It was an awkward situations for the nobles to have to beg peasants for food, and not all of them could do it with their head held high. Several fell into an authoritarian tone in order to preserve their sense of control, and they had to be reeled back in by their knights.
And while they were spending their time negotiating with farmers, goblin troops were mobilizing.
By the time Derrek Emberton had the opportunity to officially start his foray into the warrens, there was a mess of traps and warg skirmishers waiting for him.
"Forward you damn near peasants!" He shouted at his retinue. "If we lose them again I swear I'll-"
"Cut it out!" One of the knights broke protocol to call out the lordling directly. "Rochast has a broken leg. Half the group is separated and disoriented. We don't need any more glory hounding from you. A real commander would know when to admit defeat and divert his energy to regrouping."
Emberton bit his thumb in frustration. "We're over the worst part now. Once we get rid of the stragglers we can clear the nest and-"
"Even IF we were in any state to chase down warg riders, we can't siege the nest like this."
"What-"
"Warrens nests are fortresses your lordship! They're not just the place to find the most monsters to kill they're vital strategic targets. We can not leave the nest to goblin power if we want to clear the area of danger, but we can not take it as we are now. We *need* to regroup."
The knight had spoken out of turn and fully expected a tantrum or chewing out from the young noble.
But Emberton furrowed his brow and nodded. "Fine then. We'll regroup. I'd just hate to know Rubelina Corintha is ahead of me and breaching the inner warrens."
----------------------------------------
Rubelina was ahead of him, but hardly breaching the perimeter wall that separated the favored from the unfavored colonies.
Instead, she and her retinue had fled from a swarm of dragon bats in what looked like an abandoned overgrown tower.
"By the size of this Ivy, this place must have been left to the dead long before the Brood Knight set up shop here." Said the guild staff member, the halfling mage that had led them there.
"No," the lordling said, "this stone is new. It looks like the estate manors that weren't build until last year."
"How can- There."
The elven archer had already seen movement when she pointed and loosened an arrow, skewering a goblin.
She stretched her neck to inspect the thin pockmarked wretch from so far away. "A feral thing. No herald of evil."
"Why are we still fighting feral goblins if we're so far into the territory?" A knight asked the mage.
"I don't know! You think I have a summer home here? I'm going off of the map just like all of y-"
"Shh!" Corintha summoned her sword.
The vines and leaves were moving. Dragging over the stone until they snagged on one thing or another and were pulled taught.
The task force took a few steps back as cracks formed in the young brick and an entire section of building was dragged away from them.
"The wrath of the fey!" The elf exclaimed. "That is what made ruins of this place. Why the servants of evil hath abandoned it. Your ladyship, we must flee!"
"Flee? Hark! Are we not here to brave danger?" The lordling swiped her longsword at the grasping vines still underneath them. "Men! Take position!"
As the group took on their formation new plant matter crept towards them. This time they were coursing past the cold stone and towards the hot skin.
Teethed flytraps were budding from the vines and snapping at the soldiers.
They were able to fight off the many branches, until the earth shook and an enormous honeycombed sack of fluid appeared in the open up hole.
The plant pod was an uneven organic bulb with many warped holes like a lotus seed pod. A buzzing came from within as countless glowing fey insects emerged to attack them.
"Cover me!" Said the mage, "I'll cast a fire spell."
The bees seemed to recognize her aim, because they flew directly at her.
The knights jumped in to protect the spell, and to great personal sacrifice, because the vines tore into them and the bees were not easily slain either.
But not for nothing, as circles of magical energy appeared soon after and the mage chanted her spell. "Rhada's Barrage!"
A rain of fire pelted the roots and pods, and the enormous sack of holes puled back. But the spell that had destroyed the entire bandit camp a year and a half ago was not enough to kill it.
"After it! Time for the finishing blow!" Corintha yelled and jumped out of the tower.
"Your ladyship, no!"
"It's vulnerable now. Just one more big attack, like a landsli-"
She had her sword lifted into the air, but the ground would not follow. What earth she raised was strained against countless fey roots holding it down.
"Ah! My special attack!"
She was annoyed at the counter, but was quickly distracted by a wet thud onto the ground next to her.
The headless body of the elven archer lay lifeless on the ground.
"W-what?"
This was the first time the woman had seen a person die. Just moments before she had spoken with the archer, and now she was an unthinking object.
The summoned weapon slipped loose in her grasp and her stomach churned.
The retinue she had left behind was not yet free of the onslaught of vines and thorns trying to ensnare them. They hadn't left with the giant pod.
"I'm out of mana!" The halfling yelled.
