It was the sound of an arrow hitting a tree, or maybe another wooden object. I opened my eyes and realized three things at once.

  The first was that I finished the health potion, gaining back about 20% of my HP. ,

  The second thing was that the arrow hit the shield of the man standing right in front of me.

  And as of the last piece of information, the debuff wore off and I could once again move at my normal speed. I quickly jumped behind cover before the goblin could shoot once again.

  Yes!

  The moment I accepted the party invitation, the other player's status bar appeared in the corner of my field of view.

  He was a level higher than me, and his shield looked exactly like the one I looted from the other campleader before. He's probably doing the same quest regarding the goblin camps.

  You could block and parry attacks in this game, but some items were way more effective at doing so than others. Parrying an arrow with a sword or a dagger was incredibly hard, and it also still dealt some damage. Blocking one with a shield was a much better option.

  "Hey, you're on the Goblin Threat quest?" Stone asked.

  "Yeah, last camp," I answered. There was no reason for me not to be honest with him, after all he did save my life just now. "Thanks for that block! It saved me."

  "No probs! I've just returned."

  He scratched his head while blocking another arrow. "This is the second camp for me, but the little rat is very elusive. When I tried killing it it wore me down and I almost died. I just went out to level up because I wanted to have more of a fighting chance."

  "Yeah, now that I think about it, this one should be pretty tricky for melee classes."

  The goblin was almost as fast as the first leader, and it kept trying to increase the distance between itself and the players. Also using the smoke bomb as a last resort didn't help either.

  "There was a level 4 mage here about 15 minutes ago, when I looked back to check on the camp, but she almost instantly died to that red arrow you just took. I was a bit late to save her, but I was hoping she or someone else would come back and we could take out the goblin in a party."

  "Well, shall we?" I asked.

  He laughed. "Yeah. I'll tank and you just wear it down, okay?"

  "Alright, let's finish him," I said.

  Throughout our short conversation I kept close attention to the smoke screen and any movements, but I hadn't seen anything. "How long do you think this smoke will last?"

  "No clue, haven't seen it before, although I wasn't even close to killing it earlier. Is this some sort of a berserk skill?"

  "It did activate it upon dropping to 10%, but it looked more like an item than an actual skill."

  Just as I said this, the smoke started to dwindle. I nocked an arrow and waited for the goblin to show itself.

  Five seconds later the monster got revealed. Once again, it was at full health, but I wasn't too worried anymore, as there were two of us.

  During the fight I got convinced that Stone was a veteran player. His movements, his skill usage and his understanding of the surroundings were all top notch. Judging by this little encounter, he was not far from a Valhalla professional in terms of skill and tactics, although his reaction speed wasn't up to par compared to prodigies. Regardless, he was a reliable tank to party up with.

  The goblin campleader fell very quickly after getting attacked by two people. It looked like it had no more smoke bombs to use, and it couldn't keep running from Stone and dodging my arrows at the same time.

  I took a look at my newfound warrior friend.

  He was close to 2 meters tall, with short brown hair and a lean body. He was still wearing the starting clothes, but his shield, bracers and boots were looted items.

  "Thanks for the save earlier, I should have been dead," I said once again, slinging my bow onto my back.

  "Don't worry about it, I couldn't kill the leader alone after all," he laughed.

  His calm demeanor reminded me a lot of Ace. His playstyle was similar as well, although Ace was still several levels above him in terms of skill and talent. This was probably why working with him felt seamless.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  "Go ahead and loot the mobs, and then maybe we can roll for the leaders drops if it's okay with you?"

  -"Absolutely," I agreed, but first I opened my inventory and took out the goblin helmet I've got earlier. "Take this. It dropped from one of the other campleaders."

  "You don't need to give it to me."

  "But I want to."

  "Well, if you insist. Thanks, dude!" he said with a grin and equipped the helmet.

  It had a dent and was a bit rusty, but it was still level 5 heavy head armor, and a Guardian like Stone could use it to the best of its potential.

  "So you killed one of the other leaders already?" he asked.

  "This was my last one. I killed the shielded one just before this. The last one's a berserker type a bit further from here."

  "Oh, nice. I killed the shield one as well, it was much easier than this one though."

  "I think you have a good chance against the last one as well. It does serious damage if it hits you, so be careful though. It has a Leap ability, or at least it did when I fought it."

  "Got it!"

  After this brief exchange I looted all the other goblins. 2 small health potions and 9 silver coins were all of the spoils, but I already glanced at the leader's drops and I knew there was stuff I wanted dearly.

  "So do we roll or do we just divide the stuff between us?" I asked. Rolling in MMOs meant you threw a dice and the highest number gets the item. It was usually used in dungeons or raids, but people could use the feature whenever they wanted to.

  "Well, I'm guessing you want the bow, so how about I keep the 6 silver coins, the health potion and the map with the camp location, you keep the weapon and we roll for the last item?"

  "Sounds good!"

  The bow was much stronger than my current one. It didn't give any attack speed bonus, but the chance to root was pretty good. Most importantly though, it had an attack power of 30, double of my scout bow. I couldn't equip it just yet, but I was very close to level 5.

  I kind of wished this was the first goblin leader I had encountered. That way the secret quest would have probably evolved this bow into the Rare variant, and maybe I could have gotten the Smoke skill that the goblin used. But on second thought, there was no way I could have beaten this one at level 3, so there was no point in sulking about it.

  It was a teleport item! It could only be used once, and only while not engaged in a fight, but this item could save you hours of travel time. Right now I was only about 30 minutes away from Carpa, since this camp was closer to the village than the one I found first, but teleport items like these will definitely come in handy in the future.

  "So let's roll for it, yeah?" Stone asked. After I nodded, he summoned the Magic Dice from the party menu, touched the item we were about to roll for and threw them. Both of the dice were 50 sided, so 100 was the maximum result you could get with them.

  91!

  The number appeared over the dice before them vanishing into thin air. There was a very slim chance I could "overthrow" Stone in this scenario, but I tried anyway.

  2!

  To say I was a bit dumbfounded was an understatement. I didn't expect to win the roll, but to get the lowest possible result was still quite astonishing.

  "Well..." Stone smiled awkwardly.

  "Take it, fair and square," I said. I was more than happy with the bow. "What will you do now? Do you want me to help with the last goblin leader?"

  "No need, as you said I'll probably be able to handle it solo. Besides, I have to log off for now, I'm waiting for an important package," he answered.

  "Take care, then!" I waved, and after a moment, I sent him a friend request. Stone accepted it before disappearing in a flash of light.

  I checked my Friends list. Stone was the only name on it, and right now he was greyed out; a sign that the owner of the name was currently offline.

  At this point I was very close to level 5, so I decided to head back to Carpa.

  I decided to check my Quest log first. Both of my quests from the Association have been completed, as well as the hidden quest regarding the goblins.

  I had three quests to turn in. I will definitely hit level 5 before I get back to the village, and turning these three quests in, I should get to level 6 as well. It was about an hour long journey back to Carpa. I could have made it there faster, but I killed most enemies I've encountered, and I also kept skinning and processing the ones I could.

  Soon enough, I hit level 5. I spent my attribute points to strength, and equipped both the bracers and my newfound bow. I haven't encountered any goblins in the woods, and none of the mobs dropped anything interesting, but I managed to get my Skinning&Processing level to 3, and had found another Exquisite Boar Hide.

  When I reached Carpa, the sun was at the highest point, which meant it was around noon in-game. I went straight to the village hall to turn my quests in. Cyndral, the association's official was still standing there, talking to players and explaining the game lore to everyone who was interested in it. I queued up to talk to him.