The only illumination was dusty sunlight streaming in through the exterior windows onto the faded and scratched linoleum. The only thing visible in the darkened office ahead of me was shadowed furniture. I knew they were there though, I could feel them.

Everyone quietly entered and grouped up. Mine stood around me as I told Sam what I could.

"There are so many in the rooms around here that I can't get much range, it's overwhelming." I pointed to the main office, the nurses office, and the two rooms that were on each side of the entrance. "Stuffed full. They seem weak but we might be overwhelmed by how many of them there are." Looking down the halls towards their ends we could see the three sets of stairs that led to the second floor. "There are a whole bunch above us but I don't think the elevator is working. We might want to keep an eye on the stairs though." I said.

"We should try to do this one room at a time. Lets get the reinforcements in here." Sam shook his head. "I was hoping that we'd do this without a cluster fuck. And here we are calling for reinforcements before we even start. I feel like I'm back in the Army."

We decided that getting the largest group first would be best so Meagan's team lined up on the left side of the office door while my team was on the right. Sam and his group faced the door while Stew and Mike's groups faced down the halls and watched our backs for any others that might show up.

When we were ready I reached forward and turned the knob on the office door. It was pulled open before I could even push on it. 

So many creatures came out it looked like a knee high wave rushed past me. They were screaming and cackling as they came out. They rushed past me, biting and scratching as they went, and I heard guns going off, booms from the shotguns and the crack of Sam's pistol. A shotgun blast flew past my arm and turned three of the creatures into three separate piles of bits. I suddenly wished I had covered some basic gun safety. I didn't know much but I figured 'Don't shoot at me' was pretty basic.

After the first rush I could see individual creatures. They were about a foot high and had large heads with needle-sharp teeth and floppy ears. Green and scrawny, they could scurry like nothing else.

‡ Lvl(1) Goblin ‡

Everyone started swinging, aiming for their swollen looking heads. I didn't see them holding any weapons but as one latched onto my leg and began chewing I realized they might not need any.

‡ You have received a minor wound -2HP ‡

I had a while before they chewed through my leg but it still didn't feel good. It wouldn't take too long for them to overwhelm someone at a lower level if a few goblins were chewing on them. I smashed it's head in before it could do more than bite me once.

 + Goblin(Earth Variant) +

A Shadow staple, these creatures have been formed from the nightmares of our minds.

+ Many Shadow creatures fall under the Goblin subclass. Small creatures that love to cause chaos and misery. +

It was only a few moments in when all the rooms holding goblins burst open and they began trying to swarm us. Even with the shotguns we were having trouble keeping them bottled up. There was one last boom next to me and then a click. John had run out of ammunition. Instead of switching to his bat he let the loss of the gun get to him, fumbling to reload. 

"Switch to your bat John!" I said.

The goblins took advantage of his lapse and climbed up his legs. They began yanking and pushing at him and he was knocked over. He yelled out as he fell.

As I moved towards him I cracked goblin heads, arms, and shoulders indiscriminately. Whatever I hit as I lay about me with my weapons. Two steps and I began to clear them away from his head. Once that was done I put my hand out for him to grab and yelled. "Hurry up and get up! Use your bat!"

I heard a voice that was both high pitched and growly at the same time from behind me. "Yeah yeah. Huh. Yeah Yeah."

Turning my head I saw two goblins struggling to hold up a shotgun, one with the barrel on it's shoulder while the other cradled the stock at it's waist. I almost crapped my pants when it pulled the trigger. The hammer fell on an empty chamber and my breath whooshed out.

Sam took care of them with his pistol. I looked back down at the man on the floor and kicked him in the ribs.

"We don't have time for this! Get up or I leave you." He managed to scramble up and start using his bat.

