I woke up to my soul lantern reflecting the morning light, it bathed the inside of the tent in a mesmerising ethereal green colour. My leg twitched causing me to kick the staff which smacked me in the face. I rubbed my head and sat up, Harold setting up the portable magic stove and brewing the morning drinks, Raven chatted with him quietly just outside of the tent. I heard Clair’s soft snores indicating that she was still sleeping, Taylor had just come out from behind the privacy screen. I nodded to them as they passed and I got up as well, I threw on some clean clothes, grabbed my back and headed out of the tent.

"So we should reach the river by sunset tonight." Harold said as I joined them. "With the way things are going there shouldn't be much threat following in the hordes' retreat." Raven nodded in agreement, "There might be the occasional goblin pack but short of a second horde we should be able to take them."

Breakfast was honey sweetened oats which had become our standard morning meal since the goblin invasion started. We took down the camp and everything went into the bag of holding, including the wooden platform Harold had made as well as some spare bits of wood that he hadn’t used. I was worried that our party was going to turn into a bunch of hoarders now we had access to weightless storage. With the camp stowed, I did the morning dance with the four-legged devil called my horse, before we headed out.

I have to say, long rides sucked. They were fun for the first 20 minutes with the wind in your hair and the sense of freedom and boundless adventuring possibilities, but then you realise it's just a lot of wind, not being able to hear properly and the risk of swallowing a bug if you talk. There wasn't much I could do while I was riding either, the jolts would cause my hand to slip if I was carving, any movement based skills were out as I needed to stay on the horse. Magic was right out as it would spook the beast I was riding and I didn’t trust it not to buck me off the second I stopped paying attention.

I'm just saying. Horses are the worst and riding on them sucks.

Thankfully the day passed quickly, we rode through more of the wasteland and entered into what had once been the Toes Hills. The had been named that as it was smaller than the Royal Plateau and the hills would be the toes if it was a foot. I know it’s a stupid name, but what can you do about farmer’s and their naming conventions. The Toes Hills had once been vibrant rolling hills home to most of the farm and grazing lands for the Kingdom, now they were black and brown from the filth and corruption left by the horde.

We did see a small pack of goblins, but they saw us fled before we even began to move towards them. We reached the river a little bit before sunset and decided to stop rather than push on. The River was 30 feet wide and was deep enough for barges to use as transportation canals. Further down the river I knew that there was a town used as a shipping hub. I wondered if they had seen fighting or if they had been untouched by the goblins. The road crossed the river in a magnificent carved stone bridge, both sides of the river had been torn apart from the fighting however the bridge still stood.

The side of the river we camped still had remnants of the fortifications from a lost battle. We had expected to see the bodies of the dead but instead all we saw were dried blood patches, a large fire pit in the middle and not far from it was a small pile of chipped or broken bones. We camped near the fortifications but decided on not staying inside. The thought of goblins eating the fallen in there was too grim even for me to want to stay inside.

Instead, we scavenged the usable sections of the defences and built a basic wall and lookout platform that should dissuade any opportunistic monsters. Once again we divided up watch rotation and I sat back in our mini fort. I pulled out Taylors wooden statue and continued carving. Clair pulled out a flute and began practising, Taylor smiled and pulled out a book while Raven pulled out a pack of cards and started playing a game with Harold.

It was nice sitting there in the retreating light, we stayed like that for a few hours, just relaxing after a long day. I felt the stress begin to melt away as I finished the last of the statue's base. I inspected the statue for a minute before noticing a few mistakes, the bow was bent too much and the right leg wasn't quite right. After picking up too many errors, I was unhappy with it so I broke it and threw them into the fire Harold built to cook dinner over. I pulled the next 4 inch piece of wood out and looked at it. I pressed my knife into the wood, struck with indecision before I sighed and began carving. I would try the figure of Taylor again, hopefully this time I wouldn’t make as many mistakes.

It wasn't too long before we began to take turns going to the river to bathe, I put my unfinished statue in my bag and waited till Harold and I could go down. Harold bathed first and I stood guard, watching both sides of the bank. The last thing we needed was an ambush while one of us was naked. The whole place was deserted though and it would be too easy to spot anything that tried to sneak up on us. When it was my turn I put all my clothes in my bag and jumped into the river with my staff.

