by Phil Tucker
“Huh,” I said. I wasn’t sure if I was comforted or not by that level of attention. “You think he’ll intercede with the ogres or the undead in Feldgrau?”
“Nah,” said Falkon. “While he might mess with raid monsters and bosses like this one, he won’t touch ‘natural’ monsters like the ogres. Those that are actually part of the local ecology, or have a narrative to explain their presence. Only the spontaneously generated bad guys like this spider-dude or the like.”
“Huh,” I said again. “That’s pretty fascinating. So maybe we should focus on raid areas to keep things more equal?”
Falkon dragged out a small chest from under a shelf. “Nice try, but no Cuban cigarillo. He’d notice what we were up to pretty quickly and up the challenge level to rebuke us. We’d best keep on with our original plans. Now, this looks interesting…”
We both crouched before the small chest. Falkon blew on it and a thick layer of dust flew into the air. There was no lock on the latch, so he opened it with the tip of his dagger and we both peered greedily inside.
“Let’s see what we’ve got,” he said, and carefully pulled out a black folded bundle.
“A souvenir shirt?” I asked, trying to not sound let down. “What’s it say on the front? ‘I killed a spider-dude and all I got was this lousy t-shirt’?”
Falkon’s eyes blazed green, and then he gave me a wry smile. “Not quite. It’s your lucky day. This is woven from enchanted spider silk. It’s as good as common chainmail, and much lighter and more flexible. I think you’ve scored your first piece of real loot.”
I couldn’t help but feel a shiver of excitement. Anything that helped keep sharp, pointy things from entering my body were incredibly welcome. I yanked my homespun tunic over my head and carefully slipped the spider silk shirt on in its place. It was smooth, decadently so, so light as to be almost insubstantial yet surprisingly warm.
“And this, I think, is a gift for Lotharia,” said Falkon, pulling out a small amulet. His eyes blazed green once more, and then he nodded. “Yep. A mana aggregator. Well, that’s the technical term for it. It helps draw ambient mana from the environment, making her regain her spent mana much more quickly. This is a minor amulet, so the effect won’t be dramatic, but still.”
“And for you?” I asked.
He peered inside the chest. “Looks like that’s it.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Euphoria’s not fair,” he said. “And we ain’t done searching yet. Come on.”
There wasn’t that much more to explore, however, and after another few minutes of poking and lifting and peering we only found a pouch of silver coins and a battered buckler.
We regrouped next to Lotharia, whose mood visibly lifted at the sight of the amulet. She turned it over in her hands a few times, then quickly slipped it over her neck and let out a sigh of relief. “Now this makes the whole fight worth it.”
“You know, I don’t see a doorway leading out,” I said.
“Me neither,” admitted Falkon. “And I’m not too excited about climbing up to the fourth floor.”
I looked from one to the other. “Do you think Albertus sealed it up?”
Lotharia made a face. “Possible? But unlikely. Here. Let’s try again, but this time use Detect Magic.”
That made all the difference, thanks to Jeramy’s spell. We were quickly able to find an archway where his iron effect wasn’t taking hold.
“I guess he only cast it on the tower shell,” I said, looking up at the ruined interior floors. “And his magic rune doesn’t adapt to new additions.”
“It doesn’t,” said Lotharia. “One of the key elements in carving it is to have a specific set of limits in mind. Otherwise you’d just spin the mana through the rune only to have it sink back into the ground and sky.”
“Makes sense. So…” I knocked on the gray blocks that filled the doorway. “How do we open this up?”
“I can probably break through,” said Falkon. “But this leads right into the courtyard.”
“Ah,” I said. “Ogres and wyverns.”
“And mouse swarms,” said Lotharia with a gleam in her eye. Her amulet had really cheered her up. “Here. I may have a little trick that will help us.” She placed her palm on the stones, held her new amulet in one hand, and then whispered, “From mighty stone, strong and grand, adopt the softness of sun-baked sand.”
I watched through Detect Magic. Her amulet pulsed, pulling a little mana from the air and sending it into her being, which then pushed in through her palm into the wall. A subtle effect, but the very nature of the mana in the rocks changed.
