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The OP MC 5 Chapter 2
🕑 Added 2021-02-07 13:38:46 +0000 UTCI wasn’t about to let a single goblin finger touch my treasure, nor was I about to start fighting off a horde of little assholes while I was naked, so I reset back to my save point with a wave of my will power.
Chime.
I was sitting on the wagon bench between the three girls, and I was back in the moment before I stopped to point out the little grotto. The goblins hadn’t swarmed the treasure yet, and all was still right in the world.
I furrowed my brow in thought as I decided what to do next. We’d been swimming for quite a while before the goblins had shown up, so I had time to plan before they arrived.
How they knew there was gold and other treasure on my wagon was beyond me, but I supposed the slimy creatures had a way of sniffing out valuable loot. They were hoarders, after all, and the last time I’d run into them I’d found chests full of copper coins hidden in the mine they’d made into their lair.
I’d upgraded my loot game a lot since then, and emptying the Duke of Arginold’s treasure room Ocean’s Eleven style definitely made me feel like I’d leveled up.
There was no menu screen or options or settings in this world, so I had no idea if my powers were increasing or not. I just felt stronger, and more capable, with each life.
Whatever explanation there was could wait, though, since I needed to handle the problem in front of me.
“There’s goblins nearby,” I informed the three women by my side in a low voice, and I pulled the wagon to a stop. I kept it in the same location as my previous life, but this time the goblins wouldn’t lay a finger on it.
“Goblins?” Mahini inhaled sharply, and her ice blue eyes scanned the area around us in search of enemies. “Where?”
“They aren’t coming just yet,” I explained. “They’re after our treasure. We can’t let them get to our gold, okay, ladies?”
“I’ve never seen an actual goblin before,” Elissa squeaked out. “Are they scary?”
“No scarier than anything else you have bravely faced already,” I pointed out with a sideways smile. “Lissy, you’ve crushed the skulls of the undead, sliced kobolds apart, and smashed in the chests of mercenaries. I think you can handle a few goblins.”
“They’re very dumb,” Mahini added in a sympathetic tone. “The Great One showed me how easy it is to outsmart them.”
“Some can use magic, though,” I warned. “But don’t worry, I’ll be able to spot them. You let me handle any goblin shaman, and you three handle the rest.”
“What’s our battle strategy?” Mahini asked, and her hand clenched around the hilt of her sword. “How many will there be?”
“There will be twenty of them,” I said, and I rubbed my hands together. “That means five each.”
“If you even let us fight,” Eva interjected with a sigh. “You’re always jumping in to parry the blow or push us out of the way at just the right time. I want to see how well I can really fight.”
“You’ve already improved your skills a lot since we left Bullard,” I reassured her, but I knew she was right. I’d been very overprotective of the three most important people in my new life. “But I hear you. I’ll try to step back more. I just never want to see any of you get hurt.”
“Battles leave scars.” Mahini shrugged. “I am not unfamiliar with wounds or pain.”
“I am,” Elissa squeaked. “I don’t think I’ve even been injured once.”
Flashes of deaths from previous attempts flashed through my mind’s eye. The three women had been hurt plenty of times in the past, but I’d always reset back to my save point to prevent them from feeling any pain. I never wanted anything to happen to them, but I couldn’t explain to them the trauma their previous deaths had caused me.
I’d tried to explain my powers to Mahini and Elissa before, but they’d both lost their minds and been unable to comprehend what I was saying. In the end, it caused more trouble than it was worth, so I’d remained vague about my abilities ever since.
“Let’s keep it that way.” Simpler to leave it at that than to inform my wife that she’d indeed been injured in a previous run through.
Being a god did have its burdens.
“I know you want to keep us safe,” Eva continued. “But I want to prove myself to you.”
“Oh, Eva,” I laughed. “You’ve proven yourself a thousand times over.”
“Not in my eyes.” She frowned. “I want to be as fierce as Mahini, as brave as Elissa, and as skilled with a blade as you are, Great One.”
“You’ll have to expand your repertoire of weapons a little then,” I teased. “Throwing stars are great, but you won’t always be able to keep enough distance to make them efficient. Here, I’ll let you use my daggers against the goblins.”
I pulled the blades free from their sheaths, and then I handed them hilt first to the duke’s daughter. I still had my feather sword and the sorcerer’s dagger strapped to my side, so I wasn’t worried about losing a couple weapons.
“I will try.” Eva lifted her chin, and she flashed me a determined smile. “You’ll see, Great One. I’ll be the greatest warrior in all of Sorreyal.”
“I have utter faith in you.” I grinned. “Now, let’s decide how we’re going to fuck up these goblins’ day.”
