'ITS A GOBLIN MAGE!!!', I realized what was in front of me.
'Then that means... those tall goblins are probably zombies, resurrected by that mage.', I understood why my attack had no effect on the other goblin.
It was that mage who built the whole cave. It wasn't a 'Goblin's Hideout', it was this guy's 'Lab'.
"Health Bar"
[70/100]
"Haha... is fine...", I got up and started to charge a fire spell.
"KRAAAAHHH!!!!", shouted the goblin mage, raising his staff and pointing it at me.
The zombified goblins charged at me with full force.
I barely dodged the first one, and had to cast a charged Scorch at the second to avoid a fatal blow.
'SHIT! I DON'T HAVE ANY SHIELDING SPELLS ACTIVATED RIGHT NOW!!! I'LL DIE IF I TAKE A HIT HEAD ON!'
While I was distracted by the zombies, the mage started to cast some spell. Magic sigils appeared on the staff it was holding. Suddenly more magic sigils appeared on the ground and little hands started to pop out of the ground.
The 2 big zombies were relentless, so I was too busy to dodge their blows and didn't notice what the mage was doing.
It was resurrecting small baby goblins as zombies and making them charge at me!
When I noticed what was happening, I instinctively backed up from the fight. The big zombies were still chasing me, but I managed to cast weak frost blobs on their feet, which made them fall on their heads.
{*NOTE: Xavier could only do this because the Goblin mage's concentration was on summoning the baby zombies, so he put the other big zombies on autopilot, which made them practically mindless.}
I wasted no time at all and put both of my palms on the heads of the zombies and casted a charged Scorch, which burned their heads quite easily.
{*NOTE: Scorch is an evolved spell, so it takes significantly less time to cast than new spells like frost blob. Time required to cast a charged Scorch is 5 seconds, and to cast a weak Frost blob is 3-5 seconds, depending on your proficiency.}
"Absorb!", I replenished my Mana and looked at the goblin mage again. It looked like it was smiling.
'Fucking bitch. I'll smash that old skull of yours into a pulp.', I was enraged.
It had stopped all of the baby zombies from charging at me and positioned them all around himself.
It totally looked like a trap.
Suddenly, he signaled one of the baby zombies to charge at me. I was very on guard and had already casted an overcharged Force Shield. I didn't have time to cast an Atmospheric barrier though...
When the baby zombie was close enough, I Threw a weak frost blob towards it, which made it freeze in place.
But something was weird. 'Was that it?', I asked myself while seeing the anticlimactic outcome. The baby zombie looked like a frozen sculpture.
But then the mage put a distorted smile on his face and waved his staff a bit.
*BOOOOOMMM!!!*
The frozen baby zombie exploded. The explosion was as big as a grenade, only difference was that it generated a lot more fire than a grenade.
The ice shards shot at all directions, and some of them even shot at me with bullet speed.
Thankfully, my barrier protected me from most of it. It looked like the goblin mage had also activated some kind of earth spell to shield himself from the barrage of ice.
After the shitshow, or I guess the iceshow, was over, He signaled all, except 5 baby zombies to charge at me. There were 15 of them.
If all 15 of them came near me and blew up, not even my remains would be discovered.
I had to stop them before they got to me. The zombies were slow but steady, and they never faltered.
I casted weak Cinder Arrows aiming at them, and took down about 6 of them, before they all cornered me and I had nowhere to run.
This was my plan all along though. As soon as I saw the goblin mage signaling the zombies to explode, I casted the overcharged Rock Pillar spell I had been charging right below all 9 of the baby zombies.
The pillars shot up to the ceiling and the zombies on in got crushed, and exploded. The explosion's shockwave was strong enough to temporarily deafen me, even though it's sound should have been muffled out a bit because it got crushed.
*****
The explosion made the ceiling crack and soon the whole ceiling was crumbling.
The Goblin mage seemed panicked and started to cast earth magic spells to repair the damage as soon as possible, since if the cave collapsed, He would die along with all his research.
The goblin mage completely forgot about the sorcerer he was fighting because he saw him run away from the place.
When the repairs were complete, he had exhausted most of his mana, so he stopped controlling the 5 baby zombies.
The zombies flopped to the ground, and the mage was barely holding on to the staff to keep standing.
"Icicle shot.", a cold and deep voice said behind the goblin mage, and before he could see who it was, a sharp 15cm long icicle pierced his throat, killing him on the spot.
******
[Difficult Task Accomplished!]
[Task Level: 50]
[Reward: 500FP]
[Bonus Reward for flawless victory: 110FP]
[Total FP: 1030FP]
I left the scene as soon as the cave started to crumble, but not to leave, but to cast a Shadow Shroud onto myself, so that I could sneak behind the mage and kill him when he was exhausted.
The plan worked wonderfully. Although, I was injured quite a lot from all of the battle. If I had hesitated even a bit, I would have definitely died.
I looked at the goblin mage's staff. It wasn't glowing anymore. Probably because no one was supplying it with mana.
I picked it up and asked the guide about it.
"Query! What Is this Staff?"
[Query Received!]
[Required FP: 30]
[Answer to Query: Goblin Necromancer's Staff;
Boosts Dark Magic and Death Magic power by 15%
Helps in mana recovery by Absorbtion by 10%
Decreases Mana cost for Death Magic by 10%]
[Total FP: 1000]
"Not bad... I don't use Death magic, but it seems like the dark magic buffs will help me greatly.", I said to myself, satisfied with my rewards.
I wasn't quite done though. I wanted to see what the interior of the chamber the goblin Necromancer was living in looked like.
I pushed open the door with my right hand, cause I was carrying the staff on my left.
The room looked like a lab. There was a stone table in the middle of the room with a lot of blood on it. Beside it, there were corpses of goblins and baby goblins. It was disgusting. The wooden racks on the sides of the room were filled with liquids and skulls of animals and other things.
There wasn't anything that caught my eye in the room, so I left. I exited the cave and started walking towards the city. I smelled horrible though, so I took a detour into the light forests beside the roads to clean myself up with magic.
I was down that cave for almost 4 hours, it seemed. The time was evening.
I had also gathered quite the number of FP, so I was excited to reach the 4th circle even faster than I had anticipated.