“Imbue is going to ultimately be my most powerful and versatile spell,” she said, stepping back. “I just need to have the patience to work on it instead of going for flashy spells like Hail Storm.”
“Flashy, life-saving spells like Hail Storm,” I said. “Can we knock it down?”
“Whenever you’re ready,” she said.
Falkon stepped forward and pressed his hand into the rock. It didn’t suddenly collapse as if it were actually made of sand, but he was able to imprint his palm into it. “Very nice. Watch out.”
He took three steps back, then ran forward and slammed his shoulder into the blocks. They caved in around him with a dusty thump, and he staggered through and out into the evening light before backpedaling into the tower.
I peered out through the hole he’d made and scanned the bailey. The undead ogre emerged from its house, peering around the courtyard warily, but there was no sign of the wyvern or the other ogres.
“I think the coast is clear,” I whispered. “Back along the inside wall to the goblin tower?”
“That your base of operations?” asked Falkon.
Lotharia and I exchanged a look. “Best one we’ve found so far,” I said.
“At least until we get around to exploring Jeramy’s tower,” said Lotharia. “If we can guess the password, that is.”
“All right. Follow me, then.” Falkon drew his blade and slipped outside. Lotharia went next, the necrotic staff in one hand, her scepter gone. I followed last after giving a final look at the defeated spider boss above us.
We scampered quickly along the wall, and when we knocked, Barfo readily admitted us into the tower. Only once he’d barred and reinforced the door did I finally allow myself to relax.
“You have fun?” asked Barfo, holding out a tray on which stood three little clay cups. “Refresher?”
I grinned and took a cup. “Yes, refresher. Thank you.” I sniffed warily, expecting something akin to crude petroleum, but it actually smelled pretty decent, like a slightly oaty chamomile.
Kreekit ducked out of one of the cloth tents. “Humans like danger,” she said knowingly. “Big fights, lots of death. Never satisfied. What is your next big fight?”
Falkon sat on a crate and laid his blade over his knees. “You got that right. Always more danger. That’s how we get more powerful. As to our next big fight?” He looked over at me. “The ogres, right?”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting against the wall. “But if that spider dude was only level twenty, how are we going to tackle four ogres? What do you think their level is?”
“Ogres?” Falkon paused. “Like most humanoids, they scale up. The runt of the group might be in the high twenties, with their boss in the mid-thirties. Way, way beyond our paygrade.”
Lotharia bowed her head politely as she accepted her clay cup from Barfo, then scowled at Falkon. “Then why are you grinning like a fool?”
“Because – well, Chris’ Death March aside – this is the most fun I’ve had in ages.” Falkon ran his thumb along the edge of his blade, testing for nicks. “What we’re trying to do here is ridiculous, but somehow I’m still optimistic. Most folks who play Euphoria are content to follow the prescribed leveling guidelines, playing it if not safe then perhaps s
imply as they’re supposed to, leveling in a smooth and predictable manner. Nobody does what we’re doing. Not for long, at any rate. So, yeah. I’m excited.”
“He very human,” said Dribbler.
Lotharia shook her head. “I think the term is ‘suicidally optimistic’.”
“Suicidally optimistic,” said Dribbler slowly. “That mean the same as ‘human’?”
I grinned. “Yeah. Something like that. But we’ve got no choice here. All right. Time for us to think this through. How can we take down four ogres?”
“Toe-to-toe combat is out,” said Falkon. “I doubt even I could take a full hit and survive.”
“We should weaken them,” said Lotharia, running her finger around the brim of her clay cup as if trying to make it sing.
“Right.” I leaned forward, mind spinning as I tried to recall low-level strategies I’d not used in forever. “They’re pretty dumb. We have to use that against them. Get them to consume poison, or find a way to inflict them with disease.”
“Ogres are pretty resistant to disease, though,” said Falkon. “You ever see one of their dens?”
“Yeah.” I thought of the squalor inside the stables. “Still. Maybe we can find something virulent enough. From down in Feldgrau, maybe?”
