I didn’t have to keep watch for long, until Jello-Muncher passed us, turned around the corner going up the stairs, and then stopped moving. It’d found the first scattered corpse of the goblin at the bottom of the stairs, and it was doing what it does best – eat and grow!

I turned to motion to Isabella to come join me, and she was finishing pouring something from the coffee pot into a gallon milk jug. The milk had been in the fridge for the teacher’s coffee when she’d first trapped herself in the room, and she’d already drank it before I’d found her. She’d washed the jug, filled it with water, and then sat it behind the trashcan, just in case our water ever quit coming. Luckily, it hadn’t, but apparently now she had repurposed the jug for something else.

“You’ll need to grab this for us,” she told me.

“What is it?” I asked as I went over and picked it up. It was unusually heavy, at about twice the weight of what I’d expect from just a gallon of water, and grease ran down the top and sides making it slimy to hold onto. Some nose-burning odor mixed in with smell of old burnt grease and made my nose wrinkle and I sneezed.

“Call it my one-two-three surprise, which we’ll only use if we have to.” Isabella giggled, and I saw a strange little glint in her eyes that made me think she was being dangerously clever. Somehow, her expression made me smirk as well, and even not fully certain what it did, I trusted that it was supposed to do something interesting.

“Can we go now?” I asked.

“After you,” Isabella bounced to the side and motioned for me to lead the way.

I confidently walked on out the door and started down towards the goblin barricade. If all went well, we might actually end up being able to work ourselves onwards to the central area, where the steps and stairs leading out of here were. Isabella followed along just a little ways behind me and then she stopped and I heard the patter of her bare feet as she turned and rushed back down the hall in the other direction towards the Jello-Muncher. Startled by her sudden change in direction, I stopped and turned to watch.

“Where you going?” I asked her using the party chat. We didn’t have to worry about anyone overhearing us with it.

“To test something really fast. This is too good a chance to learn for certain if it’ll work!” She thought back to me. “I’ll catch right up, just give me a moment.”

I didn’t like the idea of her wandering off alone down to where Jello-Muncher was, but I turned and walked on to the other end of the hallway so I could watch down it and make certain another goblin patrol wasn’t coming our way. I kept an eye on Izzy’s party image and watched her health closely. After a moment, it seemed as if she was doing her hand wiggling thing which I’d taken to represent magic.

“It worked!” She almost screamed in my head! “I’m coming back. See, I told you I’d be just a moment!”

“So what was it that worked?” I thought back at her.

She giggled lightly in my head – I guess even laughter can travel through party chat – and answered, “I just froze The Guardian. He’s too large for me to freeze completely without trying multiple times, but I made certain that the magic would work and flash froze as much of him in one burst as I could. It’s a lot more sluggish that it was before, so I’d say we have some extra time to do whatever we can with the goblins before it thaws and finishes its meal now.”

By the time she finished mind-telling me that all in a rush, she was bouncing back down the hall and had almost caught back up to me. Since the hall to the blockade was still clear, I held open my arms for her and she bounced right into them and hugged me. I held and returned the hug, and gave her a few moments to make certain she’d caught her breath before I patted her on her ass lightly and then let go. She didn’t say anything to me, but her eyes were sparkling and I knew she was excited and happy with her success. She’d done much better with her time against Jello-Muncher than I had.

As she let go, I eased myself up tightly to the north wall and hugged it as much as possible as I worked my way towards the barricade. The goblins had blocked the other hall, so they had to have limited vision and visibility down this one. It’s like trying to pull out into the street when driving and there’s something just off to the right or left of you – it creates a blind spot. I should know; I’d almost gotten t-boned once when I’d pulled out into traffic and a mailbox was in my line of sight – and that was with the vehicle they gave us when taking Driver’s Ed classes! Almost scared me to death, and my instructor wouldn’t even let me finish driving practice that day!

We hugged the wall tightly, with Isabella imitating me without me even having to say or explain anything. I guess she was learning to trust in me like I was trusting in her. If I’d seen her working had to stay to one side, I wouldn’t wander off into the middle or other side either. I’d just trust she’d thought it out and follow. Looks like she was doing the same thing for me. Somehow that made me smile.

Once we were about twenty feet away from the barricade, Isabella sent me a thought. “Down and wait.”

I crouched down, waited, and looked back over my shoulder at her. She was down low on all fours and doing a belly crawl slowly up to me. When I saw how low she was, I went ahead and laid down on my belly as well. A moment later she wiggled herself directly up beside me, smiled, and gave me a thumbs up. She did her mumbo-jumbo again, the air shimmered slightly in front of us, and then a window of sorts floated in front of us.

“What’s this?” I party asked her.

“A one-way mirror,” she replied. “If the goblins just glance out, chances are all they’ll see is a reflection of the hall or barricade and their tiny little brains won’t even register anything else. I figure it’s a little better than them peeking out and seeing us directly. Phantasms aren’t hard to make, so I don’t mind giving it a try. What’s the worst that happens? It sees itself and realizes something is wrong? It’d realize that for certain if it saw us.”

I couldn’t help but be impressed. I was simply going to ease up and trust in the fact that if one saw me, I’d see it, and then I could bash its head in before it could bash mine. I think I liked her idea a little better.

Slowly I belly wiggled across the ground and on closer to the corner and the barricade. After a bit, I’d wiggled to the point where I could carefully try to look through the gaps in the bottom of the stacked chairs and all. As I’d expected, there were several pairs of goblin ankles on the other side of the barricade. They were moving about, so I couldn’t get an exact count, but I’m guessing it was probably three and maybe as many as five here again.

