Nominally, members of the adventurer's guild, no matter how senior, were simply civilians. Outside of those born or married into nobility, they were outranked by the knighthood.
Yet the guildmaster resented being summoned to the captain's office like a common day worker.
He had no doubt that between the two of them his accomplishments were greater.
Captain Harkness had never conquered a dungeon or slain a dragon, he had never dueled with dark elves on thin wires over the gaping abyss.
Guildmaster Linel had done all of these things, and earned the rank of B in the Adventurer Guild's ranking system. Legally, he would be able to marry a count or countess, and he considered himself their equal.
But the very day he had arrived in Eston to take up the vacant guild position, the lower aristocracy insisted on pushing around its weight.
"Have you seen this?" Captain Harkness said curtly from behind his desk, not bothering with greetings or formality.
Linel sighed audibly, clearly demonstrating his reluctance to be interviewed. "These are portraits exchanged among goblin tribes in the warrens.
Our members have retrieved countless of them in lieu of actual gold. As far as I can tell, they're useless."
Harkness narrowed his eyes. "So it's adventurers bringing this trash into the city."
"Wait just one minute, what are you implying?"
The knight captain harrumphed and put away the paper at the corner of his desk. "We just arrested a third extortion ring. Each until now has had stacks of these lying around. The adventurers' guild is obviously implicated."
The guildmaster was grinding his teeth audibly. "You're throwing around accusations based on such loose connections? Rather auda-"
"I'm not jus-"
"RATHER AUDACIOUS for the man whose very own daughter is visible smack dab in the middle of the very thing!" With a dramatic sweep he snatched the highest priced bill from the middle of the pile and held it up between the two of them.
There, indeed, amateurishly depicted but fully recognizable in the weave, was Lydia Harkness. The pruned leaf of the Harkness family tree. She stared at her father expressionlessly.
He smacked the item out of the man's hand, onto the desk, a scorching smell erupted as it burst into flames under his fist.
Even Linel was a bit shocked by the sudden aggression.
The captain was so angry that his words became stifled in the front of his mouth. "We are here to ERADICATE them. This is your official order not to get in our way."
The exchange had been exactly hostile enough for Linel to become obstructive. "In your way or not, the culling is a national event. This branch will not be making an exception on guild policy, especially in light of your *embarrasing* defeat at the hands of rank F monsters last summer."
Harkness leaned back. "I heard about this 'culling'. A scheme to attract new members by all accounts." He looked him dead in the eye. "Except by your own books, three out of every ten experienced adventurers invading the warrens were killed last winter. And that's disregarding the amount that were captured but escaped. Hah. If a knight commander were to get such shoddy results he'd be courtmartialed!"
Incensed his opponent let his own fire magic flare, blue fire erupted from his mouth as he spoke. "How did you get your hands on- At least adventurers are their own men! They aren't marched into death by some spoon fed... pompous... half-baked warrior born into power!"
The captain wasn't at the least intimidated. "So you don't deny it."
"You'll see." Linel said, suddenly much calmer, "come to the opening the day after tomorrow, then you'll see. This years' culling will be something special, I was appointed to make sure of that."
Then he left, not waiting for the nobleman to dismiss him, and flaring his cape stylishly.
"One way or another, order will return to this region."
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"Order. order." Scratch banged his hammer on the lectern like it was a gavel. "What seems to be the problem?"
This was not the first time the goblins had organized an impromptu court of justice. This time the place of ceremony was a muddy crossroads between the favored colonies.
The makeshift courtroom consisted out of hastily scraped together furniture, re-purposed as benches and podiums, and a leaky tarp to protect them from the rain, which had been strung up to the tree branches.
"Runaways your honor," Linus addressed him formally, he was by now familiar with his brother's rules of ceremony. "They're the brood of... Edith. They used to live in the mill, that's why."
Scratch moved his hand to bid him to continue, but when that was not picked up on he had to emphasize it verbally. "That's why what?"
"Huh? Oh! You gave the mill to Jolene but they wanted to go back."
Youthere stood next to Scratch to whisper in his ear. "A dangerous thing master, such small acts of disobedience. From a small seed grows the tall vine of rebellion! You must not forget that your power in the promise is build on your power over the colonies. The woman will not be so patient with you if you do not serve your purpose in maintaining order."
He leaned a bit away from the demon, who had moved in uncomfortably close. "Who is here to speak for Edith's brood?"
