“You have all been gathered here for this simple task, you are going to follow behind the cavalry and engage the goblin king.” The general in charge of the adventurers shouted, I hadn’t caught his name but I was sure Harold knew.
The sound of metal smashing into metal, the yells of people dying and the screams of the invading goblins were making it hard to hear him. I looked over at the line of Royal Marines that had created a shield wall, they were taking the brunt of the goblin’s charge without faltering. If they lived through this battle they were going to get a lot of levels and become some of the kingdom’s most elite troops.
“How are we getting back afterwards?” Someone asked.
“Once the goblin king is dead, the horde will scatter.” The general replied.
I was a bit dubious about that claim, I’d fought goblins before and they had fled when the fight turned against them, however, the horde was over 100,000 goblins strong and was backed up by a necromancer. The general was at a high level though so he must have known something I didn’t. Maybe they had a few high level mages that could cast aerial bombardment spells like Meteor Shower or something.
“Yeah right.” Raven whispered to me, “5 gold says that we have to fight our way back to Sunak.”
I eyed her up and down trying to figure out if she actually had the money or was going to pickpocket money from me, to pay me after she lost. Raven was of average height for a human woman with long black hair and a scar that ran down her left cheek. She wore pitch black leather armour with a black cloak and was playing with 2 of her serrated knives. She was a Rogue, more specifically a Golden Hand Assassin which was a specialty that focuses on assassination and burglary.
“Raven I swear if you get us in trouble again, I won’t heal you.” Taylor chided her softly.
“Calm down Taylor it was only…”
“No, last time you did this we were stuck on sewer extermination quests for a month and it took 3 months to get the smell of the sewer out of my beard.” Taylor interrupted. “That goes for you too Luca, I won’t put up with any of your shenanigans either.”
I opened my mouth to defend myself but decided to just take the rebuke. Taylor was a gruff dwarf with a long braided beard that was inlaid with silver and copper rings that denoted a neutral gender. Their hair and beard were a natural red that looked good with their blue healer robe. Taylor was an Frozen Healer which was a hybrid class, it combined a traditional healer’s class with that of an ice mage. The result gave her some good crowd control spells as well as some average quality healing spells.
“Now I’ve heard that some of you didn’t like the pay that was offered by The Adventure Society,” The general continued, having not heard our exchange, “I’m happy to say that the king has added on hazard pay.”
“How much hazard pay?”
“His majesty has said he would match The Adventure Society's pay.”
A low murmur ran through the crowd at the announcement. The Adventure Society had promised 100 gold pieces to any adventurer that participated in the fight against the goblin invasion. 200 gold pieces was the equivalent of 10 high-end requests and those didn’t happen too often. I could hear the murmur turn into sounds of acceptance as everyone decided to participate.
“This has to be quite dangerous for the king to offer double the pay.” Harold said quietly.
“As long as there is a good chance that we’ll make it out alive then I’ll be happy,” Raven said, “I might even be able to get a few of my knives enchanted properly.”
“It’s your own fault for trusting a mage who worked down a side alley.” I said, shaking my head.
“He was giving me a large discount, how was I supposed to know he wasn’t a proper enchanter?”
“Probably because he was working in an alley in between a brothel and an unlicensed casino.” I countered.
“Luca, my threat of not healing extends to you as well.” Taylor glared at me and I went quiet. “I'll heal the worst wounds but leave the minor ones.”
“Sorry.” We both said at the same time.
“Taylor, give me a lift up.” Harold asked.
Harold was a 4 foot 10 inch gnomish man. His skin was slightly bluer than most humans which showed him as being a mountain gnome. This was nothing new as there were plenty of gnomes that wandered the kingdom however, instead of being a crafter like most of his kind, Harold had the Shieldbearer class. This meant that Harold was a front line fighter and he had sworn to protect the innocent and stand in the path of evil. He had thinning black hair that just covered his ears, he wore bright blue steel half plate armour and always carried his silver and golden shield that depicted a lion roaring. His shortword was strapped to his hip and could be unsheathed in a second.
