Amelia blinked and focused on the deep shadow under the tree. Her true sight showed her just the roots and a large rock, so she relaxed and reverted to her normal vision.
With Frisket on the field, you couldn't be too careful around shadows. All of Picker's kids were good at hiding and stealth, but Frisket was unnatural in her ability to remain unseen.
Coast clear, she waved her group forward. The slightest rustle of a bush indicated that Knife or Spoon had moved up, the two goblin girls almost as good as their older sister. Fork, the third triplet, was back at base since he was the most patient of the three five-year-olds.
Vieno moved into sight, crouched low, both hands at the ready, her eyes scanning the surrounding forest. The dwarf was wearing a hooded cloak in mottled greys and greens, so even though she wasn't good at hiding, she was well camouflaged when she stayed still near the vegetation in the hollow. Shock trotted clumsily behind her, fighting hard to avoid distraction as they moved stealthily down the trail. The dog stayed close to Vieno for protection, having learned the consequences of straying too far away in previous engagements.
It was tough going in the dense bracken and undergrowth in this area, and they all had to focus both on the environment around them, as well as where they were stepping.
Amelia squinted briefly, then waved for the team to take cover. When she glanced back, she could just barely see the outline of the dwarf's cloak, but the others were well hidden. She nipped behind a tree, then wrapped her cloak tightly around herself. Her favorite side was the sky blue one, but when turned inside out, it had a deep grey lining which was better suited for clandestine operations. It was nowhere near as good as Vieno's cloak, though. Amelia liked to call it the girl's 'elven' cloak, although she knew it had been made by Vieno's mother, Tuuka's late wife Lahja. The kids didn't get the reference, but Tuuka had and thought it fair praise.
She could see the top of a head protruding over the top of one of the crumbling crenelations and suspected it was one of the dwarf twins. Now the trick was figuring out if there were any other defenders, and where the target was. Luckily, she had just the right tools for the job.
"Psst! Cutlery! You're on! Go!" she whispered and pointed at the notch in the stone.
Two small shadows oozed from under separate bushes and crept to the base of the wall, before taking divergent paths around it.
Amelia had been amused to get the details on goblin naming conventions. Adults chose names in some way relating to their career, either one of the tools of the trade like Scorper or Frisket, or perhaps a valued trait, like Quiet. Until they picked a name, kids generally were named for miscellaneous objects. Most families tried to keep the names similar or related somehow, so it seemed completely natural the triplets had been named as they were. The fact that Amelia chose to refer to them collectively as 'Cutlery' usually made the kids giggle, but they were in serious mode right now, and she didn't hear a peep out of them.
"[Water Jet]! [Water Jet]!" came Lumi's high-pitched voice from behind the wall, and Amelia saw the head at the crenelation pop up in response. She'd been certain that where they found one of the dwarven twins, they'd either find the other, or Pint, if not all three. This might get sticky!
"[Water Jet]!" She sent her own blast to the top of the ruin.
"Awww! Hit! You got me!" said Pint as he got soaked. The boy stood up and moved out of sight, back to their safe zone.
Amelia gestured for Vieno to move up to the wall and head left, which the girl did, Shock close on her heels.
"[Water Jet]!"
"[Buckler]! [Water Jet]!" responded Spoon's high-pitched voice.
"[Water Jet]!" echoed Knife at almost the same time, but from further away.
"Hit! That's dirty, ganging up like that!" protested Lumi.
"That's war!" the two-thirds of a triplet responded simultaneously.
"[Air Jet]! [Air Jet]!" Pint's voice emanated from the rubble at the back of the ruin.
The rules were that once hit, you had to go to your starting zone, then use the air jet spell until you dried yourself off. Since it usually took a couple dozen or so casts, it made for an effective timer. It was even harder if you got hit someplace awkward, like on the back, but they were all young and flexible, so it wasn't a big issue.
"Thanks for letting us use your place, Mr. Ainsley!" Amelia called quietly as she waved at the man. He was crouched high up on one of the walls, smiling down at the antics below. He waved with his pipe, having heard the quiet comment with no problem.
Moments later Shock came trotting back into sight, a green flag in her teeth. Vieno was right behind her, still trying to look in all directions at the same time.
"Cutlery! Try to get ahead of us and take out any opposition. I'll go in front of the flag carrier and try to draw them out. Vieno, Shock, you know what to do!"
"On it!" replied the dwarf. There was a faint call of "got it" from the goblins, but Amelia couldn't tell where those had come from.
That was the easy part. Now they had to get back to their own base, at the top of the trilithon mound. Pint and Lumi would be hot on their trail as soon as they dried off their 'hits'. And somewhere out there was the rest of the team, possibly with Amelia's team's flag. Every tree, rock, or bush could be hiding someone ready and able to ruin their plans
Amelia hurriedly flipped her cloak around to the brightly coloured side, then proceeded back along the path. She was careful to be a little noisier, but not too noisy. The goal was to draw the attention of any hunters away from the flag team, but if they figured out that was what she was doing, they'd just ignore her.
