Ethria- the Pioneer

by Aaron Holloway

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  In the morning of the third day Ailsa, Tol’geth, and I were eating breakfast when we heard a commotion. Someone was shouting something, but I couldn’t really make it out. I bite down on the apple-banana thing I was eating for breakfast, having taken a liking to the strange things, and strained to hear the words on the wind. “To arms! To arms! Goblins!”

  “Did I just hear that right?” I asked the group, who were already wearing concerned expressions.

  “I think so…” Ailsa said dropping the piece of cheese she was eating and jumping into the sky like a rocket. Tol’geth was swift to his feet, and I stood with him. We ran, Tol’geth outpacing me by a good bit, to the ridge of the small hill we had made our camp on, and looked down on the worksite.

  A red and yellow rift was open just at the mouth of the shallow valley we had used as the building site for the first block of longhouses. Swamp goblins, their distinctive sickly dark green skin visible under the morning sun, poured out of the portal. We looked down from our small hill as dozens of them filled the worksite. A handful of the creatures were already harassing the workers.

  Further down the valley the elven workers, wielding hammers, saw blades, and shovels tried to form a cohesive line against the gathering horde. Though some of the workers had yet to make it there, and where cut down as the horde began advancing, still growing by the second. Behind the impromptu line, the rangers who had been returning from patrol let loose arrow after arrow into the raiding horde, all four arrows in their first volley hitting their marks hard enough to pin the bodies to the ground.

  “Well, it looks like the goblins had more in mind then just raiding a few barges this winter. Let's go.” I said stepping forward. Tol’geth put a hand out to stop me from joining the builders.

  “There is a shaman holding that open. We need to find him and kill him. Then we can deal with what's left.” I nodded but looked back at the elves, who were struggling to keep the green creatures at bay. One of the workers, a man who was particularly skilled with woodwork, went down screaming as he was stabbed in the shoulder by a wicked-looking spear point.

  Ailsa buzzed over the heads of the goblins, spitting force bolts in every direction, and cast a healing spell directly on the man's shoulder while she flew by. The goblins grew disoriented as three of their number now lay dead, the man they had just successfully attacked was standing again wound gone, and they had no idea what was going on. I grinned at her tactics and followed as Tol’geth lead the way.

  We ran to where we could see the rear portion of the portal. The portal disk on the reverse was pitch black, but behind there was a goblin shaman, who pouring mana into a wooden crate with a large crystal inside. “There.” He said pointing out the obvious. “That box, we need to break it, take it away from the shaman. It's how he is able to use such a powerful spell.”

  “Protect me, I’ll snipe him out from here,” I said and then the world melted around me as I allowed my mind to clear. When I opened them again, stars of different shapes and sizes appeared lazily swirling around me. I picked the one I thought I would need, and fired.

  “You cast Shearing Force Bolt 1, dealing 15 damage to Magic shield. Armor Penetration: 5. Magic Penetration: 5. Damage received by target, 0.”

  The force bolt was an augmentation I had learned when attacking Telli’mier’s ex’s shield a few days ago back in Lo’sar. It wasn’t inherently more powerful than a normal force bolt, in fact, it lost some of its stopping power, as I redirected the energy into shaping the bolt to pierce armor, and then spun it so that it would be more effective against magical barriers. The effect was a bit like the rifling of a gun barrel.

  The bolt hit a barrier around the chanting shaman as I was expecting, and it flared to life in bright sparks of white and gold. The force rippled over the shield but other then that did little in the way of disrupting the shaman’s work.

  The two large goblin guards, at least twice the size of their smaller horde-like brethren, yelled for assistance in their guttural tongue, and nearly a dozen of the smaller creatures broke off from the assault and started making their way to protect their leader. Tol’geth looked at me like I was an idiot, but I just smiled and said “All according to plan. Cover me, dude.”