I had to stifle a laugh as Harold was raised into the air by a pillar of ice. He looked like a statue that you’d find on the top of a fountain in the rich part of any city. I caught Raven trying to stifle a laugh as well. This wasn’t the first time Taylor had raised Harold up like this but it was still funny. I winced as an elbow struck me in the ribs, I turned to see Clair giving me a knowing look, one that I’d seen a hundred times when I was doing something inappropriate.
“Sorry.” I mouthed to her and she nodded in return.
Clair was a beautiful elven woman with piercing violet eyes and long brown hair that flowed down to her waist. She’d platted it today and tied it up with a bit of ivy. She wore a green top with brown trousers under a set of dark brown leather armour, her bow was slung over her shoulder and her quiver full of arrows hung at her hip. Clair was originally a Ranger however a few years ago she’d completed a class advancement quest and was offered the class Wilds Master which was a ranger/beast tamer hybrid, it had a lot of survival skills mixed in taming and archer skills. I’d never heard of a Wilds Master before Clair got the class but it had proved extremely handy when hunting monsters, being able to speak to animals and calling ‘The Wilds’ was very useful.
“How about you Clair?” Raven whispered, “5 gold says we have to fight our way back to Sunak.”
“Only if you can produce 5 gold pieces right now and Taylor holds onto all the coins to stop you from cheating.” She replied.
“You’re no fun.”
“I swear Raven.” Taylor said, giving her the sink eye. Raven held up both hands in a surrendering gesture and I turned my attention back to the general.
“...from there you will have to engage the goblin forces if there is no clear path to the goblin king.” The general shouted.
“INCOMING!” Someone shouted and we all looked up.
High above, I saw a few bright burning balls that were plummeting straight at us at a freighting pace. I recognised the fireball spells however as they got closer I realised that it must have been a high level fireballs as they were roughly the size of watermelons, whereas a low level one was the size of an orange. There were a few flashes as magic spells of all sorts were fired to block the incoming fireballs, most of them missed but a large bit of rock smashed into them. The rock exploded mid air and we were showered by small bits of flaming rock. Harold held up his shield and used his Air Shield ability to block most of the falling rock, some of it still fell among us but nothing that would cause any real damage.
“SERGEANT GET YOU MEN IN ORDER.” Someone barked, I looked towards the voices and saw a man in a green uniform screaming at another man in a blue uniform. I had no idea what the different colours meant but I guess it signified rank.
“Right then,” The general said, as if nothing had happened. “The heavy cavalry are lining up to charge the goblins, you are going to follow them up almost immediately. Don’t stop since there will be no soldiers keeping the corridor open. The goblins will charge back in once the cavalry has passed.”
“This is sounding more and more like a suicide mission.” I muttered, Clair elbowed me in the ribs again and gave me a meaning, I saw a few adventurers were giving me dirty looks. I shrugged and actually looked at the adventurers around us.
There was a huge variety of people standing around. I saw some beastkin, dragonborn, elves, dwarves, drow and even a half giant. They all wore a multitude of armour and carried all sorts of weapons ranging from bows and swords to flails and magical staffs, I even saw someone carrying a battle umbrella of all things. All in all, there were about 50 of us standing around waiting for the cavalry to charge.
I looked over my left shoulder and I could see that there were some catapults, or were they trebuchets?, they had been set up and they were rhythmically launching large enchanted boulders. Most of them exploded into fire and shrapnel when they hit the ground but I knew that there were a few carried poison and some that popped into a giant cloud of acid. The siege machines fired constantly one boulder after another, the angles that the boulders few out at changed but they never stopped. I wondered if we were going to come across any of the boulders that had made it as far at the goblin king.
“Luca?” Harold asked, I shook my head and turned back to him. The tight group of adventurers had dispersed somewhat and separated out into individual adventuring parties. I was surrounded by my friends Harold, Taylor, Clair and Raven, we were all in the same guild and party, The Wanderers. Our guild leader was Harold and we’d been adventuring together for 8 years now.
“What?” I asked.
“Your Soul Lantern is constantly lighting up.” Harold pointed at the lantern attached to the bottom of my scythe which constantly flashed green. I hadn’t summoned the scythe’s blade yet which made it look like a strange staff, I turned it over to bring the lantern up to eye level.
