Chapter 01 - Ednarite

Edna first heard Warfrost chittering downstairs. The cat hissed loudly, fully waking her from a good sleep. It made her crawl out of bed faster than normal.

It was dark in the upstairs loft.

Looking through her open window, small cracks of lightning randomly highlighted clouds. Tiny shadows moved unusual on the streets, and she knew they were not human.

Inside, the lightning flashes popped across her room. She looked to the sporting lancet on the wall, untouched in years, to a built in bookcase, and then to the framed stairwell leading down to her intruders.

So many noises hit her old ears all at once, and she was no longer accustomed to sudden acts of chaos; not like her adventuring days.

Dirty little bare feet shuffled downstairs. They quietly skittered along the floor. Squeaky hushed voices said something. At least two goblins lock-picked their way into her home, and Warfrost had sounded the alarm.

The cat screeched a futile fight against them, hissing and clawing. The goblins struggled, gasping each time Warfrost was able to get a claw or tooth into one of them.

After one particularly loud meow, the old orange cat wheezed out a lasting threat. It sounded like he was scuffed by the back of his neck.

She listened from the top of her stairs, hesitant to make a move. Decades had gone by since she’d been in a fight, and she’d forgotten what to do. Like Warfrost, honed killer senses from years past had dulled, both of them knowing their glory days had long since vanished.

Jumping quickly into frantic situations was a skill she hadn’t needed to use in years. They were supposed to be enjoying the safety and comfort of retirement together; not fighting off thieving little goblins.

Old age had slowed them, and a peaceful existence in Danvers had given each an unassuming quiet life.

The cat’s cries muted behind a thick fabric material, rustling in vain. Drawstrings tightened. Two goblins whined at one another. The bag was thrown over a shoulder, and tiny footsteps plop plopped towards her front door. A smell of sewage wafted by her nostrils.

She had to quickly do something about this, instead of standing there. Hiding at the top of her stairs as old Warfrost was catnapped by goblins wasn’t right. The cat deserved better than being taken away in a bag.

She could do better. She had to do better. Soreness and fog-of-mind be damned, she had to come up with a plan that would actually work.

The thin blade beside her on the wall was fitting enough. Grabbing the lancet, she could rush down the stairs and dispatch the nearest one before the other scurried away. Then what? Goblins were fast. She doubted her old legs could catch up with the one stealing her cat. She was no longer in her prime, and she hadn’t so much as jogged in years.

Scratch that idea. It wouldn’t get the job done, because she was too old to get within throwing range of that goblin by chasing it.

Thirty years earlier she might have jumped from her window, slid down her pitched roof, and landed deftly on the cobblestone street, preventing the goblins from making an escape in the first place. Their flat little heads would have been removed from their nasty squat bodies in a matter of seconds.

That wouldn’t work in her seventies. Time had been cruel in some ways, and she’d been beaten and bruised by thousands of monsters and enemies when she was a younger, more adventurous woman. She could feel what all those difficult quests had done to her, and a long quiet life of retirement had almost made her forget.

She just wanted a quiet life with her cat, her garden, and the occasional visit from her children and grandchildren. Why did some pesky little goblins have to meddle with that?

And of all the shiny things to steal, why had some stupid goblin plucked away her orange cat? Did it mean to eat poor Warfrost, or had The Betrayers found him?

Her eyes darted to a row of books. She reached to a thick tome and plucked it quickly from the shelf, dust wafting into the air. There was no time to complain about her own lack of recent chores. She opened the false binding to reveal a hollowed compartment. Inside was a silver, six-pointed shuriken. A very long time had passed since she’d used the magical weapon.

All twelve of the thin edges along six tips glistened as lightning flashed a silhouette of her tall, slender frame against the wall. Still dressed in her nightgown, she had no time to fetch a glove. A thousand memories of enemies slain by the simple thing flooded through her, but there was also no time to dwell on them.

Warfrost needed her immediate attention.

She grabbed the modest shuriken with her left hand, a dozen ancient scars visible across her open palm as she held it. They’d been there ever since she’d first learned to use the magical weapon.

Taking gentle footsteps back to the window, she looked out at the cobblestone street below. Danvers was quiet. It wouldn’t be for long. A big weather system was brewing, and the local goblin grotto knew it, striking just before the rain fell. She’d seen the strategy before, long ago.

