An elven figure moved through the a landscape of clinging mud, gnarled trees, and grasping vines.
He was visibly taller, his frame solid and honed. A suit of black leather armor, designed for mobility, hugged his form. In his right hand, he carried a spear tucked under his arm, and a small pack was slung over his back.
This was Aurelion, and two years of relentless training had chiseled his body into something dangerous.
He thought while walked in the swamp. "Five hours since I set foot in this shithole, and I'm already starting to feel hungry," he mused. "I have supply, but I don't want to use them so soon. And in this damned place, it's likely nothing is free of poison."
The list of his objectives scrolled through his mind. "Sixteen goblin ears. Twenty four spider eyes. Five petals from a swamp lily."
Then, Roric's words echoed "You have one week, brat. I don't care how you do it. Collect these ingredients and reach the extraction point."
A pause, then the Captain's addition. "And don't worry. If you die, I'll find your corpse and burn it. So you have nothing to worry about."
A smirk touched Aurelion's lips. "Don't worry, Captain," he thought to himself, "I won't trouble you with searching for my corpse."
In that same instantly, he ducked.
A rusty sword sliced through the air where his head had been a moment before. The blade was held by a green skinned figure, roughly his own height.
The goblin, having missed its ambush, stumbled and rolled on the ground.
It looked back in confusion, only to find Aurelion's spear plunging into its eye.
Aurelion twisted the spear, pulling it free from the goblin's skull with a wet, sickening sound.
Green blood splattered across his face, but the smirk only widened. He turned to face the rustling in the bushes and saw four more goblins, their crude weapons held tight, snarling at him.
"You truly are as cowardly as they say," Aurelion said, with a smile "I've been waiting for you to attack for the last ten minutes."
One of the goblins snarled, charging at Aurelion with a club raised high. Another, wielding a rusty knife, tried to flank him from the side.
Aurelion took a few steps back, spinning his spear in a fluid motion between his hands before settling into a low stance.
The first goblin reached him, its crude wooden club swinging down.
With a sharp twist, Aurelion blocked the blow with the shaft of his spear, deflecting it to his right. In the same motion, the spear's sharp tip was already facing his other attacker. He executed a sudden thrust.
The second goblin yelped, leaping sideways at the last second. The spearhead grazed its shoulder, tearing through leather and flesh.
"Hmm," Aurelion mused aloud, his voice laced with a curiosity. "You're not as stupid as I thought."
The club wielding goblin attacked again. Aurelion leaned back, avoiding the swing with a simple step, and was about to counter thrust when he had to sidestep to avoid an arrow whistling past his ear.
The club wielder and the injured goblin now regarded him with caution.
One of them glanced back into the trees, letting out a garbled cry. "Help!"
Aurelion's smirk returned. "I take it back, I've wronged you. You're far more intelligent than I gave you credit for."
A new figure stepped out from. It was smaller and uglier than the others, its skin a sickly shade of green.
It took a few steps forward and extended a grimy hand towards Aurelion.
Aurelion's brows furrowed.
As a ball of crackling green energy shot from the goblin's palm, he sidestepped again, the projectile hissing past him to sizzle into the mud.
Aurelion spared a glance over his shoulder. A wisp of smoke rose from the mud where the green energy ball had struck. He turned his attention back to the goblins.
"I've found my first target," he declared.
The scrawny goblin roared, slamming its palms together. A green energy erupted from it, enveloping the weapons of its two front line kin.
A faint laugh escaped Aurelion's lips. "Good."
He tapped the butt of his spear on the ground, and in an instant, a golden energy sheathed the weapon.
Then, he lowered his stance and charged, not towards the two enhanced warriors, but directly at the scrawny goblin.
As he closed the distance, the club wielding goblin moved to intercept, bringing its now glowing weapon down in a heavy arc.
This time, instead of blocking, Aurelion weaved around the attack with a burst of speed.
"No need to get poisoned for no reason," he thought, his body already past the brute and still sprinting towards the scrawny goblin.
The knife wielding goblin, darted to cut him off.
"Let's try this little trick, shall we?" Aurelion murmured. He focused the energy at the tip of his spear and, without breaking stride, thrust it forward. A wide cone of golden light erupted from the point.
The goblin tried to dodge the glowing spearhead, but the wave of energy was too broad. Its eyes widened in panic as the force slammed into it.
After a small cloud of dust settled, the goblin emerged unharmed but staggering, looking down at its body in bewildered surprise.
As Aurelion sprinted past it, a smirk played on his lips. "I can't maintain its sharpness when I project it from my spear yet," he thought, "but it's more than useful for fools like these." He kept running.
The scrawny goblin was now chanting, a larger ball of green energy growing between its hands.