“Yeah, it’s sucking up the souls of the dead so that they can all be put to rest later.” I explained.
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“I know that, I’ve just never seen it light up so much.”
“That’s because this is a battlefield, plenty of people dying here and if they weren’t being sucked up by the lantern, the souls would just be used by the necromancer to fuel more of his foul reanimations.”
“2 MINUTES TILL CHARGE.” The general shouted over the sound of the battle.
“Okay, get close.” Taylor said, “I’m going to lay a few buffs on us, Clair can you do the same?”
“Sure.” Clair agreed.
It took a minute before I felt the tingling of foreign magic land on me, for a second I had the opportunity to reject the magic and forgo its effects but I accepted them. I suddenly felt lighter and the ground beneath my feet was more like compact dirt rather than the wet mud it actually was. Air swirled around me making my black summoned robes flutter in a wind only I felt. I could see the same effects on my friends as well.
“There we go, buffs active.” Taylor and Clair said.
“Okay, you’ve heard the overall idea from the general, our plan is to stick together till we get to the goblin king. We’ll run in the standard formation with Raven guarding the rear.” Harold said in his commanding voice. “Luca, you’re on undead duty, keep us clear and free from them because if they catch us, we’re dead.”
“Will do.” I nodded.
“Taylor, you’re on battlefield control. We can’t ice the whole tunnel but if you can drop ice in front of any goblins charging us, that’ll save us from getting bogged down.”
“Same as ever.” Taylor said smiling.
“Clair, only take shots of opportunity and even then, try to make it hobbling shots, you’re not gonna have time to stop. Don’t waste time summoning the wilds, I know those summoning spells take a while to activate.”
“Okay, I have a few nasty spell crystals that I’ve been saving for the goblin king.”
“Raven, you’re on close protection, keep them off us if they get close.” Harold said finally.
“Yeah, yeah. Boring old protection duty.” Raven said glumly.
“Well, when we get to the goblin king you’re free to go wild.” Harold gave her a cheeky grin.
“Fuck yeah, about time.”
Suddenly the ground began to rumble as if an earthquake spell had been activated. The noise of the battlefield seemed to ramped up another degree and I looked around to see that the cavalry were charging. 4,000 mounted horsemen wearing heavy plate armour, rode 4,000 warhorses who also wore heavy plate armour. Each rider, set of armour and horse weighed over 1 ton and they sped towards the front line at a terrifying speed. As the cavalry got close the front line broke apart and ran sideways, goblins spilled into the ranks of the Royal Marines just in time to be crushed under the horses hooves. The screaming increased in intensity as the goblins died by the hundreds. I stared in awe as the heavy cavalry rumbled past up like a landslide, we were meant to charge afterwards however it was a good 2 minutes before the last of the cavalry rode past us. Then it was our turn.
“CHARGE!” The general shouted and the horde of eager adventurers charged.
Most regular soldiers couldn’t keep up with horses however, most army units had someone with a movement skill to get the infantry to move faster. Adventurers tended to be higher levelled than most soldiers so they were more capable in general, on top of that most adventuring parties had at least one person who could cast a movement buff and a few groups even had someone who could cast a large area of effect movement buff. All of this meant that the horde of adventurers not only matched pace with the heavy cavalry, but some of them started to catch up to the rear of the charging line.
I was quite fast myself and had the ability Etheric Step that could let me catch up to the cavalry in an instant, however I’d be leaving my friends behind. Instead I kept pace with Taylor in the middle of the party, Harold took the lead and Clair and Raven ran behind me. Our party stayed in the middle of the horde as we all ran. I looked down at the ground and grimaced when I realised what we were running over. My foot landed on a flattened goblin’s body, one of its ribs was poking up and caught my foot which caused me to stumble. I took another faltering step before I felt a strong breeze push my body upright, it brought me out of my stumble and I caught my balance.
“Thanks Clair.” I shouted but I didn’t hear her response or know if she’d heard me.
“Luca, your lantern.” Taylor said in between breaths.
