Dialysis Book: Chapter 23: The battle in the clearing

“Alright coach, you got any other good ideas,” I said and Spivy glanced at me.

“Coach,” she asked.

“Well, you are the one who is telling me how to do this without actually doing it yourself,” I said.

Spivy shrugged, “I suppose the word fits.”

“As long as I get to bite them on the butt, I am content,” said Shade.

“Probably go for their throats,” I offered.

“That too,” said Shade as he switched over to shadow form and started creeping through the grass.  Up close, he looked almost smoky, but when he got more than a few feet away all he appeared to be was a shadowy patch that cut through the grass.  Your mind tended to assume that shadow was just supposed to be there in most circumstances.

In short, he got a lot closer than I would have liked to the first of the three huts.  The hut closest to us was a former halfling structure that was repurposed into a goblin hut.  It was a short, five foot tall structure with a simple ceiling.  The entire thing was made out of woven felt grass and it might have been nice before the goblins occupied it.

“And we can’t burn them,” I asked.

“The forest would not approve,” said Spivy from my pocket.  “Starting fires will get the forest’s attention very quickly.”

“Get the forest’s attention, you act like it can defend itself,” I said.

Spivy just stared at me for several seconds before speaking.  “The forest doesn’t care about a few goblins, but if you start fires then the forest will start to pay attention and it will know who did it.  Do not start fires in the forest.”

We walked on in silence for several moments.  Knowing that you were inside a mega creature that could snuff you out at any moment was concerning.  I decided not to start any fires.

“So what do these bracers do,” I asked, checking on the resized goblin bracers.  I guess they were my bracers now.

Spivy looked at them and replied mechanically, “Spearman’s bracers of the beetle.  These bracers grant a passive bonus to spear throwing while worn.  If the user applies essence, the bracers will harden to resist skill use.”

“Convenient finding these,” I said.

“Why,” asked Spivy.

“Because I’m a spear user?”

“So are the goblins.  That’s how we found your spear core, remember.  If you were going to find any sort of magical item in that cave, it would be towards spear use.”

“Good point, let's move,” I said as I pulled up my hood and creeped into the tall grass.  This was a calculated chance.  A competent force would have a sentry or two that would have a very good shot of seeing me in my cloak as I snuck in.

My cloak was green, it was just the dark shade of green from where I came from instead of the more vibrant shade of green here.  It did not blend, and someone looking would have spotted me pretty easily.  Not as easily as without the cloak, but was at most minorly advantageous to my steal check out here.

However, to lose a stealth check the other side had to roll the dice and they weren’t bothering meaning they were probably feral goblins.  I got into the tall grass and started towards the third hut.  The doats were last on our target list because if we could just keep them in their barn, we could let nature take its course.

Or at minimum fight them at a time of our choosing.

That meant that I had to deal with any goblins in this hut.  And I had to do it very quietly.

“Goblins are nocturnal by nature, and feral goblins always follow their instincts, I haven’t seen any of them yet,” said Spivy.  “That could be good or bad.”

I got into position as close as I dared to the huts.  The feral goblins had picked all the local felt grass closest to their huts and it had not had time to regrow yet.  That gave them a clear lawn where sneaking wasn’t possible.

“Surprised they didn’t sleep in the trees,” I muttered.

“Then we wouldn’t be having this problem,” said Spivy in a tone that spoke of terrible things.

“Plus the doats,” I said.

“They wouldn’t fit,” replied Spivy.  I spent a good minute looking around, trying to make sure that there were no goblins outside the tents and seeing none.  This was the really risky part of the plan and I was trying to motivate myself.

“Go,” said Spivy and I sent an updated map through the companion core.  The updates on the map were irrelevant, the fact that I’d sent it meant that I was in position.  Shade would already be moving and I couldn’t disappoint him by being scared.

I charged towards the door of the hut.

I wasn’t being quiet, but I wasn’t being loud either and the hut’s door was really just a flap.  So when I got there I found three goblins sleeping, and when they were sleeping they really did look like children.  Peaceful, sleeping children.

Which stopped instantly when I jammed my spear into the first one.  I aimed for the heart, but the bright light of my laser thrust gave my attack a strobing feature.  This caused the other two goblins to wake up, they started screaming.

I pulled back and thrust a second time, killing the second goblin before he could do anything.  All I needed to do was stop the third goblin from getting past me to the cage in the middle and we were all set.

The third goblin ran through the back wall of the hut straight towards the cage.

