The Hobgoblin Riot: Dominion of Blades Book 2: A LitRPG Adventure

by Matt Dinniman

  Gretchen was on the other side of the city, near the entrance. She and Bingo had their own plan.

  Raj: They are all gone! The city is empty again! We are breathing happy relief. Thank you King Jonah. Thank you Regent Poppy! Thank you General Gretchen!

  Poppy: This party ain’t over yet, kid. Remember what I told you? The next group will show up soon. Keep your people safe. Keep us updated. You’re doing a great job, kid. It’ll be some time still.

  Raj: Raj is a good scout! I am a protector! They are my responsibility, and I protect, protect, protect!

  Poppy: You might see Gretchen in a few minutes, down on the street below. We want you to stay where you are and keep protecting. Keep scouting for us.

  Raj: Raj will scout!

  “Man, I hope none of the other monsters get into that hotel again,” I muttered, closing out the chat. Raj was taking his role of soldier very seriously. If anything happened to anyone there, it would devastate the poor little polecat. From what I could gather he’d made a full sweep of the hotel and had gathered up about 15 others: a couple rodders, pollywogs, goblins, and even a few fellow polecats, all either young or elderly. All four of the races were often used as servants in high-end places like the Luxuriant, and these were all kitchen and cleaning staff from the hotel, along with a guest or two. Raj probably had the most battle experience of all of them.

  “There’s only 2,500 of them,” Jonah said, not looking up from his map. “Not including the moles. That kid was spot-on with the numbers.”

  The last few days had been a flurry of activity. With Commander Holder—it turned out he got pissed if you called him ‘Gray Misery’—focusing on recruiting and training civilians, it seemed things were moving along at a reasonable clip.

  The addition of Commander Holder had allowed us to use the war events messaging to contact the white jacket garrisons in the cities of Marizy and Nijon, and the soldiers there did a sweep of the entire population. The 500 citizens from nearby Marizy had already arrived, sneaking into the city in the night, not disturbing the tormented who gathered across the river in Quibou. The arrowed citizens of Nijon, almost 5,000 strong, would soon arrive. We’d put them to work right away. With that many conscripts, we’d be able to man all 75 towers and leave the white jackets for garrison duty, where they would be the most effective.

  Granger and I had swept Fort Bloodgasm, exploring every corner. The massive dungeons were eerily empty. All the rats and oozes that normally lived underneath castles had been hunted to extinction in exchange for food. The larger rooms of the castle were filled with trees and palms and ferns, room after room. Most everything else was a shattered mess, including what once had been a throne room for the old, long-dead queen of the wark-ee. The queen’s chambers were now used as poleax storage. At least 1,000 broken and rotting suits of hobgoblin, samurai-style armor filled the surrounding chambers.

  The most lived-in area of the castle were the rooms in which we currently resided, the chambers surrounding the defense cockpit. After some prodding, the now-healed Chauncey eventually admitted that while Chief Musa had chambers somewhere in the castle, he’d taken to sleeping on the floor in the defense cockpit at all times.

  We did find one room of interest, deep in the castle: a magic armory, similar to the one in Harmony, filled with scrolls and potions and a few other odds and ends. It seemed the hobgoblins didn’t want to mess with the items in the room and had left it alone.

  Hobgoblins had their own magic system, and some of them were powerful mages. Prince Maghan, for example, was said to be a high-level shaman. But apparently their magic wasn’t compatible with the more standard magic system that the regular mages and clerics used.

  While Nale the arcanist was mostly useless when it came to fighting, he turned out to be a damn genius with identifying scrolls and potions. He was currently identifying and cataloging everything in the magic chamber. It was a long, tedious process because each item had to be carefully removed before it could be properly examined. Old, arcane magic had a tendency to explode when handled improperly. Nale was a perfectionist. He’d already recruited a pair of younger mages who’d recently arrived from the nearby city of Marizy to help him.

  He could also identify the magical properties of weapons and armor and jewelry, which was outstanding. Usually one had to take a piece of jewelry to a jeweler, and a piece of armor to an armorer, etc., to get identified.

