About an hour later, my friends and I stood near the collapsed building in Dungeontown where Sonja had died, looking up at the barricaded entrance to the gravel corridor. Dusky orange light from the setting sun reflected off the large mirrors near the hole at the top of the cavern. It was just enough to cast the entire cavern in a shadowy twilight but not enough to blind any goblins that flew out of the corridor. My Tactical Vision thought this was likely their reason for waiting to strike.

Electric lanterns began winking on throughout the gnome village. Their stark, white light didn’t banish all the shadows, but at least they’d prevent goblins from sneaking up on us via a route the gnomes forgot.

There was enough light to see that the barricade was quite impressive, especially considering the gnomes had built it in less than an hour. The gnomes’ tortoise beasts had pushed large boulders into place, and then the gnomes themselves had piled large rocks on top of the boulders. The gnomes had also inserted sharp metal spikes into the rock pile, with each spike poking in odd angles through to the other side. The gnomes had run out of loose rocks, so a small, five-foot-wide opening remained at the top of the rock pile with only two feet of clearance between the cavern ceiling and the pile. I couldn’t imagine any goblin fitting through that opening without being a sitting duck while it pushed rocks out of the way.

Twenty gnomes wearing electric generators on their backs stood about twenty paces from the barricade, blocking the ramp to the village. They stood in two rows, ten across, aiming their copper-gloved hands at the barricade like musket men on an 18th-century battlefield.

We all grimly faced the gravel corridor like the Rohirrim at Helm’s Deep awaiting Saruman’s army. Sonja stood on my right, Constantine on my left, and Stephen next to Constantine. Nissa was ten paces in front of me wearing an electric backpack and gloves, as did five other gnomes around her, including the Supervisor who had reported the approaching goblins. In front of them, dozens of gnomes held metal spears in one hand and what looked like baby tortoise shells in the other. Behind my comrades and me stood a reserve echelon of about fifty gnomes armed with more spears and tortoise shields.

Despite all their frenetic activity earlier, the gnome warriors stood still and at attention. It was hard to take the gnome army seriously as they looked like three-foot-tall, cherubic lawn gnomes without the red conical hats. But there was no mistaking the deadly resolve in their eyes. They would defend their homes and families to the death.

Nissa had given me a longsword that her people had found near the body of a previous quester. It gave no bonus to my Strength, but it did have a decently sharp blade, good balance, and was far more comfortable in my hand than the goblin scimitar. I prayed it served me better than it had its previous owner.

Nissa’s real gift to me, though, was a chain mail shirt. It was tight in the shoulders, but it gave +2 to my Toughness over my old leather armor. She also gave Constantine a chain mail shirt and had offered Sonja one, but she declined, saying it was “too restrictive.”

Stephen got to rummage through Nissa’s cabinet in the theater for some spell components, but she only allowed him into certain drawers. He came away with a few items he could use, though he seemed underwhelmed.

And Nissa had stressed that these items were loaners, not gifts. “If you want to keep them, you’ll have to buy them,” she had said.

Sonja shifted her feet next to me. “Come on,” she said under her breath. She stared up at the barricade, her forearm muscles rippling as she gripped her ax. “Where are they?”

“Maybe they aren’t coming up the corridor,” Constantine said. He held his mace upon his shoulder while studying the barricade. “Are we sure there’s no other way they might take?”

Mace’s instincts poked at me, trying to warn me of something. I scratched my scruffy chin. “Nissa said it was the only way from the river below….”

But whatever Mace’s warnings, I got distracted by the sudden howls coming from the barricade above. The goblins had arrived.

“Finally,” Sonja growled. She looked like she wanted to run up the ramp and dive through the small opening to meet the goblins on their side.

“Remember the plan,” I warned her.

Her eyes gleamed as she stared up at the barricade.

“Sonja, remember the—”

“I know,” she growled. “I’m not a mindless fool, Paladin.”

I shared a look with Constantine, but he shrugged. He hoisted his heavy mace off his shoulder and held it with both hands like he was up to bat

To be honest, from my experience with Sonja in this dungeon, she wasn’t acting all that different from when Melony was in charge. It’s just that now I knew Melony wasn’t a force for restraint in that body anymore. Over the past hour, I’d gone back and forth over whether to trust Sonja. This was one of the moments where I leaned toward the “not” camp.

The electric street lamps in Dungeontown winked out, and the whole cavern got much darker. I could still see the gravel corridor and the gnome army around me, but they were more shadowy now. Nissa gave her supervisor a concerned look.

“Could they have entered the generator rooms?” Nissa asked him.

“Only from the north stairs, and I assigned a squad to guard them,” the supervisor said with worried eyes.

Nissa cursed. “Trox may have portaled in and sabotaged them. Take some of your men and go—”

A red flash, along with a low rumble, came from the small opening in the barricade. Small rocks tumbled down the pile, and I could see the gnomes near the barricade tense.

“Light up your generators!” came a gnomish voice among them.

The gloves of all twenty gnomes began to spark with small white forks of lightning, and they aimed their gloves at the opening.

Another red flash and another rumble. This time more rocks rolled down the pile, and the growls and howls coming from the other side increased.

Nissa and her cohort turned on their generators and aimed their sparking gloves at the corridor entrance a hundred feet above them.