  I let the world melt away again, syncing my will to my more powerful magic type, fire. I blinked and the world was tinted in red. Thinking of one of the new spells I had at my disposal, I started channeling mana into a ball in the palm of my hand. Once I had enough mana, I stretched my hand with the ball out and touched it to the red film, absorbing it all.

  The mana exploded into heat, but I didn’t feel the searing pain that would normally be associated with holding a ball of fire. That clinches it, I have fire resistance. I thought. I considered where to best place the spell so that it hit more foes if it simply broke against the shaman’s spell barrier. Got it.

  I laid my hand out flat, and the ball of flames, sustained by swirling mana, shot clear from my palm and into the barrier. It exploded like napalm, the mana inside the construct gave the flame tangible stickiness that saw the barrier light up, hold for nearly thirty seconds, then falter. Sadly, the substance hadn’t gotten high enough on the barrier to land on the goblin mage when it finally broke.

  No problem , I thought as stars exploded to life around me. I grabbed one at random and threw it like a softball at the little green monster whose concentration still hadn’t broken. I didn’t need to throw it that way, but it did seem a lot more theatrical and cool.

  The force bolt slammed into the side of the little guys head and rocked him over.

  “You cast Force Bolt Multiplier 1, dealing Goblin Shaman 28 damage. Status Effects: Stunned, 3 seconds.”

  Force Bolt Multiplier was another one of the augmentations I had created. It tuned up force bolt’s cooldown to nearly thirty seconds but nearly tripled the damage the spell could do. “That wasn’t a good throw, dang it,” I said annoyed. 28 damage meant I had only done about 9 damage with the base spell, only about a point or two higher than the minimum damage. Bad rolls.

  It did have the desired effect, however. The goblin pitched over, stunned, and the portal flickered in and out. The sickly green creatures who were trapped in the portal when it flickered out, had, unfortunate things happen to them. They lost arms, legs, ears, toes, and in one particularly nasty case bisected completely, its intestines spilling onto the battlefield just under the flickering portal, tripping others as they came through on its blood and viscera.

  I wasn’t use to battle, its sounds, smells, or sights, but for the most part, they didn't seem to bother me. The sight of that goblins intestines spilling out of where his lower half had just been? Well, I tried not to retch as it reminded me of something rather traumatic that happened my senior year in high school. A second-generation Japanese-American student had attempted to commit seppuku outside the cafeteria before school started. Full-on ritual disembowelment.

  He didn’t die cleanly though, as he envisioned happening. We later learned he had researched and had done everything correctly about the ritual. Except for one detail. He had no headman to ensure him a clean, honorable death.

  When I and my friends arrived at school that morning we found him moaning, crying, and dying in a pool of his own blood, feces, and urine as we watched him, stunned, desperately trying to shove his ruptured intestines back into his body. He died on his way to the hospital.

  I looked away from the now trampled goblin and breathed for a few seconds, before looking over my spell list for something to cast. I had just used Fireball, Fire Jet wouldn’t be of any help until the goblins got right in my face, I had 25 seconds to go on the cool down for Force Bolt 1. Cure light wounds and Light Ball wouldn’t be any help.

  I had three more spells on the list, I looked at the names of each and decided on one. Then, the world was red again, but this time tiny stars dotted the red landscape. With a thought of will, the stars coalesced and infused the mana that I had already summoned in m
y hand. The mana and stars merged with the red haze and took the shape of 5 tiny, angry red pebbles. Flaming Stones is a spell of both fire and force types of magic, this should be fun to watch.

  I was maxing the spell out, this was costing me nearly 250 mana, and I had already depleted a significant portion of my mana bar earlier with training. Even with the exorbitant cost, this should be worth it. I hope.

  I wound up and tossed all five in the same direction as the goblin magic user like I had the force bolt before. The magic inherent in the spell corrected its course and struck an already hastily re-formed spell shield. When the first pebble hit the shield, it splattered like a piece of spaghetti and began heating up and smoking. The others followed shortly after, each smacking against the top of the new dome and doing a gnarly amount of damage to the shield.