“Well, it is made of grass, I should have expected that,” I said.  The hole was goblin sized, not human sized and I jumped out of the hut.

I ran around the side of the hut as I spotted Shade dashing into the grass after his goblin.  Shade would have been fast enough to intercept my goblin, but the orders were to deal with yours before going to the center.

Throwing my spear was my only option and I hauled back to toss it when my foot found a hole.  I stumbled mid toss and my weapon barely missed the intended target.

“Wow, those bracers really work,” I grunted, pulling my foot free.

“They are magical,” said Spivy as the goblin reached the barn and threw open the gate.

“We are going to get killed by doats because of a hole,” I growled as the goblin stood there triumphantly.

He died instantly as the first doat tore his head clean off and I got my first good look at a doat.  Their back halves were like dogs, or wolves more likely but their head was not quite a tiger's head, the face shape was just off that it didn’t quite look like a cat.

Then I saw it bite through the goblin’s arm and realized why.  The jaw was full of heavy bone teeth designed to crush through bones.  It lacked fangs up front, but that didn’t matter when you could just bite off an arm whole.

The doats tore the goblin to shreds and were looking around for more meat and I looked delicious.

“This is just like that cougar in the bar,” I said unhappily.

“Cougar?” asked Spivy.

“Middle aged housewife out for bone,” I hissed.

“Did you mean blood,” asked Spivy, horrified.

“No,” I said, gauging how much damage one of those monsters could take.  None of the answers I was coming back with were hopeful.  I picked up my spear, conveniently stuck into the ground where I’d missed the goblin.

The doat started padding towards me as I held up my spear threateningly.  The creature looked at me for a moment then made a deep growling sound in his throat and repeated it until two more doats walked out.  All three looked at me.

“Any ideas,” I asked.

“Charge,” said Spivy.

“Are you insane?” I asked.

“They can’t sense essence, but if you run they know you think they are weaker than them, if you charge they will at least be cautious so all three might not attack at once,” said Spivy.

When she said it like that it only sounded slightly insane.  I steeled myself and charged, rushing towards the closest doat.  The creature reared back, snarling at me, eyeing the tip of my spear as I closed.  It was smart enough to recognize the pointy part as a threat.

The two other doats that had been moving forward to assist their brother suddenly stopped.  They were unsure what me charging meant.  Spivy might have actually known what she was talking about.

I got into range with the first creature and thrust my spear.  I was literally an apex human with a spear.  The best a mortal man could be while wielding one.  The doat was only minorly impressed.  He jumped back, easily avoiding the strike in a display of superhuman agility.

“Don’t let up,” yelled Spivy.  I was ready to hesitate, but her screaming in my ear was enough to continue my charge, stabbing with my spear.  With laser thrust active I managed to tag the creature in the side, splitting it open.

The doat stumbled and I thrust again, this time I was successful and drove the point into the doat’s neck.  My laser cut, it was not hot so the wound did not self cauterize.  Blood fountained out of the doat’s neck and it collapsed allowing me a second stab which ended it.

“Who’s next,” I uttered before another doat tackled me to the ground.

One thing about spears is that they are next to useless when you are on the ground with an eighty pound creature biting at your back.  One got a bite onto my forearm, but my beetle bracers somehow took the attack.

I realized I was instinctively pushing essence into the area about to be wounded, which seemed normal, but in this situation the bracers started to blacken and the bite that should have at least crushed my arm didn’t seem to hurt much at all.

“The bracer is really efficient at getting hard, so it takes less essence to protect yourself than for the creature to attack,” said Spivy as I punched the doat in the face repeatedly.  The doat was not liking my steel fisted, essence enhanced punches to the face any more than I was enjoying getting gnawed on.

“So it turns the attack into regular biting,” I grunted, throwing the doat free and getting to my feet.

“Yup, against someone of your tier it is very effective, if that was a heroic doat you’d be doomed,” said Spivy as I pointed the spear at the creature in front of me.  “Pay attention behind you.”

Something grabbed my ankle and I was suddenly face first on the ground.  The pain in my ankle was nothing like the light injury to my arm.  The other doat was attempting to bite through my ankle and he wasn’t having nearly as many problems as his brother.

Still, I was wearing chain armor and kicking in the face repeatedly.  Once, twice, and on the third time the doat was knocked free.  I saw metal rings in his mouth and I struggled to stand.

My ankle was broken.

