It was a disaster.
Blood scattered upon the cave's chamber floor.
A good dozen tiny green bodies lie on the ground. Some burnt, others hacked to death.
Despite the number of enemy deaths, there are still plenty of goblins kicking, literally.
Eric is on his rear, his back against a wall, utterly terrified. The ugly creatures have him encircled and are taking their sweet time toying with him.
Serena was smacking goblins left and right with her staff, but the agile little bastards snuck through an opening and pinned her to the ground.
This is the part where I leave things to people's imagination.
Lastly, our good leader Kael is being given what I can only describe as a hardcore cranial massage.
Things aren't looking good to say the least.
Unfazed by my friends' savage beatdown, I quickly analyze the unfavourable situation and come up with the most suitable course of action.
First, we have to rescue Serena, the support. Out of the three of them, she's in the best situation. Her powers will be necessary if we want to heal the others who are getting their asses handed to them.
Unfortunately, my spells have a bit of an explosive effect, and the writhing, struggling body of the priestess isn't helping me aim better. And no, you people better not make a horny joke about this situation.
Luckily, there's an expert marksman I can rely on. "We need to rescue our healer. My spells might accidentally hit them, think you can land the shots?"
"Leave it to me."
Alin notches three arrows onto her bow. After drawing back the string, she lets them fly, taking out half the goblins harassing Serena.
All three arrows find their mark, each shot taking a life. Two goblins fall dead with an arrow to their chest, the third gets it lodged in his cranium.
The three scramble away in terror, but I turn them into minced meat with a few shots of Eldritch Mote.
Seriously, this thing is busted.
While Alin rescues our priestess, I use Eldritch Mote to drive away the goblins advancing on Eric and tenderizing Kael.
Each of my shots takes a life. One by one, they burst into limbs and viscera. Hardly a single corpse was in one piece.
I make sure to keep them at a distance, driving the filthy bastards back deeper into the tunnel.
Alin helped me out a bit early on, but she tapped out to secure the rest of our party members and check the chamber for traps. Meaning most of the kills were attributed to me–
'Thud.'
What was that?
'Thud!'
Why do those sound like incredibly large footsteps belonging to an elite enemy?
'Thud!' 'Thud!' 'Thud!'
From the tunnel, a large, bulky figure slowly stomps its way towards us. In the dim light cast by my torch, I make out some large flat surface, much like a table, strapped to its arm.
Alin drops the body of Serena behind us and draws her bow, notching a fresh batch of arrows.
"Get ready," she warns. "They're pulling out all the stops with this wave."
As soon as she said her piece, the mystery enemy comes into light.
Based on looks alone, 'It's a big goblin' was the first thing I thought.
Its face has the same cruel look as a goblin's, but it's packing more meat and fat.
To describe him simply: big, mean, green and ugly.
Bastard's half a head taller than me and thrice as wide. This big fella would be a perfect fit for the WWE.
Strapped to his right arm is what I can only describe as an iron slab. From its design, it's supposed to be a tower shield, but age and lack of maintenance have long dulled its appearance.
I can guess why they brought it out.
Behind the green-skinned sumo wrestler is a pack of angry yapping goblins, their disgusting yellow eyes shining with malice and lust.
I confirm with Alin whether this creature is what I think it is: "Is that a hobgoblin?"
"Yes. Aim for his legs, we have to disable his movement."
Shortly after her tip, the hobgoblin moves his shield in front and charges at us, picking up momentum. The rest of his tiny compatriots follow suit, with a lot of disgusting hooting and shrieking at what they think will be an easy steamroll victory.
Unfortunately for them, I hate giving others the advantage.
I let loose two shots, each aimed at the legs.
'Zwuack!' 'Zwuack!'
The two green bursts turn the hobgoblin's forelegs into a fine meat and bone splatter paste.
His large frame crashes down hard on the rough stone floor, the pain from losing both his legs causing him to howl in agony.
Immobilized, I spam Eldritch Mote into the hobgoblin's body until it resembles a meat pile.
With their leader dead and turned into spaghetti sauce right before their eyes, the charging goblin pack comes to a halt.
Taking this opportunity, we retaliate. 'We' in this case mostly refers to me, but giving credit where credit's due, Alin also landed quite a few decent shots herself.
Anyways, we slaughter the petrified goblins still processing the death of their head honcho.
