Nightmare Keep (Euphoria Online Book 2)

by Phil Tucker

  Bedlam.

  What looked like a hundred goblins had invaded the castle and were engaged in an all-out riot. Everywhere there was chaos: small, wiry green bodies tumbling and leaping, wrestling and humping each other in the morning sunlight. The greatest fervor was centered around the wyvern’s mostly butchered corpse, where Kreekit and an incredibly obese goblin with a deer skull over his head were glaring at each other, both of them standing high upon the wyvern’s bony shoulders.

  “What the hell?” Falkon stepped up next to me, pulling straw from his hair. “Is it a carnival or an attack?”

  The new goblins all wore a slash of purple cloth diagonally across their chests, but otherwise were dressed in everything from rusted chain to loincloths. A band by the main gate was the source of most of the noise, where a dozen of them banged on drums and blew on crude trumpets, stirring up the crowd before them which heaved and danced and brawled.

  With a heaving cry, a dozen goblins tore free one of the long arm bones from the wyvern. Holding it overhead, they took off at a drunken run, screaming with excitement, only to slam the end of the bone into the back of a goblin’s head, knocking him down and causing the rest to trip and collapse beneath the bone itself.

  “What do we do?” I asked, equal measures overwhelmed and amused.

  Falkon grinned, crossed his arms, and leaned against the doorway. “You’re the one trying to claim Castle Winter. It’s your call.”

  Not how I’d imagined starting my morning. Still, if I didn’t control this chaos, who knew where events might lead? I took a deep breath as if about to dive into a swimming pool and stepped out into the sunlight.

  The closest goblins caught sight of me and let out screams as if I were a horror from the abyss. Several fell over themselves in shock, while others grabbed hold of each other and cringed.

  “Human!”

  “Death! Death comes for us all!”

  “Humans! Humans! Humans!”

  Man. They didn’t have a high opinion of people. Then again, every game I’d ever played used goblins as early leveling fodder. No wonder. I raised my empty hands and strode toward the wyvern’s corpse. The cries of outrage and shock spread out across the crowd, and more and more of the Big Burpie tribe stopped their antics to stare at me, eyes glittering like those of small birds, their humor disappearing to be replaced with a growing sense of menace.

  What had started out as comical was rapidly starting to feel threatening. There were easily hundreds of goblins in here. If they decided to tear me apart, there’d be little I could do.

  “Kreekit!” My yell cut through what was left of the revelry. “Hey! Kreekit!”

  My shaman tore her gaze away from the obese goblin and blinked at me. “There! There is master of the castle! He tell you the law! All Big Burpies go outside!”

  I reached the wyvern’s corpse and stared up at the pair. “That’s right. Only chieftains and shamans are allowed inside.”

  The corpulent goblin was nearly as broad as he was tall, and he wore an impressive array of glittering junk in a massive necklace that hung down to his bellybutton. Shiny scraps of metal, bright feathers, bones, shards of crystal – it all gleamed and glittered in the morning light. He studied me with a look of open appraisal and cunning, then threw his hands up and turned to the crowd.

  “Who here a Big Burpie goblin?”

  Several hundred voices were immediately raised in eager shouts.

  “Who here do whatever Big Lickit say?”

  Again, the massive shout of agreement.

  The shaman was starting to get into it. He didn’t have much room to pace, but he swung back and forth, bobbing his head and waving his arms. “If Lickit say kill, what you do?”

  “Kill kill kill till our faces turn blue!”

  “If Lickit say break it, what do you do?”

  “Snap it and shake it and break it in two!”

  The shaman pointed at me. “If Lickit say eat it, what do you do?”

  The horde of goblins turned to stare at me as one. “Cut it and cook it and put it in stew!”

  “I am Shaman Lickit!” He jabbed his chest with his thumb. “Shaman of Big Burpie tribe! We are many, you are few. We hungry, you good barbeque!”

  Well, shit.

  I was right out in the open under the morning sun. No shadows to speak of. Any attack on Lickit would no doubt provoke the others to swarm me. I could summon my Night Shroud and then Shadow Step away, but that would effectively be admitting the castle was Lickit’s and force me to have to fight the entire tribe to earn it back.