I looked at my Soul Lantern to see that it had stopped lighting up. I frowned for a second, the battle was still ongoing so the lantern should still be sucking in souls. That’s when I noticed the first had spring up out of the ground. A green arm that had been flattened and look a bit like a gross pancake reached up out of the ground. It didn’t seem to have a goal but as Harold ran past it, it tried to grab hold of him.
“Fuck, the necromancer is reanimating.” I shouted at Harold’s back.
I didn’t wait for him to answer and used Etheric Step to appear in front of him. I summoned the blade of my scythe, a ghostly green blade filled on the top of my scythe, when it had fully formed the blade changed to a shiny silver and snapped into place. I started swinging my scythe backwards and forwards as I ran, like I was moving down wheat. Arms, legs and other body parts began to fall back to the ground as I passed over them. I was moving fast so I wasn’t able to get every single undead creature, however a good 80% of them were caught by my scythe. After each pass my Soul Lantern lit up green as it sucked up the souls that were being misappropriated by the necromancer. I almost stumbled as I received an interesting and annoying notification.
You have received a new Quest.
Quest: End the Necromancer.
Type: Class Quest (Mandatory).
Description: A necromancer in your vicinity is using the soul of the recently dead to create undead monsters. This is anathema your Soul Reaper Class, end the necromancer’s atrocity.
Reward: 1 new class ability. 5 free skill points. 5,000xp.
Penalties for failure: Loss of Soul Reaper class and all abilities gained from the class.
Accept: yes/yes
I hated mandatory quests, they were always annoying regardless of the class because it usually meant something difficult or extremely specific. This one would have been extremely hard if I had been on my own, I would have had to slip through the entire goblin army to find the necromancer. Luckily we were heading right to the goblin king and hopefully the necromancer should be with him. I was astounded by the amount of experience that it offered, I hadn’t received a quest with that much experience since I’d first gotten my class and that quest only offered 1,500xp. I was looking forward to finally levelling up and getting a new class ability. Since it was impossible for me to reject the quest I accepted it and continued cutting a path through the undead that rose in front of me. I lost track of time and devoted myself to my seemingly endless task. The ground didn’t change either, it was just squashed and trampled goblins every step of the way.
“Luca, get behind.” Harold shouted and I stopped cutting to look up.
We had caught up to the cavalry who had stopped charging and were beginning to part. I slowed for a second and let Harold pass before I sped up. The cavalry parted to reveal a ramp in front of a monument on top of a hill. The grass on the hill swayed backwards and forwards and it took me a second to realise that it wasn’t grass but instead goblins. Lots of goblins. They shouted and jeered at us as the first of the adventuring party jumped from the ramp onto the hill and started carving their way up to the monument. I took a closer look at the monument and saw what looked like a chair made out of bones at the bottom of it. Sitting in the chair was the largest goblin I’d ever seen. That had to be the goblin king. Next to it was a figure wearing a black robe and two death knights wearing their signature black necrotic armour.
“Formation Alpha.” Harold called as he leapt off the ramp and into the mass of goblins.
He brought the sword down in a heavy chop that sent a small shockwave out and the closest goblins tumbled backwards. Taylor and I landed next, the ground frozen around us instantly as Taylor created two slopes of ice. I watched as a few dozen goblins slid down the hill only to be impaled by arrows as Clair leapt off the ramp. Raven followed her and landed on a goblin that had jumped over the ice slope, her daggers rammed into its neck and she ripped them in opposite directions. The goblins head came flying off as the muscle and tendons holding it in place vanished under her assault. We fought our way up the hill like many other groups of adventurers. I caught glimpses of adventurers using spells to clear the path for themselves and others getting bogged down by the mass of goblins. I had to unsummon the blade of my scythe and use it in ‘staff form’ as I called it.
As a Soul Reaper I was not allowed to participate in the killing of a creature with a soul, including most monsters like goblins. This meant that I spent most of my time blocking attacks that were aimed at Taylor. Since they were our healer it was extremely important to keep them alive. In the early days of my adventuring career I’d been a scout for the party however I found that I could give a monster a smack, punch or a kick, as long as I didn’t cut them with my scythe. I smacked more than a few jumping goblins onto their asses and watched as they slid down the ice slope. Most of the goblins didn’t make it too far down the ice before they either received an arrow through their heart or a knife in an eye.