  After a couple of seconds, the shield broke. Another second or two after that, the shaman screamed as the now white-hot masses rained down on him, and about three seconds after, the screaming stopped. The portal fluttered, before fully disappearing having lost its connection to the will that was keeping the spell structured.

  I sighed in relief and took stock of the battlefield. Nearly a hundred tiny green warriors had gotten through the portal before it died, of those only about two-thirds were still alive. Tol’geth hadn’t waited around for the goblins who had reversed course to protect their shaman to reach us. He had charged them and cut them to ribbons. Tol’geth now stood over their broken bodies, crushing the last living one with his bare hands. I watched as he dropped the body, neck now snapped, and began to charge the rear of the horde.

  The horde itself was in a near panic, as those in the back who had just witnessed Tol’geth rip apart nearly twelve of their number without taking a single point of damage, desperately tried to get away from the harvester of ripe goblin heads. Those in the front attempted to back up as the rangers joined the melee, swords, and daggers in hand and encouraging the workers to push hard.

  I for my part, I left them to their work. I was nearly depleted of mana, and almost all my spells, save Fire Jet and a couple of utility spells I still had, where on cool down. Though force bolt was about to be up soon. I walked down the gentle slope of the hill and saw Ailsa flying low for another magical bombing run. The balls of lightning and purple arcing electricity she spewed from her hands as she passed, devastated an entire row of the horde before she zipped past the elven line as I watched.

  I made my way to what was left of the goblin shaman, and his two bodyguards, and began policing their gear. The second of the two guards was still alive, though his body was half-melted from the rain of death that had been the Flaming Stones. I finished him off with my staff, more out of pity than malice, and finished my work, searching his body for any useful gear. The only thing not touched by the flames that still burned on the field that he had, was a long crudely made short sword. The same story as the first of the guards I had checked.

  Walking through the still-smoldering grass, I made my way to the crystal-in-a-crate. I picked placed my hand on it and got a prompt.

  “You have found a Magical Portal Stone. This stone permits two magic users both capable of manipulating spatial magic of any skill level, to create a portal from one crystal to another crystal of the same type, as long as mana remains in the crystal, and both users maintain the spell. Current Mana Stored: 557 / 10,000. Current durability: 137 / 200.”

  I put the portal stone in a pile with the little other gear I had policed from the dead goblins. The short swords and a few copper coins were about all I had gathered there.

  When I got to looting the body of the shaman, I realized just how much damage Flaming Stones did to items and gear. The only usable thing I got off the body of the creature was the crystal that had been embedded in the head of its staff. The staff itself was a burned cinder, but somehow the crystal had survived.

  “You have found “Crystal of Spell Storage." This crystal, if applied to a magical staff, will imbue the staff with multiple spell storage slots. Number of spell storage slots is dependent upon staff quality, availability, and quality of runes, and other, as of yet unknown factors.”

  Tol’geth eventually found me sitting on top of the portal crystal fiddling with my staff and trying to get it and the crystal to merge. “It doesn’t work like that meathead.” Ailsa chided as she landed on my shoulder. I showed her the crystal and she was at least mildly impressed. “That's a good spell focus, and spell storage slots are really useful. They…”

  We were interrupted as another portal, this time familiar and friendly colors, and much smaller in size opened nearly in the same spot as the goblin's had been. Salina, Lisander, and Sed hot on her heels walked through the portal. “We have troubles” Salina said, her brow creased and expression stern.

  “What trouble? We just killed one of the goblin shamans and seized a portal crystal. That has got to be a blow to their raiding operation.” I said a little smugly.

  “Not so. Yes, this battle was well won.” Salina said.

  “We watched it in the scrying room in the Home Trees. But the human caravan has been attacked, that's why it's so late.” Lisander said helpfully.

  Salina shot her a look and then continued. “The caravan has been delayed yes, but the goblins don’t seem to be interested in simple river trail raids, as brutal as they may be on their victims.” She said placating me as I was about to protest. “The Goblins have laid siege to the northwestern twin, they have raided Cutters Hollow, and even now a battle rages in Laketown. Though the reports from there are, different.”

