“I am no child whose magic tests her mental state. I have practiced nearly two human lifetimes in my youth to grip ahold of myself, and I still hold now.” She said but I could tell, the magic was beginning to affect her emotional state. Slowly chipping away at her ability to see others as anything but limited, pathetically weak creatures. The fire magic in my veins called out to me to crush her, to show her who the true master was. I crushed the thoughts more ruthlessly then I had crushed anything before. I was worried about my friend, and nothing would stop me from helping her, not even me.
“Well that's good to know, I think I know the little shit you’re talking about. I was just about to go hunting. Anyone want to join me?!” I asked. A few people looked confused, and one yelled back simply “What?!” before everything went silent again.
I rolled my eyes at them “I'm about to go into the kitchen wing, find the goblin that's doing that…” I pointed at Salina “To one of the most powerful elves in the region, kill it, and return your homes to you. Do you want to go hunting with me?!” I yelled.
The crowd of commoners, deckhands, and fishermen and their wives erupted in excitement, and many started heading in that direction before I could take my first step. As the guards turned to start in that direction, I pushed past them, and slowly worked my way to the front of the angry mob. I’m not going to let others die to protect me, this was my idea after all.
----
Twin jets of flame leaped from my hand as I bathed the hallway in fire turning the goblins there into ash and smoke. The guards had eventually found their way to the front of the mob and turned back many who were injured, carrying children, or who simply didn’t have weapons besides their bare hands. They had sent them deeper into the Manor, specifically Lord Traser’s personal library. The rest had followed me here, the hallway outside the kitchens.
The goblin shaman had set up camp inside, sending out waves of ten to fifteen goblins at a time to slow us down and distract us as he desperately pounded on Salina’s wards trying to connect his crystal to waiting reinforcements. The Knight Captain, and they were knights, hedge knights but still, knights, who I had learned was named Tegin had sent a squad of spearmen and archers around back to bottleneck them in.
The attack on the other side of the manor he had reported, had turned and fled. They ran when the archer's captain who had felled the shaman earlier, struck down the hobgoblin leading the assault on that side. The goblins, numbing just twenty or so after the brutal pummeling they had been receiving the entire time, had turned and fled at the first opportunity.
Their hobgoblin cousins lasted a little longer he had explained, but not by much. As the hobs eventually broke, they had been slaughtered to a man. After hearing the reports and quickly surveying the dead, Knight Commander Tegin estimated that the shaman had at least another fifty, possibly sixty goblins, and a handful of hobgoblin bodyguards left. When he had said that, I had begun my burning walkthrough of the manor, turning anything that got in my way to ash, the militia of commoners, knights, and soldiers, following close behind.
I walked forward through the flames I was conjuring, to the door that connected the kitchen wing with the rest of the house. I canceled the spell and opened the door. Inside where three hobgoblin warriors, spears and rounded shields in hand blocking me from the kitchens.
Seeing them their, fear of the flames dancing in their eyes, I felt pity for the green monsters. “You’re master will let you die If you surrender I will ensure you are not killed. The humans might even let you return to your homes.” I said in their language. I was protected from their weapons by the flames that still flickered around me.
“Unburnt…” One of them said “Fire-kin…” another whispered almost reverently to the first. Their leader, or the one I thought was their leader, tried to rush and stab at me through the flames, but I just kicked coals at him from the rugs burning underfoot, keeping them all at bay.
“Look, I don’t want you to die. I don’t want to burn this building down, and I really don’t want to have to spend the next half an hour wading through your ashes, just so I can kill one shaman who is trying to get your entire clan killed.”
“Clan? What are you saying.” Said the smallest, and ostensibly the smartest of the three. He certainly had the best command of the goblin language. “The clan is safe in the swamp. No human goes there. No elf can stand the stink.” The other two laughed and the largest one who had just tried to stab me mimed elves with long ears holding their noses.