Second solemnly lifted his arm and stepped onto the overturned box, using his other hand to push away the group's own oldest brother.
"Second!" Scratch grinned mockingly, "I was wondering why you'd appeared. How did you hear about our little circus anyway?"
"Nobody here ever says- Everybody here always says what you want them to." Second declared, "so you can do what you want."
"That is generally the idea, yes." Scratch conceded.
Second puffed out his chest. "Well I have my own things to say."
"I look forward to it." Scratch banged his gavel a few times for no particular reason. "Prosecutor, you have the floor."
Linus shot Second a glance and got a scornful one in return, he then cleared his throat and recited the sum of their felonies.
"The destruction of five pots of flour, theft of twelve breads and half a lamb, murder of two dogs, threatening of a mother and writing on the side of a wall."
"Punishment?"
"Uhm..." Linus looked over at Benjamin who was supposed to help him but was fast asleep.
"Ben would have told you the requested sentence is exile." Scratch told him.
Then the demon leaned in to whisper in his ear, "Master, in your mercy you forget yourself. Exile is no punishment at all. They are vagrants and you will make vagrants of them, with no consequences for their deeds they will simply repeat them. The sentence must be death."
"Although... death may be more appropriate." Scratch declared, pushing the demon outside of his person space.
Second suspiciously eyed the two and then began to speak. "I think-"
"Ho ho ho!" Scratch stopped him, banging his gavel, "this is a courtroom. You do not speak until I give you permission."
"Okay...."
It was silent for all of two seconds.
"Okay I give you permission."
"I think you never cared what Max and his brothers did..." Second waiting to see if he would be interrupted again, then he continued, "before they destroyed something. You took away everything they had. We could have helped them, but instead you waited until they did something desperate and now you want to destroy them. What would you have done if someone did that to you? What would I have done? You wouldn't kill either of us over that."
Scratch leaned forward, "do you expect me to treat everybody the same no matter who they are to me?"
"No, but... Scratch... we have shown mercy to goblins without a home before," Second argued, "Scream and Laugh and Digger, they made our well for us, and now we have wells in every goblin home. Can't Max and Moritz and all the others... just be our family too?"
Youthere whispered in his ear again. "Master I do reiterate-"
"Shush." The patriarch bade him to be silent and let Second speak.
"Scratch..." Second pleaded, "Why are you killing goblins? I thought we were the ones that didn't kill. But you're nicer to the humans that have come to destroy us than to them." He gestured towards the accused and left up in the air whether the 'humans that have come to destroy us' referred only to the adventurers specifically.
Scratch rested his chin into his hands. "Do you really enjoy living in the Promise, Second?"
"W-what?" Second was taking aback, interpreting it as a threat at first.
"It's just that... I've send everybody else out over the forest as ambassadors, but you're stuck in the pits carving nightlights for dogs. Do you enjoy it?"
"I... can't leave Quiet alone." He responded.
Scratch nodded. Quiet may have been the older of the two, he was a demure creature and easily intimidated by the much larger hobgoblins that lived at the Promise.
"Tell you what. We're about to put a mini fortress at the edge of the fairy circle. How about you and Quiet, keep it clean and hold watch there."
"What about Max and-"
"Max and Moritz will be there too, that's the idea. Any problem elements in the outer colonies, you two take care of it, yeah? Take them in, feed them, clothe them, whatever. Proof to me that you can prevent this sort of thing."
"Yes!" Second beamed.
"Amazing!" Max, the leader of the accused praised his defender, "I was gonna blame everything on Moritz."
"If Edith was here she'd get really mad." Linus commented. "She really wanted justice for those dogs."
"That's why she isn't here." Scratch stated. "I have no intention of creating another temple to petty score settling."
He sighed and wondered when he had taken up such a workload managing the daily lives of everybody in the forest.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
It was Youthere's fault, he decided. Lydia had expressed strong opinions on his responsibility as their defacto ruler before, but she would generally defer to his judgment when it came to goblin affairs. It was the demon's sultry voice that had convinced him a more hands-on approach was needed to prevent future rebellions.
"Well that's it for today. I'm going home." He threw the hammer over his shoulder for somebody else to pick up.
If the goblin extermination campaign in a few days was really going to be that much harsher than last year's then he was wasting his time. He might as well come back after the decimation and try to lead whoever was left, instead of wasting his energy on the doomed.