A do-able number I thought, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how to get the goblins to come out, and I couldn’t wiggle though their little goblin hole. I stayed where I was for a few moments, and then I wiggled back away from the edge to reduce the risk of being seen.

“Three to five I think,” I thought to Isabella. “But I don’t know how to get around that barricade, or how to lure all five of them out here at once.”

Isabella was silent for a moment and then she answered, “We need bait. Something harmless that they’ll want to come out and catch. I think I have a way, but I need to sneak over to the other side first. This is going to be complicated for me to do, and will take a good bit of energy, but it should work. It’ll lower my energy reserves to about half, but thanks to my class, I have a large pool to draw from. I store a lot of energy when full; it’s just the recharging that tends to be difficult to do.”

“What can I do to help?” I asked.

“Wait in the classroom right there and be prepared to deal with the lunch meats as soon as they come in there. And don’t worry, they’ll come, I’d bet on it.”

Slowly I nodded and then worked my back down the hall and into the nearest classroom on this side. One inside, I stood up and got my spike ready. The first goblin to come through that door was going to get a hole in his head that he’d never remember, much less forget.

For long moments, I tensed up waiting, and then finally Isabella sent me a single thought, “Ready?”

“Absolutely,” I sent back with anxious determination. My focus was growing, my breathing was tightening, and then suddenly I had a thought. I stopped, took a deep breath, and then put the spike back in my belt and pulled out my trusty metal rod instead.

Just a moment later I heard Isabella scream from on down the hallway. My first instinct was to rush out and help her, but her party image showed she was running and she was still full health. Fighting my own inner protective urges, I gripped my club so hard my knuckles were turning blue. Another scream, “No! No! No! Help me!”, and then Isabella dashed through the doorway and into the room. She ran past me, slid across the floor like a runner sliding into home base and then started chanting words of magic.

It wasn’t but a moment later before the first slobbering goblin came bursting through the door at breakneck speed. Spittle slobbered down its mouth, and it loosely held a dagger in its arms. I didn’t get much of a better look of it than that, before my club crashed down on top of its head and I grabbed it with my free hand and tossed it back into the wall near Isabella.

Once again, she screamed, “No! Get off me! Get off me! Ahhhhh!” As she was yelling, she’d grabbed the dazed goblin and was using her talent to pull its life out of it. I didn’t have time to admire her efficiency though, as it was at that point that two other goblins charged into the room together, pushing and trying to shove each other out of the way. I guess they imagined they’d find an exotic girl getting raped by their brother, because the look when they saw the actual scene in the room here left no doubt that they were bewildered by the turn of events.

I wasn’t nice enough to give them a chance to regain their composure, as I waded into them like an alley cat on a fresh fish head. I clubbed one. Grabbed the other. Pulled it up and clubbed it. Then I clubbed it again while I still had a grip on it. A ball of blue flame darted past me and into the battered face of the first goblin I’d clubbed. As both were beginning to fall, another rushed into the room.

It was faster to act than its brothers, as it turned almost in its tracks and dashed back out of the room. I threw my club to try and stop it, but missed. Not pausing to even take a breath, I darted out after it.

The goblin that had just ran out was rushing back towards the barricade, and the last goblin who was about halfway out was looking confused. When it saw me, it started to push itself back into the hole to escape. I couldn’t allow that, so I ran over the goblin who’d dashed out of the room in front of me; longer legs let me catch up to it in just a few strides, and I simply tramped it on my way to the last goblin.

The little thing was quick and was almost through the gap by the time I got there. Recklessly, I lunged forward and reached as far as I could and tugged the little bastard back to me. He was squealing and poking at my fingers and hand with a knife, but he couldn’t get any force into the blows while stuck in that little wiggle hole.

A moment later I pulled him out by the scruff of the neck and dragged him across the hallway, away from his escape route. He stabbed me frantically in the side and stomach a few times, but I had more than enough health to deal with a few blows from something as small as a goblin knife. I didn’t even bother to look at my status as I finally picked him up in both arms and smashed him like a rag doll into the wall and then the floor.

I might not be as strong as a lot of guys are who did sports and stuff, but I’ve worked my strength up to where it’s at a normal male level now, and it’s not very hard for a normal male to manhandled and beat the shit out of a small child when he’s angry. This poor little fellow was slammed, crunched into the floor and wall, and then tossed across the hall where he crashed into the far wall. At this point, it lay still on the ground. Dead or unconscious, it was no longer an immediate threat.

I spun to look for the goblin I’d trampled, and he was already burning with that eerie blue flame. Isabella must’ve finished up with the ones in the room and caught this one while I was slamming some sense into the other one.

“Are you OK?” I asked her.

“I’m fine,” she answered as she went over to the goblin I’d been tossing around like a rag doll. A moment later, her hands were glowing and blue lightning was sparkling in her hair. I don’t suppose he was dead, but after a few moments of her feeding on its remaining life force, I was certain that it was now.

I could see why Lifestealers were a very feared and powerful force on the battlefield. Not only would their magic destroy you, but they’d also feed off the fallen and injured to keep their energy high. Isabella was only starting to walk down her path, and it was already impressing and shocking me with what she could accomplish. I can see why the priests in the past were scared of the Ka’Lani.

But, I wasn’t scared. I was proud. Together, we’d just conquered the barricade!