River water is cold, it has always been cold and there is no way to lessen the fact. I lept in forgetting this fact until my body hit the water, then I just hated myself for 2 minutes. I tried to use my staff to support myself and keep me close to the river bank, but I may have dropped my staff a few times from the cold and ended up splashing around like a toddler. Thankfully, Mage Hand always brought it back to me so I didn’t have to chase it down river. When I was suitably numb I went back to the shore and grabbed the soap, with fumbling hands and fingers that didn’t want to respond, I slowly cleaned myself. Once I was cleaned I put on clean clothes and we headed back to camp.

Guard shift that evening was just as uneventful as the last. I did however manage to finish the new Tylor figurine which looked a lot better than the first one that I threw away. The next carved figure was of Clair and I had just about completed it as well. The figurine of Clair stood tall, having just fired an arrow which was still in the process of leaving her bow, at her feet was a hissing badger that had all its fur puffed out threateningly. I must admit, I was pretty proud of that one, I thought I managed to get the rune carvings on the bow just right and it made her look really badass.

I swapped guard duty with Raven and crawled into my bed roll. Sleep came and went, then breakfast repeated itself like yesterday, followed by more riding. I was so tired of it all that by the time I saw Soyalls' battered walls, I was about ready to ask if we could stop and rest for the day, quest be damned.

The town of Soyalls stood like a lighthouse in the darkness, from our vantage point one hill over, we could see the huge tree that grew out of the centre of the town, some parts of it looked burned and charred but it still had green leaves on it. I could see people outside of the walls burning large piles of bodies, the smoke plumes rose high into the sky blocking out most of the sun for the town. I was just thankful that the wind wasn't blowing in our direction, burning bodies sank and it was always hard to get rid of the smell. I couldn't see any of the damage the goblins had supposedly done as the walls blocked my view but I was confident it was there since Harold had received the information from the King.

As we descended the hill I heard a horn blare, for a moment everyone outside of the town walls stopped and looked at us, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and saw Harold wave. Then I heard the people shout and scream as they fled, terrified, back into the town before the gates slammed shut. I looked up at the gate and walls as we ascended the hill. The gate in the wall looked as if it had seen better days but it didn't look as if it had broken, cracked but not broken. The walkway above it looked very new and I thought I could see the remains of a watch tower just poking over the wall.

"Riders, Halt." A guard shouted from the walkway and we came to a stop. "State your business or be on your way."

"We are here by order of the King." Harold shouted back, "We have been asked to deliver comms crystal to the town leaders if Soyalls was still standing."

The guard turned and looked like he was saying something but he spoke too softly for me to hear. The town gates open a crack and three people exited the city, two of them wore guards armour that had seen better days but the third was a drake woman in gleaming platemail. I could see a few scrapes and dings from combat but she presented a strong and authoritarian figure, her blue scales shimmered in the sunlight which emphasised where they were chipped and she walked with a slight limp.

"You sssay you have a commsss cryssstal?" The drake woman asked.

"We do,” Harold replied, “We were ordered by His Majesty to give it to Watch Captain Miles should he still live."

"Watch Captail Milesss died when the goblinsss breached the town. I am acting Watch Captain Kafri." Kafri replied,

I saw her tail twitch when she spoke about Captain Miles falling, from what I knew about Drake body language it seemed like she might have had a thing with the late Watch Captain. Harold pulled out the Royal Order that he used to verify our identity and showed it to Captain Kafri.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Harold nodded his head to her. "May we enter the city before I give you the crystal?"

"Of courssse." She said handing back the document and led us through the gates.

Once we were inside I could see some of the damage the goblins had done. The buildings closest to the gate were all but destroyed, some of them had huge holes in their walls but most were just burnt husks. The people milled about a large square looking worried, they stared up at us with big eyes, their dirty clothes seemed to hang off of some of the villagers. It looked like the village was on the verge of starvation.

"We don't have a ssstablesss anymore, the fire claimed it when the goblins broke through the wall." Kafri said as she led us deeper into the town. "Giles, go get Mayor Hobbs and Elder Jones. Archie, find Susan and meet us at my office." The two other guards that had been escorting us broke off and disappeared into the crowd.

Out of curiosity I cast Detect Evil but nothing registered as evil in the spell's area of effect, I sighed in relief, at least there weren’t any surprises left by the goblins or the Necromancer. We left the main road and passed a work crew tearing down a burnt out house, their faces grim and unhappy as they worked. That's when I saw it, the devastation that the goblins had wrought on Soyalls.

