Looking back horrified, I expected to see that the kids were being torn apart, but instead, I saw that Sienna was making excellent use of the spear I had given her. Already one of the small goblins was gutted and dying on the ground and while she waved the longer polearm from side to side keeping the other three at bay. Just as I had the thought, two darted to her right while the remaining one went left. Like they had planned it in advance, the two older siblings split. The girl drove the spear into one of the duo’s abdomen before quickly pulling it out to swing the haft to knock the other one back. While Aspen lept forward, bringing down the club on his opponent’s head, cracking it open with the first blow. He ignored the monster’s death and continued to rain down more blows, screaming in rage as he released his furry on the cousins of those who had killed his parents.
Looking over to Gaian I saw that he was also doing fine, already he had hooked one of the shields away and he was forcing the three elites back with massive swipes of his front paws. Turning back to my own fight I couldn’t tell what the problem was, the littlest one wasn’t bleeding, maybe she was just scared for her siblings.
Both groups of goblins that I had knocked down used my distraction to regain their feet and charged toward me, once again unpleasantly skewing the odds in their favor. Anxious to get them as close to in my favor as possible, I charged at the one I had kicked, slamming the stone in the club’s face into his head to take him out before he could rise. Spinning wildly I swung hard, threatening the five that had grouped up, forcing them to take a couple of steps back to avoid a similar outcome.
As they tried circling around me I glanced around to see if there was anything nearby I could use to split them up. The ground was remarkably flat for a cave, with only the body of the shaman lying on the ground a short distance of the way. Taking a chance, I turned and hurled my club at the spearman whose sole focus was on the bear. Sprinting for the body, I quickly reclaimed my spear that had ended the magic user’s life. The bear quick on the uptake, charged forward and started ripping the bashers apart now that he was no longer being threatened by the blade. Continuing forward he slammed his paws down onto the fallen spear holder, finishing him off on the chance my club to the head hadn’t caused him to expire on the spot.
Spinning while I pulled the spear out of the shaman’s body, I sent the blade swinging around in a low swing, taking out two of the fodder that had followed too close behind me. While their three slower companions skidded to a halt. Stepping over my knife that I had dropped to the ground so I could put my full weight into the swing, I started making quick small thrusts driving the other three back. Taking a second to look over at the kids, Sienna had managed to take out the last of her goblins, had picked up her sister, and was trying to quiet her down while her brother continued to smash his kill into jam.
Dashing forward I continued to make small thrusts, herding the three of them toward a wall, as they continued to retreat rather than face the blade. Lunging, I surprised them and managed to take out another one driving the blade low into his belly. As the blade got stuck in the other two turned and began running for two of the exits splitting up in their bid to get away. Not wanting them to get out and bring back any of their friends. I put my foot on the body and with a massive heave, pulled the spear out. Rearing back I threw it at one of the retreating monsters before taking off after the other one.
With my longer legs, I managed to catch up to him. Diving forward, I tackled him to the ground. Pushing on his back so he couldn’t turn and use his natural weapons against me, I grabbed his mohawk with my right hand and started slamming his head into the ground several times until I felt him go limp. Getting up I turned to go retrieve my spear so I could make sure he was finished off. Staring in horror as the goblin I had only knocked down was just finished getting back to his own feet. I felt my stomach starting to fall as I realized I had nothing to throw at him and he was too far away for me to reach before he made it to the tunnel.
Only to breathe a sigh of relief a few moments later as the bear finished his charge and ripped off the monster’s head. It seemed he had noticed the same problem as I had. Looking around to make sure there weren’t any more obvious threats, I finally followed the invasion down to my core to finally see what had happened since the explosion of energy that had destroyed the cores over a week ago.
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Following the energy down, I was dragged straight to my core. Feeling the energy attacking my center, I settled down and forced myself into my meditative state, spinning up my defenses. Seeing the walls begin to pulse in time with my breathing I looked to see the soothing green energy flying towards my center to set up the familiar barrier. It seemed that between defending myself from the exp and any I had managed it siphon away from the sky gods, my share had gone from several floating shields to a ribbon that surrounded my center.