A third red flash came from the barricade, and this time the top third of the rock pile exploded outward as if hit by a cannon blast from the other side. The rocks rained down Nissa’s front lines and her cohort. They covered their heads with their baby tortoise shields as jagged stones bounced off them. Some of the gnomes cried out when hit. However, the rocks didn’t break the lines, and the injured gnomes returned to their battle stances despite their bleeding heads and arms. The rocks never reached my friends or the gnomes behind me.

A triumphant howl came from the new opening, and then two large, snarling goblins burst out of the entrance with scimitars swinging. When they cleared the remains of the barricade, they tried unfurling their wings, but the gnomes were ready for them. The first row unleashed a torrent of lightning forks that blasted the two goblins. Chunks of goblin flesh and limbs flew in all directions, and both goblins immediately caught fire. One fell lifelessly off the cliff and slammed into the rocky ground on my level with a sickening crunch. The other took a few steps toward the gnomes before collapsing into a burning, blackened heap.

Two more goblins climbed over the barricade, but they didn’t even make it down the pile before ten forks of lightning from the second line of gnomes fried their heads and upper torsos. These goblins just slumped over the rocks and burned, their bulk almost plugging the hole they had made with their magic.

And here came the dicey part. Nissa had told me that while the gnomish lightning gloves were powerful, it took them at least a minute to recharge for another blast. Which was a minute the gnomes would be virtually defenseless. They hoped to cut that time down with only half their number firing at once, but that might mean a forty-five-second delay rather than a minute.

I didn’t need Mace’s Tactical Vision skill to know that fights could end within forty-five seconds.

The goblins on the other side of the barricade let loose enraged howls. Unseen hands pulled the two dead, smoking goblin carcasses off the rock pile. It took them less than a minute to do that, and I half expected two more goblins to try their luck with the gnome lightning.

But another red flash came, and half the remaining barricade rocks blasted outward with a boom that echoed throughout the vast cavern. More rocks pelted the gnome army below the entrance, and they all had to raise their tortoise shields against the rain. The rocks smashed into the shields and knocked over several gnomes, but they scrambled back to their feet.

My friends and I didn’t carry any shields, so we dove under the thatch roof of nearby little buildings. The shelter was minimal since most of the bigger rocks just smashed through the thatching, but at least the roofs slowed them down a bit. I glanced at my forearm and didn’t see any lost Hit Points. My companions looked uninjured too.

The gnomes behind us raised their shields above their heads and endured it.

As soon as the rain of rocks stopped, we left our shelter in time to see two howling goblins leap out of the newly widened corridor. The gnomes near the entrance were still charging their gloves and couldn’t do anything about the new attackers.

But the gnomes in Nissa’s group were charged up. When the goblins leaped off the cliff to take flight, Nissa’s group unleashed a torrent of lightning into both of them. The lightning tore through their wings and bodies, and both goblins plummeted to the ground. The gnomes in the front ranks had to leap out of the way as the blackened goblin bodies hit the ground with more sick crunches.

Enraged goblin howls came from the corridor entrance, but no goblins emerged. I was grateful for every moment that gave the gnomes time to recharge their lightning gloves.

Sonja roared a battle cry that startled everyone around her. “Save some for me, little gnomes!” she yelled to the gnome army, and then she screamed again.

Their little eyes widened, and then identical feral grins spread across their faces. Soon, they were all yelling their own battle cries in high-pitched voices as loud as they could, and I saw nothing but a desire for blood on their cute, gnomish faces.

I looked at Sonja, and she grinned. “Battle Cry spell,” she said quietly. “It reduces fear and enhances their ability to hit their enemy. You boys should feel it too.”

I indeed felt a desire to club the nearest goblin to death, but then I’d felt that since they’d taken me near the falls. I checked my forearm and saw that my Strength score had jumped to “14” and blinked red. I tapped the red score, and a pop-up appeared:

Temporary enhancement: Crimson Battle Cry: +2 to your Strength and +15% to your chance to hit on all attacks. The enhancement lasts for 10 minutes or until the spell ends.

I looked at Sonja. “Thanks. I didn’t know you could cast magic.”

“I couldn’t until I came back to my body,” she said. “The gods of the Crimson pantheon must think a little magic would bring greater glory in battle to my comrades and me.”

Constantine and Stephen also checked their forearms and smiled.

“It even buffs my attack spells,” Stephen said. “Sweet.”

“What else can you do now?” Constantine asked.

Sonja winked at Constantine. “Things that will blow your mind.”

“Like?” I asked. “If there’s something else that’ll help with this battle, I need to know so we can use it.”

“Now, if I told you, big guy, it wouldn’t surprise you when I do it the first time.”

I was about to tell Sonja that her skills were too valuable to waste on “surprises” when we got the surprise we’d been waiting for.

The hairs on my body stood up, and my stomach lurched like it did when I smelled vomit. I whipped around to see a black oval appear about a foot off the ground fifty feet behind the reserve echelon of gnome troops. Trox leaped out of the portal, his black dragon scale trench coat flapping about him, his hands pressed together as if he were diving into a swimming pool. But as soon as he landed on the ground, he spread his hands apart as if he were calling someone safe at home plate. A wave of oily black magic sliced into the reserve gnomes at chest level and cut them in half. Their bodies fell in separate directions, each half cauterized so that no blood or organs spilled out. It didn’t make the sight any less horrifying.

He caught my eye after he cut them down, and his toothy mouth spread in an evil grin.