Bolgrat wiped sweat off his forehead, glaring out at the forest. The night before last, the watch had spotted multiple campfires in the distance, two ridgelines over; unfortunately, the yellow-skinned goblins sent out to investigate hadn't returned, much less reported details. Bolgrat wasn't sure if the goblins had run off, gotten lost, or gotten killed; the smaller humanoids seemed useless. Worse than useless – the pack of red-skinned goblins the chief had taken in earlier had killed Shabag before running off.
True, with Shabag's death, Bolgrat was now the third-ranked subchief; but if he were chief, the tribe would dispense with the wasteful practice of impressing goblins into service. Unreliable scouts, skirmishers, and raiders were, in his opinion, worse than nothing. And it wasn't as if goblins were capable of getting work done in the mines without being closely supervised. Orcs, though – orcs were useful workers and courageous on the battlefield, if not as skilled and disciplined as hobgoblins.
A flock of birds took off, and Bolgrat peered into the woods down the slope from the fort. Perhaps they should clear a larger kill zone, he thought to himself as his eyes searched for signs of trespassers. Scanning back and forth, he could see a distant figure standing on a prominence on one of the nearby ridgelines – either humans riding double or a centaur with a rider. Hard to tell at that distance. He turned his head over his shoulder. His watch partner on the tower on the opposite side of the gate was dozing. He shouted. "Look sharp!"
His watch partner startled, standing up muzzily. "What?"
"A rider, over on the ridgeline." Bolgrat pointed, but the rider was already gone, vanished back into the woods. "Keep an eye out. I will go roust out others. We must prepare for an attack."
----------------------------------------
"Morris, I think this will do for a campsite, but tell everyone we must set a cold camp tonight," Linda said. "No fires. We are well within sight of the fort. And that I want paired watches set the whole night – a militiaman and one of the travelers, with at least three different pairs posted at any time. They need to get used to working together, and that pack of goblins we scared off last night may not be the only scouts around."
The man riding next to her nodded, his creased face somber. "We won't fail you like the men of Ekkleston did," he said. "You've proven yourself a mighty warrior. We've a powerful elven enchantress at our backs, and three other wizards. And Sister Isabella and Sister Abigail… they may be travelers and I have never before known militant orders to accept women, but they've shown us miracles and told us your mission is divinely blessed."
Napoleon said morale is three times as important as physical force, Linda silently told herself. "I hope so," she said. "The travelers are very curious people and I at times question their sanity, but I find I trust that they carry some weight of destiny with them."
Julie, perched on Linda's back, giggled. "Indeed."
----------------------------------------
The upper galleries of the mine had been abandoned for at least twenty years, according to Angela, and was therefore extremely unlikely to collapse. The unstable parts had already done so. Even better – from Angela's perspective – was the fact that most of the gallery barely had headroom for a tall goblin. This meant that Donna was forced into an uncomfortable walking crouch most of the time, and that Jacob routinely banged his head when trying to move about the gallery.
For this reason, Donna was sitting cross-legged as she argued with a standing Angela. "But if we take the inner keep by surprise, we'll have fortifications on our side," she said. "With a little judicious application of lampblack, I can pass for a dark elf – we've certainly plenty of their clothes – and the hobgoblins will have no way of knowing exactly how many of us there are. A little confusion, a little fire, and they will melt away. Dark elves are much more dangerous than hobgoblins, and they know it."
Angela shook her head. "The usual rule is three to one, and in a fight, a goblin is worth maybe two thirds of a hobgoblin, which makes it more like two to one. We'll doubtless take losses in the process of taking the inner keep even if we catch them by surprise. You might be third level, but the rest of us are still first level and I had the literal worst roll for my starting hit points. We really need to get the rest of the party up to at least second level, maybe third level, and then we could pull it off."
Donna sighed. "We could try baiting the dark elves into attacking them, but… that could backfire." She frowned, sitting in silence for a long minute.
Angela pulled out a piece of jerky and started chewing. "I will say, I'm surprised your goblins are this good at smoking meat," she said. "Damn tasty jerky."