But just as Aurelion was a few steps away, he abruptly changed direction, pivoting on his heel.
His gaze and momentum were now fixed on the goblin in the back, the one frantically trying to nock an arrow to its bow.
The scrawny goblin roared at the archer.
The archer, in its panicked haste to draw the string, saw a golden glint hurtling towards its face. Its eyes widened, and the spear entered its head with a clean, strike.
Aurelion ripped his spear from the dead goblin's skull and turned, his face a mask of cold indifference, to look at the remaining goblins who stared back with a mixture of shock and terror.
"What's the problem?" he asked, while that smirk returning to his lips. "He was always my first target. Did you think I meant someone else?"
The skinny goblin growled, and beside it, the club wielder let out a roar of pure fury and charged.
"Wait, you idi-ot!" the shaman shrieked, but it was too late.
Aurelion, combining his kinetic chain technique with the Single Strike, took a swift, gliding step forward, his spear blurring in a single, efficient thrust.
The charging goblin stopped dead, a look of stunned disbelief on its face as it looked down at the spearhead embedded in its chest.
Its hands went slack, the club falling to the mud with a thud.
As Aurelion pulled his weapon free, the goblin collapsed backward. Aurelion's smirk remained as he faced the last two.
The skinny shaman goblin looked at its fallen comrades, then at the knife wielder, and made a final decision.
It turned and starts fled.
Seeing its leader run, the injured, goblin let out a scream of terror and also began to run.
Aurelion immediately gave chase, ignoring the slower, injured one. His target was the skinny one.
The skinny goblin fired off green energy bolts over its shoulder as it ran.
Aurelion weaved left and right, easily avoiding the projectiles.
Then, the skinny goblin leaped onto the trunk of a tree and began to scramble upwards with surprising agility.
Aurelion saw his opportunity. He stopped, planted his feet, and hurled his spear with all his might, aiming for the climbing skinny goblin.
But just as the spear was about to find its mark, the skinny goblin, while still climbing, twisted and pointed its glowing green hand not at Aurelion, but at the fleeing, injured goblin.
The injured goblin's yellow eyes suddenly flashed an unnatural green. It stopped running, turned, and with a soulless shriek, leaped at Aurelion.
The thrown spear, plunged into the chest of the mind controlled goblin. With its last ounce of strength, the puppeted creature drove its rusty knife deep into Aurelion's calf.
With a growl of fury, Aurelion kicked the goblin away.
As it died, the green light faded from its eyes, returning them to their natural yellow.
He stared at the lifeless body for a second, then his gaze, now as cold as hard lifted to the skinny goblin laughing from the branches above.
Aurelion reached down and, without a flicker of pain on his face, pulled the bloody knife from his leg.
The skinny goblin, laughing madly, continue to leap from branch to branch, disappearing deeper into the swamp.
Aurelion cast one last look in the direction of the shaman's fading laughter, then knelt. With a knife drawn from his belt, he began to methodically slice the ears off the goblin at his feet.
As he worked, he noticed the faint, lingering veins of green energy in the dead creature's eyes.
A small, grim smile touched his lips. "Even for a goblin, an enemy who doesn't fear death is a dangerous one," he murmured to himself.
He moved to the other corpses, efficiently harvesting his gruesome trophies.
"That's eight already," he said under his breath. "After I find three more donors, plus that skinny fucker, my business with goblin ears will be finished."
He placed the ears into a special rune etched container from his pack, the faint hum of the runes ensuring their preservation.
He pushed himself to his feet, a slight limp now favoring his wounded leg. He moved away from the small clearing of carnage, eventually finding the hollow of a large, ancient tree.
After a final, careful scan of his surroundings and deeming it secure, he sat down and began to examine his leg.
The flesh around the puncture wound was already turning a bruised, sickly green.
"I knew it from the sting," he thought. "This is going to be… annoying."
He produced a roll of bandages and tightly wrapped the area above and below the wound, cinching it hard.
"That should slow the spread."
He then pressed his fingers firmly into the discolored flesh, squeezing the foul, tainted blood from the open gash.
His face contorted, not from the pain, but from the raw wrath he felt towards that skinny fuck.
After wiping the wound with a clean cloth, he applied a salve from a small jar he'd been given before the mission.
"A Grade 2 antidote cream. This should be enough to work," he reasoned as he carefully bandaged the wound.
With his leg treated, he glanced up at the sky, which was slowly bleeding into the darker hues of evening.
"It would have been nice to find something to eat," he muttered. Then, a slowly a smirk spread across his face.
"I'll probably find something tomorrow," he said to the darkening swamp, his voice a low promise.
"While I'm hunting that skinny fuck."