We all huddled our heads together as we discussed our battle options. Elissa wanted to take the fight to them, and she suggested hunting down each individual goblin in the woods until they were all annihilated. I admired her spunk, but I wanted a more efficient route. Eva suggested we all simply wait on the wagon until they appeared, but I didn’t think the lazy creatures would attack if they saw the loot was so well guarded.
Finally, Mahini cleared her throat, and we all fell quiet.
“What if we ambush them?” The former mercenary tilted her head to the side as her ice blue eyes danced with excitement. “We appear to abandon the wagon, and then we hide in the trees on the edge of the road. When the goblins go after the treasure, we attack from all sides.”
“I like it.” I grinned. “I knew I chose you for a reason.”
“Rescued me is more like it,” Mahini snorted.
The beautiful warrior wasn’t wrong.
When I’d first met her, she’d been so distraught over the death of her Golden Sword comrades that she’d practically given up on living all together. Mahini had been traumatized and verged on suicidal, but her attitude began to change once she bonded to me. The goblins who took over the Bastianville copper mine were the same ones who’d killed every last member of her mercenary family, but the two of us had sought revenge against the nasty little creatures.
Now, we faced off against goblins again, but there was no pain in Mahini’s pale blue gaze. Battlelust shone in her ice blue eyes instead, and she practically trembled with excitement.
“Alright,” I said as I clapped my hands together. “We have a plan. Let’s get into place, but be patient. We could be waiting for a while longer.”
“How do you know all of these things?” Eva asked as she slid the daggers I’d given her into the top of her thigh high boots. “About the goblins showing up?”
“It’s a god thing.” I shrugged. “It’s the same way I knew all about you before we’d even spoken.”
“That’s true…” Eva frowned in thought. “You could always predict what I was going to say before I said it. Does that mean you are a prophet?”
“In a way.” I shot her a teasing wink.
“Maybe someday you will explain the secrets of your power,” the duke’s daughter said, and she shook her head with a wry smirk. “It’s fascinating.”
The four of us hopped down from the wagon and went in separate directions toward the trees that lined the dirt road. It was a narrow, worn section of the lane, and the foliage crowded to the edge, which gave the spot an eerie feeling that hadn’t been present when we stopped to swim.
I suppossed an upcoming battle with nasty gold digging creatures could do that to any place, though, so I shrugged it off and stayed focused on my task.
I got into place behind a tree nearby, and I kept the wagon in my sights as I settled into a comfortable position. The grotto lay behind me, and the sound of the water slapping against the shore created a soothing backdrop. If I wasn’t about to fight goblins I would have taken a nap, but as it were, I was already getting excited to spill some of their blood.
Suddenly, I heard a noise in the woods to my left, and I held my breath as I scanned the trees for goblins. Then I saw them. The mottled color of their skin camouflaged with the foliage around us, but they waddled with a distinct gait that made them easier to spot.
I would wait until all twenty of them were out of the tree line and like sitting ducks in the middle of the road. Then I would call to the girls, and we would attack.
I watched anxiously while the goblins converged on my wagon, and my heart beat thudded in my ears like a highschool drumline. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, and I slowly slid my feather sword free from its sheath.
I’d acquired the lightweight, sharp little blade from my last encounter with the goblins, so I knew from personal experience how effective it was at slicing open their thick skin. I’d passed over lots of swords between then and now, and the weapon still served me faithfully, but I imagined it was excited to drink more goblin blood.
The goblins swiveled their heads from side to side in search of the owner of the abandoned wagon, but upon finding no one, they inched closer and closer to my pile of treasure.
I waited a few more heart pounding moments before I slowly crept forward to the edge of the road.
“Now!” I yelled as I charged forward.
I couldn’t tell if the girls heard me or not, but it was the best way to signal to them to ambush the goblins without everyone having walkie talkies or something. Either way, I would make quick work of these nasty little fuckers who threatened my hard earned gold.
The goblins heard my yell, and they turned to brandish their weapons at me menacingly. Some held spears while others grasped swords, and a few even wielded tiny crossbows, but it was hard to make out a lot of detail from my distance.
“Charge!” Mahini’s strong voice called out over the sound of the goblin chatter.
Elissa, Evangeline, and Mahini all dashed toward the wagon from three different directions, and the goblins’ gaze flicked between me and my women. They were sandwiched between us, and there was no chance of survival.
I watched with sick fascination as this concept slowly dawned on the green-skinned assholes who thought they could steal from me.
“Get the human!” the tallest of them gargled out in the goblin language, and I had to assume it was the one in charge.
I’d learned a lot of the goblin’s language during my trip to Bastianville’s copper mine, and it had served me well then. I didn’t think there was any need to communicate with them now, though, since their intentions were pretty clear.
Half the goblins rushed toward me as one, and I had to admire their battle smarts. These goblins were already a little smarter than the last ones I’d killed, but I didn’t think it would do them any good this time either.