Donna opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it. Pragmatically, she thought to herself, Angela didn't need to know. The sound of a rock tapping in a familiar pattern – shave and a haircut, two bits – announced that Liam was back, and still invisible. A sense of relief washed over her. True, it should be easy for an invisible mage/thief to escape detection, but she had still worried.
Liam's voice sounded excited. "There's an attack of some kind going on, and a lot of the hobgoblins in the inner keep left to man the outer wall! Half the buildings in the courtyard are on fire! One of the subchiefs was ordered to do inventory of siege supplies, and I followed him, so now I know which are the weapon storehouses and which is the treasury." A small but heavy chest appeared on the cavern floor. "The unguarded treasury. The inner keep is practically abandoned."
"Oh. Good job, Liam." Donna turned to Angela. "What do you think of our odds if the inner keep is undefended and we have a second army to play hammer and anvil outside?"
----------------------------------------
"Unskilled archers – keep up the fire arrows as best as you can! We want them busy and distracted! Skilled archers – target enemy archers! Shieldbearers! Remember that you are also spotters! Point out and enemy archers as they appear and as you see them – knowing the target is half of the battle!" Linda reared up dramatically to emphasize her orders. Julie let out an excited whoop.
"We have the initiative and we must maintain missile supremacy! We can keep their fire suppressed!" Linda followed her own advice by shooting in the general direction of a hobgoblin archer ducking behind a crenelation. Both arrows pinged off the stone harmlessly, but as the hobgoblin returned fire, an arrow from Finnegan's bow took it through the skull.
Linda gritted her teeth as the dead hobgoblin's arrow pierced her shoulder. Linda didn't have a shieldbearer; nobody was tall enough to cover a centaur. Finnegan only barely had one, Addison the elven enchantress having finally reached him with a pavise that the poor girl could barely lift. Still, the hobgoblins were reaching the tops of the walls only by ones and twos, which meant she had – for the moment – command of the duel of archers through numbers, in spite of the hobgoblins' superior position.
Julie's weight shifted on Linda's back. "Hold still," her rider said, reaching around to grab the arrow. "Let me take care of that."
----------------------------------------
The blast of colored light washed over the chief and his bodyguards. For all that Donna had badmouthed Color Spray in favor of Friends, there was something to be said for the way that all four of them halted in their tracks, blinded by the light. She followed up with a thrust of her halberd, knocking the chief back a step and punching a small dent – possibly a hole – in his breastplate.
Next to her, Jacob pushed forward, his sword clanging off one of the bodyguards' shields. The bodyguard blindly flung his own sword back in Jacob's direction, the blade ringing off the stone with a loud clatter of metal on stone.
"Work quickly! We have to seal the gate!" Donna shouted.
The hobgoblin chief, hearing her shout, lunged forward wildly, his shield knocking aside Donna's leveled halberd. His blade smacked into her helmet forcefully, and her vision immediately doubled as her ears rang. She staggered back, a red-skinned goblin boldly stepping forward in her place.
Then Liam appeared, his hands on the gate as he shouted, and light flared around the door. "The gate is sealed!" Donna's feathered and scaled grandson ducked under a blade swung wildly in his direction.
Another wild blow from the chief blindly decapitated the goblin standing in front of Donna; Angela stepped forward, swinging her mace, smacking the chief's sword arm with a crunch of breaking bone. Then the tall goblin swung his flanged mace up, the flanges tearing into the throat of the chief.
The hobgoblin chief rasped, staggering forward a step, and then fell.
----------------------------------------
By focusing on the archery duel, Linda was taking arrows and attention away from the battering ram and the wall-scaling team. The former struck the massive wooden door of the fort with a hollow thud as a motley assortment of adventurers dressed in mismatched garb with lighter armor went up the rough stones hand-over-hand to the left of the gate.
To the right, half a dozen local militiamen accompanied by a quartet of properly-classed fighters from another world (including Anthony, Addison's dwarven twin, the one that looked like an ugly miniature George) were bringing a pair of conventional scaling ladders into play. A hobgoblin with a hooked glaive pushed the first away before the first man had begun to climb; and then suddenly fell forward off the wall, the back of his skull caved in by a lead ball.
