Ethria- the Pioneer

by Aaron Holloway

  “We’ve seen the lord's men shoot goblins that got to close, within this inner hedge.” I pointed at the small circle that ringed manor grounds proper.

  “How many men do you think this Lord has?” Ailsa asked as she examined the map I had drawn.

  “I don’t really know. But he has at least ten. Each armed and armored with steel swords and plate. I’ve seen them moving in the windows and when they attack the goblins from range. To me, the goblins look like they’re gearing up to attack. That shaman I saw couldn’t keep his eyes off the manor, and kept looking back at the street.”

  “Hoping for reinforcements? Or is he afraid of getting flanked?” Tol’geth asked. “Hmmm. You are wise indeed wizard. Not as stable as you should be…” There was no malice or accusation in his voice, it was just a statement of fact. A fact that he wanted me to acknowledge as he gave me a knowing look. I nodded slightly finding it hard to agree with him. “But, wise. We could try to peel part of the force off, the wargs maybe?” He suggested. I shook my head.

  “The only one who could do that effectively is you Tol’geth, and the wargs are what I'm worried about. I tried analyzing them, and I was able to successfully get information on several of the creatures. But, there where more than a handful that I couldn’t, and they’re the larger ones. If they caught you out in the open? Even you would be torn to pieces by that many.”

  “They are too far away for me to use my analyze as well, and I’m much higher level than you,” Ailsa said, and I realized I had never asked her what level she was.

  Before I could ask Ailsa, Tol’geth spoke up. “ I've had about as much success as you have Rayid,” Tol’geth confirmed, giving me a frustrated shake of his head.

  Nodding I said “I really want to avoid Tol’geth, or Ailsa getting ambushed by more mana starved Warp Wargs, or anything else nasty that they might have cooked up for us. Right now, we have the element of surprise, we can take the initiative from them, which means we can probably try and choose where we want to fight, or if we want to fight at all.”

  “What happens if we do run into more Warp Wargs?” Ailsa asked concerned.

  “Well, Tol’geth might have trouble if they have been buffed heavily, and Ailsa? Well, no offense but Warp Wargs seem designed to kill creatures like you.” I went quiet for a moment thinking about what we could do. Charging in was a terrible idea, we would surely just all get caught in the open, shot with arrows, and then run down by warg riders. But maybe we can get them to come to us, I thought as I looked at my hastily drawn map, then back out to the streets through the window.

  “Well, it looks like we have no other choice. Tol’geth will be our distraction.” The large man nodded, having known exactly what his role would be no matter what the rest of the plan was, and no matter how I felt about it. “Ailsa.”

  “Yes, sir.” She buzzed her wings so she floated off the floor a couple of inches and saluted with mock seriousness. “Here to help.” I have to admit it was a funny sight to see, a tiny purple emo-goth fairy jump into the air, hover, solute, all while knowing she could probably take on a good chunk of the bad guys outside by herself.

  They each listened attentively as I laid out my plan. They both gave useful suggestions that honestly helped form the thing. If it hadn't been for their input it would have been overly simple, or over-complicated and probably have gotten all of us killed.

  A wise man once told me that the wise hire good people, and then stay the hell out of their way while they did their jobs. I tried to apply that principle here.

  ---

  Fifteen minutes later I still sat in the darkened and empty tavern. The owners nowhere to be found. And neither were my two companions.

  Tol’geth had snuck out the back door, into an alleyway we found that connected all of the shops on this and the adjoining streets. Ailsa, on the other hand, had simply jetted out the window, shot a few spells off at the shaman, and took off into the sky like hell was chasing her. After her spells splashed harmlessly against a powerful looking shield that flared to life, the shaman had taken notice, and released a large bat, about the same size as Ailsa, to fetch the wily fairy. The creature had soon returned empty clawed, and bleeding from one wing where Ailsa had stabbed it clean through with her spear.