No one liked hunting in the middle of a thunderstorm. Retaliation from townsfolk might be slower than normal, or non-existent once a day or two had passed and people calmed. Goblins were smart buggers like that, sometimes.

Clanging noises from the kitchen popped loud in her ears. Utensil drawers were pulled from cabinets and anything shiny in them pilfered. She ignored that goblin downstairs. It was the cat thief that concerned her. Targeting it from her window as it made an escape was her best option.

Multiple rows of thin two and three story cottages lined the garden-packed street. Candlelight flickered to life through multiple windows as citizens awakened to widespread thievery inside their homes. A dozen shadowy little figures vanished into and out of dark alleyways, some with empty bags, and others with bags packed full.

Stone walls encircled the small town, with only three points of entry and exit. There was little doubt in her mind the goblins had utilized underground waste drainage. She’d been to many goblin grottos before, and they weren’t nearly as repugnant and uncivilized as many humans made them out to be. That fetid smell made sense if the creatures had crawled through human sewage to sneak in and out of Danvers.

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The only one she looked for appeared just below. A dark green creature scurried from her front door and onto the cobblestone path. A canvas bag was slung over one shoulder, her cat squirming a terrible fright within.

She readied the throwing weapon, prepared to put it straight through the thing’s head.

A shriek startled behind her. She turned to see a little goblin frightened by her tall stature. How had she not heard it coming up the stairs? It didn’t matter. The thing had no weapon, and was more terrified of finding her than anything.

Her eyes returned to the street. Too late. The cat-napper scuttled away, vanishing into the shadows of an alleyway. The goblin with Warfrost in a bag disappeared before she could visualize the weapon’s flight path slicing through it’s green body, and before she could let loose the weapon.

“Damn,” she cursed, feeling older and slower than she’d ever imagined being. She never would have made mistakes like this in her prime.

The goblin in her loft turned away, hurriedly trying to plop plop its nasty feet down to safety. She couldn’t let that happen. At least one of them had to die for what they’d done, and she was suddenly angry.

She needed a good shuriken refresher, suddenly realizing in that split second that this meant she was officially out of retirement. A trip to Keggma’s Grotto wouldn’t be easy at her age, but she would track down and kill every single goblin if that was what it took to save Warfrost.

She turned, eyes narrowed, left foot planted forward, and smoothly let loose the thin weapon. It flew through the air at her envisioned trajectory, leaving a yellowish trail as it curved abruptly down the stairwell. She lifted her left hand up next to her head, not turning. In the blink of an eye, the shuriken shot through the goblin, her open front doorway, and then curved up through her window to cut harshly into her left hand.

Wincing at the pain of having snatched the spinning blade, she let out a hard breath and slumped her shoulders. Blood dripped lightly from her clenched hand. It had taken her nearly a decade to master the perfect catch. That was half a century ago, and she’d lost some of that perfect attunement with the blade. She hadn’t so much as touched the ancient weapon in years, let alone thrown it for practice.

The goblin downstairs was dead. There was no need to hurriedly check. A thin gash was cut clean by the shuriken, right through the middle of its head. Viscous blood likely poured out all over one of her nice rugs.

She turned back to her window. Other townsfolk were getting wise to the goblin attack. Their lighted windows and doorways opened, people stunned and staggering outside as the church bell rang in warning.

The creatures had scurried away into darkness. People littered the streets, each complaining of their loss. She felt their pain, but what did their replaceable shiny objects compare to her cat?

Poor little Warfrost was trapped in a bag on the back of a pathetic little goblin. He would likely get dragged through sewage, out into the swamps west of Danvers, and then finally down into Keggma’s Grotto. Would he even survive the journey? The trip took a while for most, but goblins could scurry their way in less than two full days.

There was nothing she could do about it in that moment. This was painfully obvious to her, and the sheer magnitude of his cat-napping hadn’t yet set in.

He was an ordinary orange housecat to all in Danvers who knew her, but he hadn’t always been that way. He was descended of a once noble breed, larger even than tigers. Betrayed, they were hunted into exile, and then extinction.

