Valerie would gladly take on bandits at the moment, if it meant avoiding another run-in with a wyvern. Of course, the reality of it was that they would probably run into them both, considering the poor luck they'd started out with. And any bandits surviving out here would no doubt be of a tougher stock than the kind Valerie had dealt with in the past.

She kept close as they moved through the forest, the thickening foliage providing her with yet another obstacle should a fight come about. Valerie still needed a great deal of practice maneuvering in these sorts of environments to be able to do it efficiently, or quietly. With focus at least she could avoid snapping every wayward branch and crunching every pile of fallen leaves. It would have to do.

The sound of the goblins reached her ears easily enough, as the mood on their walk had been far more tense than when they started out, with good reason. She crouched beside Markus, finding an opening in the brush big enough to see through and observe the foe. The goblins were hardly as imposing as orcs, but they had a significant numbers advantage, and those wicked spears and blades could wound or kill easily enough. Valerie didn't much like the idea of attacking them head on. She supposed they could go around, but their odds of sneaking by didn't seem too favorable either.

"Can we manipulate them somehow?" she asked, whispered as quietly as she could. "Turn them on one another, to whittle them down?" They didn't seem to like each other too much, from what she could tell, and they were obviously prone to violence. How to stir up a fight between them, she didn't know. Maybe just waiting would do the trick. "Whatever you want to do, I'm with you. I'll follow your lead."