  He’d gone over our haul from Castle Six, tossing multiple cursed items aside and picking out the most valuable ones. Most of the weapons we’d gathered that were enchanted were damage-enhanced—the most typical of enchantments. These we doled out to the white jackets.

  Prince Kankan’s poleax had a Swiftness enchantment and a plus three to constitution, making it very valuable. Nobody in the party could actually wield one of the things, though. I threw it in my pack. If we ever got out of here, I’d probably just sell it.

  I did replace my axe with another one, just about the same size. This double-sided axe was not nearly as awesome as my poor, shattered FUD, but it would have to do for now. It was plus 5% damage-enhanced and had a Penetrating charm, which allowed it to negate 50% of a target’s armor bonus. It also imbued Muddy on its victims, which slowed down their movement speed by 25%.

  I named her Kneecapper.

  I’d also found a ring in the white jacket castle, and I wore it now. I’d had to give the watch back to Gretchen, leaving me with an empty accessory slot. The ring was much too big for my finger, and I had to wear it on my thumb. The ring gave a +5 bonus to the leadership skill, which put me at level 12 for the skill—expert level. It was probably the best thing I’d found so far. With my leadership being level 12, every damn troop in the army now had a 10% boost to their damage and a 10% armor bonus. If we ever made it back to Harmony, I promised Jonah I’d give him the ring.

  Spritz had leveled up to five just by walking the spiral and clearing up rubble and fixing walls. She and Jonah had some grand plans that involved moving towers around, but they weren’t quite ready to do it. I put her to work cleaning up Fort Bloodgasm. She’d ascended to level eight after that.

  Jonah had gone to the church and talked to the priest—a hobgoblin shaman it turned out—but he hadn’t been hostile. The church was called the Night Temple of Kalika, but only half-ogres, goblins, and hobgoblins could worship at it. Jonah said he needed to talk to us about some of the stuff he’d learned after talking to the shaman, but now wasn’t the time. I’d pressed him, but he’d waved us off, promising he’d go into great detail after this wave. Getting everything set up for today was the number one priority.

  “This is just like with the emo-tong,” Gretchen had said when Jonah told us about the church. “I knew it. The shaman actually said that hobgoblins could worship there? I think they were planning on introducing hobgoblins as a playable race.”

  It made sense. In the months before they introduced the emo-tong, all sorts of things started popping up, including loot that nobody could equip. It had eventually become clear they were going to introduce a new creature. Then the hive popped up in the middle of China and all hell broke loose for a couple weeks.

  I shuddered, remembering the hive queen battle. She was a mountain-sized bug, spewing fire onto the millions who attacked her. It had taken multiple dragons to take her down. Monobrow Sam and I had been there, fighting against the emo-tong warriors on a nearby mountain. Sam had used his harbinger magic to raise an army of zombie emo-tong, who had promptly turned on us. It turned out you couldn’t do that with emo-tong. I’d been stabbed in the stomach, and by the time I could get back to the battle, it had been over. There had been loot for days afterward, though. So many dumbasses went into the world event with a full pack, losing it all when they couldn’t complete a corpse run.

  “It makes sense,” I said. “If the plan was to eventually break the Dominion down into a bunch of different kingdoms with all this de-unification crap, then we’d need a few more playable races.”

&
nbsp; Jonah had wanted to travel to the main part of Castellane to search out Chief Musa, who was supposedly hiding in the city somewhere, but we hadn’t had time. We had a few surprises for the tormented, who now streamed into the city, and he, Gretchen, Spritz, and Oliver the beastmaster had spent all of yesterday building their trap.

  We still didn’t have a sapper in the party. In fact, multiple arrowed NPCs appeared to be alive but hiding in Quibou. Gretchen and Bingo along with his four gorcupines were going to deal with that now, today while the attack was happening. If it was like last time, the monsters for wave three would start showing up right away, and we had to take advantage of the short lull between waves to investigate where the several thousand NPCs were hiding.