These are not the brightest of creatures, I thought with a mix of amusement, pity, and disgust. Honestly, it was a very elvish feeling. “Yes, now. But when the siege of the Twins is broken, when your shaman dies, and he will die, and when your people bend and then break on my fire and those peoples spears…” I pointed at a suit of decorative armor that was almost white-hot in the fire. “Do you think that they will be forgiving enough to just let you return home? No. The humans will ignore the swamp smell, the elves will cast their spells to protect their noses, and they will kill your clan to the last.”
The three looked mystified at my words. I couldn’t blame them. I was standing in the freaking fire and not getting hurt, and my clothes weren't catching fire. And I could produce the fire out of my fingertips seemingly at will. From their standpoint I must have looked like some kind of avenging human demon God.
Realizing I could use that, I raised fingers to my temple and closed my eyes “I-I have foreseen it…” I put as much mystery in my words as I possibly could. “Your clan burning, your, huts, drenched in fire and ice. Your children, dead at your feet! You three, burning in what will one day become known as...” I paused for dramatic effect. “... The Fire Swamp!” I raised my hands as if pronouncing a curse.
The three gasped, “No! No fire swamp!” The biggest said fear in his eyes, as he actually began to shake from fright.
“Please have mercy fire-kin!” The second, middle in height hobgoblin said falling to his knees in fear, pleading incoherently.
“No, no, no! The clan will live, you’re trying to trick us!” The smallest and smartest one said. I shot him in the face with a force bolt, his brains smearing on the marble floor behind them as his body collapsed in a heap.
The fire at my feet was nearly out, I hadn’t used any napalm style spells, just an aerosol Jet of Flame. Sure it burned tapestries and carpets, but the thick heavily treated hardwood that the building was made of took far longer to light than that. The few places it did take hold along the hallway were already being put out by industrious fishermen with water carried from wells outside.
“Will you listen to fire-kin!” I demanded of the two, the big one kneeled down and joined his smarter friend in obeisance. Holy crap this is actually working?! “Good, then...” I paused, not really knowing where I was going with this yet. It clicked as I watched them sniffle in fear.
“...then go get the others! Tell them to throw away their spears, and that a greater shaman then the one you guard has ordered it. That a Fire-kin has ordered it!” I said totally bluffing. I had no context for what the heck a fire-kin was, but I was gambling on my guess that it was some kind of super shaman or spirit, demon thing.
To my amazement they both agreed and ran off, leaving their spears and shields behind. While they were gone I worked with the fishermen to put out the fires I had started, and then we all moved into the kitchen complex proper. A few minutes later, a large contingent, nearly twenty or so, a mix of both hobs and their lesser goblin kin filed in, hands raised to show they had already discarded their weapons. There was a tense moment, as I explained to the Knight Captain that these goblins wanted to surrender.
I could tell he wanted to slaughter them and be done with it, but I'm sure the chivalric code, or whatever contrived moralistic code the knights of this town lived by, prevented the slaughtering of beings that were surrendering. Also, the look I gave him when he began to suggest they do just that, withered the thought on the vine.
The
group was slowly lead outside by a large portion of the fishermen militia, and a couple of the knight-guards I later learned where called Men-at-arms. “There,” I said smugly to the Knight Captain. “The enemy's force is cut nearly in half. You’re welcome.” I was leaning on my staff in the center of the kitchen as I watched the goblins file past. The entire enterprise, including the explanation had taken nearly fifteen minutes from when the two hobs, who now lead their kin outside, had left me.
“But so are our forced halved just to watch them and make sure they don’t get into mischief.” The man complained.
“True, but we didn’t lose anyone. Besides, those forces we ‘lost’ were comprised mainly of fishermen and women, people you are no doubt sworn and duty-bound to protect. At least that's how most nobility works generally.” I said, staring at him. He was listening, but I could tell Commander Tegin wanted nothing more than to kill the goblins, probably punch me in the face, and charge valiantly into whatever magical traps the shaman had most likely prepared for everyone, and promptly valiantly die doing so.