  There was nothing for it.

  I grabbed hold of a ridge of bone high up the wyvern’s leg and hauled myself up. Lickit gave way grudgingly, and in a matter of moments I was perched up alongside him on the wyvern’s back, gazing out over the sea of upturned goblin faces.

  “Welcome to my castle, Big Burpie tribe!” Curse my charisma eleven and Diplomacy: Basic (I). They weren’t going to do me any favors. “My name is Chris, lord of this land, killer of wyverns and ogres!”

  The goblins frowned up at me and suddenly I understood why – I wasn’t rhyming.

  I coughed. “The meat is fresh, it’s cut up good, and when it cooks will make good food!”

  This at least they could agree on. The goblins turned to each other and nodded.

  “But not long ago, the meat was alive! Wyvern flew, and ogre strived! My friends and I, we snuck in by night, and when the monsters saw us, we started a fight!”

  The goblins cheered, and a number of them sat cross-legged, clearly eager for the story. I froze. Nothing came to me. Several hundred or so goblins waited, eyebrows raised. My mouth was dry. Michaela stepped up next to Falkon in the tower doorway, eyebrow raised.

  Desperate, my mind called up a song of truth and power, a childhood favorite I’d spent hours memorizing so that I could amaze my friends in the playground.

  “On the half shell, we were the heroes four,

  And in Euphoria who could ask for more?

  The ogres were mighty, the wyvern mysterious,

  All the guards and humans were furious!”

  The goblins were digging it, nodding their heads in time with my words. I grinned and kept going.

  “They needed help like quick on the double,

  Have pity on the castle ‘cause man it was in trouble.

  They needed heroes just like the Lone Ranger,

  When Tonto came pronto when there was danger.

  We didn’t say ‘We’ll be there in half an hour.’

  ‘Cause we displayed… Euphoria Power!”

  Shaman Lickit tried to elbow his way forward. “Me big Shaman, me know what’s right. When I say ‘kill him’, you say ‘fight!’”

  I raised my voice, shouting him down.

  “That was the last straw. We sprang into action!

  We fought the ogres and you saw what happened.

  We cut them down and butchered them all

  Cause the bigger they are, the harder they fall!”

  This elicited a big cheer from the crowd.

  “Then from out of the sky came an awesome sound!

  Screamed like a hurricane as it came on down.

  Our backs to the wall, swords in our hands,

  This was for real, we made our last stand!

  The wyvern was bad, but we were much badder,

  And its every attack only made us much madder!

  With fury and power we cut it real deep,

  And now here it lies, cold and dead at my feet!”

  There was a moment of silence, and then the goblins burst into applause and screamed their approval. I placed my hands on my hips and grinned, one foot resting on the wyvern’s head.

  Kreekit raised her arms, waved them around until the cheering died down, and then moved to stand precariously before me. “This is Castle Winter! It bel
ong to Master Chris! He say all Big Burpie goblins wait outside! Now go! Or he summon his big magic, he pull out his big sword, and he cutty you up!”

  The goblins grumbled and shoved at each other and looked to Shaman Lickit, but even I knew the tide had changed. The fat shaman scowled then gave a nod. “Shaman Kreekit speaks true. All Big Burpie goblins wait outside. Soon we feast! Prepare big fire. Much meat to cook!”

  The goblins gave a cheer and began shoving at each other as they slowly made their way out the main gate, over the drawbridge and to the grassy slopes beyond.

  “Master Chris very impressive,” said Kreekit. “Teach me your song? What it called?”

  “Sure,” I said. I had to work hard not to grin like a fool. “It’s called, er, Euphoria Power. I’ll teach it to you later, yeah?”

  “Yes,” said Kreekit. “Now we talk gold! Shaman Lickit. You start very bad, very naughty. I had good terms for you, but now am angry.”

  The large shaman gave her a placating little bow. “No angry, Kreekit. You looking bigger than last time I saw you. Nice and plumpy. You eating well?”

