After lunch, it was time to deal with the tenth cave. Moving to the shadow of some trees at the base of the slope, James looked up and could see the cave entrance. He couldn't see much else, but all he needed to see was a shadow in the cave. Concentrating on Shadow Sense, his perceptions moved quickly to a spot near the cave's ceiling and about a meter in the cave. The layout of the cave was the same as the previous cave. He could see the tunnel at the back.

There were six goblins in the room, and they were located the same as before. The goblins had a different trap in place near the door. James could see it, but not what it was. It looked like a pit trap. There were also two bear claw traps in the middle of the room. James had to wonder who fell for those traps. He tried to use Shadow Sense to move down the tunnel, but it failed to work.

Returning to his body, James took a moment to review the Advantage while his perceptions reset. There was now a cooldown timer next to the Advantage. It appeared to be counting down from 5 minutes. The Advantage also used 60 Mana. James turned to Rocko to ask him, as the women were still by their lunch site.

"Why are my Shadow Advantages costing me so much, Mana?"

"You have Magic Resistance. The cost of all Mana-based Spells is double," Rocko explained.

"That doesn't make sense. I am sure that there are creatures that can use magic spells to full effect, even though they have magic resistance." James complained.

"There are. Many. Due to the cost, you bought a cheaper version." James nodded, he had been working toward that with the Were Tiger, but the cost was prohibitive.

As James sat down with the women, he pointed back to the cave with his thumb, "Looks to be the same as the last cave. The only difference I could notice was a different trap at the entrance. It might be a pit trap, but I don't think so."

Doris looked uneasy, "Can we get around it?"

James nodded, "It is pretty easy to see. Some dried grass covers it, so just stick to the side of the entrance." Doris nodded her thanks.

"There are two bear traps near the middle of the room, so avoid those. Other than that, we should just do the same thing we did before. Unless someone has a suggestion to add."

"I plan on casting Narissa's Blessing on myself," Doris added.

James agreed. He already decided to add Harden Skin I to the spells he maintained. He already had Alter Self I, Mental Barrier - Iron I, and Augment Attribute I (Strength). He thought about adding Augment Skill I to improve his Melee - Sword Skill, which would leave him with no regeneration. He decided to wait and see how this fight resolved itself.

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Cave 10

They did not have to get too close for James to point out the trap. Barbara moved to the side and indicated she would move up and disarm the trap. Once that was done, Connie moved up to the center and prepared her Flash Spell. Doris and James got into position on the opposite side as Barbara. Once everyone was in place, Barbara started things by disarming the trap. Sadly, she failed as the trap went off, and a bed of spikes flipped up from the ground and landed on the ground in front of the entrance. Barbara could pull her arm out of the way, but Connie screamed in surprise. The element of surprise was gone.

"Fall back," James shouted as two goblins came storming out of the cave entrance. Barbara leaped to the side, barely dodging out of the way of a stone axe swung at her head. Connie screamed again as the second goblin went straight for her. Doris ran to help Barbara, leaving James to help Connie. He tried to do a Shadow Step, but it failed to work. Deciding instead just to run, he charged at the goblin. The goblin was not idle but took a swing at Connie and hit her shoulder. A bright blue light flared around her and deflected the blow. James remembered seeing the same thing once before when he fought the skeleton mages. This must be the same thing. James rushed into the goblin and knocked it aside with his shield. The creature stumbled and fell to the ground. Before it could get back to its feet, James stabbed it in the gut with his sword and brought the edge of his shield down on the goblin's legs. The goblin screamed in pain, but James showed no mercy as he stabbed it until it stopped moving.

James turned to see Connie standing behind him as two javelins bounced off a barrier erected between them and the entrance to the cave. He could have blocked them with his shield, be he was glad to have the support. Doris and Barbara had killed the goblin who had attacked Barbara and were now using a portion of the cliff face to protect them from two slingers. James took Advantage of the slingers and focused on the others to hit them both with a PSI Bolt each. This got their attention as they moved toward James and Connie.

