章 26: Floor 2 Cleared

"Ranged, kill the shamans if you can keep them as busy as you can if you can't. Mick and Ren wedge it out boys. Ren in the middle and Mick and I will keep them off your side and finish off any you knock down that aren't dead." Jenna said.

Everyone nodded and carefully shifted positions. Seeing his opponent moving the goblin captain became agitated and began barking aggressively in his strange language.

That's when I decided to make my move. Punching out of the grass like a spotted missile I slashed one of the legs of the goblin defenders on my way to the least injured off the two goblin shamans. The low leveled goblin let out a wall of pain stunning the others at the unexpected violence. I quickly closed the distance to my prey and viciously ripped out it's throat just as Jenna yelled-

"Engage!"

Isabell and Kate began firing at the remaining shaman in rapid succession immediately suppressing it while Ren, Mick, and Jenna charged towards the 4 goblin defenders who charged back at them, each side letting out their own war cry's. That left me and the goblin chief.

I faced my opponent not willing to let him join the fight against my friends. The goblin captain eyed me warily but not with fear. I lunged through the air hoping to catch this ugly off brand shrek off guard and end the fight early by taking out its throat.

Unfortunately, the goblin captain had expected that move and met me mid air with his shield. Though stopping the force of my jump caused the goblin to slide back a few feet and grunt in effort it managed to stop my momentum and throw me off the shield and onto the ground tumbling away.

'This guy is much harder to fight when it's one on one instead of having him surrounded and just repeatedly stabbing him.' I finished that thought just in time to see the goblin captain to charge at me with unnatural speed.

'Shit!' I panicked barely dodging the swing of the goblin's sword.

'This guy has a skill?! No fair!' I thought aggrieved at the developments of my opponent and at myself for having underestimated this creature.

Still off balance from my last dodge, as I evidently had not practiced that enough in animal form, I saw the captain's sword coming for me the same as the reaper's scythe. Suddenly an arrow protruded from its neck and a magic bolt created a hole through it's chest, knocking it off balance and killing it instantly.

I looked over to see Isabell and Kate give me a thumbs up as they had evidently already killed the goblin shaman they were facing and were able to intervene to end the fight between me and the goblin captain.

I looked over to see if I was needed to help Ren, Mick, and Jenna just in time to see Ren cave in the top of the last goblin defender's skull. I looked sound the carnage of our small battlefield and sighed. This was life now and the sooner we all learn to enjoy this instead of viewing it as a chore the happier we'll all be.

I gave Jenna a meaningful look as I couldn't communicate while in a non human form, at least not yet anyway, but she seemed to understand my look.

"Let's rest here for a minute, Isabell let's get everyone a quick check for wounds may not have noticed from adrenaline. Everyone eat up some of the Lion meat to get your energy back. I'll go with Kate after we get checked to gather up the cores in the grass from Connor's kills." She announced.

Everyone nodded following the instructions. It was strange how the group operated. In social situations there was no exact hierarchy, but so far in the dungeon everyone seemed to be falling into place.

'I wonder if there is a Vice Leader function for party's' I thought to myself laying on the ground by the fire.

I only had a few minutes left in this form and I decided to stretch out like a, well, cat next to the fire. We rested for about an hour with everyone eating their fill and getting cleared by Isabell to keep fighting.

Everyone managed to escape with just some scratches. Mick was the only one who earned himself a scar, though it was nothing crazy, it only took Isabell a couple quick stitches with her emergency first aid kit that she brought along.

We discovered that we killed a total of 22 goblins and from the look of the cores there was the 1 goblin captain, 4 Goblin Shamans, and 17 of the goblin defenders. That with the 4 Lvl 1 cores from the lions, and the 1 Lvl 3 core, 1 Lvl 2 core, 4 Lvl 1 cores, and 6 Lvl 0 cores from the previous floor gave us…

A grand total of 2 Lvl 3, 5 Lvl 2, 25 Lvl 1, and 6 Lvl 0 Ethereal Cores!

'We still haven't even cleared this floor yet. We've been down here for a few hours, I wonder if everyone thinks we're dead' I chuckled inwardly at the thought bust quickly got a grim look on my face.

'How much longer are we going to be down here before we find the exit portal.'

Once everyone's was prepared again we set off in formation with Kate resuming her role as the porter.

Moving forward I was back in my human form as we moved forward at a decent pace, ensuring we remained vigilant as we moved. We managed to surprise a couple of lions which I absorbed the Blood Essence of gaining a new form and 10 Ethereal.

We eventually came across what looked to be a village that had been situated in between a hill and a cliff face, only it was full of goblins. There was only about 15 left in the village. 12 of them were goblin defenders so I wasn't super worried but of the other three two of them I didn't recognize.

There was a goblin shaman which was honestly less than I expected to face given our previous encounter. The other two were interesting, the first one looked like an upgraded goblin defender, somewhere between it and a captain. The other looked like it was definitely stronger than a captain.

