Chapter 6: Who's a good boy?

  Liam turned to face the goblins blocking their escape. He quickly looked at his status screen to find he still had about fifty mana points yet. He had not worked out the regeneration rate but he prayed that it was sufficient for this battle.

  “Brian, did you get any class spells or techniques?”

  “I got one. It’s called disbelief.”

  “Don’t suppose you know what it does?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well try it anyway?”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Just focus on the spell or whatever and the group in front of us and really want it to happen. Really, want it to happen.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “For fuck’s sake, Brian. Just do it!”

  Liam could not see that three goblins had climber over the fence. They were looking warily at the sleeping dog. Clearly they were only confident in numbers. Liam thought they would not attack until they had more support.

  He didn’t see what happened, but Brian fell to his knees. The goblins in front of them were looking at each other in bewilderment. One of them even started to go back where they came from.

  Liam decided it was time to use his own untried ability howl. He focused on it and a second later a loud noise came from his throat. The sound was a primordial sound that echoed through the garden.

  The goblins looked even more frightened, especially when the dog’s head came up and it started sniffing at the air. Its growl became a snarl as it looked from Liam’s group to the goblin’s group.

  With a violent lunge it jumped at the nearest goblin and sunk its teeth into its head. With a violent wrench the dog bit through its neck. Blood sprayed everywhere. The dog let go of the limp goblin and started to stalk towards the others at the fence.

  “Attack,” Liam yelled.

  He cast his diamond nail spell while running at the goblins who were looking even more confused. The first did not even react as Liam clawed at its face. Blood streamed from a ripped off cheek. Liam pushed it away into the path of another goblin and attacked the next.

  The goblins surprise had worn off now. This goblin had time to thrust its rusty blade at Liam. Liam dodged the attack and kicked out. The kick hit its knee and the goblin staggered to his left. Liam than slashed wildly at the creature like a comic book hero. His nails hit the goblin with a sickening crunch. It fell limply to the ground.

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  A grunt of pain escaped Liam as pain surged through his back. He turned to find a small goblin had blind sided him and struck him with its pointy stick. He was about to slash out when Brian stabbed it in the back.

  There was now only one goblin left standing in front of them, apart from the one’s bleeding out on the floor. The goblin backed away until it was near the patio door. Liam could feel the time left on his spell ticking away. Screams and snarls from behind told him that the dog was winning its own fight.

  He was about to make a desperate lunge when the door opened and a rolling pin armed woman split the goblin’s head open. The creature sank to the floor. Brian was the first to the body. He sank his knife into the neck.

  “Brian is that you?” the woman said.

  Liam could see that she was middle aged and her from her skin colour looked to be of Indian heritage.

  “Hey Misha. Sorry to disturb you.”

  Jessica ran over to hug Brian’s leg. Tears were dripping down her face.

  “Jessica, you look like you’ve had a fright poor thing. Oh my, look at the mess. Those things stepped on my flower bed. Sanjeev will be really pissed off. And whose going to clear these bodies away.”

  She looked around to see the dog feasting on one of the corpses. “Buffy, get away from that dirty thing.”

  “Buffy?” Liam said. “It thought it was Puffy. The bowl said...”

  “We ordered it from Temu. Always loved watching Buffy when I was a girl.”

  Liam could see goblins looking over the wall but clearly none of them dared face the dog. Not after it already did a number on three of their comrades.

  The dog came over to the woman. Its muzzle dripped blood and saliva. The woman reached down to pat it.

  “Coochee, coochee! There’s a good puppy.”

  Puppy? Liam thought. The dog actually looked bigger than before. Its shoulder were as high as the woman’s waist. Maybe it had levelled up.

  He quickly looked at his own menu to find he too had levelled up. His diamond nails spell now said 10% too. He wondered what that meant. But they did not time for this.

  Even if the goblins were scaredy creatures they would definitely attack soon. Plus who knew what else was coming. They needed to find a secure place.

  “We need to get out of here,” Liam said. “There are more of those creatures coming.”

  “I can’t leave until Sanjeev gets home,” Misha said. “He’ll want his tea.”

  “We can’t fight them all off,” Liam said. “Why don’t we find Sanjeev? Where does he work?”

  “He works at the school. He’s a physics teacher. It’s just about half a mile down the road.”

  Liam nodded. “That sounds good.” London school were built like prisons and for similar reasons. If anything the school sounded like a defensible place.

  He looked at the woman who was still wearing her house slippers.

  “You might want to change your shoes. And maybe you have a better weapon than the rolling pin.”

  She looked at the blood on the rolling pin and laughed. “I think I can find something better.”

  She disappeared into the house. It was a few heart stopping minutes before she reappeared wearing hiking boots and wearing what looked to be a machete. On her back was a big rucksack.

  She saw him eyeing the weapon. “Sanjeev liked to keep a few just in case. Never used them but he does keep them clean. I also brought some things along. You never know. And Ranjeev will want a change of clothes.”

  “Did you get a class by chance?” Liam asked.

  She smiled at him looking over a decade younger. “I didn’t know what was happening. But we all have dreams you know. I chose Bengali Huntress. It allowed me to have a pet.”

  She reached down to ruffle the neck of Buffy’s nape. “Guess who’s mummy’s little pet then?”