There were five exits leading out of the room with the metal walkway. One led to the stairs. One led the way I’d just came, back to Tom’s place. One led to the goblins. That left the two doors to the east, one on the north end of the room, and one on the south.

  I choose the south, as it was closer. Once everyone was clear of the area I sent my still extant sword to open the passage.

  The stone was unyielding. The door held.

  The racket was enormous however, enough to send the goblins next door into screeches and howls. A moment later, they attacked.

  Nobody was wearing armour. They couldn’t. Even when on guard duty the risk to the guard’s health wearing the same armour day after day, week after week without cleaning was greater than not wearing it. The armour itself was it risk from the same humours and oils. I could clean the armour with spells, as could they with the right tools and time, but such things were precious.

  Brace was nearest with her sword, first to face the oncoming horde. Cillian was at her side.

  I’d already seen this once before, I couldn’t bear to watch it again.

  Fast Teleport

  I moved forty feet in a second. When I reappeared my skin was blazing like the sun.

  This did not cause the goblins to slow like I’d hoped, but instead they descended blindly upon me with howls of pain and rage.

  So be it.

  Four goblins struck against me, only one hit, blinded as they were. His blow struck me across the ear, causing a moment of hot pain before I twisted aside to prevent being struck in the head.

  The pain was enough for me temporarily forget the book in my fingers, enough for the same goblin to score a line along my arm on the return.

  Sword, Scorch, Scintillation II

  The fireball appeared around the lucky goblin’s head who fell back screaming. The sword took a second goblin’s shoulder off in its first swing, leaving a wound the size of a platter. He quickly collapsed.

  The other goblins did not stand idle, but instead pressed in around me to replace their fallen comrades.

  Where they could attack at the speed of their arms, which were quick and sure, I could retaliate at the speed of thought.

  ?Push VIII?

  Before the nearest goblin could even raise his sword, he was flying back and partly through his companions, one of which who took an elbow or rib through the thigh and was pinned there. Two dead goblins impacted the wall, but long before that I was already moving on to my next target.

  BiteII

  My spell tore through the throat of a third goblin, but he was made of sterner stuff than his companions. Even as he stood there dying, he attacked.

  My light was too strong and he whiffed past my shoulder before collapsing, not enough strength left in him to pull back from the swing.

  His companions were not standing idle. Swords sliced the air about me as the blinded goblins tried to close in while avoiding their companions, failing to hit either.

  Pain—like ice melting—slide up the back of my leg and stopped just below my left buttock. My knee instantly went weak, but my other muscles and leg compensated, keeping me upright.

  My sword swung for another victim and missed, while my fireball, which could move slower and remain deadly, carefully engulfed the head of another goblin.

  Regenerate II

  I didn’t have plans of dying any time soon. My wounds wouldn’t close before the battle was done, but the spell should keep me from passing out from lack of blood like I had against the centipedes.

  Push II

  Two goblins were disarmed synchronously, leaving empty fists to swipe at the air. Two more whistled down, one missing, one sliding off my skin.

  Fireball III

  Even I shied from the heat of my improved fireball. It didn’t feel like normal fire. It felt dangerous.

  Hungry.

  Every goblin next to their now melting companion scrambled away from him, suddenly ignorant of the Magus standing in their midst.

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  My sword split one from neck to hip while they were distracted though my fireball couldn’t catch any more prey.

  Still the goblins did not retreat, nor did they even show caution beyond avoiding my second fireball, which I sent lunging at any which drew too near.

  Only four remained standing and my fireballs could move nearly fast as they could. It was only a matter of time.

  Magic Swords III

  “Kill them.”

  My swords leapt forward to obey. I wasn’t taking any risks.

  Three goblins were twisted about as their loincloths and swords were battered uselessly by my blades, and only the fourth lost a toe in the exchange.

  Even then my fireballs couldn’t reach them. The tangled goblins threw themselves out of the way, dashing themselves against the ground rather than being burned, then rolling to the side.

  They didn’t make it.

  My fifth sword struck down among them like a sickle removing mistletoe. All four were beheaded in a single pass.

  That was wrong. That shouldn’t have been possible. There had been more than mortal skill and magic here at work, the Fates had conspired against both myself and the goblins, though ultimately, in my favour.

  I limped forward to the door the goblins had boiled out from.

