The Worst Healer
Copyright© 2026 by InSpite
The Real Test
For the next few minutes, I was painfully aware of how loud every move I made in the unfamiliar armour was. The metal plates of the chest piece and shoulder armour clinked and clacked with every step, while the weight made our brisk walking pace feel like my morning run.
I focused on trying to minimise the noise and keep pace with the others, so wasn’t watching the surrounding forest. I have no idea what Rhian saw or smelled to alert her to danger, but the Scout clapped her hands once loudly.
By the time I looked up, she was already ducking behind a tree.
“Archers!” Sierra screamed, swinging her shield from her back in one smooth motion and crouching low behind it.
Swinging my head in the direction she was looking, I saw them. A dozen or so creatures, looking like slightly scrawny humans aside from their dark green skin. They were similar in appearance to the goblin’s we’d fought, but close to twice their size and appeared far more threatening.
I felt a chill as I watched them draw back on their bows, realising there was no cover between me and them.
An ambush.
The chill turned to panic when I caught Ellie in the corner of my eye, a couple of paces to the side of me and caught in the open without even the slight protection of armour.
Without time to think it through, I moved. My feet dug into the ground and kicked off as I saw the arrows fly. Turning my back on them as I skidded to a stop in front of the tiny Witch, every muscle in my body tensing as I attempted to shield her body with my own.
As I waited for the arrows to strike, I caught sight of the corners of Ellie’s mouth twitching upwards before she calmly announced “Barrier.”
The sound of arrows clattering made me flinch for a moment, before I realised they were clattering against something behind me and falling harmlessly to the ground, not striking my back.
Ellie let out a short, delighted laugh at my look of confusion as she started to step around me. “Sweet boy, I appreciate the thought, but try blocking them with your shield, not your back.”
As she rounded me to get a better view of the archers, she began to chant, unhurried by the dozen enemies nocking fresh arrows to their bows. “White hot flame, dance and grow, expand and devour all before you: Inferno.”
I’d managed to fumble my shield off my back while she cast her spell and ducked behind it as a wave of heat washed over me, scorching my skin even from this distance as the treeline where the archers had been positioned erupted into a wall of flames.
I looked at Ellie, dumbfounded, only to see her attention already drawn in another direction, towards a staggered skirmish line of hobgoblins armed with axes and shields.
“Ellie, save your spells. Rhian, where is he?” Sierra demanded as she moved to stand between the skirmishers and us.
“Barrage,” came the reply, as the Scout stepped out from behind a tree, firing an arrow into the air in the direction of the skirmishers.
She ducked behind another tree, shaking her head unsurely at Sierra. A moment later a rain of arrows fell on the skirmishers. Many fell harmlessly against the ground or shields, but a few found flesh, and three of the foes dissipated into black smoke.
They charged. Rhian picked off a few as they came with Swift Flight while Sierra met the rest head-on.
She cut through the first two to reach her with a single Silver Slash, forcing the rest circle to warily rather than rushing her.
As I made a move to try and help her, Ellie stilled me with a hand on my shoulder. “She’s got them, and they’re a distraction.” Her eyes scanned the forest, barely looking at her companion fighting for her life a few paces away. “We have a Scout in our group, the only way we get ambushed is...”
Spoken softly and clearly, I heard the words over what Ellie was saying. “Piercing Shot.”
The words came from the trees around 50 yards away, and everything erupted at once. I threw my arm up as something flashed towards Ellie’s face.
Ellie’s barrier shattered like breaking glass and pain shot up my arm.
Ellie’s eyes widened as she looked at the barbed arrow, covered in blood and stopped inches from her face, jutting through both my shield and wrist.
Her eyes narrowed as she chanted “Twisting flames, seek out my enemy and scorch them to the bone: Fire Bolt.”
Before she was halfway through the Cypher, Rhian dived from behind her tree intoning, “Swift Flight.” to send an arrow streaking towards the hobgoblin I’d finally managed to spot.
Taller and heavier than the others, it was garbed in rough leather armour and wielded an ornate black and gold longbow. I only managed to spot it for a moment before its lips curled in a snarl and it intoned “Slip Away” and vanished.
Rhian’s arrow struck the tree it had been standing in front of, followed a moment later by Ellie’s ball of fire.
I shot a glance in the direction of Sierra. There were five hobgoblins surrounding her. A couple less than there had been last time I looked, but she seemed hard pressed as they cautiously circled looking for an opening.
Then I spotted another hobgoblin was marching towards her, one that looked like trouble.
At least seven feet tall he rippled with muscle in the few places he wasn’t covered in heavy metal plates. He carried a double-handed axe in front of him, its haft easily five feet long, and its wickedly curved black blades forming the rough shape of a butterfly.
“Fuck! Appraise. FUCK!” Ellie shouted. “Barbarian Class with fucking magic resistance,” she called out to Rhian.
The moment the graceful Scout stepped forward to take a shot at the Barbarian a cold whisper called out “Disarm.”
Rhian’s bow exploded in a shower of wooden splinters as an arrow struck it. A splinter whistled past my head as the Scout was thrown backwards to fall in a heap on the ground.
“Get behind a tree,” I shouted to Ellie as the hobgoblin scout drew another arrow.
