Felix threw up his hands, casting a hasty shield that encompassed himself, Mouse, and Gawain. Mouse grabbed Felix by the waist and jumped up onto a nearby wardrobe, out of the goblins’ immediate reach. They scrambled up the wardrobe, toenails clawing up the beautiful cherry finish, but their awkward strikes bounced off Felix’s shield.

“No! Get back!” Reginald screeched. Goblins swarmed his bed, besieging it from all sides. Panicked, he beat the goblins back with a pillow. The blanket swirled around his body, showing unfortunately large flashes of flabby flesh. The ones he struck fell back, but the ones behind them immediately took their place, slowly encroaching Reginald’s bed.

“Should we save him?” Felix asked quietly.

“I think he’s got this handled,” Mouse replied.

A bright white light at the door. Mouse spun. Spar, in horse form, charged the door, then bounced back. Shaking his head, he approached more slowly and nudged the mesh with his horn. It gave a little, then reshaped.

“Sparklemuffin, no! Bad boy! Don’t break it!” Felix shouted.

“Good timing, Spar!” Mouse lifted a hand, palm up, toward Spar. Silver light streamed toward Spar. The gold mesh intercepted it, then let it through, and the silver connected to Spar’s horn.

Spar jerked back, startled, then closed his eyes and lowered his head slightly, pointing the horn directly at Mouse. White light suffused the connection, overwhelming the silver.

“This isn’t a perfect situation, but… would you like to watch the purification ritual?” Mouse asked.

Felix nodded eagerly.

Mouse smiled and gestured. The pure white light passed from the link and circulated around his waist, wrists, and head, forming a horizontal halo around each. He flung a hand out, and another halo materialized. This one grew larger and larger until it fell over the whole room, encircling the goblins and Reginald alike. Felix reached out, amazed, as the halo passed gently through his shield to encircle him and Mouse as well

“This technique only works for mild cases of blight like these goblins have, where it hasn’t lingered or deepened. If it was more advanced, like Sidd’s, to the point they could no longer speak coherently in any tongue known to the Barrier Alliance, then I might as well toss a snowball into a furnace.”

Felix nodded, scribbling in his notebook.

“Additionally, the beings cannot be inherently hostile to me. Which is to say, this technique will not work on darkfoes, monsters, beasts--not beastfolk, mind you, but beasts--or other races or individuals which cannot conceive of me as a benevolent force. Usually, we only use this technique on other moon elves, but these goblins know me, so it should work.”

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Atop his shoulders, Gawain stood up. “Listen up, you idiots! Let the pretty elf help you, alright? That’s an order!”

Mouse drew his hand back toward himself and pressed his palms together. The large halo spilt into dozens of smaller halos, each one blindingly white and floating around a goblin’s waist. One formed around Gawain as well, but not around Reginald or his ladyfriend on the bed.

Sweat beaded up on Mouse’s back. His breathing grew uneven under the strain of the spell. He bit his lip and pressed his hands together harder, brows furrowed. Magic poured out of him with every moment. His body grew heavy, and he shuddered slightly. Even with the Moon Goddess’ blessing, this is the limit of my ability.

“Eh? I’m blighted?”

“It likely transferred to you when they touched you or attacked,” Mouse commented calmly.

Gawain looked at Mouse, suddenly panicked. “Touched? Did I blight you?”

Mouse shrugged. “The technique purifies the caster as well. Don’t worry about it.”

Felix reached up and touched Gawain. His fingertips blackened, and a halo formed around him, as well.

Pain lanced through Mouse’s forehead from the added strain. Mouse stared. Why?

“I want to experience it,” Felix explained.

Mouse gritted his teeth. Dammit, Felix.

Pressing on, Mouse slowly separated his palms and moved to the next pose, one hand on his chest, one hand into the sky. “With this, I transfer all blight out of the goblins and neutralize it with moonlight. Spar is helping me here—he’s a celestial beast of light, and therefore is uniquely aligned both with this spell and against blight.”

Spar huffed proudly from the doorway.

Alright. Here we go. Mouse took a deep breath and closed his eyes. In the ancient elven tongue, he spoke, “From dark to dust, from blight to sky. As if stars, shall ashes fly. Moonlight shimmers, a welcome home. From black to ash, from ash to bone.”

The halos drew inward suddenly, clenching to starbursts that lit the goblins, Felix, and Mouse from the inside. The goblins convulsed. White light suffused the black marks on their skin and peeled it away in flakes of ash until there was nothing left but healthy green.

Felix watched his fingertips glow with great interest, jotting notes one-handedly with the other. “I’ve never seen a spell like this.”

“It’s… not commonly used outside our… lands,” Mouse grit out. Blight prickled at his neck where the spell lifted it away. The strain of casting it so large built over him, a hammer threatening to fall at any second. His head pounded, growing light. His body shook. Knees slipping, he tensed and barely caught himself before they gave out.

All the starbursts suddenly streamed out of the goblins’ bodies and converged on Mouse. He tensed, and then the pain hit. Icy cold, colder than he could bear, rushed through him and up, out of his hand. His arm softened, trembling. He supported it with his other hand and barely propped it up. Purified blight burned through the cold, cutting the ice with a fever heat. He shivered uncontrollably. Eyes bursting open, he stared upward, white light beaming from them into the sky.

The light petered out. The goblins toppled to the ground, groaning. Gawain jumped off Mouse’s shoulders. She darted from one to the next, hovering only a second before she ran on. “Guy! Gavin! Gina! Are you okay? Gable? Gobbo?”

Exhausted, Mouse sagged. Before Felix could notice how tired he was, he sat abruptly on top of the wardrobe, legs dangling. Felix climbed down and offered him a hand. Mouse ignored it, not sure he could climb down without falling on his ass. He smiled exhaustedly, secretly proud of himself. That's the first time I've ever pulled off a mass purification.

Lazily, he gestured at the groaning goblins, as if it had been no problem at all. "There you go. A purification ritual."