The forest sat silent beyond the basic, waist-high barricade. Ragnar had always hated these woods precisely because of that silence. He’d grown up in a town just outside them, amid the hustle and bustle of people. The one thing you could never say about the town of Deadwood is that it was silent. But the actual Dead Wood was, well, dead. Or something like that. Dead quiet at least. It didn’t really matter, academic study wasn’t why Ragnar was out here.
Not that he was happy with why he was out here either. Some damn fool mage wanted to build a tower in the Dead Wood. Of all the useless, pointless endeavors. So now he had to stand guard for the last month and the next one while the mage got everything he wanted in place. But he had just another year left of details like this one before he’d be up for promotion into the First Guards Guild and could protect actually important people and places, in the town.
Ragnar reached the end of his route and gave a quick nod to Sinclair, who was walking the next section of wall.
“Any sign of anything?” Sinclair called over, his nasal voice piercing the air.
“Just a choir of angels singing praises to a Demon King.” He wanted nothing so much as for his shift to be over so he could get back to sleep. If he was lucky, he’d get a few hours in before the ghosts of the Wood started up their nightly racket. The Second Guards Guild had a policy to rotate shift schedules to make sure everybody got to sleep during the day because it was so hard to sleep at night. Today would be his turn to get some shuteye.
Sinclair snorted. “Right, well you can tell them to carol elsewhere. We’re supposed to be standing watch, not attending no choir.” He sighed. “Right … Guard Sinclair reporting Second Leg, no contact.”
Ragnar nodded. “Guard Ragnar reporting Second Leg, no contact.” It was the basic formal call to mark the passage of time. He’d keep doing this until the report was for Fourth Leg. Then he could get some sleep. Out here, keeping to a simple formula was best. There were too many things that could get confusing in Dead Wood. The priests said that the land was cursed, and that’s why truth was never quite what it seemed out here. At least the Guards would all be on the same ground.
Having delivered the report, the two Guards turned their backs on each other and started to walk back along their own respective parts of the wall. Ragnar considered it with derision. Fortifying a position with such a shoddy construction was not something the Second Guard were supposed to do. It was a patchwork made up of field stone and untreated logs and trees pulled from the forest surrounding them. Almost all of it was from the space inside the barricade itself from when they were clearing it. They’d gotten it to waist-high before Mortimer – because of course a daft mage had a name like Mortimer – had declared it ‘sufficient’ and pulled his workers and his magic into crafting the tower behind them. He’d sneered and reminded them that it was just a temporary barrier anyway, since the tower would provide for its own defense once it was completed. He didn’t want to be bothered with having to clear away anything more substantial.
Ragnar felt himself getting angry all over again but forced himself to take a few calming breaths. It would only take the mage one more month and then he could go home. Waist-high was perfectly satisfactory. It was really only just an anchor for the barrier spell keeping the spirits out. It wasn’t like there were any animals in the Dead Wood and they were far away from the actual border, so Greenskin raiders weren’t likely.
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Ur’Tiko crouched in the creepy, silent trees. He hated these trees. Too silent, too creepy. But Ur’Tiko went where he was told. Ur’Gornun had said to go to a big tree and lean in its shadow. This was the biggest tree in the area, and Ur’Tiko was well in its shadow. The bark of the silent tree was darker than its shadow, and smoother than trees in other forests. Ur’Tiko missed those other forests. He missed birds, squirrels and all the other animals. He particularly liked foxes. They were clever and quick, always getting into places where the farmers hadn’t wanted them. They were also so pretty, with beautiful pelts in both summer and winter. Most animals were ugly in one of those seasons, but not foxes.
But Ur’Tiko, Ur’Gornun, Ur’Bosil, Ur’Kils, Ur’Potr, and all the other Ur weren’t in those other forests anymore. No, they were in the Dead Wood. Some of them even talked about liking the Dead Wood because it was so quiet, but Ur’Tiko did not understand that perspective. Noise was life. But Ur’Gornun was boss, and he said the Dead Wood would make the Ur great. Ur’Kils was skilled and had made talismans that kept the wailers away. Not that they stopped wailing, but they couldn’t approach the Ur. So the Ur slept during the day and moved during the night, Ur’Kils’s talismans pushing the spirits back as they advanced.
The Ur had been walking in the Dead Woods for several weeks now. Always going somewhere else, getting closer to human lands. The Dead Wood was full of old things, battles, buildings, all very long ago. Anything closer to the People’s lands had been picked clean by other clans. The Ur had checked those spots anyway, and had even found a few ancient trinkets that would bring them resources back home. But nothing grand or glorious to make Ur’Gornun or Ur’Kils a name the People would know. So they kept going.
