Azarus squinted at Danara as she stepped into the shadows. Her Skills blended her into them, to the point of being invisible to mortal eyes. It was like she was stepping into a separate realm than the one Moka and Carwen occupied. The pair stared after her as she sauntered out of their line of sight. Looking unbothered, Danara tossed her blood red hair over one shoulder and strolled around the pair, daggers drawn. Her cloak looked lush and soft, the tear completely repaired.

Zagrus whined, nudging Azarus’s hand with his damp nose. The god turned to his hound, following his gaze to see the hooded hobgoblin arrive from the direction of Danara’s lair, five shadow goblins in tow. Azarus counted the odds as they stacked against his champion, wondering how her Luck played into the scenario. Reinforcements arriving, at the most inopportune time, seemed at odds with her gift. Azarus squinted at the screen, trying to see the strings of fate and chance binding the mortal world together. He channeled his domain into his eyes, focusing through his emerald flames.

Moka broke into a run. She was smart enough to know the ambush was coming, no matter how prepared she became. It was better to be closer to the exit. Carwen stumbled after her, dagger in hand. The hem of her skirt caught Azarus’s attention. A purple spark was eating at the fabric, growing in size. Like a floating ribbon, a line led from the spark to Moka. Azarus studied the line, uncertain if it was fate, causality, or something else. He spared a portion of his attention to monitor it, turning to seek the connection behind Moka’s Luck and the reinforcements.

Danara and the hobgoblin in the red velvet cloak joined forces for a moment, pressing their heads together as the shadow goblins huddled around. The [Warleader] reached up to stroke the hooded hob’s cheek with her [Troll Dusk Dagger]. After a quick exchange, they split, three shadow goblins following the hooded hob, the other two walking in step with Danara. The two groups seemed to occupy a realm of their own, traveling in a world of shadows.

The hooded hob moved to intercept Moka and Carwen, cutting off their retreat. Danara led her two minions into a pool of shadow deeper than the rest, pulling them beneath the surface like they were descending a staircase into a pond. Ripples spread through the pool of shadows as the two minions disappeared beneath the surface. The hooded goblin dramatically stepped into the light in front of Moka, exiting the shadow realm and bringing its minions with it. The ripples on the surface of the pool escalated with frantic intensity as something beneath the surface roiled.

Azarus saw lines stringing from the goblins to Moka like ribbons. They seemed fragile, as if they would snap if approached the wrong way. However, the lines did not stop at Moka. They entered her core, gathering in a knot to travel out of the crown of her head. The lines wove around each other in a circle, resting over Moka’s head like a halo. He found it curious. It was as though the lines were reaching for something beyond Moka, turning to rest on each other when they lost the scent.

Fiery wings, hewn in three colors, sprouted from the god’s back. With fluid motions that gave the illusion of moving slow, Azarus beat his wings toward the mirror. A wave of sparks lifted from his wings, pushed forward by the warm air he had scooped up. The tri-color sparks hit the Mirror of Eons like a dust cloud, breaking on its immovable surface. Above Moka’s head, the halo writhed. The sparks bounced off the mirror, dispersing. Azarus dismissed his wings, and the halo calmed.

Grunting, in the back of his throat, Azarus blinked, his eyes feeling strained. He looked at the strange halo over Moka’s head, then back to the goblins the lines stemmed from. It was unclear if the lines showed influence, benefit, or something else. At most, he could conclude they connected him to the unfolding events. But that was not new information. Moka represented him. She acted in his name.

The hooded hob ripped their cloak off their body with a twirl, revealing a tall, broad-shouldered brute of a goblin. His appearance forced Moka and Carwen to a grinding halt. The hobgoblin wore tight leathers under his cloak, daggers strapped to every available inch of his body with chunky belts. His face was a mass of scars, every inch having seen the kiss of a blade. A fresh line of blood trickled down his cheek. With a flourish, he snatched three daggers off his body with a single hand, throwing them into the ground, creating a line in front of Moka. His voice was hoarse and raspy, as if unused to being used. As he spoke, his hyoid bone bobbed in his throat, making it clear he had survived a slit throat more than once.

