‘Frell,’ Robin muttered as he looked through Rerebos’s senses at the next location that the party intended to explore in their hunt for more illusory knowledge. The location in question had once been a market gallery of shops, but now it was a nesting ground for some of the monsters that had escaped from the living dungeon threaded through the city.

The shopping arcade had been colonised by a small band of humanoids that looked rather like goblins, save for their strange blue hue and the crystalline shimmer to their hair and nails. The most curious thing, however, was their complete lack of communication. Robin had been spying on them for awhile now and there hadn’t been so much as a peep from any of them, nor any sort of gesturing or pantomime communication.

That didn’t mean they weren’t interacting or coordinating, however. Robin could see that they were communicating somehow—maybe pheromones or light patterns or telepathy—because they divided food amongst themselves and the duller ones seemed to cower before the more brightly glimmering ones.

They will move quickly when threatened, Rerebos observed.

It was a strange thing, mentally communicating with Rerebos while also sharing the little dragon’s thoughts. Not quite a double-echo sort of feeling but close. Like Robin could hear a whisper of the thought in both his projected mind and his brain at the same time.

But do you think we can scare them off?

I do not know. Rerebos flitted to another shadow for a better vantage point. They seem the sort to be weak and scatter before a threat, but also the kind that will guard their territory most jealously. Though I hope they do not flee.

Robin could feel his familiar’s eye glitter with avarice.

Many, may shinies… Rerebos whispered to himself, looking at the goblinoids’ bodies.

Robin was more interested in the mural. This one had the least amount of damage he’d seen so far. There were still several pieces missing, both scattered throughout and in a pattern that looked curiously similar to the rune lines he’d seen beneath the other murals the party had investigated.

He really wanted a look at that mural. But to get to it, they needed to clean out the nest of little blue goblins first. He’d like to assume they wouldn’t be too tough, but assumptions like that were a good way to get a guy killed.

‘Where’s a nice fireball when you need one?’ he muttered to himself, returning his senses to his own body.

‘What was that?’ Jhess asked.

‘Lots of little blue goblin looking types,’ he answered. ‘A whole nest. Crystal protrusions, again.’

‘Like the rats?’ Drev looked thoughtful. ‘Could indicate they also employ some kind of mind-magics.’

‘Ugh,’ Jhess groaned, ‘those are the worst.’

‘At least it looks like they still have plenty of vital organs for you to stab them in,’ Robin said. ‘They’re not walking automatons made entirely of crystal and brass.’

‘Don’t tempt the gods!’ Jhess glared at him.

Robin raised his hands in a placating gesture.

‘Do we have any kind of area effect magic that is useful on a large number of beings at once? I can hold them spellbound for awhile, but I doubt it’ll last through the time we’d need to experiment with the mural.’ Robin looked to Drev. Vance was more a self-enhancement kind of magician.

‘How many are there?’ Drev scratched his chin.

Robin twitched his finger and a [Visual Phantasm] modelling the area and its occupants materialised.

‘No. Too many. I’d need another tier at least before I could hit all of those with one spell.’

‘We could snipe them?’ Jhess suggested. ‘Or wait until most of them are asleep and just…’ she drew a finger across her throat.

‘I suspect not enough will be in slumber at any one time to make that strategy effective,’ Savra said, flipping her newly-acquired magical coin. ‘Sniping them from concealment or scaring them away are the two most favourable options, though both seem to be a mixture of both weal and woe.’

Robin would prefer simply scaring the little buggers off, but the way Savra said it made him think that if they did, they’d likely run into the blighters again, possibly at a less favourable time.

‘We could snipe with illusory cover,’ he suggested. ‘Do both. Take out a chunk of them by casting spells through a monster apparition I conjure? If we time it right we could eliminate a chunk of them, scare off a chunk of them, then see where that gets us? Maybe a hydra? That has plenty of heads.’

The party roughed out a plan and Jhess went off to scout good positions. The shopping arcade, though damaged, still had plenty of support on its upper level, thought the stairs had long since been choked with rubble. Between Jhess, Rerebos, and the rope ladders each of them had packed, it was simplicity itself to scramble up while the blue gobbos were looking elsewhere.

Savra took a position on the left hand side with Vance. Jhess and Drev too the right. Robin and Rerebos took while longer to get into position, as the archway above the entryway to the arcade was treacherous and the last thing Robin wanted was to fall and break something right before their ambush.

Finally, he was in position.

