The fortress at Little Raptor Crest was falling.
It had never been an important facility. The lands it guarded were unproductive, starved of the mana aspected materials which were most valuable to the Sacred Kingdom. The borderlands for miles around were rocky, cold and arid. The only creatures which thrived were vicious, crawling monsters or the great predatory birds which gave the fortress its name. Most of all, it was unfashionably far from civilized society; oh, and poor for farming too.
But it was still Kingdom land. It’s lady was still sworn to the Suntide Throne and the house of Glinferno, as her family had been for six generations. Six!
From the battlement of her tallest remaining tower, Elf-Lady Meirilla of House Tollenfleint gripped her forked bident with fierce determination. The structure was built of huge, carefully cut stones, and rose high and square on top of a defensible peak. She had to conserve her strength now, too little of her power could overcome magical defenses at range. When she was young, she had fancied herself something of a warrior, she’d even had a reputation as a fighter of some skill. But today, even if it could never be enough to save her ancestral home, she could only regret that she hadn’t dedicated even more of her levels to the arts of war.
Delight had sent two of its legions to take Little Raptor Crest, marching with unnatural speed and (even worse) evading hundreds of Sacred’s defensive border divinations. Halfway up the rise, a protective stone booth had been fused by the enemy’s mason-arts. From there, they had established a vector bounce point, and their soldiers launched uphill from it through the air. Every passing moment allowed the deployment of the hedonists to advance faster than Lady Meirilla’s defenders could bring siege arts to bear.
“[Hawkshot] arrows!” She cried, and twenty of her men at arms nocked arrows. The best of them would add their own talents to their shots, like her Captain of the Tower’s [Leadweight] rune, or her Master of the Hunt’s great weapon-art: [Mercy of the Heartseeker].
Shots launched, some glowed with power, some fell early. One wound a twisty, impossible path towards its target. She watched the vile, honorless rabble of Delight die in numbers which were too small to make a difference. She wished that she could have access to a war spell, the type which enchanted a whole company and multiplied the lethality of even the least of goblins. But her lands hadn’t seen war for a hundred years, and so…
“Stones ready! [Fortunate roll]!” The lady barked, raising her weapon above her head. Panicked, determined goblins, little more than bricklayers and quarry laborers pressed into desperate service, took the place of the archers. They groaned at lifting their heavy boulders, and the stones rolled over the lip of the battlement. Protected by the stoneworking spells, the rocks would not break as they fell. Instead they would fall at the most precise of angles and directions that luck could find.
But the soldiers of Delight simply locked their shields together. Some of them were shattered by the attack, it was true. Their armor and bones crumpled as they screamed. But too many of their commanders had learned the art of binding the defense of their gobs together. Unshakeable, those knots of attackers deflected the stones with the sound of heavy, thudding bounces.
She almost didn’t react in time, as her captain cried out.
“Take cover!” He bellowed as a javelin rocketed towards them. The metal of the javelin shuddered with bound energy. It glowed with infused thunder until it reached the battlement and began spilling out tendrils of electricity. The flash blasted a hole in the crenelations, leaving the balcony vulnerable to incoming fire. The lady’s ears were ringing, and a cut on her forehead dripped blood. Three of her archers were dead or maimed by discharge or flying shrapnel. More of her workers were dead, but since they were peasants, she knew they were replaceable.
But her fighting men were running out.
Furious, she peered over the lip of the balcony, crawling on her belly to take cover. She watched as one of the craven commanders, oathless as a feral as he was, spread his arms in triumph and challenge below. His stupid helmet crest was neon turquoise, and blew garishly in the breeze. His aura flowed out from him in fine, precise threads of magic: luxuriant, and opulent, just like the gluttonous indulgence of his disgusting excuse of a nation.
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“Silk and Oil!” the hedonist commander thundered, his voice echoing through the mountains.
The lady could take no more. She leapt to her feet and swung her trident to the first guard of her weapon-art. “Oh yea?! Salt and Ash, you piece of shit!”
Then she leapt, and the fortress of Little Raptor Crest watched her trace one last, graceful arc through the sky. Her razorwind aura howled, her fork glowed red and bright with [Magma Heart], and her armor crawled over her body like a scorpion as it re-positioned itself over her vitals. After all, what was the point of dying, if you couldn’t do it on your own terms?
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The slitted eyes of the daemon flickered through the now barely visible mirage of Adutant Fidelity Brand’s aura. Now the spirit was starting to look to its master, observing him just as much as Rhode. The adjutant scratched at the grain of his desk idly while he stalled.
“You make a great deal of glittering promises, Goodman of Waverly Broox. But how can I trust a word of what you say, when I have yet to see this… Lord of Rhodes even draw his sword?”
Tarrop wrung his hands. “He will, Ser! He will. Your diligence, we will shortly invite you to join us in Cellar Vault B, where we will have our martial practice courts ready. We are most eager to introduce him to a weapon art; Rhode simply needs more time to pass through this one critical period.”
The balding goblin poked the hulking homunculus beneath the view of the table. Rhode took the signal to cough again, daintily.
“Well to that end, and against my better judgement,” the adjutant raised his hand, and then a strange fluted noise piped twice out of the hovering spirit. It was the kind of signal which (if raised louder) might be useful on a battlefield, to pierce through all manner of noise. “The Office of Special Projects has, under my authority, and with approval of His Grace, Prince Llanthinanumen of the House of Glinferno –“
“Is that really how it’s pronounced?” Rhode couldn’t help himself from whispering to himself under his breath. Glinferno? Embarrassing. Luckily, Fidelity hadn’t seemed to notice, even if his daemon doubtless had.
“– elicited and secured the expertise of one Goodman Eloft of Selt: a sworn healer of Dogoda. It is our understanding that he is a specialist of some expertise, relevant to your needs.”
Rhode’s head rose, and his eyes betrayed his surprise. “Oh. Well that’s good, right? Thank you. Uh, Ser.”
Scholar Tarrop squeezed Rhode’s arm encouragingly, looking pleased as the back door opened behind him.
“We are merely protecting our investment,” the officer scoffed dismissively. “Prove yourself worthy of it.”
Though the Prince’s man did not rise, Rhode stood woozily from his oversized chair, and Tarrop stood beside him. Brother Eloft appeared in his finest healer’s gown, which in this case, meant it was clean and starched but not particularly fine.
“Thank you Ser. This is my patient, I understand it? By the gods, look at the size of you, man!” The goblin rounded the room confidently, shaking Rhode’s hand first without hesitation. Then he greeted Tarrop, and bowed respectfully to the adjutant last.
“Brother-in-Majority Eloft, you understand that whatever happens here, you are sworn to the utmost of secrecy. To betray anything you learn here would be understood as treason, with the most harsh of consequences,” Fidelity warned.
“Of course,” the healer replied seriously.
He was tall, for a goblin – and skinny in the way a man who’s passion for his craft might cause him sometimes to forget a mealtime or two. His mauve eyes were perceptive, searching and emotive. His scalp was shaved to a peppery-grey stubble, and his smock was pinned with a greenish metal broach that depicted the symbol of his Goddess.
Rhode’s machine made a grinding noise as its gears screeched, and one of its seals popped open. All four men watched as the device leaked a foul-smelling effluence onto the carpet below. Then one of the chambers popped loose, and something internal to the mechanism caught fire.
“I heard you’ve been having trouble breathing,” Eloft broke the silence. Then he strode over to open the servant-side door. “Let’s see if I can help you with that.”