Brandr filled us in with her observations every few moments as we worked our way back from the far end of the second hall to the central path. Isabella and I didn’t rush our search, even though we were anxious to catch up to Brandr. She was safely siding somewhere (and from her party window, it looked as if she was making use of her new double-jointedness to make herself as tiny as possible right now), and we wanted to give her time to observe the goblins for a while.

Except for the regular interruptions of Brandr’s quiet voice reporting in, we were otherwise silent as we all went about our respective tasks. The second hallway had already been picked over by the goblins, and was just as clear as the first one had been. We found nothing of any real interest in it, so once we got back to the main hall, we worked our way up to the 6th hallway.

I decided now was the time to check in and find out exactly where Brandr was. “Brand, are you on the 6th hall, or the 7th?” She’d said the goblins had built their lair in the rooms between the two halls, but I wasn’t certain which side of the hall she was on.

“I’m hiding in the central goblin area right now,” came her quiet reply. “The easiest path for you would probably be to come from the south side. If you and Isabella can deal with the two goblins guarding the south room quietly, I can deal with the two on the north side, I believe.”

I thought about her proposal for a few moments, but discarded it. “Isabella and I aren’t quiet slicers like you are, and we’d have issues taking them out quietly. I’d rather come join you on the north hall and see if we can’t clear the rooms one at a time. It’d probably be safer for all of us, and if something goes wrong we can deal with the problem together and not get surrounded so easily.”

“Confirmed,” was the only thought she sent back to us. Whether she liked the idea or not, it was impossible to tell. It’s definitely going to take me some time to adjust to Brandr’s way of thinking. Heck, I was still trying to figure Isabella out, and we’ve been together for a few weeks now. Apparently, I’m just not good with girls.

“Let’s put the flame out for now, Izzy.” I leaned and lightly ruffled her hair. I knew she didn’t like being in the dark any more than me, but we didn’t want the goblins to see our flame as we approached. I wonder if there’s a magic that lets you see in the dark? That could be nice, if it was so.

Slowly I tucked my club into my belt and then I got down on my hands and knees. Isabella followed suit and soon we were both down low to the ground. I didn’t know if the goblins could see in the complete darkness or not, but I wasn’t going to be crawling around to try and hide myself – if the dark couldn’t hide me, then we’d stand out no matter what we did moving down the halls. I was thinking that it’d simply be easier for us to feel and crawl our way down without stumbling over any rubble and falling and breaking our necks.

Isabella slowly reached up and gripped the bottom of one of my pants legs, and then the light went out and the darkness engulfed us once more. Slowly, we crawled silently along the corner of the northern hallway. I sent a thought to Brandr asking, “How far down this thing are we going to have to go?”

“Almost all the way to the end,” came her gentle voice in my head.

“Then meet us in the restrooms, and we’ll work up a battle plan there. They’re about halfway down the hall, so that should be a good place to regroup, and they’re generally built to keep noise and such inside them. They’re probably the best place for us to meet up at.”

“Affirmative.” Brandr was just as chatty as ever, as we worked our way down to the middle of the hall and the restrooms.

I hadn’t mentioned which restroom we were going into – the boy’s or girl’s – simply because I couldn’t see which sign was overhead in the dark. I simply felt for that open alcove along the hall that kept people from simply peeking inside the room whenever the door was opened. Bathrooms don’t have a door that opens into the hall itself; instead, they have an alcove that offsets a “mini-hall” which then leads to the door itself. I felt for that first open space and then worked my way around it until I found the door and gently I pushed it open and crawled inside the restroom where I finally stood back up.

“We’re here,” I sent to Brandr. A moment later, the door opened with a silent creak behind us and then shut itself a moment later. “Was that.. you?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up! It was creepy not being able to see, but still the tunnels here didn’t seem as bad as the first tunnels had. Either having both girls to rely on was giving me courage, or else I was slowly adjusting to dealing with the darkness.

