Andrew led the others along the cliff at a jog, hoping to cover ground quickly. They made no conversation as they moved, their armor clinking and boots thudding making up the only sounds that accompanied them. When they reached the boulders Andrew slowed them down.

"Okay, we're getting close now. Twenty minute walk, maybe less. They sent hunting parties out around here regularly I think, but I hope it's still too early for that. Try to move quietly, and keep an eye out." Andrew said, before turning back and starting a much more cautious walk between the boulders, head darting from side to side.

Kalan and Shelby followed his lead, walking in a single file line between the rocks. Andrew could feel the tension building as they continued. The longer they walked the more nervous he got, he assumed the goblins would be resting and sleeping at this time of day, but he had been wrong before, and with far better reason to think he would be right. He was almost surprised when the boulders thinned and a clearing dotted with firepits and cook spits opened up in front of them. He put a hand out to stop the two behind him and ducked behind a rock, peering around to look more carefully, heart thudding in his chest.

There was a single goblin sat out in front of the cave. It sat on a rock with it's back leaned up against cliff, it's head turned upwards, long ears drooping. A wooden club rested precariously on it's lap. Andrew watched for a minute, watched as the goblin sat unmoving, the club slowly, slowly slipping off it's lap. It shifted, falling, and the goblin started, grabbing the club and sitting upright, head whipping from side to side for a moment before it sat back against the wall again and laid it's club back in a slightly more secure position on his lap. It's head was upright and its eyes open, but its position seemed like a precursor to it's previous predicament.

Okay. Best case scenario. One guard and it's a dead tired grunt of all things. I was fucking right for once! Ok, Game plan. Can't let that guy yell out so, what? No chance of us clanking up there before he notices. Best bet is probably a blitz, hit it hard and fast with fireballs and arrows, hope it doesn't have time to yelp.

Andrew turned to the others, crouched behind him along the same boulder and whispered "One goblin, sitting by the mouth of the cave, nearly asleep. Hit it quick and heavy, don't let it yell. Then we move fast. I'll start carving the circle, you two watch my back, one facing the cave, the other facing the woods. I'm going to head to that boulder" He pointed to a much smaller boulder closer to the cave entrance, "and carve an explosive rune in it, just in case. I'll give you a signal when it's time to hit the guard." He waited for a nod from both of them before creeping slowly to the closer boulder.

He moved with slow deliberate movements, trying his best to minimize the sound of metal clinking off metal. He was mostly successful, and the goblin's upturned face and droopy ears seemed to indicate a complete lack of attention. He crouched behind the much smaller boulder, barely large enough to cover his entire body. Andrew dug the chisel out of his pocket and began to carve the same four circle explosive combination into the rock, adjusting the mana battery circle to have a longer delay. He worked quickly, the runes coming easily now that he had spent so much time already on the same configuration. He lost some concentration keeping his muttering under control, adjusting the delay rune without the book for reference was a little more complicated than he had anticipated, now that he was out here and hours away from his references.

When he finished he looked up to see Kalan and Shelby peeking around their boulder, looking anxious. It took all his willpower not to tap the boulder, or whisper aggressively, or throw a stone, or anything to get their attention, but after a moment they looked over at him. He gave a thumbs up, and drew his finger across his neck for good measure, then grimaced under his helmet.

Appropriate, but I'm not sure I like how natural that order to kill felt just then.

Andrew peeked around the rock and saw that the goblin was well and truly dozing at this point. Shelby slowly glided out around the boulder and drew back her bow and Kalan stepped around just behind and extended his sword, flames pulsing up the glowing blade. Andrew stood and stretched, tucking his spear under one arm and gripping the chisel in the other. Eyeing the cave entrance before him, barely four feet high and half as much wide. They wouldn't survive a minute hunched over in there if they wanted to try storming the cave. Might be why they were so confident leaving only a single guard.

An arrow suddenly sprouted from the goblin's neck, its eyes shooting open and its jaw dropping long enough for a faint gurgle to escape before a ball of fire consumed the goblin and its body was thrown from the stone to the ground, unmoving.

Andrew sprinted around the rock and over to the cave entrance, setting his spear to one side and taking a good look at the material he was working with. The cliffside was made up of long slabs of light grey stone that broke at sharp angles that stretched upwards dozens of feet at a time. There were small cracks and indentations, but he was able to pick out a path of unbroken stone that stretched all the way around what was essentially an enlarged hole in the cliffside. He settled onto his knees and got to work, dedicating all of his focus on carving the inverted air runes as quickly as he possibly could, trusting Kalan and Shelby to keep an eye out.

