Suggested Listening

While Lemia and Scratch had their conversation, Elruin was busy with preparing the cart. They had space enough for the map and the weapons, and even enough for Elruin to set up the cots for her and Lemia, so the now-dead mules need not ever stop traveling while the humans rested. It also made it a lot easier to use the hand-monster as a guard.

"Cali?" Elruin looked up at her older sister who now shared her hair and skin color. It was fun, imagining she might grow up to look like the woman. "How do you feel, now that you're..."

"A walking cadaver?" Cali was never one to beat around the bush, and she wasn't going to let death change that. "Better than expected. I thought it'd be annoying, disgusting, an inconvenience I took on to get away from worse, but it's not bad. I've already come to think it's less gross than being alive. I don't get hungry, so I don't eat and don't use the toilet. So many biological things that are gone forever."

"So, you're not upset?" Elruin inched closer. "You don't wish you were alive still?"

"As long as I have my freedom, I'm content," she said. "That said, we're going to need to find a way to restore my magic. I'm tougher than I was, but everything's drawing off the same source."

Elruin frowned. "But you have the vampire shared, it should replace your energy."

"Maybe you hadn't noticed, but I'm a spellcaster and most of the things we've fought aren't," Cali said. "They don't have enough energy to replace what I burn."

"Oh." In hindsight, it seemed obvious that a mage like Cali who relied on heavy physical magic would consume energy fast, and most monsters weren't magical enough to provide a lot of power back. She wrapped her arms around Cali.

Cali rested a hand on her back. "That's sweet, but I don't know if hugs are- woah!"

Elruin kicked up her black lightning, normally reserved for melting the hands of anyone dumb enough to grab her, and began to sink that energy into Cali's flesh and bones. She made certain to be careful while she entwined their energies and reinforced all of Calenda's magic-driven motor structures. She smiled up at her elder sister. "Better?"

"That was quite the hug."

"I'll be happy to hug you whenever you want," Elruin said. She didn't put any more energy into it; she would need to take time to recover, herself, first.

"I'll have to take you up on that." Cali let herself relax, now that exhaustion had faded into a dull and mild fatigue. "Now, let's get back on the road. The more time we waste, the more people die."

Suggested Listening

"Ell! Wake up!"

Elruin's eyes came open, with Lemia laying right next to her on her face, almost invisible in the dense night fog. Elruin squeezed Squishybones just a little tighter.

"It's goblins!" Lemia remained low in the cart, trying to hide herself as best she could. She'd put together what she could of an illusion using her ornate sword as a basis, but all it accomplished was making them harder to notice. True invisibility was a much, much more difficult feat.

Elruin had never seen goblins before, but they had a reputation for abducting and eating children. Then, it seemed that every story ended with children abducted and eaten. It struck Elruin that there weren't enough children to feed all the monsters of the stories, so either they ate something else, or they all starved to death long ago.

She remained on her back, but began to look through the fog. The trees swarmed with flickers of life, not unlike those of the squirrels, but larger and more vibrant. These monsters were intelligent, that she was certain of. They also didn't seem to have much trouble jumping from tree to tree in spite of it being night and Cali's fog hanging heavy in the air. "How do we fight them?"

"I don't know, Cali said they use swarm tactics, and she always ran from them. They rely heavily on their toxic skin and... uh... bodily fluids. She wants the undead to take point, to draw their fire while we keep pushing for the edge of the forest."

It made sense to make the dead, who could not be poisoned, take point. Elruin began to sing to her new archer guard, ordering it to stand point and fire upon the monsters of the trees. Then she continued singing, pouring necromantic energy into the cloud of fog. Goblins could see through natural blackness and Cali's fog, but perhaps her supernatural darkness would do what they did not. It wouldn't hurt, at any rate. Elruin kept pushing, infusing the area with death magic that would choke the life from those who pursued them.

One goblin dropped, a victim of her dolly's inhuman aim. In spite of the fairy tales, they weren't very tough. The hand-monster took to the trees, chasing goblins who were its equal in its arboreal agility, but inferior in offense and defense. It grabbed them and threw them at the ground with enough power that they burst like watermelons upon collision.

Meanwhile, Calenda dropped another with a rock, since she'd used up all the knives she'd taken off the bandits. They weren't good knives, anyway. It rolled to its feet, then crawled away to nurse its wounds. In her opinion, the worst thing abouts goblins of all types were their ability to heal from any injury short of death, including lost limbs. Or perhaps the worst thing was that they bred so fast that if any survived, they'd be back to full numbers this time next year.

Scratch walked ahead, since he didn't care about his body at all. The goblins pelted him with balls of muck containing copious amounts of their toxins, but all it served was to make the dead man stink of something not unlike a dead skunk that was set on fire. Scratch fingered his chain armor, which was beginning to corrode due to the chemicals.

