Raider Surge: A sudden burst of inspired movement that increases the natural ability of the caster by 200%. The more determined the Raider, the higher the percentage increase. Lasts (10 seconds).

Dagger looked between me and Spoon with a downcast look of defeat. He had magic, but he acted like we had stolen his favorite dagger (he only had one).

"Well, call me a fork, even raiders can do magic!”

I glare at Spoon. "I thought you said anyone can do magic!"

Spoon rolled her eyes. "Yeah, anyone with a brain, and everyone knows raiders don't have brains."

"Hey, I was a raider!"

Spoon looked at me with a sincere look of condescending mocking pity. "And now you're a thief. That has to count for half a brain."

"Half... half..." I groaned internally before turning to what was actually important. "Dagger, why did you try to hide your magic? You sounded proud when you thought I was a shaman."

Dagger looked at me with a thoughtful expression, as if he was struggling to find the right words, but then it just came out.

"I'm a raider, cousin, and you always hated going on raids. So if you were more like Spoon, you'd be safer and no more near-dead Rock, or no eating Rock. But I don't want to be like Spoon, I want to be Dagger."

We sat there for a moment, three goblins on a random roof, unable to get down. With the afternoon sun in the sky and the realization that between the two of us, between all the brothers and cousins we lost, Dagger had always tried his best to look after me, over and over and over. Even following me here instead of doing what he loves, raiding, was to keep me safe.

I stuck out my arm, and Dagger grabbed it. Forearm to forearm, we shook, like proper raiders, as an understanding of goblin brotherhood passed between us. I accepted his words and his feelings, and now it was time to get to work. The beginning of a plan took shape.

"You're still a raider, Dagger. Your magic is called 'Raider's Surge.' You have Raider magic."

"Raider's magic?"

"Yes," I nodded. "And the raider's job is to attack in a mad dash across the open field!"

Dagger looked at me, tilting his head sideways in Spoon's expression of confusion. "But we don't attack-"

"Yes, we do."

Spoon's eyes lit up.

"We attack this human CITY. We attack the EXIT!"

Dagger and Spoon looked at each other in confusion. "How?" they said in unison.

"Easy. The Wild Pig Maneuver."

******************

The Wild Pig Maneuver is a super-secret goblin formation that requires the most skilled goblins to pull off. Only the bravest among us can be chosen as wranglers, raiders with the special talent of finding four legged animals who are sturdy and wild enough to ride into battle! With the bucking and biting beast in tow, most likely a wild pig (hence the wild pig maneuver), we tame the wild animal by piling as many goblins on top of it as possible. With strength, dexterity and courage, each new goblin climbs on top of the last, keeping his balance for the next goblin and the one after that!

The more goblins on top of each other, the better and more effective the charge will be! In fact, the intimidation of seeing that many goblins so high up in the air, riding mighty boars into battle while hanging on for dear life, is so severe that humans are left dumbfounded and paralyzed in fear.

However, we don't always have actual pigs or four-legged animal worth riding just sitting around; as wranglers are liable to be eaten while searching alone in the woods by Mount Gabo and any animal kept securely in a pen is liable to just get eaten when food is low. And food is always low. So more often than not, an ambitious few goblins would pick a particularly sturdy-looking raider to be the pig to be ridden to Goblin Supremacy!!

So in short, Dagger is a pig, and I'm hanging onto his back (I’m the wrangler!), and Spoon is hanging onto me, with the butter churn tied to her back with some of Dagger's extra clothes... effectively a goblin three-stack of doom. And the plan. Well...

"Dagger, I need you to focus on the spell-"

"But don't use it yet!" Spoon interjected.

I tilted my head up, unable to crank it back enough to stare at her. "And why?"

"Because MANA! Magic needs mana, casting a spell with no mana BAD things happen."

I groaned. "I thought you had nothing to teach!"

"This isn't teaching, this is common sense!"