It began with [Lesser Phantasm], a few noises that slowly grew in volume: a scrape of something large against a building, the tumble of a pile of stones, the hisss of scale over cobbles.

Jhess was making faces at him but Robin ignored the rogue. This was theatre! If you want to convince your audience you need to get at least some of the details right.

He followed up with a flickering shadow, another few tactical sounds, then a great huff-huff-huffing before the used [Visual Phantasm] to cause a large reptilian head to snake its way into the shopping arcade.

The blues definitely noticed that! Robin could see a ripple of alarm go through them as they began to scatter.

Best not give them a chance to organise any kind of defence.

Robin channeled a [Lesser Witchbolt] through the illusion as the hydra opened its mouth. The flaming projectile lanced outward and slammed into one of the blues.

Direct hit!

The target didn’t go down but Robin could see he’d done more than a little damage. Before he could fire off another, however, a bolt of force came out of nowhere to finish it off.

Right! The others needed illusory cover as well. Robin tweaked the [Visual Phantasm] to add two more heads, writhing and snapping in front of his party mates.

He followed it up with a growling roar.

The blues, for their part, fell back, but didn’t run out of the arcade. They seemed to think that the hydra might be too big to fit inside. Robin bit back an oath.

Not what the party needed right now.

His eyes scanned the crowd. There had to be a leader. Someone that was bolstering the weaker-willed members of the group. None of them immediately stood out, but maybe if he gave them a little nudge…

Robin picked a few cowering targets from amongst those blues that were clearly the most afraid. As the hydra roared and snapped and fired off occasional bolts of force or fire, Robin peppered each of his chosen cowards with [Lesser Nightmare Curse] to really ramp up the fear.

“Come on, come on, break you bastards,” Robin muttered.

He began to throw in a [Lesser Witchbolt] every three cantrips. He was on his fourth cycle before one of the blues finally broke, running screaming away as another blue was roasted in witchfire.

One of the other blues, slightly smaller than the others but with a few more crystalline protrusions, threw out its hands. The air rippled as a blast of pure psychic energy tore through the arcade. It gnashed at Robin’s mind but he managed to shrug off the effects.

Rerebos was not so lucky. His familiar, still in his flying feline form, suddenly slumped off Robin’s shoulder. The bard barely managed to catch him in time.

Robin willed the heads to all snap and point at that one. That had to be the leader. He followed up the action with another bolt of witchfire, but the expected bolts of force from the other two heads didn’t follow.

Fuck! Who got caught in that mind blast?

Didn’t matter. That leader needed to be crushed and crushed as soon as possible. They were clearly holding the whole group together.

Robin fired off a [Lesser Witchbolt] and followed it with a [Whispers from Beyond]. If he got lucky, making the leader flee would cause all the rest to follow.

He didn’t get lucky. Clearly the little blue bastards all had highly developed wills. He was just fortunate that none of them had bothered to interact directly with his illusions yet. If they did they likely stood a higher-than-average chance of noticing that it was, well, an illusion.

Robin spammed a few more cantrips, scoring a couple hits with his witchfire. While the leader still stood, the rest of the blues were clearly getting seriously agitated.

Fine. Can’t take out the leader without some stronger spells, he’d double-down and try to get some of them to flee with his maddening whispers.

It was nice having a bigger pool of magical energies to work with.

Not all of the blues were as resilient as their leader. First one, than another succumbed, fleeing screaming away from the hydra. A half dozen others that Robin hadn’t targeted followed.

That rattled the leader. the little figure started waving their arms wildly and jumping up and down.

Then there was a flicker of movement and the leader collapsed!

The rest of the group broke at that. Whatever force had been holding them together was gone and the blues scrabbled to escape, trampling a few of their number to death in their panic.

Robin kept the illusion going, mentally directing one of the heads to start snuffling around the nearest corpse. Then he carefully made his way to the main level, Rerebos’s unconscious form held carefully in the crook of his arm.

Shrouding himself in shadow he made his way to the corpse of the leader of the blues. When he got a bit closer it was clear what had felled the creature: one of Jhess’s dagger.

‘Nice shot,’ he said, hearing the faint scrape of leather on stone behind him.

‘Thanks,’ Jhess grunted. ‘Though we were sunk when Drev collapsed and the force bolts stopped flying.’

‘Vance succumbed as well,’ Savra said, joining them. ‘Though I expect they shall rouse themselves soon enough.

Robin nodded, carefully examining their surrounding for stray blues.

There were none.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘Let’s get everyone up and running again, then see what this mural has to tell us.’