They were face-to-face with a goblin procession. Just like at the feast, they blew into thin, reedy, instruments. Just like at the feast, there was the steady thun-thun-thun of the drum. Just like at the feast, Rick’s headache returned, and then the cages, the cauldron and the goblin sage on a palanquin lifted by the others.
Fen stepped from the warehouse and Rick put out an arm. “Stay there.”
“We’ll persuade them to leave. We’ve got a whole two methods,” Pern said. One, two— she counted them out on her fingertips, as Rick strolled to the thoroughfare,
It was a pebbled clearing that led all the way to the grand mansion of the kitsune matriarch. Goblins, goblins, goblins cluttered the street almost as much as the stones, and though there was plenty of space their presence made it seem stifling. The procession stopped and the music died, for Rick had blocked their path.
“Stupid lie teller. Stupider lie teller. All apostates must burn,” the goblin sage said.
“Tell truth. Leave now. Take food, silk, arms and live,” Rick called.
The sage consulted with his goblin guards, and they murmured together. They came to a consensus: “No running from hard to understand deep voiced Andrestian man! False war woman Gods become cooked goblin snacks!”
“It’s plan two.”
“‘‘Convincing time?” Pern grinned.
“‘Convincing time,’” Rick said.
The lady knight drew her blade and kissed it. “The one who guided me through the ranks. The sword that strikes truer than any bow. Old friend…ready…! THUNDER!!”
Electricity spiked and arced into six branches that brushed against the goblin guards’ hearts; they collapsed, the palanquin tottered, and the sage slid down. He shrieked where he fell: “Kill them!”
The village cavern was wide and bright and Rick saw the full crowd as they charged. Five hundred stomping goblins, four-fifths of them armed. The others possessed instruments, sketchbooks, and somiel pipes in equal measure, or were with forks and knives and drool. Rick noted these proportions as he broke their equipment with his fists.
Snap! Crack! Thud! “Hope that wasn’t too important.” Crack!
Snap! Crack! Snap! Kick!
He punted a torch-wielding goblin onto a bamboo roof, then another few goblins on top of that smother the fire. He punched at the others, at their eyes, mouths and snouts, and cracked their wood weapons to splinters.
Snap! Crack! “Weak.”
Snap! Crack! “Done.”
Snap! Crack! — “Gob on this.”
Snap! Crack-Thun-Thun-Thun-Thun-Thun—
And another steady drumbeat overtook the cracks and groans.
Twenty goblins were down in the center… but a hundred small gobs surrounded him with thin metal spears. They used group tactics and tightened their circle, stepping in time with the timpani. Rick searched for a gap and there was none.
Thun-Thun-Thun-Thun-Thun—
The drumbeats served not just as music, but as the booming voice of a commander. A goblin giant conveyed information about the skirmish to the sage, who decided on the action, and then the giant conducted the sage’s orders back to his band.
From the giant, to the instrument players, to the little goblins that surrounded him with spears, Rick had underestimated these mobs.
Thun-Thun-Thun-Thun-(((thrum)))
His vision swirled. The Gatekeeper beckoned out of the corner of his eye.
Thun-Thun-((((thrum))-((((thrum)))))
He had failed. The Gatekeeper was telling him—that he was about to die. But if it was him that was about to die—
Thun-Thun-Thun-Thun-((thrum)))
—that wouldn’t be so bad. If he already thought he was going to die then that meant he could take some risks.
“Rick! I’ll be there soon—” Pern’s voice was drowned away. And Rick called out, not to his would-be rescuer but to the others.
“One hundred four foot flat-footed monsters almost caught a five foot eleven hundred fifty pound man. That’s a good effort. But I think you’ve fallen just a little short.
“Hahhhhhhh!”
He ran right at the goblin border, and dodged a flurry of poorly thrown spears; he reached out to the smallest thrusting gob and picked him up by the scruff. He used this living shield to block another gob’s direct attack, and when a third gob jabbed at him, he wrapped his hand around that gob’s pole and heaved him high in the air.
He clapped the two together, then swung their limp bodies like flails.
“Now that’s teamwork.”
Rick made short work of the perimeter. Half fell to their former companions, and the other half fled shrieking. Meanwhile, Pern’s sword had come alive.
If a goblin approached her, she thrust into its heart. If a goblin stayed back, she sparked Thunder S and turned them to ash where they stood. “Hmph. When it comes to enemies like these. I don’t need skills. Rick, watch me go!”
She ran into the goblin band; their drums grew soft and stopped. She dodged their mallets and sharp-tongued flutes and skewered three goblins with an audacious lunge. “Just look at that combo!”
She stepped back, twirled, and a towering goblin knocked away her sword:
“Ah…”
This was the anomaly, the one true hulk amidst the tribe. A conductor that stood at a giant eight feet.