  I stayed quiet sitting on the floor of the abandoned tavern out of sight of anyone on the street. That was my job. And it's exactly where I found myself when all hell broke loose. The goblins, hobgoblins, and wargs all let out a deafening war cry, and the earth shook. I guess the shaman has finally lost patience.

  I raised myself high enough to peek through the window I had been using earlier. The enemy force, now nearly two hundred strong having been reinforced by a few columns from other parts of the town, was charging at the manor houses front double doors. The hedgerow got in the way of the goblins, but their larger cousins simply bulldozed through, clearing the way for the smaller creatures.

  The wargs were held back, patrolling around the back lines, acting as both a screening force in case someone was about to do exactly what I was about to do, and acting as clean up crew in case anyone from inside the Manor was brave or stupid enough to attempt an escape. The large hyena wolf creatures would be able to overtake nearly anyone on foot rather easily. And I was certainly included in that group.

  Once the charge was at full tilt the first part of our plan went into action. Tol’geth, the large barbarian who had been at my side since my first day on Ethria blithely walked out of the building on the northern side of the manor onto the long road that followed the wall and then activated his taunt ability. His wordless cry of rage and anger caught the attention of nearly every warg in the northern half of the manor clearing.

  They charged him in a mindless rage, but instead of meeting them in open and honorable combat, my large friend turned and fled down the road. The few remaining wargs unaffected by his taunt succumbed to their pact instincts and followed the others in charging Tol’geth.

  Just as the wargs where almost on top of him, he darted to the right and into a building. The wargs all tried to crawl their way in, biting and snapping at one another, and as they entered the house one at a time the barbarian began fighting back.

  Good luck dude, you’re going to need it! I turned my attention to the second phase of the plan and waited. After about sixty seconds of just sitting there, watching the goblins attempt to assault the manors braced, hardwood, locked doors as angry knights with bows and arrows sniped at them from above, while other angry soldiers with spears and shields stopped them from climbing through the windows, nothing happened.

  “Come on, come on,” I said impatiently to myself. After a few more seconds of watching the ensuing battle in front of me I heard a large crashing noise and saw purple and blue spell light flash from the southern road following the wall opposite to the route Tol’geth had taken. “What are you doing Ailsa, you’re not supposed to be there” I drew Sparks in one hand, and held my staff in the other, but didn’t move.

  Ailsa shot into the clearing, three bats as large as the first she had maimed earlier chased her, they were as fast as she was, but not nearly as nimble. She shot a powerful force bolt at one of them, and after only falling a couple of inches in the air from shying away, it resumed its pursuit of her. “Oh come on. Where do these freaking bats keep coming from!” The Shaman, who had disappeared when the fighting began, walked into the clearing, as Ailsa darted in and stabbed one of the bats in the face with her spear. The creature fell, and one of the two remaining beasts attacked it savagely, scavenging the kill.

  The Shaman raised his staff above his head as he spoke the words, and spent his mana for a spell. A brown-black disk appeared in the air just below the ariel duel between Ailsa and the one remaining bat, and three more of the beasts flew out, red bloodshot eyes and black ebony skin standing out clearly in the whitewashed town and clear chilly autumn sky. “Oh that's just not fair!” I heard Ailsa yell, as she darted at the oldest of the summoned creatures, and ran it t
hrough. As the bat died it sank its teeth deep into the flesh of Ailsa shoulder. As Ailsa and the bat fell, I could hear her scream in terror.

  “Damn it, that's enough!” I shouted, standing to my full height, rage and red washing over me and the rest of the world. I didn’t even need to blink to assert the fire magics view of the world, I was enraged enough on my own. I received a prompt then similar to the one I had gotten near the docks.

  “Emotional Stability check passed. The magic you have summoned will coat your understanding of the world, but it will not dictate your actions. Your magic will not interfere with any natural, ongoing emotions, feelings, thoughts, urges, or interpersonal connections from either mundane or other magical sources.”

