We Can Be Heroes ...?

20

Dave returned, puffing out his cheeks and shaking his head. With his ability to sneak, he could get closer to enemies than anyone else. Their 'detection range' far more reduced when it came to Dave's ability to almost cloak himself in shadow. Mila had sent him as close as possible to the thing that sat in the dark across from them because the totem piece they searched for sat behind the hiding creature.

"I's a big bugger. No doub'. An' I'm no' afraid t' say, I'm fair shi'ing mysel' at jus' the though' of seein' i' ou'side'a them shadows." With trembling fingers, Dave began to roll a cigarette and Jova took the paper and tobacco to roll it for him. "A' our levels? I's no' goin'a be easy. Fac'!"

"Then we'll just have to fight smarter." Mila moved as close as she could, leaning her forearms on the stones of the well and her chin on her arms. "Smarter."

Shion couldn't help here. She still felt more than a little upset about, well, everything, and she didn't have a mind for strategy. Saying that, neither did any of the others, really. As had already been said, they had survived so far more by luck than any working strategy, but, perhaps, that was what they needed more than anything else.

Mila's fingers tapped against the stones of the well. Jova gave Dave his cigarette and he gladly lit it, taking a good, long drag of smoke into his lungs. Shion hadn't seen him like that before. He always appeared a little out of sorts from the rest of them, as though close to the end of a really good, really long drinking session, about ready to keel over, insensate. The fact that he looked terrified did not help Shion's courage.

"Am I going to be the one to point out that we aren't exactly the best strategists in this game?" Jova stood beside Shion, smoothing down her hair as she spoke. "Which is why none of us have got higher than level twenty. We're just not very good at this and that's fine in normal dungeons. Our utter lack of skills are going to get us really-really killed here."

"We are not going to get killed. Not if I have anything to say about it. Look, we just need to fight smarter, right? Take advantage of what we have." Mila returned to them, looking around her as though trying to find something useful. "What are our best talents?"

"Running away?" Jova offered.

"Incompe'ance. Poor judgemen'. Recklessness." Dave counted on his fingers and paused at the fourth, screwing up his forehead. "Too shor'. Yeah, I'm talkin' abou' you three. You can' reach anythin'. Too shor'."

"Actually not a single one of those things is in the slightest helpful." Eyes-widening, Mila let out a frustrated yell. "God! We're all going to die because we're so shit!"

They really were all going to die. Unless they came up with something as clever as using the Bobs to draw enemies into traps, they would either sit here for the rest of their short, miserable lives, or would have to perform some kind of suicidal attack just to put an end to it all. She looked around at the wide, open space of the market square, wondering if they could use anything as a weapon.

Right now, they had the well between them and the monster and Shion would be happy if it remained that way. But cowering behind a well would not get them that totem piece and it certainly wouldn't get then out of this place. Unless it did. She looked around again and wondered whether Mila would listen to an idea from a mere 'NPC'.

"What if ... um ... what if we did that 'hit and run' thing again? But ... um ... in a circle?" She felt everyone's eyes fall upon her once again and had started to dislike that. She felt certain they had practiced the timing of it, often. "Because, Dave said it was big, right? And big things can't usually move as well as smaller things. They aren't, can't be, as agile. So, you know, 'hit and run'. In a circle. Around the well."