“Pern—!”
“I can help myself!”
She scrambled to reach her sword, but the goblin giant swept her up in his palm. He brought her to his face and waggled a dripping tongue.
“Meat better when it pushes back,” He grumbled, and moved to put her into his mouth. She grimaced, stuck both thumbs against his eyes and—ZZZZZTTT!
This shock rocked him, and loosened his grip; Pern rolled, picked up her blade, leapt up and thrust him through the neck.
“I don’t mind getting my hands dirty if it means I can clean up the gobs,” she said as the giant dissolved to a core. “But getting showered in spit like that… no way!!”
In fact, Rick and Pern had cleaned up very well. Five hundred goblins surrounded them at the start. They had knocked out and forcefully despawned one-hundred fifty, and then about another hundred-fifty had fled. The remaining two hundred clustered around the sage, whose face was contorted with rage.
“If we ‘convince’ their leader to leave, you think the rest will follow?” She asked Rick. Pern’s hair slopped down her face, and Rick’s fists were missing spikes. But there were worse fates in store if they grew fatigued and let down their guard.
“Probably. Though even if we defeat them all, they’ll simply come back in a few years once they respawn.”
“In a chilly place like this?”
The sage cast a fireball at Pern—she sidestepped it, heat warming her in the cold cave.
“Thanks?”
“Careful though,” Rick said. “That one’s clever. Remember the landslide?”
They advanced hip-to-hip.
“We heard a similar explosion back then. Maybe it wasn’t rain. Maybe someone actually planned it out.”
“Goblins are clever but they’re not smart, Rick.”
“But it definitely sounded like fire magic. Listen.”
FWOOM.
FIRE RESISTANCE S [ACTIVE]
FWOOM.
Rick caught the sage’s fireball and threw it back at the gob army. The remaining two hundred were reduced to one hundred eighty-six as flaming goblins stopped dropped and rolled on the road.
“I get Rick, I get it! It did sound like fire magic, but what kind of sound is that?”
Up to this point, the goblin sage had mostly been making frustrated gargles and blargs. Rick and Pern were far more powerful than he had expected; only the goblin giant could land a hit, and he had already died. Even worse, the harder-to-understand adventurer could also resist his firecasts.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
But the sage still had one last card to play. He held the wrathful mask of Gardalria high in the air and chanted as he writhed. “Arkshaw, rakshaw, ticaticaticatic. Shakara sha ra ra ra!” The mask’s eyes glowed red, and the goblin fit it to his skin. “Shar!”
“Shit!” Rick tackled Pern, and a solid fire beamed from the goblin’s staff. “I can’t catch that!”
“Thunder!” Pern poked her sword tip through a fold in her savior’s sleeve. The charge swirled past the awe-struck goblins and sizzled the sage’s chest; then swerved up into the mask.
“It just absorbed it?”
Gardalria’s mask breathed new life into the goblin sage. He grew in height to the size of a normal knight and was no longer hunched; he leapt in a mocking dance as his cloak-cape cast long shadows, more god than gob. “Shar!”
FWOOM.
Pern zig-zagged across the road when he pitched his less dangerous fireballs and dove behind buildings and rocks when the gob cast his beams. Rick, on the other hand, went for the sage directly. He sprinted across the street as if it were a race track and ducked under blazes like they were inverse hurdles.
(thrum)
“Shut up, Gatekeeper.”
“...Rick?” Pern said.
(((thrum)))
“Shut up. I’ll kill him right now”
Pern peered from behind a pile of bags: “Rick! Calm dow—AGH!”
A fireball brushed Pern’s shoulder and turned its skin into a blistered red and black. Her Rapid Regeneration C desperately attempted to stitch it together, but the damage was deep and her eyes welled from the pain.
“I’m fine, Rick. Get out of the road!”
FIRE RESISTANCE S [ACTIVE]
“Urgh!”
Rick took a firebeam head-on. It was as if someone had socked him in the gut with a soldering iron, and he was flung past ten lampposts back to the warehouse. He flew through its doors and naginata that had been braced against the entrance clattered everywhere. Fen trembled in a far corner—but Rick was mostly fine. Except for his mind.
((((thrum))))
“Damn it, Fen. Fen!”
“E-E-E-E Rank?”
“It’s all falling apart. You’ve got to run, but tell me everything you know about that weapon.”
Fen looked through the Rick-shaped hole in the door, flapping her furry ears: “He’s wearing that? That’s my prized mask!”
The mask was streaked red around the eyes as though crying blood—but its slasher grin remained. Another blaze shot from its mouth and punched at the foxgirl right after Rick had pushed Fen down.
“No, no, no, no…” said Fen.