  I watched the spot on the model, indicating the horde of purple dwarves. A single ballista tower was coming up, just around the corner. The tower was armed and manned by three arrowed civilians. It was the first defense they would meet. Gretchen was nearby, watching.

  Gretchen: They’re doing it just like we suspected. The moles are burrowing into the ground, and the tormented are following, just walking into the holes to avoid the towers. The tower hit one of the moles, but it didn’t seem to hurt it too much.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Okay. Be safe. At the first sign of trouble, I want you guys to run.

  Gretchen: We’re headed to Quibou now. Good luck to you, too.

  I looked at Jonah. “It’s a good thing we knew what to expect,” I said.

  Jonah nodded. “Without Raj, we’d be fucked.”

  Beyond that single turret was Castle One and the Sentinel Tower, which was currently unoccupied. If we survived past today, my next priority was to go down there and talk to the oracle who occupied the castle. I didn’t want to fight her if I could avoid it, but I needed that key she carried. The Sentinel Tower was too powerful to just ignore. If I could get the triplets in there, all with their level 30 longbow skill…

  Of the 75 turrets, we currently had troops in 20 of them. Some of the larger towers required a lot of troops to operate. Each of the huge rock chuckers required a minimum of 125 soldiers to man, with a recommended occupancy of 300. The Butcher’s Delight, which we still hadn’t tested, was a tower that only worked when the barracks below were fully occupied. That obstacle alone required 500 soldiers, with another 50 to the tower, so that one would have to wait. With the reinforcements from Quibou, we currently had just under 600 arrowed civilians plus another 35 white jackets. All of them were placed in various towers around the path, including a single rock chucker with 200 civilians. I’d allowed Jonah to pick all the locations. He seemed the most suited for this type of strategy, plus the white jackets followed his instructions much more readily than they did mine. For this run, we didn’t have enough soldiers to man any of the garrisons, so they currently stood empty.

  Most of the traps were active, but we only had enough monsters for a few of the cage traps. All of the obstacles were active except the Hell Gate in Castle Five, which appeared to be offline. Chauncey claimed he had no idea why. We couldn’t actually look at it to confirm it was still there because it didn’t raise into the arena until the creeps approached. The Menagerie only held five pazuzu and the single oblivion walrus, making it woefully underpowered. That problem, hopefully, would be fixed after tonight.

  If they make it that far, we’re fucked either way, I thought. Hopefully this plan would work.

  “You got this?” Jonah asked as he worried over the map.

  “I’m on it,” I said, pulling myself up onto the table. “You go to your position.”

  Jonah nodded, turning to leave the room. Vern and the other one would already be waiting for him. The trap was placed early in the spiral, just in case it failed. If it did fail, or some made it through, we still had a good 15 more miles of spiral to try and stop them.

  My job was to quickly reassign the soldiers, so they could leapfrog from tower to tower. Once the mobs were out of range, I would quickly assign the defenders to run to another tower further down the line. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.

  Spritz remained in the room. She seemed especially nervous. I took a moment to examine her skills. She’d already leveled up to 8. At this rate, she’d surpass me in a day or two. Once she hit level ten, we’d be able to start upgrading some of the towers. At level 20, the bigger towers could be upgraded. All it took for her to level was building things.

  We needed to get her ass to Harmony. If we could use her to fix the wall, maybe build some of these same types of towers, maybe, just maybe we could pull it off.

  My chest ached at that thought. Who were we kidding? Back to Harmony? At this point, we were lucky to survive minute to minute. I had a terrible suspicion that I’d never see Harmony again.

  I watched the horde of feral dwarves reach the first trap. I couldn’t tell from the map if they were currently on the path or under it.

  War Party> Slam Trap in A2 triggered.

  War Party Admin> Calculating casualties… 22 casualties. 2,778 invaders remain.

  “That’s it?” I muttered.

  We had multiple slam traps throughout the spiral. They activated when one stepped on a pressure plate, and a huge, two-story slab of concrete from a nearby building slammed down, crushing anyone unfortunate enough to be in its area of effect. I’d seen those things take out 300 people at once.

