Life After the Apocalypse

>>>The ruckus in the woods following the young man makes itself known moments later as a trio of... creatures...leap from the brush into the small clearing with you. Short, evil looking things with rusty ill kept weapons at the ready burst into the scene. They're Goblins... They have to be...though they look a whole lot less cute and a ton more homicidal than they did in the actual game tutorial!

>>>Music erupts from seemingly nowhere as the green humanoids take in the sudden appearance of the five of you in the clearing. An odd pressure just behind your eyes presages the appearance of a Status Bar, complete with an ID tag and full Health Bars above the heads of the three Goblins.

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Level 12 Goblin Raider "Grrr..."

Level 12 Goblin Raider "Hssss..."

Level 15 Goblin Boss "Yarr..."

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>>>
>>>Scrambles on hands and knees behind the five of you, "They're gonna kill us!"

The disembodied music gets Russell's blood pumping. She may not know how she's ended up in her character's body, but she knows how to fight goblins. "Stay behind us!" she calls to the cowering boy as she twirls her katana. "Take out the adds first! Focus down one at a time. Let's go!"

She rushes forward to the closest of the goblin raiders and strikes!

Atalanta quickly closes in with the goblins and gets among them. "I'm over here creepies."

Atalanta is going to try to use Laughing Taunt to pull the agro off the BradL33. Hopefully by the next turn one of use will have the aggro instead.

Fren does not lose time, he will attack the closest goblin. "I hate those creeps!" he says with gritted teeth, his canines showing. He knows that although goblins are not that dangerous alone, they can be quite difficult in numbers. "Keep a lookout for more!" he says after his attack.

Calamity's hazel eyes dart between the approaching goblins. She launches herself onto a nearby rock, gaining a bit of height. Although Clara has never held a firearm in real life, her tiny paws move with surprising familiarity, as if the knowledge of how to use the pistol is imprinted within her subconsciousness. Taking a deep breath (or is it a hiss?), Calamity aims at the goblin closest to BradL33.

>>>Raquel, Fren and Atalanta take the fight to the Goblins at the treeline while Calamity takes the high ground on a boulder near the stream and lets loose with her old-timey pistol.

>>>The feeling of fear and exhilaration mixed in terrifying ways. Attacking something with deadly intent wasn't something you'd done before (to anything bigger than an insect) but these bodies you inhabited felt practiced in the art of combat. It felt like a hand slipping into a comfortable glove as they moved in ways you'd never have been able to in the 'real' world...

Arga pointed his staff at the assaulting Goblins frantically, as if trying to wave something off the end of the gnarled wooden weapon. "C'mon... Magic's gotta work..." Panic was more than obvious in his voice. Everyone else had weapons and armor and apparently training; all he had was a stick and a cape unless magic was a real thing here.

"Try yelling....? I don't know..." BradL33 scuttled behind the boulder Calamity was standing atop.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Arga pointed the staff and yelled at the top of his lungs.

He facepalmed hard. "No. Yell the name of a spell, maybe...?" BradL33 looked up at the Cat Pirate on top of the boulder as if to ask *Is this guy really that dense?*

"Um...umm... think. What was the name on the hotbar?!?" the sorcerer rapped on his bushy haired skull til the name popped into his head. "Oh! FLARE ARROW !!!"he yelled, staff pointing at the Goblin opposite the one struck by Raquel, Fren and Calamity. The Sorcerer's black mystic tattoos surge with orange light that traced down to the tip of his staff and then leaps forth into a beam of fiery light at the remaining Goblin Raider.>>>In response to the sudden defiance of what was once such easy prey, the bigger of the three Goblins raises their rusty double scimitars to the sky. Crossing them and then bringing them sharply down, a terrible screeching sound issues from the blades along with a curved spark of light that cuts across the clearing in an instant, growing wider the further from the Goblin it travelled.
Struck first by Raquel's blade, then Fren's and finally taking Calamity's shot, the Goblin's Status Bar registers it's red HP meter plummetting until it disappears. The Raider bowls over backwards and explodes into a burst of rainbow-hued light as it hits the ground. In the aftermath of the incredible sight, a handful of glittering coins and a bottle rain to the ground around where the Goblin once was...
Following up on the Boss' move, the remaining Goblin Raider turns their rusty-bladed attention to Atalanta. Offering to pull attention away from BradL33 has it's consequences as the green menace lunges at the Monk with it's cruel looking blade... Atalanta's practiced body easily dances away from the Goblin's crude swipe with the blade as Arga's Flare Arrow strikes, sending the Raider's HP bar to less than 1/3 full.