  The prompt confused me enough that I nearly released the rage I felt and the hold on the magic that it gave me. I’ll ask the others about that later, I thought dismissing the prompt and refocusing on the issues in front of me. I compressed the mana for a fireball spell onto the very tip of my staff and then pointed the thing at my target. After a couple of seconds of aiming, not sure how strong the auto-adjusting feature was on any of the spells I had was, let alone my fireball, I unleashed the spell directly at the shaman following the logic of ‘kill the spellcaster and you kill the summoned monsters.’ The ball of fire splashed against the brown translucent shield of the shaman, and the shield held. Man, shaman’s must all learn their spells from the same master!

  I wasn’t done, I stretched out my staff and unleashed the spell I had saved in the crystal that adorned its top. It was the only spell I had been able to store there, as I had found through trial and error that spell storage slots amounted to about a hundred mana worth of storage. So, I found my staff devoid of spells as I watched the second ball of fiery doom strike the shamans barrier. This time, it flickered, then buckled. Yeah, they all learn from the same master, I'm sure of it.

  I was almost disappointed as I saw the fire break through the barrier and drench the shaman. The shaman’s scream cut off quickly, and the bats attacking Ailsa took off in different, seemingly random directions. Ailsa struggled desperately to arrest her descent but ultimately succeed in only slowing herself. She crashed into the hard cobblestones of the street below with a loud thwack. Wincing in sympathy, I hopped out the window in front of me, and ran down the street in front of the tavern, hoping she was still alive.

  Just as I started really moving, I heard the clicking chittering guttural language of the goblins and turned up the street I now found myself on. A column of maybe fifty of the smaller creatures, each with bows and small spears in hand were marching together, in nearly perfect lockstep. Whoever is in charge of these little critters knows what they’re doing. Marching like that is difficult to teach, especially to wild creatures like the goblins.

  Fireball was on cooldown, they were clearly out of range for my Jet spell, and while I could have used flaming stones, or have brought up the fire elemental, both of those took far too much time to cast. Force bolt would have hit one of them, sure, but then I would have been a sitting duck. All of these were the thoughts that raced through my head as I stood there, watching the column.

  I found myself still standing there staring at the goblins, thinking, when a handful of them broke off to one side and strung their bows at the command of a hobgoblin with a whip. “Crap, crap, crap, crap!” I yelled as I ran as fast I could away from the column, and towards my friend.

  Arrow shafts clacked on the stones behind me and spurred me on fueling my body with adrenaline and fear. My health points where much higher then they were a few days ago, sure, but I was nearly certain that an arrow through the heart would still probably kill or at least cripple me, let alone multiple. I didn’t want to become Boromir in all of this.

  Once I was out of bowshot, the goblins seemed to ignore me. I chanced a look back as I continued to run to my fallen friend, and saw the Archers who had been tasked with my destruction, returning to the column of warriors. After the goblin column re-assimilated into neat little rows, the hobgoblin cracked his whip and it began moving again. I’ll find a way to deal with them later, I told myself.

  After a few seconds, I got to the place I had thought I had seen Ailsa land with the bat. I cast my eyes around and found only the dead bat, the burnt corpse of the shaman, and hard whitewashed stone underfoot. Ailsa was nowhere to be seen. I felt panic grip me, has she been taken? What if she crawled off somewhere and dies alone? I asked myself. Then, out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of purple light from one of the ground floor windows of a nearby building.

  I ran for the window I saw the flash from. I gripped the windowsill and launched myself into the building imagining myself rolling as I landed, and coming to my feet in an epic example of exactly what a person can do. But, as I am not the most athletic person, I failed. Miserably.

  I tried to pull myself up through the window, but only managed to get myself nearly perfectly balanced on the edge of the wooden windowsill, teetering between plunging headfirst onto the dusty wooden floor in front of me, and falling back onto my heels looking like a failed dope. Particularly since from this vantage point I could see a door two feet to my right. I sighed and rocked back. Once on my feet again, I took two steps over and opened the door.