----------------------------------------
It wouldn't be until the next day that Scratch felt like actually doing some work again.
Even then it just involved sitting in while Lacrima explained curses to his children.
"A curse is a self-propogating spell." She began to explain, displaying three examples onto her desk.
The hobgoblins were huddled around it and he could just barely catch a glimpse between their backs from where he was sitting, aloof and smoking his blue grass cigar. On the desk were a knife, a chain, and an intricate silver necklace.
"Be still don't touch them." The witch complained. She did not have the patience to work with children. Her supposed orphanage had been propped up entirely using mind control.
Self-propogating is a big word. Cyclophan commented. They're alive, living magic. That's why they're a favorite tool of evil gods. Once created, they can spread to outside the confines of a dungeon.
"Take a look," the witch released a cloud of lime green dust above the objects. "This is what a witch sees when presented with a cursed object."
As the vibrant green floated down it began to illuminate thin lines of moving circles and runes about the static objects.
"Well? They look quite different, don't they?" She stated.
The children were simply agape by the light show.
"Again, again!" Trevor cheered.
"No. Not again. You saw the difference didn't you?" She spat. "Between the chain and the knife?"
"Uhm... the chain had more circles?" Will tried.
She looked at Scratch in annoyance but he threw up his hands. A decent portion of the hobgoblins would probably have tried to describe how the physical objects themselves differed, so this was one of the better results for her.
"It's not about the number of circles, or runes. Look closely." She threw another puff of the dust to Trevor's clapping and revealed the magic again.
The curse straddling the chain was messy and organic, it clung to the metal like a mold. While the knive's magic straddled it symmetrically, it looked like clockwork and part of its design.
"I guess... the knive's more beautiful?" Felix half-asked.
"Good enough. It is indeed. That's because it's a proper curse."
Uh-huh, I see where this is going. Cyclophan groaned.
"There's a proper way to do a curse?" Felix asked, reaching for the knife.
She slapped him away. "There's a proper way for all magic. Dark sorcery is a mockery of the true magic. It's invented by pretenders that think they can equal the work of the gods, but the result is *always* inferior, and only rarely corresponds to any particular magical affinity."
Now my position as a real god is called into question, the voice complained, my magic may not be as neat as those of the twelve, but it's still divine. Not dark sorcery.
I should put you two into direct contact, Scratch quipped inside his head, let you fight it out.
"Uhm... so it's only magic if the gods do it?" Constantine asked sceptically.
"Of course not, we cast it ourselves, but the spells we use were *designed* by the gods."
"But who's doing the magic?" Ada asked, more confused than ever.
"I don't think they're familiar with intellectual property, Lacrima." Scratch laughed.
The witch groaned in annoyance. "You can heat metal, can't you?" She asked Ada.
"Yes?" He mother had taught her.
"What's it called when you do that?"
"Rhada's touch...?"
"Rhada is the goddess of fire, you're-"
"Whoa! Rhada is a person?"
Losing ever more patience Lacrima leaned to talk over the hobgoblins. "Rhada is the personification of fire, the mnemonic for casting the spell has her name in it because she *is* in the spell, as she is everywhere where there's fire."
"What's a memmonick?" Someone asked.
"Let's stay on track." Scratch suggested, to the relief of the teacher.
"Thank you, Papa Scratch." It was the first time she used his unofficial title. "The curse of binding on the chain is weak. It needs more mana and it dies more easily. But the curse of weakness on this knife comes from Guth, goddess of magic, it is exquisite. Hold out your hand." She gestured towards Felix, but he did not comply. "Come on, hold it."
"Yeah, Felix, what are you, scared?" Ada egged him on.
He hesitantly held out his non-preferred hand and the witch quickly grabbed it, pricking the tip of his finger with the sharp object.
"Ow! Hey!" He protested, but couldn't pull his arm from the frail old woman's grip. "Hey..." He repeated weakly as a greyness spread across his orange skin and towards his elbow. He dropped to his knees as she let go of him.
The hobgoblins all stepped back and Scratch stood up in alarm.
He'll be fine, it's a low level spell.
Before one of his brothers had even had the chance to attempt a healing spell on the discolored skin the effect dissipated.
Felix didn't get up, he was still clutching the affected arm in a panic.
"If you'll be fighting for me I want you to be able to reproduce this magic," Lacrima explained, "the mana requirement should be manageable for a hobgoblin."
