Book 2 Chapter Seventeen: Escape Planning

SEVENTEEN

“There you are, we were getting worried,” Moira said as the trio stumbled out of the ruins of the village. With the fighting dying down and the two hobs slain, the horde had broken. Except those who had been trapped inside of the walls.

Ogres and goblins had haunted the burning ruins. They’d ambushed the trio at every step of the way, but with Harris’ bloodline power, they’d never even been scratched. Blood and flesh hung from the edges of Roan’s warhammer, all that remained of their attackers.

“Didn’t think you’d have evacuated the village,” Taoya said with a shrug. The big man was moving slower, having burned through all his reserves and not wanting to strain his body. With his enhanced stats and skill it hadn’t mattered. It just took slightly longer to kill the ogres.

“The fire and smoke obscured too much visibility and was hindering in the healing,” Darren cut it, pointing to the rather large collection of survivors that stood in the field outside of the burning village.

They’d formed a circle with the injured piled up in the middle. Potions were being handed out and bandages wrapped up the smaller wounds. Roan had to guess there were at least a few hundred survivors, but it was hard to tell in the dark.

“How many hobs did you get?” Darren asked, hardly waiting for them to get closer so he didn’t have to shout.

“Two. Plus a bunch of ogres and eight shamans,” Taoya reported.

“Tyler got one of them too. That’s why she used her bloodline ability so early. Apparently the hob blitzed them right at dusk with a team of ogres. She melted them but took herself out of the fight,” Darren said. He pointed to where the tall woman was sitting in the center of the injured. A haze emitted from her as she sipped on a canteen and ate a protein bar.

“Gave her an inferior-grade healing potion and have her pushing it out. She can’t handle anything stronger than that at the moment,” Moira said when she saw them all looking at the elite.

“Smart. Three hobs here, dragon at Village Two, then three hobs at the last village?” Taoya guessed.

“Why’d they skip us?” Harris asked.

“Him,” Roan piped up, throwing his finger at Taoya.

“I want to agree, but let’s not be too hasty. If we close off other possibilities we can be blindsided,” Darren cautioned.

“We escort the survivors back to our village and then?” Harris asked, going to a knee and taking a sip from his canteen. Roan followed suit as he looked over the battlefield. It was filled with corpses that already were breaking apart. If he stared long enough he could see the skin sloughing off of goblins and covering the dirt.

“No more night hunting. We’re exhausted,” Darren said. Roan agreed. Without Taoya being fully charged up they would be easy prey to a hob and its shaman guards.

“We’re fucked tommorrow night then,” Roan said.

“Yeah. Five more hobs released and the dragon? We’re not going to survive that,” Darren agreed.

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“What do you suggest then?” Taoya asked, turning to look at Roan.

“We use all day tomorrow to upgrade as much as we can. Max out those time dilation chambers and run as many quests as we can. Rally all the survivors and then when it’s dusk, we go to the dragon’s cave,” Roan said.

“We can’t fight that dragon. Not yet,” Taoya countered.