They bite and scramble over one another to get out of the way, desperate to escape their boss' fate.
Unfortunately for them, the tunnel is straight and I have a ranger with night vision on my side.
We fire a few more shots behind them, finishing the last of the attackers.
With all the goblins presumably dead, we go check on our teammates.
Eric was the nearest, so I checked on him first. Alin took Kael, who was the most beaten out of the three.
"Oi, wizard boy, can you hear me?"
Eric groans in response.
He seems to be in okay condition.
"... Get away… back off… I'm a mage… of the Blue… Tower…"
I place my fingers on his wrist. His pulse is really faint, he's clearly been injured somewhere.
Seeing no visible wound, I…
Oh, nope, I turned him around and found a rusty contaminated razor jammed deep into his backside.
"Uuuuuuugh…" Eric groans.
…
I don't think this one's going to live. Even if he were, going to the toilet would become a living hell.
…
Don't worry, I won't say a word, I'll tell everyone you died valiantly killing a demon or something.
…
Meh, it's not like he was necessary and will be missed dearly by everyone.
I'm one to talk, considering I only have two spells. One of which is a glorified piece of garbage that states the blatantly obvious.
"Uuugh…"
Whilst I was monologuing - again, I need to stop doing that, half the stuff I monologue makes no sense whatsoever and I tend to forget all about it moments later…
Anyway, back to the present: Eric's dead. Very sad, I know.
"Shoot, this one's dead." After making a mental note to buy myself some armor, (As to not end up in the same sorry state as him in the future.) I ask Alin how the others fair: "How about your side?"
"The priestess' alive."
"What about the other guy?"
She shakes her head. "Head's been bashed in. How about you?"
"Contaminated razor jammed into his backside, he's a goner."
"Dead, unconscious, dead." She clicks her tongue, "Sheesh, perhaps it would've been better to cave-in the entire place."
"I'm… still… alive…"
Oh, would you look at that, Eric's still kicking, what a tenacious prick he is.
"You happen to have a potion?"
Alin shakes her head, "It'll heal the wound, but not the poison. None of the three brought antidotes."
"Does the priestess happen to know a poison cure spell?"
"Spell? You mean a miracle right?"
Hunh? Why is this world becoming more like D&D?
Stop! I'm getting off-track!
"Uh, Yes…?"
"Yeah, she might know a poison cure miracle."
"Good, then we just need to wake her up. Do you happen to have smelling salts?"
"None."
Well, if there isn't any medicine on hand, we do things the good old fashioned way.
"Got any water?"
"Yes."
Alin hands me a flask. I unscrew the cap and pour the contents onto Serena's face.
The water drenches her hair and clothing, but does little to rouse her awake.
Hmm, usually the person wakes up sputtering when doused with water, guess that only happens in the movies.
"Maybe I should've slapped her, instead."
"That's a terrible idea, only a barbarian would slap a maiden's face." Alin criticizes with a glare.
"Not like we have many options."
As we ponder how to wake her up, a foul smell wafts through the air.
'Hack!' 'Cough!'
The both of us break out coughing, me the most, Alin has her little face mask covering her upper face.
"Alin! What did you eat?"
"How dare you! Girls never fart!"
"Tell that to my grandmother!"
While we bicker back and forth over whodunnit, a puddle of filth spreads over the floor.
The smell of feces and blood grow stronger and stro-
Wait, blood?
I turn around to check behind me. Alin does the same.
To my surprise and utter disgust, one of the bodies was lying in a spreading pool of blood, excrement and urine.
Absolutely filthy.
The person displaying themselves in such a pitiful manner is none other than Eric.
I rush over to check on him.
…
It seems he defecated himself to death like good old Elvis.
Except he took poison through his rear orifice, not his facial one.
"Shoot, guess we took too long to try and wake up the priestess. Guess the official casualties are two dead."
"Looks like she's the only one who survived," Alin states the obvious. "No life-threatening injuries except for some claw marks and bruising. She's lucky, they only got through her outer clothes."
"She might be better off, but she's still going to have trauma from this."
"Not our problem," Alin coldly responds. "She should be thankful things didn't escalate more than they already have."
I silently agree.
Whelp, onto a much happier topic.
Children unwanted by their mothers.
"There's probably newborns we have to kill, aren't there?"
FYI, no I'm not a child murderer. If I were, I'd open a goddamn pizzeria first.