I twirled my feather sword with a flick of my wrist, and I brought it up just in time to parry a jab from a long handled spear. I smacked the spear tip away like I was swatting away a fly, and then I swiveled my blade around until the tip was pointed at the goblin’s throat.
The creature tried to push me off with the haft of its spear, but I was stronger, and I pushed my blade inch by inch until the tip pressed into its neck. Black blood oozed from the wound and quickly began to soak into the goblin’s leather armor, and I quickly backed up to avoid getting any of the disgusting liquid on me.
The other goblins rushed forward to take their dead comrade’s place, and they sneered at me as they brandished their weapons.
I parried a blow from an overhand swing, swiveled to avoid the jutting tip of a spear, and then extended my sword arm to shove my blade deep into one of the sword-goblin’s stomachs. He keeled over with a high pitched cry, and his companions growled menacingly as they converged upon me.
Two down. Eighteen more to go.
“Watch out, Great One!”
A crossbow-goblin fired off two bolts in my direction but missed, and then twin throwing stars flew through the air and buried themselves in the eye sockets of the goblin closest to me. The duke’s daughter trotted over to her kills, and she yanked the projectiles free from her target’s corpse.
“Thanks!” I turned to flash Evangeline a grateful smile.
“My pleasure.” The blonde nodded curtly, and then she picked out a new opponent with another throwing star at the ready.
Mahini’s arrows zipped through the air and embedded in the torso of another goblin who was closer to the wagon, and then she rushed in with her sword drawn and a murderous look on her face. She took out another enemy by slashing her sword across its expansive gut, and the black sludge pooled from the wound to coat the dirt road.
“Die!” Elissa roared as she ran forward with her mace extended above her head. My wife’s growing arm and shoulder muscles bulged beneath the weight of her weapon, but she brought the spiked head down onto a goblin skull, and the creature’s entire body folded beneath the pressure.
“Skullcrusher is at it again,” Mahini observed as she knocked a goblin spear to the side with her sword, and then she buried her blade in the creature’s stomach before she wrenched it free.
Seven down already, thanks to the valiant fighting women at my side.
I flashed my sword in a menacing circle to keep the goblins at bay while the girls joined the fight, but then I began to back up so I could watch my women work from a distance. If they needed my help, I’d be there to intervene, but they’d been pretty adamant about having the chance to fight on their own.
Elissa climbed onto the back of the wagon, and she spun her mace in a wide arch above her head as she let out a fierce battle cry. The goblins who stayed close to the vehicle growled at her, but she didn’t look scared. The flame-haired goddess swung her weapon, and the barbed tip collided with the chest of a spear-goblin who had climbed up onto the bench.
Another goblin moved to climb up onto the wagon behind its now-dead comrade, but Eva darted through the gaps between the monsters with one of my daggers clenched in her fist. Her gray eyes were full of battlelust as she zeroed in on the asshole trying to get to Elissa, and a moment later, the blade jutted from the creature’s neck.
Mahini slashed a sword-goblin’s head off, and then she flicked her blade to free it of the black sludge that coated it. She flashed me a smirk before she turned to block a blow from a spear-goblin’s weapon’s pointy end. The former mercenary was not only holding her own, but enjoying herself as well.
The ten remaining goblins began to regroup, and they huddled near each other while brandishing their swords and spears outward. One of the taller goblins was barking out orders in the monster’s language, and then they all cackled maniacally.
They were creepy little shits, I’d give them that.
The tallest two goblins held crude staves with large, rough hewn crystals on top, and judging from the feathers in their hair, they were shaman, the goblin magic users. I knew a few battle spells now, though, so it shouldn’t be any problem to take out the leaders of this filthy little pack. The two shamans seemed to be more concerned about reaching the treasure in the back of the wagon than attacking us, but that just worked to my advantage.
The handful of spells I knew leapt to my mind, but I wanted to see what the shamans would use first since each magic using goblin generally had only one spell.
“Watch out for the tall ones in the middle,” I warned the girls in a loud voice before I switched over to the goblin’s tongue. “Humans kill goblins. Goblin need run.”
The goblins’ mouths fell open in shock when they heard words spoken in their language coming from my mouth, and it was the perfect distraction for Mahini to step up and slash her blade across two of their throats in one swift motion.
There were only eight goblins left, but two of them were magic users, and we were still outnumbered two to one.
Mahini’s attack created a break in the goblins’ formation, which also gave the two shamans an opening as well.
I ran forward while the scene played out in front of me in slow motion.
The warrior goddess lifted her sword in an overhead strike.
“Noo!” I yelled as I leapt across the distance between us.
Time slowed down as I stretched my fingers out in an effort to pull her down below the blast.
“Mahini!” I cried out, but I was too late.
