The goblins stepped out from behind the barricades cautiously looking around at the remains and or lack of remains that stemmed from the monstrosities they thought would be their end.

"What now?" Ezra asked. The armoured goblin looked exhausted from both the fighting and confusion.

"Now we get you out of here." Adil explained. The goblin looked up at him with esteem, ready to follow his every command.

"Squire, we are in need of a plan. I can see no escape from here without vanquishing the focus of this evil." The dryad explained.

"I'll look for a way," Adil explained. Swift went to his side and put a hand down on his shoulder as Adil sat to the ground in a meditative position.

As he looked around, feeling essence travel in the breeze Adil could feel the creeping sensation of evil corruption blow through him. He braced through it trying to see where it was. A mass of madness before him. Looking further past he began to understand. Adil spread out his mana and leached into the darkness.

Adil opened his eyes, no-one was with him. He found himself sitting in a large, dark, open space. Out the corner of his eye, he noticed a slithering black entity dripping with a tar-like substance extending out from the darkness. Another soon followed, and then another leading straight for him. It lifted its head, showing him glowing red eyes. one head after another came out of the darkness to face him. Silken scales became visible dripping a black liquid. The faces started to face him, teeth white dripping with darkness. Suddenly they dove towards Adil and he was pulled back into his body. Shocked and breathing heavily he was sweating when he looked up at Swift.

"Good news first," Swift asked.

"I know where the boss is." He replied.

"Jesus Christ Adil. You fucking did it." Seras said. pulling him up for a hug.

"The bad news is, its some sort of giant 8 headed dragon, really, really far down," Adil added.

"We should rest before moving out." The dryad said.

"How can we rest here, they will kill us."

"You have done many things I once thought impossible, but one thing is certain. If we continue like this, the darkness will not be what kill us." She said. The bags under Swift, Adil and Seras's eyes showed how tired they were.

"I agree with the dryad, we can move from here and find somewhere new to hide. At least then we will know if they can track us." Seras motioned.

They travelled through the cave following Adils lead and avoiding any creatures in the area. They arrived at a wall in the side of one of the tunnels where Adil stopped.

"Smash your axe here." Adil said to Seras.

"Do you want to draw the monsters?" She asked.

"No, just do it."

Seras smashed her axe into the side of the wall having the after effect explosion rip it apart. Beyond the wall was a hole just large enough to cram everyone inside. When they moved in Seras had stacked the rocks just enough to cover the hole. Swift created a small flame to see everyone one was there. Then they tried to rest.

Swift and Adil both had 1 ability points left for their fourth level.

Swift was stuck between three choices.

Pillar of flame

After targetting an area, infusing it with fire a pillar of flame will launch up towards the sky.

living bomb

infusing a creature or entit#y with an explosive burst of fire, turning them into a time bomb. This explosion may pass to nearby entities if enough mana is expended and absorbed by nearby entities.

searing chains.

Infusing more solidity to your mana, you may create and launch chains of fire towards a given target.

Eventually Swift picked searing chains. Hoping that he had some crowd control to help his glass cannon lifestyle. Adil, on the other hand, had nothing significant change from his previous options. he felt like Agility level 2 was the best option. concentrating power within the fibres of his body. he coughed as impurities from his system were released. Seras held him down to stop the noise but wreathed in disgust as the brown-green flem came out his mouth.

The group tried to sleep as the goblins took watch. Resting his head on Swift's shoulder whilst Seras put her boot close to his face, he lay down.

Adil was in Earth again. He saw a portal slowly materialize and a creature crawl its way out. Like Kurt, but not, a different person. It looked as though it was searching for something.

he was woken up, he heard the clicking sound of a creature beyond the wall, the sound of scurrying and the sound of large thumps from a large creature passing their hidey-hole. It soon passed and enough time went by he could get back to sleep.

The bartender shouted "Their coming!" As a blast shattered the wall. It was night time now. he could tell by what he saw through the side of the pub.

He woke with a start, the flashed of his dream still vaguely held in place. It was both confusing and an unnecessary thing to focus on.

Adil shifted Swift until he was up and they all got ready to leave. On Adils mark they peeled away the rocks and exited the hole.

The armoured goblin walked by Adils side again. "You must have fought many hardships to sleep in such a place." The armoured warrior asked.