Spinning the ribbon around faster, I felt the pain in my center I had been ignoring begin to lessen. Leaving my defense on autopilot I looked around the massive cavern expecting to see the broken cores floating around. But as I continued my search I wasn’t able to find them. I did see a small hole opposite of the entry I had made when I first broke in here. Sending my consciousness over to the edge I saw it leading back out into my bloodstream, I’m guessing whatever I had been dragging into me hadn’t been able to escape and had forced my core to try and expand until it was able to force a way out. Looking at the edges I expected them to be ragged and torn but instead, they had seamlessly grown into my channels.
Looking closer at it I tried to discern what was entering and exiting my core, to flow through my body, but whatever it was continued to manage to evade my senses. Not wanting to disrupt my Chaos from directing my defenses I declined to try to spin the invisible energy faster in an attempt to identify it. Instead, I continued to move my focus around searching for the cores I knew had to be here. Sending my focus flying around I continued to search only to find nothing. Looking back to the center I saw another of the green order bricks drop away after I had claimed it. Taking the chance to solve another of the mysteries on my list, I followed it as it continued to fall toward the edge.
Incredibly small, when compared to my core as a whole, it was like holding up my wallet and comparing it to Mount Everest. Or maybe Mt. Tai, when things are that large it can be hard to be sure of the scale. Losing track of it, I held my focus where it was and soon enough another brick came hurtling down the same invisible path. Resuming my chase, I followed it even closer to the edge before again having to wait for another one to come along so I could continue to follow. This one seemed to be the lucky fellow and I managed to shadow it down to the surface of the core’s walls.
Looking at the pile of order bricks, it seemed my defenses had been busy as there was a decent size pile sitting there. Laying amongst them were the broken pieces of the cores I had shattered. Staring down I couldn’t believe how small they were, there looked to be about forty pieces of shattered glass, and seeing as all of it was green that meant the other cores had disappeared to somewhere else in this massive cavern and unless I figured out how to gather a mountain of them and absorb them I doubted I would be finding them anytime soon. All together the shattered pieces measured about the size of three of the bricks.
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Looking back to the center I saw that all of the invading energy had either been devoured or had departed, taking a chance I stopped my breathing pattern and looked out to see the pool of green energy start hurtling this way. As it crashed down into the area I was in, I half expected it to scatter everything else away, but instead, I saw that just flowed over it leaving it alone. Focusing on the cores for now I started trying to put the pieces together like a jigsaw puzzle, between the jagged edges and the lines running through them I quickly found two that would go together.
Pressing them close, I saw the green energy begin to glow for a second as the two pieces fused together. Quickly identifying different pieces of the puzzle I started adding to it. I saw from the way it was shaping to be more like a globe shape that I had found the core from Bruiser I had taken after the rabbit showdown. As it was smaller than the other two it only took three more pieces until it was whole again. Feeling it pull on my hand I let it go, anxious to see what it would do. Watching it fly back towards the center where my Chaos motes were being stored I followed it up, expecting that to be where I ended up. Instead, it only ended up going halfway there, hovering between the two suspended in nothing. Looking down I realized I wasn’t able to see where the other two cores were anymore.
Maintaining my position I tried activating it to see what it could do. Mentally poking and prodding it, it refused to listen to my commands. With two options I tried the one that might help me identify the invisible energy that had destroyed them to begin with. Spinning it up like I was trying to send it out in a punch I focused on my breathing. Watching the green energy pour back to my center I saw it spinning around it. Feeling the invisible energy begin to flow faster, I still was unable to see it. However, the core began to glow with a slight light. As it started to glow green it continued to get brighter until it reached a tipping point and sent out a blast of green energy flying out to the new exit hole that had been torn into my core.
Following it out, I watched as it went streaming through my channels breaking pieces of itself off and sending them into my muscles. Feeling a strength begin to build in my arms, I suddenly felt myself being pulled back to my body, out of the dimension that my core maintained around me.