"We have them! Target any heads over the wall, archers or no, and we will take the heights!" Linda shouted, wheeling about to make herself a harder target and firing a wild arrow over the wall. She couldn't tell if Julie's arrows were any more accurate, her eyes searching for targets and for information. Another loud thud sounded, the battering ram hitting the door again. Then there was a loud metallic sound like a poorly-forged bell being rung, and a smokey fire erupted on top of the tower to the left of the gate.
Had one of the rogues interrupted the hobgoblins' attempt to start heating up a pot of boiling oil? Linda glanced over at the left side of the wall. Some of the adventurers were climbing over; one had fallen, a triumphant hobgoblin holding up an axe as a severed halfling hand still gripped on the edge of the wall. Linda winced.
----------------------------------------
From the top of the inner keep tower, Angela twirled her sling overhead, spying another of the hooked-glaive hobgoblins rushing up the stairs toward where the scaling ladder was being re-laid on the outer wall. Her bullet landed in his leg, and she imagined she could hear the crack of breaking bone as the hobgoblin's leg collapsed and the humanoid fell screaming down into the courtyard.
She spared another glance at the raging inferno consuming the top floor of one of the towers of the outer wall. The way the pot of oil had suddenly overturned onto the fire set beneath it suggested the presence of a saboteur. Hopefully one that had gotten out safely.
The goblins were not the best of archers, nor were there enough bows, but the inner keep had an ample supply of arrows and javelins and was equipped with proper arrow-slits, possibly because the inner keep being built into the cliffside meant it required windows for ventilation. Not that she could use arrow-slits particularly well with her sling; she needed too much space from side to side. At least from here, she could see everything, or almost everything – all the way out to the distant line of archers behind planted pavises, a centaur trotting back and forth behind the line with a longbow and a rider.
The fact that the hobgoblins' main supply of arrows was within the now-sealed inner keep meant that the hobgoblins in the courtyard and those who had reached the battlements of the upper wall were severely undersupplied with arrows and javelins, having only what they'd kept with them. The forces outside the wall, on the other hand… Angela could see sheaves and sheaves of arrows ready and waiting.
Still, there were a lot of hobgoblins.
----------------------------------------
As the battering ram burst through the door, Linda stopped in shock as she saw hobgoblins, with their own battering ram, trying to break into the inner keep of the fort. The two battering rams collided, their bearers disintegrating into a free-for-all melee. Then more hobgoblins appeared from either side of the gate, running through with an angry cry. There were more of them than she'd expected, especially from the small number that had been on top of the wall; in moments, some twenty-one hobgoblins on foot were charging directly toward her line of archers and shieldbearers.
Then nineteen. Then eighteen. "Keep at it! Loose as fast as you can!" Linda shouted to the archers, stowing her bow and pulling out her lance. Behind her, she could her Julie drawing her blades. "Shieldbearers, try to keep them off the archers!"
Screaming, she charged through the middle of the group, hobgoblins breaking to either side to get out of her way. Shouts and spearthrusts and swinging swords greeted her, but not too closely, and her lance found no target. As she wheeled about, she found she'd divided the group in two and saw blood on one of Julie's blades. Eight to the left; seven to the right. She charged the smaller group; her lance was met with a ready spear that sank viciously into her horse body. A scream behind; Julie was also injured.
Addison rose from behind her shield, flinging out a handful of sand, and a handful of the hobgoblins around her fell. Linda reared up, pounding her hooves into the face of one of the two hobgoblins surrounding her who remained standing. The spear hurt, badly; and Julie fell off of Linda's back with a scream. Then Finnegan rushed over, smashing the last hobgoblin with a hammer, his bow still clutched in his left hand.
Linda looked around. Hobgoblins were scattering into the woods in small groups. She shook her head and knelt by Julie, checking her injuries. "Come on, don't die on me," Linda said, pressing what she hoped was a clean cloth against the flow of blood. "Come on, Julie."
