The following day started much like the one before. The party ate an early breakfast where they went over their gains from the previous day and discussed any new abilities as well as their fighting tactics.

“I got a new ability, but I’m not sure I want to use it.” Hazel shared.

“Oh? Show it to us.” Nolan recommended.

Hazel shared the new ability with the party.

> Class Ability: Chaos Wave

> Level: 1

> Description: At the cost of 75% of the caster's total mana, they can unleash a chaotic wave of magic that has random effects. If the caster has less than 75% of their mana remaining, their health will be used in its place.

“Seems like a last resort skill.” Willow suggested.

“But it levels. I wonder if she’ll get more control over the spell as she increases her level in it?” Arden mused.

“How is she supposed to level a spell when she has no idea what will happen when she casts it?” Nolan questioned. “Seems risky.”

“That’s what I thought!” exclaimed Hazel.

“Nothing wrong with a little bit of risk. How about you cast that when we find our first group of goblins this morning and let’s see what happens?” Arden recommended.

“Why first thing this morning?” Asked Willow

“So if it goes horribly wrong we’re all still fresh enough to fight or run from it.”

“Makes sense,” Nolan said. “Anyone else get anything good?”

Willow raised her hand, “I got an ability that gives me information on plants.”

“I got an aura ability that says it will boost to my allies willpower and composure if they’re within a certain range of me,” Arden added.

Nolan tilted his head in thought before responding, “Why willpower and composure? This makes several times now that we have seen references to hidden stats.”

“I’m not sure. Seems like the more we learn about this new world the more questions we have. But, maybe this ability will keep people from losing heart in the middle of a fight?”

“As good of a guess as any, I suppose. We really need some sort of guide. Liam’s and Regina’s groups have a real advantage over us with the training they’re receiving.”

“Agreed. So what new skill, spell, or whatever did you get?”

“I got one that is suppose to make me more resistant to mind-control and emotional manipulation.”

“Really? That plus the skill we got to resist mind-control. Seems like another case where the gods are preparing us for something, doesn’t it?”

“My thoughts exactly. Guess we should figure out a way to level that up along with all the other skills.”

“I suppose so. Let’s go drop Ewan off and get started.” Arden said as he got up.

⚷

Just over an hour later the party was easing through the forest trying to stay quiet as they followed Arlo to what they hoped were some sleeping goblins.

Instead they came upon a group of goblins that were in the process of building a series of traps. Nolan motioned for the party to stop. Arden used [Message] to let Hazel know it was time. Hazel stepped out in front of the party and approached the goblins as she activated [Chaos Wave] for the first time.

Immediately wind blew from Hazel and then bubbles started to form around her and get blown out toward the goblins.

The goblins, for there part, were confused and immediately dropped their tools and charged the sorceress. Until one of the goblins was touched by one of the bubbles. The goblin was immediately pulled into the bubble which continued to float along. The goblin struggled to get free but the bubble simply contorted and expanded, refusing to free the goblin.

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Seeing this, another goblin ran up to the bubble the first goblin was in and tried to pop it with his claw. As soon as his claw touched the bubble, he too was pulled inside.

The bubbles continued to float toward the goblins and the party realized that the bubbles appeared to be attracted to the goblins, following them as they started to panic, speeding up as they got closer.

Then Willow noticed something about the two in the first bubble, “Hey guys, look! It’s shrinking.” Sure enough the bubble with the two goblins in it was getting smaller and smaller. As they watched, the goblins started getting smashed together, then crushed. Then the goblins and the bubble popped and gore burst out. As the party watched, the other bubbles continued to shrink and pop, killing whatever was inside of them.

After the last of the goblins had popped the area went quiet. Everyone just looked around at the scene in front of them.

“Well,” said Willow, “that was something.”

“Playful but deadly,” Nolan muttered before looking over at Hazel. “Seems about right.”

“Wonder what will happen the next time she casts that spell?” Arden mused. “It took what, five minutes for that to kill everything? Hazel, how’s your mana pool?”