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Russell gasps and grits her teeth as the sparks from the goblin boss's blades strikes her. "Ouch! That freaking hurts!" she exclaims, her skin still tingling painfully from the blast. "I guess pain is real in this game, too."

As Atalanta dodges the other raider's attack, Russell dashes behind that goblin and slashes, but the goblin dodges the clumsy strike! "Bah! Stay still!" she growls.

Fren grits his teeth through the pain. Not what he was expecting, but what really he was expecting? They are inside a video game? How? He washes aside this thought as he gets down on a posture and starts meditating. He will cast Healing Forge.

As the big goblin unleashed its attack, the screeching sound made Calamity squeeze her eyes shut, ears flattened like her cat Cinnamon when it was time for a shower.

The light arc from the goblin's blades hit. A wave of pain washed over her, but... she was still alive? Despite her small size, she appears... relatively unharmed?

Surprised but also a little emboldened by her new physique, Calamity takes aim again at the goblin currently engaged with Raquel and Atalanta.

From within the scrum, Atlanta targets the spell caster for a quick punch combo.

Atalanta looks down at their fist after landing the serious blow. "Woa, never been strong before."

>>>One down, two to go... One of the Goblin Raiders had been defeated and burst into multicolored light. Raquel struck at the remaining Raider, still burning from Arga's seemingly magical strike. The Raider's rusty short sword met the Assassin's blade in an effort to keep it from biting into its flesh and meeting the same fate as their compatriot. A sharp turn of the Goblin's blade wrests Raquel's Katana from her grasp and sent it spinning away out of her hands to land nearby, sinking point down and vibrating in the soft soil...
>>> Atalanta, the cat girl Monk, pivots to palmstrike the bigger Goblin Boss before it can recover to act again. A solid, bone crunching strike staggers it back a couple of steps and eliciting an hair-raising gutteral growl.
>>>The gloating glower of the remaining Goblin Raider gets cut short by the impact of Calamity's Pistol shot. In the moment, Calamity...or the scientist mind inside the Catfolk body...realized that real wheelock pistols are single shot and need to be reloaded after every shot but she just shot twice out of the one in her hand, or paws in this case. One more bit of the impossible to add to the considerable pile of weirdness...
>>> Atalanta's strike and Calamity's Pistol shot buys Fren enough breathing room to try one of their Cleric Class spells. Invoking the power of Healing Forge , intense light floods across the clearing bringing an invigorating energy to you and burning pain to the remaining Goblins. The remaining Raider succumbs to the burning purity of the light and bursting into rainbow light if its own and vanishing with a similar rain of coins and an item.>>>"Flare Arrow!!" Arga shouts and lets loose with another searing bolt of fire...only to watch it go wide and land entirely too near Raquel for comfort. "LOOK OUT!! Sorry!" he shouted after the bolt came to rest scorching the ground behind the Assassin.

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>>>With its lackeys gone, the Goblin Boss realizes that it's outnumbered and outgunned but also knows it'll never manage to survive making a break for it. Striking out of spite at the Monk before it, the Goblin Boss swings it's pair of rusty cutlasses...only to watch as the Monk easily evades the strike.

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Russell gives the others a grateful glance as she dashes over to her katana and pulls it free of the soil. "Good work! Let’s finish the boss now!"

Seeing others being targeted by the green monster, something clicks in her subconsciousness. Standing tall on the rock (as tall as a small cat can stand, that is), Calamity throws back her head and lets out a loud yowl. It's the best she can muster in her tiny feline body, but it carries a surprising force, echoing in the clearing. "Over here, you oversized pickle".