Ur’Tiko did not mind the going so much, even if the Dead Wood was an unpleasant place. The Ur deserved to be made great. Ur’Gornun was an inspiration to goblins, which was why Ur’Tiko had followed him when he had left. He was one of the youngest orcs ever. Ur’Tiko remembered when Kor’Gornun had been a goblin just like him, only a few litters older. He didn’t know how Kor’Gornun and Kor’Kils had done it, but they’d gone on an adventure a year ago and come back grown all the way to orc! Ur’Tiko had never known anything like that, and he wanted to follow in their footsteps. Which is why he was out here, in the Dead Wood. Obeying.
There had been much rejoicing when the Ur had found the new little fort. Quiet rejoicing, for there were still humans in the little fort and they were not supposed to know the Ur were nearby. Ambushes worked much better when the ambushed knew nothing about it. Ur’Kils had taught them this word, ambush. Like hunting, but much bigger.
Too big, really. Ur’Tiko was too small to hurt humans. He was still a goblin. The Ur had many goblins, all who looked up to the orcs as their own future. Ur’Gornun and Ur’Kils had been telling them of how they had become strong and were guiding them to become strong too. Strong enough to win. Some of the other goblins had gotten big enough to fight alongside the orcs. Ur’Tiko had not.
But goblins were fast and small, and therefore sneaky. They could jump the barely-a-wall the humans had around the place. He would not fight. He would sneak. The little fort would have treasures worth taking. Things that could be taken back to the People. It would make this whole trip worth it. The Ur would be recognized as a true clan, grow big in number and in size, grow big in power. Ur’Tiko could not wait until he could become something other than a goblin.
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Ragnar was most of the way through his Third Leg when the shout came from the other side of the camp. Mortimer’s blasted tower-to-be stood between him and where the sound came from. The Guard’s tents surrounded the tower too, which made it impossible for him to see what was going on. But eventually, the shouting crystalized into an alarm. The bell in the middle of camp started ringing, which meant it was an actual attack on the camp.
Ragnar cursed as he drew his axe from his belt loop. Who was daft enough to be out here to attack a Mage Tower? No petty bandit gang was going to … His thoughts were cut off when he heard a warcrcy echo over the encampment. “TOGAR! TOGAR! TOGAR!”
His face paled and then flushed as he heard the chant for the Greenskins’ God of Strength. He’d just been thinking about how far away they were from Greenskins territory. He felt like this was a hex just on him for the absurdity. He started to head over to where the attack was coming. A true warcry meant that it was orcs, and the Guards over there would need reinforcement from an orcish attack. He saw Sinclair making a similar judgment on his left and turned to his right to see Miriam doing the same.
“Miriam, hold! One of us needs to stay to watch this side!”
Miriam snarled at him while drawing her own sword. “So you do that! I won’t let orcs go unanswered!” She gave a battle cry of her own. Orange light flashed around her and she dashed off with supernatural speed, jumping over a few of the tents as she made her way over. Ragnar cursed under his breath at the display of her power. He had specialized his own growth into a solid defense, which meant he couldn’t match Miriam’s speed. But he’d been right, one of them had to stay back and watch the rear. Orcs never had any subtlety to their attacks, but there was no guarantee that it was just orcs.
Sure enough, as he turned around, there was movement in the trees beyond. More figures in the trees than he could easily count burst out into the small clearing the Guard had made. Most were goblins, but there was a small cluster of what looked like a more evolved form. Too many for a warrior like him to block all of them. Ragnar hustled to put himself in front of the stronger looking goblins. Around him, the lithe green figures hurdled the wall like it wasn’t even there and raced into the camp. He could hear swearing break out from the Guard who were just getting themselves organized as goblins landed in their midst. But he had his task in front of him.
He reached in for his own power. [Barrier Pulse] was the first in a chain of area warding abilities. It created a pulse of energy around him that stopped the momentum of enemies in front of him. It was designed to stop a charge, or force a group trying to race past him to instead stand and fight him. The goblins in front of him crashed into the blue wave and stopped. One even tumbled into the barricade itself when its momentum was halted mid-jump. Fortunately, even though they looked stronger, these goblins were still clearly weaker than orcs. That one didn’t stir. Which only left him with three of them.