On a hunch, she blinked and focused, scanning both the vegetation around her, as well as the trees above. Her sight pierced right through the shadows, and a tell-tale flicker of movement caught her eye. She threw herself to the ground and rolled into a bush as a shaft of water hit the ground right where she had been.
"Contact! In the tree, forward! About twenty feet off the ground! Everybody focus fire! [Water Jet]! [Water Jet]!" she called. Her twin streams soaked the tree trunk where she had seen the movement. She had no idea if her team could even hear her, but hopefully whoever was up in the tree wouldn't know that.
"You two, circle around, I'll pin 'em in place! [Water Jet]!" she called out, again trying for the misdirection. As soon as she got her spell off she willed herself entirely into the mortal realm, then bounced up to sprint for the base of the tree.
"[Water Jet]!" The spell words were the faintest whisper, but the gout of water was precisely aimed, hitting their target center of mass.
Except, the water passed through Amelia. It wasn't even cheating, technically, since she didn't leave the hollow. Just part of it. It had been a risk, though. It took more effort to phase a spell into multiple realms at once, and she had gambled on Frisket being frugal with her energy, as the girl usually was.
"[Buckler]!"
"[Water Jet]!"
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The two spells went off simultaneously, and Amelia only just managed to deflect the incoming bolt as she dodged around behind the tree. Pancake had waited to teach them the shielding spell until they'd gotten into the habit of dodging first. He'd told them it was always best to dodge and block, just in case one or the other didn't work. It was easy to get complacent once you knew the handy protection spell, but he insisted it wasn't perfect, and wouldn't stop everything. So better to be safe, than sorry.
There had been a bit of a palaver when the goat had taught them the defensive spell. He had taught them the form and incantation, and given a brief demonstration. The actual spell was 'Aegis', and you had to form an image of the size, shape, type of defense, and location of the barrier clearly in your mind. It was very complex and certainly hard to do under stress. However, he was using this particular invocation so he could also teach them spell-casting partial application. That was where you created a new spell that encoded the extra bits of information that the underlying spell needed. It was faster and easier, but inflexible. He wanted them to practice both ways, but to focus on the simple way, since that was what you'd need to use in a combat. He also lectured for a while on the difference between partial application and currying, but that went right over Amelia's head.
The difficulty came about when he asked them to form a personal area shield, which he called a Holtzman, for some reason. They were supposed to imagine a field of force surrounding their body in an ovoid shape, just big enough to cover them head to toe, with room for their arms and such. To test it, he'd shoot water jets at the students until they got it right. The kids had got it on the first or second try, but Amelia got utterly soaked.
It had taken a huge number of castings before Pancake was able to figure out the problem. As far as they both could tell, she was doing everything correctly, and she felt the slight tug of energy she always did when casting a spell, so they knew it was doing something. The goat collapsed to the floor, rolling in laughter once he figured out the problem. Amelia had to wait for several minutes, face burning in embarrassment until her teacher could finally contain himself and explain what she was doing wrong.
"Okay, baby cakes, here's your problem." He forced out, still having to gasp for air and suppress the giggles. "You're thinking way too big, you are. Maybe a little too connected with our mate Bert, sort of thing. Or maybe it's that other little friend you got, not naming names, you know who I mean. So maybe cast your mind back to when you was a nobody, see, and form it in around your own body, not the whole bleeding realm, you get me toots? Impressive, though, I'll give you that! Not the slightest idea how you were doing that. Let's just hope you didn't stop any traffic trying to get in or out of the village, sort of thing!" He guffawed at the thought, then toddled over to a wall to pound his head against it as he kept laughing. He mumbled something about 'wasted potential' and 'kills me!'.
Amelia had finally been able to get the spell to work, and he'd had them form several versions to practice with. For the current game of capture-the-flag, they were only allowed to use Buckler, which formed a small defense about the size of the caster's face. It took precision to place it just right to block incoming projectiles, but used very little energy.
"[Water Jet]! [Buckler]! [Water Jet]!" Amelia somersaulted out and twisted around, blasting away and skillfully blocking the return fire from Frisket. Once she'd worked out the kinks in her casting, Amelia had been the best in the group at the spells, although she wasn't nearly as good at dodging as the goblin and dwarf children.
Water dripped down the tree onto her from her misses, Frisket having barely managed to duck behind a branch in time. With Amelia immediately below her, there were too many branches for the goblin to get a clear shot at her. But likewise, return fire was impossible. The two circled the trunk, one down at ground level, one up above, trying to get an opening. This only lasted for a few moments, however, when Lumi and Pint finally arrived to help their teammate.
Amelia started casting using both hands, rapidly cycling between blocking and flinging jets and phasing madly between realms to force the others to waste energy. Things got hectic.
"Hit!" called Frisket dejectedly as she finally got tagged, echoed immediately by Lumi. Amelia was immensely proud of that. She had leapt out from under the tree and targeted both girls simultaneously, while using her foot to focus a buckler, blocking Pint's incoming shot. The boy was so surprised at the move she was able to pierce his guard next.
"Hit." He said, shoulders slumping.
