I wouldn’t make it, not in seven minutes—the length of the Silence spell—and not in ten minutes, either. I rushed through the woods, following the waypoint, giving each cookfire a wide berth. The deeper I went, the more I was surrounded by red dots. It wasn’t just hobgoblins, either. Dark shapes filled the war camps. These were beetle and spider mounts. They hissed and chittered as I passed. Could they sense me? I didn’t wait around to find out. As my Silence spell started to wind down, I started to look for a place to hide. In panic, I realized there was nowhere. I’d entered the main cluster of camps, and I might as well have walked into a city. I still had a good half kilometer to go. I’d entered a clearing, the remnants of a destroyed neighborhood. The buildings were all burned to the ground, and many of the trees here had been cut down to build their boats. Sleeping hobgoblins spread out in every direction. Up ahead, barely visible in the darkness was a set of four larger tents. My waypoint led me there.
I didn’t have a choice. I downed another Mystic Points regen and re-cast Silence. I picked my way forward, avoiding the large shadows of their mounts. Sentries patrolled this area, but only the outskirts. As my Invisibility ticked down, I drank another one. This one was only good for seven minutes. I only have five minutes left on my Silence.
I sprinted toward the command tents. In my haste, I tripped over a mislaid spear, which caused it to go flying. It hit a standing rack of more spears, just outside the area of my Silence spell, and they all tumbled to the ground with a terrible racket, causing several hobgoblins to sit up. They grunted and cursed and went back to sleep as I remained frozen, not wanting to move.
I continued up the hill. There was a single, massive tent, two larger ones, and a fourth tent off to the side that was slightly smaller than the others. The first three tents appeared to be brightly-lit. The fourth one was dark. This was where the dot was leading me.
A pair of sentries stood outside of the largest tent. They were the only visible hobgoblins on the small hilltop. I had a good two minutes left as I scrambled up the hill. I slowed my pace, careful not to disturb the ground too much as I passed by the two, bored-looking guards.
As I reached the top of the hill, both of my spells failed. My invisibility failed, and my Silence spell deactivated with an audible pop!
You have triggered an anti-concealment charm. All concealments nullified.
I formed into existence a mere ten feet from the pair of guards who looked at me with open-mouthed astonishment.
Shit! I rolled forward, lashing my sword, cutting them both down. I rolled to a stop, triumphant until I realized I’d accidentally severed the front lines for the large tent, which collapsed on top of the two guards. Angry bellowing and shouting came from the tent, which sounded as if it was full of at least a dozen hobgoblins.
After a moment of indecision, I bolted for the fourth tent, hoping to find Maghan within. I burst through the flap into the cabin-sized tent, ready to strike down the first hobgoblin I saw.
The tent was empty of hobgoblins. Instead, it was filled with art.
I stared, uncomprehending at the piles of framed paintings carelessly stacked in the room. There had to be at least 200 paintings here, stacked floor to ceiling. I quickly flipped off the Enflame from my blades and turned on the less-bright headlamp, which dimly lit the tent. Hopefully it wouldn’t be evident from the outside.
It took several moments for me to figure out what I was looking at. The hobgoblins had looted these paintings from the homes and keeps in Eastern Harmony. Most of the intricately-framed artworks had slashes through them. A set of chests sat on the tent’s lone table. In these velvet-lined boxes, several paintings had been placed.
I guessed what was going on here. They’d looted the paintings and stored them in this tent. Maghan himself had gone through them, slashing the ones he didn’t like and choosing a few he did. The ones he enjoyed were placed in the velvet-lined boxes.
Outside, more shouting rose as they discovered the slain guards. I had mere moments before I was discovered. Still, curiosity got the best of me. I picked up one of the paintings from the velvet chest.
It was a forest scene, flowers, and a unicorn. A very peaceful painting. The next painting was a bowl of fruit. The next was of a mountain.
The slashed paintings scattered about the tent were of battles and wars. I flipped off my headlamp. I closed my eyes, and I listened. I didn’t know what Maghan sounded like, but I knew I’d recognize him when he spoke. A moment later, I heard him. A deep, bellowing roar. Similar to his brother, but older with more grit to it.