"What did you do?" Felix asked.
"With your skin cut open the curse was able to send its magic into your body, the effect would have been the same if I had pressed the side to an existing wound." She pouted her lips. "It seems that humans and subhumans are affected the same. I would have predicted the magic having a more permanent effect without the gods' blessing."
"It could have been permanent!?" Felix yelled out in distress.
Ada laughed at him. "What are you? Scared?"
"Then there's the last item. I have no hope that you would be able to recreate something like this, but I must drive home the superiority of Guth's magic. Perhaps the lady isn't too scared to try on this pretty necklace."
"No... wait, no!" Ada fought back as Felix and Piers grabbed her from either side and held her in place for the witch to put on the cursed necklace.
"Noooo..." Her voice grew weaker as the curse invaded her lungs and she grew deathly pale.
"The same thing...?" Felix asked.
"Three curses revealed to us by the goddess of magic inflict weakness upon the target," Lacrima explained as Ada collapsed onto the floor. "But only the bloodpoison curse limits itself to that one effect," she waved her knife to show what she referred to with 'bloodpoison'. "The jewel of pain curse disturbs mana regeneration, prevents healing, and-"
She said it just as the brothers attempted to remove the item.
"-it can't just be removed either."
And this is not considered dark sorcery? Scratch wondered.
Did you think only mortals could conceive of torture?
No but- "Lacrima, you had better not have killed my daughter." He said sternly.
She threw up her hands as a sign of innocence and then bended over to grab the necklace at the front. It unclasped immediately.
"Except, of course, if you are the witch that created the curse."
Ada spat slime from her lungs. "I'm not cut anywhere," she protested.
The witch shrugged, "it's a more powerful curse."
"It'd be convenient to have some more powerful throwing weapons using this." Scratch mentioned.
"If you'd have me slaving away making you super weapons I'd have to charge money."
The jewel of pain is designed for jewels, magic circulated by the gods often has a narrow range of applications. That's why dark sorcery exists in the first place.
What? Is there some arbitrary reason the spell doesn't work if it's on a lasso?
No. But it has to touch the skin almost directly. A coat or armor deflects it. If I had a darkspawn or a high level demon as champion he could probably create an altered version that has a wider range of effect, for a bigger mana cost.
Well you don't. And you'd stop complaining about having me.
Tch.
"Are we going to be here long?" Constantine asked, "I'd promised Second I'd get him a sled."
"We'll be here until you can all do the bloodpoison curse," Scratch insisted.
"Until one of you can." Lacrima corrected him. "Then you can teach each other. My time is valuable you know."
They were there for five hours until Trevor was the first to master it.
The practice weapons were goose feathers, and the practice target was a very unfortunate young swine.
By the end they had enough cursed feathers to fill a very ominous sleeping pillow.
----------------------------------------
Where the forest met the river, at the edge of the goblins' territory and facing that of the fairies, stood the makings of a new colony.
Five holly oaks had been cut down and shipped off to a lumber mill not too far away and most of their stumps had been dug out. To make room
The gravel path connecting the lumber mill and the route to the central crossroads had been branched off to allow for easier supply of building materials.
None of these things were explicitly ordered by the Promise.
As soon as the plans for the location had been made clear, work on it simply materialized.
The brood mothers of the outer regions were attempting to buy back some favor by sending over children to help out the efforts.
At Second's request, Constantine had spanned together a dog sled to bring him to the location.
"You're gonna live here?" He asked.
"Hhm." Second confirmed.
The two rarely spoke and there wasn't much rapport between them.
"There's nothing here!"
"There will be. We're going to build it."
"Good. Good." Youthere wrung his hands.
Without the explicit injunction of anybody back home he had given himself permission to hop on board the sled an come see the premises for himself.
"This will be an instrument of control," the demon smirked inhumanly broad. "I shall prove to my master that we can do more than control the wealth of these borderlands. If my voice can reach their ear, we can control their minds."
As he spoke his ambition he gestured upwards, envisioning an imposing tower with propaganda clad all over.
Second got angry. "No way. This will be a home for lost goblins. We're gonna make our own food and clothes and there's gonna be no humans here." He gestured wide, envisioning a circle of small huts around a central field for children to play.
Constantine was picking his nose. "Papa said it's not gonna be just goblins though. We're gonna keep watch, and Lacrima's helper will be there."
"Myself as well." Youthere added, "taking an interest in the neighbours."