I focused my essence on my ankle and tried to get out from in between the doats.  They were not having it.  Whenever I went for a strike the other one would move into attack, leaving me in a rough position.

Suddenly a ball of shadow exploded on the side of a doat and then Shade was on him.

I spun around stabbing at the other doat, but he wheeled back keeping me at range while the dog and doat battled to see which one was superior.  My money was on Shade, primarily because he’d started off by blasting the doat which seemed to have caused damage all out of proportion to the size of the wound.

“Shade’s shadow attack caused the enemy to not be able to spend essence at the injury site,” said Spivy.

“So…”I began before realizing what that meant, “He can’t stop the bleeding?”

“He will be able to shortly, and can do so further back, so to speak, but it means handling that wound is very essence intense,” said Spivy.

I was able to fight on a broken ankle due to spending essence.  Essence allowed me to stop the bleeding on my arm where the doat clamped down and shook violently.  It was literally the only reason I was standing, and Shadow’s bolt attack stopped the doat from doing something similar.

The wound wasn’t lethal, the doat could recover from it except of course Shade was there and he was more than willing to keep biting the creature with his own essence enhanced attacks.  That just left me with the other doat.

It snarled and went after me again, but this time I swung around my light shield.  The creature bit onto it and shook violently, causing my entire body to shake.  The light shield wasn’t something I held on physically, but it was attached to my essence and that was hardwired to my body.

Still, I was braced enough that I was able to thrust my spear and catch the animal twice in the head.  The first slice took off an ear.  The second one stuck into the creature’s skull.  I pulled back the spearhead, realizing that I was running low enough on essence that I was having trouble using laser thrust.

Then Shade was next to me.  I glanced down at my dog, he was bleeding slightly from several small wounds but panting happily.  “We have won.”

“Good work, ninja worlick,” I said.

“Did you mean ninja warlock,” said Spivy.

“We both know I didn’t,” I said.

“I hate you,” said Spivy and Shade barked happily.  My ankle was fractured, not really busted and essence did wonders on such injuries.  Still, I uncorked a healing potion and drank it feeling the bone knit instantly.

It was not comfortable, but beat the alternative.

“So where did you learn shadow bolt,” I asked Shade.

“Spivy said that if I kept practicing I could learn a spell like you, and when my class evolved I learned a spell,” said Shade.

“His essence also increased,” said Spivy.  I could tell.

“Why didn't you run that by me,” I asked.

Shade looked at Spivy, “Because she is ‘coach’.”

Spivy smirked.  Indeed she was.  I thought about it and realized that I wasn't able to add anything meaningful to that conversation.

“How do you gain new powers?” I asked.

“When your class develops, it will naturally begin to gain new powers.  You can also use aspects to expand that capacity depending on how focused you want to be.  Shade's class is about  shadow and biting.  “

“So a shadow bolt fits neatly into that,” I said.

“See, you are clever,” said Spivy.  “You will naturally develop more spear and light based powers, but if you wanted to add quickness effects as well I could use that aspect on your core.”

“Wasn't that aspect heroic ranked,” I asked.

“It is, and your class is just about developed enough to start taking on some heroic aspects.  They will operate at mortal levels until your class evolves,” said Spivy as we all watched the barn.

Up close, the felt grass structure actually had a wooden framework inside of it.  Given the purpose was to hold animals in, it was pretty obvious that felt grass alone wouldn’t cut it.  Still, the structure was mostly felt grass built to hide a pen.  Or a cage if one was being less generous.

“I’m out of idle chit chat,” I said.

“That has to be loud enough,” said Shade.

“Most monsters would have responded by now,” said Spivy.

“Did we actually get everything,” I said, looking around.

“I was pretty sure there would be more,” said Spivy uncomfortably.  I eyed the tight, narrow entrance to the barn where the doats had been holding up and winced.

“But it didn’t come out,” I said looking over at the door.  “Maybe it was injured earlier, and they ate it?”

“They can smell me, sneaking up on them is tricky,” said Shade.  His shadow form ability made him very hard to see, but didn't do much to hide his scent.

I scanned the area and picked up a rock, a small one.  “This field is picked pretty clean, I doubt this is going to convince the critter to attack.”

We stood, heroically watching the barn, for several long seconds before I tossed the rock.  It hit the side and bounced off one of the bars.  Then I remembered the damaged huts and walked over to the cage.

