Dungeons and Dalliances

In only a second, the [Goblin Raid Leader] had arrived to her. Natalie pivoted, his dagger passing through where she'd been standing a second prior, and she retaliated with a kick, her hammer too slow and cumbersome to catch him in the close-quarter angle. But even the quicker movement couldn't reach him in time. He stepped sideways and slashed a second time. This one, Natalie couldn't dodge. The blade scraped across her stomach, drawing a bright red line. He pulled back. Natalie grunted as she heaved down her hammer in an overhead swing, but metal met only earth as it impacted with a whoomph. The speed difference was going to be a problem.

She swung in the direction the [Raid Leader] had gone, forcing him to abort his next attack, scrambling backward to avoid the low, wide arc of her hammer. While he was tough, fast, and deadly, the goblin still recognized Natalie's weapon as the threat it represented. He might be a stronger level three than normal, but he didn't outmatch them by that significant a margin; he still had to respect her.

The series of exchanges had allowed Jordan and Malice to recover, which meant the [Raid Leader] now faced off against three of them rather than two. Malice engaged his attention first, throwing a flurry of punches, which he batted away, deflecting the martial artist and following up with an elbow into her stomach. As Malice keeled forward, a dagger descended, aimed for her back.

But Natalie took advantage of his overextension: her hammer seared sideways, a fully charged swing. She almost pitied him. Fighting outnumbered was an awful position to be in, where it was nearly impossible to keep track of everything.

Natalie's first direct blow landed, and the goblin staggered from the impact, his attempted backstab on Malice interrupted. Shockingly, though, he only stumbled a few feet before spinning and facing Natalie again. Natalie's arms, meanwhile, were ringing with the impact: it'd been like she'd swung her hammer into a metal wall.

A rogue that could absorb attacks like that?

What the hell was this thing? It was easily on the same footing as a dungeon boss. If not stronger.

The goblin danced backward as Malice reengaged him, avoiding her series of punches and kicks. In several long bounds, he had left her far behind, already dozens of feet away—and with his bow drawn again. Arrows poured out almost faster than her eyes could track: three had launched themselves toward her before she recognized he had even sheathed his daggers.

Natalie activated [Hunker Down]. Clings filled the air as sharp metal tips slammed into her, deflected by the invulnerability-granting ability. Malice, for her part, slapped two arrows away, but grunted as a third embedded into her shoulder—which she promptly ripped out with a howl that Natalie couldn't tell was pain or excitement. Probably both.

Jordan, again, had gone missing, slinking away between trees to set up her next devastating ambush, biding her time for an opportune moment. At low HP and lacking the [Crown of the Scapegoat], she had to be very careful with her engagements.

Just as Natalie was thinking that, an arrow from her left streaked forward and slammed into the goblin, cutting off his rapid-fire barrage—which had obviously been a skill of some kind. Jordan wasn't an [Archer], but she carried a bow around and was more than a fair shot.

Rather than retaliating against Jordan, the goblin slung his bow over his back and redrew his daggers. [Hunker Down] deactivated, and Natalie rushed forward, a few steps behind a howling Malice. A thrown glance over her shoulder showed that Ana, Sofia, and Liz were still cleaning up their half of the goblin raid. It hadn't been all that long. Against an enemy of this caliber, exchanges happened fast.

The three of them re-engaged. A series of traded blows ensued, the goblin almost too fast to catch—even for Malice, who had a quicker, more dexterous style than Natalie.

But sensing an opening, she activated [Illusion]. That ability was best used sparingly, to force a surprise blunder, especially since the mana cost wasn't negligible. An illusory image shimmered inside of herself, overlaying her body, imitating a swing of her hammer coming from the left. In reality, she came from the right. The goblin was already off-foot: he couldn't dodge back, hence Natalie's timing. He had to choose a direction to parry the blow.

He guessed.

He guessed wrong.

Natalie landed her second direct strike. [Valentine] crushed into the green-skinned monster.

Even as the goblin staggered sideways, Malice slammed into him, arms wrapping around his waist and promptly dragging him to the ground. She wrestled with the creature, avoiding his daggers—and the melee scuffle bought Natalie an opportunity. Spinning [Valentine] around in her grip, she brought the opposite face of the hammer to the forefront of her next swing. Then slammed downward.

***

Duo. Land successful strikes in quick succession with alternating attack faces to trigger a stunning effect.

***

Malice threw herself out of the way right in time; Natalie had trusted she would, though had aimed so collateral would have been minimized if not.

Hitting an opponent directly was one thing. Slamming down onto them like hammer meeting anvil was another. Especially with appropriate charge-up. Dust and dirt flew sideways in all directions as the force of the attack pummeled into goblin, squashing him into the earth.

He still didn't die though. Incredibly, she didn't even hear bones break. Shocking as that was, Natalie had been prepared. The goblin lay dazed on the ground, [Valentine]'s special ability stunning him. She considered laying into him with downward swings of her hammer, but she had a new special attack that utilized a stun better than anything else could.

She stepped back and started channeling [Smite].

Malice delivered a few harsh kicks into the goblin's ribs, but retreated quickly—more venting her annoyance than anything. Because causing too significant of damage during a stun would break the effect: Jordan couldn't simply stab him in the face until he died. And of any single blow, a heavily channeled [Smite] would do by far the most.

Holding her hammer forward with both hands, she called the spell to life. Mana surged from that inexplicable container inside of herself, gathering at the tip of her weapon, a red-pink vortex growing in size. She had only tested this ability once, and only a quick channel: the minimum length of one second, since it was a huge mana drain, and she had been wanting to save the resource for real combat.

The goblin started to stir into consciousness at the count of five, so Natalie released prematurely. A huge of beam of pink-red energy burst forward, engulfing the creature on the ground. Earth blackened where the column of light touched. [Smite] kept erupting bright, pink, hot energy for nearly a full two seconds before it finally started to taper off.

Of course, impressive as the light show had been, neither Malice nor Jordan delayed in following up. This was too intense a fight to simply stand there and gawk at Natalie using the flashy skill at close to full strength for the first time. As soon as the light cleared, Jordan slammed her dagger down at his face. Malice started kicking him.

Not just that, black pillars of void light slithered out of the ground, Ana joining the fray. Three of the tentacle-like appendages sprouted and promptly began wailing onto the staggered [Raid Leader] with impacts that shook the ground. Both Jordan and Malice had to disengage from the flurry of magical attacks to avoid getting caught as collateral damage.

For a second time, Natalie admired Ana's strength upgrade. She wondered if even [Smite] could match that ridiculous output.

As Ana's spell slowly faded, the dust and dirt thrown up from her attack settled, revealing the goblin's form.

It wasn't a pretty sight. The last of its HP had definitely disappeared sometime during Natalie's [Smite] or Malice and Jordan's follow-up—so Ana's tentacles had crushed it into almost unrecognizability. Its corpse was mangled.

Her shoulders sagged in relief.

Finally dead.