Luke looked down at the spot where Alan disappeared for a few seconds, then turned to the rest of the group and cleared his throat. "Yes, Irene, I think I might have."

  Everyone stared at him in silence until Luke shrugged. "I told him it was risky. Let's just hope people who die here don't actually die. Guess we'll have to see about that 50k."

  Nate walked up and slapped Luke's back with an awkward chuckle. "Right. Let's hope so. I'm sure we'll find him when we find Sarah."

  He looked at the two remaining members of the other party. "Maybe now we can combine into one group. Six of us shouldn't be too many, I'm thinking."

  Nina and the last member, a young, dark-haired guy in a mage's robe named Mendez, exchanged a look, then nodded.

  "Perhaps you are right," Nina said. "Just don't go healing us without permission. Don't want to end up like Alan."

  "Where to next?" Luke asked.

  "We came through there," Nina said, pointing. "And spawned into this place nearby."

  Nate nodded his head the way they'd come. "Same."

  They agreed to take a separate path, continuing from behind where the groll spawned and left the hall, looking over their shoulders to make sure the monster didn't respawn and come after them. With six members, navigating through the hallway that followed was an exercise in frustration. It was wide enough for three people to walk shoulder to shoulder, but that left little room for those behind to attack.

  When they came upon more goblins, Nate, Nina, and Irene walked up front. Irene loosed arrows into the goblins as they appeared before stepping back to let the melee fighters deal with the raging little green bastards. Mingze didn’t need a line of sight, and little sparks flew in arcs over their heads, incapacitating goblins and skewing every battle in the group's favor.

  Luke had little to do in these easy fights and was glad to see his mana regenerating even as they walked in silence. Some of the others discussed the boons they’d picked and what the world might turn into, but Luke withdrew, focusing on what was within. With the Weaver’s Eye improved, he spotted imperfections within himself. Nothing major like with Alan or what Nate was walking around with, but things like a small kidney stone and slight anemia. The latter, he wasn't sure how he identified, but his mana touched his blood, and the information popped into his head, like an instinct. The kidney stone would take months to form into something painful, but Luke still dealt with it, flooding the organ with healing mana. Anemia wasn't something he knew how to deal with in this case, so he'd just have to take some iron supplements if it didn't go away on its own.

  Mana, he discovered, was a presence permeating his entire body, like thin strands of blue intertwined with arteries and veins, following the paths through his body. The mana even had its own heart, sort of. A second, metaphysical heart overlaid the physical, the two pumping in rhythm.

  Moving mana around his own body was easier than when doing it to heal others, and he practiced keeping focus as they walked. People would need his healing in all sorts of situations, even in the middle of battle. He couldn’t stand around for minutes at a time. He’d need to get in, stitch them up, and be on his way before a heavy club crushed his patient, or even worse, himself.

  Goblins provided little in the way of experience at first. With them being a large party, Luke found his experience bar filling up at a slow pace. After a while, they came upon different types of goblins. More advanced variants with bows and a few using shields. Their levels were a little higher but still didn’t pose much of a threat since the bows were small, didn’t reach far, and Nate, at the front, was coming into his own with the shield, using it to block attacks and smash their little faces in when the opportunity presented itself.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  It wasn’t until almost half an hour later, maybe a little more, it was hard to tell with their phones dead, that they found another, more spacious cavern. Inside, several goblins stood in a circle around a new type.

  Goblin Geologist (Level 6).

  It wore a brown stained robe out of what looked like sackcloth and held a wand, waving it through the air as it shouted in some incomprehensible language. The cavern rumbled as more and more rocks, big and small, rose from the ground or were torn from the ceiling and walls. They began spinning around the mage as the goblins, perhaps its guards, launched into a combined attack with spears, bows, and even a few clubs.

  Mendez released a blast of fire that singed the goblin mage’s robe without managing much else before the spinning rocks nullified the magic attack. Nate and Nina were busy dealing with the frontal assault, with Irene trying, and failing, to get arrows through the mage’s protection, and Mingze’s sparks proved just as useless against the earthen barrier.

  Since the mage wasn’t attacking just yet, they shifted their focus to the other goblins. More goblins were streaming in from different paths, running as fast as their little legs would carry them. Those coming from one such path were even quicker, running like they were fleeing from something.

  Sure enough, two fighters followed. One with a long-handled hammer the size of Luke’s head and a full plate mail armor covering him from head to toe. Each step he took was a rustle of metal plates scraping against each other. The other warrior wielded a spear and ran with lithe, nimble steps, darting and stabbing, before spotting the mage. He threw the spear straight at the goblin mage, but the stones pushed it aside. For a brief moment, the spear glowed, then disappeared, reappearing in the fighter's hand.

  More and more goblins pushed into the chamber, overwhelming the group as Luke tried, and failed, to keep moving and heal those with cuts and other injuries. No matter what, he just wasn't quick enough without using the brunt healing technique of flooding the wound with mana, and doing so meant spending far too much on a single wound.

  "Get out of here!" the man in plate mail shouted, waving for everyone to retreat before turning and charging out the way he'd come.

  His spear-wielding friend followed, repeating the message. "Get out! The mage—"

  That was all he had time for before the rocks around the goblin mage spun up even faster, then burst outward in all directions. First, the goblins closest to the mage were crushed by the torrent of rocks, then it fell upon Luke and his group like a deadly, dust-filled rain.

  It was all too fast for Luke to react, and the only thing he could think to do was hold up his arms to protect his face. People cried out in pain, and he could only watch as small boulders crushed those around him, killing Irene and Mingze in an instant, the others first taking major crushing wounds to their limbs before large enough rocks cracked against their skulls, sending them to the ground, dead and dying.

  Luke blinked and looked up, wondering why he remained standing, then found Nate in front of him, hunched behind his round wooden shield. A pulsing white light extended beyond the shield's rim, expanding outward into a large circle wide enough to encompass them both.

  Nate grunted as the deafening sound of rocks cracking against his barrier grew into what sounded like a rockslide going down a mountain, pummeling them until the glow stretching from his shield flickered and cracked. By a stroke of luck, it held until the rocks stopped coming. Dust filled the air in the cavern, and Luke coughed, unable to see more than a few steps in front of him.

  "We have to kill that mage," Nate said, charging forward into the unknown.

  Luke looked around him, saw nothing, and moved to where he knew their friends had been standing. They were gone. All of them. No matter how much he searched, all he found were dead goblins.

  "Nate!" Luke shouted, spat, then coughed again.

  "Over here!" Nate shouted back.

  Luke turned and walked until he found Nate standing over the dead goblin mage.

  "It didn't put up much of a fight," Nate said, unequipping his sword and shield to scratch at his chin, then run a hand through his sand-filled hair.

  "The others are gone," Luke said.

  "Shit," Nate grumbled. "I thought they might be after that attack. This place is rough for a tutorial." He turned and looked toward the other exit. "Do you think those two made it?"

  "I don't know," Luke said, turning when he felt a burning sensation in his back. Stinging followed, and a ripping sound as something protruded from his chest. Dumbfounded, he grabbed at it. A spear. It was slick with blood. The sight and feel of the red smears made Luke taste blood in the back of his throat. Blood. His blood.

  It pulled back out of him, and it was then the pain broke through the shock of it. Luke tried to scream, but all that came out was a bubbling groan.