  “They even attacked a few of our minor hamlets southeast of here.” Lisander interrupted again, and Salina rolled her eyes at the younger elf's excitement.

  “We think the raids against us, as minor as they are, are designed to distract us while they attacked the humans in force,” Sed said taking the reins of the explanation from the two women. “Cutters Hollow is close enough we have given our support of ten of our best ranger teams. The Twins have enough men and mercenaries within their walls that they can defend themselves from even the most insistent of goblin sieges” He said ‘sieges’ almost dismissively.

  Hard to blame him, goblins don’t seem that smart. I mean, even the shaman just walked up here with nothing more than two bodyguards and attempted to open a portal that would have just buried us in bodies. Effective against civilians sure, but hardly something anyone would recognize as proper warfighting strategy.

  “The two groups we are concerned about” Said Salina taking over the explanation again. “Are the caravan, which isn’t very far from here but is under constant harassment by wargs and the bugbear that leads them, and the attack on Laketown.”

  I stood up dusted myself off, checked my cool down timers where all to zero save for Flaming Stones which had about 20 minutes left on it. The dang thing had an hour-long cooldown, the longest one in my entire spell list. “We will take the caravan,” I said gesturing to encompass my two companions. “Why don’t you take the rangers, and go to Laketown. If something strange is going on there, its best we send our best, yeah?” The three looked at each other.

  “I will take the rangers and go join the forces we have already sent there. These two are not trained in combat, even in the slightest.” Salina said. When Lisander attempted to argue she raised a hand and cut the younger elf off. “No matter how powerful you are at magic my dear, combat magic is a different beast altogether. Enchantment is useful, but it takes time and training to weave mana and spells quickly while being threatened with a knife, or worse.” Lisander went quiet and nodded her assent.

  “Hmm, I actually might have a way for you to help before you leave Lisander.” I said and produced my staff and the crystal. Lisander got a gleam of mischief in her eyes and took them both from me.

  “This will only take a second.” She said as she grinned from ear to ear.

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  We came through the portal into a small outcropping of loosely gathered trees, an
d we could see the wagon-train circled for defense about half a mile away to the north of us. I pocketed the device that Salina gave me for when we were done and surveyed the battle.

  Large hyena-like dogs, Wargs Salina had called them, ridden by puke green goblins, harassed the barricade with arrows, slung stones, and thrown rocks. One of the wargs every few seconds would try to dart in, bite a wagon and pull, trying to open the circle up for easier attack. Each time they were only mildly successful, pulling the wagons a couple of inches out of alignment before being chased off or killed by angry caravaners with pitchforks, cutting axes, hunting bows, and shovels.

  Leading this force was a large goblin, larger even then the two bodyguards that had protected the shaman back at the new settlement. I watched as he brandished a sword about the same size as his lesser brethren, and ordered another set of three wargs and their riders.

  “Any ideas about how to tackle this?” I asked.

  Tol’geth just shrugged “walk-up, kill the dog, then the goblin. Not much too it.”

  Why do I ask? I thought annoyed as I rubbed my temple.

  “I’ll distract them,” Ailsa said as she hovered over us. “You two get in there…” She waved a hand in the general direction of the circled wagon. “... and help those people.” I fought not to roll my eyes, I really did. “And, go!” Ailsa shouted as she took off like a bullet in the direction of the wargs. Tol’geth shrugged and began jogging after her.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m not getting through that…” I whispered to myself examining the situation. There where at least ten, maybe twelve of the massive wargs, not including their leader. They were faster than me, and if any of them could get within even a few feet of me, I would die. Even though I was a master ranked pyromancer, and had fire at my fingertips, my health was still pretty low. I glanced at my spell list again and found a spell there that might help, but that I really didn’t want to try. My last use of it had been, somewhat disasters.