"Yeah?" Constantine wondered.
"Why?" Second wanted to know.
But he just laughed.
-
They walked around the perimeter until they could see over the river into the opposing wood.
"The old goblins told us to never to go there," Constantine said, "because the monsters are too strong. Piers went in and a flower guy ate his fingers." He mimed Piers getting the pinky and upper half of his ring finger chomped using his right hand to be the mouth. "We haven't told Mama and Papa yet."
"Don't do that again." Second said.
"I know." Constantine responded a bit aggrieved. The lesson had been driven home, it didn't need repeating.
Second looked at him and then past him. "...Will we be able to take the dog sled back?"
At the place where they'd arrived the warg wolves had freed themselves from the harness and were chasing woodland critters and each other.
"Ah! Hey!" Constantine ran back to get them back in line.
The transportation only worked with the consent of the animals and most of them didn't have the patience to listen to human speech, he had to retrieve the barking horn to imitate their way of speaking.
As they watched Constantine get smaller Second and Youthere were alone together for the very first time since the demon had been summoned. As soon as he realized that Second attacked him.
He used both his hands to push against his chest. Just to cow him a bit.
However, the smile under Youthere's unseen eyes grew only into a wider grin. "Touchy touchy." He took the goblin's hands and caressed them sensually.
This made Second uncomfortable and he pulled them back. "Why does Scratch trust you more than me?"
Youthere moved in and put his hands around Second's waist. "Why indeed, does a simple incubus like myself have to offer? Want to find out?"
Second wriggled out of his embrace. He, who had approached him that aggressively, was now keeping his distance.
Youthere laughed. "I have seduced many to the path of evil and your brother is nothing new to me. They're one of the easier kinds of man, men like him."
Second pondered the words, he had not much experience with what kinds of people there were. To him everybody was either strong or weak and family or not family. Youthere was not family.
"Scratch is easy?" He asked, trying to goad more information out of the enemy.
"All men chase after their pride. Their pride and shame is derived from how closely they match the Hero they aspire to be. All men have heroes whether they know it or not. You do too."
Second turned his back to him.
"Do not deny it little goblin. Other subhumans worship the strength of their largest tribe member, they can not equal his strength in their lifetime, but reality is no object to dreams. You, however, do not aspire to strength. You have shown me as much."
Second began to walk away from him, back towards Constantine and the sled. "Do not talk to me anymore."
Youthere followed at a matched pace. "I know who you want to be. You want to be the one that creates, not destroys, the one that earns respect by helping his community. You want to be Scratch!"
"Not anymore!" Second abruptly stopped and turned around to stop him. But he moved right into his personal space again and grabbed his face with both hands.
"Yes, still!"
Second fell over and Youthere landed on top of him.
"The Hero you carry with you is the version of him you saw back then. But I know his real face."
"Argh, get off me." Second struggled against the demon's surprising strength as tears began to form in his eyes.
"Can you guess who Scratch's hero is?" The demon laughed. "Who do you think his hero would work with? His whiny little brother that sticks around just because they're family?" He pronounced that last word quasi pathetically in mockery of Second. "Or the ancient demon that promises him great power?"
Second punched him right onto his temple.
Dazed, the demon stumbled off him.
Not wasting this opportunity Second grabbed his throat and began to strangle him.
Youthere regain his composure with the goblin's hands still around his neck, and began to speak through it in a painful rasping voice. "A man like Scratch does not expect loyalty, he will work with any backstabber or crook. My master is a schemer that will make use of any temporarily aligned agenda."
He giggled girlishly.
Scratch trusts me because he thinks he knows what I *want*. As long as I am predictable to him he thinks he can control me. You, my friend, are quite the opposite. We would call it mercurial. Look at this, you're trying to kill me. Over what?"
Second let go of him. "What do you want?"
"The woman."
"But what do you really want?"
Youthere wet his lips. "I want Scratch to become the next demon king."
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Arcane Dust
Class: Mage
Value: 2 copper
A magical dust derived from mana sensitive plants. Due to its magical properties it emits light when coming into contact with magic and it is a vital component in the creation of spellpaper. By sprinkling arcane dust over looted items or dungeon floors adventurers can reveal hidden curses or magical traps. Arcane dust retrieved from bandits or spellcasting monsters can not be sold to guild affiliated shops due to possible contamination. However, these items are not illegal for a mage adventurer to keep and use.