Things were a mess out on the street. The back of the inn they had come out of was on fire. As was most of the town. There was a wooden palisade delineating the edge of the town. That was on fire too. The city militia was doing battle with a group of six green fuckers, and was being sniped by rock-throwing goblins.

"I would summon Mr. Linty, but there is too much fire already. Oh. Wait for a second. I bought a "[Basic Summon: Earth Elemental] spell. Let me try that out."

I summoned an Earth Elemental, and a two-foot-high perfect copy of "Thing" from the Fantastic Four appeared. He was cute. "I shall call you El Grumpy" The elemental accepted his name by throwing clods of dirt up into the air, leaving a divot in the road.

The image of El Grumpy on the party status had its health and a button that looked like El Grumpy submerged in the earth. While I checked out the party status, I buffed everyone up, ensuring the group was healed up and had refreshed stamina.

Sid faded into invisibility, and Emily moved forward with her brand-new shield facing outward. Massive sword in hand. "Let's kill some goblins."

I nodded, pulling my own sword out. And we advanced slowly on a group of six goblins holding torches, whom I began to blast with electricity. Another group of goblins ran out from behind a building and began throwing rocks at us. I commanded El Grumpy to harry them.

The rocks were nothing but a nuisance distraction, and Em's sword came down more like a club than a blade on the head of the first goblin she encountered. Sid stepped out of somewhere dark and stuck his knives in one of the goblin's backs before disappearing.

I began to lie shocked on the rock, throwing goblins while watching the ones in front of us and the party's health status. Em, swung her sword and decapitated a goblin. A goblin was in front of me, so I zapped it and stuck my sword into its gut as it spasmed and seized up from the electricity running through its body.

Sid kept reappearing and disappearing, and a goblin fell every time he showed up. I mostly ignored him while I followed behind Em, protecting her flanks and ensuring she stayed healed while she taunted goblins out of hiding.

We were like a low-level agricultural harvesting machine, pulling goblins to us, and leaving neat rows of their broken, bleeding bodies out behind us. We fought for hours, and I kept a steady stream of stamina replenishment on Sid, Em, and myself. I could not have done it without my [Basic: Increase Mana Regeneration] myself. Even so, I had to conserve Mana and limit my damage spells. Without it, I would have run out of Mana after nearly 20 minutes of this fight. Despite keeping everyone going, I killed my fair share of the little green shits.

Finally, as the sun rose from behind the distant mountains, we seemed to run out of goblins. "Lucky they didn't all come at us at once. We might have been overwhelmed."

"Luck had nothing to do with it. I didn't keep my taunt up. I only used it in short bursts when we were done fighting the group we were working on. We should think about getting another person for our little group, Randy. You cover too many different roles. And we desperately need another DPS.

Quimby ran over to us, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. That was the biggest attack so far. They seemed to be getting more and more daring with their raids. They have never breached the town walls before.

"Glad we could help," I said as a large man ran over.

"You must be the Adventurers who brought back Quimby yesterday. I was going to introduce myself to you yesterday. I am so overwhelmed a the luck that put you here last night." He said.

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"The goblins have never attacked in such numbers before. Over 20 buildings have burnt down, and at last count, there have been 35 deaths. We do not know if they took anyone, like young Quimby. Usually, they only attack a farmhouse and retreat from our militia patrols. I am the town mayor, by the way. You are adventurers. Can you enter the Dinge and remove the core for us? Removing the core will destroy the dungeon. After that, you can do what you want with it. Destroying the Goblin Dinge is the only way to ensure our village remains safe."

"You are asking a lot from us," I said, "that Dungeon is our only way back to my world, and we were planning on milking it for resources."

"You can use any Dinge to travel back to your world. I know of three within a seven-day walk from here." The Mayor said. "Not all of them send out raiding parties, and we often ignore the quiet ones. Still, if you are worried about returning to your world and need a Dinge to do it, we can help.

"This is a big decision for us. We would like to see for ourselves if we can go back home through a different dungeon. Would you mind having someone take us to the nearest one?"

Sid Said, "What are you thinking, Randy?"

"I wouldn't mind finding a second dungeon. New epic loot. I like this town, but I'm not entirely sold on destroying my dungeon to rescue it. We will need to clear it eventually, though, and we will need a dungeon core to form a guild. What bugs me is that if anyone can clear a dungeon from this side, My dungeon isn't as protected as I thought. Anyone who wants a core doesn't have to go through my front door or go through our little safe room. They can just wander over to it from this side, clear the place and make off with my core."

I turned to the Mayor and asked, "So do you think you could take us to this second dungeon?" And when he nodded, I asked, "When do you think we could head out."

"Let me see if a hunter in town knows the area. We lost a lot of people last night."

"Oh. I am so sorry. I know some healing. Do you want me to cast any spells on your people?"

"The town healers have set up over there." The Mayor said, pointing to two harried-looking people surrounded by folks trying to get their attention.

"Looks like a mess. Oh well, no rest for the wicked, I guess. Sid, Em, would you mind creating a little order out of all that chaos."

Instead of directly healing everybody, I cast [Increased Mana Recover] and [increase Stamina Recovery] on the healers and watched their fatigue disappear. Most of the hard work had already been done. The need for triage was over. Now it was just fixing up a few minor booboos left over from the fighting.

Sid and Em got the waiting patients into orderly lines, and we were finished in less than an hour. I felt that my help had barely been needed, but the healers felt otherwise and came to thank me repeatedly.

The Mayor came over with a gristly, bearded man. The man looked more like a Brooklyn hipster than the promised hunter. I halfway expected him to ironically pull out a can of Pabst blue ribbon and a pack of Pall Malls and start debating the merit of obscure indie bands instead of leading us into the wilderness to find this other dungeon.

Before we left, I bought a backpack at the general store, some dried rations, and a waxed bedroll. Sleeping on Cashmere robes was all well and good, but like eating only bagels, it got old soon.

Saying goodbye took less time than I expected. And we set out almost immediately. Hofred the [hunter] led us north-west according to my [Find North] spell. We spent the day walking until Hofred led us to a small clearing that had obviously been used many times before as a place hunters or villagers stopped and rested. There was a small wooden building with a sand floor and wooden slabs jutting out of the walls to place bedrolls. Someone had already dug a well, a latrine, and a fire pit.

Judging by the balls of fur and bones littering the floor, some sort of owl had taken residence in the building. We quickly cleaned the place, hung our packs, and set out our bedrolls for the night.

Hofred disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a small hoofed animal that looked a little like a deer but was about the size of a giant continental rabbit. Which he skinned, bled, and gutted, then prepared over the fire with some herbs he had found somewhere.

"So, Hofred, any advice on buying skills?"

"Enlarged inventory," Hofred grunted. "Everything else you teach yourself. Or someone teach you. Buy skills. Waste money. Save experience for level. Eat." He said, spearing the meat off the spit with a curved knife and cutting bits off onto a plate. None of us had thought to bring dishes, so we summoned more bagels and made sandwiches.

"Making a list of stuff we forgot. Add dishes and a propane hiking stove. Sleeping bags and tents. We have a much bigger place to explore, it would seem."