She’d seen him in regal armor, shredding enemies to pieces with giant teeth and dagger-sized claws at the Last Battle of Ramorai. His kind had mostly died there, being hunted one by one in the aftermath. He’d saved her several times during their long journey across The Ended Wastefields, fleeing The Betrayers.

Their epic adventures together over the course of many decades had formed a bond almost no one knew of and few could ever understand.

How could she let a pathetic little goblin stuff him into a bag?

It wasn’t right, and it was her fault. He was too small, too helpless. She’d let a descendent of Thoga Ramorai, highest bounty of The Betrayers, wither away to tameness in her cottage as nothing more than a pet in some fairytale retirement. She’d been selfish, even if he’d long ago agreed to stick by her side in hiding.

This was a bitter hard consequence from her past that now hit hardest of them all.

Her eyes watered, fearful the little old cat might not survive a random goblin theft. He didn’t deserve this. He just didn’t. She’d married, had two children, lost her husband, and been blessed with many grandkids, all in the decades since they’d retired from being heroes and running from The Betrayers.

Warfrost had willingly chosen to become a loyal housecat, hiding from evils that still sought to eradicate his kind from the face of the world. He would never know the joys of grandchildren. He was the last.

She’d promised to protect him for the rest of his life. She’d told him that everything was going to be okay. She’d made good on that for nearly three decades, but old age had crept upon them and slowed her abilities.

She’d failed.

There was only one course of action. The magical shuriken in her bloody left hand was the weapon, given to her by a mentor long gone. She would honor their training and once again use it to destroy evil.

There was only one place. The goblin pit known as Keggma’s Grotto was a known source of recent attacks. Local authorities had done nothing about it, and few adventurers wandered this far south just to deal with goblins. Choosing peace and relaxation, she’d quietly sat back all these years as the problem grew worse.

No more. The gathering townsfolk outside would soon know who she really was.

Lightning flashed a silhouette of her tall, thin frame against the wall. She was old, and she was only getting older. Thunder cracked a split second later as the storm grew near. It would soon start raining, but that didn’t worry her. The fear of being a failure now that she’d aged concerned her far more than some rainfall.

Still, she’d already decided there was no other option. It was her responsibility to protect the cat.

First, she would rescue Warfrost from Keggma’s Grotto, where he’d undoubtedly been taken. Others could join her if they wished, but she would go it alone if necessary. She didn’t care how many goblins she had to kill.

Second, she would encourage the cat to restore himself to full power, so that something like this could never happen again.

Turning from the window, she went to the bookcase. Her full bedroom was still shrouded in the darkness of night. A secret latch behind the third shelf unlocked with a gentle touch, and the full wooden wall of shelves slid to one side. Behind it was a thin closet, lined with hidden artifacts and gear.

There was no need for light here. She knew exactly what to get. A small, latched box rested in the center of a cat bed on the floor. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she remembered Warfrost sometimes sleeping there, curled up next to the box. In the years after his transformation, it had been one of his favorite napping places.

She lifted the little crate, it fitting easily in her right hand. With the latch open, a bright orange light poured out from within. Once her eyes had adjusted, and also illuminated her old life lining the shelves of that hidden space, she saw the small object sitting inside the box. She knew it to be Warfrost’s true soul, imbued to the glowing crystal.

Years had passed since the cat wanted to sleep next to it, and sometimes she wondered if he’d completely forgotten his old self. On several occasions, before her children had been born, she’d opened the box for him to look upon. He did, often for hours at a time. All he had to do was wish for such a thing within sight of it, and his soul would return.

Never once had he done this, having each time apparently choosing to remain a small, tame housecat. That had been all the evidence she needed that they had made the right decision.

Unable to fully speak to one another since his transformation all that time ago, she had no idea what he truly thought. Was he happy? Sad? Content? Lonely? Had time faded his memory to the point he no longer even knew? She could not confidently say, and now she might never know.

Tears flowed freely then, and guilt weighed heavy upon her. Had Warfrost’s life debt to her deprived himself of a better one? Had this little two story cottage in the quiet town of Danvers become a self-imposed prison for one of the greatest beings that ever existed?

Had they made the wrong choice?

At seventy-three years of age, she would need to fight her way through a gob of goblins to find out.