Chapter 15.

“You bastards!” Junior shouted at the goblins who had injured his little brother. He brought up his crossbow even as the goblin who had shot Luke was drawing another arrow. They aimed at each other, but Junior pulled the trigger first, and his bolt took the goblin in the eye. The goblin’s arrow still flew, but aimlessly it bounced into the wall instead of coming anywhere close to the party.

It was at that moment that Eli finally noticed something odd about the goblins; their eyes were pure white. He wasn’t quite certain why he hadn’t noticed before, or why he was only noticing now, but they had no iris or pupil to be seen. The realization that this had been the case all along hit him all at once, although he had no understanding of what it meant. He came to this realization in a flash even as the others in the party moved into action to continue fighting their opponents.

John Sr. stepped forward and launched his own crossbow bolt at one of the goblins in the front, taking it in the abdomen, and Susan likewise took a shot, but it went wide.

Alaina rushed over to Luke and began examining the injury even as the boy gasped and cried out from the pain.

Maia, Peter and Mattie moved to intercept the oncoming rush of goblins. Fortunately the walls of the hallway effectively limited the goblins, preventing the party from surrounding the melee members or getting at the more vulnerable party members in back. Unfortunately that also meant that once the crossbow wielders had reloaded, they couldn’t get a clear shot without hitting the fighters protecting them.

The three melee fighters stood shoulder to shoulder and met a charge of goblins, each carrying a primitive weapon. They screamed out in a mad frenzy. The fighters fought fiercely, Mattie with her crowbar, Peter with his baseball bat, and Maia with the club she’d stolen from a dead goblin earlier in the day.

Fortunately the humans had the advantage of reach over the shorter goblins, in addition to being more coherently organized. Each of the combatants was surprised to find that once the fighting started, their fears and doubts faded to the wayside and they were able to ignore everything except for the moment, and the next moment, and the next moment. They couldn’t plan any further than a few seconds in advance, they were busy reacting to the vicious attacks of the goblins. So they simply allowed their bodies to react.

Eli felt himself wishing that he could do something to help, but as he watched he knew that he’d only get in the way. He was ready to step forward if it came to him, but--

“Help them,” Gabri said, landing on his shoulder.

“I’ll just get in the way,” Eli protested.

“Not if you use your magic,” Gabri said. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? You should have the Skill, you just need to press it to them.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I’m not a Scholar. I know how your abilities work but I don’t know how they feel . But you should be able to empower their weapons from here, so do that ,” Gabri suggested.

Eli frowned. He looked down at his baseball bat, covered in permanent ink and rubber cement. He activated the enchantment on it, feeling his Maximum Mana dip slightly as the enchantment took his magic.

To his surprise, he felt a sudden resonance.

Most keenly he felt it on Peter’s own baseball bat. Reaching out in a way that he didn’t have the words to describe, he felt the connection between the two weapons form. Suddenly the magic that had been encapsulating his own bat was surrounding Peter’s weapon instead. The next time the younger boy swung his weapon, it cracked straight through the defending goblin’s shield and sent the little man-shaped creature flying and blood spraying against the walls.

The boy looked down at his bat, surprised.

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“I’ve got it,” Eli said, and he reinforced the connection between his bat and Peter’s. Even as he did, he began empowering his other enchantments.

He pushed more mana through the bat and found that it would click into place to form a second enchantment, although it seemed less efficient when he did it like this. He ignored the inefficiency and focused on the resonance between his bat and his mother’s crowbar. She too swung her weapon and jerked in surprise when it was suddenly twice as effective as it had been before.

His maximum mana dipped precariously as he empowered Maia’s club next.

He didn’t have time to check his status, but he was pretty sure he was pushing his limits enchanting three weapons. Even so, he pushed more of his mana into the enchantment in his jacket which was supposed to make his clothes knifeproof and willed it into his mother’s Gi. The others had sports equipment at least, he thought to himself to justify the nepotism, but in reality he just wanted to make certain that his mother was protected.

With their weapons empowered and the hallway a tactical choke point, the three warriors were able to meet the attackers head on. Thirteen goblins met their end in a relentless attack on them, including the two which had been killed by John and Junior’s initial crossbows. When the pressure let up, it was because the surviving goblins broke. Three of them turned and ran.

Without missing a beat, John, Junior and Susan stepped forward even as the warriors, seeing them approach from behind, stepped aside to make way for them. The Campos family went down to one knee to steady their aim, then fired.

Three crossbows took two goblins in the back.

One of them almost got away, screaming and squealing for its life, before it got any further a bolt of arcane energy suddenly took it in the left hamstring. Peter, who had been chasing it since the crossbow bolts had missed it, was inspired into a burst of speed and took a two handed swing with his bat.

“Home run!” he thought to himself as the goblin spun midair and collapsed.

He returned to the rest of the party, who were circling around Luke, who was being ministered to by Alaina for the arrow the goblin had shot him with. The arrow had been extracted from the boy’s shoulder and the bleeding had stopped thanks to Alaina’s ability, but the Medico had a strange expression on her face.

“I can’t explain what I’m doing,” she said, even as the wound closed and a pink looking layer of skin formed where the wound had been. “It’s so frustrating. This is impossible. Scientifically impossible, but I’m doing it and I don’t even know how!”

“It’s magic, Mom,” Maia said, patting her mother on her shoulder. “It doesn’t have to make sense to us.

“There’s no such thing as magic!” Alaina shouted.

“It’s Titan technology then,” Eli said. “And it just looks like it’s magic because we’re primitives compared to them. Either way, we have to get going. The question is do we go forward or backward?”

“What do you mean?” Luke said. “We obviously keep going.”

“You were just shot, idiot,” John said, smacking his son. “We’re getting you out of here.”

“I’m fine, Dad. We have a healer. I mean, it sucked and that hurt like hell but—”

The Campos family burst into an argument. They were still arguing about whether or not to return when Sophie returned. She had a frown on her face.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Was there a fight?”

“Luke got shot, then we killed like thirty goblins,” Peter told his older sister. “You should have seen it, I was awesome.”

“I’m pretty awesome too. I scouted out six different passages. They’re all dead ends. This entire way is just filled with dead ends and sleeping goblins,” Sophie said.

“Did you have to use your vanish ability?” her younger brother asked.

“Shut up,” she scolded. “Look, one way or another we should get moving, because I slipped past a patrol that was coming this way. They’re going to be here in like five minutes.”

“Which means it’s time to head back,” Susan said. “Let’s get going.”

“We can’t leave without my mom,” Sophie said, motioning in the direction where Elain Waters had headed to scout for the group. “If you’re all chickening out, then—”

Abruptly, three gunshots came from the direction that Elaine had taken. The party stiffened, then the teenagers grabbed their weapons and ran to investigate.

“Wait!” their parents called, and charged after them.

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