The silence was unnerving. He knew, logically, that the quiet was a good thing. It meant that no one had noticed them yet, but it was distracting, Andrew kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the goblins to come rushing out of the cave in a mass of furious limbs, for a beam of fire to strike him down and for the battle to once again begin. He was nearly finished with the first circle now. His position had long since completely covered the cave entrance and he waved Kalan off from watching it. He was already glancing down into the black depths three or four times a rune, and someone would need to begin gathering wood for the fire.

Kalan's footsteps across the stones echoed painfully as Andrew finished the last runes of the second circle. He deposited another pile of sticks onto the growing pile of branches next to the cave entrance. Andrew resisted the urge to ask if either of them had seen anything for the hundredth time. Clearly they hadn't. Having his face to the stones like this was excruciating. He was nearly finished.

He paused to glance down the tunnel as he began work on the final connecting rune. A small pair of eyes stared back at him, several paces down the narrow tunnel.

"Shit. Kalan, Shelby, we've got one here." Andrew said, before moving as much of himself out of view of the tunnel as possible and beginning work on the last rune at top speed.

Andrew heard an unsure squeak in that familiar language before a ball of fire raced past Andrew and down into the tunnel. The squeak increased in volume and another ball followed it.

Shit. Shit. Here it comes. Nearly done, best case scenario. C'mon Andrew, faster.

He finished the connecting rune before more fireballs were needed, and peeked down to see darkness and a faint bit of smoke snaking up from the cave entrance. No sign of a surge of goblins. Yet. Kalan and Shelby were already packing the tunnel with wood and Andrew joined them, packing the cave enterence with the collected branches and stuffing them as far into the cave as they could manage. Kalan had been able to collect a sizable pile while Andrew worked.

Andrew heard some muffled squeaks coming from the cave below, but it was stuffed tight with branches. He tossed the last of the pile into the cave entrance and Kalan launched a fireball into it without delay. The branches were pushed in even further, and the outside pile caught almost instantly. He set the sword aside and sent several weaker fireballs from his hand into the corners of the wood pile. It was burning fiercely now, thick smoke trailing up out of the cave and along the cliff face.

Andrew shifted to the side of the cave and pressed a palm against the circles he carved, pushing mana into them.

Ten.

Twenty.

Andrew's back was pressed to the cliff face, his only view was of Kalan and Shelby standing a few paces away, staring into the flames, weapons at the ready.

Fourty.

Eighty.

Smoke no longer flowed from the mouth of the cave, Andrew peeked around to see a wall of grey smoke swirling around an invisible dome of air, none passing through to exit the cave. A tongue of flame pieced the cloud for a second and one half of the dome became pure flame, the interior filled with smoke for a moment before being violently jettisoned from the center of the exterior dome. The sphere of air became clear again and the smoke swirled at its base once more.

Not perfect, some smoke is getting out still. Not sure how to fix that. Air mana is extremely flammable, and the wall that keeps the air in is made up of concentrated air mana. Regardless, I'm sure it will be more than enough. I've never been in a fire, but I smoked more than enough back home to know that you won't last long in a cloud like that.

A thin green arm suddenly pierced the sphere of smoke for a moment. A ring of it's flesh was pale white, infused with air mana forming a kind of band around it's arm. The arm that extended into the inverted air circle seemed to shrink as it clawed at the ground and pulled the rest of the goblin's form into the circle. The bones of the goblins arm became visible as it's skin seemed to whither and it's face seemed to draw inwards on itself. Its mouth gaped as it tried to take in air, but seemed to find none within the void of the air mana sphere.

Andrew turned away and placed his back to the cliff face once more.

Grim.

He saw Shelby's face drawn tight in determination as she loosed an arrow. Kalan's face was pale, and gripping the hilt of his blade tight.

Grim indeed. This needed to be done. This was necessary. These, things, worked with slavers, they hurt people, they tried to kill us, they would follow us until we were dead. We can't survive while they're still around. This needed to be done damnit.

Shelby loosed another arrow and they both started to back off. Andrew looked at them in confusion for a moment before a bulky green shape rushed up out of the cave and gasped for breath. It was the most beefy looking goblin Andrew had ever seen. Like a miniature body builder, a little hulk thing with long droopy ears and a screetching voice that grated on his ears between its gasps. The most curious thing was a two intertwining threads of red light that seemed to be sewn into it's skin, across it's back and up it's arms. They pulsed with a neon light and seemed to flow down wards.

[Goblin Berserker (Weaved) Level 22]

Special named goblins not good. Goblins making it thru the circle, not good. I have to keep this thing powered. It's just one goblin, hopefully Kalan and Shelby can-

A fireball smashed into it, followed by another arrow. It stumbled a little from the blast, but seemed to ignore the arrow entirely, rushing forward towards the pair who backed off away from it. It seemed disoriented, and stumbled as it gave clumsy chase. It charged from one to the other, following the latest attack in fitful, terrifying sprints, before pausing to gasp, then chase again. It seemed to eat up arrows and fireballs. It's skin blistered but it kept moving regardless.

