Hunting

The group packed our weapons and a bit of bread for later in the day if we got hungry. We decided that the first thing that we would do would be to take me to sell the items that I had brought from my world, seeing as I was the only one that hadn't contributed money to the group yet. I didn't have much, just my wallet and keys, plus the clothes that I had been wearing. The group of six made our way to the shop where the others had sold their items yesterday.

There was an older man behind the counter he had a pencil-thin mustache, and it looked like he'd tried to dye his hair with shoe polish.

"Welcome Travelers!" The man said with a greasy smile plastered across his face. We explained that we were here to sell my items, and he was all too happy to oblige. I took a look at some of the wares, including the wallets he had in stock. They were all marked up way past the amount that he would be buying them. Some of them were plain leather, and others had cartoon characters on them, some of which I even recognized. The ones with cartoons were more expensive than the nice leather ones and were labeled with a tag that said 'Travelers Art.'

I wound up getting fifteen copper pieces for everything I owned, and we were on our way to the next shop. My new comrades and I had discussed it and thought it would be best to get a map of the area so we wouldn't get lost while out hunting for monsters. Unfortunately, the map cost everything that I had just made, but still, it was an item that we needed. We gave the map to Tim because he'd been in the army before coming here and knew a little bit about reading maps.

"I never thought that it would come into play in a setting like this." Tim expressed to the rest of us. We nodded, but honestly, we were all thankful that at least one of us knew something about what we were doing. It was nerve-wracking; frankly, no one was talking about it, but we didn't know what to expect out there while hunting and all of us were at least a little afraid of getting hurt.

We asked around to some people about where the best place to start would be where we were least likely to run into really dangerous monsters; they were kind enough to point us to a location on the map called Goblins reach. We thanked them and were on our way. It would be a three-hour walk from where we were, so I was glad we started pretty early on in the day. The six of us walked along, talking about what our lives were like back in the other world. I told them that I was 26, and before this, I worked as a line cook at a local restaurant.

Grace was 30; it turned out even though she looked much younger than that, but she was a tattoo artist. Which, if I'm to be honest, kind of fit her look. Sarah and Derek were both 19 and both full-time students; Laura was only 16 and was still in high school. 'No wonder she seemed so freaked out yesterday. She's just a kid.' I thought to myself. Tim was actually just a year older than me. We kept talking about our lives until we were about thirty minutes out from our destination.

The nerves were settling in again, thinking about the type of creature we were going to be fighting. We stopped to talk and figure out what our plan was.

"I like Todd's idea; using a pit trap, I think it would cut back on the chances of us getting hurt." The group agreed, and we continued onto the fine details. I would dig the pitfall, Tim and Laura would help me cover it so that it didn't look so obvious. Derek was the fastest runner, so he would act as bait to lure one of the goblins closer to the trap, then Grace and Sarah would hide close by, and once the goblin fell into the trap, they would go in for the kill.

It was a good plan, a solid one. So we went to work about one hundred yards from the goblins encampment. I used my spade instead of a magic circle because the light might give away our location. Then we put some twigs over it and covered it with leaves.

"Are you sure you can do this?" I asked Derek, who looked like he was sweating bullets. He silently nodded to me, although his sickly appearance didn't inspire much confidence. We all hid close to the trap, waiting. Thirty minutes passed, and I thought that maybe something happened to Derek, when suddenly we started to hear the rapid crunch of leaves and sticks. We all froze, trying to be deathly silent and still, hoping that this plan worked and that no one would get hurt. Roughly ten seconds passed after that, and Derek burst into the scene and jumped over the pit trap.

There was a small goblin brandishing a dagger and cackling loudly right on his heels. The goblin didn't know about the trap, though, and as soon as its foot hit the twigs, they broke, and the monster fell heavily with a thud into the hole. Sarah and Grace jumped out quickly and looked down into the hole.

"We did it!" Sarah exclaimed. "He's in there!" We all stood up and quietly celebrated. However, our cheerful attitude did not last long. The goblin smiled up at us, and in a flash, it had jumped straight in the air over our heads. It threw its dagger at Sarah, whose face had just changed from one of joy to one of horror. The blade landed in her shoulder, and she screamed in pain. The goblin wasn't finished there though; with incredible speed, he grabbed the dagger out of her shoulder, causing blood to splatter out of her, and making her scream once more.