"Fall back! And watch beneath your feet!" He shouted to the rest of them. "They've got hobgoblins!" Still, Scratch kept his puppet standing, evading what attacks he could while serving as a decoy. Sooner or later, this corpse was going to be overcome to the point that his power couldn't keep it moving, but that was true of everything he possessed. For now, what mattered was getting Elruin to safety.

The name meant nothing to Elruin, who knew little about monsters, but Lemia was a little better read. "Ell, make the mules run. As fast as you can."

"But, Cali, Scratch, and my dollies..."

"Cali can outrun the cart, Scratch will catch up, and we can find you some new dollies! If those things reach us, we're both dead!"

Elruin hated abandoning her dollies, but she knew Lemia was right. She changed her song, amplified it, and did what she could to strengthen the mules as they began running as best they could while still dragging the cart along. She saw the things moving underground, so she changed the nature of her song to go around the ambush.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Too late to avoid all of the trap, the ground caved beneath the cart and broke one wheel. For almost anyone else, it would have meant the end of their fleeing, but Elruin maintained her song. No living mule would have willingly dragged a cart up such an unstable hill, but her dollies obeyed without hesitation.

Their ambush failed, several leprous-white lanky bipedal things emerged from the muck to give chase. Elruin blasted one with a death-bolt, but it didn't seem to do much more than slow the pursuer for a few seconds as the glowing fire of life energy overwhelmed her death magic.

Calenda came out of the woods, flying feet first into one of the monsters, slamming it to the ground, then jumping forward to catch up to the rest of the group. She remained on foot, next to the damaged cart, but threw another rock which beaned one of the goblins to little effect.

"Where's Scratch?" Elruin shouted.

"Dunno, lost track about three body-swaps ago!" Calenda stumbled, then by sheer force of will made her unliving body to get back up and move. "If you've got any crazy tricks, now's the time to use them!"

If death magic wasn't working, then she didn't expect her fear magic to be much better. Perhaps her decay magic, but that ran the risk of destroying the damaged cart. She did have one other option, however. Elruin changed her song, exciting the passions and anger of one of the lead goblins.

"What are you doing?" Lemia asked. Then she recognized the nature of the magic. "Oh, that is brilliant." She joined in, using her magic to mirror Elruin's.

Twin exposure to her anger-inflicting magic was enough to drive the goblins into screeching at one another. If the troupe could speak goblin, they would have learned that one was blaming another for their ambush failing, and the other made a remark about the former's cowardice. Soon, that pair was reduced to violence, while tempers were magically stressed with the others until they, too, succumbed to infighting.

Unable to speak their language, all Elruin and Lemia learned was that goblins could continue clawing at each other long after they had sustained what should have been lethal amounts of blood loss from opened arteries.

Soon they broke into open terrain, the sort of clearing that could only be found near civilization in Engeval where painstaking effort was taken to prevent the trees from encroaching upon city walls. The goblins, having given up on trying to kill Scratch's puppet, remained in the trees, unwilling to step into the open plains where they lost almost all of their range and maneuverability advantages.

Rushing toward Elruin and Lemia from the other direction was a pack of white dogs, their fur glowing in the night, with another set of inhuman but intelligent beings on their backs. They weren't goblins, or anything else she'd ever seen before, but the way they guided their hounds was well organized, a team that had trained to fight in formation.

"Entek!" Cali muttered. "Ell, exorcise the mules now!"

Elruin obeyed, singing her song as she stripped, purified, and consumed the necromantic power of the mules. It didn't restore much of her energy, but it was better than nothing. Their bodies collapsed into piles, leaving the cart still and listing to one side.

They split into two teams well before reaching the cart, circling around on both sides, then going forward to the edge of the forest. The white-cloaked figured on top threw something at the trees, which began to erupt into blooms of flame, and goblins dropping to the forest floor. The rest began to flee into the forest.

Suggested Listening

"Don't worry, they can be trusted," Cali said. "The Hounds are mainly followers of Klaro, true believers in the concepts of order and righteousness. Also many, many Truthsayers, so be very careful."

One of the canines, and its rider, approached. "Hail, tra'lers." Elruin realized the rider was shorter than she was, moments before she pulled her white hood back to reveal a face more akin to that of a rabbit or squirrel than a person, with soft yellow fur covering much of her forehead and muzzle. "You speak wi' Moira and Tua."

The canine dipped its head, as if to bow.

"Hail, Ghost Hound." Calenda forced herself to stand straight, then pulled her Ecrosian icon from her vest. "I am Esra na Ecross. We desperately need your aid."