“I’m here now,” came her gentle response. “I was in the other waiting, but it’s only a few steps away.”

“Then we should be safe for a little light again,” I told Isabella. Almost instantly two small blue flames appeared out of nowhere and floated around us.

“Thank goodness,” came her honest thoughts. “Brandr might be an assassin and enjoy being in the dark, but I certainly don’t.”

“How do you even see without a light, anyway?” I asked Brandr.

“It’s a gift of the darkness when I wrap myself in it. If I move too fast, or lose the darkness, I can’t see much better than anyone else can. I think those points spent to enhance my senses help somewhat as well.”

“Do the goblins have some form of light? Or do they see in the complete dark?” I needed to know, as this seemed like a very important thing for us, regardless of whatever plan we made. If their lair was pitch black like these halls, things would be much more difficult.

“There’s natural light in the rooms they’re in now,” Brandr told us softly. “I think it may be part of the reason why they collected all the corpses of the dead as they had. The whole area is lightly illuminated by some sort of fluorescent fungus and mushrooms. They don’t give a great light, but the room there is lit as brightly as this one now.”

I have to admit, that’s a relief. I was half afraid that the goblins could somehow see in the perfect dark, and then we’d be screwed. “And the females don’t seem to carry weapons?”

“They don’t,” Brandr confirmed.

“Can we get to the guard rooms if we crawl and stay low, without being seen?” If we could sneak up on them as we did the goblins at the barricade when Isabella was ‘raped’, then I thought we might could even the odds even a little better, before the full fight had to break out.

Brandr nodded. “I think so. Only if one of the goblins comes out of the back room and heads towards the main lair, will they see you.”

Well, hearing that wasn’t good for the nerves! “How often do they come back and forth?” I asked her.

“They’re pretty regular from what I’ve seen. Maybe every ten or fifteen minutes or so.”

Shit! “Then we’re going to need you to let us know when one makes his trip, and as soon as he’s went into the back room, we’ll move quickly. I’m hoping Isabella can be able to do her fake wall trick, or that mirror trick to block off the view from the south guardroom and the north one. If she can, you might can hit the two guards in this room and take them out without the others noticing.

“Then, if we get lucky and you can do the same in the other room, we’ll simply wait for their relief to show up. Even if we only manage to get two out of the room, that’ll cut down the odds when we finally hit the main room with them.”

Maybe I needed to invest more in luck. If this was going to work at all, we’d have to be very lucky! “Or does anyone have a better plan?” Honestly, I was hoping someone did, but Isabella simply shook her head while Brandr barely blinded in response.

“Then I guess that’s what we’ll go with. Dim that light really faint, Izzy. If they have light, we can make a little as well, but nothing large.” Boy, would you listen to me: boss of the world! Got to admit, I didn’t like this type of thing. A lot of guys might enjoy being the boss and in charge, but I was simply too worried that if something went wrong it’d be my fault.

“Brandr, go take a look and let us know when it’s safe for us to make our move.” My nerves were getting frazzled again as I eased up to the door and waited breathlessly at it. Five minutes? Ten minutes? HA! It took these idiot goblins an eternity to go do whatever they were doing in the other room!

Was this what combat was like usually for armies and soldiers? Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait some more…

“He just went into the room.”

And now time to rush! Quickly I pushed open the door and moved on out into the hallway. I crouched down and moved rapidly down the hall towards the end of it. I couldn’t see Brandr as she was still hiding in the darkness, but I knew she could see and knew the situation better than us. “Warn me when I’m at the room right before the guards,” I told her.

Silence greeted my request, so I just had to assume that she was watching out for me. That girl has to start replying a little better! As I was promising myself I was going to have a long talk with her about it later, he voice came to me. “Next one.”

Instantly, I belly flopped onto the ground and wormed my way on to the entrance of the doorway. The fact that these beasts liked to remove doors was actually working in our favor for once. I stopped near the opening to the door and waited for Isabella to squirm her way up beside me and then whisper the words to do her magic thing.