Grace readied her shield so he wouldn't be able to throw the dagger at her, but the goblin was too smart; as soon as she rose her shield to eye level, he dodged in between her legs and cut deeply at her inner thigh blood started to pour from her. Graces' eyes went wide, and she went down, clutching her wound. At this point, the other three were ready. Laura had her wand pulled. But she was stuttering over her spells, unable to get the right words out.

"Come at me, you bastard!" Derek yelled at it, their blades met, but in an instant, we could tell that the goblin was stronger than him. It was Tim that came in to save the day; he cast some type of light that blinded the entire group and then came down hard at the monster with his mace.

He missed the head that he was aiming for, but as the little creature jumped out of the way, Tims weapon connected with its leg breaking the bone. The goblin was up once more and tried to run away, but before it did, I took a dive at it and tackled it down to the ground.

"HOLD IT THERE!" Tim yelled at me, and I did what I was told; even though the goblins little sharp teeth were digging into my shoulder, I could hardly feel it with the amount of adrenaline pumping through me. Tim came over quickly and swung his mace, hitting the thing in the face. It finally stopped moving, but just for good measure, Derek came and stuck his rapier into the monster's chest.

We didn't have time to celebrate; however, Grace was bleeding out fast. The goblin had cut her femoral artery, and she didn't have a lot of time left. Tim tore a piece off of his cloak and tied it high up around her groin area.

"Keep pressure on that wound!" He told me, and I did. I placed my hands above it and pressed down hard. Grace had already passed out from blood loss, so she didn't feel the pain, but we were all panicking, just waiting for Tim to tell us what to do next. "Derek, go do the same to Sarah, Laura help him!" Derek started moving although he looked incredibly sick, and Laura was too busy on her hands and knees, throwing up the small amount of food that she had on her stomach.

Tim knelt over Grace and placed his hands above mine where her wound was. "God, I hope this works." He knocked my hands out of the way, the bleeding had slowed, but I couldn't tell if that was because of Tims makeshift tourniquet or because Grace was running out of the blood.

"Oh heavenly mother goddess of healing and prosperity, I beseech you to allow your power to flow through this humble servant and mend what has been broken, Heal!" As soon as his prayer was over, a great white light came from his hands. I watched on in awe as Grace's blood flowed back into her, and then her flesh melded back together. The wound was gone, but the Paladin still hadn't woken up.

"She'll need to rest now." Tim then went over to Sarah and did the same prayer. She was fine now but everyone was a little shaken. I took a few deep breaths and could feel the adrenaline wearing off. I sat down and put my hands on my face rubbing them up and down, I felt so tired all of a sudden and my back hurt like crazy. 'Wait why does my back hurt?' I reached one of my hands behind me to rub the sore spot but when I did I felt something hard. I looked behind me and suddenly felt sick. There was the monsters weapon lodged in my lower back on the right side.

My mind couldn't hold on anymore and after seeing that everything faded away. I could hear panicked voices around me, but they just seemed so far away. 'It doesn't matter now, I'm so tired.'

"Hey stay with me! Come on man stay with me!" A mans voice made it's way into my head.

'But I don't want to stay, I want to sleep.' I could hear someone crying in the background but it didn't matter anymore. 'I'm just gonna take a couple minutes.' My consciousness was gone at that point. I no longer heard any voices or crying, sleep took me.

I woke up hours later, I looked around myself and my surroundings looked familiar. There was the tattered ceiling and the cracked and broken walls.

"Wha- What happened?" I studdered out with sleep still coating my voice. Laura was sitting right next to me.

"Guys! Guys he's awake! Come quick!" The others ran into the room to have a look at me. I decided to ask one more time what happened.

"Ye almos died ye wee twit." A familiar voice spoke. "Yer lucky that I was close by searching for ingredients otherwise ye would probably be speakin ter ye ancestors righ now." I looked up to see who the voice was, it was my master.

"I'm so sorry Todd! I didn't have any more mana after healing the others I didn't notice that you were injured, I'm so sorry!" Tim was actually crying, but I put my hand on his head and reasured him that it wasn't his fault. I turned to my Master and thanked her for saving my life. She shrugged and picked up her cloak.

"Es alrigh ye owe meh another fiver copper though." With that she swept herself out the door. 'What is that 20 copper now? That's almost a whole silver!' I groaned a little and then laid back down.

"Do you guys mind if I sleep a little more?" I asked the group and they all nodded and left to allow me to rest. 'What a day.'