“Listen,” said Rick “There must be something you can do. You’ve studied the War Goddess, know all her teachings… you must know the mask’s weakness, too. It’s powering his attacks.”
“I can’t!” Fen said. “I can’t do anything! I pretended to be a priestess, and told myself all sorts of things that made me feel better about myself. But that mask doesn’t really belong to me; I just used it as a prop.”
“Don’t simper!” Rick said. “The Thunder Sword’s just a prop too, without the right person to use it. You’ve got to know something!”
Fen quivered. And then Rick remembered. An Adventurer’s Card, and a hand that hesitated to accept it. A boy who had taken his first quest with fear.
“You’ve done a good job, Fen,” he patted her head. “Leave the rest up to the vets.”
“I did alright?”
“You convinced the goblins that you were a Goddess, you snuck with us through the windows, and you were brave enough that you never turned tail. You really did do good. Now scram!”
He yanked her tail—“Hyak! !”—and she flushed and ran off towards the temple .
“...was that a place I was supposed to touch? Shoulda studied more foxgirl anatomy.”
What you should be doing is helping the S-Rank who’s carrying the team!” Pern yelled, and Rick returned to the fray.
She had managed to dodge, duck, roll, and persist up to about halfway up the thoroughfare, and Rick ran recklessly to her side. Her Regeneration C had closed the wound; S-Rank warrior Pern was made of tough stuff.
In contrast, the re-energized sage still seemed frail. A few good hits might take him down, but he was reinforced by goblin guardsman that blocked whatever Rick could throw.
If fighting the sage from a distance was a tribulation, fighting him up close would be hell.
They could dodge the mask because its breath took a split-second to travel. Without that split-second, Rick and Pern would bear the full force; and fire resistance or not a point-blank beam would rip a hole into Rick.
FWOOM!
“Guess what?” Pern dodged another death. “While you were getting all touchy with Fen, I came up with a great plan like yours.
“The goblin sage really doesn’t seem to like you. So, why don’t you just jump around, call him names, draw his attention—I’ll sneak around the buildings and attack him from behind.”
Rick mumbled something.
“‘Good job, Pern’. Is that too hard to say?” The lady knight pouted, then shoved a charging goblin into another red beam. It burned to dust.
“Terrible plan.”
“Oh!”
“You’ll die if you’re caught.”
“But I’ll just dodge—”
“You’re a warrior, not a rogue.”
“You’re not an S-Rank, you’re an E. Just trust me,” She grinned and then winced, grabbing her shoulder. Her skin broke and revealed a scorched black that had yet to heal.
((((((((thrum))))))))
“Gatekeeper…”
“Rick?”
((((((((THRUM))))))))
Pern’s smile faded, and Rick spoke. “I just need another plan. I just need… something… that I can’t… quite….”
THRUM.
The battlefield pulsed. Spears flung in midair, the mask gathering sparks, Pern’s body in mid-motion. And then the Gatekeeper, his unwelcome companion of two years. She lounged by the transformed door of a kitsune adobe and the portal led to an unnameable color.
“...Care for a drink?” Rick said.
He tapped the paving stones, and a table popped up with cutlery, a bottle, and a vase full of flowers. The Gatekeeper sat down across from him, and Rick poured; she was shorter than he’d remembered.
He poured two cups, one for him and one for her. They were both of whiskey. They were tasteless because the whiskey wasn’t real and neither were the cups, but the Gatekeeper was real enough to Rick.
“I wish you could come visit the Four-Leaf Inn; it’s a place I bet you’d like. But I need you to let me through.”
The Gatekeeper leaned on her pole and gave him a look.
“You’ve always told me that I’ll fail. You’ve never had to say it; just your presence was enough. But it’s been so long since I’ve cared about ‘failure’ that you don’t need to stick around, cause I’ve nothing to lose anymore.”
The Gatekeeper picked up her whiskey and “drank” it, pouring it through the visor slot.
“Yeah. But I’m grateful that you’ve looked out for me. Maybe you’ve always told me I’d fail cause you’ve wanted me to survive.”
Scrambled voices glowed through a portal that tasted like summer grass. In other words, it was completely incomprehensible. But Rick looked at it, craved, and almost understood it—
“Those are memories, right? Of past battles around that time.”
The Gatekeeper was silent.
She had one weak spot. One place where she couldn’t freeze time. Rick kissed her visor; and gently lifted it so he could banish her at long last. It would be a face he knew, he was sure; the girl from two years prior. He lifted it and saw—
Her face… her face!
Beneath the helmet and under the visor was Pern. When did that happen?
Was it the first day when Pern chose Rick at the bar?
Was it the second day when Pern tried to seduce him?
Was it the third day when she gave him her mythril plate?
Or was it that night at temple when Pern gave Fen her badge?
Rick was the type of person who would grunt, mumble, shrug, or swear. He would never scream even if that’s what his body wanted him to do.