“Far enough, traitor.”

The hob had one good arm. He used to throw the daggers. The other inspired Azarus to use [Divine Insight] on him. His good arm was what Azarus expected from a hobgoblin, compact, green muscle with razor-sharp claws tipping his fingers. His other was a silently screaming, malformed dryad, its face stitched to where his shoulder should be. It had two pairs of arms, one set where its legs should have been. The larger, lower pain reached down to the hob’s knee. Gnarled wood moved with unnatural fluidity as the arm, four in one, squirmed with a life of its own. Azarus filtered [Divine Insight’s] information, browsing the hob’s abilities.

Class: [Mutated Shadowstalker]

Bloodline: [Grafted Hobgoblin]

Trait: [Borrowed Monstrosity]

Skills:

[Dagger Throw]

[Shadow Walk]

[Corrupted Body: Arm]

Spells:

[Bloodline Ignition: Monstrous Form]

[Corruption: Vinewood]

Azarus narrowed in on the [Mutated Shadowstalker] Bloodline, recognizing it as the source of the hob’s power. Next to him, Zag whined. The god released a breath he had not realized he was holding. Zag nudged his nose into Azarus’s hand until his palm was on the hound’s forehead. With a sound between a sigh and a laugh, the god rewarded his companion’s thoughtfulness with scratches. He was unsure if he was only noticing the prevalence of unlocked Bloodlines due to [Divine Insight], but he felt the screens were being heavy-handed in their urgings. First Carwen, then Danara. Now this hob. Without noticing, a sense of weak despair had crept up on him. If he spared the attention for the hob that grew to massive proportions, he bet that goblin would have an impressive Bloodline as well.

Gold flames flickered across Azarus’s skin like a purifying wave. He found the pervading sense of loss infecting his psyche, acknowledging it for what it was. A sense of helplessness over sacrificing a portion of his domain. It was useless, weighing him down over his future inevitable struggles. He purged the feeling in fire. If he needed [Bloodline], he wanted to know more. Stress and worry would not carry him to his goals.

[Grafted Hobgoblin]: An evolved goblin who has grasped at power beyond their station, fusing a dying [Dryad Core] to the stump of their arm. Fierce and partially mad, [Grafted Hobgoblins] grow in power as their mutation consumes them. Grants: enhanced gifts, Trait: [Borrowed Monstrosity], and Spell: [Bloodline Ignition: Monstrous Form]

[Borrowed Monstrosity]: See their strength, take it for yourself and twist it to your desires. Grants the Skill [Corrupted Body: Arm] and the Spell [Corruption: Vinewood].

The god sighed. Traits, Skills, and Spells. Useful, one and all. He suspected Traits could stack. [Scrappy] was the first of many for Moka, making her more powerful with each Achievement. Each loss would stack, as long as she tried hard enough.

Azarus glanced at his champion’s halo again, squinting his eyes and flexing his domain to see it. He took a blank spot on his note-taking canvas and jotted down a few ideas of what the lines could mean. Time seemed to stand still in the mirror as he wrote, his hand a blur. With Moka’s Traits in mind, he added a final thought before giving the conflict his full attention. Moka’s Excellent Luck could have drawn the reinforcements to provide the opportunity for an Achievement. Good fortune that would stretch beyond this life and into the foreseeable future.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Time seemed to snap into motion.

Moka stood tall, tearing the daggers out of her arm and throwing them in a crude line, mirroring the hob’s display. She slammed the butt of her staff into the ground, thrusting out her breastplate as if daring him to pierce it. Purple light flickered from around the corner behind her, the unimpeded [Faefire] continuing to grow. She growled beneath her breath, her lips twisting into a snarl. Spitting in front of her boots, she leveled a finger at the [Mutated Shadowstalker].

“You are the traitors, blinded by your own greed and depravity.” Sweat and soot stained Moka’s face, leaving tracks down her skin. She gestured the way they had come, barely chained anger prowling behind her eyes as she spoke through gritted teeth. “All this death, and for what? We came in peace. Asked you to move on. Nicely.”

