I’d not even considered him; he was a bone-white skeleton construct over eight feet tall, and at least four across. The bugger was huge, and even with the spell, he was crap at hiding. I facepalmed as I saw him; he stuck out on either side of the tree he was hiding behind, but I had no time to reposition him as I saw the first goblin come into view further down the trail.
It was a short creature, with long pointed ears, bald and maybe four feet tall. It looked like it’d never eaten a real meal in its life.
Its belly protruded, and it walked like a toddler in need of a nap, slowly and listlessly. There were four of these creatures that came into view over the next several seconds, ranging from three and a half feet to nearly five feet tall, and in color from a grey to a dark green. The biggest was clearly in charge and would occasionally hit the others with its club as they walked. Every time they slowed even further down, it would smack the nearest, driving the group forward.
They were all dressed in filthy loincloths, and all had clubs, ranging from short sticks to one small goblin that was determinedly dragging a club that must have weighed half as much as it did.
I watched them, confused, as I wondered about all the concern the others had shown. These creatures were no threat; surely, they were more comical than scary?
There was a rustle further up the trail, and a few more wandered into view, the noise level from the creatures slowly rising as more and more started to appear, and soon enough, there were a dozen of them, and they kept climbing in number. By the time the first few were level with the space where Cheena had vanished, there were easily twenty, and my heart had dropped. It dropped even further when the chameleon spell on Bob was refreshed, as, for a second, he seemed to flicker, and one of the first few goblins froze, staring at him. It growled something, and the entire group went silent, then finally they moved forward as one, bunching up around the one that had seen him.
More were coming, turning from a trickle to a flood, and I gave up counting when they reached thirty, and yet more kept hurrying down the trail. The possibility of prey luring them to move was the first spark of interest I’d seen in them.
There were three larger goblins now as well, each over four and a half foot. The tallest and heaviest of them had a spiked club and wore mismatched armor that covered most of its body, obviously the leader in the way the others deferred to it as it stomped forward, kicking others aside.
Bob was still pretty obvious, where he hulked behind the tree, and the goblins slowly began to spread out, clearly planning to encircle him and attack.
“Well, can’t have that, can we…” I whispered to myself. raising my hands, with my naginata laid on the ground at my side, I began to dual cast firebolt. I continued to channel mana into it, adjusting the spell as I remembered using it what seemed like ages ago, when I’d first arrived at the Tower.
As the mana built, I kept my hands spaced about ten inches apart, fingers slowly dancing as I layered the weaves on atop another.
I’d not realized what I was doing when I’d done it the first time, but after casting the normal version so many times now, I’d noticed…differences. Areas where the spell could be improved, I’d thought, but I hadn’t had time to experiment consciously yet. Now, I thought ‘fuck it’ and piled the changes in, feeling the spellform ripple and fight to be free. I forced the shape to hold together as the pressure built, until I started to feel like I’d hurt myself if it went any further.
The normal Firebolt was ten mana, but this…there was sixty mana in it when I finally cut it off and threw both hands forward in a ‘Streetfighter’ move.
What left my hands was a different level entirely from the firebolt, and I saw my notifications go crazy, even as it impacted the left flank of the goblin gang.
When the glowing white-blue spell hit them, it smashed through the first few creatures unfortunate enough to be in its way before exploding. Bits of goblin bodies were hurled through the air, liquid fire covering them, and over a dozen were killed outright. I paused, gawking at the devastation before me, when Lydia struck.
She’d darted out from behind her tree as soon as the spell hit, and was shouting like a Valkyrie, rousing the squad to battle. I swept up my naginata and ran forward, jumping back onto the trail and stamping down hard on a weakly struggling green-skinned figure. I lashed out, stabbing to my right, left, sweeping the haft around and breaking bones wherever it hit. In the madness of the fight, I saw the others wading in. Cam, to my right, was using his axe like a baseball bat, hitting each opponent with a huge amount of force, and sending the corpses flying in pieces.
I didn’t have time to watch them all as I stabbed and swung, my naginata dancing through the air, but in what seemed like seconds, it was over.
I spun from one side to the other, looking for another target, my naginata dripping with gore as I panted, trying to get my breath back.
“Is…is that…it?” I asked and got a grim look from Lydia in response.
“Flux and the other two are chasing the last ones down, but… we were too close to their camp, I think. They had to have heard that…”
“Fuck!” I cursed, looking around, “Okay, anybody hurt?” I asked, seeing Miren raise one hand. Her left arm looked torn and bloody, but before I could do it myself, Oracle had cast healing on her. Miren hissed