Lotharia arched her brow at me. “Now you’re the one who’s sounding very human.”
“Suicidally optimistic,” piped in Dribbler with a grin. “Yes?”
“Sure. That’s me. Say we poison them, inflict them with disease.” I looked over at Falkon. “You already know what we’re going to hit them with.”
“The ballista,” he said. “Absolutely. But that won’t take them out with one blow, and the reload time is terrible without a full team. Even a bolt that large with a steel head won’t faze a level thirty ogre.”
“Well… what if I Imbue the bolt?” Lotharia looked from me to Falkon. “Turn the head into something akin to enchanted diamond?”
Falkon grinned. “Better. Much better. How long does Imbue last?”
“It all depends on how different the materials are. Iron to diamond? A couple of minutes. If I then enchant it to give it a magical effect? Ten, fifteen seconds?”
Excitement wiggled deep within me. “So, you two work the ballista. Each time you load a bolt, Lotharia enchants it. Then we lure the sickened and diseased ogres out into the open and mow them down.”
“Still not enough,” said Falkon. “These guys are going to seem ridiculously tough compared to anything we’ve yet faced. That’ll hurt them, sure. But kill them? We need more.”
“I’ve got the spider staff,” said Lotharia reluctantly. “A blast from that should hurt.”
“Yeah, but you said that’ll warp your essence,” I protested. “How many blasts can you shoot before being too messed up?”
“Hard to say. There’s no definite limit. It’s all a matter of how close I want to get to the edge. I should be able to manage a blast for each ogre, though.” Lotharia stared into her cup, then drained it. “That will leave me pretty messed up, however.”
“Disease, poison, diamond-tipped bolts and spider staff blasts,” I said, watching Falkon. “Enough?”
“I still want more,” he said.
I sat back. What else could we do? What else could hit the ogres that hard? “What about the wyvern?”
“What about the wyvern?” asked Lotharia.
“What if we found a way to set it on the ogres when they come boiling out of the stables?”
“Oooh,” said Dribbler. “Very, very bad idea.”
“That means humans will try it,” said Barfo.
“We’d have to find a way to get rid of the stakes,” said Falkon slowly. “But the ogres wouldn’t come out of the stables if they saw them missing.”
“I could…” Lotharia trailed off, thinking things through. “What if I Imbued the base of each stake with the quality of paper or the like? Then we cut through each one? Leave it connected by just a little bit in the center?”
“That means we won’t be able to replace them after,” said Falkon. “Which will make killing the wyvern much harder down the road.”
I stood, restless energy filling me. “But it’s a good idea. We weaken the stakes. Perhaps attach spider silk from the tower to the tip of each one. We time our attack for when the wyvern’s home, then trigger the ogres so they come running out with a lot of noise. Drop the stakes, and let the wyvern attack even as we hit them with diamond-tipped bolts and spider fire.”
Falkon held up a finger. “If – and this is a big ‘if’ – if we can pull all that off, then yeah. Maybe that’d be enough.”
I punched my fist into my other palm. “Then that’s what we’ll do. We need to find a way to drive the ogres out at the right time with a big noise.”
“Big boom,” said Dribbler excitedly. “Big fire, lots of smoke. Wake up everybody.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’d be nice. But we’re not quite powerful enough yet to be throwing fireballs.”
“No,” said Kreekit. “Dribbler means explosion!”
“Sure,” I said. “But how?”
“Lots of black fire mud in wyvern tower,” said Dribbler. “We find barrels and barrels when we first arrive, before we know wyvern up top. Very exciting! We plan a big party, but then have to run from wyvern.”
“Wait,” I said. “Black fire mud?”
“He probably means pitch,” said Falkon. “One of our defensive measures. We’d light barrels and drop them over the walls to blow up the enemy. There were barrels kept in each tower in case of attack.”
“Oh, that’s good,” I said. “So we steal some barrels, roll them up to the stable walls, then detonate them all at once.”
Falkon laughed. “See? This is what I was talking about. Exciting!”
Lotharia pressed her fingers into her temples. “You’re all mad.”