Our battle up the hill was long and drawn out, it seemed like the goblin king had an endless number of goblins to throw at us. One by one the adventuring parties fell behind, be it due to losing too many party members or getting overwhelmed by the sheer number of goblins. When we eventually reached the monument on the hill, there were only three adventuring parties left. I recognised the others because they were famous parties that had fought against the Mad Grey Dragon that had descended from the Wyrm Territory. The Lonely Hearts stood in front of Delilah’s Fools, it seemed that they had teamed up which was fortunate for Delilah’s Fools since they didn’t have any front line fighters. The goblins had stopped rushing us and instead created a large ring around us and the monument their king sat under.
What had looked like a seat from a distance turned out to be a throne, it was made out of metal and bone that had been unnaturally twisted together. It didn’t look comfy at all but the goblin king didn’t seem to notice as he lounged in it. His legs were resting over one of the arm rests and his back and head leant over the other. To his left was a large sword that seemed too big to be practical, on the back of the sword there were a series of gold and silver rings that were threaded through the blade. The rings looked decorated rather than functional but I wasn’t about to tell him that he needed a better weapon. To the right of the goblin king was the necromancer and his death knights. The death knights had both a shield and sword ready to defend their master should they need to.
“Well well,” The goblin king said in guttural voice, as he sneered down at us from his throne. “Quilong sent more adventurers to die in his name.”
“We came here to end what you started.” Sir Jason, leader of The Lonely Hearts, shouted back. “You and your monstrous horde have killed thousands of innocents as you’ve raged across this land and we will not stand by idly while you kill, rape and pillage.”
“Do you think he practiced that?” Raven whispered.
“Shush.” Clair snapped.
“What I started?” The goblin king asked, he swiveled around in his throne so his feet touched the floor. “WHAT I STARTED!?” He bellowed, spittle flying from his mouth.
His words seemed to echo around the hill and the sound of the battle which had been ever present in the background died down. The word seemed to pause at the outrage from the goblin king.
“This was our ancestral home.” He shouted, gesturing at the land around him. “It was goblins who created the caves and tunnels that you humans love to travel through. It was goblins who found all the precious metals and gems that you humans covet so much. It was goblins who built the first city on the plateau, away from the humans, the wyrms and the monsters that roam the land below. IT WAS GOBLINS THAT WERE KILLED BY THE MILLIONS SO THAT THE HUMANS COULD BUILD THEIR CAPITAL CITY ON THE PLATEAU.” The goblin king paused, he was panting from shouting. I could see that his rage was barely contained. “HUMANS STARTED THIS WAR CENTURIES AGO, I AM HERE TO END WHAT YOU STARTED.”
Silence fell over the battlefield as everyone was rocked backwards from his words. The goblins around us were quiet for a few more seconds before one of them roared, then suddenly, all of them roared as one. The sound was like a physical force that buffeted all of us on the hill. I looked around at the goblins waving their weapons in support of their king. I didn’t think killing the goblin king would make the army scatter and I was glad that I hadn’t taken Raven up on her bet.
“Harold, I have a quest to kill the necromancer.” I said loud enough that he would hear, I saw him turn his head slightly and look at me.
“If I know Sir Jason right, he’ll launch the assault in a few seconds.” Harold replied, “Go for the Necromancer then, did you need back up?”
“No, you’ll need everyone to take down the goblin king and I don’t think Raven’s poison will do that much against the death knights.” I said, shaking my head.
“Fucking undead and their immunities.” Raven cursed. It had been a sore point for her for the last few months.
“What about Clair?” Harold asked, ignoring Raven.
“I’ll be faster on my own.”
“Okay, good luck.” Harold said, just as Sir Jason began talking again.
“Then by the order of his royal highness king Quilong of Sunak we are here to take your life.” Sir Jason shouted.
“Bring it puny human, I will use your bones to pick my teeth.” The goblin king said, swinging his sword, the air screamed as the blade swished through it.
The adventurers charged the goblin king at the same time I charged the necromancer.