“We are overthinking this,” I said, grabbing a double handful of the felt grass and pulling.  A section of the wall fell off, exposing the well constructed wooden frame underneath and a furry shape.  As it looked towards me I realized I had really, profoundly, monumentally screwed up.

“We didn't think hard enough!” yelled Shade before the blast of green energy exploded against my light shield.  I was lifted off my feet and landed hard on my ass, plowing through the dirt as the beam spent its energy against my shield.  When the beam finally stopped, my shield had burned through leaving me with a glowing green spot on my chest.  The bugbear laughed.

“You fool, here I thought the goblins were just trying to steal my stuff again,” she said, stepping out of the cage where Shade was waiting.  He appeared from behind, biting at her leg but the bugbear was ready and she blasted a pulse of greenish energy back at him, causing Shade to vanish.

Of course, I wasn't worried about that at the moment.  I struggled to stand, but what was the point?  We were doomed.  We couldn't fight against that.  The bugbear was so much more powerful than us that we didn't stand a chance.

“Get up you idiot,” yelled Spivy landing on my chest.  She grabbed me by the cheeks and tried to pull me to my feet regardless of the mechanics of it.  When I didn't move, her eyes glowed briefly.  “Your shield blocked most of the effects. The only thing that got through was an essence blocker.”

I looked at her blankly.

“Oh crap,” said Spivy, slapping me on the cheek.  “I don't know exactly how that stupid human mind of yours works, and without your essence to reinforce your will you are basically useless but if you don't start to move she is going to kill you.”

“I can't stop her,” I said dumbly.  I didn't really care.  This was just the cherry on top of my life.

“Seriously, get up, the effect doesn't last very long,” screamed Spivy as the bugbear began casting more spells, blasting the area around one of the huts.

I couldn’t fight that.  She was simply far too powerful and I didn’t even know where to begin to fight something like that.  Spivy was panicking, she knew it was pointless too.  There was nothing any of us could do against a bugbear.

The fun part about being depressed is that you know you are depressed but can’t really do anything about that.  I knew my actions were counter-productive, which made me even more depressed.  I knew if I didn’t do something the bugbear would kill me, and knowing that not doing something was harming me was making me even more depressed.

I was doomed, and I knew it.  This is why she left me, I was worthless.  There was nothing I could do.  Then I heard something distant, but my jumbled mind couldn't place it until Spivy yelled, “She's going to kill Shade!”

I stood up, “Get away from him you bugbear trash.”  I might be a total loser.  I might be incompetent.  I might not be a man, but no one hurt my dog.

The bugbear turned, scorn all over her face, “Oh, I didn't kill you.  That's honestly impressive for a moral.”

I concentrated much harder than I normally had to and managed to pull a javelin out of my inventory.  My essence was returning.  I didn’t care if I died, I threw everything into protecting Shade.  I flung the first javelin at her, and the bugbear blocked it with contemptuous ease.  She flung a bolt of green energy at me, but I managed to dodge it.

I summoned up a second javelin and used laser thrust, turning the end into a glowing ball of light before I flung it at her.  Unfortunately, by the time it closed, she was able to block it with a spray of green energy.

“This is just pathetic,” she said, casting another spell.  Blobs of sickly green energy flashed out, I tried to leap to the side by the orb seemed to home in on me and I was out of shields.  The energy exploded into my chest and I collapsed, puking everywhere.

“Stay away from my dog,” I groaned, trying to get back to my feet.  I felt so nauseous that I could barely think, the spell was doing other things but that was the one I was focused on.  You never realized how bad extreme nausea was until it was happening to you.

“Do you feel it, the walls closing in,” said the bugbear.  “You're going to perish in the pits of sickness and despair.”

The spell made you sick and sad.  I laughed.  The sickness was new.  The sadness she imposed on me was actually less than my usual level of depression.  I stood back up, preparing another javelin.

“I've felt worse,” I said.

“That's the spirit,” replied the bugbear, holding up her hand where a glowing green orb of energy pulsated.  It didn't look at all like the sickly energy she'd gathered up before.  Somehow, I knew that was a lethal attack.

I only had a moment, so I held up my hand and cast flash.  I was too far away for the full effect, but it was still bright enough to make her look away which was handy.  Because she didn't see the shadow bolt and it slammed into her side.  The bugbear shrieked, turning to face Shade.

At that moment, I threw my remaining javelin.  It gleamed in midair and for a brief moment I thought we might have gotten her.  The javelin flew true, slamming into her chest with a crash.  The sound was that of steel slamming into steel.  She was wearing armor, and my javelin wasn't capable of penetrating whatever metal it was made of.