Andrew heard a hefty gasp, followed by a far too familiar screeching and his head whipped to the side to see another goblin, similarly built, with matching threads of red light sewn down its back and along its arms. It had its hands on its knees and was gasping for air. Shelby was leading the other goblin away with arrows. Kalan was hitting it with balls of fire. Andrew pressed himself even further against the cliff face, trying to silence his breathing, hoping that the goblin wouldn't turn and see him.

It took a few steps forward. Andrew saw Kalan see the goblin. "Try to keep that one busy. I think I need to take care of the other one!" He shouted before launching a ball of fire at the nearby goblin, still attempting to catch its breath.

Oh holy shit thank you Kalan. Team guard duty working absolute wonders out here. If only I had a ranged spell or something I could be helping out.

MP: 270/400

Maybe not. I want to run this circle a good long time, and it's eating mana up like crazy. Probably best to keep it focused. Still though, I wish I could be doing more to help.

Shelby backed off quickly, stumbling over uneven terrain and barely keeping distance with her goblin, taking shots with her bow each time it stopped to catch it's breath. The thing looked like a little green pincushion at this point, hacking and coughing, and filled with feathered needles. Kalan's goblin looked far less comfortable. The blasts of flame often knocked it to the ground, and it seemed to give up on its breaks, instead jogging at Kalan, taking wheezing gasps and attempting to dodge the balls of fire as Kalan backpaddled away from it.

Andrew could feel his nerves building as they drew further and further away from the cave entrance with their excessively enduring opponents. He heard more wheezing gasps and glanced over at the entrance with horror as a third goblin climbed its way out. It was skinnier than the other two, wearing furs and a collection of bones around it's neck and shoulders. A bright blue neon thread was sewn around its chest and shoulders in a circle, looking like a fucked up necklace. From this close it was quite clear this time that the skull it used as a helmet was human. It raised a thin arm to point a staff of bone in Kalan's direction, gem glowing with an orange-red light.

[Goblin Shaman (Weaved) level 25]

Shit now or never, the circle can hold on without me for a few moments.

Andrew released his hold on the circle and dove into the goblin, tackling it into the ground and sending the beam of fire arcing across the tree line. It felt frail and broke into uncontrollable coughs as soon as Andrew tackled it.

He ripped the bone staff from it as it coughed under him as he straddled it's back. He tossed the staff aside and reached for his hammer. He felt a strong gust of wind against his face and a solid punch to his gut as he was knocked up and off the goblin, he had an excellent view of a single green palm sticking up from the coughing goblin before he landed on his side, less than a foot away. Andrew jumped to his feet and rushed the goblin, which was just pulling itself up to it's hands and knees. He had to finish this quickly. He kicked the goblin hard in the stomach, rolling it over onto it's back. A bolt of flame arced up wildly from one palm as it continued its wet, wheezing cough. The bolt flew wide and Andrew closed the distance, bringing his hammer down. Once. Twice. Four times. Seven. He was striking as quickly as he could, battering his way past an upraised arm, held with far more resistance than something so thin should have. The goblin didn't get the chance to send another blast his way before it fell limp under his blows. As his final blow struck the blue light threaded through the goblins head fuzzed and dissolved into the air, leaving empty holes behind.

Andrew scrambled to his feet and rushed to the circle. The smoke sphere was filled with smoke now, and a thin tendril creeped its way up from the center of a dome of swirling air that extended out of the cave entrance. He pressed his palm to the circle and pumped mana into it once more as he took deep breaths and tried to steady his heartbeat.

Kalan was pulling his glowing, flaming, sword from a fallen goblin, the light of it's red threads melted across it's body before seeming to soak into the flesh. Shelby was poking her pincushion of a goblin with one of the square hobgoblin blades, it's threads of light similarly faded.

"Hopefully that’s the last of them!" Andrew called out. "Keep an eye out anyways, but those things seemed a lot tougher than the regulars. Good Job!"

"Thanks! Yeah pretty sure anything living in that is real dead by now. Had a few guest speakers talk about fires in the kitchen back at school, few minutes of that should kill pretty much any human out there." Kalan said, approaching, though with a few cautionary glances at his fallen goblin.

"How about we wait until my mana is all out, then a little longer than that still? Those things proved the standards for survivability out here are far from what we're familiar with." Andrew said. "Only a few more minutes left at this rate anyways. "

MP: 220/400

This thing really eats mana though. Seems like the constant shifting of mana requires more constant attention than just filling a space with it.

And so they waited there, Kalan and Shelby with weapons readied, Andrew pumping as much mana as he had to give as he regained his breath. He cut it off at twenty mana, and stepped away to sit on a nearby stone feeling lightheaded. The cave entrance still swirled with smoke.

