I woke up the next morning, and after breakfast my uncle asked me to come with him and we went to one of the towers.

 

- We will keep watch here, don’t worry no one is close by to hear our talk – says my uncle – what is the purpose that you want to fulfill here? I know your father has been giving you a lot of favor since your awakening.

 

- Well uncle some things my father has asked I do not talk publicly…

 

- I already told you that no one will listen to us here – He says exasperated interrupting me before I could finish.

 

- Uncle as far as I know my father is not against the family knowing about what happened during my awakening but he has asked me to only reveal that under the green dome, the sphere he uses for privacy. – I tell him talking fast before he interrupts me again.

 

My uncle lift a hand and stop me from talking, and he sits on the wall while he keeps watch over the pass, while he does that I know our conversation has not ended and that he is thinking, so I sit down and start meditating, after some time my uncle coughs lightly, and I open my eyes and look at him.

 

- Please continue – He says

 

- Well I’m here because I want to see our soldiers while they are in battle with the demonic forces, I will keep myself in meditation for it since what I’m looking for can only be seen with mana sense. – I answer.

 

- Are you sure that you will be able to do it, entering meditation so that you can use your mana sense you have to be in a calm environment.

 

- I have been training myself by entering meditation while the guards are training, to try and enter meditation while my surroundings are in turmoil – I say – I had some success on it.

 

- And the objective? – he ask.

 

- Can I keep to myself for now?

 

- Carter I won’t share whatever you tell me, if this is at the same level as your awakening tell me and I won’t push – he says while looking at me.

 

- No uncle this is not at that level, I have some ideas and I have been able to see some energies on our soldiers whenever they use skills, also as far as I know and what I have read in the library only when we use a skill we can damage the demons, or if we do not use a skill we need weapons that can do it – I say then take a deep breath and continue - sadly a lot of info is incomplete, I have been reading in the family library since I was 5 and I feel that some books and tomes are missing, but my purpose is to see live if the energy that I see when the soldiers use the skills is what is damaging the demons.

 

I put up my hand stopping him before he can talk, and I say something else.

 

- Uncle I do not want to say much because I’m still investigating and trying to understand myself what is happening, once I have some evidence and can prove what I’m thinking I will tell, but before that, well a lot of things are not easy, you know what happen with the sewer system? – I finish with a question after trying to awkwardly explain.

 

- Yeah most sewer systems before yours ended up concentrating waste and garbage in an area contaminating it and causing huge issues, we know our ancient cities had sewers but … - he looks far away, then focus back again on me – you as far as I know took 2 years investigating until you found and made a solution, something that we could touch and test, and I know my brother is happy that the system appear to be working, so this is the same you are right now investigating and will probably come out later with some kind of solution?

 

- In a way, maybe – I say all insecure, and when my uncle looks at me with confusion and curiosity – let me try and explain in a different way, the sewer system did not take me just 2 years but it took me close to 2 and a half years, the first half year was when I went around the city collecting info and seeing what was happening, identifying the problem and reading in the library to see what the problem was and what solution could be used, right now I’m at that same early stage, collecting info.

 

- I understand. – That is all of what my uncle said before going back to keeping watch on the tower.

After that conversation my uncle kept to himself, he was a quiet man that had a lot of patience, but I could also see that he was a very intelligent person that sat down and thought deeply about what he consider important.

 

The attack finally came on the third day since we had arrived at the fort, this was my second time seeing goblins and the sight was intimidating, the rows of goblins coming in the morning sun, they looked ugly and misshaped, but the sheer quantity, I was scared, then I feel a hand on my shoulder.

 

- Don’t worry, we are here, you have your job, enter meditation and see what you came for - says my uncle with a smile and then he goes back to his spot on the tower where he has a barrel full of arrows ready for him to use, I see other archers with the same setup all around the walls.

 

When I see the field now I understand a bit more how broken the field is, and it did remind me strangely of one of the games I played in my youth, I knew that with all the extra trenches, with the archers and with the Mages, the goblins had to literally go through a killing gauntlet before they could attack us, and the way the fort was set up it forced them to come at us, this looked to me like the bloody foothills in some way.

 

The goblins after reaching a certain distance, stopped, I saw an even uglier and nastier type of goblin at the front, and I could see several other goblins that carried staffs.

 

- Well we have a Warrior goblin and several shamans with a horde of normal goblins to keep us company – says one of the sergeants.

 

- Warrior Goblin? – I ask.

 

- Yeah there are several type of goblins, there is the normal one – says my uncle and points towards the green misshaped thing that form the lines – the goblin shamans, those are their spellcasters – he says while he points towards the goblins with staffs.

 

I see that those goblins are slightly different from the other they are smaller but their head is slightly bigger than a normal goblin.

 

- And the guy at the front is a goblin warrior – says my uncle while finally pointing at the more muscular goblin that is standing in front of all the others – there is also hobgoblins that are even bigger than the warrior, the hobgoblin shaman, and then you have the king either a warrior goblin king or a shaman goblin king, those are as toughs as orcs.

 

I look at him not understanding the comparison, he laughs and says.

 

- Our soldiers can easily match a goblin 1 on 1 and win, a warrior goblin is a bit harder but it can still be done 1 on 1, even hobgoblins can be done 1 on 1 if your weapon skill is high enough, kings on the other hand just like with orcs require 2 or 3 people hitting them almost at the same time to cause damage – my uncle explain.

