Rain poured down on me, soaking me to the bone. My robes did almost nothing to protect me from the never ending downpour that we’d been caught in ever since stepping into this area.

I shuffled my feet, feeling mud squeeze between my toes. Several inches of mud covered the path, and I had no way to keep my feet clean or dry.

We all stood in the middle of a crossroads, a spot where two large paths intersected. Off to the sides, there were the ruins of old buildings, cottages and houses that had clearly been abandoned for decades. The roofs were gone entirely and so were half the walls, otherwise I would have suggested going inside one to get out of the rain for a bit.

Giles was looking at his book of directions, trying to read it while keeping it dry. He looked tired and frustrated, the same as everyone else.

“Where are we going, anyway?” I asked.

This subject had come up a couple times, but things had always been too busy for me to actually get an answer. At the moment, I didn’t think that anyone was in the mood to humor the rookie. But to my surprise, Giles answered.

“Did you know, Miss Donna,” Giles started as he carefully put his book away, “that all the Labyrinth entrances are connected? If you know the route, you can use the Labyrinth to walk from the North Dakota entrance to the one outside Madrid.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” I asked. “Just taking a shortcut?”

“Labyrinth entrances have been around for decades,” Giles continued. “And new ones keep appearing. But until recently, not a single entrance has closed.

“Recently,“ Pham explained, “several Labyrinth entrances have disappeared. And they didn’t just close either. They vanished…along with their entire zone. All that’s left are giant holes that looks like someone just scooped them out with a giant ice cream scoop.”

“The holes are miles across,” Giles said. “And they cover the entire area that used to be the Labyrinth zone. So far, the ones that have vanished have all been in isolated areas…places where the monsters haven’t been culled and have managed to completely overrun the area.”

“Siberia,” Pham said with a grim expression. “The Australian outback. Northern Canada.”

“Our mission, Miss Donna,” Giles explained, “is to investigate these events. Specifically, this team was contracted to head to where the Canadian Northwest Territories entrance had been, and see what things look like from this side.”

Pham nodded and added, “Other teams are doing the same thing for the other missing entrances.”

“Wow,” I said, not sure what else I could say to that. “That is really fucked up.”

“Just imagine how bad it could be if the more populated entrances vanish,” Grayson said. “Some of those Labyrinth towns have thousands of people living there.”

“So, what do you expect to find there?” I asked.

“No idea,” Pham told me. “That’s why we’re going to take a look.”

I was about to ask something else when I noticed movement from the corner of my eye. I looked and saw the local monsters climbing all over one of the ruined buildings. These monsters resembled human children, at least in general shape and size. They were humanoid, about four feet tall and skinny to the point of looking half-starved. However, they also had slimy green skin, and bald heads with large pointed ears and bulging eyes.

“Those goblins are back,” Grayson said, looking almost excited.

I gave the other enchanter a curious look then shook my head. I was pretty sure that in his past life, Grayson had been one of those nerds who spent all day playing video games or Dungeons and Dragons. Being a player and wandering around inside the Labyrinth had to be like a dream come true for him.

The goblins, as Grayson was calling them, were all armed with either clubs or simple spears. They’d been following us since we entered this area of the Labyrinth, but unlike previous monsters we’d met, they were smart enough to keep their distance. Until now.

The little monsters were on the short side while the doors to the building were a little taller than what would be needed for the average human. Those things clearly hadn’t built this place. If anything, they might be responsible for the place being in ruins.

“Damn, those things looked pissed off,” Pham commented.

“And hungry,” I added. “They look like they plan to gnaw on our fucking bones or something.”

“Nasty little shits,” Lenore said as she took aim with her bow.

But while we’d been focusing on the group of goblins that covered the buildings, another group was sneaking up behind us. I only noticed because I saw movement from the corner of my eye. As soon as the group of approaching goblins realized that they’d been spotted, they all screamed and charged right at us.

I responded by unleashing my new ability, the one that I’d been looking for a chance to test. I pushed the powerful bane towards them, though I was targeting the ground beneath their feet. Suddenly, purple and black mist seemed to form to form and soak into the ground, leaving a glowing circle around twenty feet across.

Five goblins were caught within my ‘Cursed Ground’, and they immediately began to slow down. Two of them promptly tripped and fell over while another one dropped his club. From what I could tell, ‘Cursed Ground’ not only slowing them down, it was also fucking with their agility and dexterity.

“That’s one hell of a bane,” Grayson said with a nod of approval. “You’ve really nerfed their movement.”

I nodded in appreciation of the effect before admitting, “I was hoping for an ability to do more damage.”