I snorted to stop myself from calling her an idiot. Instead, I asked her, while we were all on top of Dagger, slightly crushing him, "Any more common sense before we move?!"

"Mana comes back! So, like, be mindful of how much you have before you cast."

"How often does magic come back?"

I felt Spoon shrug. "I don't know. It takes practice to figure it out, and it depends on the goblin. The Great Shaman calls it a 'hidden stat'."

Okay, the good plan was getting less good, so I shrugged to get Dagger's attention.

"You got that?"

Dagger adjusted himself to compensate for the weight. "Use magic, sometimes, maybe?"

I tried not to groan as a headache built. "Good enough! Let's go."

Dagger took off, almost as fast as a wild boar. For a moment, I thought he had already used Raider's Surge, but then he jumped.

Something crackled against his skin, and it felt like power, like the Chief's power, a pure expression of magic moving within his skin, inside his veins. I almost doubted the power of Raider's Surge until the sudden "whoosh" of speed kicked in, as his feet kicked off the brick and shattered the shingles. We flew!

"WOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Spoon screamed, and I joined her as we sailed past buildings and into the alley. That's when I cast Sneaky Goblin!

The spell hummed as I cast it once, and only once, taking a leap of faith that the spell should work as long as Dagger and Spoon were touching me. Or I hoped this worked. I didn't trust the "mana comes back," but I also didn't want to know what happens if I try to cast the spell without magic. My mind flashed back to when Spoon tried to cast Spark Spark, and it exploded in her face!

Dagger slammed into the side of a building, rattling the windows, and then flipped down, causing Spoon to dig her nails into my ribs as we landed violently. A collective "oof" was felt as our bones rattled from the shock, followed by paranoid panic as we were now in the midst of rough-looking humans.

"Slow," I whispered, and Dagger nodded. Dagger landed closer to the wall, while the humans crowded around in a circle, waving and pointing at something in the center, but not at us poor goblins. At a closer look, many of them looked closer to children than large adults, but they all had a rough appearance; hard eyes, even with faces twisted in joy and excitement, with dirt and grime caking their faces, hands, and clothing. Some of them weren't really wearing clothing, just bare skin and a belt to hold a dagger and what was left of tattered pants. Dagger shivered underneath me, making me wonder if the rush of power from Raider's Surge subsided or the instinctual fear of being this close to so many humans was kicking in. We walked slowly, me clinging to Dagger's back and Spoon clinging to mine.

For a moment, I thought about dismounting, but that's when the first human noticed us.

"Hey, who are you?" a voice, heavily accented but somehow clear, boomed out of nowhere. The three of us looked up to the right to see a kid appear from behind a dumpster, with something sharp and ready in one hand.

We froze as he got closer, not sure if he meant us or another set of goblins riding on top of each other. His unfocused eyes, set small in his pig-like face, seemed unable to look at us, and for a moment, I hoped he hadn't noticed us, but then...

"Yeah, you three small gits, what the fuck are you doing?!"

"Spoon!"

"SPARK BOOM!" She answered, and a lancing fireball shot over his head and crashed behind the spot he had just been. The sudden spark of fire forced him to duck and look around, while the noise of the explosion stirred the humans behind us-

“Run!“ I started to say but Dagger is already moving before I can finish the word . No, he took off, his feet pounding as he sprang forward, leaving me choking on spittle and rushing air as we careened up the alley!

"Sneaky Goblin!" I screamed while choking, not sure why I had to say that out loud, but magic erupted in a buzz just before we hit the main road, and Dagger took his running start as a chance to leap!

If anyone below saw us or noticed our mad dash, I wouldn't know. The buzz held as we cleared the head of humans, elves, dwarves, and others, before landing on the other side of the alleyway, narrowly missing a food stand as we crashed. We landed in a rolling heap, the butter churn loudly banging as we stumbled, but we all held on. And when Dagger rolled to his feet, he kept running. The minor bumps and bruises not triggering a system response, and now that I think about it, we're level 3s and 4s now.