 

Then I hear a horn in the distance coming from the goblin troops, and they start running while the shamans start casting spells, I see lots of magical barriers form at the front of the running goblins, and when they reach a certain distance I see that every archer and mage on the fort start their attack, barriers break but the goblins continue forward, some goblins are killed while the barrier are down and before the shamans can recast them, I see another group of mages start casting their own barriers in front of the walls and crenellations, and then I see a fireball but this one is different, its darker and it hit one of the barriers destroying it, at the same time the barrier got destroyed the fireball also disappeared.

 

It looked nasty and powerful but the barriers could hold, at this point I look downwards and see that the first of the goblins are hitting our frontline defenders, most of them do fight with a sword and shield, but the amount of goblins attacking them cause stumbles and sometimes they grab shields and pull, causing disruptions all over the line, there are officers and other soldiers who have different weapons that help on this situations, one of them was using double daggers and I saw how he killed three goblins to save a soldier that has been pulled from his position and bitten on the back of the leg, that soldier had to leave the frontlines and another soldier took its place with a sword and shield to cover the gap.

 

At this point I decided that I needed to stop gawking at the battle and do what I have come to do, I entered meditation, it was hard and highly distracting, but after a while the sounds of battle became a bit muted and I was able to see the firefly world as I like to call it, I focus my attention on the frontlines, and I see hundreds of soldiers all of them using skills the pearl colored energy moves through their bodies constantly, and I see some of that energy coating the weapons and shields, when I focus on the goblins, they also have some energy surrounding them but it is a rotten greenish color and flakes of black are all over it.

 

I see how the pearl energy nullifies and in some cases overpower the rotten energy allowing the sword to cut into the skin, just so that more energy would come out of the wound, another sword stroke and the goblins energy that now was in disarray could not confront the pearl energy allowing the sword to cause a fatal wound.

 

I focus my sight on the spells that are flying and I see more of the same, the pearl energy and the rotten energy fighting each other each spell and each barrier had a core that was formed of that pearl color or rotten color, most of our barriers where Silver in color so they were mostly form out of natural mana, some were red or blue, I imagine those came from mages specializing in those elements.

 

Then I notice something and I go back with my focus towards the battlefield, where the warrior goblin is using his normal goblins to make soldiers get out of line just so that he could deliver a fatal hit, I saw how some of the soldiers died at his hands, and I also saw that his energy was thicker than the normal goblins, when a normal soldier hit him with his sword the energy was insufficient to power through, another soldier hit him and this one was able to cause a very minor wound, not more than a scratch, then I could feel one of the officers coming nearby and the skill used by these officer had a good amount of pearl energy and this finally overpowered enough of the warrior goblins energy to make a proper wound, not fatal but the warrior goblin grabbed one of the normal goblins and threw it in the face of the officer.

 

While the officer dealt with the thrown goblin the warrior goblin pulled back towards the shamans, at this point I was tired, I had been focusing on sensing mana close to 2 hours and trying to use the skill for so long and trying to see the battles in more detail, took such a heavy toll that it was like if I had an entire practice of using spells, I was tired.

 

I could see now why my dad insisted so much on endurance training, the soldiers continue fighting, I had tagged mentally the 3 people I had seen in combat with the warrior goblin, the battle continue raging around and I could see how the goblins worked together to cause damage, something that my uncle Dylan killed so easily 1 on 1 was a nightmare when there was 4 of them attacking at the same time, not giving you time to deal with them, one of our soldiers lost a leg to a goblin cleaver, sadly one goblin threw himself on his sword and another 2 grabbed his shield, causing him to not be able to guard himself and the goblin with the cleaver just cut the leg right below the knee, he was able to recover his sword and do an overhead swing on the goblin with the cleaver, but then the 2 on his shield were about to attack him to his face when another soldier hit one of them with a sword and did a shield bash on the other, the first soldier had lost some blood but then another 3 soldiers came and helped, the soldier was taken to the medical tent with his leg on his hands, I knew that soldier was most probably going to end up in the city hospital or the military hospital.

 

After hours of combat finally the goblin offensive was broken and some of our soldiers started to push forward with mages in close proximity trying to get close to the shamans to kill them, but at this point those goblins decided to flee in an organized way, not giving us a chance to catch up with them, at this point I could see a weakness of this type of battlefield, it made it very difficult to attack, but if the attackers decided to retreat it was very difficult to pursue them.

 

- This happens every month? – I ask my uncle.

 

- Yeah more or less, they usually come with anything between 20 thousand to 40 thousand goblins, but the warriors and shamans they are not so simple minded, they can and will retreat if they see that the situation is not good for them, killing one of them would be great. – says my uncle

 

- But they are intelligent and they have enough magic that you need to get favorable conditions to kill them, either have enough mages to overpower them or have a warrior close enough to them that they could break their noses with his skull. – finish my uncle.

 

- Uncle I would like to talk with some soldiers that were in battle with the warrior goblin.

 

- Ok but it will have to wait, they are right now doing medical treatment on everybody and getting the wounded and dead out of the battlefield, we will burn the goblin corpses. – He says and I accept it.