“You know, the peasants work, and the nobility fight and protect. That's the exchange of labor, isn’t it? Or are you one of those knights who serve only when service is convenient? You expect the peasant town militia to do half your work for you?” I asked meaningfully. As my question hit home, I walked away towards where the goblins had come from.
I knew that whatever was ahead, swords and shields could probably deal with it, but probably not in time. And probably not without a lot more dead. So, I pushed open the kitchen door and entered the next part of the kitchen wing alone.
----
Three rooms later, after having torched another handful of hobgoblins, and let several larger groups of goblins get past me as I waited in a broom or storage closet, I made it to where I was going. I can’t fight every little fight, I have a time schedule to keep and I have already wasted over fifteen minutes trying to get the stupid creatures to surrender instead of burning to death , I thought trying to justify letting the last group get past me. No one can ever say I don't take my oaths seriously. Besides what honor would there be for those knights if I took every kill this battle?
I listened closely at the last door on the second floor, the room was only a few feet past the stairs as the second floor, though large, only had a few rooms. This one was a storage room of some kind, or so the sign said.
I could hear wrestling noise coming from inside, the shuffling of large hairy feet that probably belonged to large bulky hobgoblins. I readied myself, drew back from the door, and kicked it in. Or tried too, the dang thing just sat there. Oh come on, that would have been epic! I need to invest a few points into physical characteristics so this kind of thing stops happening, I thought annoyed.
Rolling my eyes at myself, I waited for a response from the other side. When none came, I used the same spell from earlier, a Force Bolt with the Hammer augmentation, and blasted the thing.
Splinters went flying, and so did what I thought at first where hobgoblins. As I blinked I realized what I was seeing and my heart fell. Right in front of the door where a handful of people, mostly humans in kitchen garb with white hats and aprons, but there was also what I assumed was a dwarf, as he was short and had an immaculate beard, and two elves.
They all sported splinters or wounds from the door explosion, and one had a massive splinter straight through the skull, he was a tall old man with a fine wispy beard. And he was clearly dead. That stupid kick probably tipped the shaman off to use them as human shields!
“No!” Screamed a woman who had been standing to the side of the door, her hands were chained to the wall on a hook used for hanging deer. She kicked, strained and tried to reach the clearly dead man, but to no avail. She was half-dressed, no, her clothes had been ripped, and red marks filled with half congealed blood covered her exposed midriff and half of her chest. The marks were clearly purposeful and carved deep with a knife.
At their center of the pattern, encircling her belly button I could see a sigal I recognized, it was dwarvish rune that meant “flesh.” A goblin, with a tattered shawl hanging from his shoulders, stood on a stool. The shaman had a knife in hand as he ripped at the rest of the crying and screaming woman's blouse exposing uncut, clean flesh and the rest of her chest to the air.
Several hobgoblins who had been standing on the other side of the prisoners drew bows and fired. Two missed me completely sticking into the wooden walls behind me. One of the shafts hit my shield hanging almost limp on my arm, covering my lower half but leaving my upper body and head exposed to the missiles.
Their aim was thrown off by the disorientation my spell had caused, one of the creatures had been impaled against the wall with the upper portion of the door, the lower portion swung loosely on its one remaining hinge. The prisoners were all on the ground, holding onto one another. I can’t use fire here!
I growled in frustration and rage at the sight before me and raised my shield just in time to block another volley of arrows. The bones in my arm range like a bell at the subsequent impacts, but I was alive. I grabbed the nearest person with my shield arm and dragged her into the hallway and to safety.
“Get going, all of you, crawl! Under the shield!” I yelled, expanding the shield to fill the upper portions of the doorway, but leaving the lower free for them to crawl through. The woman I had grabbed and dragged screamed, but quickly realized what was happening and made her escape, hands still tied with heavy rope.