“He is close. I can smell him. It is a human,” the voice roared. “Have you checked the tents? Well check them again!”
I sniffed my armpits. I was still wet from the ocean. I didn’t smell did I? Nobody had looked in here. Not yet. I could probably hide behind the pile of paintings, but I wasn’t here to hide. My original plan was to find and quickly end him. That wasn’t going to happen now. I had a backup plan. A dumb one, but it was all I had.
A face appeared in the tent flap, and I quickly separated it from the rest of its body. I took a few breaths, downed another Mystic Point Regen in case I needed the points. This is it.
I pulled the dragon helm from my pack. I did not put it on, but I cradled it in my arm like a baby.
I purposely strode from the tent.
“I’m sorry I’m late, Chief Maghan,” I called. The hobgoblin, in full samurai regalia stood a mere ten meters away. He turned toward me, eyes wide with surprise.
“Hold!” he said, raising his hand to stop the mass of twenty or so hobgoblins moving to surround me. More came by the moment, crowding up around me. Several bows, swords, and spears leveled at me.
I cleared my throat. I felt oddly calm. “Congrats on finally ascending to war chief. I wanted to come congratulate you personally. My name is King Jonah of the Dominion Empire. I was hoping we could talk conditions of our surrender to your superior forces.”
I tossed the dragon helm to the feet of the hobgoblin. It clanged when it hit the ground.
Jonah Note 25
Maghan made no immediate move to pick up the helmet. The large hobgoblin looked very much like his brother, but instead of being enormously fat, he was nothing but lean muscle mass. Kankan had looked out of place in his armor. Maghan looked as if he was born in it.
“You give this to me freely?” he said. “You who killed my brother, who killed my aunt, who killed my father? You now come to me and just hand me the Dominion? Why?”
In the far distance, an explosion echoed across the city. Larissa screamed into the chat that a wide swath of the wall had fallen, and the undead poured into the city. Luckily, they ignored the defenders unless they got in the way, and were coming straight for me. It would take some time before they traversed the city and reached the western shore of Lake Aberdeen.
“I did not kill your father,” I said. “Your own people did, just an hour ago.”
Maghan nodded. “I am aware.”
How, I wondered. As human as they made these NPCs, as realistic as they made this world, it still liked to cheat sometimes.
“But,” he continued. “My father had become a frail, old hobgoblin, hiding like a coward. It was you and your people who presented him like this to the people, who did the only right thing. So it was still you who killed my father.”
I shrugged. “Are you aware of the other army attacking us from the west?” I asked.
Maghan grunted. “These undead warriors are powerful at sea, but they are not powerful on land. We shall take the castle and keep it. The undead will flee. We do not fear them.”
“Yeah, about that,” I said. “I want you guys to help me take care of them.”
Maghan laughed, a loud, echoing laughter. “As of right now, that is no longer your concern. Your head shall adorn a spike on my castle wall. And when you regenerate, I will kill you again. I will keep killing you until your head adorns every spike in this kingdom.”
“Yeah?” I
said. “And how are you going to do that?”
He pulled off his own helmet, revealing a battle-scarred head. The helmet dropped to the ground next to the other. He reached down to pick up the dragon helm. He grasped it in two hands. “First I am going to take your kingdom. Second, I will…”
Nobody ever learned what he was going to say next.
The helmet exploded in his hands, blasting him backwards several feet.
I pulled both Triple Fang and my left-handed four blade, spinning them both up. I also summoned a Magic Protection shell around me from my ring. Arrows and magic bolts screamed at me as I jumped through the air, swinging and killing the now-armless war chief of the hobgoblins.
Multiple creatures rushed forward, and they could not get through. I cut and I sliced, tearing them to shreds. After several moments a dozen hobgoblins lay in a circle around me.
You have gained a level! You have received a training token.
You are now level 37.
“Stop,” I roared as the next notification spread across my screen. My minimap blinked, turning from a sea of red to a sea of white.