“Help Sierra!” she shot back. “I can keep him busy, but if he shoots her, or that Barbarian gets to her while she’s surrounded, it’s over. Get the other one off her, and don’t try to fight him.”
She turned her attention away from me as she hauled herself from behind the tree, sweat beading on her brow. “Hell’s fires, spring forth and scour my enemy: Incinerate.”
“Damn! Slippery son of a bitch!” was the last thing I heard from behind me as I broke into a run towards the four hobgoblins still surrounding Sierra.
This time, as I barrelled down on an opponent, I wasn’t nervous or overthinking what I should do. I was in a fight for my life and well past holding anything back.
The pain in my arm helped block any doubts that might have crept in, and I struck one hobgoblin hard in the back of the neck with my sword before letting my momentum slam me shield first into another.
The first hobgoblin erupted into black smoke. The second left his feet and landed three feet away on his back. Agony stabbed up my arm as the impact wrenched the arrow pinning my shield arm hard enough to snap it off closer to the shield.
With a cry of pain, I gritted my teeth and jammed my sword point-first into the chest of the fallen hobgoblin, wrenching it free just a moment before he dissolved into mist.
Another cloud of black smoke erupted as Sierra struck down a hobgoblin who’d made the mistake of being distracted by my arrival.
Then it arrived.
Sharp teeth showing in a wide grin, the Barbarian hobgoblin reached us.
“Silver Slash.” Sierra leapt to meet him with what I’d come to recognize as her go-to move and for the first time I saw it fail. The Barbarian calmly blocked the flashing sword with the thick shaft of the axe sending the blow bouncing backwards with a discordant clang, before it started swinging in a blur.
The Barbarian attacked relentlessly, his axe sweeping in great arcs that would have cut Sierra in half if they’d landed.
Each swing came with a barked Command as he activated another Skill. Sierra answered each with a defensive Command of her own, “Roll Away” when she wanted more distance. “Twist and Strike” to narrowly evade his axe and send her sword lashing out in reply.
I’m not sure how long we watched them fight before the last remaining hobgoblin and I finally noticed each other. It was a mesmerising sight, but we both broke the spell with a jolt before it reacted slightly quicker than I did and threw itself at me.
His axe crashed into my shield. I cried out in pain as it struck the stump of the arrow sticking through my arm. My sword crashed into his shield in reply and then we were rolling on the ground struggling with each other.
The creature was wiry and surprisingly strong, but I was bigger, heavier and stronger. After a short scuffle I rolled on top of the creature, its axe pinned beneath my shield and my sword arm free enough to force the weapon’s tip over the top of its shield and into its throat.
It gargled for a moment, and then I fell through it and landed face down on the floor as it disappeared into smoke.
I looked over at Sierra and the Barbarian as I hauled myself to my feet, wondering if I should try and create an opening for her somehow, but, as I watched in horror, Sierra danced to the side of a sweeping axe strike only to be struck in the shoulder by an arrow.
The momentary distraction was all the Barbarian needed to throw a quick strike and end the fight “Backhand.” it intoned as the axe lashed out, sending the Fencer flying through the air. She hit the ground hard, rolling away to lie motionless in a heap.
It strolled forward to finish her off, and, without time to think, I moved to intercept it, stepping between it and the fallen Fencer.
It looked questioningly at me as it came to a stop, the axe held diagonally across its body.
I looked up at the monster, tightening my grip on the sword as I silently stared it down.
Ellie was well past what she liked to call her ‘safe limit’. She always tried to hold a little mana back in case of an emergency, but she was well into that reserve and close to running dry.
Worse still, she was in a bad match-up. She could burn small armies to a crisp and devastate a lot of large monsters, but she was a glass cannon, and against the Scout’s hit-and-run tactics she was in trouble.
His innate dodging Skills meant she couldn’t hit him with most of her spells. Fire Bolt normally solved that problem, but he vanished every time she tried to use it.
They’d fallen into a game of cat and mouse, with the scout circling as she ducked from tree to tree trying to track where he was. She’d blocked a couple of his shots with her Barrier Skill, giving her enough time to launch her own attack. But that used mana, and Piercing Shot would go right through it.
Twice she’d ducked behind a tree, only to feel it shudder from the impact of an arrow that would have killed her. There should be a limit to how many times he could use it, but she wasn’t sure what it was.
Worse still, he was getting closer, steadily stalking forward as they traded arrows and spells.
That most likely meant he had a Skill he wanted to get into range for, which wasn’t likely to end well for her.
Then, worst of all, she’d made the mistake of letting up on him, hoping to conserve her dwindling mana, and he’d responded by turning his attention to Sierra.
In a screaming rage at seeing another of her friends fall, she launched herself around the tree she’d been using as cover. Chanting the Cypher to set half the nearby forest on fire with Inferno as well as burning away at least half of her remaining mana.
She watched the Scout dive out of the way, the flames licking across its back and charring the creature’s skin. A wound, but not a fatal one. She ducked to the side as a Piercing Shot slammed against a tree causing the whole thing to shudder.
Then she found out why he’d been stalking closer.
“Tracing Shot.” She heard the words a moment before pain spiked through her leg. Looking down, she saw an arrow jutting out of the back of her right thigh.
In desperation she tried to move to better cover, but her injured leg and exhausted body gave out on her and, stumbling, she fell back with just enough presence of mind to haul her leg up and keep the arrow from striking the ground.