Chapter 19: Isekai Life & Critical Error

We fled.

I had stayed at the shed long enough to fish a handful of dried peas from a pocket in my robe and fling them into the air, gesturing in arcane mudra and chanting the words to Breath of the Sea Dragon, better known to myself as “Wall of Fog”. Because I was third level, I had some wiggle room to work with regarding the size of my “wall”, so I settled on blanketed the site of the actual ambush a thick, twenty by twenty by ten cubic foot haze. Hopefully that would buy us some time by obscuring the direction of our attack.

When my spell was complete, Yua seized me by the wrist and took off after everyone else. It wasn’t long before my throat started to burn and my breath wheezed in my throat. That 8 Constitution was really making itself known in this situation.

If this were certain other versions of D&D, I’d be able to look forward to address that specific lack on my next level up, but not here. Alas.

Calliope was the first to arrive at the house, followed by Voss, only slightly weighed down by his heavy armour. I barely had any time to register who arrived next- Raszil, I think- when a black corona started to grow around my vision. I could hear my heart pound, and my chest felt tight. The blackness was about to close in when I felt a hand gently stop me. As I stood, wheezing with exertion, arms folded around me, and I was carried.

Not was how I re-entered the farm house- in a bridal carry, hoisted by Yua.

Yua set me down, and while I gasped on the floor like a fish, I could hear the others talking.

“Is he hurt?”

“No, he’s sickly, you know that. A run like that would take everything out of him.”

“I hate to interrupt, but now that we’re here, what the hell are we doing?”

I coughed, and flopped onto my side, spitting up a clump of bloody phlegm. “B-barricade the d-door,” I wheezed, “A-archers on the windows.”

I heard Yua say ... something I couldn’t make out, in her native tongue. Then, Voss giving orders- “We need to barricade everything! They can’t get in here!” Then a growl, a loud slam, and Voss shouting “Okay, okay! What should we do, then?”

The group around me bustled while I slowly recovered. It didn’t take that long for me to get back to full awareness- I was only out of breath, if catastrophically so. My legs and chest still fiercely ached, but at least I could stand and see what was going on.

Voss and Yua were hauling furniture in front of the door, which I could see, over the debris, was already barred shut. Moruca was stoking a fire in the farmhouse’s firepit, while Raszil seemed to be gathering up anything remotely useful- kitchen knives, fireplace pokers, and arranging them for easy access on the dinner table.

The farm house was a small affair- a single-storey dwelling with a thatched roof, a pair of bedrooms, and a common room built around the hearth. This was all laid out in a box, with the two bedrooms next to each other- meaning that to have someone playing lookout to that side of the building meant they’d be fighting from one of the cramped bedrooms.

I grabbed Raszil by the wrist as he finished a trip, and nodded towards the bedrooms. “Can you keep an eye out one of those rooms, and still throw one of your hammers?”

In response, he gave me a look like I was stupid. “I need space to spin them, and besides, I only have one left. You can’t do it with your darts?”

“Too little range, I can’t throw that far,” I said, biting my lip, “This is going to be a tough one.”

“Yeah, I’m beginning to regret that conversation we had a few days ago. You’re beginning to remind me why ‘May you live in interesting times’ is a curse.”

I didn’t reply instead walking over to Voss on legs that felt as though they were made of rubber. “We need to barricade the doors, and leave the windows open...” was as far as I got.

“Yeah, Yua damn near tore my head off over that,” he replied, as he tossed a wicker rocking chair onto the stack of furniture at the door, for all the good that would do, “I can understand wanting to shoot out at them, that makes sense, but what if they jump through the windows, though?”

“We’ll have them trapped, then,” I said, looking around the room, “Close quarters like this, those big worgs will hardly be able to turn around.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Well, how about this, then?” I said, “The roof here is thatch, and if they decide to come at us with torches, we’ll need to pick them off as they approach.”

Voss gave me an incredulous look. “Worgs with torches.”

“Well, more like goblins with torches riding worgs, but hey, stranger things have happened to us.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Our discussion was cut short the sounds of howling, incredibly close. Together, rushed to one of the windows and looking out into the night.

The light from the fireplace spoiled our night vision, but with the flame flickering behind us, we could see the light reflecting off of eyes- dozens of them, glimmering in the dark like dewdrops in the morning sun.

Voss cursed. “We’re fucked, look at how many there are.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “Magic arrows. Aim for the worgs.”

“Right.”

Moruca already had her bow at the ready, at the other window facing the oncoming worg horde. I went to give her some words of encouragement, but she cut me off before I could say anything. “Watch the back, you idiot. I don’t want to get surprised.”

Chastened, I hung back, peeking out a window at the inky blackness of night. Yua, Calliope, Raszil ... most of us were useless for now.

With 3d8 hit points each, and each arrow only dealing 1d8 damage, we didn’t have nearly enough arrows- even counting the magical ones- to deal with all the worgs. I had seen at least a dozen pairs of eyes from the window before, and there could be more worgs behind them, so there wasn’t a clear idea of the enemy numbers.

Moruca and Voss began shooting, accompanied by a bunch of cursing. “I can’t hardly see them!” Voss complained as he knocked a fresh arrow.

It was on Moruca’s fourth that we finally heard an answering yelp from outside. “Got ‘em,” she hissed with satisfaction. Voss must have started hitting home as well, because he stopped talking and seemed more focused. I really hoped that he was putting those magical arrows to good use.

Eventually, Moruca yelled back, “They’re circling the house!” Calliope, eager as ever, sprang into action, going to one of the windows. I move into position next to her, thinking. She normally had her Shield spell ready, and she used a Magic Missile against the goblins earlier. Hopefully she had Burning Hands as her third spell- though I wouldn’t say no to a second Magic Missile.

I saw a grey blur streak by and started tossing darts, hoping to hit something. There were no lack of targets, but the night made it impossible to get an idea of their numbers. There were no torches- just inky darkness and worgs circling the house, not even moving forward.

Waiting for us to run out of ammunition...