The hobgoblins stopped dead, muttering and looking at each other, unsure of what to do.
System Message> Chief Maghan of the Hobgoblin Riot has fallen in battle to King Jonah of the Dominion. Having destroyed the entire succession line, rule of the Riot now falls upon him.
System Message> The Dominion has defeated the Hobgoblin Riot. The two kingdoms are now merged.
Factions Update! A new nation has appeared on the world stage. The Hobgoblin Insurgents, led by Grand Shaman Zeed. This nation does not have a home. Current status: War.
System Message> Attention players far and wide! A new playable race has been unlocked! Players may now choose “Hobgoblin” when rolling new characters. A new class has been unlocked! Players may now choose “Shaman” when choosing a class.
An eruption of voices rose all around me. I raised my hand. “Shut up!” I bellowed. To my utter amazement, they stopped talking and looked at me.
“You have not been defeated today,” I said, trying to make eye contact with a few of the larger hobgoblins. These things were terrifying up close. “Your former leader has brought you to a place where you could not succeed. Yes, you may have been victorious today, but your actions would have brought the entire world upon you. You would have died here had I not intervened. You were each promised an island that does not exist for your efforts. Well today I give you a new promise. Today I give you the world. Until this very moment, you have been restricted to either Castellane or wherever your army marched. You are now free members of the Dominion. You are free to return to the Kampong, your ancestral homeland. You are free to return to your families in Castellane.”
Murmuring started again.
“But freedom is never free. As of this moment, any hobgoblin who wishes may leave. You are free to go and make a place in the world for yourself, where you may wish. However I need your help. Your capital city of Harmony is under attack, and I need soldiers to help secure the walls. Once the city is secured, we will return to Castellane and to battle to free your families, who remain under siege.”
“We will fight,” a large hobgoblin said immediately. “War is all we know.”
I nodded. The hobgoblin who spoke wore finer armor than the others, and he appeared to be the highest-ranking soldier I could see. Looking around, I think I’d inadvertently slaughtered their entire command structure. All the dead hobgoblins pulsed yellow, indicating I could now loot them. They’d likely been in that tent planning their invasion.
My eyes rested on the corpse of Chief Maghan, who no longer had a pair of arms. Half of his face had been blown off in the blast. The real dragon helm remained in my bag where it would stay. I hated wearing the thing.
There was an irony there, in that I’d killed the brother using the item Prince Kankan had so desperately wanted to save his people. It had taken several attempts to get the arcane artificer to create a passable facsimile of the dragon helm. I had to level up my Artistry skill one notch just to use the thing, and I did it by spending a few hours trying to sketch the elaborate helmet. The two clockwork sprites had made a 2d version for my first attempt. The second attempt resulted in a helmet that could fit in the palm of my hand. Another had felt flimsy, like papier-mâchée, despite using discarded sledgehammer heads from the wall project as source material. Finally, after adding measurements, weights, thickness, and multiple angles to my drawing had they created a shining, fake version of the dragon helm. This version would never fit on someone’s head, however. In the interior I’d added a small chamber for a potion. I no longer had access to the emo-tong explosives, but a consultation with Yi and a quick stop at the paladin guild found a potion called Deceived Detonator. They were actually the health potions that paladins used that exploded on contact with any of the deceived. One of the paladin subclasses focused on killing the Deceived, and they drank these potions to make their own bodies deadly to trolls, goblins, and hobgoblins should they fall in battle. The Deceived were notorious for eating pretty much everything they killed.
I poured two of the potions in the helmet’s secret compartment, sealed it save for a few pinholes here and there that allowed the concoction to dribble out. The results were better than expected.
And unlike the demon of Icardi, I hadn’t blown up myself this time.
I looted each of the dead hobgoblins, amassing a large number of jacks and a couple magic items. Chief Maghan’s bow was an enchanted, oversized war bow that added speed and damage to each shot. The real prize was his quiver.
Ichichi’s Quiver of Plenty.
This item is enchanted.
This is a weapon accessory, and it requires an equipped longbow to activate.