He hadn’t studied the Greenskins extensively, but he knew that these weren’t normal goblins. They were a darker, duskier green rather than the leaf green that the rest were. He flared one of the first abilities anybody in the Guard ever leveled up. [Reinforce] strengthened his arms and armor and he charged them, hoping to get to them before they recovered from their momentum being drained.
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Ur’Tiko saw a blue flash out of the corner of his eye as he leaped. Ur’Tim, Ur’Lisse, Ur’Bosil and Ur’Iti all tumbled out of the air. Ur’Iti didn’t get up but the other three all drew the short swords they had been gifted when they grew. They charged the human, but he seemed to match them. A few other of the lesser goblins stopped to join the fight, but Ur’Tiko knew better. A human that could use magic was not one he could beat. Goblins like him took out small prey until they grew into something strong enough to fight. They were here to take, not to fight. So Ur’Tiko just raised a prayer to Buskabos thanking him for the wisdom of picking a path that didn’t go near the human. “Praises Ur’Buska!” He called out as he ran forward. A few of the other goblins looked at him strange as they heard him.
The human’s little fort turned out to be a little camp around some building rising in the center. Ur’Tiko knew enough to know that the best things would be in that building, so that was where he went. He thought maybe he should dedicate himself to Ur’Buskabos – the god was definitely one of their clan right then – when he grew strong enough to truly serve a god. Most orcs didn’t serve Buskabos, but he could just be one of the few!
He heard the commotion of the human camp grow louder as he dashed through. Most of the goblins peeled off into the camp itself. Some were cut down by humans, some stopped to cut down humans and then dug around in their tents. A small knot around Ur’Tiko kept going though. A human stumbled out of a tent into their path. Ur’Tiko leaped up over them, but in his haste, he misjudged it and his knee connected with their head. In a heap and jumble, the two of them tumbled forward. Fortunately, the human was the one in the front of the tumble when they tumbled into a campfire’s embers. Ur’Tiko managed to crawl out of the screaming embrace and get back onto his feet. Most of the others with him stopped to loot the area. But Ur’Tiko kept running for the building. One of the other humans came running and blurred past him in a glint of gold and steel. He almost turned around to attack her and her shiny armor, and the rest of the goblins who had stayed with him until this point did. But he saw a glimmer of light from within the building and so kept running.
It had a door, but the door was hanging open as Ur’Tiko kicked his way in. He didn’t know what he expected to find. It was a fight after all. Ur’Tiko was young and weak, so he didn’t know much about fights. But if the campfire encounter had taught him anything, it was that fighting was chaotic.
But inside the building was not chaotic. In fact, as he passed through the door, Ur’Tiko saw out of a corner of his eye a slight violet shimmer and when he landed inside, there was no noise. It was as if the whole battle outside suddenly ceased to be. In confusion, he whirled around but outside of the building there was still a lot of motion. He saw goblins and humans alike screaming and a tent falling over. But there was no noise inside the building. Except a low murmur.
He turned around to face the inside of the building. It was a circular room that tracked with the size of the building itself. There was a stair on the far side of the room from the door, but apart from that, it was a completely open space. There were tables spread throughout the room and a lot of random objects were scattered on the tables and even more on the floor. There were lines all over the floor connecting various things.
At the center of the room there was a pedestal. A man stood over the pedestal, with his hands on either side of an orb. A beautiful orb. The most beautiful orb that Ur’Tiko had ever seen. He almost didn’t see the man, for the orb was so captivating. It was pulsing with multiple colors. Ur’Tiko didn’t even know the names of all the colors he was seeing, but there were so many shades of blue, orange, red, violet. Ur’Tiko could not have said what the crystal was made out, only that it was color. It was beautiful and it drew him in like bugs were drawn to a flame.
It was only when he was halfway to the orb that he became truly aware of the man, whose own attention was firmly on the orb. He was holding it. He was saying something, almost singing something, softly as he looked at. He was holding the orb. He was holding the most precious treasure possible. This was not acceptable.
Simple goblins were not given real weapons. Those were too valuable, and goblins too weak to use them effectively anyway. But for a raid like this, even the weakest of warriors needed a tool to get them what they needed. For Ur’Tiko, this was little more than a stone chip tied to a stick, but it worked. It worked on the man who still had not noticed Ur’Tiko. The man whose chanting became a gasp and then a scream and then a sob. But who never took his hands off of the orb until the end. But the end came for that man with a final, single, yelled word. Ur’Tiko did not blame him for his focus. Even as Ur’Tiko felt himself growing, his attention was firmly on the orb. The orb whose colors were flashing even faster now, colliding into a brilliant white that still came in multiple shades. Ur’Tiko reached up to take the orb. Surely, it would be a great prize for the Ur.