But— just for a moment— he felt something rise in his throat—
“Sage.” he called out. “Sage! Come here!”
As the sage prepared another attack… and as Pern slipped away to strike…
Rick attacked Pern.
He wrestled her to the ground and covered her with his body. She was soft, and tough, and everything to him at once.
Rick…?” Pern looked into his eyes, and in them was a wild, frenzied, sheen. “What the hell, Rick? Aren’t we allies?
THUNDER RESISTANCE S [ACTIVE]
FIRE RESISTANCE S [ACTIVE]
The sage raked roaring orange across Rick’s back. Rick shuddered, and his skin was covered in soot even as Pern sparked him.
“It’s not safe for you to fight,” Rick breathed. “That artifact’s enough to kill even you.”
“But if you keep taking his attacks, you’ll definitely die! You’re an E-Rank! An E-Rank!!!”
Next came a golden blaze at one thousand two hundred degrees. Then a fifteen hundred degree scalding white.
FIRE RESISTANCE S [ACTIVE]
PHYSICAL C [ACTIVE]
All the while Pern punched and twisted. She pounded his shoulders and forearms whenever she could free her hands, and kicked at his thighs and shins. But even with all this she was easy to subdue, because she never seriously tried to hurt him.
“Let me go! I can take him!”
“No. You can’t even handle me—”
She stuck her fingers into his mouth.
“THUNDER!”
THUNDER RESISTANCE S [ACTIVE]
Instead of bypassing his resistance they just made Rick cough and gag, and—
FIRE RESISTANCE S [ACTIVE]
—and now there was a seventeen hundred degree blue. Rick wasn’t hurt by it but he felt it, severely, and there was a limit to the heat he could endure.
“The Sage’ll get tired… and it’ll be okay. I promise.”
The next flame would be violet. A fierce, scaling blazing hot flame a human eye could normally only find in the sun. The Sage God raised his arm, and a soft light gathered there.
And Rick saw the Goddess.
“Urgh…”
Pern had kicked him in a very vulnerable place; it had already been bruised two times.
“I’ll kill the monster like I always do,” Pern said, as she threw him off. “When we part ways, I want to say goodbye to someone who stands on their own two feet, and not to a broken burned-up husk. Just watch!”
She darted forward and the sage shifted his feet; he was about to cast the beam in a curve.
But then there was Fen.
Freshly-bathed, skin-glowing, hair-combed in new robes and with a vibrant, confident voice, she carried a book with her and had pinned Pern’s ‘E-Rank’ badge proudly to her chest.
“GODDESS GARDALRIA! GODDESS GARDALRIA! YOU MUST LISTEN!”
“Huh?”
“GODDESS GARDALRIA! YOUR MOST LOYAL DISCIPLE HAS COME, WITH GRAVE NEWS OF SACRILEGE AGAINST YOU.”
The Goblin Sage muttered and cursed. He adjusted his staff, and swept it towards Fen, but the Foxgirl did not flinch.
“THE FRUITS HE GAVE YOU WERE ROTTEN, THE WOOD HE GAVE HAD WORMS. HE REFUSED YOU IRON AND DESECRATED YOUR TOMB —”
“Lies! All lies!” The Sage God crowed.
“ —ALL BECAUSE HE REFUSED TO BELIEVE A ONE-TAILED KIT COULD HOLD FAITH. GODDESS GARDALRIA, OH GODDESS OF WAR, WHY GRANT YOUR POWERS TO SUCH A SAGE?
“A POWERFUL WAR LEADER IS NOT A STRONG WARRIOR, BUT ONE WHO RECOGNIZES STRENGTH IN OTHERS, REGARDLESS OF FUR, SCALES, OR SKIN. FROM THE STRONG HE WILL FORGE HIS ARMY AND EMPIRE AND GARDALRIA I TELL YOU: THOSE TWO HUMANS ARE ALREADY MORE POWERFUL THAN THAT GOBLIN SAGE WILL EVER BE.
She walked up to the old goblin. His claw twitched, and he flung it forward as if to cast a spell.
But nothing came. Nothing hurt her. It was as if Gardalria herself had intervened.
“That’s it…” Rick muttered. “That’s the way…”
Fen looked upon the the mask’s red circle eyes, and the Sage cried out:
“Hurts… it hurts!”
Steam plumbed from the mask crack that had sealed ‘Gardarlia’ to the Sage. A greasy scent filled the chamber, and as Fen pried off the mask she unveiled a half-cooked face.
She turned to the goblin crowd:
“THERE IS NO HOME FOR YOU HERE, FOR YOU WITHOUT STRENGTH AND THE TRIBEMATES THAT CONDONED HIM. LEAVE HERE, NEVER TO RETURN.”