That had to have been ten, fifteen minutes at least. Unless there's a back way out of that cave, anything that needs to breath in there is undoubtedly dead.

Show log.

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Kayla Lemons level 0 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

……

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Alexander Price level 2 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[August Kingsley level 4 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

……

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

……

[Goblin Shaman (Weaved) Level 25 defeated]

…..

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

[Goblin level 16 defeated]

Andrew skipped through the lines, and lines, and lines of goblin defeated messages, then stopped. Those weren't all goblins. He went back, looked carefully. The world around seemed to slow to a crawl.

Are those?

Oh No.

Oh- Oh no no no.

Oh fuck. Oh no. Did I just-

How could we have known-

Yes that goblin had a skull on, but-

I mean why would they keep them alive? They were wearing skulls right? Dead people skulls?

Couldn’t have known.

Shit.

Fuck.

"Hey Andrew!" Kalan was walking towards him, smiling, face guard removed.

"Did you get experience for all that? All I got was 'additional experience has been granted for assisting another defeat many enemies'. I bet you'll be way ahead of us now huh? You'll have to leave the next one to me." Kalan chuckled, but was pointedly avoiding looking at the corpses as he walked over. Something must have showed on Andrew's face, as the chuckle trailed off awkwardly.

What do I tell him? Shit whatever. We're in it together at this point. No way I’m taking any of us in there to scrounge around now anyways. Don't want anything to do with it.

"Hey uh, Kalan. So yeah, I did get a bunch of experience from that. Haven't looked at the levels yet. Did see all the stuff we killed in there. Lots of goblins, couple other variants. And uh, shit dude. They were keeping prisoners down there. Three of them."

Kalan's smiled died and slid off his face, Shelby was hovering nearby watching the tree line. She looked over sharply, face going pale.

"I only have the names." Andrew was rushing now, "So you know, maybe there were three goblins in there with human-y names. Might be just that. But, if it's not. Then, well, I think we fucked up guys. Shit. I mean the rest are all just listed as goblins, so. Yeah. Shit."

They stood in silence for a moment, trading alternating expressions of shock and disbelief.

Shelby muttered a quiet curse under her breath, the first Andrew had heard out of her. Kalan just turned and stared at the smoke now rising out of the cave in a trailing plume from the fading air circles. Andrew tried to pull himself together.

"Alright guys. I fucked up. We all fucked up. The logic made sense, get rid of the goblins, get rid of the problem, move on without being harassed. We just didn't think it through well enough. We rushed into it the day after an attack, low on sleep and high on anxiety. We can do better. We will do better, but we can't let this stop us. We still have work to do. We still want to save the people trapped in that camp. We still have to get away from here before the hobgoblins come back. We still have to train, and practice, and prepare for that fight? Okay? Next time we need to be strong enough to crawl into one of those hellholes and pull every last person out, not rely on dirty, destructive, deadly tricks. Okay?"

They turned to look at him.

"Yeah. Okay."

Shelby just nodded.

"Alright. Now we're going to roll that rock over across the entrance, and we're going to blow the hell out of that cave. Then we're never going to speak of this again, except to warn others we meet about the dangers of being hasty. Sound good?"

"Yeah, Yeah that sounds good to me." Kalan said.

"I- Yeah. Never again is okay." Shelby said.

Andrew stood from his rock and walked to the boulder. His head felt muddy, clouded, slow. It was all he could do to focus himself on getting to the stone, and putting his weight against it.

Kayla Lemons, Alexander Price, August Kingsley.

Shelby and Kalan seemed lost in thought. They each looked up, almost in surprise when he started shifting the boulder, then hurried over to help, with a distant look.

Just focus on the work. Have to push this boulder. Get it in front of the cave. Make sure I can touch the circles. Just, roll it over, just like that. Kayla Lemons, Alexander Price, August Kingsley. Kayla was level 0. I assume that means she didn't have any classes or anything. Just trapped in the bottom of a cramped, dark cave. Filling with smoke, can't breathe, probably tied up.

Need to move the rock. Keep pushing.

The boulder settled into the cave entrance easily. Andrew had to sit by it for a short time, waiting for his mana to recharge. Just waiting. Watching the number tick up.

August probably would've been good to have around. Level 4, even in captivity. Wonder what kind of classes or whatever they had. Might've just been a miner or something. Wasn't even in the mining camp though, silly though. Doesn't matter now anyways. Fine, done here, plenty enough mana. Let's get moving, the other two don't look so good. Need to keep moving.

Andrew pressed his hand to the delay circle and pumped all of his remaining mana into the stone. He waved to the other two and they took off jogging, back into the boulders, back towards the remains of their little valley, back towards the wagon that now held all of their possessions.