Stepping onto the village island they saw a dozen shadows carrying statues to a vortex on the far side of the island. The buildings were damaged and looked like they had been looted with even the bedding dragged outside.
"It wasn't this bad when I passed through here before." Chronos stated.
"Most of the dark beasts here are goblins, it makes sense that they would wreck the place."
Gregory commented as he surveyed the damage to the inside of a building. The inside was even worse than the outside, looking like a bear had made its home there.
"How do we want to handle the goblins?" Sariah asked
"Hmm let's set up a small barricade between two buildings, then I'll use my bow to draw their attention. Me and Lyla will be the frontline guards while Sariah supports us from behind and Gregory covers our backs. If they start to surround us, we can jump onto the roof of the building and finish the fight."
Chronos outlined their plan and gestured at a two-story building they would use as a last resort.
"We're close enough to the next island that we can run if things really get dangerous." Gregory commented while looking over the area for their ambush.
Once the plan was made, they picked up branches and a ripped off door to use as a barricade. The branches were swiftly sharpened, and the door was propped up with short stakes to block half of the alley they were using.
Sariah then cast [Wind's Grace] to increase agility, [Bear's Strength] to increase endurance and strength, and finally cast a weak [Barrier] over both ends of the alley to protect them.
Lyla then cast [Lawbound Bulwark] granting enhanced defense to all allies within 6 meters and making them immune to fear, charm and confusion.
Seeing this Chronos couldn't help but tease her, "Looks like you really are more skilled in combat than in finding the truth. Your truth spell only had the first ability while your defense spell has all of its effects."
Seeing him grinning she snapped at him, "Hmph, I told you I'm not very good with truth spells, combat is where I belong."
With everything in place Chronos glanced at everyone before shooting one of the goblins with an aura arrow.
POP!
The goblin burst like a water droplet, the nearest goblins looked around and shouted at each other but none of them noticed where the arrow came from.
"Well, let's try that again."
POP!
POP!
This time Chronos shot two arrows and killed two more goblins. This time they had seen where the arrows had come from.
While charging at them the goblins threw their weapons in an attempt to stop any more arrows from coming their way.
Thunk. Thunk.
Colliding with the barrier the weapons fell to the ground without damaging it, Chronos ignored them and continued to shoot as more goblins came out of buildings.
"Good barrier." Lyla said as she cast [Holy Gavel].
Next to her a shining gold gavel appeared in midair and floated around her. Instead of keeping it by her side, she threw it at the nearest goblin, solidly smacking it in the head and causing damage to every goblin within 3 meters from the shockwave it gave off.
"I think that summon is meant to stay by your side, not be thrown at the enemy." Sariah said.
Watching it fly back to her, Lyla replied with a smile, "It always comes back so I don't see a reason not to throw it."
Rolling her eyes Sariah pointed out, "You and Chronos really are similar to each other. You both use your skills the wrong way, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing."
Chuckling Chronos recited an old military saying, "If it's not broke, don't fix it."
Shaking her head exasperatedly she focused on the goblins once more.
When the goblins were close enough, Chronos switched to his falchions as his hammer's shaft would get in the way within the small alley.
Chopping away at every goblin that came within range he faintly realized that they had miscalculated. There were far more goblins pouring out of the buildings than he had thought possible.
What had started as a dozen goblins was now up to three dozen despite the numbers they had already slain.
There must be burrows inside of the buildings, their original owners were not going to be happy about having to fix their homes as soon as they are freed from petrification.
Luckily, he wouldn't be there to see that.
Chronos liked to fight but after chopping and stabbing at weak rank 1 goblins for nearly half an hour even he was getting bored.
"Greg, is there anything coming up behind us?"
"Not anymore, I know what you're thinking, go ahead and back up."
Lyla gave them a curious look but as the rhythmic thunk thunk of her mace had bored her as well, she decided to follow their direction.
As the whole group slowly backed away, the goblins mistook it for a retreat. Emboldened by this, they pressed forward, forcing their way into the alleyway.
Once the alley was packed full of goblins, Chronos pulled Lyla behind him and [Roar] erupted from his throat. Screaming in fear the goblins tried to get out of the way, realizing too late that they were trapped by the walls and their own allies.
Moving forward like a solid wall goblin after goblin dissipated as they slammed into the aura wall created by [Roar]. It only took 5 seconds for the alley to be completely cleared.
"That is not how an aura roar is supposed to work! Can you teach me how to do it?" She asked with sparkling eyes.
Seeing her gaze Chronos responded, "Sure, but learning how to adjust it for an attack is quite difficult. For now, let's grab every statue we can before they reform, fighting them isn't enjoyable at all, it's just annoying."
Running out of the alley they rapidly killed the last few surviving goblins then moved over to the vortex.
"I'll cast a blessing, so we aren't affected by th..."
Before Lyla could finish her sentence Chronos had already reached into the vortex to pull out the first statue, looking back at her he asked.
"Did you say something?"
"No, never mind but you have to pull them out. We'll put them in the chest."
"Ok."
Taking the statue from him Gregory turned to Lyla.
"I'm guessing we're not supposed to touch the vortex."
"No, you can touch it. It just pulls you in so you can't escape without a blessing, even if you aren't being petrified. That's just one more mystery we need an answer to."
She sighed deeply, thinking about how the high priest was going to question them when they got back.
They retrieved 24 statues from the vortex and loaded them into the chest. Finding no more statues in the village they left for camp, hoping their path was still intact.
As they left, they smashed the gathering shadows again to buy a little more time before the dark beasts could try to tail them.
On the way back, one of the islands had been replaced by another, this one adorned with a dozen statues. In an effort to keep it from drifting away, they gathered some vines and tied it to the neighboring island.
As they left, they put 6 more statues into the chest filling it to capacity.
Rushing back, they encountered a separate team about to head out.
"If you don't have a target yet, we passed an island with some statues on it a little ways back," Chronos said, gesturing in the direction they had come from.
"We were being sent out on reconnaissance. If we can retrieve some comrades along the way, then that's even better." They waved as they went in the direction Chronos had indicated.
Returning to camp they went straight to the medic tent and dropped off the 30 statues they had collected.
Waiting for them at the tent was Vice-Commander Adam who was taking reports from everyone that made it back while keeping track of the ones who went missing.
"Welcome back, anything to report?"
"Yes." Came Lyla's upset voice, "This man can reach inside of the vortexes without any negative effects! Oh, and we brought back 30 statues to be sorted."
"Oh, that's impressive. But you really shouldn't regard the statues as an afterthought, they can still hear you when petrified."
"If they don't like it then they can complain to me later. I'm sure the high priest will want to question us about the vortex; please tell me we can leave before he finds us? I don't want to sit through another hour long question and answer session."
"Alright, here go the islands to our right. Kill any shadows you find and come back after 3 hours to rest."
"Thank you." Lyla was practically bouncing as they left the tent and ran for the front gate.
As they left they heard High priest Morgan calling out to them but pretended they hadn't.