by Demi Harper
‘Then we’d best make sure the humans finish him off before he gets that opportunity,’ I said.
I sought out Ris’kin, who immediately understood what was about to happen.
‘How about it?’ I asked her.
She twitched her whiskers at me. Then she picked up her spears and strode after the humans.
It was a grim journey, made even grimmer by the injured kobold stragglers they caught up to and dispatched along the way.
When the group left my Sphere of Influence, I was able to use Double Sight – the ability I’d gained at tier eight – to view proceedings through Ris’kin’s eyes. I was fascinated by some of the creatures they encountered: stone-coloured snakes that slithered soundlessly through crevices in the walls; tiny six-winged bats that seemed more moth than mammal; white soft-shelled crabs that preyed on their own species, and eyeless scorpion-like beasts that laid their eggs inside these cannibalistic crustaceans.
On one occasion, in a subterranean lake cavern, I glimpsed a pale, withered humanoid with startlingly bulbous eyes. It hissed and vanished into the black water with a soft splash as soon as the group arrived in its cave, and shortly afterward, two glinting pinpricks watched them leave from a rocky island in the middle of the lake.
Just like this creature, most of the other life forms fled when they sensed the humans approaching, but other, more territorial, species attempted to attack. The most notable of these was a colony of enormous spiders.
Ket rolled her eyes when she sensed my excitement, but the arachnids were well and truly awesome. They were silvery-white in color, including their eyes, which made me suspect they were blind. Their webs were thick enough that even Coll had trouble cutting through them (though that may have been due to the fact that the hammer he wielded was not exactly well suited to the task), and their bite was venomous, which I learned after Tiri administered an antidote to a prone Benin within moments of their first encounter. I’d assumed the mage had simply collapsed due to his paralyzing fear of spiders, but it turned out he’d been bitten.
After that, Benin was more than happy to send his flames down the tunnel, which also took care of the surprisingly flammable webs.
I lamented the majestic arachnids’ deaths. If only I’d somehow been able to channel Insight through my avatar and gain access to their blueprints!
What a waste.
An hour or so later, I finally saw for myself the sorts of creatures Grimrock had guarding his own Sphere. His god-born were predictably monstrous, and mostly variations on his avatar; scaled, tentacled monstrosities that looked like they truly belonged to the deep places of the world.
However, there were far fewer of them than I would have expected. Ket seemed to agree.
‘He mustn’t have bothered to replace those he lost during the adventurers’ original attack on his Sphere,’ she whispered, though only I could hear her. ‘Probably thought his mana was best used elsewhere. Talk about overconfident!’
It was just as well that the group only encountered a handful of Grimrock’s creatures, because they were nightmarishly fierce fighters. Luckily, the humans had also come prepared. They were armed with better weapons, and I gathered that the spell scrolls Benin was using were specifically designed to weaken and disorientate mana-based creatures. Though the monsters still proved challenging, the humans managed to keep up their health by chugging red potions every couple of minutes. It seemed they had raided the Guild’s armory before they’d left.
With Tiri’s map, Benin’s spells, and Coll and Ris’kin’s weapons, the group fought their way through without any casualties, until finally a red glow from up ahead indicated they were approaching Grimrock’s central cavern. But there were no kobolds waiting to greet the intruders.
The humans advanced into the cavern warily, Ris’kin edging along behind them. When they were still not attacked, Ris’kin took the lead and prowled onward through the smoky air. The cavern was at least four times the size of the Grotto. Crimson fires burned in various pits dotted around the floor, though I couldn’t even begin to guess what was fueling them. The whole place seemed even more intimidating now I was viewing it at ground level through my avatar’s eyes.
Ris’kin’s sharp eyes caught movement across the cavern. As she led the humans toward it, I recognized the circle of stalagmites I’d seen on my first visit here. That was where Grimrock’s gem resided – and where his sacrifices took place.
The group halted some thirty feet away. Kobolds were converging on the circle, their shadowy forms distorted eerily in the light from the flames. Their yips echoed strangely, muffled from the smoke. More kobolds came to join them. They sounded… angry.
‘What in the hells is going on here?’ I murmured.
Inside the stalagmite circle, a kobold was kneeling before the altar, atop which sat a crimson soul gem.