"Well, my dad used to snore pretty loud as a kid, I could hear it through the walls and I had this crazy old clock-" He replied, but stopped noticing the goblins confusion. Ezra seemed to be thinking these words were references to something of great power and might. something that could traumatize a normal man. He realized again how much he had changed, thinking back to when his tinder date told him "Going someplace new will help you find yourself." and jokingly thinking, *well I guess I found out I'm a sociopath*.

Adil stopped. he could feel a strange presence and started to feel a thin veil of darkness surround them. 

"Hold," he said tot he group lifting up one hand. A thud echoed across the area and he felt the movement of larger creatures towards their location. Then he realized.

"Swift, the walls now!" he shouted. 

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Swift saw before he had a chance to act, the walls light up with an amalgamation of eyes. A black coating was now visible across the walls with eyes of different shapes and sizes staring down at them. Spears of darkness shot out as the wars began burning in bright fire. The last Shirime crumbled to nothingness.

"We have to move now!" Adil shouted. A giant taint ridden troll clambered into the room a demented goblin trapped within a mass of darkness coating it. When they turned to the other side, there was a pack of three heavily mutated wolves, coated in capes of darkness. 

Swift charged up his fire as one of the shadow coated wolves dove towards him. his cape activated and he moved through a gust of fire. The beast swung at him but only caught the remnants of flame he had once been in. Now between two of the wolves, he let out his fire pointing hands to either side. A stream of liquid molten fire transformed into a coagulation of chains that wrapped around each enemy they hit searing their flesh as it contained them.

Whilst that had gone on Seras had run towards the troll. It reached for her but missed as she nimbly dodged past, slamming her axe into the troll's leg. The troll let out a dull moan before a shocked cry of pain as its leg exploded. The seething mass of darkness clawed at his scattered tissue and began reforming the leg.

The third wolf had charged towards the goblins whilst Adil tried to fire shots. As the wolf dove with unprecedented speed, he missed an arrow, slamming it into the wall which scattered dust across the dryad. One of the goblin fighters barely moved as the beast tore past, flicking its tail into one of their heads. The fighter's guts poured to the floor whilst a worker's head was skewered on the end of the beasts, second tail. The dryad was trying to push back with her magic, but seemingly in panic, her attacks had little effect.  

"Shit." Adil exclaimed. he couldn't launch a mighty gust without serious friendly fire. he launched another desperately charged arrow towards the wolf. It dodged but not fast enough as it flicked off the beasts left hind leg. 

The troll was undying but too slow for Seras to have trouble with. Its demented goblin, however, was fast, it dove off and caught onto Seras. The gnarling creature coated in dripping darkness was not very strong. Seras held it by the head and planted it into the wall finishing it off with s slam of her axe, splattering the guts everywhere.  Just then Seras saw to the troll a mighty roar as the troll saw his compatriot explode. The troll now had speed.

Swift finished gathering his mana, having over-exerted himself with the two chained enemies.  He launched fire at the screaming wolves trapped in their chains. They lit ablaze until their cries quietened. Then swift turned to the others, the wolf attacking the goblins seemed like the most trouble. He shot a burst of fire towards the beast. Its cape lit on fire forcing it to jump away dropping splashes of fire onto the goblins it was attacking. The dryad then in a burst of energy focused white and black mana to slam the beast into the wall, trying to hold it in place as Swift helped the fire spread

"Sorry," he said but knew the goblins couldn't understand him. He turned to the side seeing the heavy troll running towards him.

Ezra jumped in the way pushing swift out the way. The goblins armoured body was kicked up and into the side of the cave. Adil was now out of arrows. 

"You mother fucker!" He screamed jumping towards the troll and planting his barely used sword into the side of his leg. The Troll's black tar-like coating lept up and grabbed the sword trying to get Adil but he nimbly avoided any damage.  

Now in a position where all his friends were behind him, he shot out the gust of air. The troll braced the wind easily as tar-like ooze sprayed the exit of the cavern behind it. As Adil collapsed to the ground the troll reached forward. Swift was ready now and launched his attack, searing the troll in the fire. It roared as flames caught on its black ooze. Swift only seemed to pick up pace as the darkness began to recede. His fire started to bubble the trolls tissue until it burst out its back disintegrating the rest as the darkness evaporated in flame.

Adil saw a list of kill notifications:

*mutated wolves 2 - Swift 580 XP

*mutated wolves 1 - Swift Adil 165 XP

*mutated goblin 1 - Seras 90 XP

*mutated troll 1 Swift Adil Seras. 300 XP

"What the fuck was that!" Seras shouted to Swift.