The other rooms were swiftly emptying out while it seemed the office in front of us was as full as ever. We were holding for now but we needed them to slow down or we would start losing ground. I studied the goblin movements with my ?Shadow Sense?. The ones on the second floor were moving over above the office. There must be an opening in the room. I strode to the door and kicked a goblin in the face and pulled it shut. The goblin was blocking the door with it's body. It was half in and half out cackling madly at me and waving it's arms around. I backhanded it in the face with my hammer and then kicked it all the way into the room. The door closed this time.

Once their reinforcements were cut off the ones left out in the hallway were taken care of in short order. I saw a few scorch marks on the walls were Gilberto had managed to take care of whole rows. Around Stew, Meagan, and Mike there were enough corpses they had begun to form piles. There must have been more than fifty goblins lying on the floor and I could tell that the numbers upstairs were hardly reduced at all.

By this point the goblins had quit trying to open the office door and moved back to the larger group above.

"Sam, I think they're coming back. We should get the injured out of here."

Sam glared around. "Alright. If you're injured or can't fight get out now. The rest of us need to get ready for them to come down the stairs. Dave which one?"

My sense followed them as they flowed towards the elevator. The elevator which wasn't working and stood in a shaft.

"They're coming down the elevator shaft now!"

"Backs towards the school doors, hurry. We can do this if we just keep swinging!" Sam said.

The goblins fell straight down from the second floor to the floor of the elevator. It started filling up. I thought I could hear a faint ringing sound.

"They're in the elevator now." I called out.

Suddenly the elevator door shifted and the ringing became clearer. Dozens, then hundreds of goblin fingers shoved their way into the doors and forced them open. There were so many that they practically flowed out, all of them right towards us. This time we had formed a line and we knew something of what to expect so we weathered the assault much more easily. This time nobody got more than a few bites or scraps from the goblins. The only problem for me was that I tried to [Stomp] a few and found that I was too slow, they could get around me while I stomped another. Malia got them off me with her tree stake and I just went back to swinging with my hammer and axe. I did figure out what the ringing was. One of the goblins was wearing a shako, a hat for the marching band, and was wildly striking a triangle while running around in circles behind the scrum of fighting.

The initial rush had only lasted about a minute before I shut the office door and they were cleared out. This wave kept up for a wearying five minutes. At the end there was a barricade of goblin corpses in front of us knee high. The only thing I could sense was the triangle goblin still obliviously ringing away, and a denser source of power above us in the top of the bell tower. I watched as Stew walked over to the last goblin and tore the triangle away. It blinked up at him confused, the hat precariously perched on it's floppy ears. Stew raised his hands and growled at it and it scampered off towards the stairs. I turned towards Sam to let him know about the enemies I could sense.

"Sam, I think that was all the lower level stuff in here. They just tried to overwhelm us. One thing though. Whatever is upstairs feels a lot bigger than the quest said. Maybe even twice as much." I said.

"Shit. What does that mean? Actually, never mind that. What do you think we should do?" Sam asked quietly.

"Give everyone a few minutes and head up. Maybe only take uninjured people who made it to level four. If they are only a few HP down I can heal a few people too."

There had been so many goblins that nearly everyone involved made it to level four. The only ones who didn't were a few that got injured and had left before the big wave.

I also took the opportunity to check my own stats. As I had thought the goblins were too low leveled to give me XP but I did get a number of Skill Points. I got four levels proficiency for both hammer and axe as well as a new skill called Battle Field Awareness up to second level. When I saw that I had gotten two new Titles I was reminded to tell Sam we should make sure everyone takes care of any gained Attribute Points and Titles. He put Mike on that while I studied my own new titles. I think I had enough points to master one even. I dump points into Hammer Initiate.

Hammer Initiate - You have begun to see the use of hammers

•Learn: [Shattering Blow], Str+1

•Attack +5% when using a hammer

•Learn: [Thrust], Dex+1

•Attack +5% when using a hammer, Str +1

•Learn: {Imbue Hammer}, Int+1

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Axe Initiate - You have begun to see the use of Axes

•Learn:[Chop], Str+1

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