Grimrock.
Behind the kneeling kobold stood a shaman, its ceremonial obsidian knife clutched in one clawed hand. It was clearly about to sacrifice the smaller kobold before it. Except that the shaman was shaking its head violently, like a dog with a bee in its ear. The surrounding kobolds yipped and barked and chanted, raising weapons that glinted black and deadly in the flickering firelight.
‘Ket, are you seeing this?’ I murmured.
I did my best to convey an image of the unusual sight through our connection. The sprite promptly gasped. ‘Corey! Remember when I warned you about how losing too many denizens – not to mention your avatar – could cause the remaining ones to lose Faith in their core?’
‘Ye-es?’
‘Watch!’
The kobolds’ chanting reached a fever pitch. With one final shake of its head, the kobold shaman suddenly spun and brought its dagger down upon the gem on the altar. The surrounding kobolds cheered and ululated, then as one surged forward with their own weapons. Knives, spears, swords, even rocks – all rained down upon Grimrock’s crimson gem.
From my own physical position in the Grotto, I suddenly heard his furious voice inside my head.
Is this your doing, cockroach? What have you done? What is this??
Cracks began to appear in his gem as blow after blow rained down. Bright red light and black smoke seeped through the gaps.
You will pay for this! Grimrock never forgets! Grimr— aaargghhh!
With a flash of red light, the gem shattered. Some of the kobolds at the front of the mob went down, shrapnel embedded fatally in their faces and necks. The rest flinched back, blinded by the explosion. When they dared to lean forward and look again, the altar was empty, the surrounding rock floor littered with dark, colorless shards.
Grimrock was gone. For good.
The kobolds broke out into ragged cheers. Beside Ris’kin, Benin was holding his head and wincing. ‘I’ve never been present for anything like that before,’ said the mage. ‘The thaumaturgical surge from the core’s destruction was… intense.’
Over by the altar, the kobolds began to disperse. They seemed lost, wandering off in different directions as though emerging from a dream. Some of them caught sight of the humans and Ris’kin; the kobolds snarled, hunching defensively and baring their teeth at the humans, but they did not attack. After a few tense moments in which everyone stood frozen, Ris’kin, Benin and Coll looked at Tiri. She shrugged. ‘They’re not harming anyone now. I say we let them be.’
Putting her own hands up in a sign of peace, Tiri nodded to the kobolds. Then she backed out of the cave. Ris’kin and the others followed her, and most of the kobolds already seemed to forget about their presence, wandering off as though lost. However, when Ris’kin turned to take one last glance into the cavern, one kobold was still staring avidly after her. Red firelight glinted off its bared teeth, and rage burned in its yellow eyes.
My avatar shivered, then turned and followed the humans back into the tunnel.
When they were a safe distance from the cavern, the three humans and Ris’kin stopped to regroup. After a moment’s dazed silence, Coll spoke.
‘Well, that’s that. Now I guess we just… go home?’
Back in the Grotto, dawn’s light was spreading warmly through the hole above my shrine as the humans gathered around my gem in farewell.
‘Our work here is done,’ said Tiri. She reached out as if to pat Ris’kin’s arm, then thought better of it. ‘Thank you for your assistance in the fight against evil,’ she said to the avatar. ‘We will not forget it. And we’ll do everything in our power to ensure the Guild never learns of the existence of this place.’
‘Damn right,’ grunted Coll.
‘Hmm. What will we do now?’ asked Benin. ‘We can’t exactly go back there. Not after defying the Guildmaster’s wishes – and stealing from the armory, too.’
Tiri put a hand on each man’s shoulder. ‘We’ll figure something out.’
The three humans turned away from my gem just in time to see Binky climbing up the hill toward them. The spider raised a friendly leg in greeting.
‘Sp-spider!’ shrieked Benin in a voice that sounded like he was being strangled. He raised his hands, the orange beginnings of a fireball lighting his fingers.
‘No!’ shouted both Tiri and Coll, grabbing an arm each and stopping the mage’s spell. They frog-marched Benin down the hill and past the spider. The mage’s eyes were so wide I worried they would pop out of his skull. Binky watched them go, waving a pedipalp at the staring mage in farewell.
The three humans strode across the Grotto toward the exit and disappeared down the Passage. I didn’t worry about their getting lost. They knew the way by now.
