NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 17: Goblin-Rats
If you have a spellform from the Tower's library, odds are better than not that the ink was made using the bones of a sorcerer. Potions were made out of the bones that gradually increased Will capacity. Bones were carved into wands, staves, rings, and more. Each tailored to the Arcane signature of their former owners.
-Tallen Elmheart, On Mages
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The hall was filled with fleeing students, most yelling in panic but some stopped to fire spells back down the hallway before running on further. Between the bodies of students, Kole could make out the huddled brown forms of some diminutive creatures chasing and adding to the chaos with their chattering.
Gray didn’t hesitate and ran towards the threat. Kole paused for a moment, but then he too followed. As they pushed through the bodies, they got a better look at the monsters, which had stopped to feast on one of their fallen comrades. They were the size of goblins, a couple of feet tall each, but they stood hunched over. Their greenish-brown skin was covered in patchy tufts of coarse fur, and their faces elongated into rat-like noses. There were a dozen of the creatures and three older students had formed a wall blocking the hall from their advance.
The light flickered, and Kole felt a pulse of something deep in his soul. A connection to the Arcane Realm he couldn’t articulate. The students looked at the rat creatures expectantly, but the monsters seemed wholly unconcerned.
“Gods!” Gray cursed, as he fell in line with the other three with his rapier drawn. “They aren’t void creatures, the defenses didn’t do anything.”
At Gray’s words, the creatures charged at the students. The older students each sent a blast of some elemental magic, fire, ice, and lightning, at the oncoming beast, each taking out one or more, but the distance was short and eight chattering goblin creatures reached them, clawing over each other to do so in the narrow hall. Gray stabbed one in the chest kicking another aside. Two of the students next to Gray had weapons of their own, one a quarterstaff, and the other a short sword, but the third had nothing.
The unarmed student shot another bolt of fire at the goblin-rat closing in, but he missed and the creature leapt on him. The student fell, taking rakes to the chest, and no one but Kole was free to help him.
Without hesitating Kole ran at the student, and kicked the creature in its rat face before it could dig into its victim’s neck. He felt a sickening crackas the rodent face shattered under the impact. Gray broke free of his own foe in time to stab Kole’s, keeping it down. Kole risked a glance to the fallen student and saw him alive, but he’d taken a deep slash on his chest and he’d not be helping any further.
When Kole turned back to Gray, a goblin-rat had broken away from the sword sword-wielding student and was lunging for Gray's side.
Kole reacted on instinct, his hand shooting up as he built the construct for the spell in his mind. It took all his focus to open up his bridge to the proper location but he pushed through, pouring nearly all his Will to the effort. Focusing on both his hand and his lungs he spoke, “Roh Ka” infusing Will into both the sounds and his hand as he flicked his fingers forward as he sent the spell into the Arcane Realm.
Three bolts shot out from his hand, each striking the lunging monstrosity in the chest, only visible as a shimmer in the air on the way. Each hit made a small thump and left a coin-sized hole which quickly pooled with blood as the goblin-rat lay dying.
The spell drained nearly all of Kole's Will, and he fought through the headache as he filled the gap the fallen student had left. The goblin-rats were wary now, and only four remained, looking from their fallen kin to the students. It seemed that everyone was out of Will, for no bolts of magic flew. There was a brief stare-down before the last four broke out into a charge. One ran at each the other students, but two headed for Gray. Kole moved in to help, even if only with a kick or shove, but before he could reach the goblins, four shimmers of light passed by Kole and the heads of the three creatures exploded into geysers of blood.
Kole whipped around to see the source of the spells. Professor Underbrook stood, floating on a Force Disk moving toward them, hand still extended from the spell he'd just cast.
"Is everyone okay?" He asked, looking at the older staff-wielding student who gave a nod.
The professor continued down the hall on his disk, firing magic into any body that twitched.
"That was crazy!" Gray shouted, both hands on his head, grasping his hair.
"Yeah..." Kole replied in a bit of a daze.
His adrenaline was beginning to fade, the heartbeat in his ears quieting, and the stench of the blood sinking in. He surveyed the scene and found he only felt a bit of disgust at the remnants of the creatures, but no regret in helping create it.
"What in Fauell are these things?" Kole asked
"They kind of look like goblins," Gray said and gave a sniff, then winced. "And they definitely smell like goblins."
The oldest student with the stand was treating the wound of the fallen one, so Kole walked over to the wall and leaned against it, suddenly exhausted.
“Why didn't you keep firing?” Gray asked Kole.
Flood. Kole cursed inwardly.
“I, uh... I’m out of Will.”
“Oh, wow, already? Were you practicing earlier?”
“No...” Kole started, he could lie and take the out presented, but that would only cause more issues later on when Gray inevitably found out the truth. “That took up all my Will."
Gray cocked his head sideways, processing the words but they didn't seem to make any sense.
"How?" He asked after coming up with nothing.
"I’m not only a sorcerer, I’m a primal too. It makes wizardry... difficult.”
A series of emotions flickered across Gray’s face in quick succession. Surprise, to confusion and then curiosity.
“How?” he asked again, this time his tone packing a lot of questions into the single syllable.
Kole gave Gray a brief rundown of his particular magical “talents” and the limitations they brought.
“So you can only cast one spell?” Gray asked.
Kole nodded.
“So... how are you going to be an adventurer? Are you going to learn a martial art? Be a spellsword? Or is your primal ability that powerful?”
“No to all of that. I plan to be a wizard, I just have to figure a way through this problem.”
Through the description, Gray’s face grew less friendly as Kole explained all his difficulties only growing kinder at the end when he asked Kole about a secondary talent. Now, he looked angry.
“You’re going to get people killed! You could have just gotten us killed!”
“What?” Kole asked, taken aback by the sudden outburst.
“How do you expect to be an adventuring wizard if you can only cast a spell a day? You’re basically a magical cripple!”
“I told you, I’m going to work through this. Everyone said primals can't even cast wizard spells, and you just saw me do it. And I think I handled myself well enough just now for never having been in a battle.”
"You think you can figure out what no one in the last hundred years could? You've learned some spells, but you can cast one spell a day. You're useless in a battle! If you somehow eek your way into the adventuring program, you'll just convince some group that you're competent and then get them killed!"
Kole didn't know what to say. A large part of him always feared social interactions at the Academy would take a turn for the worse, but this was nowhere close to what he'd expected. Gray had a lot of anger built up as if Kole's words had struck a bone. He stood there, unsure what to say, and before he could think of anything Gray stormed off in anger.
Kole looked at all the other students they'd fought with to see them staring from him to Gray, who was still making his way out.
That could have gone better... Kole thought to himself. Though I'm not sure what I did wrong.
Underbrook came back a while later and interrogated those who remained about what had happened before dismissing them. The injured student had recovered enough to stand by them.
“You all handled yourselves brilliantly,” he said, making eye contact with each. “While it isn’t common, these types of occurrences are known to—well—occur in a magical structure such as the Dahn. Rest assured, we will investigate this and ensure this particular breach doesn’t happen again.”
Kole was then left to his own devices, which felt odd to him. They’d just been attacked by strange goblin monsters, and no one seemed to be too concerned about it. The older students were even joking as they left. He reflected on his actions and he was proud to know he hadn’t hesitated when it came to acting. He’d been nervous, but that hadn’t stopped him from doing what needed doing.
That in itself was a huge relief. A large part of being an adventurer is the temperament. Many of the most skilled wizards and fighters are not suited for the life, unable to put themselves into dangers that could be avoided by pursuing other professions. The thought buoyed him and allowed him to ignore the whole ordeal with Gray in the aftermath—for a while at least.