A blaze of fire shot out from the goblin shaman and headed straight for my beloved’s face. The fireball smacked into her head, and Mahini was flung backward as her feet flew out from underneath her.
The goblin shaman cackled with glee, and he twirled his staff through the air like a drum major with a baton.
“No.” I shook my head as rage pumped through my veins. “This isn’t going to fucking happen.”
Chime.
I was sitting on the wagon bench between the three girls, and I was back in the moment before I stopped to point out the little grotto. The goblins hadn’t hurt Mahini yet, and all was still right in the world.
I hugged the desert goddess to my side for a long moment in silence, and her ice blue eyes scrutinized me closely.
“What’s wrong, Great One?” Mahini asked with a worried frown.
“Nothing now.” I forced a smile onto my face, but I was already starting to feel better with each passing moment. “But in a short while we are going to fight against some goblins who are after our treasure.”
The girls all instantly stiffened, and their eyes scanned the tree line on either side of the road.
“How many?” Mahini asked with narrowed eyes.
“Here?” Eva gasped.
“Goblins!” Elissa squealed, and she shrunk up against my other side. “But I thought you killed all of them, Bash.”
“We killed the goblins in the copper mine, yes,” I said. “But these ones are from a different location. Still, we need to eradicate them before they hurt someone who can’t defend themselves the way we can.”
“I’ve never seen a goblin before,” Eva said in a thoughtful voice, and her gray eyes were somber. “Are they truly as vile as the stories say?”
“Worse,” Mahini supplied with a shudder. “Goblins killed my entire Golden Sword family. I was the only survivor.”
“I’m so sorry,” Eva gasped, and she rubbed her hand on the desert goddess’s back. “That must have been really hard for you. Are you up for another fight with the same creatures who murdered your family?”
“Mahini was with me when we cleared out the mine,” I informed the duke’s daughter in a voice full of pride. “I’m sure she wouldn’t want to miss out on another chance at revenge, right, Mahini?”
“The Great One speaks the truth.” The stoic warrior woman’s lips twitched ever so slightly into a sideways smile. “Let’s teach these goblins to fear humans.”
“Now, that’s more like it.” I smirked.
“How should we handle this?” The desert goddess tilted her head to the side and gave me a questioning look. “What are your orders, Great One?”
Eva opened her mouth to interject about how she wanted more chances to fight, but before she could get a single word out, I held up my hand to silence her.
“I’ve been very protective over you three during our last few adventures,” I said. “I think this time I will let you take the lead, but let me handle the shamans. There’s two of them, and at least one of them uses a fire spell, so keep an eye out for balls of flames.”
“Thank you, Great One,” Eva murmured in an awed tone, and she shook her head in amazement. “How did you-- Nevermind.”
“How did I know you were going to ask me to stand back and let you fight?” I laughed. “Oh, my sweet Evangeline, you’ll learn one of these days that it’s all part of being a god.”
“Your powers still amaze and confuse me,” the duke’s daughter said with another shake of her head. “But I am excited to show you how I can handle my own in a battle against the goblins.”
“I think you should consider adding more weapons to your repertoire,” I said, and I flashed her a wink as I pulled my daggers free. I presented them to her hilt first, and she took them hesitantly. “Try to fight with these, that way you can get in closer and deal more damage than you can with the throwing stars, but you’ll still be fast and stealthy.”
“I will do anything to prove myself to you,” the blonde bombshell said as her gray eyes welled up with emotion. “Thank you for entrusting me with your daggers. I know how much you use these.”
“I’ll be focusing more on magic during this fight,” I explained with a shrug. “So, I won’t need anything but my feather sword.”
“How long do we have before the battle?” Elissa asked, and she fiddled with the leather straps covering the handle of her mace.
“Plenty of time,” I assured my wife in a comforting voice. “How are you feeling?”
“A little scared,” she admitted, and her bottom lip quivered. “But I stand by your side, husband.”
“That actually makes you very brave,” I informed her as I rubbed her back softly. “Bravery isn’t the absence of fear, but acting despite fear. Besides, you’ve crushed the skulls of the undead, mercenaries, and even sliced up a couple of kobolds. There’s nothing you can’t handle at this point.”
“You’re our Skullcrusher, remember?” Mahini added.
“Berserker woman,” Eva giggled.
“You’re right.” Elissa’s emerald eyes brightened, and she lifted her chin with an air of determination. “Let’s go fuck these goblins up!”
“That’s my girl,” I laughed, and I quickly pecked all three girls on the forehead just because.
Even though we were about to fight off some nasty, vile little creatures didn’t mean my heart wasn’t overflowing with love. It was like a weird homeostasis between wholesome feelings and murderous intent, and it made me feel powerful.
I was ready to rock these goblins’ world.
The girls and I devised a plan very similar to the one we’d used on my first attempt at defeating the goblins. This time, however, Elissa would remain on the wagon in hiding, and she would pop out at the last minute once the creatures started to climb toward the treasure.
