Inari’s Gift

Several days later, Cera finished healing the bone of the injured man and picked up the remainder of her payment.  As she began to head back home, however, the village bell was rung, signalling an attack.  Immediately, she thought of her dream several days ago and tightened her grip on her staff.

Without wasting any time, she condensed moisture from the air into an ice blade on the tip of the staff and began to head toward the center of the village.  Keeping her dream in mind, Cera looked for anywhere that looked familiar, eventually finding the area where she died in the dream at the same time as numerous goblins appeared.

Cursing under her breath at her bad luck, she resolved to keep her dream in mind, and turned to face the incoming creatures.  Quickly gesturing at the figures, Cera hurled a half-dozen ice spikes, thanking the weather for being humid, even if she’d been annoyed by it earlier.

Next, several fireballs impacted the creatures in the middle of the road, away from the flammable houses.  Wanting to keep her stamina up, she refrained from sending out her foxfire, though she made sure her illusion on her ears and tail held up.

As she threw out magic, a hurled rock struck her head, sending her vision spinning.  Remembering her dream, she threw herself to the ground as a blade passed through where her neck had been.  She rolled to the side and swung her staff, the blade slicing through the throat of the off-balance goblin.  Fortunately for her, the blow happened to be far enough from her to avoid dousing her in blood.

After shaking her head, she staggered back to her feet, finding a number of villagers moving toward her as they held back other goblins, all heading back to the center of the village.  Cera promptly targeted the goblin that had made it atop a house with an ice spike, ending the threat of hurled rocks as it toppled and landed head-first on the ground.

With more than half the visible monsters dead, Cera moved to assist the villagers, running toward one who seemed overwhelmed and cracking his opponent’s skull with a fierce downward strike from her staff.  As the man thanked her, he turned to run.  Instead of following, Cera moved on to another person, this one also armed with a staff and keeping three of the goblins at bay, but unable to finish them off.

Another ice spike preceded Cera’s entry to the battle, slamming into the arm of the middle-most goblin after it missed the closest target.  A quick ball of fire did not miss, however, and the goblin screamed before being cut off by a blow to the head from the man it had been fighting.

“Thanks, good shooting!” the man exclaimed as he swept the staff to the side and battered the ice-spiked goblin across the chest, even as he stepped back to avoid the blade of the other.

Cera responded with another spell, this time hitting the already-injured goblin in the chest, dropping it to the ground.  As the man turned to deal with the other goblin, Cera approached and slit the goblin’s throat, glad that she could view them as monsters instead of people, allowing her to act without hesitation.

Looking up, she saw that the last of the goblins nearby had been taken care of, but a fresh wave was approaching.  After a glance at the villagers nearby, she began to pull back toward the village center alongside the others.

As they moved inward, more and more people were seen, each focusing on their own defense more than trying to kill their opponents.  Cera nodded before starting to launch even more ice spikes, aiming to injure as many goblins as possible for now, pulling on mana stored within her body now that she’d run out of her limited quantity in her system.

Several minutes later, dozens of goblins lay dead, and a man shouted out, “More are coming!  These were just the scouts!”

The group pulled back even further, reaching the center of the village where everyone else was gathered, a handful of wounded being tended to in the middle of the crowd.

Cera stepped forward and asked, “Should I heal, or focus on attacking the next group of goblins?  I’m nearly out of energy!”

A quick discussion occurred before she was directed to focus on healing, so she moved toward the injured and began to clean and seal their wounds, using as little mana as possible to simply stop bleeding rather than fully mending the injuries.  After the sixth person, she began to hear combat and looked up, finding that the new attack was being handled easily by the better-prepared villagers now.

Having run low on energy, including that stored in her body, Cera stepped up to the outer ring of people and prepared to fight more, since she’d rested while focusing on healing.  Not long after, even more goblins charged the group, some pausing to throw stones, often hitting other goblins instead of reaching the human defenders.

Seeing an exceptionally large specimen brandishing a large club, Cera used the last of her mana for an ice spike and the paired force, pushing extra hard and nudging it mid-flight, leading to a direct hit to the throat as it tried to roar at them.  With a chuckle, she watched the monster collapse before it even had a chance to attack anyone.

Following her attack, however, five goblins all focused on her, and she found herself struggling to fend them off, even with assistance from the two people to her sides.  As she slammed the blade of her weapon into the chest of one of the goblins, it broke off, and she cursed under her breath before catching another in the arm with enough force to splinter the bone.

As the goblin shrieked, the woman beside her smacked it in the head with a broom handle and knocked it to the ground.  A moment later, an explosion sounded in the distance as dozens of bolts of fire rained down on the village, each impacting one of the goblins as larger balls fell outside.

Looking up, Cera saw Falron floating in the air, gesturing in multiple directions as he hurled more flames.  Meanwhile, a cheer went up from the villagers as the pressure of battle suddenly ceased.

A while later, Falron landed near the center of the group before moving toward Cera, immediately asking if she was okay.

“I’m fine, though I did get hit by a rock and nearly killed.  I had a prophetic dream a few days ago, so I knew how to avoid being killed, at least at first.  And then we began to group up, which made it much safer.  I burned through all my mana though, and am quite tired now too,” Cera replied, finally noticing her exhaustion.

“Well, you did a good job making it here safely and holding the line.  The majority of the goblins didn’t make it to the village before I did, so I was able to clear them up as I arrived.  Shall we head home?” Falron remarked as he glanced over at the injured group, then continued, “I just need to help out a few people first.”

Cera nodded and followed him as everyone began to disperse.  After he finished healing the villagers’ wounds, he began to walk out of the village with her.  Along the way, he explained that roughly once every two years, a swarm of goblins would appear in the area.  Fortunately, he remarked, they didn’t ever break into dwellings if they hadn’t finished fighting first, and they didn’t use fire.  They did, however, use looted weapons, as well as knapped stone blades.

Nodding along with his words, Cera followed beside him as they made their way back home.  The trip took a while, but nothing abnormal happened at least, giving them time to calm down after their respective battles.

Once they made it home, Cera decided she’d had enough excitement for the day already, and just wanted to eat and go to bed.  Since she’d exhausted herself, she asked Falron to help make food rather than trying to do it all herself like she had been for a while.

After their meal, she promptly went to bed and curled up with her tail before swiftly falling asleep.

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