The section of the town that the goblin had burned was a large open area, most of it was covered in ash and I could make out the husks of 4 large buildings still smouldered. The wall had some hastily made patches but there was still a large 15 foot section that they were working on, it looked like that section had been demolished as they were using new wood for the repairs. I had a hard time discerning what the area used to be, it was too large for a military square and the town was too small for it to be an arena. It was only when passed near one of the burnt out buildings that I realised what I was staring at, a few other things clicked into place and I felt a ball of ice form in my stomach as my anger flared up.

I stared at the charred hooves and cracked bones of the town’s livestock, I looked over the large area and I could see the stone borders, just poking above the ash, that marked out individual fields. With the amount of ash covering the ground, there was no way that it had been anything short of a full harvest. The reason why everyone looked starved was because the goblins had burned all the food and the citizens were starving. The town had been under siege for the last month and a half with no communication to the capital.

Captain Kafir turned a corner back into the still intact area of the town, we all followed in silence ruminating on what we had just seen. Personally the revelation put me in a bad mood, I would have to come back past here and collect the souls of those who starved, that was going to be a depressing day. I hoped the capital would be able to give them some sort of aid but I didn’t think that they would be able to, the food shortage there wasn’t as bad but there were at least ten times more people in the capital. We turned into a shaded courtyard and came to a stop. I had retreated so far into my thoughts, it was only after someone pulled on my leg did I actually look around. A guard was standing there waiting for me to pass him the reins to the demon so I could get off, it looked like he had been the one to shake my leg. The guard gave the monster an apple while I got out of the saddle.

"Thisss way, the othersss should be with usss ssshortly." Kafri said entering the building.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The building turned out to be the barracks, it was a big stone building that was brutally utilitarian, I couldn't see any form of decoration as we walked through it. We were led down a large corridor and I looked through an open door as we passed. It was a large sparring room that had all the training equipment pushed to the side, instead the room was filled with cots and injured people being treated in them. I froze for a few seconds as my Soul Lantern drew a few souls of the deceased into it. I stopped looking into the rooms, my guilt growing with every green flash, I was thankful that if anyone noticed the flashes no one said anything.

We came to Kafri's office, it was a large double room that looked as if it had recently been the command centre for the town. Half the room was taken up with a large table that still had maps of the surrounding area and a map of Soyalls that had drawings covering it. The other half had been cleared for a standing area, the floor had scrape marks on it showing the large desk against the wall once took centre stage. Next to it was a stack of chairs that looked like they should never have been stacked, I wasn’t sure how anyone would separate them without getting hurt.

"Oh, right." Kafri said looking around, "Give me a minute, I didn’t think we would have visitors so soon after..." She faded off not having to finish her sentence.

She pulled the desk away from the wall, it scraped loudly on the floor but it was a testament to her strength that she made it look effortless. Then to blow my mind, she effortlessly plucked out chairs from the stack. I almost took a few steps back when she pulled a chair out from near the bottom, with the eeriness of abstract skill usage, the chairs didn’t move an inch. The chairs were wordlessly handed out until we all had one and there were 4 other chairs on her side of the desk.

"Pleassse sssit." She gestured.

Just as we sat down the door opened and 3 more people entered and we jumped back up. A slim and slender man wearing a green and blue robe stepped through the door, he stopped a second to regard us before nodding to Captain Kafri and walking over to her.

“Pretentious prick.” I heard the dwarf that followed behind him mutter.

He was 4 feet tall and his salt and pepper beard told more about his age and knowledge, than his bright blue robes or iron helm did. He grunted at us before nodding at the captain as well. Last was a human woman with long black hair, it flowed over a dress that seemed to be made of living vines. I could see the corners of her lips twitching in a smile that she was trying to hide, she joined the others on the captain's side of the desk.

"Mayor Hobbsss isss the leader of the town." Kafri gestured to the man in the robes who sat on her right. "Elder Jones is his acting advisor." She gestured to the dwarf who sat next to the mayor. "Mistress Susan is here to represent the arcane interests of the town." She gestured to the woman in the vine cloak sitting on her left. "Unfortunately the leadership of the adventurers society and magic society as well as my predecessor fell in the siege. I’m afraid that we are what remains of the leadership of Soyalls."

"Well met and I am truly sorry for all of your losses." Harold said solemnly, everyone nodded at his words, "I am Harold Shieldsworn of The Wanderers. Beside me are my party and companions, Raven, Clair Fairwood, Taylor of the Ice and Luca the Shade Slayer." He gestured to us in turn.