His hand touched the orb and there was a brilliant flash of white light.
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Ragnar felt like he was a riverbank being worn away from a neverending stream of water. Except, in this case, it was a chaotic torrent of goblins. Any that came within reach of his axe fell to it and [Barrier Pulse] meant that a lot of them came into reach of it. But there were always more. His abilities had to recover after he used them, and his mana was running low after the fight. The goblins had rushed over his side of the barricade and broken into the encampment and now they were turned away and rushing back across the barricade holding various objects. Some of it was sensible: he saw multiple pieces of armor and a few weapons. There was also jewelry or books that looked valuable. But the last goblin he managed to cut down had been carrying three brooms, a tent pole, and a frying pan and he had not been unique in carrying random items.
As the flood of goblins ebbed, Ragnar turned to take stock of the camp as a whole. It was a mess. There were several small fires where it looked like tents had been knocked into campfires. He could see numerous bodies strewn about the place. Mostly goblin, of course, but there were plenty of human bodies as well. He trudged back that way to go look for the Captain or whoever was left in charge of this mess. On the bright side, maybe Mortimer would help them build up the wall now. Where was that mage anyway? His magic could have been very helpful in the fight; but battle magic was very obvious and loud. Ragnar was pretty sure he wouldn’t have missed it. Which meant that Mortimer hadn’t helped.
Ragnar had just reached the tent-line when the world turned white. His world was filled with buzzing and whining. He felt the energy press in on him, but it felt like his body pushed back against it. After an indeterminate moment, the white energy field collapsed. It didn’t vanish altogether, but instead collected itself into a white dome that covered Mortimer’s Mage Tower.
Except that it wasn’t going to be a Mage Tower. Ragnar scowled. It was probably never going to be a Mage Tower, that had always been a lie. He stomped over to a knot of the Guard standing around. Who were now all perfectly visible, as everything else was gone. Tents, gone. Corpses, gone. Every single piece of clothing, armor, weaponry, food store, campfire, field furniture, gone. The banner of the Second Guard Guild that had waved proudly over the camp, gone. The barricade that had proved only partially useful was also gone.
“A dungeon!” Ragnar yelled as he made his way over to the group. “Mortimer brought us here to make a dungeon?!” He was beyond incensed. “Of all the …” He faded off as a terrible thought occurred to him and he looked around at the emptied field. “Was we supposed to survive this?”
It turned out that Captain Farrow had survived the battle and he shook his head. “I don’t know Ragnar. It’s possible Mortimer was planning to betray us. It takes a lot of death to start a dungeon. But we shipped his stuff out here, it looked like a normal Mage Tower control orb.” He limped over and patted Ragnar on the armored shoulder. The Guardsman noticed that the Captain had a nasty gash on his leg. Many of the other Guards he saw were likewise injured. “The orcs at the main attack were nasty. Their leader had to be close to a Champion. Thank the Glorious we managed to kill him before he evolved again. A Champion might have been able to lead a war party against Deadwood. Now he’s nothing but grist for Mortimer’s new dungeon.”
He saw someone in the crowd. “Sebs, get over here!” Sergeant Tiana Sebas came over, her gilded armor maintaining a shine to it despite the battle. She was a noble brat in the Guard for training and duty and had been assigned to watch over Mortimer as a final line of defense. She was probably also the single most effective combatant in the troop. “What happened in there?”
The Sergeant grabbed her hair and started to twirl it between her fingers in what Ragnar recognized as a nervous gesture. Normally, it stayed curled up tight by her head but when she pulled on it, the strand could stretch all the way down to her cuirass. “I don’t know Captain. When the battle started, Mortimer sent me out of the Tower. I heard him casting a few spells as I left, but then the sound shut off. He thought he was close to awakening the Tower Spirit and he didn’t want the battle disrupting him. I was originally going to stay by the door, but I heard screaming and saw one of our guys get thrown into the fire by the goblins swarming over camp. I couldn’t just sit by and watch that happen.” She nodded over at Gregory, who was indeed covered in some fairly severe burns. “I had just pulled him out and taken down the goblins around us when the world went white.”
Farrow sighed and ran his hand down his face, leaving behind streaks of grime. “That was the dungeon forming. It absorbed everything in its range that didn’t have enough internal mana to push it back.” He looked around. “Which meant all of our gear and all the corpses.” He shook his head. “Ilta turn me over and bugger me sideways, this is going to be a mess when we get back to town.”