  Closing the door behind me I found Ailsa, hand covering her face and silently laughing as she leaned against a wall to the side of the window I had tried to jump through, and epically failed. “Alright, that's enough out of you fairy,” I said playfully my face threatening to burn with embarrassment. I kneeled down in front of her. “Where are you hurt? And what happened?” She pointed towards her neck and pulled down her purple gown exposing her shoulder and two deep, black, teeth marks that bubbled with dark silvery blood.

  “Oh shit,” I said. I took a large cloth I had in the small bag I kept at my waist, not the one with the now pleasantly snoozing puppy, but another one attached to my belt, and pressed it gently against the wound as she winced. “That looks bad, keep as much pressure on that piece of cloth as you can. I’ll do a bit of classy magic, and we’ll have you stabilized in no time.” she smiled at me wanly, and nodded.

  As we sat there I cast Cure Light Wounds on her several times, each time peeling back the now silvery soaked cloth to check the injury. After the third casting, the wound had stopped bleeding, but she looked exhausted. “I don’t think I can assassinate that shaman like you wanted me too.”

  “ Don’t worry about it, he’s dead. Got him with two simultaneous fireballs thanks to the spell storage in my staff.” I said as I shook my staff for emphasis.

  “Okay, meathead. But, weren't you supposed to ambush anyone who came to reinforce the goblins after the fight started, so that the defenders could whittle the rest of them down?” She asked worriedly.

  “Yeah, that was a bad idea anyway.” I lied as I waved her off. In truth, had I been able to ambush the goblin column at the right time, when they were in range of my Jet of Fire, and with both of my fireballs usable? They would have been wiped out to a goblin I was almost certain of it. But my friend was far more important than my stupid plan. “Besides, I got a backup plan.” She looked at me skeptically and raised her eyebrows questioningly.

  “You don’t have to worry about it. I’ll handle it. I just need to wait for my cooldowns to finish.” I pulled up my sheet and found that fireball only fifteen seconds left. “Aaaaaaand done. There, now I can rain death and destruction again.” I said cheerily, smiling trying to sound encouraging. I looked at my staff, and infused it with the correct mana, then shaped it, gave it the right spin, and left the spell in the crystal. By the time I got into position to actually do any fighting, my timer for fireball would have rundown again, I was pretty sure.

  I took a step towards the door and then thought better of it. I reached up and pulled the satchel with the puppy off my shoulders, and set it next to Ailsa. “Protect him would you? Even now he's, well I feel like he’s important for some reason. Even if it's only because he’s a puppy.”
Ailsa smiled weakly, nodded, and patted the satchel that was slightly larger than she was.

  “I’ll take care of him,” She said indulgently as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

  I turned towards the door, opened it, and walked out. I looked down the empty street, and back towards the manor. It was still under assault, in desperate need of a cleaning, and the bushes looked worse for wear. That being said the shield and spear bearers at the ground floor windows and doors, and the archers above them, all seemed to be doing a methodical, implacable job of defending the place.

  Scores of goblin corpse, both the larger and smaller of the species, littered the ground. A few of the shieldmen and a couple bodies of archers who had been shot by the weak and short-range bows and javelins of the goblins peppered the carpet of goblin dead.

  The column I had intended to ambush, was lining up and about to reinforce the assault in a couple of places where it had faltered. But, at that moment they were all bunched together in their neat little goblin rows, with spears and shields.

  The creatures shuffled, and shoved each other, as I watched one bit his neighbor and earned a crack of the whip from the hobgoblin overseer. These were only half-trained troops. Taught to march, how to stand together, how to use a spear, and their teeth and their claws, but for the most part they were undisciplined, half-wild. Seeing an opportunity, I ran directly at the group. This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid! I kept telling myself.