Watcher's Test

by Sean Oswald

  “Yet, not only did you allow him and his foul half-breed spawn to escape, but you also allowed her to steal from you.” Altracia’s voice grew louder, its volume filling the round chamber which was her home, the final area of the dungeon. “You let her take a staff that I gave to you. One forged from my own body. Do you have any idea the pain I had to endure to create such a tool for you? Of course you don’t. You only know what you do because I have raised you up. You owe everything to me, and this is how you choose to repay me.”

  Trembling before his drake mistress, the alpha began to speak again, “I will …”

  His words ended as long drake fanged pierced and severed his head from his shoulders. Altracia was not a human mistress to hear the ramblings of a subordinate. At her core, no matter how the magicyte had changed her, she was a beast. So she ended the fool before her, then lifted her head in a scream of rage. She may not have originally felt any animosity toward David Nelson, but the failed blood feud had been a part of the drey hounds, and just as they became part of the dungeon, so did that hatred. It was a powerful emotion and so served to make the dungeon stronger, seeping into every inch along the tendrils of the magicyte. It had provided a purpose to the dungeon, a name even. Now that scream promised death and pain to any who stood in the way of that purpose.

  The goblin shaman knew that they were soon to attack the final village. He was soon to have his reward. Once all the logging villages were gone, he had been promised that he would be elevated to being a hobgoblin. Not just any hobgoblin, he would be a hobgoblin shaman. He would have the power he deserved, and he was thrilled. It had been hard to wait these last few days. It had been even harder to grovel before Draznei’kai. The walking pile of bones which seemed to think so much of himself. The bone man as the other goblins called him might be strong, but he didn’t know that the shaman was prepared for him. The chieftain of all goblins had handpicked him for this mission and had given him the means to control the undead warrior.

  The shaman looked down at the bone circlet in his hands, running his claw-tipped fingers over the yellowed bits of bone. He had been told how to activate it. Told that it was a magical shackle that would enslave Draznei’kai. He only had to place it around one of his limbs and recite the command words he had been made to memorize. The shaman was looking forward to the raid on this last logging village, but more than that, he was looking forward to the shock the death knight would express when he found out he was undone by a “mere” goblin. One way or another, it would all end before sunrise the next morning.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “We have all heard it said that Eloria is conflict, but is this a decree of the gods or a reflection of what lies within the hearts of men?” —Musings of the sun elf philosopher Kong Fuzi circa 132 BE

  Draznei’kai Shutan was a patient man, if an undead death knight could be called a man. Yet these past few weeks of traveling with and overseeing the goblins was almost more than he could handle. He understood a portion of the plan which he played a part in, at least well enough to play his part. Yet he would be so glad when he was finally rid of these pests. It was a small mercy that as an undead he had no sense of smell to be assailed by the reek of their unwashed bodies. Goblins were truly despicable. Most of the goblins he would grace with a quick death once the mission was accomplished, but no such mercy would be shown to the shaman. The shaman he planned to slowly strangle with his bare hands. Strangulation might not be the most painful way he could kill the little green annoyance, but there was something so deeply satisfying in the feeling of a foe helplessly struggling within your grasp. Best of all was the joy of watching the light slowly fade from their eyes.

  Glancing up again at the sky, he decided that it was dark enough to be fully night even though the moon had not yet reached its apex. He shouted out a command at the nearest goblin, ordering him to gather the rest of his filthy little brethren because the raid on the final village would start soon. Experience told him that it would still take the goblins at least half an hour to be ready to travel the remaining few miles from their campsite to the last human logging outpost. That suited the death knight just fine, as he still had two magical items to deploy.

  The first was a stasis bag. Inside it was the well-preserved corpses of two moon elf forest wardens. Their contribution to this endeavor could not be overstated as it was necessary that they be found within the charred ruins of the village. After speaking a few words of command, the stasis bag opened up and the bodies reappeared in the material world being deposited out of the pocket dimension where they had been stored. He wished he could wait to take the bodies out of stasis until after the raid was accomplished, but he couldn’t risk finding out that the bodies had not been properly maintained in the stasis field. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the one who had given him the bag. Far from it. Rather that he knew that one too well and understood there was no room for error.

  After being pushed out of the stasis bags, the bodies appeared floating in the air on translucent discs of pure force. A quick inspection showed that they seemed to be in good condition. Their lives had been ended by a powerful Essence Magic spell which drained their life energy without harming the flesh. This was essential because after the raid he would inflict what would appear to be mortal wounds upon them with weapons or tools from the village and get their blood upon the hands of some of the humans. Each figure was a typical elven warden. Their skin a light shade of brown, their attire standard body fitting leathers which made for easy travel through tangled woods. Each carried a bow, quiver, arrows, and a selection of daggers upon their person. They were young by elven standards, both being well under fifty years of age and mere apprentice wardens. One was equipped with a scimitar and the other a pair of long-handled hand axes, but both were the prototypical forest warden.

