I've gotten sloppy.

Every time I come back to the cave, Lozen prepares a small… introduction to her torture methods for me. Lozen has made boulders come down crashing on top of me to dodge, lured monsters into our camp for me to fight, and always makes it challenging. Today Lozen swapped it up. Instead of the usual monster, boulder, or trap it was Lozen herself.

When I walked into the small clearing for our campsite I noticed something was off. It was too quiet. Without a second to spare, I whipped my sword around my back and blocked Lozen's dagger from stabbing me in the back. What I didn't see made me immediately jump off of Dignus, and ready my shield. Lozen had rounded up several Boblins that had wandered too close to the camp for her liking, and uses them as small distractions in fights, and makes sure to give me a challenge. This time there were 12 Boblins, and each one was outfitted with a deep branding. They also had a much deeper purple in comparison to their red counterparts. They went into a phalanx formation, advancing slowly, obviously having been taught decent combat tactics. Their shields, however, didn't reach their legs. Due to this, their weakness was apparent.

Since they were stacking the phalanx, I couldn't just charge them. Switching up my style, I leapt in a nearby tree. I drew my bow and descended on them. First, their front line. 6 arrows immediately impaled themselves into the front lines kneecaps, the entire phalanx began to fall. First, they decided to crouch and have a large half circular shield. Some defending the outer edge while the inner ones defended their middle. While switching into this position 4 Boblins fell to my arrows. They also started shooting arrows, some consistently firing and others concentrating on firing when they see me peak from my tree trunk. Leaping up, I began to climb the tree a bit further up. Staying behind the trunk made them not notice my movements. I loosened an arrow aimed at another tree branch, slightly behind and to the right of their position. Several heads turned, and all lost their brains. 1 left standing. He was a tough one alright. I lept in front of him, slowly dragging my longsword from its scabbard. The Boblin tossed his shield to the side, he's prideful; and got into a defensive stance with a short sword.

This one was a bit different. He had a look about him like he had trained for this for a long time, confidence in his stance radiated from him. Slowly walking toward him, he clenched his back right leg, going for a diagonal swing from the left.

A fencer eh?

I caught his sword on my cross guard's right side, and half sworded my point into his gut. Exhaling from my force, he quickly backed away. He is bleeding quite heavily but is still making a good effort into evading my advance. He made a great dodge to the right after a stab from me and attempted a strike at my leg. Just in time, I stepped forward and plunged my sword into his neck. He slowly dropped to the ground, dead. One deep breath later, I turned around.

"Well done Link!" Lozen dropped from a high hanging branch and was caught by my arms.

"Hey, honey, ima need you to relax on the Boblins." Lozen made a small pouty face, and said,

"But they're the easiest to capture!"

"I know that, haha." I sat her on the ground, giving her a small peck on the lips.

"Well, you need to get that sterilized." Midna said from my shadow, looking at my outer thigh.

"What?" I looked down and sure enough, there was a sizable scratch on my leg. Nothing too terrible though. I was a bit shocked, am I getting slower?

"Let me take a look." Midna came up from my shadow, and began to ensure nothing was damaged. It was fairly superficial, but even small wounds can be deadly from infection on the battlefield. Midna took out a small bottle from a pouch on her hip, and began to disinfect the wound. Lozen walked over,

"I'm sorry you got hurt Link…" She had her head hung low, and looked very distraught. I just smiled at her.

"I'm fine, Don't worry."

"But if you had gotten seriously hurt,"

"I will have to get used to any and every kind of injury on this path." As I said this my smile faded, I looked at her seriously. Lozen must understand that this path is full of danger and hardship. There is no easy way to get powerful.

"Regardless, Lozen, Midna, we're heading for the last camp at dawn. The camp will be most empty at noon, we must make preparations in the camp for that moment.