"What, the skill? It's like fire chains."

"The crowd control is Adil's and the dryads job, stick to your role. You nearly had us all killed." She screamed.

"Hay we're all trying our hardest here."

"Do you realize how much is relying on you?" She asked. Adil nodded with a solemn look on his face.  Swift realized she was right, the chain ability needed a charge period, took all his mana, and only hit 2 targets. But conversely, his power over fire was now strong enough he could kill most of the enemies in one burst.

Swift turned from eye contact and looked towards the floor. "I'm sorry, ok."

Adil was now next to the armoured goblin on the floor, a cough of blood had shown he was awake. 

"Vial!" he screamed to Swift.

Swift threw over the last dose of troll healing potion they had and Adil poured it down the goblin's throat. 

They hung there for a small while in anticipation. The goblin coughed again spitting out a wad of blood before raspy deep breathing turned normal.

"You made it." Adil said to the creature. The goblin looked around and saw the decimated corpses of a few goblin fighters and workers about the cave. 

"I did." he said. he got to his feet and said with a solemn look:

"I do not know if I can go on much longer."

"What do you mean?"

"you may be the mightiest of warriors, but we are not. Even the great moon mother appears to have had too much."  he pointed to Morganna. She was failing to hide panicked deep breathing as though she could topple over at any time.

"We need a new plan," Seras said again to Adil. 

"Let's get look, then we can try something else."

As Seras launched her fist into the troll trying to absorb its essence she found the energies of the being pool into her axe. 

She received the notification: *50% progress till upgrade*

As much as she loved the axe, she felt a large discomfort a not getting another healing potion, she even got Adil to check the mutated goblin in case it was absorbed by the axe, though the corpse dropped nothing. The wolves had been scattered amongst the floor, and Adil collected their loot along with Swift. 

They received:

spear of binding,

- a short spear that temporarily disrupts the mana of those sabbed by it. Silencing enemies.

shield of echoes

-A shield that protects the user from attacks and recoil as the kinetic energy is absorbed by the dark void of tt's front 

chains of apologies

- binding oneself in these chains can reduce your power over mana.

Just then Adil realized something. he had received equipment perfect for the goblins whilst Swift had received something that would only be good to punish him and strip him of responsibility. It was as though the loot they were gathering was intuitively shaped by the essence of the one gathering it. Forged out of the essence in the corpse.

Adil handed the weapon and shield to Ezra, placing him in charge of protecting the goblins, hoping that brought them a slight amount more comfort. The chains were kept by a worker goblin. Hoping that it would somehow come in useful still.

 "Ezra" Adil called. The goblin grew to attention and came towards the squire.

"those barrels of liquid you threw yesterday. What was it?"

"It was mushroom drink, sir. dizzy drink (alcohol)." He said.

 "Can you make more or would it take too  much time?" He asked. 

"I would need time, and it would be difficult. it cannot brew easily. If you wish I can get you a drink" He said. Then motioned for a goblin worker to bring a flask.

The goblin ran over to where Adil was carrying his flask earnestly. 

"what are you doing?" Seras asked about to slap Adil.

"I tried to ask if they can brew more of this flammable stuff they had yesterday and they thought I wanted a drink."

Seras stopped for a moment.

"What? I wasn't going to drink it?"

"Not that. I  have a brewer skill. I can brew that stuff instantly with essence." Adil looked at her in a moment of pure wonder. To him, that was the key to everything.

"We need as many mushrooms as we can find," he said aloud. 

For the next few moments, Adil directed the group as they picked all the glowing mushrooms that illuminated the cave system. They filled their hands filled fashioned rags of clothes and overflowed Adils rucksack bringing them to a specific spot in a specific cavern. The mushrooms piling high in a small hole in part of the ground.

 Seras began smashing the mushrooms together before focusing her essence. She slowly fermented the brew, glowing green-blue mushrooms congealing within a yellow liquid. Eventually, there was a thick broth of sparkling yellow.

"How are we meant to move this?" Seras said. now looking at the pool of shining yellow with a hint of pride.

"it doesn't matter. We're here."

"Where?" Seras asked. 

"We're at the boss room." he replied. 

The team looked around they were just in the centre of another small cavern. One of the many they had passed through.

"Directly below us," Adil added. 

He pointed to a spot on the floor. 

"If you smash that spot, it'll lead right into that things room."