  “Very well,” said Kreekit with a sniff. “So much steak I vomit.”

  “Oooh,” said Lickit. “Very nice. But Green Liver, Big Burpie, we always good friends. No need for anger.”

  “Hmph,” said Kreekit, crossing her arms. “Such good friends you not come when humans kill Green Liver.”

  “Big Burpie busy!” Lickit sounded outraged. “We cry big tears, roll around in sadness, compose many songs in your honor. Very sad time. But that long gone. New day! Time for big feast. How much gold you want?”

  Kreekit sniffed. “One gold per plate of meat.”

  “What?” Lickit staggered as if struck by a blow. “We no have so much gold!”

  “Then,” I said, inserting myself smoothly into the conversation, “how about this? For every gold you don’t want to pay, one of your goblins has to work for me for a week. I’ll feed them while they work, but they must do as I say.”

  Lickit didn’t hesitate. “Deal!”

  Kreekit gave me a disapproving look. “We lose much gold.”

  “But we gain in labor. There’s lots of work and clearing to be done. Now, I’ll let you figure out the details, Kreekit, but I want the goblins who decide to work to focus first on emptying out the bailey, removing the broken buildings, clearing out the rubble, and then to work on the spider tower, cutting down all the webbing and so forth inside. Once that’s done, let’s topple the siege bridges that are still crossing the ravine. All right?”

  “You the boss,” said Kreekit. “We make it happen.”

  “Great. Good meeting you, Shaman Lickit.”

  He bowed as low as his prodigious gut allowed, and my XP chime sounded.

  That done, I scrambled down off the wyvern’s corpse and crossed back to where my companions waited by the tower doorway.

  “On the half shell?” asked Falkon, grinning widely. “Really? Really? You just defeated a tribe of goblins with the Turtle Power song?”

  I laughed. “Do or die, man.”

  “I’m not familiar with this song,” said Michaela. “Regardless, I’m impressed. Falkon and I were trying to figure out how to save you if things went sour.”

  “And?” I looked from one to the other. “What did you guys come up with?”

  “We didn’t,” said Falkon. “Several hundred goblins, all at once? Tricky.”

  I gave a weak laugh. “Glad I didn’t know that at the time. How about we give it an hour or so to make sure Kreekit has things well in hand, then try the keep again?”

  “Sounds good,” said Falkon. “I hate to have things hanging over my head.”

  “That, and I want a taste of revenge,” said Michaela.

  “All righty then. But first, breakfast.”

  Falkon nodded toward where Barfo was already turning the spit over hungry flames. “With all this steak I’m starting to forget the difference between breakfast and dinner.”

  Michaela gave a predatory smile. “Meat is meat. Let’s eat.”

  Falkon elbowed her as they both walked toward the fire. “You’re starting to sound like a goblin. And I didn’t know undead ate food.”

  “This one does,” said Michael. “I don’t need to, but the taste, the act of eating – it reminds me of my former self.” She forced a smile. “So. Chris, you coming?”

  “Yeah, give me a sec.” I pulled up my character screen, and a few windows popped open with it.

  You have gained 25 experience (25 for surviving the Big Burpie tribe encounter). Your have 97 unused XP. Your total XP is 947.

  Your attributes have increased!

  Charisma +1

  You have learned new skills! Diplomacy: Basic (II), Goblin Rhyme Fighting (I).

  Goblin Rhyme Fighting, huh? Now that was a skill I was sure I’d be using all the time.

  There are new talent advancements available to you:

  Besides Wall Climber (I), Cat’s Fall, Mute Presence, and Heads-Up, there was a new entry: Adrenaline Surge (II). Huh. That’d cost me seventy-five XP, and would both extend the duration and increase the severity of the cooldown period’s nausea. Great. Still, I was right at ninety-seven XP. Just a little more would give me Grasping Shadows, which sounded like awesome battlefield control. I closed my screen and jogged after the others, stomach rumbling in anticipation.

  “Falkon, duck!” I hurled my Death Dagger right at his head. He spun toward me, eyes going wide, then dropped just before my dagger flashed by to sink deep into leaping spider goblin. It screeched and then bounced off Michaela’s green force shield, disappearing before it hit the ground.

