by Eric Ugland
“It’s not for me? But you’re saying it to me?”
“I’m saying it. Perhaps to you. Or perhaps I’m just saying it around you, and it really concerns a secret phrase.”
“Which is?”
“I can’t just blurt it out — that’d be too obvious.”
“What does it go to?”
“Never you mind, just know that the passphrase is a popular film referenced in this conversation.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Montana of Coggeshall, please do pay attention to what I have told you, and spend no more time on those things that don’t specifically address you.”
He grabbed me in a big hug, pulling me close. His lips brushed my ear, which should have been physically impossible given his height.
“Faster, Coggeshall. You are losing, so we are losing. Faster.”
And then he was gone, his scent lingering on the air for a moment before a gust of air took even that away. Which was weird — why was I thinking about his smell?
“Because you miss me,” came a bizarre whisper.
I looked around, but Mister Paul was gone.
“I don’t miss you,” I said to the air. “You’re creepy.”
“Am notttttt,” he said. Or rather, I heard his voice hiss on the wind.
I shook my head and took another sip of root beer. Then I laid back down in my bed, closed my eyes, and tried to rest. As soon as my eyes were closed, however, Mister Paul’s words echoed in my head. I couldn’t shake his repetition of me losing. What was I losing? What was he talking about? What was I missing about things? There had to be something more going on behind the scenes, wherever it was Mister Paul went when he wasn’t harassing me. I knew there were other Earth-folk around. I wondered if the game we were playing wasn’t just against the world we were in. Maybe we were all playing against each other? There had to be something, I just had no idea what it might be. Or even how to go about finding out about it.
Chapter Forty-Three
We were off again in the morning. Back up the worm tunnel, through the kobold warren, and back out to the highlands. Once there, we met up with Fritz. He looked ridiculous. I mean, other than the eight heads, I had no idea how I was supposed to see him as a monster, since he appeared to be little more than a big goofy-looking goose. Given that it was such a common traipse by that point, we managed to move quickly through the area, and we were back at the cave by mid-afternoon. The group looked at me, and I could tell everyone wanted to rest there and resume our march in the morning.
“Where are we going?” I asked Wulf.
“There is but one path forward,” he said, “one I had hoped to avoid.”
“I’m assuming it’s worse than the valley?”
“Yes,” he said with a nod. “Much worse.”
“So, like snakes instead of spiders?”
“No. We will go to the Halls of the Mountain Kings.”
“I feel like I’ve heard of that,” I said.
”It would not surprise me,” Wulf said. “It is infamous for what is inside.”
“Is very bad place,” Vreggork said. “Maybe we go over mountain top instead. Better to die from height or no air than Mountain Kings.”
“Okay,” I said, “so I definitely don’t know what’s in there. Care to share?”
“Is haunted,” Vreggork said.
“The kobold speaks truth,” Wulf said. “The halls are said to be haunted by the ghosts of the people who built the Halls.”
“Have you been in these Halls?”
”No. None that I know have, though some have gone through and not returned. I have seen both the entrance and the exit, however, so I know where the halls lead.”
“Which is?”
“Where we want to go. Where the Corrupted Ursus gather.”
“Right at the outside of these halls?”
“At the end of the valley these halls lead to.”
“How far away are these halls?”
“How fast can you walk?”
“I can sprint the whole damn way, Bub. The bigger question is how fast can y’all walk? Can we make it there before dark?”
“Tonight? No. We should remain here for tonight. We can make it in one day, a long day. If we start early tomorrow, we will be at the entrance to the halls just after dark.”
“And if we start right now?”
“We will die falling into a crevasse in the dark.”
This was not the answer I was looking for. It’d been somewhat ingrained in my head that I needed to keep pushing, go faster.
“No way around it?” I asked.
“Around what? The halls? No. We would need to go through the valley you filled with spiders or over the mountains where we would all die from lack of air or falls.”
“I meant no way around just sitting on our butts for a few hours of daylight when we could be walking.”
“There is no good spot to camp safely between here and the Hall.”
“We could make a snow cave or—”
“It would be an invitation for one of the many predators who prowl the snowfields beyond,” Wulf said.
“I get that you want to keep going,” Amber said, “but it’s dangerous out there during the day. And some of us can’t see well in the dark. And it’s colder during the night. It’s a recipe for disaster, your grace.”
I walked out into the snowfield and stared up at the dark blue sky. I looked across at the open area — it was little more than snow and rocks and mountains. No signs of life. No signs of crevasses to fall into. Nothing to make the decision to stop any easier, but I knew it was the safe choice. And if there was some other game going on behind the scenes, I wasn’t going to win if I had to respawn on the other side of the Empire.
“Make camp here tonight,” I said. “Rest up.”
I stood out in the snow a while longer, just watching the world. Or, as the case wound up being, watching nothing happen.