"Priestess?" The yellow-furred woman gestured, drawing the rest of the pack closer. "Come, let us o'er shelter." While there was no interfaith requirement of supporting the priests of other religions, let alone ones of different cities and species, she needed to know what drove a small group of humans so far through such dangerous wilderness. Promising shelter was a small price for that knowledge.

Cali's strength failed and she collapsed like the corpse her body was.

Moments after, the short blonde was at her side. "She's cold!" Soon, she began to draw on healing energy.

"Stop! You'll kill her!" Elruin shouted. She drew together some of her own magic, to try to shield Cali from harm. Healing magic worked by mending and infusing with energy, but it would untie the 'knots' that made up the puppet-strings which let Calenda's body move. Several of the Ghost Hounds pointed weapons at the pair, interpreting the drawing of magic as a possible attack.

"She's a necromancer," Lemia said. If she let Elruin say anything more, it might lead to Cali being discovered, and all of them executed. Thinking fast, she began to build a case that wouldn't trip a Truthsayer or raise suspicions. "And a famous healer in her own right. If she says healing is dangerous, I believe it." All true statements, none of which were in any way related to one another, but still true.

Necromantic healers were an oddity, but not unheard of. "Why would healing kill her?"

Elruin hesitated, sputtered over her words. "Because it will hurt her inside, like poison."

"Please forgive her," Lemia said. "She is a child, and a wild talent. Up until a few months ago she never had a day of formal training with her magic, so it stands to reason she doesn't know how to explain specifics. I think what she describes sounds like mana poisoning. Esra did the hardest fighting to get us away from the goblins." Once again, all true statements that were unrelated.

Mana poisoning wasn't an unreasonable explanation, either. "Please, listen to them," Cali mumbled. "I appreciate your concern, but let me rest for now. They can explain the threat."

Tua drew back, uncertain about the condition Esra was in, especially the coolness of her skin, but she was unfamiliar with humans and what was and was not healthy for them. Perhaps they were like dwarves, but the opposite, and felt unhealthily cool to silmid rather than unhealthily hot.

"Right," Lemia said. "I'll explain on the way, but the basic details is that some powerful madman claiming to be Enge's Chosen is going around conquering half the cities of Engeval. We're trying to get a warning to the capital, but had to go north to avoid him and his armies. We were trying to escape to dwarven lands, in the hope that they could deliver the message we can't. Looks like we failed."

The guards and their dogs glanced amongst themselves. "You did not, 'ese are dwar'en lands, but our stone-bro'ers stay in 'eir tunnels. Silmid abo', stone-brothers below."

"Good, please let us deliver our warnings to your leaders." The sun was just now beginning to come over the horizon, and Lemia was ready for the day to be over. "Hey, Rin, help Esra to her feet." If Calenda wanted to use pseudonyms, then she'd trust they all needed one. "We'll have to abandon the cart for now, but there's nothing of value in it."

The glowing dog tilted her head at the words, then made a small, soft, growl. "Nothing?" Tua asked.

"Uh, I mean, nothing valuable enough to delay our warning. But the, uh, tapestry is important as well." Now she knew they were using Truthsaying magic. Slipping on one harmless lie was worth it to test the waters. "It's a historical artifact. I know not its value in coin, but to scholars, even amateur ones like myself, it is a priceless relic. Everything else is survival tools, I trust they won't be needed under your hospitality.

"And Mister Squishybones!" Meanwhile, Elruin helped pull Cali to her feet, while doing her best to check on her elder sister with her senses. She'd survive, in fact she could regenerate to full if she just remained still for a few weeks while feeding on ambient death energies, but for now she was one or two more spells away from destroying herself.

Lemia smiled as Elruin unknowingly helped her test the limits of the canine Truthsayer. "Of course, I'd hate to forget Rin's stuffed toy, which is extra priceless."

The dog nodded her head. "I understand." Tua smiled. "I ha'e children o' my own. Dena, Uren, show special care to the tapestry and toy. See what you can do about 'e cart and supplies, but 'ey're not a priority. I'll take our re'ugees to Sonhome."

Now Lemia knew the dog was more than just a Truthsayer, she was smart enough to discern nuance in statements. That meant she could understand their language, and was at least as intelligent as most humans. "So, what was that stuff you used on the goblins? I know it wasn't magic, so nonmagical alchemy? I apologize if it is some sort of secret tool."

"We call it 'enom'ire," Tua said. "It's a harmless powder 'at will con'ert to hot 'lame when exposed to certain chemicals. Like on goblin skin. It requires some special ore dwar'es dig up, can't say where else to 'ind it."

"If there's no special secret, maybe I can get some before we go. But first, please tell me you have hot baths in Sonhome."

"We ha'e hotsprings."

Later, Lemia would deny that she whimpered in joy, but Elruin and Cali knew better.