  Sweat ran down my face as I stumbled back, panting for breath. Six of my Ebon Tendrils wavered in the hallway ahead, the corpses of three spider goblins caught in their grasp like dead fish in the strands of a jellyfish. Beyond lay my Shroud, filling the kitchen with its enervating darkness.

  “How many more?” asked Michaela, voice taut with effort. “My shield’s about to go down.”

  “We’ve killed three,” said Falkon, flicking blood off his blade as he rose to his feet. “One for the road?”

  “Let’s—“ I never got to finish.

  Three shadow goblins dropped from the darkness above, and immediately Michaela’s shield flared a virulent green, trapping them against the hallway’s stone ceiling. Sparks of green magic rained down on us as they fought the shield, digging talons and fangs into its curvature.

  “Run!” screamed Michaela. “I can’t—“

  I took a deep breath. “Drop the shield!”

  She didn’t hesitate. The green glow vanished. I burned through six mana and a forest of tendrils erupted around us, surging up to encircle the spider goblins as they fell.

  Falkon roared and swept his blade through the closest, causing it to erupt in a shower of blood; before Michaela could be soaked I tackled her around the waist, forcing her to fall back and out through the keep’s doorway.

  We rolled apart on the bailey floor and a moment later Falkon back pedaled after us, only to turn and let out a roar of delight and pump his fist into the air. My XP chime sounded and I sat up with a grin. Our plan had worked!

  “Drop my shield?” Michaela’s smile was as broad as my own. “Are you insane?”

  “Four of them!” Falkon sighted down the length of his blade for notches. “Like clockwork. Snicker snack went my vorpal blade! Well, right up till the very end.”

  I bounded to my feet. “We can rest up and then rinse and repeat. Unless they’re respawning, we’ll mow them down eventually. And even if they are, we’ll gain some amazing XP.” I wanted to run right back inside and get to work. “At this rate, we’ll be able to rescue Lotharia in no time at all.”

  Falkon wiped his blade clean and sheathed it. “No time at all, eh? I like your confidence
. Those spider goblins never—Hey. Who are they?”

  I turned. Five strangers stood just inside the main gate, and the variety in their appearance immediately told me they were players. The rest of the bailey was empty, the skewer and fire pit abandoned, the butchering implements dropped or left half buried in the ogre and wyvern corpses.

  “No idea,” I said, turning so I stood shoulder to shoulder with the other two. “Michaela? You know ‘em?”

  The strangers stepped out into the afternoon sunlight. Each one was completely distinct from the other. The man in the lead was clad in a coat of the purest white, which extended from his buttoned high collar all the way down to his shins. A broad copper sash wrapped around his waist held a large, curved knife. A cloak of snowy whiteness hung behind him, and large gloves of the same coppery hue as the sash rose nearly to his elbows. His head was completely shaved, but instead of giving him a thuggish look it imparted upon his striking features an air of distinction and severity, like that of a monk.

  “Greetings,” he called out with mock cheerfulness. “This would be Castle Winter?”

  “Depends who’s asking,” I replied. I had meant it to sound defiant, but his expression of arch amusement left me feeling like a kid who’d watched too many movies.

  He took his time looking about the bailey, eyeing it much as a potential buyer might a new property, and from his thinned lips it was clear he wasn’t too impressed.

  “Falkon?” I whispered. “Level?”

  “Twenty-seven,” he whispered.

  The man to the leader’s left was, if anything, even more imposing. He wore a severe outfit of black trimmed in bronze over his powerful frame, with a stylized bronze skull over his head that left his lower jaw uncovered; a black silk hood under the helm meant I couldn’t even make out his eyes. At over six feet in height and with the build of a linebacker, I’d have expected him to be the group’s bruiser, but instead the artistry of his mask and complex suit of black leather gave him a more refined air, much like Doctor Doom or Thanos from the comics. A heavy hexagonal rod of bronze and black metal hung at his hip, and even from this distance I could make out the faint tracery of runes down its length.