We wanted the element of surprise on our side, so the rest of us would hide in the woods until my wife signaled.
With the plan set, the four of us went in separate directions to wait for the goblins to arrive. I was curious to see where they were coming from, since there could be even more goblins back the way they’d come.
Maybe there was a goblin hideout nearby with lots more of the vile dudes waiting to ambush other travellers.
I made a mental note to comb the surrounding area for anything like a goblin fortress or hideout before we continued on to Bastianville, and then I focused my attention on the woods around the road.
Then the goblins began to creep through the trees toward the road, and they all swiveled their little grubby heads from side to side in search of the owners of the wagon, but when they found no one, they inched toward my treasure.
I waited with bated breath while our enemies drew closer and closer, but it was Elissa’s job to signal the attack, so I would wait for her. Worst case scenario, something went wrong, and we had to try again. Unlike me, the girls couldn’t spam respawns until they knew exactly how to move, but they’d already come a long way since I first met them.
Then Elissa burst out from the back of the wagon, and she swung her mace sideways into the ribs of the goblin who’d climbed onto the bench. The monster flew to the side with a pained cry, and he toppled backward for a moment before he fell to the ground.
That was our cue to attack, so I rushed forward with a battlecry of my own.
“Kill them all!” I shouted, and my gaze flicked from side to side until I spotted Eva and Mahini closing in on the wagon from opposite sides.
The three of us formed a triangle around the goblins with Elissa standing at the center and keeping them from reaching the treasure, and we moved forward as one while the goblins shrank away from us. Then the feather-haired shaman muttered something in the goblin language, but they were too quiet for me to hear what they said.
A moment later, though, the goblins between the shaman and me leapt to the side, and the next thing I knew twin balls of ice and fire were flying through the air toward me.
“Hur!” I quickly summoned my magical shield, and the elemental balls of magic dissipated upon the opaque barrier.
The two goblin shaman’s eyes widened, and they shouted to each other about my magic for a moment, but then the rest of the goblins rushed forward, and I was momentarily distracted.
I parried the blow of a sword with my own, and then I swiveled, stepped inside the goblin’s reach, and buried my blade to the hilt between its ribs.
Eva’s throwing stars whirled past my head and stuck into the skull of a sword wielding goblin to my right, and then Mahini’s arrows zipped past my other side to embed themselves in the neck of a monster to my left. Meanwhile, Elissa knocked two more goblins down off the wagon in rapid succession, and her fiery hair spun around her face like the flames the fire-shaman had lobbed my way.
The girls were doing great, so I just had to do my part. I shoved another sword goblin back and scanned the battlefield for the two shamans. I wasn’t sure how many of the enemy we’d defeated already, but I knew all would be lost if I couldn’t take out the two magic users.
“Where are you motherfuckers?” I growled as I peered over the heads of the remaining goblins in search of the feather-haired cowards.
Then I spotted them hiding beneath the wagon, and I knew I had them right where I wanted them. I couldn’t use fire without sending our vehicle up in flames also, so I had to rely on my ice and negate spells.
Before I could raise my hand to conjure the magic, however, bolts from a crossbow flew through the air and dug into the armor covering my chest.
My head snapped up to face the crossbow-goblins, but as soon as I found them, they were riddled with arrows from Mahini’s bow.
I didn’t want to have a single strike on me, though, so I considered resetting back to my save point. The girls were doing good so far, and I didn’t want to mess up their flow too much, but I also didn’t want to get hit with some stupid crossbow bolts either, so in the end I decided to go back and try again.
I wanted every challenge to be completed perfectly.
Chime.
I kept everything the same, except this time I was a little bit more specific in my instructions to the girls. Well, I still allowed them to take the lead, but I gave them some small pointers on what to focus on first with hopes that it would make the battle easier.
“Mahini, if there are any crossbow-goblins, you should take them out first with your arrows,” I explained in an excited voice. “Then Eva can kill the spear-goblins with throwing stars and daggers. Elissa, you guard the wagon and knock any goblin that tries to climb inside it the fuck out.”
“Got it.” My wife nodded, and her emerald eyes were emblazoned with determination. Her fear was gone, and I wondered if it had to do with me being a little more commanding this time.
“You can count on me,” Eva assured me with a confident smile.
“Goblin blood will coat the ground before the sun goes down,” Mahini said with vehemence.
“There’s no one else I’d rather have by my side,” I told the three warrior women who sat next to me.
We went about our plan, and we parted ways to go into our separate hiding spots, but it wasn’t much longer before the goblins started to appear through the trees.
This time, the girls followed my instructions, and the goblins began to fall left and right before we even left the cover of the trees. Then we rushed out as one while Elissa swung her mace from the top of the wagon, and the three of us converged on the vehicle with fierce battlecries.