Three transformed goblins crept out of the shadows. Two of them flanked Moka and Carwen. The third stood behind them, too far away to be an immediate danger, but close enough to catch them if they ran. The mutated hob had three daggers clenched in his good fist, the other arm writhing in Moka’s direction. His lips jolted and pulled, damaged muscles struggling to form an expression. Swiping his good arm in Moka’s direction, he let out a low hiss.

Out of Moka’s sight, in the depths of the shadows, Danara resurfaced. Two elongated figures crept after her, crawling on multi-jointed limbs. They had no facial features, boasting smooth, pale skin with jagged holes of white light for eyes.

The [Grafted Hobgoblin] stepped forward, drawing Moka’s eyes as her hand drifted to her last grenade. He pointed his daggers at her chest.

“We starve, stealing to survive. You kill us for this crime.”

Moka snorted, taking a step to match him. The flanking shadow goblins shuffled with her, weapons raised. Carwen glanced over her shoulder. Seeing the third goblin’s eyes on Moka, both she and her illusion took a small step backwards. When no one reacted, she took another, then more, until she slunk out of the encirclement. Moka caught her eye as she left, dipping her chin a fraction. Her ears twisted, following the sound of the elf’s footsteps. Carwen’s illusion treated her with a stunning smile, the sort reserved for winning an award. Moka coughed into her hand, hiding a smile as she palmed her last grenade and scraped her spark-creating glove off her wrist. Bundling the two items together, she tossed them underhand into the shadows, where she last heard Carwen. They vanished before they hit the ground. Looking up from her cough, she met her mutated peer’s yellow eyes. Extending one hand, she used her staff to point at the cloth walls they had left behind.

“No need to explain how stealing the clothes off of a peasant’s back fills your belly. I understand well enough.”

The hob snarled, his scarred face twisting like a rubber mask. His eyes flashed to the side as he fished for a response. Danara and her minions were still positioning themselves. Moka shifted her weight, going from flat-footed to charging forward in an instant. She caught the shadow goblins flanking her off guard, thrusting her spear towards the hob with [Triple Strike] before they could stop her.

He swung his good arm down from left to right, hurling three daggers at Moka. His other hand acted on its own, twisting in the opposite direction of his body. The dryad’s thick, stubby torso stretched, two pairs of grasping hands reaching to entangle Moka’s staff.

One dagger deflected off Moka’s staff, ricocheting to take a flanking goblin in the shoulder. The second clipped the lower edge of her breastplate, landing point-first and quivering in the ground. Moka hardly grunted as the third and final dagger buried itself a finger’s width into her thigh, sticking out like it had struck a tree trunk. She planted her weight on that leg, [Dead on My Feet] keeping it firm as she lashed out toward the hob’s oncoming arm.

Thorns met wooden flesh, the arms curling like vines to grab the haft of Moka’s [Ironthorn Staff]. It caught the thrust, wooden body flexing as the malformed dryad arm strained to push the [Explosives Expert] back. For a heartbeat, they had a stalemate. Then, two phantom blows tore holes through the arm’s bark-like skin, tripling Moka’s strength.

Overpowering the off-balance hob, Moka sent him stumbling backwards toward the exit, his arm leaking green sap from half a dozen holes. She pushed forward, claiming each inch the hob lost as she pressed her advantage. Raining down a fury of stabs at the hob, its mutated arm writhing to keep the blows from finding a mortal weakness, Moka advanced five paces before the shadow goblins reacted.

The flankers flung themselves at her, fearless blurs throwing strikes with wild abandon. Azarus’s champion accepted the initial flurry, letting their sharp daggers scrape across her armor and part her flesh. She raked her claws across one’s face, buying herself enough time to twirl her staff, driving the other away. There was a single moment of silence, lines of blood running down the goblin’s face. Its blank, white eyes quivered. Foam dripped from the corner of its lips. Moka left it whirling to finish the hob.