Frisket finished climbing down the tree, and the trio started heading back to their base to dry off for the next attempt.
"Don't worry, guys! You'll get me next time!" Amelia called after them.
"Oh, I will. Just wait." The goblin waved cheerfully as she headed back towards the ruins, already strategizing with the other two. She didn't usually get to join them for games like this, since she was apprenticing in the print shop. But Amelia had interceded on her behalf since it was 'safety training'. She was pretty sure the print goblins were just humoring her, but as long as the kids got to have some fun, she didn't mind.
And they all had been having immense fun. Capture-the-flag was a great way to practice all the skills they'd been learning, but it was also tremendously entertaining.
From up ahead she heard a flurry of spells as her vanguard encountered the remnants of Bill's group. Fern's piping "There! There!" could also be heard, as the sprite acted as a spotter for her teammates. That only seemed unfair until you realized how difficult it was to actually see the sneaking goblin children, much less to hit the small targets. Amelia was certainly glad they were on her side.
After she flipped her cloak back to the drab side, the girl carefully advanced to the edge of the clearing. The mound of the trilithon--her team's base--was visible, their blue flag still safely hanging from one of the stones. A blast of water hit the lintel stone, which drew her eye. A flutter of movement betrayed the presence of Fork, the goblin child prone on the top stone, pinned down as water projectiles hammered against his perch.
Bill was using the pub portal tree as cover, coolly trying to land shots on all three of the triplets at the same time, keeping them distracted. His partner Pasi made a break for the mound, reaching for the flag.
"[Water Jet]!"
"Block! Block" piped Fern as the sprite dove in front of the liquid, getting doused as she selflessly stopped the shot from hitting her teammate.
"[Water Jet]!"
The second shot, however, landed. "Hit!" grumped the dwarf, throwing his hands up in the air, just as they had almost grasped the cloth target.
"Score!" called out Vieno in a loud voice, and Amelia was surprised to see Shock at the top of the mound, waggling their opponents' green flag, throwing her whole body side to side to make the cloth snap in the air.
"I don't get how Shock does that. I swear I had my eyes on the mound the whole time, but suddenly there she is!" said Bill, shaking his head. The man had been tickled to be included, having only just mastered the two required spells. He was able to make up for his lack of magical skill, though, with 'old age and treachery' as he put it. His tactics had won his team the first couple of games before Amelia's side had gotten rolling.
"Uh, that's game, I think. Three to two, right?"
"Correct, Caretaker. Well done. Well done all of you."
"Thanks, Lark! That was fun! Anybody up for another? Or maybe Viking stickball?"
"Would love to, but it's starting to get dark and I gotta head home. Catch up on email and stuff. Thanks for having me! It was fun!" replied Bill, looking sad for having to go adult.
"Thanks for playing! Next time maybe we can get the grown-ups to join us, have a big battle!" called Pasi.
"Deal!" Bill replied, flashing the boy two thumbs up, clearly flattered to be included in the 'not a grown-up' category. He stroked his long white beard and waved as he left.
"Okay, if that's it, then bath time, you two! You stink!"
"Aww, V! Can't we skip it this time?" whined Lumi to her older sister.
"No! Dad left me in charge, so bath! Now!"
"You're a power-hungry tyrant, sis! Nyeah!" Pasi said, sticking out his tongue.
"Is this mutiny I hear? I rule this hollow with an iron fist, and my lieutenant here said it's bath time! Bath time it is! [Water Ball]" Amelia aimed to miss the two dwarf rebels, but the kids were still splashed as the sphere of water smashed into the ground next to them. The spell had nothing on Pancake's Deluge spell, but it did affect a large area, drastically more than Water Jet, or its big brother, Water Bolt. Which both made it fun, and very difficult to dodge.
"Run! She's gone mad with power, brother, run!" Lumi screamed, giggling as the pair sprinted down the path.
"[Water Ball]!" This one also missed but spurred the two on to even faster speeds, water raining down on them as they fled.
"Thanks, Amelia. They're good kids, but a bit of a handful when dad isn't around."
"No problem, V. Least I could do. But I'd be remiss if I didn't make sure you all got clean, too ..." The caretaker grinned at the teen, a steely glint in her eye.
"Ahhh! Go go go! She's gone all Broccoli Bunch on us again! Move it!"
"[Water Bolt]! [Water Bolt]! Muahahaha! Fear my power-wash cleaning magic! [Water Ball]! Muhahahahaha!"
Amelia watched the group flee, then rapped her knuckles on the air inside the trilithon. It didn't make a noise, but her hand was stopped inches into the interior of the three stones. That was a precaution she'd asked Bert to put in place. Anybody inside the realm could only exit via the front gate unless they had explicit permission. That would keep a repeat of the John / Elara incident from happening again. She knew Bert would tell her if the barrier was taken down, but she liked to check every once in a while herself. It gave her some reassurance.
She glanced around at the lengthening shadows, then remembered she promised Bellows to stop in at the smithy this evening. He had been practically giddy when he told her he'd have something for her earlier this morning, so she was excited to see what he'd been up to.