“Enchanters don’t get much direct damage,” Grayson told him. “The most you’re likely to get are a few banes like ‘Hex’ that deal a bit of damage over time.”

“Speaking of ‘Hex’,” I said as I fired a ‘Hex’ at one of the goblins.

The goblin had had already been in the process of tripping over himself, but as soon as I hit him, it got even worse. The glow from my ‘Hex’ flared a bit stronger than usual, then the goblin fall flat on his face. He was moving at an absolute crawl, even slower than the other goblins around him, but now he was sick and taking damage as well.

“What the hell is that?” I asked, noticing that my ‘Hex’ seemed to be hitting this goblin even harder than usual.

“Enchantments can stack,” Grayson told me. “Some of them can reinforce each other and make both of them a little stronger. Banes on banes or boons on boons.” He flashed me a grin. “It’s why white and black enchanters tend to be more powerful than the grey kind.”

I grinned at that and raised my sword. I’d been worried that ‘Cursed Ground’ wouldn’t be all that useful, but one look showed just how powerful it could be. Five goblins had all been seriously weakened with one attack, and as a bonus, my ‘Hex’ was even stronger than usual against them.

Lenore fired a bunch of arrows at my trapped goblins, hitting three of them while two of the goblins got multiple arrows. Then she snapped around and began shooting at the other goblins, ones who’d been distracting us so that their friends could try sneaking up from behind.

“Don’t step into this,” Grayson warned the others as he indicated the glowing patch of ground. “You’ll get caught in that too.”

“If you increase your focus enough,” Pham told me as he held up his staff, “you’ll probably be able to make it so that it only affects your enemies.”

And with those words, Pham fired off one of his wind blades. It shot through the goblins that I had trapped and sliced through all of them but one. That one had been laying flat on his face in the mud, sick from my ‘Hex’, so the wind blade had simply flown right over him.

I stared at the remaining trapped goblin. He looked to be in pretty bad shape at the moment. By this point, I was sure that part of what ‘Hex’ did was to fuck with a person’s vitality, leaving them with less health and energy to fight off the damage. As soon as I was able to do so, I hit him with a second ‘Hex’, just to see how powerful it would be. That one also stacked with the previous ‘Hex’ and the ‘Cursed Ground’, effectively doubling down on just how screws that little bastard was.

While I was experimenting, everyone else was focused on the remaining goblins. Grayson shot forward, seemingly unbothered by the muddy ground, with clubs and spears bouncing off his shield as he cut through one monster after another. Giles held back, keeping his own position for the most part and dealing with any goblins that came for the rest of us.

Lenore didn’t bother forming her armor this time. She simply took her time to aim and fire an arrow, then she conjured another one and repeated this. One goblin fell to an arrow through his heart, then another. Then they began to run away, leaping for cover behind the ruined buildings.

One of the goblins came rushing at me, screaming while charging forward with his spear. I raised my sword to face him, only to watch as Giles hit him with his halberd. The monster dropped to the ground dead before I’d ever even had a chance to deal with him.

I saw another pair of goblins sneaking around, trying to come up on Grayson from behind. I fired a ‘Hex’ at that one but missed. One of the goblins dove for cover while the other one decided to abandon all stealth and just charged at Grayson. Grayson snapped around and caught him a moment later.

It didn’t take much longer to finish dealing with the goblins. Most of them were dead, but not all. I’d seen a couple of them sneak away during the fighting, so they were still out there. Watching. Waiting. And they’d probably come after us again when they thought they had an opening, maybe even with reinforcements.

“Goblins,” Grayson said as he cleaned off his sword. He still seemed oddly cheerful about that. “Next on my bucket list, a dragon. No, a mimic. I need to work up to a dragon.”

“What a nerd,” Lenore said from beside me. She was watching Grayson with a look of amusement.

“No kidding,” I agreed with a chuckle, before adding, “Just don’t call him that to his face.”

She gave me a disbelieving look before responding, “But it’s a lot more fun when I do it to his face.”

“That was a pretty nice AOE,” Grayson called over to me. “That should make fights a lot easier.”

“Thanks,” I responded, though I had no idea what AOE actually meant.

“See,” Lenore told me with a smirk. “Nerd.”

I nodded at that and considered the patch of ‘Cursed Ground’. The enchantment was finally fading away, having lasted about five minutes. That was a lot longer than ‘Hex’, but my second ability was also stronger in several other ways, in spite of not doing any damage at all. However, I could already see the downside. ‘Cursed Ground’ was not ready to be used again, and I could tell that it would take some time to recharge.