Warning! User must be level 11 or above in the longbow skill to use this weapon accessory. Your current level with the longbow is 9.
This quiver creates unlimited, persistent arrows at the rate of one every thirty seconds until the quiver is full. A full quiver is 24 arrows.
The created arrows are imbued with both Target-Seeking and Long-Range. In addition, the arrows have a 5% chance to imbue the target with Immolation and a .25% chance to imbue the target with Gibbering Beef.
This is a unique item.
System Message> New unique item discovered in Harmony, Aberdeen.
Hell yeah. I could use the quiver if I wore my dragon helm, or I could just give it to Gretchen. I’d decide later. For now, it went in the pack.
I remembered that odd notification about a new nation being formed. I looked at a high-ranking hobgoblin and asked him his name.
“I am Major Slog.”
“Slog,” I said. “Who is this Grand Shaman Zeed?”
The hobgoblin grunted. “He fled like a coward, taking most of the shamans and their guards with him. These hobgoblins are traitors to the Riot. Say the word, and we will hunt them to the ground.”
Great, I thought. I had an army of magic-wielding hobgoblins roaming the countryside. Another item to the long list of things I’d have to deal with if I survived tonight.
“Okay,” I said. “We will worry about him later. For now, I want the Riot across this lake. You are in charge, Slog. I will meet you back at the western wall where it meets the sea. The undead will appear to be fleeing. Slaughter every one you can find.”
He slammed his fist into his breastplate in a salute. “Where will you be, war chief?”
War Chief. I kind of liked that.
I pointed up. A white jacket dirigible appeared in the air, emerging out of the darkness. A ladder unfurled from above. All around, the soldiers hissed.
“I’m back on pied piper duty,” I said.
But before I could climb on the ladder, I was stopped dead by a new set of notifications.
Larissa: The undead have stopped moving. There is something wrong with them. Wait, your majesty… Yes. They are all falling where they stand. It appears they are all dropping dead.
/> What the hell? Why was that happening?
Quest Update. Blasted Doom.
1 of 3 Primordials defeated.
Having grown weary of their brother’s inability to control the undead horde of time-locked heroes, the remaining two Primordial gods have banished their brother back to the Salt. The second brother, Lotan, now rises. As the boats burn and the undead wilt, Lotan summons the beasts of the depths to his cause. Beware, the waterways surrounding Harmony. The Viper Fish come.
A one-hour countdown appeared on my view.
“What the hell is a viper fish?”
Major Slog who still stood before me looked at me like I was crazy. He shrugged.
Poppy: Are you fucking kidding me? This is bullshit.
Gretchen: Jonah. We still have a few hours before we’ll be able to locate Sandra the Learnt. Hold tight.
His Royal Majesty Jonah: What is a viper fish?
Poppy: I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound good.
Gretchen: Wait, I think I might know. During the Blast quest, there were two major defenses. First the sea monsters, and then the lizard creatures on the beach. The sea monsters would sink the boats, drowning the crews. But mixed in with the sea monsters were other creatures. They’re basically like the classic underwater humanoid. You know what I mean. The creature from the whatever lagoon. Green and covered in scales with gills. They’re strong and fast. They’re usually armed with tridents and harpoons. Some cast water magic.
Poppy: Sounds like an adaro. Those things are assholes.
Gretchen: An adaro doesn’t have human legs and can’t go on land, but yeah, basically the same thing. If these viper fish are what I’m thinking of, they also have long, sharp teeth. They’re venomous as well… Jonah. These things will be a lot more dangerous than the undead. If you’re attacked by thousands of them, you’re going to have a tough time. You’re going to need all of those hobgoblins.
Poppy: I still say you run. What happens if you kill all the fish dudes? There’s still one more Primordial. If the first one controlled the former heroes, this next one controls the fish, then I’m guessing the third one will be in charge of those lizard things from the Blast quest. I never fought one, but those things are supposed to be impossible to take down.
The Hobgoblin Riot: Dominion of Blades Book 2: A LitRPG Adventure Page 47