Thank Yeezus for the quest! Dagger ran, hugging the wall or jumping over trash bins, his Raider's Surge lasting longer this time as we left unsuspecting humans behind.

Or so we thought.

Something urged me to turn around as the buzz of my Sneaky Goblin seemed to ebb and flow, as if telling me something was wrong. I looked and looked as Dagger ran, but slowly, doubt crept in. It didn't take me long to see something that made my blood run cold and nearly made me piss down Dagger's back.

The pig-faced human from before was in the alley behind us, with three—no, five—other people in tow. But they weren't as small as him. Comparatively, he was only a few feet shorter than the larger humans, but the larger humans were definitely adults and looked several times more dangerous.

For one, they dressed more like the humans from the main road, where soft faces and stern guards roam. But they still had the hard-edged look of the pig-faced human, just worse. Way worse. As if the nice clothes—simple shirts, jackets, and pants that didn’t have holes and were unfaded black and tan—hid something ugly. And I shivered. But worse, one of them had eyes that glowed. He stood in front, flanked by a tall, skinny female human who looked like she could snap my bones, and a big human. Not mountain-sized like the one in the kitchen, but like a boulder that rolls down the mountain, crushing the unlucky.

“Like us?”

“Shut up, me!”

“Dagger, can you Raider Surge?” I ask with a controlled voice. I feel Spoon shivering on top of me, and then I realize that as an actual shaman, she can feel the magic that I know is coming off the lead human in waves.

Dagger is still moving, but not with the enhanced speed and strength granted by mana. He shakes his head for yes, but something about the way he shakes his head gives me a bit of alarm. But we need to go! And like that, Dagger jets forward, in a burst of speed. The alleys are now a more winding maze, cutting across more buildings with windows and fewer main roads up ahead. Dagger cuts and dives and even runs up a wall sideways (terrifying moment) as the normal inhabitants stir but don’t seem to notice us.

But the feeling of the buzz letting go doesn’t decrease. In fact, I feel it become more and more intense, as if at any moment, we’ll be spotted like before. And then we turn a corner, and the human with the glowing eyes is in front of us, some yards away, but still there. His eyes burn with a terrible glow of mana-enhanced power, and Spoon whimpers as she feels the danger more acutely than I ever could. Even Dagger backs up slowly before the buzz cuts off, and a familiar voice comes in from behind us.

“See, boss, I told you! Creepers!”

I turn to see the pig-faced boy rounding the corner we just came from, beady black eyes focused on us. We’re trapped.

Dagger shifts, looking up into the buildings that box us in, and simply says, “Tall Fence Maneuver.”

And with a surge of magic, Dagger crouches and jumps in one smooth motion, while dust and debris explode as we go blasting into the sky!

“OOOH SHIT!” I blurt as the sudden change in height makes me go dizzy. But not dizzy enough not to see the flash of motion that’s the human with the glowing eyes as he flies toward us, mouth curled in an evil snarl, eyes glowing a mana-rich white. His blue and black jacket flaps in the wind.

He’s going to catch us!

We’re going to die!

I can already see his dark embrace crushing all three of us in a powerful squeeze, like a human doll being played with by a zealous child. I can see him moving toward us in slow motion, knowing he’s so fast that he should be a blur, but knowing that Yeezus is allowing me to see my life flash before my eyes. And then we turn slowly in the air, Spoon shifting on my back, and Dagger following her lead, turning me so I can’t see him, the cruel human with death and pain on his face! And then I feel it before I hear it! Heat intense and scalding, only my clothes protecting me from taking damage, leaving me in fear of being set on fire before a voice full of power screams in my ear-

“SPARK SPARK BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!”

And whatever heat I thought I felt was nothing compared to the bonfire that lights up my ass as the system chimes a number-

Rogue Human has taken 3 Damage from Spoon’s Fireball!

But the deafening roar of the explosion sends us flying off into the distance, unable to hear our screams as we fly into the sky!