James stepped out from behind the Barrier after two more javelins bounced off. The goblins were determined but not too bright. Moving quickly, he covered the distance to the two closer slingers and started attacking them. They switched their weapons to stone axes, but their weapons and Skill were inferior to James'. Things went sideways when four more goblins showed up. There were now six goblins standing at the entrance, and James was down the hill fighting the two slingers. Barbara and Connie started using their bows on the four new arrivals. Each of them had two weapons. The previous javelin throwers were out of javelins, so they switched to stone axes and charged James. Doris kept her shield between her and the goblins as she made her way to help James. She took a long way around to not draw the goblins to her.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

James noted that Harden Skin I was a great Power. He was hit with a stone axe several times, but he rarely took any damage. This reminded him a little of when he was fighting the skeletons, mind you, the axes hit a little harder than the wet noodles. Focusing on Skill and technic, he killed one of the goblin slingers before the other two showed up. Now there were three, and one had moved behind him.

He was glad to see that Doris had arrived at that point and used her sword with significant effect against the goblin who was trying to backstab James. With that goblin occupied, James worked on the other goblin slinger. He didn't have much technique, but he could use his shield to block and then Thrust with his rapier. When one of the goblins left himself open, he would try to Slice with the blade.

James had killed the second goblin slinger and fought the other goblin when Doris got behind it and stabbed it in the back. With its guard down, James cut its throat. The battle was won. Taking a quick look around, James notices three bodies at the entrance filled with arrows and a fourth body near Barbara, also filled with arrows.

"Wow, that was exciting," James panted, "Let's not do that again!"

Barbara and Connie were both quick to agree. Barbara was in the process of quaffing one of her potions, and Doris had cast Soothing Touch on Connie. James hadn't even realized that any of them had been hurt. He was not used to this type of fighting, and his perception was skewed. He was used to having people on either side of him calling out targets, the report of gunfire, and constant chatter of information being sent and received. Here, he found that he needed to focus on the creature in front of him to avoid being stabbed. But he also had to be aware of the creatures around him to avoid being flanked. And on top of that, he wanted to be able to keep track of his teammates to prevent them from being killed while he was distracted.

James looked around at the scattered bodies. Ten goblins, the fight had been intense, but he was only required to Heal Self three times. He dropped his Augment Skill I and Augment Attribute I, and worked on recovering his PSI.

"James?" Rocko asked next to him.

"Yes?"

"Did you hear what I said?" Rocko asked.

"No, sorry. What's up?"

"I am going to head out for an hour. I want to research some of the things the girls mentioned earlier." Rocko explained. "Just call me when you need me or if you find the dungeon entrance."

James nodded, "Sounds good."

"Talking to your invisible friend?" Connie joked.

"We should finish looting these goblins and checking the rest of the cave," James ignored the jib.

James took the time to review his notifications. The goblins were now dropping several silver coins. Connie was rather excited as she thought they would make a few gold coins each from today. That was usually their take after four or five days.

Strength +1

Willpower+1

Armour - Medium +1

Information Gathering +1

Melee - Sword +1

Shield +1

Although they were confident that the goblins were dead, they still entered the caves carefully. The first cave was empty, and it was easy for them to avoid the traps. Doris took the lead down the tunnel to the back cave, where they found another table with a sack on it. They stood for a moment around the table and the pouch that sat on it. The group stood around the table and stared at the closed bag for a few moments.

"Well, is someone going to open it?" Connie asked.

"It could be trapped," Doris answered.

"Fine, I will open it," Barbara relented.

"What is it?" James asked before Barbara even had the bag open. She paused and looked at him with a tired expression.

Deciding that they had waited long enough, she opened the bag and withdrew the items. There was a potion and a wand. The wand got a round of ohs and ahs as Barbara laid it on the table.

"Well," Barbara asked James with a smirk, "What is it?"

James focused on the potion and the wand.

Name: Potion of Cure Poison Quality: Good Rarity: Common Durability: 1/1 Special: Enchanted - Cure Poison (Tier 1)

Name: Wand of Acid Bolt Quality: Good Rarity: Common Durability: 6/6 Special: Enchanted - Acid Bolt (Tier 1 - 4/d)

James passed on the information to the team. The party decided that Doris should get the potion and Connie should get the wand. It wasn't much better than the Magic Bolt she already had, but this could be used four times a day without any cost to Mana. And no one knew what would happen in the next cave.

The party made it out of the cave and decided to take a short break. In part to give James a chance to recover his 'Mana' and in part to take a break. Even Connie needed some time to recover some of her Mana, but she didn't recover her Mana nearly as fast as James did. Deciding it was time to continue, James the rest of his rations away and got to his feet. With a sense of trepidation, he made his way to the next cave.