“Kill them!” I shouted as I twirled my feather sword around with a flick of my wrist, and then I used my blade to beat aside a spear before I drove it between the beast’s ribs.
Thick black sludge leaked out of the wound to coat my feather sword, and I used my foot to push the goblin off my blade. Then I immediately turned to parry a blow from a sword coming from my left before I scanned the battlefield for the feather-haired goblin shamans. I spotted the top of a staff on the other side of the wagon, and I climbed up and over to reach them.
Once I made it up to the bench, though, I heard a goblin giggle from behind me, and I turned to slash my blade across its throat. The black blood oozed out as the goblin let out a pained garbled yell and fell backward to the dirt road.
“How’s it going?” my wife asked in a cheerful tone, and then she rushed to the back of the wagon to smash her mace into the skull of a sword wielding goblin who had drawn close to our treasure.
“Pretty good,” I laughed, and then I headed toward the other side of the wagon and the shaman. “Hunting magic wielding goblins, how about you?”
“Keeping their grubby little fingers off our loot!” she chirped, and then she turned to smack her weapon into yet another goblin. “Have fun!”
I chuckled to myself as I hopped over the other side, and I had a magic shield summoned before my feet hit the ground.
The goblin shaman I was after saw me coming and squawked with fear before turning and running in the other direction. I couldn’t see where the other shaman had run off to, but I’d hunt him down after I killed this one.
I chased the shaman around to the back of the wagon, but when I rounded the corner of the vehicle I heard a loud whoosh, and I had to duck to avoid the ball of flames lobbed at my head.
Two could play at that game.
“Humans kill all goblins,” I growled in the goblin’s own tongue, and I watched gleefully as the monster’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open.
They definitely weren’t used to humans being able to speak the same language as they did, that was for sure.
The goblin shaman raised his hand to summon another ball of fire, but I was faster, and my ice ball was flying across the space between us before his flames had even burst into existence.
I’d aimed right for his hand, and the ice struck the ball of fire forming in his palm and snuffed it out immediately. The goblin grumbled and backed away from me, but then the shaman swept his staff out like he was going to hit me upside the head with it.
I ducked again, rolled forward, and shot an ice shard upward as I came to my feet. The frozen magical dagger tore through the shaman’s thin leather armor and sliced into its chest like the goblin was made of softened butter, and the poor bastard collapsed dead to the ground.
Then the other goblin shaman stepped forward from where he’d been hiding beneath the wagon, and the next thing I knew, there were icicles raining toward me from his hands.
“Fur!” I quickly created a blaze of fire to combat the chill, and the icicles turned to water droplets several paces away from me before they rained harmlessly to the ground.
While I’d never fought against two magic users at one time before, they could each only perform one spell each. Good thing I had spells to counter both, plus some the goblins wouldn’t even be able to comprehend.
I smirked as I waited for the shaman to throw out his next round of magic, and I quickly negated his second ice spell the second he completed it.
The shaman’s eyes went wide as saucers, and it garbled out something unintelligible before stumbling over its own feet in an effort to get away from me.
I stepped over the shaman’s dead comrade and grinned wickedly down at the remaining magic user.
“Human kill all goblin,” I repeated as I knocked the goblin’s staff from its grip with my feather sword.
“Human speak goblin?” The shaman looked terrified as it cowered before me, but that wasn’t reason enough to let it live.
“Human know all words,” I said. “Human kill goblin now.”
Then I flicked my wrist, and my feather sword sliced a deep furrow across the shaman’s torso. The icky black blood gushed out, and even more spilled from the goblin’s lips as he tumbled over face first.
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and then I turned to scan the battlefield for another target.
The girls were doing fine, and there were only a couple spear wielding goblins remaining, so I took a moment to wipe my blade clean on the dead shamans’ leather armor. Then I hopped up into the back of the wagon where Elissa stood guard over our treasure with her mace held at the ready.
A pained gurgle to my left alerted me to the death of Mahini’s opponent, and then a goblin shouted out a death cry to my right as he met Eva’s fatal attack. The girls stood and took heavy breaths for a moment while we all processed what we’d just done.
All the goblins were dead, and our treasure was safe, but the road was littered with the stinky corpses of our enemies. The black sludge that pumped through their bodies coated the dirt road, and it even covered a lot of the plant life on the edge of the tree line.
“You did good,” I said to the three women who stood proudly before me. “I will do better at trusting you three to hold your own in a battle from now on.”
“Thank you.” Eva grinned. “That’s all I could ever want.”
“What do we do now?” my wife asked as she looked around at the destruction we’d caused.
“Now, we see if there’s anything valuable on these assholes before we carry on our way.” I shrugged. “At the very least, let’s strip all the weapons off them. I’m sure Jax can sharpen them up, and then the guardsmen in Bastianville can use them.”