"There's no end to them!" The knight she had taken clothes from said. Not in a panic but in a frozen mortal terror.
"If I can just kill the head..." the lordling said, negotiating with nobody. But her landslide attack had been blocked, catching up and taking apart the seed pod would take time.
She grit her teeth and returned to the retinue. "I'll cover your exit. We're fleeing!"
And so their advance was blocked and they retreated from the area.
----------------------------------------
The movements of the disparate squads were closely monitored by the goblin forces, who employed wolven scouts that navigated the uneven forest ground with unmatched speed.
The second month of Scratch's wager with the demon had started. If in two months the demons hadn't won, he had promised to consider
Youthere's darker methods. It all depended on whether his monetary control of Eston could really stop the fortress as he had claimed.
Because of all this, Scratch was there himself at the edge of the perimeter to confront an approaching lordling.
"Do you want to be here? You always say the colonies are for you to hide behind." Will asked.
"For all of us, but *you're* here."
"...yeah."
The whole family was there, on top of the gatehouse. The hobgoblins had a natural disregard for danger, and their mother's beliefs on chivalry weren't helping.
There already was a small army of armored goblin infantry stationed at each gate, but they were there to bolster this one with pluck and magic.
"Besides, I have an assignment from the old lady." Scratch dangled the tiny set of jawbones in front of his son.
"Wow! ... How does it work?"
"It's magic."
"I see."
"I've got to nick someone with it, that's all."
"But then you have to get close."
The father nodded, "we'll have to capture someone alive."
"Hrm..." Jasper croaked unhappily behind them.
"Yes? Is there a problem?"
"The wolves should have come back by now... to tell us how long until..."
"The scouts haven't returned? Scratch stood on his tippy toes to look over the balustrade, that's a bad sig-"
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
-
A horizontal slash of air flew through the forest, shearing the trees of their top half and then colliding with the equally wooden perimeter gate.
They were all weightless for a second, in free fall and completely disoriented.
Then the ground hit them, alongside an industrial amount of splintered wood clattering down.
The ground was painted by a sudden splash of blood, and the best protected goblins, in their steel armor, were the most hurt from the fall.
The hobgoblins pushed the debris off them and immediately went to work healing themselves and others.
Before they had really regrouped and reoriented, the enemy that had fired the attack stepped into view.
"Nyahaha! I knew those stiffs were slowing me down. I already have my first quarry! You're Papa Scratch, come on then, fight me! Rawr!"
Scratch had been the first to receive healing. He uprighted himself when his family was still in disarray.
"That giant scythe, you can do that whenever?" He asked her, already wrapping the chain of the wolf amulet around the palm of his hand.
"Hrm? I have to do a chant, and there's a mana cost."
"Good." He stepped out in front of the debris and splayed himself out like Bruce Lee. "Let's do the honorable thing and make it a one-on-one."
The next thing he knew her claw-like nails were a hair breadth away from his face.
"No. Papa!" Ada yelled from behind.
-
Blood splattered in the air, but the woman broke her momentum by suddenly twisting her body and rolling out of his range. "Meow! I'm not stupid ya know. I can guess that thing on your hand's cursed. What is it? Instant death? Does it turn me to stone?"
Scratch's face had been cut open, such that his teeth were visible from the outside. "You know, you don't talk like a lady."
"Eh," she rushed at him again. His martial technique could usually compensated for his lower speed, but she was expertly trained as well. And changed direction last second to account for his dodging, digging her nails between his ribs. Then she created distance again.
He sunk to one knee.
It was clear that she could have done worse if she weren't so cautious of his amulet. "I was raised on the streets. My father had rejected me, but he had to recognize me as his daughter when I showed my power!"
She emphasized the last word with another mad dash forward, forcing him back on his feet and down on the ground again in a desperate dodge roll.
"Is that why you're here? To show him your power?" He grunted through his pained breathing.
He was trying to stall time with conversation, but she didn't seem to have any issue talking and fighting at the same time.
"Nah, that castle was stifling me. Mweh! What I like is the chase!"
"Heh, like a cat."
"Oh? Do I seem cat-like to you?" She put a clawed finger to her lip and put on a ditzy expression.
The little pause and gesture was all the opening he could hope for and he scrambled to his feet trying to run away.
But she kicked him in the back and forced him onto the ground. "Very disappointing, nyah! I thought the leader would be stronger."
"Finally..." he gasped.
"Finally what?"
"Finally I got you standing still."
A gleaming steel gauntlet half her weight flew into her. The troll daughter throwing a punch with all she had.
The colliding bodies moved six feet, but the cat girl kept to her feet, sliding along on the ground on her claws. "I knew you'd try to cheat. Good. It wouldn't be a fair fight otherwise. Meow!" Her hand was on the gauntlet, blocking and grasping it tight.