Ragnar nodded but Tiana just looked confused. “Sir?”
Ragnar took over the explanation as the Captain lumbered away, calling the surviving Guards together. “No point sitting around here, Sargeant. That dome will be there for a long time while the Dungeon gets ready. Weeks probably. We ain’t got food or shelter here anymore, so we go home.”
Sebas chewed on the strand of hair she had been twirling. “Is there no way to recover any of the bodies?”
Ragnar snorted. “Appeal to Mortimer’s charity when we come back in a few weeks. If he’s got any left, Gallian twist his soul over coals.”
She looked at him askance. “You Guards are blasphemously poetic.”
He gave a wry grin. “Best kind of poetic. But, no, lass. If a dungeon eats something, it’s gone. It can make a replica, but the original is gone. Captain doesn’t think Mortimer meant for this to happen. But mages are a cold bunch, could’ve been his plan to sacrifice us all for his dungeon to grow.”
She shook her head. “He didn’t seem so callous to me. More naïve and sheltered, in his own way.”
The two of them gathered up with the rest of the survivors of the Guard unit that had been sent to protect Mortimer as he worked on whichever project, benign mage tower or vile dungeon. It was a testament to their training that a surprise ambush had only taken out about a third of their number. The shock of the dungeon forming was probably the only thing stopping them from treating this as a victory. That and there had apparently only been a handful of actual orcs involved, the rest had just been goblins. But at least the nascent orc champion was dead. Captain Farrow would probably be promoted for that alone.
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The world stopped being white.
Ur’Tiko stared in horror at the space before him. There was no orb. The orb was gone. The precious orb, the thing that would change the life of the Ur. It was gone. Ur’Tiko staggered back and looked around the room. He could salvage this, he just had to find something else of value. Something else he …
The room was empty. There was no man on the floor by the pedestal. There were no tables, no various items on those tables. Ur’Tiko grabbed at his head and keened in panic, loss, worry, stress. He sank down to his knees.
“Get your grubby knees up off of my floor.” A voice spoke into his head. He recognized that it wasn’t actually speaking into his head, but the sounds he heard did not match the words his head made. He looked around in panic and spotted something new. A human woman stood behind the pedestal where the orb had been. Her hair was not the normal colors he was used to seeing, but a mix of white and gray. It was tied up in a bun held together by a few sticks. Fierce eyes that changed colors like the orb had glared down at him.
Ur’Tiko squeaked in a way he was sure that Torag would disapprove and scrambled to his feet. He reached for the stone knife that had killed the man and lunged for the woman. A human was a threat he couldn’t let stand.
He passed right through her and landed on all fours on the other side of her.
“Well, I guess you can’t hurt me, mangy green child. Now, perhaps you will tell me where I am.”
Ur’Tiko pulled himself to his feet and slashed at the apparition in front of him. He knew she had the orb, he just had to figure out a way to get it from her. The knife passed through her again and again as he wore himself out. Goblins were not known for their stamina just as they were not known for strength. Or intelligence, or luck. Goblins were known for their agility and their fertility, but that was about it. But if he couldn’t touch the old human woman, she also appeared unable to touch him. So she took to ignoring him and instead wandered around the room.
“Are you finished?” She asked as his arm grew too tired to continue swinging. Once more, the sounds she actually made were nothing like Ur’Tiko understood. He slumped down on the floor. “Again with the dirt on my floor. I see I shall have to housebreak you. Your mother ought to be ashamed of herself. Or whatever passed for a mother for you. I can’t imagine you were raised in a loving household, not if this is how you turned out. Really, slashing at an old woman with that awful contraption. Barely covering your modesty with scraps of leather. Green paint all over your body. Honestly, children these days.” She shook her head after a bewildering monologue. Ur’Tiko just looked at her in confusion.
Some of what she said sunk and Ur’Tiko piped up, his voice reedy and squeaky. “Ur’Tiko not child! Ur’Tiko warrior!” He waved the knife at her menacingly.
“Ur’Tiko is your name then? At least you can speak, if poorly. Now stop waving that stick around, I’ve seen feral cats more threatening than you.” The woman made her way over to the door, which Ur’Tiko finally noticed was still covered in a white sheen like the orb and the light that had burst out of it. “What can you tell me of this? Where am I?”
Ur’Tiko didn’t know how to answer that question. “Uhhh…”
The woman turned away and looked at him. “Will you ever be useful?”