The moment the hob’s minions bought him a fraction of breathing space, his arm turned on him. One of its large hands grabbed his chin, squeezing his mouth open and tilting his head back. The small pair grabbed the side of his lips, pulling them wide open. Azarus grimaced as the final arm shoved itself elbow deep down the hob’s throat. He quietly crossed [Grafted Hobgoblin] off a list of potential Bloodlines for Moka. The arm kept burrowing into the hob’s mouth, his limbs thrashing. Within seconds, he looked like he was being puppeted by a hundred vines, running beneath his skin like worms.

The transformed hob stood. Its joints stretched, detached and supported by vines. Vines flexing beneath its skin, it towered nearly twice Moka’s height. Unhinging its jaw, the [Mutated Shadowstalker] opened its mouth to roar. Vines stretched between jagged teeth, whipping the air in front of it. No sound emerged from its mouth, except for the meaty impact of vines hitting each other. The hob’s eyes glowed a sickly yellow. It dug toes like clawed tendrils into the ground, sending out a pulse of light that sank into the woven vines.

Moka charged the [Grafted Hobgoblin], unphased by the turn of events. The shadow goblin with a dagger in its shoulder staggered away from her, the other drooling foam as it stared into the middle ground. She swung her staff by the claw-end, using it like a long mace to hit the hob in the side of the knee.

A wall of sickly vines ripped free from the ground, rising like a wave to block Moka’s swing. The hob thrust a hand, a dozen vines shooting toward Moka like a flight of javelins. Danara’s laughter echoed through the shadows. Moka smacked a handful of vines away before they could reach her. The rest twisted mid-flight, bundling together to shoot for her neck.

Azarus watched his champion struggle against the noose around her throat, clawing at the bundled vines as they lifted her heels off the ground. Vines pressed at her lips and crawled toward her eyes and nostrils. Black and green liquid stained her fingertips.

Danara and her minions were poised, ready to strike. They circled Moka and the transformed hob like sharks, swimming through the shadows, waiting for their opportunity. The [Raid Warleader] gnashed her teeth, scraping the blade of one of her daggers along her cheek. She only had eyes for Moka, ignoring any trace of her elf companion. Taking a half-step toward Moka, daggers raised, Danara hesitated as she noticed the transformed hob falter. The vines in its mouth recoiled, as though it was gagging.

Carwen stood behind the transformed hob, out of Moka’s line of sight. Her illusion stood next to her. They carried a clay orb and a dagger, respectively. She chewed her lip, weighing the object in her hand as she watched the fight through glimpses. A smouldering ember on her skirt came to life. The small violet flame, the size of a pinprick, burned upwards, leaving untouched silks in its wake. A thin tendril of smoke rose from it, stretching into a light haze that unerringly sought Carwen’s face. Sweat beaded the [Village Beauty’s] brow, her gaze fading in and out of focus.

Azarus sat with his back against his tree, squinting his eyes to follow the lines as he watched the events play out. His focus lingered on the goblin with the foaming mouth and the transformed hob. Their lines were stained purple, one dark as night, the other a lighter hue. It was a notable change. They were colorless before. He ruffled Zag’s ears, watching the goblin with the dark purple line. It snapped and snarled at the shadows.

Hands of shadow, soft like a lover’s caress, gripped the [Grafted Hobgoblin’s] ankles. They crawled from the shadows, climbing up his legs, and tinting his line black. His eyes rolled in his head, flashes of white and yellow peeking beneath hooded eyelids.

The injured shadow goblin reset itself, yanking the dagger out of its shoulder. Threads of shadows oozed over the wound, staunching the bleeding. It gripped its dagger, baring over-sized fangs at Moka.

The foaming goblin with the purple line, the shadows on its skin fleeing the claw marks on its face, dropped to all fours. It beat its chest with a heavy fist, its ribcage audibly cracking. Everyone within range slowed, their attention drawn by the sound. Moka’s eyes flickered. With a scream, the goblin reared back on their knees, ripping their chest open with both hands. Purple fire poured out of their chest cavity, turning the goblin into a blackened and burning skeleton in an instant.

For a heartbeat, there was only silence, broken by the distant birdsongs echoing through the exit. Then, the burning skeleton lunged for one of Danara’s minions, and many things happened at once. In Azarus’s vision, the ethereal lines pulled tight.