Chapter Forty-Four
I didn’t sleep that night. Instead, I stood watch with the eight-headed goose. And I didn’t let anyone sleep in. We were all up and walking before sunup. The pre-dawn sky was light enough that we could see the snowy fields in front of us, and I felt like we’d be able to defend ourselves against any predators who might come upon us. So, the slog began.
The snow wasn’t tremendously deep, but it was thick. There was a good layer of slush on top of something closer to ice than snow. Which meant that our progress was slow. A crawl more than a hike.
On and on we trekked, with little regard for any of the world we walked through. We stopped every once in a while to rest. We ate a bit of food. Fritz flew above us in lazy circles. Lather, rinse, repeat.
No one was particularly excited. I think because this was time number three of doing this part of the game. We hadn’t even gotten to the important part of the questing. It felt like a waste of time. And then there was Wulf, muttering about all the awful things in the Hall of the Mountain Kings. How we were all going to die in a no good, very bad way. How this was the worst mistake of his life.
Amber was the first to tell him to shut up.
But his silence didn’t last.
Just when I was really beginning to think throwing Wolf off a cliff wouldn’t be so bad, we finally found something really fucking cool. A crevasse cut across the landscape, just like a scar on the land. One of the ones that Vreggork had thought we’d fall through. But then, rising out of the crevasse, were three huge rocks that had to be forty feet long each. At least, I thought it was just some rocks. But as we got closer, you could see there was something different about the ends of the rocks. They were a slightly lighter color, and a different texture. Even closer, and it was clear these weren’t rocks at all.
They were fingers. Claws.
And oddly, nothing there was covered by ice or snow.
I walked right up the edge and looked down.
I saw a hand and an arm. But whatever was attached to the arm d
isappeared in the darkness of the crevasse.
“What’s this?” I asked Wulf.
“A hand,” he replied, and then walked right by.
Vreggork stopped and peered at it. “Is hand. New though. Not here when I come by last.”
“Any idea what creature it is?” I asked.
“None. Best not touch it. Maybe it wake up.”
He made a good point, and I politely backed away.
You have been offered a quest by the holding of Coggeshall:
Hands Down
Find out what left its hand behind on the crevasse.
Reward for success: ???
Penalty for failure (or refusal): ???
Yes/No
Well shit. At least I wouldn’t forget about the hand now. I accepted the quest.
Somewhere after lunch, Fritz came swooping down and landed in a spray of snow.
“Gob. Ah. Lins.” he said. “Ah. Head.”
“Lots of them?” I asked.
Seven heads nodded, one was unsure.
“Are they headed in the same direction as us?” I asked.
More nods.
“Can you see the entrance to the hall?”
Nods.
“And the goblins are there?”
“Not. Yet.”
“Okay,” I said, “so we’ve got to kill some goblins before we get to the Hall. That’s doable.”
I think some of the heads were grinning. It’s kind of a tough facial expression for a goose to pull off, but if I had to pick what emotion Fritz was trying to convey, it would be joy over the coming violence.
He took off again, and resumed his high circles. Watching him go, I felt both fortunate he was there and happy he hadn’t attracted the attention of any other big flying things. I still remembered the dragon-looking thing I’d seen on my very first day in Vuldranni, and I was not eager to come across another one of those monstrosities.
“Circle up,” I said.
The group did so.
“Fritz tells me—” I started, but Ragnar waved his hand.
“We heard,” he said. “Goblins up ahead, blocking the door.”
“So what’s the plan, boss?” Skeld asked.
“I’d like it if we could be sneaky, maybe catch them by surprise and kill them that way,” I said.
“If only it were that easy,” Wulf said.
“It could be,” I said
“The goblins around here are not to be underestimated.”
“I’ve fought them before,” I said. “I wasn’t impressed.”
We split into two groups. One went far to the left, while the other continued straight. Well, it was more like there was one group that was me, and one group that was everyone else. Our plan was simple. Get the goblins to attack me, and then the rest would throw down on the goblins from a surprise angle. I wasn’t super keen on being bait, but, well, I could take it.
The sun started to set while I crunched through the snow. Mountains rose up in front of me, and the wind blew at my back. If the goblins had a sense of smell, I’d be screwed.
I saw a tendril of smoke rising into the sky, but it was too flat for me to see the fire. Or the goblins. I could see, however, the rising wall of stone in front of me, a nearly unreal mass of granite.
As I got closer to the rock wall, I could make out shapes carved into the wall. But from my distance, I couldn’t tell what they might have been. I could really only see that unnatural shapes were picking up the last rays of sunshine.
I didn’t want to deal with fighting in the night, so I started moving faster. I pulled two larger battle axes from my knapsack and then broke into a run. Faster. Faster. I sprinted across the snow, heading straight for the smoke.
The landscape became a blur, and I felt a sense of rage welling up. Memories of the little girl they’d kidnapped, her wide eyes, the fear. I knew she was still dealing with the trauma of that kidnapping. She didn’t sleep if I wasn’t in Coggeshall. And I hated those goblins for robbing her of a carefree childhood. The cold washed over me. Looking back, it felt a bit like I was letting the monster out of the cage.