“I’ll take the bodies on the left of the wagon!” Elissa chirped in a cheerful tone, and the redhead hopped over the edge to land in a squat on the road.
“I’ll take the ones in front and around the horses,” Eva offered, but she grimaced at the odor emanating from the corpses already.
“I will take the right side,” Mahini said with a wry smile.
“That doesn’t leave very much for me to do,” I argued.
“Good!” my wife giggled from the other side of the wagon.
A short while later, we’d finished scouring the goblin bodies for weapons and loot. We took all the swords, spears, and crossbows, but I also made sure to grab the shamans’ staves. Then we piled everything up into the back of the wagon so I could check the stats on each item.
Part of my ability as the God of Time was being able to see the stats on weapons, armor, and magical items. It had come in very handy ever since I’d been summoned to this world, and I was always on the hunt for better gear and weapons.
I checked one of the two staves first by pressing my pointer finger to the gemstone at the top.
Durability - 85%
Weight - 1 lbs
Quality - Average
Magical Aspect - None
Magical Ability - +10 fireball.
The next one was almost exactly the same except it said ice ball. Then I checked each sword, spear, and crossbow, but I didn’t find anything surprising. Most of their durabilities were very low, and the edges of the blades were covered in nicks and dents, so I hoped Jaxtom would be able to salvage them.
Worst case scenario, the blacksmith could reforge them into something of better quality like he had done with the armor I’d taken from Lucian Bullard’s corpse.
The girls also found a couple pouches full of copper coins, and we tossed them into the back with the rest of our loot. When we were all finished, we worked together to pull all the goblin bodies off the road since I didn’t want them to cause an accident by spooking a traveller’s horse or anything like that.
Finally, we regrouped at the wagon, and I took a moment to scratch Goliath since he’d stayed completely calm during the goblin fight. The girls climbed up onto the bench, and they all had similar questioning expressions on their faces as they gazed down at me.
“You’re going to ask what happens next,” I said before any of them could open their mouths. “Well, these goblins had to come from somewhere, so I think we should look around a little before we continue on down the road. There could be a whole bunch more of them ready to ambush us as soon as we make camp.”
“We shouldn’t leave the wagon unguarded.” Elissa furrowed her brow, and the expression only made the tiny goddess even more adorable.
“Of course.” I grinned. “Why don’t you and Eva stay with the loot while Mahini and I have a look around?”
“Sounds like a plan.” Eva nodded, and she twirled the blade I’d lent her around in her fist like she’d been using it her entire life. The duke’s daughter had taken to the daggers like a fish to water, and I could tell I was going to need to upgrade her weapons once we were back home.
The same went for Elissa and Mahini as well, but I’d have plenty of time to outfit my ladies in the best gear in the land once we made it back to Bastianville.
“Should we stay together or split up?” Mahini asked as her ice blue eyes flicked to the tree line.
“Stay together,” I said. “Otherwise we could end up dealing with a bunch of goblins on our own.”
“I would not like that.” The desert goddess frowned.
“Me either,” I laughed. “Come on, let’s start over by the water. Even goblins need to stay hydrated, right?”
“Right.” Mahini nodded, and then the two of us turned our backs on the wagon as we headed into the woods.
The desert goddess stayed close to my side, but she kept her bow out and at the ready. Her ice blue gaze saw everything, and her face was stoic. She was all business, but that was exactly why I’d chosen the former mercenary.
We went to the water and then began to fan out to cover more ground. I made sure to keep her within my sights, but we made a lot of progress through the woods in a short amount of time. The light was beginning to fade when I signaled for a halt, and Mahini let out a small sigh of relief. She’d never complain out loud, but I could read her subtle body language enough to know she was ready for a break.
“I don’t see any signs of any goblins,” I said. “Maybe the ones we killed were travellers themselves.”
“I didn’t see any packs on them,” Mahini pointed out. “All they had were their weapons, so they could only have travelled a short distance.”
“I can’t imagine them starting a new nest this close to Bastianville after what happened in the mines.” I frowned. “But if I need to I will send out a group of men to hunt them down. I want to make sure the town is safe from any and every threat.”
“The best way to do that is to be there,” the desert goddess said.
“You’re right,” I sighed. “But it was necessary for me to leave. We accomplished what we set out to do, though, so let’s go home.”
“We won’t make it the rest of the way there tonight,” Mahini argued. “We will have to make camp for now.”
“Good.” I grinned. “That means I get one more night with just you girls before I have to share my time with all the townspeople again.”
“I didn’t think about it that way.” Mahini’s eyes brightened, and she took my hand as we turned back in the direction of the wagon. “We will have to make sure tonight is extra enjoyable then.”