  None remained inside, but the room itself was extraordinary.

  It was perhaps two thirds the size of the room I’d just entered by, and held no other entrances. It was surprisingly clean, given that the goblins had supposedly been living here and in isolation, cut off from the rest of the dungeon.

  With no visible sources of food I could only surmise there was a secret entrance, perhaps on the other side of the giant stone skull near the south west corner of the room.

  The skull was the first of the unusual features in the room. On the wall beside me was scrawled in brown, broken letters “Beneath the altar”. What had they seen, whoever it was that had written that, and why was it so important. That was probably old blood I was looking at. I’d seen it flake off stone before in an identical pattern.

  To my right, and on the wall straight ahead were runes in Dusk Speak which glowed with power. I dimmed my own light, and sure enough, they lit the surrounding environs.

  Light, one, maybe two entrances, clean, no goblin corpses, provided there were no traps, this room would provide a far better base of operations than the previous.

  I returned to the entrance, “Conan! I am in need of your trap finding skills!”

  While Conan worked I went over to study the skull.

  Sure enough, there was a small space between the teeth I could squeeze through which led to a small round wooden door. The door wasn’t locked, but it was stuck in its frame. But if the goblins could use it, so could I.

  Sure enough, it only took a small amount of effort to force it open, revealing a long corridor both straight ahead and to my right. The straight ahead corridor was south, which was the way I wanted to be heading.

  After a quick exchange to Conan, I brought my swords (but not fireballs) through the small portal and pulled the door back closed behind me.

  The corridor ended fifty feet down with another wooden door. I didn’t bother walking down it, instead I sent my strongest sword on ahead of me to knock it down.

  It was well I did.

  The door itself crashed open at the first blow of my sword, having been locked rather than lodged in place like so many others. But the guardian of the door was not so easily removed.

  Tendrils of a brilliant green substance, glowing with life light under my dryadic sight, shot out through the wall in a shower of splintered stone and wrapped around my sword. Then, just as quickly as they’d come, they began to reel back, taking my sword with them.

  The combined strength of the tentacles vastly outmatched my sword’s. Had I been the one to open that door they could have torn me limb from limb.

  Fortunately, a blade was still a blade, no matter how strong they were.

  I pivoted my sword in mid air, using the strength of the tendrils against themselves to saw through the mass. The other tentacles lashed forward to stop the motion, but I also had more weapons.

  “Destroy them.”

  My other swords flew forward to help. Though incredibly strong, the flesh of the tendrils themselves was fragile, and my swords soon cut the tentacles to pieces.

  Seven vines lay still in the doorway when I was done with them. It had only taken a moment. Had the warlocks known about these, or did I now chart a path even they had feared to tread?

  The walls surrounding the doorway inside the room were both covered in cracks. I passed by them with every hair on end, and my hand firmly threaded through my spellbook with half a dozen spells at the ready.

  Nothing came.

  The room the vines had been guarding was small for the dungeon, one of the thirty foot by thirty foot rooms, and most of it was taken up by a pool of water in the far corner. If I dared drink from it my journey could end right here. No need to seek a new path to the spring. None of the pools had thus far been harmful.

  I stopped and seriously considered the issue. I didn’t want to take unnecessary risk. I didn’t mind walking an extra hour or three to do so.

  But travelling into the unknown was also a risk.

  Courage and a willingness to do unpleasant work was to be commended, but suffering for the sake of suffering was for fools. I was no flagellant, punishing myself for something I did not do, taken to the hard path simply so my life was more difficult.

  There was a risk to drink from the pool, and there was a risk to go on and not drink from the pool. Why not take my risk close to home?

  I raised the water to my lips and drank.

  The water was clear and pure. My life sight had already checked it over for algae (enough to not think it poison, but little more than the stream).

  I waited 15 minutes, then, when I grew no more sick nor better, filled my waterskins. The water was as plain as we could hope for.

  I returned back through the skull and pulled the door closed behind me. Conan had already moved the others into place.

  I raised my full waterskins before me, “Water, close by. Straight ahead out the back of the skull. Didn’t cause me to sicken.”

  The others cheered. I took another celebratory piece of swan, then, backpack, lancegay, and book at the ready, Attar and I headed back towards the stairs. We had food. We had water. We had shelter with glowing walls. It was time to find Tom’s mother.