I smiled at hearing Harold use my title and sat up a little bit more. And Luca, had always sucked a little. No one wants to be the ‘and ..’ of their friend group. Unfortunately, as the most recent addition to the team, that fell to me, even after 8 years of adventuring together. At least now with a title I sounded more badass.

"If you haven't guessed from our presence, I am happy to tell you that the goblin invasion is over. Before we left the capital the King had heard of the defence Soyalls put up against the goblins,” the 4 leaders gasped, to be noticed by the King was an impressive feat, “the king wishes to commend you on your stalwart defences in the face of truly overwhelming odds and wishes to bestow gifts upon you and the people of the town.”

I pushed my mana into my bag of holding and gave Harold access to it so that he could withdraw items that belong to him. I then handed him the bag and he reached into it before pulling out 6 items and placing them on the desk in front of the leaders. The first item was a small gold coin that had the picture of the king on it, the second was a silver piece of metal attached to a beautifully and intricately carved piece of redwood that looked like a shield wall. Shut up, I can appreciate someone else’s work. The next item was a large white crystal that glowed faintly in the daylight, the next item was another crystal but this one was green and brown, next he pulled out another white crystal but this one was smaller than the other. The final item he pulled out was a solid golden cornucopia that had the face of the King etched on it. I thought over the descriptions I had seen for each item.

Name: King's Favour

Quality: Legendary

Weight: 1lb

Description: This gold coin can be used to give a one time huge reputation increase with the Royal Faction for a settlement. Alternatively it can be used as a one time use item to automatically approve a request from the King (within reason).

Requirements: Can only be used by a leader of Soyalls.

Name: Royal Commemoration Plaque

Quality: Epic

Weight: 20lb

Description: This Plaque was created by the King to remember the brave men and women who gave their lives in the face of overwhelming odds, to keep Soyalls Unbroken and the King recognises their sacrifice. This plaque bestows the Title Unbroken upon Soyalls.

Restrictions: Must be placed within the area of influence of Soyalls. Must be placed at a memorial for the fallen in the goblin invasion.

Name: City Crystal

Quality: Rare

Weight: 15lb

Description: A crystal that contains the raw essence of a city that can be used to create a camp or increase the level of an existing settlement by 1.

Restrictions: Must be used by prospective or existing leader of a settlement.

Name: Upgrade crystal (Military)

Quality: Uncommon

Weight: 5lb

Description: A crystal that contains the raw essences of military prowess and innovation that can be used to upgrade a military structure of a settlement.

Restrictions: Must be used by a leader of Soyalls

Name: Upgrade crystal (Settlement)

Quality: Uncommon

Weight: 5lb

Description: A crystal that contains the essences of home and community that can be used to upgrade a civic structure in a settlement,

Restrictions: Must be used by settlement leader of Soyalls

Name: Royal Cornucopia

Quality: Legendary

Weight: 30lb

Description: A golden cornucopia embossed with the image of the King. This item summons a feast worthy of the King depicted on the cornucopia, food will constantly be produced for 24 hours before it becomes inert. Mourn the fallen and celebrate the living and their victory by order of the King.

Restrictions: Must be used by a leader of Soyalls

"These last two are from the King as well, however I’m afraid that this is everything we have for you." Harold said, pulling out the final two items.

Harold also put a small opaque crystal on the table as well as a rolled up piece of parchment with the King's seal on it. I didn’t need to see the description to know that the opaque crystal was a comms crystal that would be connected to someone in that capital. The parchment was obviously only for the leaders and it would have been all kinds of stupid to attempt to peek at them. Which was why they’d been in my bag, sealed away from Raven who would have been too curious.

The leaders of Soyalls sat there in silence looking over the gifts. I could see the mayor Hobbs and elder Jones restrain themselves from snatching the cornucopia off the table and shouting in joy. Captain Kafri started at the military upgrade crystal, it looked like she already knew what that was. Mistress Sussan began casting identification spells and sharing the results with her fellow leaders. Gasps of awe followed after each spell as they read over the description of the gift.

"Ha," The mayor Hobbs laughed, once he had read them all, "I guess that solves our imminent starvation for a day at least."

"I've seen some of these items before," Elder Jones said, "we need to have a discussion before you use any of them."

"Agreed." Mistress Susan seconded.

"Gifts assside, what can the town of Soyalls do for The Wanderers?" Captain Kafri said, bringing everyone’s attention back to us.

Everyone turned back to us realising that they were not alone and most of the discussions shouldn’t be held with us in the room. I saw Harold smile and nod towards the captain.

