53. Yevelian
The battle raged on for some time. For every goblin killed another would replace it. The tall figure that loomed out in the dark began closing the gap. It stepped out from under a tree, revealing himself to the moon light. It was a hideously scarred green man with pointed ears. He looked like a malformed version of the goblins they were currently fighting. On his neck was the antithesis of the sigil Nort had. That of the villain.
"I know you've been tracking me Nort! You just didn't realize that while I may have been injured, I have many allies in the wilderness. Today you will fall, and I will claim your head as my prize!" The man yelled through the chaos. Nort flared up with anger from the claim.
"No, Yevelian, you will fall today. I will finish what you escaped from before today!" Nort yelled back as he cut his way through the growing mass of bodies encircling the group. As Nort hacked and slashed he started to break away from the group.
"Nort stop, he is separating you from us!" Uvolia shouted. Nort looked back for a moment, then pressed on again. "Uvolia we cannot allow this to drag on, those three are not as strong as us." Nort continued his pressing attack. He reached his sword up high and plunged it into the ground causing a large shockwave of white light that incinerated the goblins around him but washed over the group harmlessly. With that he pulled the sword free and made use of the gap he had created to get in close to Yevelian.
Goblins continued to pour in and the route Nort had made was swiftly cut off by the unending horde of monsters. Rau began to pepper the new arrivals with magic, but it was already to late. Uvolia looked to Breken then back to the group of three. "Breken, break through to Yevelian and help Nort, he can't win alone." Breken snorted, then his body swelled up massively. His arms and legs were coated in shimmering scales and his skins temperature soared as steam began to be produced. Breken slashed forward with his club and then rushed forward like a locomotive, forcing his way to Nort. The lack of Breken was immediately felt as the goblins started to get closer and closer. Uvolia swapped over to her sword and Rau began using larger scale magics. The group of three continued using their current methods as they did not have large combat experience nor the excessive skills to support varying styles.
Ahead of them grunts from Nort and Breken could be heard and out of the woods came three massive figures holding trees for clubs. Uvolia's face turned ashen. "Nort we need to retreat now!" She shouted forward while slashing a goblin in front of her. Up ahead Nort noticed the figures the same time that Breken had made it to his side. "Breken, I appreciate the back up. Can you handle those three? If I can take out Yevelian his control over these creatures will break and they will scatter." Breken nodded affirmatively and pushed to the three figures, the sizes of the four equally matched. Yevelian began to retreat backwards away from Nort.
"Nort do you really think I would be so stupid as to fight you in close quarters. I am a manipulator, not a front line combatant. Come and get me, if you can do it in time that is." Yevelian baited Nort. Nort clearly was not one for thinking and dove after him right after. Uvolia seemed desperate. "Rau we need a way out. We can't hold on long enough for him to get to Yevelian and I don't think Breken is winning the fight against three goblin giants." Uvolia desperately spoke while fighting. Rau cast a carpet of flames that pushed back the horde for now and turned to the stone wall behind the group. "fifteen seconds." It was the first the group of three had heard Rau speak. It was hushed, but everyone heard it without issue. Like he was in everyone's ears.
Uvolia turned to the remaining three. "If you have anything left, go all out here." Uvolia took the crossbow and loaded a glimmering arrow. She fired it forward and it transformed into glowing white bird that rushed through the horde that began to push through the flames from Rau. She then put the crossbow back on her hip and began slashing the remaining few that survived. Cerone, Rys and Alyssa could feel the urgency in her voice. The cove had been great shelter from the rain, but it also created a choke. There was no way out but through the horde or whatever Rau was doing.
Cerone started to burn through her mana at an alarming rate. She threw as much fire magic as possible at the goblins. Every second though, they grew closer. Rys ran out of mana first. He collapsed on the ground from exhaustion. Alyssa threw one more blast of sound out and stumbled, using the wall as support to keep herself upright. Cerone and Uvolia were the last standing. Uvolia took a dagger to the leg and swiped away the goblin. Cerone took another dagger to the arm. Her magic had been depleted and she was now using a dagger she found on the ground to continue fighting. "I've only got a second or two left Rau!" Uvolia shouted as another dagger wormed its way past her armor into her ribs.
The goblins were now on top of them. There was no space to manuver. Alyssa had managed to drag Rys close to her and behind Cerone and Uvolia. Uvolia took a third stab and Cerone got hit in the calf. This was it. The end. These goblins would kill them all.
The ground shook suddenly and everyone lost their balance. The angled ceiling overhead began to come down on top of the goblins around them like a maw of a beast. They were all crushed and the only thing that remained was darkness.
The light stung when it suddenly appeared in the darkness they were in. The group wasn't sure how long they had been in that black abyss, but it was now daylight. The goblins were gone and they were in a different place entirely. Looking around they were still in the woods, but definitely far from where they had been. The group of five were worn battered and beaten. Rys was still out cold, Alyssa looked ragged, Cerone had a number of cuts and bruises, Rau had dropped to the ground the second he saw the light and Uvolia was the worst of everyone. She was bledding currently and was struggling to make bandages to stem the blood flow. Alyssa took a few steps over and started to help.
"What about Nort and Breken?" She spoke softly as she tied the last scrap of cloth over a stab wound.
"They will have to do what they do best. Fight. I don't know if they will win, but for now I and Rau will recover and then head back. Myself and Rau act more as support than front line fighters. With us safe they can truely let loose. Both of them have massive area damaging skills that they can't use with us to close. Nort might act like a meathead, but he thought it through. Although…" Uvolia stood up, one hand clutching the stab to her ribs. A shot of a saddened expressing graced her glistening face. "Let's get everyone to town first. Along the way you can tell me how a bunch of kids like yourself managed to get skills like that." Uvolia looked suspiciously at the three of them while she picked up Rau.
They began their journey and Cerone started to sweat, knowing that they needed a good explanation to cover for their obvious blessings. Strange skills weren't uncommon, but those that gained them without proper reason were suspected to be transplants. Cerone started to work to string together lies and more lies, trying to weave a web that would catch Uvolia's trust.
Meanwhile with Castus and Shi.
They had been traveling for a number of days. They had started to get close to their destination. Along the way Castus had managed to finally get his pistol working and could now reasonably hit a target at range. Shi had shown great interest in the pistol, but firmly believed that beyond certain levels it would become useless. Shi believed that she needed to develop herself without the aid of external tools to become powerful. Castus didn't have that luxury though. The constant movement was not ideal for developing more tools though and he had settled with the pistol and spear for the time being. The goal of his invented fighting style was to keep his opponents at range and take them out quickly. He didn't have defensive options and making a full suit of armor would only slow him down. He wasn't physically strong enough yet to handle carrying all of that metal weight.
The two of them crested a rolling hill and spotted an expansive city that laid at the bottom. Nestled between two large hills and split by a river laid Aljaziyah. The town his sisters were supposedly in. It was also where he would find his mother's family. Castus stored his weapons or rather dissolved them into neutral mana and Shi used her currently limited transformation abilities to try and make herself look at mundane and unremarkable as possible. The injury she sustained not only lowered her level, but also prevent her from performing full body transformation. They then approached the towering draw bridge that served as the entrance to the town.