“Your spear,” said Spivy.

“What about it,” I said, summoning my spear. I couldn’t throw it at the bugbear, the charge would fade but I was so close I almost didn’t need too…

“I need you to get close to her,” yelled Spivy, standing on my shoulder.

Looking over, the bugbear was blasting at Shade who was being struck then replaced by various pieces of junk from his inventory.  He could keep that up for several hits, but the bugbear realized this and was blasting him over and over again.  He'd run out of essence before she ran out of mana though.  I only had one shot.

“Charge!” screamed Spivy, slapping the back of my head.

I didn’t think.  I just ran at the bugbear while staying low to the ground.  I was trying to be as quiet as possible and Shade was doing his best to distract her.  He danced around, weaving and dodging as she flung blast after blast at him.  He was good enough at dodging that she was getting more and more annoyed at his efforts.  She held out both hands, letting green fire burn between them.

“Hey,” I yelled, causing her to spin to face me.  Her eyes shot wide, realizing how close I was and how bright my spear was glowing.

Having seen it before, the bugbear generated a shield of her own as she prepared to blast me.  The spear crashed into the shield, and the laser head cleaved through the shield like so much tissue paper.

Even then, the startled bugbear dodged the strike with superhuman speed, but not completely.  The laser head was considerably larger than a regular spear head and she took a massive cut down her side from the effort.

She collapsed to the ground, but her spell didn't fail.  Instead she redirected it into two beams firing one at me and Shade.  Shade was out of teleports, but still attempted a conventional dodge and was lucky enough to only take a glancing blow.

I was less fortunate.  My shield flashed before me just as the beam struck, shattering the shield and hammering into my left shoulder.  I felt my arm wither from the strike as I collapsed to the ground.

The bugbear was on her hands and knees from her own wound, but she smirked at me as she prepared to stand.  Her control over her own essence was so great that despite taking a wound far greater than my own, she was already back in the fight.

Her smirk failed as her throat exploded in a sparkling ball of glitter.   Whatever control over essence she had was insufficient for that level of injury.  She fell to the ground clutching the ruined mass of flesh that had once been her neck.

Still, it took her several seconds to die.

I looked over at Shade, but he was on his side whimpering.  I wasn't in any position to do anything, then I spotted Spivy hovering over the bugbear on glowing wings.  “And that's what you get when you piss off a fairy.”

The bugbear wasn’t quite decapitated, but she was completely dead.  I groaned, getting to my feet and stumbling over to where Shade was whimpering piteously.  He hadn’t been struck as hard as I was, but his whole body had been blasted with that green energy.

“My arm is going to fall off,” I hissed as Spivy flew over to me.

“No, that's just the spell.  It has a duration.  Just spread your essence over the entire wound and wait for another thirty seconds you big baby.”

“Thank goodness, I thought I was dead,” I said, forcing my essence throughout the wound.  Now that I knew it wasn’t lethal, I could feel the bugbear’s energy being pushed back.  “You need to tell Shade.”

Spivy looked over at him and blanched, “Nope, he's dying.  One minute.”

I was about to ask her what she meant when she started pouring healing magic into my dog.  It turned out to be the first as Spivy cast a powerful healing spell on him that countered the magical disease he was inflicted with.

“What the hell was that,” I muttered, uncorking a healing potion and drinking it before plopping to the ground next to Shade.

“Goblin-kind has a racial bonus on debuffing magic, which includes diseases and mental trauma,” said Spivy as she landed awkwardly in my hood.  “She was hitting you with a pretty normal combination attack of disease and depression.”

“I felt the disease,” I said.  “The depression actually helped me out a bit.”

“Seriously,” said Spivy, shaking her head.  “It is a magical debuff so it sets you to a level of depression.  Your normal state must be worse.”

“That makes sense,” said Shade, setting his head on my leg.  “You were very sad.”

“I’m sorry buddy, how do you feel,” I said.

“I feel very sick, I think eating will fix it though,” said Shade.

I pulled some jerky out of my storage and placed it on top of Shade’s nose.  He sniffed at it, but did not move to take it.

“You are tired,” I said.

“It will keep,” yawned Shade, who began to gently snore.

I looked around at the bodies in all directions and sighed.  The bugbear with her missing  throat.  The piles of dead goblins.  The destroyed bodies of the various doats.  We were safe here.  We could wait a few minutes.