It cracked.
The girl hugged the troll's arm and threw her aside.
Bree mewled as she nearly broke her back against the stem of a freshly trimmed spruce.
"No, Bree!" Ada yelled.
-
By now the hobgoblins had more or less recovered, and had taken up position in front of their father, while the armored goblins were taking up formation behind.
Jasper was already healing him, and Ada had her whip sprawled out on the ground, ready to punish the enemy if she got into her range.
However, the cat girl closed the distance before she even had time to react. A sudden burst of movement launched her between the hobgoblins and right at arm's length from the father again.
He jumped and stretched out his arm with the amulet again, making her dodge and cancel the attack once more.
"That pendant..." she hissed, as the hobgoblins shuffled between her and their father again. "What does it do!?" She asked him. "In the civilized world, we explain what our gimmick is to our opponent if we have one."
"You first then." Scratch spat. "You're using magic to move that fast, aren't you?"
"Meow! I've got an affinity for wind magic! It's a haste spell."
He glanced over his shoulder, horns were being blown to alert defenders of other gates. "I thought I recognized it. I have a friend that can move like that."
"I don't think so. Not like me. Now tell me about your magic weapon."
"This thing?" He unspooled it from his hand. Happy to finally keep her occupied. "It turns people into wolves."
"Wolves?"
He had already seen her coming so he whistled as if giving a command and Wendy the windwolf jumped off of the wall in front of the hobgoblins.
The cat girl tried to line up for another sudden launch forward, but the windwolf matched her speed and prevented her from easily giving herself a tactical advantage.
Eventually she resolved by attacking the wolf directly. After a feint she managed to kick her in the chest and send her flying with a pained yelp.
"No, Wendy!" Ada yelled.
"Uhm, Ada, we got it by now." Jasper whispered.
-
The hobgoblins were now speaking from behind the walls of a turtle formation.
The heavy infantry had surrounded them and blocked them.
"I'm getting bored of this. Just die." The cat girl sighed and lashed towards them.
However, her nails bounced off the rusted armor. "What?"
She tried kicking them over, but with their shields locked together the strength of the goblins was more than the sum of their parts.
And now she was in range of the hobgoblins' melee weapons, which poked between the shields and drew blood.
"It's not fair, you said you would duel me one-on-one."
"That's because I needed to buy time for my kids to do this," Scratch's voice sounded from somewhere deep inside the turtle. "You've got a lot to learn about being a leader if you'd ditch your unit like that. I'm not here because I thought they were gonna send, like, the strongest guy ever. I'm here because I expected a war band. I have it on good authority a single person can't break through a shield wall, and if they did they'd just get themselves surrounded."
"Shut up. There's only, like twenty goblins here. A baroness can slay twenty goblins." She had now lost all cat-like affectations. "I just need a big attack."
She took a few steps backwards and began to cast a spell.
Crossbows were readied to interrupt her.
"Dower's... swo- Ah!"
It wasn't crossbows, but the kicked windwolf that had bitten into her arm to stop the attack.
"Bitch!" The cat girl slashed at her with her other arm and ripped open her throat. "I hate dogs!"
"Hey!" Scratch belted out. "Do you have enough mana for another spell? Because if you're left without mana after your big attack, you're not getting away, I'm turning you into a wolf."
Reinforcements were already gathering at the destroyed gate, goblins on warg wolves, bandits, and even some armored goblins had followed after Wendy.
"Tch." The cat girl began to walk backwards into the forest and then ran away.
-
"Is Bree okay?" Ada asked.
They retrieved her from the ditch she had been thrown in.
She was in serious pain, and Jasper didn't have any mana left to heal her, which he kept explaining over and over again.
"I think that's the strongest opponent we fought without anyone dying." Felix said proudly.
"What about the Ravenous Lich?" Ada asked.
"Does that count as a fight?"
"It felt like a fight to me."
"Somebody is dying." Will said indignantly.
Scratch was cradling Wendy as well and good as he could with his little arms. "Will you be okay, old girl?"
He had come to understand the warg wolf language well enough to understand her garbled response. "*I am now on the verge of the great beyond, my friend. I have lived well beyond my years and at the end of my life I am left with no regrets. I only wish I could see for myself the great fruit of our labour, when finally our kingdom spans these lands between the works of man.*"
He brought his mouth to her ear. "I can grant that ambition. Instead of death I can give you eternal life, will you let me?"
She closed her eyes. "Make it so."
From inside his sleeve Scratch retrieved the snake-like sacrificial dagger.