"Fuck me. It's Julie," a voice said, a pair of boots appearing next to Julie's head. There was a flare of bright light, and Linda looked up. "Fuck, both of you are in shit shape. Glad I fucking ran down those steps."
"Angela?" Linda shook her head. "Wow, you got ugly."
"I didn't ask for a fucking beard. Fucking dwarves," Angela said, shaking her head. Then the dwarven woman knelt down by the still form of Julie, and there was a flare of light. "Julie, I'm sorry about everything."
Julie coughed. Then coughed again, her eyes meeting Angela's as she sat up. "Like, George? That was a long time ago and you just saved my life. I can put that behind me. Let's not split the party again."
"Saved your grandson Jacob's life, too," Angela said. "Found him with a party of idiots trying to take on a whole fucking tribe of goblins. Last I checked, he was still in the inner keep with a bow behind an arrow slit, so he should be okay."
Linda sighed in relief and then suddenly doubled over, coughed wetly as the deep breath sucked blood into her lungs.
"Shit," Angela said, looking at the spear sticking out of her centaur friend. "I have two more healing spells, but I think I better pull this out first. Brace yourself, Linda."
----------------------------------------
"No!" Donna shouted, pushing herself in between the tall goblin and the dwarf who looked a lot like a small ugly version of George. The axe hit her chest hard, and while her mail hauberk held, a flash of pain suggested she'd gotten a rib cracked. "We're all friends here," she gasped, rubbing her ribs. "You're Angela and George's grandkid, right?"
"Wait, are my grandparents around here?" Anthony paused, looking suspiciously at the red-skinned goblin.
"Angela should be," Donna said, one hand wrapped around her chest in a vain attempt to ease the pain. "She just ran out the front gate. Haven't seen George. No idea if he's in this world or not. Now chill out. All of you. The hobgoblins are dead, fled, or surrendered, and there's no need for us to fight each other."
Armed humans and armed red-skinned goblins stared skeptically at each other for a long minute as a centaur limped through the gate, accompanied by Angela and an elf that looked a lot like Julie had in her twenties. Then the centaur spoke.
"She's right. These particular goblins work for her, and she's an old friend of mine," Linda said. "She's been looking after my grandson." The centaur looked around, her eyes settling on an orange-cloaked warrior sitting leaned against a wall. Jacob waved back weakly, and the centaur smiled before continuing. "Our first priorities are sending a message to town and repairing the gate in case the hobgoblins have friends and decide they want this fort back. There are plenty of them out there."
"And then," Donna added, gesturing broadly. "We celebrate! Today, we broke the back of the hobgoblin menace of Goblin Mountain. Many of you – human and goblin alike – have suffered because of the ambition and greed of, uh…"
A short red-skinned goblin whispered in Donna's ear.
"Of Chief Golbat and his gray-skinned bandits," Donna finished. "Tonight, we celebrate victory! Tonight, we drink Dragon's Milk!"
Angela pulled a sour face. "There's only one barrel left," she muttered darkly.
----------------------------------------
Party members Linda, Julie, Addison, and Anthony; and also new party members Angela, Dylan, Jacob, Liam, and Donna; and also henchmen Finnegan (human fighter), "Tallboy" Talog (goblin fighter), and "Shorty" Shirley (goblin fighter), have defeated 120 hobgoblins, including one chief and six subchiefs (3765 XP, 314 each) and have recovered 10148 silver pennies' worth of treasure (10148 XP, 846 each).
Status (Linda):
Hit points:
8/13
Armor class:
5
XP:
4164/2000
ERROR
Illegal experience total for (LEVEL 1 FIGHTER). Resetting overflow. Filing bug report… bug report filed. Reloading status.
Status (Linda):
Hit points:
8/13
Armor class:
5
XP:
3999/2000
Linda has leveled up! Rolling 1d10 additional hit points… Linda has gained 5 hit points!