“I’m just over half.”

“Instead of being a last resort ability,” Arden turned to Nolan, “I like it more as an opener. Even if it isn’t this powerful every time, the randomness of it all would help to throw off the other side.”

Nolan just shrugged. “Maybe, but it could throw off our side as well. Let’s do some more testing”

The party just left the goblins without trying to loot anything.

They continued hunting and soon Arlo found another trail. This time they were able to sneak up on sleeping goblins without setting off any traps. Everyone drew their dagger and went to work. As they left the goblin camp Willow looked over to the others and asked, “Does it bother y’all that we’re killing other people?”

Hazel raises and eyebrow at the question, “But they aren’t people. They’re goblins.”

“Just because they aren’t human doesn’t mean they aren’t people. We know they can speak. We know they can learn to use weapons and build traps. They have to be sapient.”

Interjecting before the sisters get too wound up, Arden says, “Yes they are likely sapient which would make them people. And yes, it does bother me. But they’ve been murdering the people of Wildemill for some time and they’re only in this area because they ostensibly plan to continue doing so.”

Nolan nods his head, “Yeah, all life is sacred. But until one of these buggers is willing to talk before attacking, I’m fine with doing what needs to be done.”

“You realize those two statements you just said are contradictory, right?” Willow asked Nolan.

“Yes. What can I say, I’m a complex person.”

The group spent another three hours searching before they were able to find another group of goblins. This time they were awake so they gave Hazel’s [Chaos Wave] spell another go. The results were not as deadly but no less spectacular as it turned the area blue. The goblins, the grass, the trees, everything in front of Hazel for about 50 feet was just blue. This didn’t seem to harm anything, but it did surprise the goblins and gave the party an opening during the start of the fight and they were able to quickly subdue them all. They waited around for about half an hour before the blue started to fad and everything went back to it’s normal color.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Arlo was finding a lot of trails and the party saw many tracks, but it seemed like the goblins were intentionally going in circles and trying to create false trails.

They went to check the two poison traps they had built the night before. Both appeared to have been set off but neither had any goblins in them.

“Didn’t y’all say a proper pit trap should have spikes. We just put Hazel’s poison gas in there.” Willow said as they were all standing around looking at one of the traps.

“Yeah, it really was just an idea without any testing. We don’t know if the poison would even hurt the goblins.” Nolan added.

“Let’s hold off on building more traps until we have time to test the ideas,” Arden said. “We don’t even know how long the poison gas Hazel’s spell creates will last. It could dissipate an hour after she summons it or something.”

“So I didn’t do anything wrong?” Hazel asked hesitantly.

“No, this was just poor planning,” Nolan answered.

Arden used the dirt they had stored in his pack the previous day to refill one of the pits and Willow used her [Mold Earth] spell to fill the other. Afterwards they went ahead and returned to town.

The following day of hunting started out much like the previous one ended. Hours spent looking for more goblins with nothing to show for it. Nolan decided to lead the party further south, in hopes that a new hunting ground would be more fruitful and they did have some fortune, finding two groups of goblins. It was well after lunch by the time they defeated the second group so they decided to head back to town since they were further away than normal.

On their fourth day of hunting the party traveled south until nearly lunch time, covering about fifteen miles. After a quick snack, they let Arlo start hunting. Arlo soon found a trail that headed in a north easterly direction which they followed for another three miles before they came upon a single goblin scout that was hiding in a tree. After taking care of the scout they continued north while Arlo searched for another trail but didn’t find anything. Eventually they gave up and returned to town about an hour before sunset.

The fifth day they went out, they crossed the river on the west side of town and started scouting the forest there while moving in a southward direction. After a few hours of not seeing any evidence of the goblins on that side of the river they crossed back over the river, spending the afternoon searching the area where they hunted earlier in the week to see if any goblins had returned. Unfortunately the afternoon was just as unfruitful as the morning and they returned to town tired and feeling down.