Here goes another! I reread the chapter looking for mistakes but I might have missed something.

Like always any suggestion or criticism put it in the comments (I read them and answer sometimes)

Luke noted, after some calculation, that his Mana recovered around 1% per minute or in his case 3 MP per minute. Although he didn't know if that was fast or slow he was happy that he could restore most of his Mana in an hour if he emptied out. On the other side, he should test if the same proportion apply to health recovery but he wasn't going to hurt himself to figure out some obscure number.

With that out of the way, Luke went outside to set up the ward. His idea was to make a circle around the house with ropes, cords and anything similar with four posts stabbed into the ground and aligned with the cardinal points to give it form and help maintain it. Then, he put the words for ‘sound' and ‘cross’ on top of the posts. He hoped that it would create some noise when something crossed the line. He prayed that if it worked, the magic wouldn't active for things really small like insects, or he would have to reconsider the symbols to use.

Turns out all fortune ends: the project was mostly successful but his fears came true. After setting up the circle and inscribing the symbols in the wood, he activated the ward with the corresponding mental image (it demanded extra MP to link several enchantments together to form the ward) and it worked out… a little too well. To test it, Luke crossed the boundary and was rewarded with a loud noise that could be heard from the house easily. Better yet when he went out of the circle he didn't heard the noise but a yell from Jack confirmed that it happened. Apparently the sound was entirely directed towards the house. While interesting it wasn't important at the moment. The problems started when he researched what would trigger the noise. The result: everything bigger than a finger. He went inside the circle and threw first his staff, then a rock and then some grass. The only fortune was that anything smaller than a clump of grass didn't make it react (he saw some ants going back and forth without activating the ward). Before finishing his research, he realized that if he wanted the inscribed wood to stay outside and under the weather, he should cast the reinforce enchantment. And so he did, on the side of the post that looked toward the house. Curiously it required more Mana to put a second enchantment on the same object (his Mana went down 12 points instead of the previous 10).

Luke was happy but he knew this was just an alarm it didn't mean that they would survive the confrontation. So he started to ponder what else could a ward provide. And he wasn't thinking only about the goblins but a more ample measure that could cope with other future hostiles. A dozen minutes later (and his Mana conveniently recovered) he came up with a magic ability frequently used in books and stories: a glamour. The concept was simple enough, you make something look like something else. They come as mental suggestions (they make you believe that something is another thing) or they temper with the enemies senses, principally with sight.

Luke faced this new challenge with the knowledge already acquired. He decided to establish a similar setup. He made a circle, put down the four post and considered what symbols to use. The circle this time was a lot bigger, it included the greenhouse and felt some fifteen meters short of the treeline. With that in mind he added four more stakes and reflected about the hieroglyphics he would employ. He didn't want to overextend and leave some flaw in the design, so he inclined towards something simple: ‘leave’ and ‘confusion'. But then he didn't know how would he be able to exit the circle and return if the ward proved to be effective. So he exchanged the symbols to ‘mine' ( the symbol is a concept that fuses possession with the speaker and it's allies), ‘confusion' and ‘area'. The confusion and the area part should daze anyone inside and close to the circle and the mine should key the formation to me and allow me to designate people that would remain unaffected. After applying the symbols in every piece of wood, breathed deeply and concentrated on what he desired the ward to do. All of this required a stop when only one post remained to be carved (curious fact: the formula for enchanting follows 10x2^x where x is the number of symbols. It may get more complex if the symbols used are the more profound concepts. So seven stakes was 280 MP, almost everything he had), 30 minutes or so. Uncertain if it worked but sure that it did something, Luke went back toward the house. Besides it was getting close to the third hour and he was afraid the goblins might return soon.

He entered the house and there was chaos: Jack and Sarah where shouting at each other from a distance of three meters and by the bruises on Jack head, he had met resistance from some of his traps.

Luke was excited. It worked! He didn't know if it would affect every creature but he suspected that everything with lower Intelligence than him would gain some degree of confusion. The connotation was fast to come: they were safe, at least for the moment.

Now he needed to test how to incorporate the couple to this particular defense. After several tries, twenty minutes and a load of YouTube worthy bloopers, he discovered that the solution involved touching the person and simple recognise it as an ally with his will. They also tested if someone else could do it (Luke first added Sarah and then Sarah tried to do the same with Jack) but unfortunately they couldn't.

Now you may be asking yourselves why didn't he put the glamour inside the alarm? The answer is simple, this way they would know if something was able to go through the glamour and be warned. If it was the other way around, they would be warned by whatever came close. Besides the first circle, are it impossible to put the greenhouse inside the second spell without having to expand the former and that would take too long (not setting it up per se, but Luke doing it and recovering his Mana).

When both have calmed, they explained to Luke that the moment he activated the second formation, they lost track of where they were and no matter what they did they couldn't find any reference of their location. It was like a fog have covered everything or like they could see but not recognize their surroundings.

Suddenly they heard faint noises of something getting closer. The went upstairs and uncovered a window to get a full look of the clearing. There were three goblins (the new shift?) approaching the outer circle. Abruptly, they started shouting to nowhere and after five minutes they were turned around and left the area of effect. It took them four more attempts to give up and leave.

“Well that a good news if I ever seen one. I expect that after a while they would return with more friends but I imagine that if their tribesmen aren't a lot smarter they won't be able to break through the glamour. So I propose we take a rest and figure out in which direction you want to develop so when they come back we can attack them from the safety of the spell.” Luke only hoped that attacking wouldn't break the glamour.