  Once you knew what you were looking for, the slabs were fairly obvious, but you had to be looking for them. That’s why you put trap-spotting rogues near the front of the party, right behind the tanks.

  Raj: I see Gretchen! She is with many spiky monkeys!

  Poppy: I’m totally calling Bingo a spiky monkey from now on.

  Bingo: You are aware that I can hear this.

  Gretchen: Raj, let us know if you see anyone sneaking up on us.

  Raj: Raj is a scout! I will protect my people and Gretchen!

  I watched in silence for several more minutes, the only sound being Spritz as she shuffled around the map, making a strange scraping noise as she moved.

  Monobrow Sam would’ve loved this shit, I thought. He would’ve fucked it up so bad that we’d all be dead 100 times over, but he would’ve smiled the whole time. And he would’ve made everybody else smile, too. His happiness was infectious.

  I don’t know why I thought of him so much lately. I’d lost so much. Molly, Juliette. Everything I touched had a tendency to turn to shit. But Sam… I’d promised him everything would be okay. I’d promised him when I got out I’d make good on the debt. I had the money lined up. It was going to be okay. He was so excited about me getting out of prison. All he talked about in his letters was me getting out so we could play again. There were rumors that they might shut it down. We had to get back in here as soon as possible. We had to run the riot one last time. Make sure we got in with a good group. Maybe we could actually finish this thing.

  They’d shot him in the stomach. They did it that way on purpose, so he’d die slowly. They’d taken everything from his apartment, including his two most prized possessions: his neural cradle and his grandmother’s wedding ring, the ring he was going to use when he finally met the right woman. He’d died on the floor of his empty apartment, alone in a pool of his own blood. He’d died because I hadn’t been there to protect him.

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” I said, watching the dot approach Castle Two. “If you’re out there, I want you to watch this. This is for you.”

  Jonah Note 11

  “They come,” Vern said. The half-ogre’s giant, trashcan maul sat on the ground, and I’d been using it as a chair. I leaped up, watching. I had two half-ogres with me. Vern and another with only one arm. That one was a farmer from the town of Marizy, and he only came with us today because he refused to let us use his oxen without accompanying them. Behind us, the two oxen grunted with impatience. Their empty carts creaked as the beasts pulled against them.

  Three towers loomed above, along the extended, straight path that led away from Castle Two and appro
ached the winding Seine—the Cassagnac River here. We hadn’t yet explored this second castle. In the real world, this was Musée de l'Armée or the Army museum, and it was also Napoleon’s tomb. Neither Gretchen nor Popper could remember anything about this game version, but Popper didn’t think it was anything special. The castle was visually similar to Castle Six, but its exterior gave no hint as to the contents within. A tomb made me think there would be undead, but this entire city was built over a tomb. It was one of the worst places in the world for me to be with my curse. If I didn’t have the castle to protect me, I imagined I’d be overwhelmed with undead in a matter of hours. I didn’t currently see any undead on my minimap. I still wore the Detect Undead pendant around my neck. Deeper in the city, however, my map was awash with the faded red dots, indicating inactive and hidden undead. These, I knew, were all underground, part of the massive Catacombs the city rested upon.

  The first tower stood near the start of the long, dirt pathway toward the bridge. The second, slightly-larger tower rose about a hundred meters further down, halfway between the first and the bridge.

  The third tower stood just on the other side of the stone bridge, on the opposite shore of the Cassagnac. The first and third turret required a minimum of five soldiers to operate, but hit peak efficiency with 15. I had 15 in each of these. The middle turret required just five, and I’d maxed that one out also. Granger controlled the first tower, Tiatha controlled the second, and the triplets—who refused to be separated—controlled the third. The first and third turrets were level one arrow towers. The maximum damage of each shot was a product of the total level of all the archers in the tower. Everyone was at least level one, with several level 5’s mixed in. The third tower with the triplets was by far the most deadly. I was surprised to see that Ace, their ever-present auric bard, had a respectable level of 14 with the longbow, raising the damage of that third tower even more.