It wasn’t the small camp I was expecting. It looked more like a semi-permanent encampment. Lots of rough tents around what seemed like a small fire compared to the number of figures I saw in the camp. Most of the little forms were near what had to be the door to the Mountain Hall. I was pretty sure they were trying to open the door.
I’d already committed to my action, though. I didn’t slow down, and I didn’t deviate.
I hauled off and threw my first battle axe as hard as I could. It hit the biggest, meanest looking goblin of the bunch with a thwock. But by the time it’d hit, I’d already taken my first steps into the camp, and swung one my remaining axe to the left.
I lopped off the head of a goblin as he turned to look at where the thrown weapon had come from. I ran over another goblin, taking advantage of lucky foot placement to stomp his head in, then got an elbow into the next goblin’s face.
Then I was out of the first group of goblins, and I slid through the snow to a general stop. I held my axe out to one side, green blood dripping down and staining the snow.
“Well,” I said in nightgoblin, “look at all you ugly sons of trolldung.”
The goblins sneered at me. Some bared their teeth.
An arrow shot my way, but it sailed right past me.
“Really?” I shouted, looking at a goblin who was trying to get another arrow nocked onto his crudely made short bow.
In a motion that surprised even me, I threw the axe. It thunked heavy in the goblin bowman’s chest, and he went down.
There was stillness for a moment. Then my comrades rushed in from the side, slaughtering the goblins from behind. Fritz even swooped down and grabbed a few with his heads, taking them high into the air before dropping the hapless goblins from hundreds of feet up.
They made quite the mess when they fell.
I pulled a sword from the bag, just a rote steel longsword, and set up around the goblins with a fury. I sliced through a few humble shields, and more than a few less-than humble heads.
The battle was over quickly. ‘Battle’ didn’t even seem like the right word. Massacre maybe? The goblins did put up some fight, but it wasn’t much. As individual fighters, they were almost useless. They needed numbers to be effective, mostly their techniques were based on sacrificing one goblin to allow another goblin to attack unmolested. But if you caught them with their metaphorical pants down — or even better, with their literal pants down — you could cut through them like green butter. At least, we could. And we did.
Chapter Forty-Five
I used some of the snow to clean the goblin blood, and other stuff, off me. Then I went through my notifications to see if there was anything interesting I’d missed.
Nope. Just a bunch of Night Goblins being slaughtered by yours truly. I hadn’t killed that many of them, and the XP return was pretty dismal. They were barely worth killing.
GG! You’ve killed a Night Goblin (lvl 12 Scout).
You’ve earned 36 XP! What a mighty hero you are.
But I had hope there was some sort of numerical bonus. Like, if I got to the point where I killed a hundred of them, or a thousand of them, I’d get some big XP boost or something. Or maybe I’d get something like Goblin Slayer or some other ability that’d make my life in the valley a bit easier.
Ragnar, Skeld, and Amber were throwing everything the goblins had, at least for the most part, into the fire. So we had a bit of a bonfire happening. Which gave Tarryn, Wulf, and Meikeljan enough light to look at the door leading into the Hall of the Mountain Kings and realize they had no idea how to open it. Vreggork was on watch with Fritz, and Bear was still figuring out her place in things, which, at the present time, seemed to be watching me clean myself.
“We should talk,” Bear said.
“Talk away,” I replied.
“What is your goal for me?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Wait, what?”
“I am doing nothing. I am no help. I am a pretty pet?”
“Did you say something about a parrot? On my shoul—”
“I want to be useful, Montana of Coggeshall,” she said loudly, almost yelling. “Not just a pretty pet!”
“That wasn’t my intention at all, for fuck’s sake. What can you do?”
“Look at my character sheet—”
“That doesn’t tell me what you’re capable of, not really. I want to know what you can actually throw down.”
“I have magic.”
“What spells do you know?”
“Firebolt. Minor invisibility. Invisibility. Minor Illusion. Zeddington’s Infinite Key. Zeddington’s Lifting Chair. Zeddington’s—”
“See, that’s the thing. I don’t know what half of those things mean. I don’t even know how to ask you to use those spells to help me. Do you have something that speeds me up?”
“I can cast haste, yes.”
“That’d be useful.”
“It drains your stamina very quickly, however, and—”
“Not a worry. Cast it when you want. I’ll be fine. Healing spells?”
“My form of fairy magic has an offensive focus.”
“And you only have fairy magic?’
“It is my magic, yes, as I am a fairy. So yes, only fairy magic for fairies. But it is always with me, wherever I go. Did you not know this about brownies?”
“I knew, it’s just, I didn’t know there were specific kinds of magic.”
“As far as I know, it is dependent on where you come from. My kind comes from the Feedoheem and there we are imbued with fairy magic. Here, it is different.”
“Oh.”
“I am not bound by mana in the same way casters here are. I have my own reserves.”
“What do you mean?”
“I cannot be cut off from my supply of magic, whereas casters from this world must worry about that.”