leash.

The gremlin hit the goblin in the legs and knocked it over. As it fell, the goblin reached out to try to stay standing and raked its claws across the back of the other one pulling it back.

The goblin who just got its back clawed was in the middle of a swing of its spiked club, which would have caught me on the head, but because he moved back just a tad, the club sunk into the skull of the gremlin on my chest.

The sudden pull from the swing and the fall of the gremlin threw me off balance, and I stumbled back. As I did, I tripped and fell, crushing the monster on my back. I finished a tumble and tossed the last gremlin on me off the cliff.

The goblins were back on their feet and charged at me. I dove into a roll to my left and snagged my staff as I tumbled. I hadn’t practiced recovering a dropped weapon in years, but my skills seemed to be guiding me in this fight.

I turned as I came up and struck out with my staff. Fire bloomed from the tip of it as it made contact with a goblin’s face. Then I stepped forward and cut down the other. His club didn’t even get a chance to raise before he was dead.

There were just over a dozen where there had been forty goblins now. I had no idea how many gremlins there were as they were everywhere.

The rain went from an average rainfall to a full-blown storm. I had been able to see where Blink was, but now I couldn’t even see the tip of my staff. So I charged to where I knew she had been.

When I saw an enemy, I would lash out as I moved. The gremlins almost covered the whole ground, and most of them were still yelling and attacking.

I saw flames in front of me like a firestrike but closer to the ground. Then, I saw the flashes of flame moving around the ledge. As I adjusted where I was going, I felt the weight of a gremlin on my back again.

I yelled and rolled forward. There were so many bodies that I impacted with at least three of the gremlins when I hit the ground. I cried in pain as I felt their bodies break under my weight.

Then I was up and running again towards where I felt Blink. The bond was full of fire and hate. Her desire was much like mine; we wanted to burn the goblins and coat the world with funeral pyres of their dead.

I felt the fear of losing Lannah, the despair of Lorie. I moved in ways that I didn’t know I could. There was a dance that I danced. I danced the dance of the goblins’ death.

My body was not my own. My sword and staff moved in steps that I had never learned. I couldn’t use a staff to stand on and avoid an attack, nor could I flip through the air and cut the head off a foe. Yet both were happening.

Lightning flashed, and I saw Blink. She used her tail to knock a goblin over the ledge. Then, lightning flashed again, and I glimpsed the fire from her front claws as she slammed them both down.

We were in the thick of the fight. Bodies in motion. I was no longer healing when I got hit because I wasn’t being hit. Finally, the goblins broke and went into a complete rout. As they were jumping off the cliff, I heard hunting horns sounding.

The rain had slacked off again as the wind started to pick up and howl. I could see most of the landing though it was dark from the overcast sky. I looked at the half dozen goblins that were fleeing. As I did, there was another flash of lightning, and I saw where the horns were sounding.

In the flash of lightning, I saw on the riverbanks dozens of orcs. They were standing in rows and not a mob. From just that slight bit of light, it is evident that I was now facing an organized foe.

Most of my fighting had been closer to brawling. However, in the past five minutes, something had changed. I changed; my actions seemed to have snapped into place, and the monsters just wilted in front of me.

I knew in my gut that this wouldn’t be the case anymore. The orcs were arrayed for battle and not some playground fight. They would overcome me; my end was here.

I muttered out a prayer that I didn’t know was in me, “Chaos, guide my hand and deliver my foe this day. May your fire fall and your ash cover.” Where that came from, I didn’t know. I couldn’t recall ever hearing it before. It wasn’t from my dream but felt like something the man in my dream would have said.

I dropped my staff and started to pull a fast flow of mana from Lannah. I was already maxed out and saw that my bar was going up but bleeding out. My hand fished in my rune bag and pulled out all of the rain and the fire. I had five rains and six fires in my hand along with the strength. I sheathed my sword and cupped all the runes in my hands.

I felt worry over the bond with Blink. She was asking me if I was okay as I started to laugh. I picked up my rune bag and dumped everything out. All 42 runes, all the various runes from the set, and all the duplicates.

I cupped them in both hands and lifted them up above my head. Then, I charged them all with the desire of a storm of Chaos to come and wash my enemies away.