He should have been afraid. He was alone in a utility closet that smelled of dust, cleaning chemicals, salt, his own sweat, and dozens of other odors that were distinct to his newly super human olfactory powers. It was the middle of the night, and he was waiting for an imminent goblin attack, which should begin in exactly one minute and forty-three seconds by his wristwatch. And there was some fear, just a little, almost a tickle in the back of his brain. To Dan's surprise, his dominant feeling was excitement, the kind he used to get before an important exam, or a wrestling match. He was alert, focused; it was hard to keep his right foot from bouncing softly, moved by over heightened nervous energy.

In his left hand he held a snow shovel that had probably been expensive and of high quality when new, and still held up well. Someone had reapplied a coat of varnish to the long hard wood handle at some point, and the aluminum blade, reinforced with a strip of steel, had a few nicks and dents but was overall in good shape. It wasn't the most impressive shield he could have imagined, but he could easily have done worse. In fact, with one glaring exception - he had not managed to get the hand gun - his preparations had gone swimmingly. Everything else had, seemingly, gone exactly to plan. Though it remained to be seen how effective those plans would be when they met first contact with the enemy.

In his right hand he felt the comfortable, familiar weight of his shepherd's sling, hanging securely from the loop around his middle finger and the tab pinched between his thumb and index finger, the polyester cord pulled taut by the lead sling bullet that rested in the pouch 14 inches beneath his hand. His grandfather had had the bullets custom made by a company that manufactured lead weights for sport fishing. They were egg shaped, 1.4 ounces of metal, 1.6" long and 1" wide, and Dan had 15 more in a belt bag (he disliked the more common term "fanny pack") that circled his waist.

In ancient times, Baleric slingers were renowned for their skill and lethality, prized as mercenaries throughout the Mediterranean region. Dan knew this because his grandfather had told him all about it again, and again, and again, from infancy: "Daniel, you must always remember where we come from and who we are, and be proud. Wherever you go, whoever you choose to become, when you use your sling, it connects you through time to our people, across distance to our homeland, and connects you to me, my dear grandson."

Dan had quite naturally become an expert slinger, at least by modern standards for the art, and practiced four or five times a week at the archery range in his grandfather's store. He found it soothing, almost meditative, the whir of the sling about his head, the tension and pull on his finger before he released the bullet, the simple repetition of well trained movements. Now, he thought, his inherited hobby may save his life. His sling was not a gun, but it was a weapon, and five minutes of experimentation after he completed the rest of his preparations had shown that his ability with the tool was staggeringly beyond what it had been an hour prior.

As the final seconds before the attack slipped away, Dan reviewed his plans and sought to mentally ready himself for the absurd trial to come. He also watched, listened, smelled, thermal mapped, and echo-located, both inside and outside of the building. His expanded senses had begun to feel almost natural and normal over the last hour, and the rush of data no longer smothered his mind.

The Sensory Locus ability had turned out to be awesome. It functioned as an infinitely small point through which he could sense everything he could have sensed had he been physically there. He could have up to two of them active at a time, and place them at any location he could reach with a portion of his body. When he placed one an internal timer would appear within his mind, counting down their 6 hour 24 minute duration. Each cost 18 Aether from his Aether Pool, which took a bit less than 2 minutes to regenerate. So it was that while he waited in a dark utility room, a sensory locus in the broad hallway outside the door and a second 11' above the roof of the building - enhanced agility helped a great deal with both climbing and jumping - fed him a constant flow of information as if he were in three places at once.

The world outside the office building had gotten... strange. It was as if someone had taken a giant ice cream scoop and cut a sphere with the building at its center out of reality, and plopped it somewhere else. His perception was inhumanly sharp right up to fifty feet from the building, and then all his senses dissipated into an inky, thick haze. The exception was the sky. Clouds still slowly marched across the moon, and bright stars peeked through holes in the cloudy quilt draped over the world. The electricity in the building was still on. Plumbing still worked. Telephones and internet connections did not. It was all, well, as weird as the rest of all of this.

Dan watched through the Locus on the roof and the goblins came. They emerged from the inky mist surrounding the building, coming from every direction, and moved like baboons. They loped on three limbs and carried either a short spear with a wooden shaft and black stone spearhead or a lit torch in their right hands. Some carried crude, lit torches that cast jagged shadows across their features in the night. Physical characteristics: dark, gray-green skin, no body hair, long dog like snouts, sharp needle teeth with large, dangerous canines, small solid black eyes, large pointed ears, no apparent sex organs, sharp retractable claws, opposable thumbs, roughly the size of an adult German Shepherd, but lighter boned. Some had a cudgel or black stone (obsidian?) dagger strapped to their waist by a leather band.

There were more goblins than he had expected. They came in threes. Each trio had a torchbearer, all of which, his "System Identify" sense informed him through the rooftop locus, were level one, and a presumed group leader of level three. The remaining members of the trios were level two. Eight groups of three, twenty-four in total. There was a strange uniformity across the group, almost like the System had a can labeled "One troop of Goblins - shake vigorously and pour on Dan." With his newly enhanced ability to process sensory data, these observations were completed within a handful of seconds. In that time, the invaders began to spread out and encircle the building, still moving in threes. It was well into autumn, and while the day had been warm the night was not, but the monsters showed no outward signs of discomfort from the chill. Dan would have been cold with no clothes.

A final group came out of the haze and appeared in the driveway that led to the front parking lot. There were five goblins. One was perhaps 70% larger by mass than its fellows, and wore a fur about its neck and back like a cape. It walked upright, if hunched, and its musculature looked dense and tensely coiled. It was the first being or thing, other than himself, that had shown up to Dan's Aether sense. It glowed with a strange power that he could somehow tell was bound up with the goblin's body, constrained within and empowering it. Dan used System Identify (which apparently was an active rather than passive and continuous sense) on the mysterious goblin.

Goblin Chieftain (Aural Warrior), lvl 6. Monster Type: Common Goblin.

This was the leader then. While the chieftain was the first of the group to catch his attention, it was not the most threatening. An old, old goblin walked on its hind legs behind the massive warrior, and leaned heavily on a gnarled wooden staff, clutched by both knobby hands, with each slow, pained step it took. Its skin was gray, cracked, papery thin, and hung loosely on its skeletal frame. The eyes, though. The small, black eyes radiated fierce power and vitality. And aether whipped around and through the ancient goblin like a gathering storm. Even before he used System Identify, Dan knew from a deep, primal instinct that bubbled from within his guts: If he could not kill the old, old goblin as soon as the fight began, Dan would die. He wondered if that was the first time his Danger Sense had seen fit to activate. Then he used System Identify.

Goblin Shaman, lvl 10. Monster Type: Common Goblin.

Dan wished he had that gun.