Now that the casting was complete, there was no need for the gnome to stick around. Therefore, Adam did what was natural to him.


“Thank you for your help, Xavier. You can go back to your team now.”


The mustachioed man looked at Adam quizzically for a moment, then yelled out “leave me alone!” before running back to Silver Arrow. For his part, all the red-eyed man did was shake his head before he walked towards the bridge to help his own team. He saw James and Alison discussing strategy, so he thought he would add his own tidbit of insight when appropriate:


“It's good to see you all. If anyone like Zigmund shows up, let me handle it or you could all die.” No time to elaborate. Simple, to-the-point. “Also, we should kill the ogres quickly. I'll divert the others.”


After waiting for any responses, Adam proceeded to run towards the group of orcs and knights. Then, when enough of them had their attention on him, he transformed into his bear form. And with his ursine powers, he began cutting through them like a knife through butter.


It wasn't elegant by any stretch of the imagination, but it was effective. A slash here, a bite there. The confusion among the enemy ranks at fighting a literal bear worked to the Druid's advantage as he shifted through their forces. Less focused on defense than offense, he used constant motion and the general bulkiness of his animal body to minimize his own harm. It didn't mean he dodged everything, no, just that hits that would have been deadly as a human were minor as a bear.


And as for retreat? Adam would trust his friends to keep a path open. They all made it this far, so he knew they could go even further.


-----


Robert Smith was not a soldier, or at over 350 pounds even athletic enough to qualify to be one. He was a chef by trade, and had volunteered to help the army in the kitchen to do his small part to help Valheim.


But now after so many retreats, he had somehow become an impromptu aide on the front lines. Pulling an injured man to the medics, moving supplies, that sort of thing. And now an army of skeletons was threatening to destroy them all. So with no other men to help, the rotund guy decided to do his small part to help Valheim in a different way. Finding a perch above the combat - perhaps an archer would've been there if there were more fighters - he grabbed whatever he could. Barrels, crates, even discarded garbage; all of this, he threw at the enemy undead with as much force as his sweaty body would allow.


The cook hoped it would help.