As soon as she was clear I saw the timer on my Force Bolt go down, and I hit the hobgoblin who had nearly killed me earlier square in the chest, caving it in and sending him out the window he was standing in front of. One of the two remaining hobgoblins dropped to the floor, while the other reached down and dragged a young woman, a few years younger than me, to her feet between us. As he did, I unleashed another bolt, that struck him, and her, in the arm, causing her to fall and exposing him to my next attack, a heartbeat later.
When I launched it, the hobgoblin was bent over groping for his human shield. It slammed into his hip with a loud disturbing cracking noise, and the body fell limp to the ground. The woman shrieked in pain, and another prisoner began crawling towards her to assist.
I let down the shield and walked into the room. I let out another basic Force Bolt after the three-second cooldown directly into the face of the last hobgoblin and then surveyed the room. The Goblin Shaman was nowhere to be seen, the woman was another story.
I stopped in my tracks and gaped at what I saw. The woman who had been screaming was dead. Her body fully exposed, half of it covered in detailed carefully carved runes and sigils from various forms of magic. The other half of her body was covered in hastily cut and far deeper wounds that were clearly magical in nature but were made with far less care.
I had learned about how most societies and most races had different magical writing styles in the little time I had been able to read the last few days. And here, I saw elements of the three most common forms of magic writing. A few Elven sigils, a few dwarven runes, and as my eyes roamed over the carved flesh trying to read the purpose of the incantation, I found what could only have been the human signs for each of the seven basic elements.
Force was bloodily and hastily carved into her forehead. Fire on her torso just above the belly button, the one for air was between her breasts where the lungs connected. Earth was carved in several places, on her hips her knees and elbows. Water was carved on the edges her lips, next to her eyes, and just above her crotch.
Light was carved above each eye, directly on her heart was carved darkness. The last sign was far deeper, and there was far too much blood, I guessed it was how she died. As the other prisoners scrambled out, I tore my gaze from her naked form and examined the rest of the room.
Beyond where most of the action took place, there were four other men and women, all dead with the strange mix of arcanic styles of signs, sigils, and runes throughout their bodies. These though, they all looked complete
, and each sported a dagger straight through the heart.
Beyond them on the far side of the room sat a large cauldron probably originally meant for large scale stews. The large cooking pot hung from the ceiling above a wooden platform ringed with rocks, with coal still smoldering underneath. I stepped onto the platform and peeked into the cauldron. The smell and the sight were too much, I turned and lost my lunch.
I heard heavy footsteps outside the room and the Knight Captain and two of his guards came rushing in, short swords were drawn and their massive tower shields replaced with small bucklers designed for fighting in tight quarters. “Are you alright wizard?” The captain asked as he walked over, saw the people on the wall, and joined me in my misery vomiting in a corner he quickly turned toward.
“If that bothers you…” I said wiping my mouth, still slightly bend over. “Don’t look in the cauldron.”
One of the two guardsmen walked past it to secure the door on the opposite side. I saw him chance a look inside. He stopped stunned at what he saw. “Don’t look, watch the door.” The Knight Captain insisted. “No need to disturb the dead.” He said motioning towards the clearly dead bodies hung from the meathooks. All except the last had a black dagger piercing their hearts. He turned to me “Did you see the shaman?”
I nodded as I retrieved my staff from the floor where I had thrown it while hurling. “Yeah, but I was attacked by three hobs and he got away during the fighting. Took me longer than it should have to clear them out because of the hostages who had to crawl to safety.”
“Fairly fought wizard. The peasantries lives are more important than petty revenge against our enemies.” He said somewhat subdued. “Your words earlier, they were filled with wisdom. Biting though they were.”
I don’t know about wisdom, these people seem to get it mixed up easily with cynicism. I thought but held my tongue. The man was trying to apologize, no need to cut him down just because I had an ego too. I nodded and looked to the guard at the far door. “What's that room?” I asked.
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