1.34 – The Tide of Battle

“Chryson, block any more level ups until this nonsense is over,” Rika said once she stepped out from between the carts.

The sun had since sunk beneath the peaks. Only what few torches Erik had placed, along with the ones carried by the goblins, would provide her light in the hours to come. To the east, the skull still hung in the sky, a watchful presence, but no longer one that pressed down upon Rika’s thoughts. It had almost become a part of the background by now.

“Of course, Miss Rika,” Chryson replied.

She waded into the horde, carving for herself a bloody path. With the edge-shine gleam of her axe flashing in the torchlight, she pushed out from between the carts and fell upon the goblins already backing away from her renewed assault. In the moments of her level up, she’d taken hits. But already they faded under the regeneration provided by Erik’s Enduring Heal class feature. He must have given her a Quick Heal when she’d been fighting against the overwhelming surge of her advancement.

With sweep and swing, she cleared space before her makeshift barricade, then held it. She wanted to get a good look at what lay below. The road leading up to Canyon Falls was packed with goblins. So much that occasionally one got shoved off the path and plunged into the gorge below. Some, mostly archers, tried to scramble up the steep mountainside opposite the gorge. A few found purchase, but most simply slid back down into the press of the war party.

The mass of bodies marched up the road, driven by the greater goblins in their midst. The greater goblins stood nearly twice as tall as their kin, roughly as large as Rika herself. They shouted and berated, sometimes striking out at those closest to them. The goblin warriors near the greater goblins surged forward, pressing their fellows along and up the road. At the forefront of the press, the surge turned to a struggle against retreat as those goblins closest to the barricade had to contend with Rika.

Shield Slam II: 30 seconds.

Tempo I x6: 6 seconds.

A swift backhand swing with her heater sent a goblin warrior crashing back into the crowd. The first few ranks of goblins stumbled as they tried, with varying success, to catch Rika’s latest victim. Before they recovered, she buried her axe in another’s chest, cracking its ribs as the head sank into its vitals.

“Is there some effect to my Shield Slam that isn’t listed?” she asked as the goblin she’d Stunned was helped up by those closest it. Before it fully recovered, she took off its head.

“No. Abilities function as their description states,” Chryson said, floating about two feet above the heads of the nearby goblins. “But the force of your blows is more than adequate for knocking a goblin off balance. Between your Might score and the extra force provided by the skill, any creature of this size would have a hard time keeping its balance. Unless, of course, it also possessed adequate Might and Finesse for the task.”

She savored the little morsel of knowledge he’d left out for her. Even without any sort of knockdown in an ability’s description, a strong enough blow could clearly disrupt a foe’s balance. Then, some combination of Might and Finesse would let her keep her stance if she took a particularly hard hit. On the day of her trial, when she’d trained against that soldier, he’d knocked her off her feet with a single blow. Most likely, then, simply an effect of his Might score against the fact she’d no stats of her own. She also recalled her experience against the Clay Sentinels within the trial itself. Again, an opponent with a clearly high Might and a relative lack of the same on her part.

The unspoken implications of that were clear. Rika’s class, the Dark Warrior, had above-average stat growth across all her stats. She’d already started reaping those benefits now that she’d some decent levels under her belt. If what Chryson had told her about her future growth was true, she would eventually outstrip all but the most extreme foes in raw stats. While the true strength of her class lay well ahead of her, she’d already caught a glimpse—and she liked what she saw.

One goblin warrior slipped a spear around her shield and drove the spearhead into the meat of her thigh. The warm trickle of blood and the blooming pain were like a siren’s song, calling her to the constant violence, goading her into the heat of battle. She answered with a burst of Dark power, sending the screaming goblin warrior to the ground missing one of its arms.

The ebb and flow of the fight itself did nothing to lessen the pounding of blood surging in Rika’s ears. Nor did the passing of what must be hours as she raised her axe then let it fall, time and again and on through the night. The thrill of the struggle, the purity of battle—it was so much more than she’d imagined. Always she’d enjoyed sparring. Always she’d enjoyed the sweat, the bruises, and the blood from a scrape when she hit the cobbles particularly hard. She’d known this was who she was, who she’d always been, but never had she imagined how right it would feel. How right her world became when she stood alone against these odds, and defied them with fury and fire.

As the bodies piled against the carts and the moon rose and the stars wheeled overhead, Rika pressed ever further down the road. A greater goblin shoved its way through the sea of smaller warriors. Another greater goblin stood a short distance behind, goading the warriors and skirmishers on, providing the approaching elite with its own Ferocity buff. Rika met it head on.

Rend I: 9 seconds.

Tempo x3: 6 seconds.

Rend hit the greater goblin, ripping through the makeshift armor it wore over its chest. The impact felt less than Dark Strike, to be sure, but that skill seemed to be in a class of its own. It also seemed to impact less than her Shield Slam did, though.

“Rend’s description states it deals normal damage,” Chryson said in response to her unspoken question. “This means it deals the same damage as your normal attacks do. Dark Strike’s ‘high damage’ quite obviously means it is far more effective than your weapon alone. But so does Shield Slam’s ‘average damage.’ The only skills that ever deal less damage than basic weapon attacks are those with the ‘minor’ descriptor. Minor damage is typically only found as an additional effect on weapon-based skills, and not the primary source of damage or utility the skill provides.”

A helpful clarification, to be sure. She wasn’t going to complain about Rend dealing the same damage as her basic attacks, though. The status on the greater goblin’s nameplate more than made up for it in her eyes.

Greater Goblin (Elite) – Level 15

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Wardriver – Grants Ferocity to all goblins and goblin-kin present in combat.

Ferocity – Bolstered by the presence of an elite of their kind. Average increase to damage.

Rend I x1 – Small reduction to defense. 15 seconds.

That was her ticket to these big ones. While she could simply cut her way through the smaller goblins in a few swings, the greater goblins took considerably more effort. Reducing their defenses would help with that. And as she faced stronger foes in her future, she could already tell that Rend would become a cornerstone of her fighting style.

Just to test out her new suite of abilities, she held off on following up with anything other than basic attacks with her axe for a few seconds. The greater goblin swiped at her with its own crude axe, but she took it on her shield. It was the perfect set-up for what she intended next.