Chapter 53: The Hobgoblins Roll the Dice

Having seized the initiative and taken down three of the hobgoblins — and two of their respective mounts — in such spectacular and varied fashion, the adventurers found themselves in high spirits. However, as with any game system, the monsters got their turns to attack as well, and there were still more than two opponents remaining for each adventurer. Not intending to waste this opportunity, the orc captain shouted out commands to his lesser cousins. Among the adventurers, it was only Lexi, with Fantasy Adventure Quest’s subtitle function still enabled, who among the adventurers was able to understand the orcish commands.

This is the big test, she thought to herself as he rattled off orders to his troops. With these odds, every single one of us is going to have to step up, or get seriously fucked up.

“You two,” the huge orc growled at a pair of axe-wielding riders on the opposite side of Samantha’s thunder-carved crevice. “Take down the little elf’s tree. We can’t let a little morsel like that climb away so easily, can we?” The two chuckled darkly at their leader’s suggestive joke, and nodded their heads in assent.

The captain kept an honor guard of three warg riders in reserve next to him, but similarly dispatched the remaining four troops to attack the three adventurers still standing in the fire-lit circle. Heeding their captain’s commands, two riders sped off towards the grove’s edge, axes in hand. Another pair of wargs began loping towards the largest and most physically imposing member of the adventuring party, Samantha. While the final two riders split off, making their ways towards the mage and paladin.

As soon as the two hobgoblins reached Danica’s tree, they leaped off their wargs, not even waiting for the enormous wolves to come to a halt. Axes in hand, the pair of green monsters began hacking away furiously at the base of the maple tree in whose branches Danica currently sat. While their riders laughed to one another, swapping lewd remarks about which of the elf’s tight little holes they’d fuck first, their vicious lupine mounts took turns leaping as high as their powerful legs could take them, snapping at Danica’s dangling feet.

“Ahhh!” the elf cried, clutching wildly at the branch and dropping her bow in the mad scramble to pull her feet up from the leaping wolf.

One of the wolves just barely missed her boot, its seemingly infinite number of enormously long and sharp teeth snapping together just inches from Danica’s precious toes. The creature’s claws dug deep furrows into the tree’s bark as it slid back down, snarling and growling at the elf all the while. The second wolf got nearly as close in its initial leap, but it thankfully appeared to Danica that she was just a bit too high up for the wargs to reach her. However, this meant that she was high up enough that a fall to the ground would be bad news — and the axe-wielding hobgoblins were making quick work of the tree’s trunk.

Danica realized with growing anxiety that she was not as safe as she had initially thought. As the tree began to sway ominously underneath her, and the wolves continued their terrifying leaps, the elf tried to steady herself atop the large branch on which she sat. Danica wrapped her small legs tightly around the wood, leaving her hands free to reach for her bow, which had slipped from her hand when the first wolf nearly bit her foot, and now lay in the foliage of a smaller branch a few feet ahead of her. The elf extended herself forward, arms searching in the darkness for the familiar smoothness of her weapon, desperately hoping she would be able to find it in time.

A wolf-riding hobgoblin peeled off from the pack, making a beeline directly for Gretel. Charging fast, he lowered his pitchfork, leveling it with the clear intent to skewer the pink haired mage where she stood. Unfortunately for the cocky young mage, Lexi’s prediction came true. Completely drunk on the power of her enormous floating magical fists, Gretel threw caution to the wind. In a failed attempt to show off, she decided to try and smack the incoming hobgoblin with one of the bloody arms which she had just torn from his companion’s shoulders.

This proved to be a costly error for the mage.

The hobgoblin dodged the ill-aimed blow with the practiced ease of a clearly seasoned fighter, swaying to the side atop his mount without so much as breaking his stride. Having no backup plan in case her attack failed — after all, how could it — Gretel simply stood there, staring blankly as the warg rider charged in. Fortunately for the mage, his wolf did slip in the increasingly large puddle of blood oozing out from the gaping wounds in the hobgoblin carcass directly in front of Gretel. This caused the rider’s blow to slip down, and instead of his pitchfork impaling the mage through the chest, the sharp tines of the hurled fork instead dug deeply into her fleshy thigh.

“Grahhh!” Gretel cried out, dropping down to one knee, and clutching her bleeding thigh in agonizing pain. The two long tines of the pitchfork had sunk in deep into her leg from the powerful throw, so much so that the mage felt the cold iron scrape against her femur.

Not having been unseated from his mount by the slight slip, the hobgoblin circled his warg around behind Gretel. He drew his knife and dug his heels into the warg’s flanks, impelling it onward towards the undefended back of the voluptuous and seemingly helpless girl. The only question on the hobgoblin’s mind was whether he wanted to fuck her first and then cut her to pieces, reverse that order of operations, or may be even try doing both at the same time. His mind awash in the combination of sexual and blood-lust common to his race, the wicked creature licked his lips lewdly as he closed the gap between himself and the injured mage.