‘I can’t believe we did it.’ Ket sounded amazed.
‘Me neither,’ I said honestly. I was still coming to terms with the fact that our days were no longer numbered.
‘I’m proud of you, Corey,’ said Ket. ‘You’ve come so far. You chose to side against evil, even when Grimrock promised you exactly what you wanted.’
‘What I wanted?’
‘Your memories! Or had you forgotten?’
She chuckled at her own joke. The truth was I had forgotten. I’d been so caught up in the gnomes’ plight and saving my denizens, I no longer gave any thought to the dark elf I’d supposedly once been – or how Grimrock had known of me, for that matter.
Now I’d never know. And I was okay with that. Besides, how important could it be?
‘Who I was doesn’t matter anymore,’ I told the sprite. ‘I’m trying to like who I am now.’ She glowed brightly, then flitted down to the shrine and nudged my gem affectionately. To my embarrassment, my gem glowed pink. Ket laughed hard at this, and after a moment, so did I.
It felt good to laugh. To keep hold of this feeling of accomplishment, even through the sad times that followed later that day. The fallen gnomes arrayed on the bank were cleaned and tended to by my acolytes. Then they were sent on their way, placed gently into the water and sent downstream on a float of redcap shields. I recalled Granny’s love of the red-and-white mushrooms and thought it oddly fitting. The gnomes stood solemnly and silently as they watched each of the dead depart.
‘Ket,’ I murmured absently when the funeral rites were over. ‘If I’d died and become a sprite, what would have happened to you?’
There was the briefest pause before she answered. ‘Never mind that!’ she said brightly. ‘The question is: what are you going to do about that?’
I looked to where she was indicating, and my lack of organs did not prevent me from almost having a heart attack at what I saw.
While the adults were distracted with the funeral, one of the gnome babies had wandered off to play with Bruce. The child had somehow managed to scale the badger’s leg and was now balanced precariously on his back, fur clutched in its tiny fingers.
Bruce bumbled slowly along the stream toward where the rest of the gnomes were gathered. One by one, the mourners caught sight of the child balanced atop the badger; they ran forward with arms outstretched, as though to catch the baby when it inevitably fell. The child shrieked and giggled in delight with every step, oblivious to the adults’ concern.
It eventually did tumble off, straight into the arms of one the nurses, who scolded child and badger equally while the others laughed in relief. Below me, my gem continued to glow purple-pink as I savored the sight of the now-peaceful Grotto.
Being the god of gnomes was far from easy, but I supposed it wasn’t the worst job in the world.
Epilogue
The hooded figure prowled through the kobold cavern, boots crunching on broken crystal. Bending down, the figure reached out a black-gloved hand and sifted through the colorless shards on the ground.
‘The Core is gone, Master. It is too late.’
Many miles away, in a richly-furnished study at the top of a white tower, Guildmaster Varnell glowered down into his scrying bowl.
‘Yes, I can see that,’ he muttered. ‘I should have handled the damned thing myself. No matter.’
Varnell rolled up the long sleeves of his robe and waved a hand over the scrying bowl. The silvery water rippled, then reformed. Instead of the abandoned cavern, the Guildmaster was now looking down upon a grassy meadow. Three familiar figures – Tiri, Benin and Coll, he believed – were helping one another out of a partially collapsed cave entrance in the hillside.
‘And just what have you been up to?’ Varnell wondered aloud. ‘More importantly… where have you been?’
He waved his hand over the bowl again; the water rippled to show a series of tunnels, gliding through them until it reached a cavern. This one was much more pleasant to behold than the one he’d previously been looking at. Its damp, verdant walls were lined with moss, and sunlight streamed in through a round hole in the ceiling. Atop a hillock in the center of the cavern, a large purple gem rested upon a stone altar. It sparkled beneath the shafts of sunlight.
The Guildmaster narrowed his eyes. Then a smile crept slowly onto his face.
‘Well, hello there, little Core.’
Afterword
Hello again from the Portal Books Team,
On behalf of Demi Harper we’d like to thank you so much for reading God of Gnomes. We’ve been excited about releasing this book for a long time, and we hope you loved it as much as we did.
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Published by Portal Books, 2019