“I’ve put a fake image between us and them, so we should be able to take a better look into the room now,” she told us through the party chat. Trusting her, I slowly eased up where I could finally see around the corner and into the guard room.

As Brandr has described, the room was a mess; much like the goblin igloo I’d seen first thing in the school. Tables, chairs, and junk were all stacked in the center of the room, and the mound reminded me of that same igloo design. The only difference here was that a light florescent fungus was growing over the mounds and giving the room an eerie orange hue. It wasn’t a bright light, but it was enough to make out things in the room.

Isabella wiggled up a little closer to the entrance beside me, and together we watched as precious seconds ticked away as the two goblins basically just wandered around and goofed off. Disciplined lookouts, they were not. After a moment, they both worked their way behind the igloo and out of sight, and Isabella wiggled her fingers and magic flickered from her for the briefest of moments.

“Go now,” she told Brandr. “The image in front of the door between rooms is in place.“ Knowing that we were hidden by her wall over the door, I finally stood up and readied my club. From this moment on, the battle could begin in full swing at any time, and I wanted to be up and standing when it started!

A dark blue flickered through the doorway; apparently Isabella’s magic and Brandr’s talent had some sort of interference or reaction to each other; but then it was gone. Long seconds, which felt like minutes, passed as we strained our ears to hear anything out of the ordinary, and I kept an eye on Brandr’s life with her party image at the left edge of my vision.

Just as I was beginning to think something had went wrong, her voice came to us. “They’re down.”

Without wasting any time, I eased into the room and around to the side of the door. Isabella quickly followed suit. We’d made it into the first guardroom, Brandr had dropped two guards, and Isabella had hidden the whole episode with her phantasms, while I simply had to stand around and be a nervous lump on a log.

Brandr eased around the corner of the igloo – she was somehow moving almost like a crab with her legs wide while she squatted low and kept her frame very close to the floor. Once on the side of the igloo with us, she stood back up and then started staring off into space once again. Nobody moved, and I was beginning to seriously wonder what she was doing, when half a minute or so later the fog wrapped itself around her. I’d forgotten that she said it still took her a bit to hide herself in the darkness like that.

“I’ll circle around from the other side,” she sent us. “Isabella’s wall almost broke the darkness, so I’d rather not go through it again. I’ll go out and circle to the south hall and then hit the two targets when they’re close together.”

“Sounds good, but try and be quick if you can. Isabella is maintaining the image to hide the two of us, and it’s a drain on her energy. The quicker done, the better.”

“Affirmative,” was all she answered, as Brandr disappeared and we were left waiting once again.

“If you can safely down a guard without killing it, do so. But the first order of business must be keeping them quiet and dealing with them swiftly, so if you don’t think it can be done safely, simply kill them.”

“Affirmative.”

And after that, we were left huddled in the corner to wait once more. To be honest, this time the wait was over much more quickly than I had imagined. Brandr seemed to move a lot faster in the darkness than I ever could. It was no more than a few moments later than the goblin on the left side of the other room fell soundlessly with its head separated from its shoulders. The fog almost instantly started to come unwrapped from Brandr, but she never paused in her movements. Quickly she circled around the igloo and in a silent rush struck the second goblin from behind; her head piercing it through the neck.

“They’re down,” was her simple response once again. “This one lives, if the Lady wishes to feed, but it won’t remain long.”

Instantly Isabella dropped her magic and she ran greedily through the doorway separating the rooms, dropped down, and grabbed the goblin in her grip. Blue energy flickered from the tiny beast and rippled into Isabella as she recharged her spent energy as much as possible before the creature jerked convulsively one last time and then lay still as the blue glow of transferring life gently flickered out from around them.

Even though my nerves were fried, there was still no sound of alarm from the main goblins. We’d struck first blood, and the guard rooms were ours with the main group none the wiser.

I could just hope that things continued to go so smoothly for us. The moment of the main battle was looming closer every second, we needed some luck on our side for once.