  Confident that the elven corpses had been properly preserved and would not show signs of having been killed months ago, Draznei’kai started to use the second magical item he intended to deploy now. It was a communication scroll that would allow him to send a private message to any single individual within a thousand miles. While it was single-use and only allowed for a very brief response, it could not be intercepted like some of the telepathic bond items that allowed for thought communication on a repeat basis. Unfurling the scroll gently, the death knight took special care to make sure that his skeletal fingers didn’t accidentally tear into the paper of the scroll. He had no idea how old the scroll was, but based upon how the edges were weathered and showed signs of minor tears, he guessed it had to be very old. Magical items generally held up much longer than their non-magical counterparts, and he would have thought this scroll to be old even if it had been made of mundane paper. Yet another reminder of who he served.

  As he read the words scribed on the scroll before him the magic stored within began to activate, consuming the powdered magicyte and precious gems which created the ink to act as the spell’s reagents. When the last syllable of the lengthy spell rolled off his tongue a small hole into nothingness opened up immediately in front of his mouth. He swiftly spoke into it, not wanting to waste any of the spell’s limited duration. “Seimion, the final attack will take place in three hours. By sunrise, the task should be completed, and the bodies will be planted.”

  Once he spoke his simple message, he didn’t ramble on as the living are prone to do. He was all business, possessed of a keen mind but without the distracting passions of life. Fortunately, he didn’t have long to wait before a reply came in a voice he had not heard for some time but which he knew very well. Seimion his co-conspirator in this plan spoke back to him, “Very well. Make sure that you are gone from the area swiftly and hide any trace of your passing. I have arranged for the duke to be on a hunting trip only two days’ journey from your location. Return to your sanctum and await further instruction after the task is complete.”

  That was it. Much like the death knight, Seimion was not given to long speeches although he could spin a silver-tongued t
ale when required. That is why he had been given his part of the plan to carry out while Draznei’kai had been assigned to do what he does best. Now all that remained was to finish off this last village and then be on his way, alone.

  The death knight raised his voice and soon all of the goblins were formed up around him. This was all going to be very easy. They would hit the town in the wee hours shortly before the dawn. The goblins would be able to see much better than the humans. Most importantly though, typically no humans were awake this early, not even farmers or drunkards. Experience had taught him that late-night raids often found guards who were still diligent and alert. In contrast by three or four bells after midnight, most human guards had grown lax if they were not outright asleep. Their foolish confidence that the impending sunrise would keep them safe was what ultimately made this the best time to attack. The only thought that caused Draznei’kai any concern was the lingering doubt about why the last scout had never returned.

  Unbeknownst to the death knight, there was already a goblin in Eris’ Rise. Krinnk had been hiding under the floorboards of the mayor’s home. It had taken him some time to track his target’s scent, but while most of the town had been in the town square, it had given him the opportunity. Once he found the dwelling where her scent was the strongest, he searched until finding that the floor was made of wood planks that were raised off of the ground. This allowed him to find a spot where with little trouble he could burrow underneath. Goblins excel at squeezing into small spots. Their ugly malformed bodies are pliable and provide a way for them to slide between spaces smaller than one would think they could fit through. The end result being that he was nestled underneath the floorboards when he heard the steps of the larger humans returning for the night. He was tempted to try to reach Sara that night, but he could smell the elf female who shot flames from her hands. Krinnk might not be smart or brave, but he was patient. He would wait.

  So wait he did, in his uncomfortable little hiding spot. He could smell Sara so close, and it worked on him. He began to think of her possessively. Feeling as though she was his and that it was only right that he should have her. The seed of this thought had been germinating within him since he first saw her. It is uncommon for a goblin to hold a thought in their minds for such a long time. Scouts tend to be a bit better at this by the necessity of the tasks assigned to them, but this thought was different. It wasn’t like anything he had ever felt before. It was almost as though he was finding value in something other than himself. Like the little elfling was special. He wasn’t sure what it was about her that had made him think such strange thoughts. Some of it was likely due to how he saw the family treating her as precious and protecting her, but that was as far as his goblin mind could reason out.

  Now here he was, the moon had risen again. He couldn’t see the moon, but he could see that the light of day had faded. By his limited estimation, it had been several hours since the second daystar had set, so now would have to be the time of the Night Eye. He hoped that an opportunity would soon manifest itself, but he didn’t have any plans. His scavenger nature was such that he was more reactive than actually carrying out a specific strategy. Feeling in his muscles the long period cramped up under the floorboards, he stretched. In his effort to ease his cramped muscles, he ended up hitting one of the floor joists with his foot. It wasn’t a hard impact, but it still made a noise. He silently cursed himself with the same terms that his trainers had used so often, “Stupid worthless slug, can’t you do anything right.”

  After that scraping noise, he held his breath. Listening desperately to see if it had disturbed anyone sleeping above. Seconds turned into a minute and Krinnk began to believe that no one had heard him. As soon as he let out his breath though, he heard heavy footsteps above. Someone was walking around above. The little goblin’s heart began to pound. He wondered if he was discovered. Would the human with the sword end him? It had to be the big human as none of the others in the house would sound so heavy. Panic crossed through his mind as he tried to decide if he should try to run and escape from beneath the floorboards or if he should simply keep hiding. In the end, his nature won out, and he scrunched up trying to make himself as small as possible while pressing up against one of the floor joists.

