Unexpected Help

The goblins were the first to charge. Kim and Jonas didn't seem to show any interest in charging at their opponents themselves, but seemed fine to let them run at them. However, Elin couldn't help but worry that it wouldn't go as well as previous battles.

For one thing, they could come around Kim and Jonas to fight her and Elmo at close range, which she understood was a bad position for a mage to be in. Although, she couldn't help but wonder if Kim and Jonas were too busy worrying about the villagers to consider that.

Elmo was raining down his spells on the goblins, taking down a couple in their charge, but otherwise just hurting the others while enraging them at the same time.

Jonas threw his dagger and was able to eliminate a couple other goblins before they'd crossed the distance, forcing him to work with melee attacks rather than ranged.

Kim had kept her sword sheathed until the first bugbear was almost on her, at achich point Elin saw a cut appear in the bugbear's chest, as if Kim hadn't moved. Which Elin knew couldn't have been the case. Although, it did give the other goblins pause, as they tried to figure out what happened. Not that Kim gave the other bugbear time to do anything as she used her same attack on that one before drawing her sword.

Elin was happy that Kim was able to kill the two bugbears so quickly. The other goblins weren't anywhere near as a problem that Elin could determine, although, she still didn't like how many there still were attacking them.

However, before she knew it, the goblins were laying on the ground either dead or in their death throes. Elin couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. She hoped that was all the goblins in the area. Yet, she knew her job wasn't done. She had to check everyone for any injuries that might have occurred without any of them noticing.

She checked Jonas and Elmo first, mostly because she wanted to save Kim for last. Where she could admire what she could see of Kim's body. Both through the armor she was wearing and from Kim's figure in general.

If Elin had her way, they'd be done with the goblins and she and Kim could go somewhere to be alone for the rest of the night. However, she was still fully aware that the likelihood of that happening was less than the sun coming up at that moment.

Suddenly a loud roar could be heard in the distance, followed by a loud explosion and a flash of bright light. Elin felt startled, as she had no idea what might be causing that noise. She was also the last to react to it. The others had already started running towards it by the time Elin was able to recover from her initial surprise.

Grumbling to herself, she began to follow them, doing her best to keep up. Especially with how she felt her own legs complaining about all the running she'd been doing that night. She also could feel her eyes complaining that they were tired too and she should get some sleep.

When she saw the others in her group stop, some distance ahead of her, she couldn't help but feel relieved that the end of the run was in sight. She was grateful that she would be able to stop running, to the point that she didn't realize what was surrounding them right away.

As she stopped, she leaned heavily on Kim as she worked at catching her breath, feeling happy when Kim wrapped an arm around her. The only problem she had with it was that they were still clothed and around others.

However, as she recovered from the run, she looked up and was shocked to see the ground littered with goblins. Some of them were dismembered while others looked like they were burned to a crisp, an occasional flame flickering here and there on the bodies of the goblins.

The only figures still standing in front of them were two people. Details of them were hard to make out in the moonlight, but Elin could tell that one was holding a pair of battle axes looking around as if there might still be more enemies for him to attack hiding in the shadows. He also was bulky from how many muscles Elin could see bulging on the man. The other was a young woman who only wore a strip of cloth over her chest and between her legs. It looked like it was a garment of some kind, but Elin hadn't seen anything like it before. She glanced at Kim and briefly wondered what Kim would look like if she wore something like that. The top of her head also only came up to just below the man's shoulders.

"Looks like you got here a little late," the one with the axes said.

"We're not concerned with who got her when," Jonas replied. "We're just worried about taking out all the goblins that came to this village."

"Sure you don't mind up taking out thirty of these little buggers?" the young woman asked.

"Not at all," Kim answered. "Though, I would like to know why you're only wearing a bikini. Seems a little chilly at this time of night to be only wearing that."

"Hey, just because I can rock this look doesn't mean you gotta find fault with it," the young woman protested.

"Look here you little-" Kim started to say, but Jonas quickly cut her off.

"Look, we're all here, doesn't mean we have to fight each other.," Jonas interrupted. "Why don't we start by working together for the rest of the night?"

"Too suffocating," the young woman relied, "We just came to see what these goblins were like."

"Someone already had killed the goblins by the time we arrived," the axe wielding man said. He seemed like he wasn't bothered by the fact, just annoyed.

"Well, what do you plan on doing here then?" Kim asked. "If you're not wanting to join up with us, then what are you thinking of?"

The man grinned at Kim as if she should already know the answer and Elin felt herself bristling at that thought. "We're here to kill as many goblins as we can," the man answered simply.

"So you're trying for the challenge too?" Jonas asked, looking like he wasn't sure about that.

The man and the youg woman shook their heads. "Nah, we're just here to kill stuff," the man said. "If we don't go back to our worlds, we'll be happier then."

"Isn't there anything you'd miss about your worlds?" Elin asked, surprised there would be people like that.

The woman laughed. "Never thought I'd see a goody-goody here," she remarked. "Though, you might be a little too innocent for my tastes."

"If you're here just to kill goblins, then I take it you won't mind if we get the challenge completion?" Jonas asked.

"Not at all. We're just here to fight and build our systems," the man said, attaching his axes to the belt he was wearing.

"Well, I'm Jonas," Jonas introduced himself before the rest of the group. "This is Kim, Elin, and Elmo."

"I'm Murdock," the man said. Then pulling the young woman into him, he added, "This is Tina."

"You know, them arriving might actually help us out," Kim remarked.

"Sorry, we don't do 'help,'" Murdock said.

Kim merely rolled her eyes. "So, you're saying you're not interested in staying in a location you know goblins are moving to?" Kim asked, soudning almost like she was shocked.

Kim's theatrics weren't lost on the man as he glared at her. "Okay. What're you getting at?" Murdock growled.

"Well, we're interested in completing the challenge, but in order to do that, we have to get back to the dungeon. Yet, if we do that, who's going to guard the village? I mean, I seriously doubt that the goblins are going to give up on thls village just because they lost all the goblins they sent here," Kim answered. "So, if you two stay here, with two others, I'm sure you'll be able to get even more goblins to kill tomorrow night."

"What're you planning on doing?" Tina asked, as Murdock's hand slid down to cup her bottom.

"Well, if we can sleep the rest of the night, then we were thinking of heading out in the morning to go back to the dungeon and seeing what we can do to close that protal and complete the challenge," Jonas answered simply.

Murdock nodded. "I guess we'll be willing to do that," he said, sounding to Elin like he didn't care one way or another.

"If you'd like, we can show you where the villagers have moved to be safe," Jonas said.

Murdock nodded. "Might as well. I mean, if they get killed, that's not our problem, but as long as the goblins are heading there, then we can work with that," he said.

Elin shook her head. While they now could leave the village confident that they villagers would be safe from any other goblin attack while the were going back to the dungeon to deal with where the goblins were coming from.

She couldn't help but wonder if they might actually be able to do this without having to sacrifice the village just to accomplish that.