We headed back to where the other two girls were guarding our precious loot, and then the four of us continued our journey back to Bastianville. The sun was already sinking toward the horizon, but I wanted to put some distance between us and the pile of dead goblins just in case it attracted other enemies.
Sorreyal was a wonderful kingdom full of magical creatures, but not all of those creatures were friendly.
We continued travelling until the sunlight had almost completely faded, since I wanted to get as close to Bastianville as we could that day, but then the moon rose above the trees, and the pale dirt of the road practically glowed in the twinkling moonlight. We ended up making camp while the sun finished its descent, and once the fire was built and our large tent was erected, the four of us sat around the flames huddled beneath one of our blankets.
“This is close to where the werewolves attacked us, isn’t it?” Eva asked as she glanced around at the trees with a suspicious look. “That’s not going to happen again, right?”
“We aren’t too far from where we camped when they attacked,” I answered with a shrug. “But no, that won’t happen anymore. Racine is dead, and so is the duke. While I still have enemies, there’s nothing I can’t handle.
“That Racine was evil.” Elissa shuddered by my side. “The way he treated his employees was shameful.”
“It is a blessing he is dead,” Mahini agreed with a sage nod. “It’s getting late. I will take first watch over the wagon while you three sleep.”
“Thank you.” I gave the desert goddess one of my famous charming grins. “I’ll come relieve you in a few hours.”
“Get some sleep first, please, Great One,” my bonded warrior woman insisted in an urgent tone.
“Maybe I’m too excited to sleep,” I countered with a wink. “We will be back in our own bed tomorrow night.”
“Aww, it’s our last night in the big tent?” Elissa pouted, but then a thought crossed her eyes, and her expression brightened. “I can’t wait to see how the house is coming along! The builders should be getting done with their work soon!”
Mahini shook her head in amusement as she pushed herself to her feet. Then she planted a kiss on my forehead, tweaked Elissa’s nose, and gave Eva a small wave before she turned toward the wagon.
“It is getting late,” I pointed out in a low voice to the two ladies on either side of me. “What do you think about taking this cuddle fest inside the tent?”
“Yes, please,” Eva practically moaned. “I am so ready for bed.”
“Oh, all right,” Elissa giggled.
Then the three of us climbed into the tent, curled up against each other, and went to sleep. I woke up a short while later to relieve Mahini, and my watch was uneventful. I was yawning by the time Elissa came to take over for me, though, so I eagerly crawled in next to the desert goddess and slept till morning. I wasn’t even aware of Eva and Elissa switching spots, I just woke up with a different woman in my arms than I fell asleep with, but I didn’t mind. They were both awesome snuggle partners, after all.
It didn’t take us very long to eat a quick breakfast and get back on the road, and we were all eager to finish the final leg of our journey. The horses moved at a quick pace, and their ears flicked in all directions as we trotted down the well worn lane. The territory was beginning to look more familiar to me, and my blood coursed quickly through my veins the closer we got to town.
The walls of Bastianville came into sight in the early afternoon, and I slowed the horses so as not to cause any alarm by our arrival. We hadn’t left in a wagon, so it might seem like we were strangers. I spotted watchmen in the archery towers, and I waved my hands over my head in an effort to signal to them that it was me.
“Oh, that is a sight for sore eyes,” Elissa breathed by my side. “I can’t wait to tell my father about our last adventure.”
“He probably won’t believe I made you get a job,” I laughed.
“My father would never believe you managed to get me to muck out stables,” Eva said with a sideways smirk. “And a few months ago, I wouldn’t have believed it either.”
“You did a lot more than muck out a few stalls,” I complimented with a wink. “You made the city go up in flames.”
“Just don’t tell Jax that I had to sew,” Mahini pleaded with desperation in her ice blue eyes.
“Oh, I’m gonna tell him,” I chuckled.
Mahini opened her mouth to argue with me as her eyes turned to daggers, but before she could get another word out, a loud cheer echoed from the gates of Bastianville.
There, standing in the opening to the town, was a crowd of people all waving, jumping, and shouting at us in greeting. I spotted Jaxtom’s tall form, Elrin’s auburn hair, and Theodora’s dirty blonde hair among a bunch of other people. Many I recognized, but some were unfamiliar to me, and I made a mental note to get to know all of the residents of my town again.
I pulled the wagon to a halt in front of the crowd, and then the girls and I hopped down to say hello to everyone.
I shook Elrin’s hand, clasped Jax’s forearm in mine, and then I felt a feather light touch tapping on my shoulder. I spun around to greet the next person, and the next thing I knew, Caelia was throwing herself into my arms.
The beautiful shopkeeper’s cheeks were warm as they pressed against mine, and her body trembled in my grasp.
“I missed you, Great One,” she whispered in the sweetest voice.
My heart swelled two sizes bigger than it was before.
Well, that was a surprise.