Luckily, I had spotted the village before fully creating the hill or we may be having to face those numbers head on. Suddenly, a line of text appeared no longer giving us the option of turning around and going a different direction.

'Dungeon clear objective detected:

Kill Lvl 4 creature'

I looked at the line of text grimly. First of all why couldn't it have just said so earlier. Secondly, that big goblin down there must be a Lvl 4 creature.

"Alright guys so from what I can see we're up against 15 bad guys off the goblin variety. Most of them we're used to facing, 12 Goblin Defenders and a shaman, there's also two unknowns. One of them I assume is a Lvl 2 melee class between a defender and a captain. The last is a Lvl 4 that seems to be the step after captain."

At that there was a sharp intake of breath, our last brush with being outnumbered had gone well but it wouldn't be as easy this time. Not to mention none of us were under any illusions about how close we came to at least one death.

Jenna came up with a battle plan that seemed like the least suicidal for all of us and we set it into motion, ready to defeat the final foe and return home.

We snuck down the hill as quickly and silently as we could and somehow made it to the edge of the village unnoticed. Mick has brought a lighter that we planned to use to light the roofs off as many guess as we could, hoping to create a large enough blaze to either kill some of our enemies for us or that it distract them so we could thin their numbers easier.

If we came across any goblins the plan was to take them out silently if we could or leave them if we can't. A few minutes later we had successfully lit 4 houses and were moving to the fifth when the fire on the first roof drew the attention of the goblins. By then it was too late.

After we set the fifth fire we stopped as we didn't need to light anymore. The fires in The first houses we had set were burning hot enough they were accelerating the growth of each other and even starting to light other buildings on fire from the heat and sparks.

We stood in a crossroads on the edge of the fire just off the main road of the village where we were able to eliminate all but 4 of the goblin defenders during the panicked attempt to prevent the village from burning.

We realized the gig was up when we had been passed a block without seeing any more goblins. We cautiously moved forward until we were in the center courtyard of the town where the remaining seven goblins awaited us.

The largest one, the boss pointed it's large sword at us and screeched threateningly. We responded with battle cries, a hail of projectiles from me and Isabell since Kate was back to the safety of being a porter, and the other the charged at the group.

Our opponent was successfully taken by surprise and I was able to eliminate one of the goblin defenders while Isabell was able to injure the shaman making less mobile and an easier target.

The shaman responded by sending a fireball flaming towards Isabell and I sending us leaping for cover. At the exact same time the goblin defenders screeched indignantly at the death of their friends and charged as well.

Isabell and I dodged the fireball and then concentrated all our fire on the shaman making sure to keep enough distance between ourselves it couldn't target us both at the same time. As our fire on the shaman intensified the charging trio clashed with the same number of the charging goblins while the melee Lvl 2 was right behind them.

Ren used his hammer to smash the head of the goblin leading up the middle, distorting its features permanently just as I managed to deal a fatal blow to the shaman following a well placed magic bolt by Isabell.

Ren yelled something about the remaining Lvl 2 goblin's mother and a grub and it charged at him with a roar. The village boss realized his numbers were dwindling and the flames from the fire were closing in and charged towards Ren, Mick, and Jenna who were suppressing the only other 3 remaining goblins in the village.

I sprinted towards the charging goblin using Instantaneous Shift to turn into a my new Lion form mid stride. Running at much faster than a regular lion should be able to I was able to close the distance just in time to leap over the current fray and crash into the shield of the charging Lvl 4 sending us both tooling to the ground.

Isabell kept focused her attacks on helping the trio since they would best be able to help me and Jenna has already killed hers and was helping aren't finish off his while Mick was just going in for the kill.

Leaping to my feet the Lvl 4 and I circled each other. Suddenly, the goblin leaps forward but I was able to dodge to the side and slashed it's led with my claws almost crippling it. Although this one's flesh provided some resistance to my claws, it was nowhere near enough to prevent a heavy wound from being inflicted.

I heard the sound of battle behind me stop and as I turned to face my opponent I saw my friends coming to finish the fight with me. I roared as Mick activated his berserker's rage skill sprinting into battle with a bestial roar to match mine.

The goblin left facing a tough choice turned to block Mick as he slammed his machetes into it's shield creating a very loud clanking sound. Since the goblin left it's back open to me how could I not use my claws to shred its back and armor to pieces?

When the goblin roared in pain it dropped its shield enough for Isabell to hit it with a magic bolt creating enough of an opening for Jenna to follow it up by launching her spear knocking it off balance and sending it to its knees.

Mick jumped in slashing both it's arms at the elbows, removing it's ability to fight, and Ren followed him up by bringing his hammer sideways like a pro baseball player hitting a ball off a tee.

The goblin collapsed on the ground in a pool of crimson blood reflecting the orange flames of the burning village. The two portals as well as six golden chests appeared as Kate finished collecting the cores.

"Finally, I'm ready to hit the sack!" Ren yelled