"We have been tasked with hunting down the Necromancer that travelled with the Goblin King, the diviners believe that they fled north which would have put them coming past Soyalls. We would like to know if you spotted any increased undead activity recently?” Harold asked before Taylor coughed softly, “And a place to put a tent for the night.” He added quickly.

"We did sssee a large pack of undead move north wessst a few daysss back, we took it asss a good sssign which isss why the villagersss were outssside the wallsss." Captain Kafri answered. “I can’t tell you how many there were but there were quite a few of them. Sssince then it’sss only been corpssse eatersss and the occasssional lost ssskeleton.”

"We might be able to find a spot for a tent as long as you don't mind being near the burnt out buildings." Mayor Hobbs added. “Aside from that, room is a little hard to find here with the refugees we took in during the invasion.”

"A spot in the town is preferable to a churned field somewhere." Harold accepted and received a smile from captain Kafri and mistress Susan.

With that decided we were bustled out of the barack quite quickly. It seemed that the leaders were extremely excited to discuss their plans on what to do with the gifts. Kafri called in a guard called Harrison and told him to escort us to where we could pitch the tent. I must admit that I was interested to see what they would use the gifts on, but I didn't think they would be using them any time soon and it would have been too obvious if I tried to use stealth or Man on the Job to listen in on their discussion. Harrison led us to a small clear area near one of the burn down barns, we set up our tent and rested for a while, just listening to the townspeople slowly rebuild their lives.

After a while I took out a piece of wood from my bag as well as my carving knife, I let my hands guide my carving. It was refreshing to be in a town, to hear people shouting, children playing and the constant hammering of work being done. After the last few months of nothing but fighting, it was a soothing balm. When it came time for dinner we opted for a simple bread and cheese meal, while we could have made a stew, we had seen the hungry faces of the villagers. Cooking a meal would have been insanely cruel and a quick way to be mobbed.

I stopped my carving to eat and I looked at the small statues I had made. I had cut the wood into 3 sections and created small 3 inch goblin statues. I had gone into a surprising amount of detail on them, I could make out their individual dagger-like teeth inside their maws as well as the crude weapons they fought with. I stared at the 3 goblins and felt that the statues were important but I didn't know why. I shrugged, it wasn't the first time a skill had directed me to do something I didn't fully understand.

I looked around to see what the rest of my party was up to. Raven was doing her evening yoga, I think the position she was in was called Fanged Lotus but I wasn't completely sure. She sat cross legged and she rotated her body in a large circle while lashing out with her knives, I still wasn’t convinced that it was a thing but whatever. Taylor was sitting with Clair and Harold around a map having a softly spoken discussion.

"North west puts him heading towards Wyrm Territory." Harold said, "there is a chance that he might turn west and head for Bridalford. Last the Kingdom heard they were still under siege so he might head there to regain some of his troops, there was a diviner that said they would head to the lost mines but the others thought it was unlikely."

"The Lost Mines? Aren’t they deep in wyrm territory, why would he run there?" Taylor asked, I saw Clair and Harold shrug.

"There used to be a town there called Spring Falls, it was some kind of mining town before that area became Wyrm Territory." I said moving over to them. "I heard a rumour, before the war, that someone had found a permanent, uncontrolled dungeon in the ruins. There was meant to be an expedition there but I don’t know what happened to it.

"An uncontrolled dungeon? That's got to be an urban legend." Clair dismissed, "more likely the mine dried up and the place is just some draughty ruins that had a big wyrm in them."

"That still doesn't answer my question, why flee there?"

"Isolation maybe?" Harold said, shrugging, "the wyrms are a pretty big deterrent from following him in there with an army. They would swarm over the soldiers and leave nothing but bones for the Necromancer to use."

"If there is an uncontrolled dungeon in the ruins of Spring Falls then he could create more undead for a new army." I reasoned, I heard dead silence at my words and looked around to see everyone looking at me in horror with pale faces. "What? It's a possibility."

"Forgotten Gods I hope not." Taylor said.

"Dungeon, wyrms or a new army of the undead. That does not change our quest.” Harold said grimly, “This is the best lead we have and we need to follow it.” I nodded in agreement along with Taylor and Clair. “In the morning we head north west and hopefully we'll pick up the necromancer’s trail before anything crazy happens."

I suddenly didn’t like our chances of stopping crazy things from happening now that Harold had voiced it.

“YOU DICKHEAD.” Raven shouted from her seated position upon hearing his words.