"What are you doing?" Will whispered in shock as he sunk the weapon into the beast's chest.
----------------------------------------
"Good heavens, look at this mess!"
Alpheba had just been carrying a plate of ceramic tea cups when her eyes rolled back into her skull and she breathed in greedily to absorb another soul.
"I am terribly sorry about my *silly* apprentice. She is but an orphan I picked up from the street, you see?" She told her guests as she pushed the girl out of the house and began to clean up the shards.
"Did that child just consume a damned soul?" The woman asked.
"Oh... haha. You can tell..."
"One does not become proficient in the workings of dark sorcery picking up on such things." Her twin brother said, "especially when it concerns simple magic."
"Well, deary, these are just the little tasks I occupy the goblins with while we discuss the true future of this camp."
"We can no longer speak of a bandit camp," the sister said, "this is a dungeon."
"Of course, of course," the witch presented them with new, pristine cups.
"For you to regain the Liege's favor, the dungeon must be brought under our control."
"Well..." she wiped the front of her dress before she sat down, "the Liege knows my loyalties haven't changed."
"Indeed, that's what concerns him."
The brother leaned in to speak. "You will still be allowed to worship your goddess, but you must answer to our lord. Then all the treasures above the ground will be yours."
She gave a broad thin-lipped smile, "we've discussed the terms of my defection before."
"It bears repeating."
"Please, drink your tea."
The twins looked at the cups, then each other, and resolutely put them aside.
"When the war party returns," the sister said, "you must strike down the head. Do you understand? It's the goblin, Scratch, that needs to be destroyed. Those are the terms of our agreement."
"Once Scratch is destroyed, the money lenders will lose their power," the brother explained, "the city will return to our control. We will orchestrate for our favored candidate to receive the barony, and the existence of the dungeon will be covered up. But you must play your part for that to happen."
The witch didn't look them in the eyes. "You've learned your lesson regarding unknown liquids, haven't you?"
"What did you say?"
"Not that I'd resort to poisoning you. A witch has more powerful tools at her disposal!"
The sorcerers jumped to their feet, throwing the seats back.
"I'd be allowed to worship my goddess? My, how generous of you!" She roared.
"You're making a big mistake!" The sister yelled, not quite sure what they were being threatened with yet.
"For years that larvate master of yours has disrespected our guild. Become his underling? I am ashamed that I ever considered it."
"Why isn't my magic..." The twins balled their fists trying to summon mana, but they were powerless.
Lacrima smiled. "Not the tea is poisoned, but the air, 'simple magic' from the moon goddess. It's a curse, and curses consume the target's own magic to complete."
They tried to charge at her, but their feet were stuck to the floor. "What have you done?"
"My much neglected job as a witch. Or had you forgotten dark sorcery is an anathema to the goddess?"
The petrification had progressed up to their waists. "You won't... serve your goddess by... ugh," the sister struggled, "throwing away your only path to the Fairy Queen."
"That is how you've survived until now. But the goblins have provided a better path, one more pleasing to the goddess. Believe me, I take *great pleasure* in finally ridding myself of you."
"Damn... you..."
"Oh Alpheba!" The witch called her apprentice back in, just in time to see the panicked faces of the sorcerers twitch and turn to stone. "Make sure these things end up on the bottom of the sea, will you? Somewhere the curse won't be dispelled."
"But I can't carr-"
"Make. Sure of it."
"Yes master."
"Good. I will be observing the battle, since I seem to have wagered my life's work on one side winning."
With those words, Lacrima took on her owl form and flew out of the underground hut, leaving her apprentice to clean up a difficult mess.
-
But before she could spread her wings over the skies of the forest, the owl was cast in the shadow of a flying beast.
A formidable dragon circled above the Promise, with a rider on its back. A noble dressed in shining armor.
----------------------------------------
Poison Ent
Family: Plants
Threat Level: C
Reward: 50 gold
The avenger of the forest. Poison ents attack cities and fortresses near forests. Their target is the wood and stone of the settlement, not its people, but it will become enraged when attacked. Settlements that have been attacked by a Poison Ent will have the appearance of being overgrown and ancient.
Recognize the Poison Ent by its bulbous seed pods and chomping vines. Fully grown it stands the height of a castle.
When among civilians, adventurers should allow the population to evacuate before enraging the Poison Ent, so that it will not target them. Remember that you can be held responsible for unnecessary deaths during monster suppression.
The Poison Ent is vulnerable to fire and poison, it will attack from multiple directions using its chomping vines, so area of effect damage is advised.
The seeds of the Poison Ent are used to attract Earth Dragons, and can be sold for 7 silver each at the Guild House.