“And we can help!” said Kreekit. She climbed up onto a box and spread her arms wide, cloak splayed out behind her. “Green Liver goblins can help! Barfo can cook good, or he can cook bad. And when he cooks bad, he cooks very, very bad. We get ogres to eat Barfo’s food, they get sick like horse drowning in pond of warm green puke!”
“Horse… drowning?” I shook my head. “Never mind. That’s great! That’ll handle the poison.”
Barfo beamed. “I also cook very good! Make Barfo special soup! Good for everything! Powerful magic. Heal the world.”
“Uh, sure,” I said. “That sounds great, too. And the disease?”
“I can’t believe I’m volunteering this information, given what you’ll insist on doing with it,” said Lotharia. “But remember those plague zombies in Feldgrau? One of those might do the trick. But I don’t know how you’d bring one to the stables without getting sick yourself.”
“We talking walking or lying around kind of corpses?” asked Falkon.
“Walking,” said Lotharia. “Luckily, you can hear them coming from far away due to the sound of the insects burrowing in their flesh.”
“So we isolate one of them, lasso it, drag it up to the castle faster than they can walk. If it gives us a problem, we kill it from a distance and haul it on in regardless.”
“I’ll let you handle that mission,” said Lotharia with a cold smile. “Since you seem so eager.”
“All right,” I said, turning to face my friends. “Sounds like we’ve got a plan. First step is for Barfo to brew up the poison while we grab the barrels of black fire mud. Then we weaken the stakes and harvest spider silk from the tower. Kreekit, do you think you three can braid the spider silk into long ropes for us?”
“Goblins very good braiders,” said Kreekit. “Yes. Very big yes.”
“Kreekit,” said Falkon carefully. “Do you know what a braid is?”
“Oh yes,” said Kreekit. “Yes, yes. Very dangerous. Very im
portant. Green Liver goblins famous for their braids.”
The three of us hesitated and exchanged looks.
“That’s… good. Great,” I said. “So poison and barrels, then stakes and braids. Finally, we grab a plague corpse and dump it in the stables. Wait till that night and the wyvern, then place the barrels behind the stables. Imbue the bolts, light the fuses… and celebrate an easy victory.”
Lotharia snorted. “Right. Nothing could go wrong.”
“Hey, at least it’s a plan,” I said.
“Barfo start cooking bad food very now!” said Barfo, climbing to his feet. “I save many bad things for this day! Barfo go dig them up.”
“I’ll get to work on the ballista,” said Falkon. “Shouldn’t take me too long to finish it up.”
“Lotharia, want to come scout the wyvern’s tower?” I asked.
She gave me a wry smile. “Actually, yes. I’ve been meaning to visit Jeramy’s tower since we got here. Let me meditate some, regain my mana and finish cleaning my essence, and I’ll be good to go.”
“Sounds good.” I beamed at everyone. Sure, the plan was ridiculously perilous. Sure, we were planning to tackle four level thirty-plus foes that could obliterate us with one single blow. I knew a hundred different things could go wrong. But it felt good to take the initiative. It gave me a sense of being in control, even if I knew that sense was false.
“Then let’s get to it,” I said. “Those ogres aren’t going to know what hit them.”
15
Lotharia and I crouched within the doorway of the uppermost room of the goblins’ tower and watched as the wyvern roused itself from slumber. We could barely make out the tops of its scaly wings as it beat them, then the monster itself rose into view. It was incredible. We’d been waiting all night for the beast to fly out and give us a chance to explore, and it had taken till the breaking of dawn for it to rouse itself. Now the first rays of the day caused its hide to glisten as if it were covered in dew, bringing out the deep tones of green and black along its scaled hide.
“There it goes,” I whispered. Even within the stone doorway I didn’t feel safe. The wyvern hopped up onto the outer edge of the tower, facing out over the ravine and Feldgrau far below, and extended its wings to their fullest extent. They each had to easily be fifteen feet wide. It gave its thick, serpentine neck a shake, squawked twice, and then simply toppled forward, falling out of sight.