Damian came walking out of the tunnel dressed in his black full plate armor again. As soon as he was clear he turned around and faced the cliff. Very slowly it seemed like the cliff closed upon itself and after about five minutes there was no sign that the tunnel even existed.
Damian just kept staring at the cliff-face. I decided to give him as much time as he needed. Figuring that saying goodbye to the place you have called home for millennia must be hard.
After about another ten minutes Damian finally turned back around and moved over to where I had my camp. “Well, that’s that then. My core gem has been sent for safekeeping for now. I have a hundred years before it loses power, I have to transform into a fortress core before then. Seeing as how you are growing that won't be an issue.”
“Let’s head back to town then. We will take it easy for the next couple of hours. It’s only about three or four hours before I need to take a rest and make camp anyways. We might be able to make it back to the ruined city I found on the way here” And with that, we all started walking back the way I came.
Along the way, Damian explained about his avatar. “I used this avatar that you see here as the final boss of my dungeon. My class is NecroKnight Now that I am bonded to you as a companion I have lost a lot of the powers I had, but when you grow I will regain strength again.”
“So what powers do you have now?”
Damian pulled out the great-sword that he had strapped to his back. The lower half of the blade had saw teeth like serrations going down it. “I have old Sharpclaw here. It’s a bonded blade and will grow in strength with me. I also have a chance that when I kill something that it will rise up as a zombie under my control for the next hour. And once a day I can summon a group of ten spectral knights to do a single cavalry charge. I can also summon an ethereal mount for eight hours a day. It can't fight or be hurt.”
“Why didn’t you say sooner that you had a mount?”
“Two things really. One I wanted to stretch my legs after not getting out for a few millennia. Two I can only summon it once for eight hours and then it's on cooldown for sixteen. So I figured it would make more sense to get a full day’s worth of traveling tomorrow. Speaking of which I have a request. Why don’t we take a bit more of a round-a-bout way back? That way you can get more of a feel of what is out this way, and maybe we can figure out where might be a good place for you to settle down. A lot has changed on this continent since the last time I had visitors, so even for me it would be good to find out what has changed.”
“As long as we take no more than six days or so. I want to try and make it back to storm cove around the same time as my friends.”
That evening we made it back to the overgrown city. “This used to be a large farming town. Where this large forest is, there used to be farmland for miles around. It is hard to imagine that these gigantic trees have grown over the centuries since I was last here.”
“You were able to come out of your dungeon,” I asked.
“Yeah, it takes a lot of power to do so. But way back when I had tons of adventurers come and challenge my dungeon I had the power to spare. I didn’t come out like this though. I had a spectral form that was invisible that I could use to roam around. I liked to know what was going on around my dungeon.”
“Do you know what happened to the town?”
“Yes, when the shahuagin came they looted and pillaged the town. Burned the fields, and captured a lot of the residents. The rest fled in the direction of the capital which was on the far northern side of the continent. I could only roam about a day away from my dungeon so I have no idea if they made it that far. After that, the adventurers stopped coming and a few years later I was already running low on power, so had to start cannibalizing my dungeon.”
“Let’s get some rest and make some good time tomorrow. Why don’t we go north for a day instead of west? Maybe we can find some signs of their passing?” And with that, we made camp again in the ruined temple.
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We decided to now travel during the day so, setting out the next morning we found the remains of a road leading north. Near the end of the day, the forest started to make way for some rolling hills. We made camp on one of the highest ones so we could have a good vantage point. From up there, we could see the river that the orc tribes held sacred and wouldn’t cross. It was about half a mile wide so there was no mistaking it. To the west, we could see the tips of the mountains where the river came from. And to the east the start of the swamps. Just over the river is where the jungle started.
“When everyone is back together again I want to come back here and scout upriver. I think this area is perfect to make my domain. Good trees nearby for building. The hills here can be used for farming. The river isn’t too far and is a natural border.” As I didn’t have any paper on my I spent the next hour trying to commit as much detail of the place into memory.
The next morning we traveled south, and then skirted the forest northern border, back towards Storm Cove in the east. I knew that where the forest and the marsh would meet up we could head south to the coast and be in roughly the right area.
Slowly the size of the redwoods started to diminish as if these were younger trees. Around midday, we saw thick black smoke coming from a couple of miles further east and inside the forest itself.
Damian and I spurred on our mounts and after around an hour of hard riding, we came upon the source of the smoke. A small beastkin village had been attacked. I knew some of the faces in passing. They had come through storm cove about a year before and wanted to settle in a quieter place. It was about 75% fox-kin and then a smattering of a few other beastkin races.
Half the village was ground-based, with the other half being tree-houses with rope-bridges between the houses. Most of the houses on the ground had been set alight. There were bodies all over the place and I could see what had happened. It looked like a group of goblins had attacked the town as I could see a few dozen goblin bodies around as well.
Talking to some of the villagers confirmed it. The goblins had come a few hours after dawn overwhelming the village. Most of the villagers had been able to make it up to the tree-houses and able to fend off the goblins from there. The only problem they had right now was that the schoolhouse with most of the village's children had been captured first and all the children inside had been taken. The bodies on the ground were those beast-kin that made a counterattack, but the goblins were just too many.
I decided that I needed Moira if we were to rescue the children so I un-summoned her. Then restarted the summon so that she would appear next to me an hour later. I did the same with the skeletons, but as I needed a place to anchor that summon I asked permission of the village chief for use of one of the houses.
Moira and the first skeleton appeared almost at the same time. It happened to be Alpha. I told Moira and Alpha what had transpired. After that, I gave Alpha orders for the skeletons to help out with the fires and help out with whatever the village chief needed.
Moira, Damian, and I set out after the goblins. They had about two hours headstart but I didn’t expect them to be able to travel fast with a couple dozen children in tow. Just after we set out a fox-kin riding a boar came after us. “Let’s keep moving, I’ll introduce myself along the way.” He shouted and just kept going.
“My name is Rodriguez I’m one of the scouts of the village, if anyone can track these goblins it will be me. I was away from the village when the attack occurred.”
“Is scout your class and if so what powers do you have that can aid us?” I asked.
“I only came of age a few months ago and haven’t felt the need to travel back to storm cove to see if I have a class and if so what it is. I wished I had now, maybe I would have had some powers to stop this.”
“From what I saw at the village, one person with powers wouldn’t have been able to stop that raid. You would have just ended up dead. Now you can help us track these goblins and hopefully, we will be able to rescue the children.”
The tracks we were following first headed southeast deeper into the woods, but that seemed to be a distraction as the tracks with the children quickly split off and turned north. It led out of the forest again. I sent Moira up high to see if she could spot the group.
When she returned she told us that the goblins were about an hour ahead of us at our current speed. The children were slowing them down. They had them tied into a long line with rope. And there were only about twenty goblins now escorting them. By now it was about two hours till dusk. I figured that the safest way to extract the kids was to attack them at night. Out in the open in broad daylight would have too much risk of them being hurt.
So with Moira’s direction, we stayed about half an hour travel behind them. And sure enough, the goblins made camp as soon as dusk fell. The children were herded into a group in the middle of the camp. With half the goblins acting as sentries on the outside of the camp, the others bedding down for the night.