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Looking around at the hovering pools of energy over the goblins, I saw that Sienna was still comforting Lotus who was still continuing to sob. Taking that to mean that time passed on a different level in my out of body experiences. I continued to feel the strength build in my body and I realized I didn’t have an outlet for it. Not wanting to punch a brick wall and hurt my hand, I instead punched the body of the monster whose head I had pulverized. I stared in shock at the explosion of gore I caused. Looking over to the head that was rolling away, I stared down at the smear of blood and flesh that was mixed in with the dirt of the cave floor. Pulling out some shards of bones from the ground, I looked at my hand in amazement. There was nothing left of the goblin’s torso while the limbs had also been flung several feet away. When I heard the bear questioning growl to me, I realized I had splattered him with some of the blood and guts.
Calling out a quick. “Sorry!” I held back a laugh, he was already covered with plenty of blood from his own kills so it wasn’t like my experiment made much of a difference, but I understood it was the principle of the matter. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been happy if he sprayed me with goblin innards. Walking over and reclaiming my spear from where it lay I felt happier with a weapon in hand. Heading over to where Sienna was trying to comfort Lotus, I paused and stepped up to the boy, grabbing his arm on the backswing.
As he turned toward me, I noticed his eyes were unfocused in rage. When he started swinging his free arm at me, I gripped his arm with the club tighter and dropping my spear, pulled him into a hug. Letting his unarmed hand pound ineffectively on my back. I spoke gently to him, knowing the words didn’t matter but hoping my calm voice would eventually get through to him. Finally, he stopped swinging and I let him stumble back from me. Only reaching out to steady him when it looked like he would fall. As he stared at me with now clear eyes I pulled him back in for another hug as I saw tears start forming in the corners.
Hugging him tightly as he began to sob, I looked over his shoulder as his older sister started forward. Waving her back, I was sure if he was like me when I was younger, he was doing his best to be the man of the family and didn’t want his sister seeing his moment of weakness, however deserved it might be. After a couple of minutes, he calmed down and started breathing easier. As he started to pull himself back together and try to move away, I held him by the shoulders and looked down into his eyes. When he started to duck his head down to avoid eye contact I reached out to hold his chin until he was willing to look me in the eyes. Holding out my right hand, I waited for him to reach out and grab it. With my hand still on his shoulder stopping him from pulling away, he eventually figured it out and reached out his own hand to grab mine. Shaking it firmly, I finally let him go to head over to his sisters.
As he dashed over them I could tell I had freaked him out a little, but if they were going to travel with me after we finally escaped these caves, I was going to treat them like equals, whether they liked it or not. I had a feeling that the outside world was a whole lot worse in that regard, but if they wanted to stay with me that meant learning to hold their heads high come what may. Giving them a second to settle each other down, I decided to go collect more of the green after battle energy. Looking around with a start I saw that all of it was gone, sure that I would have felt the sky god’s vortices had they been sent down. I wondered if the dungeon had a way to absorb the energy, taking it back to form more monsters. After the next battle, I was sure would be coming, I would have to keep a better eye on the surroundings and be quicker so I could get my share.
Picking my spear back up, I went to collect the rest of my weapons and see what I could loot. Not bothering with the fodder goblins as we were already loaded down as it was, I went first to the mage. None of the rags he was wearing seemed to be worth anything so I ignored them and instead cut out his core which ended up being the expected red. Nearly a full globe, it was the size of a nickel. Which I pegged to be one of the more valuable ones I had found in my time on this world, at least if you take the troll’s out of the equation. The two bruisers had a brown and a green one, while the spear holder had a yellow one. Finding four of the five colors in a room was a little suspect, but I figured if I dug through all of the fodder there would be more of the green variety and a blue might be sprinkled in the mix.
Temporarily calling it for now, I was prepared to just start calling the cores by their elements while being willing to take it back if I found evidence to counter my prevailing theory. Green the color of wood, or life seemed to be the most prevalent, but there didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to how the rest were found. Picking up the additional spear I started bringing the weapons over to the pack. Grabbing one of the shields I decided to bring it along for me while I thought the second one would be too heavy for the kids, so I left it behind. I did take the armor they were wearing. While It was too small for me I thought it would give some more protection to the older children. If this was the first room there was no way Gaian and I would be able to keep them out of the upcoming fights. Gathering up the two clubs, I added them to the basket, leaving us with four of them for back up weapons.
Heading back to the children I planned to offer them their pick of the cores to see if I could learn how the humans of this world used them and get some ideas for finally having magic of my own.