  Dave sat up from the blanket that he was sleeping on with Emily. His eyes scanned the room around him. He didn’t know precisely what had woken him, but he had heard a sound. The night-time noises of Eris’ Rise were things that he was becoming accustomed to, but they were still different from back on Earth. There he had slept with a fan to drown out background noises, but no such options existed here. Most nights he slept very deeply because of how exhausted he would be from the life and death struggle of the day. The evening before had been somewhat different. The sixth day had been much more relaxing than any day in Eloria before it for him. Then dinner with Emily’s homemade enchiladas was heavenly. All this though had led to him not sleeping quite as deeply so that whatever made the unusual noise ended up waking him up.

  He didn’t see anything in the room but kept looking. Due to a combination of not having been as tired before going to bed and his enhanced stamina, Dave was now wide awake. If it had been back at home, he would have probably just assumed the sound was the dog or something like that. Eloria, though, was not home, or at least, it wasn’t safe. Walking through the house, he looked around each room that he could without going into Talvenicus or Aloysia’s rooms and without waking his family. Still, he didn’t see anything to explain the noise that had woken him. A part of him just couldn’t let it go. He almost would have sworn that his spidey sense was tingling, but then again, he didn’t have a skill like that on his character sheet to put points into. Well, maybe he did. He thought about Mira’s skill Esoteric Sense. The question was should he put points into a skill like that. It wasn’t really part of his character development plan. The gamer in him said he should stick with the plan, but Eloria was hardly a game, and he remembered the pain he had experienced so far to prove it. He had actually been wanting to save up points to activate another school of magic, although with the new short sword, he was also tempted to put points into dual wield. He pondered it for a couple of minutes before deciding that situational awareness was worth a lot and that he didn’t need to spend the full 10 points that Mira had. 5 points should be enough to give him a long-range sense out to half a mile and closer sense up to 100’ feet.

  As soon as he spent the points, he immediately activated it with 50 mana and for 1 second he got an immediate burst of knowledge about the area for half a mile in all directions. It was such a rush and almost more than his mind could take in all at once. The thing is that he hadn’t really expected to find anything, and yet in that burst, he found a small living being under the house, which likely was some animal that had made the noise that woke him. Normally, having found that he would go about figuring out how to get rid of the creature. Animals in Eloria were not to be taken lightly, but his concern for the noise he had heard evaporated as soon as his mind processed the rest of the information that he had gotten.

  Coming from the direction of the bridge was a group of creatures moving in a staggered formation. He would recognize that sort of tactic anywhere. His squad had often operated like that when on patrols in various hotspots. Each marine moving forward under cover from the others and leapfrogging over each other as they advanced. He was tempted to spend another 50 mana to double-check his findings, but it was already going to take him twenty minutes to regenerate the first burst of mana he had spent. Judging from how close the incoming soldiers were, he didn’t think they had that much time. Even moving very slowly, they would cover the half a mile to the town square in twenty minutes and that was assuming that they wanted to stay hidden.

  A certain military precision took over his mindset, and Dave rushed to wake up Emily, Mira, and then Talvenicus in that order. He had fought almost non-stop since arriving in Eloria, but this was something different. He wondered for a moment if it was creatur
es out of the dungeon-like that spell casting alpha drake hound. That was a scary thought and one which would leave him plagued with guilt for bringing such a foe down upon the town that had been nothing but kind to them. As quickly as that thought came, he dismissed it. Those were creatures from a dungeon and everything he believed about dungeons said that creatures inside of a dungeon couldn’t chase you outside. He had to believe that was the way that it worked in Eloria too. Still, whoever these creatures were, they were moving in a pattern that spoke of an intelligence greater than the beasts he had been fighting, even if their spacing had been off.

  As he pondered those thoughts, first Talvenicus, then Emily, and finally a sleepy Mira stumbled into the room. A second later, Aloysia followed as apparently her father had taken time to wake her. Dave explained what he had sensed and what he believed it meant. He said he didn’t know who might be attacking Eris’ Rise but that a formation such as that was a tactical one and coming into town in the wee hours of the morning couldn’t possibly be anything other than attack. Talvenicus, having served his stint as a mage in the Albian army also concurred.

  Seeing the look on Mira’s face and deducing that she was about to spend mana on her own Esoteric Sense, Dave quickly instructed her not to waste mana. He pointed out that she would want to have it available for the upcoming fight. After she agreed, Dave initiated a party and invited the other four who all quickly joined in. Since he didn’t know what he was facing, he didn’t assign himself as tank and left that slot unfilled but did designate Mira and Talvenicus as ranged damagers, Emily as the healer, and Aloysia as a scout. When she asked why, Dave pointed out that it would increase her movement rate by 50% and her evasion ability by 25%, so that would give her the ability to go out and put eyes on whatever was coming. Knowing that time was short, they had a very brief tactics conversation and then split up to perform their individual tasks after Mira cast her Mage Armor spell on Dave and Emily cast her Minor Blessing on all of them.