STR
13
Class
Fighter
Saves
Normal
DEX
11
Level
2
Death
14
CON
12
THAC0
20
Wand
16
INT
10
XP
3999
Polymorph
15
WIS
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
10
Next level
4000
Breath Weapon
17
CHA
13
Max hp:
18
Spell
17
Updated status (Linda):
Hit points:
13/18
XP:
3999/4000
Status (Julie):
Hit points:
1/9
Armor class:
6
XP:
3556/2250
Julie has leveled up! Rolling 1d10 additional hit points… Julie has gained 4 hit points!
STR
13
Class
Ranger
Saves
Normal
DEX
13
Level
1
Death
14
CON
14
THAC0
20
Wand
16
INT
11
XP
0
Polymorph
15
WIS
14
Next level
2250
Breath Weapon
17
CHA
11
Max hp:
9
Spell
17
Updated status (Julie):
Hit points:
5/13
Armor class:
6
XP:
3556/4500
Addison has gained 200 bonus wizard XP for using spells to overcome obstacles.
Status (Addison):
Hit points:
2/2
Armor class:
10
Spells memorized:
Hypnotism
XP:
2256/2500
Anthony has gained 1350 bonus warrior XP for defeating 135 hit dice of enemies.
Status (Anthony):
Hit points:
3/10
Armor class:
5
XP:
3556/2000
Anthony has leveled up! Rolling 1d10+1 additional hit points… Anthony has gained 3 hit points!
STR
13
Class
Fighter
Saves
+4 versus poison, magic
DEX
12
Level
2
Death
14
CON
15
THAC0
19
Wand
16
INT
10
XP
3556
Polymorph
15
WIS
10
Next level
4000
Breath Weapon
17
CHA
7
Max hp:
13
Spell
17
Updated status (Anthony):
Hit points:
3/13
Armor class:
5
XP:
3556/4000
Angela has gained 1350 bonus warrior XP for defeating 135 hit dice of enemies. For casting spells in furtherance of a divine ethos of rescue, Angela has earned 200 bonus priest XP.
Status (Angela):
Hit points:
2/6
Armor class:
4
XP (fighter):
3288/2000
XP (cleric):
1710/1500
Spells memorized:
None
Angela has leveled up in both fighter and cleric! Rolling (1d8+5)/2+(1d10+5)/2… Angela has gained 10 hit points!
STR
18/86
Class
Fighter/cleric
Saves
+5 vs poison, magic
DEX
8
Level
2/2
Death
10
CON
19
THAC0
19
Wand
14
INT
8
XP (fighter)
3288/4000
Polymorph
13
WIS
15
XP (cleric)
1710/3000
Breath Weapon
16
CHA
7
Max hp:
16
Spell
15
Updated status (Angela):
Hit points:
12/16
Armor class:
4
XP (fighter):
3288/4000
XP (cleric):
1710/3000
Spells memorized:
None
Jacob has gained 1350 bonus warrior XP for defeating 135 hit dice of enemies.
Status (Jacob):
Hit points:
1/4
Armor class:
4
XP:
3868/2000
Jacob has leveled up! Rolling 1d10 additional hit points… Jacob has gained 5 hit points!
STR
13
Class
Fighter
Saves
Normal
DEX
9
Level
2
Death
14
CON
14
THAC0
19
Wand
16
INT
16
XP
3868
Polymorph
15
WIS
9
Next level
4000
Breath Weapon
17
CHA
12
Max hp:
9
Spell
17
Updated Status (Jacob):
Hit points:
6/9
Armor class:
4
XP:
3868/4000
Liam has gained 100 bonus wizard XP for casting spells to overcome obstacles. Liam has also gained 10148 bonus rogue XP for recovering 10148 silver pennies' worth of treasure from the hobgoblins.
Status (Liam):
Hit points:
3/3
Armor class:
8
Spells memorized:
None
XP (mage):
2347/2500
XP (thief):
12524/2500
ERROR
Illegal experience total for (LEVEL 2 THIEF). Resetting overflow. Filing bug report… bug report filed. Reloading status.
Status (Liam):
Hit points:
3/3
Armor class:
8
Spells memorized:
None
XP (mage):
2347/2500
XP (thief):
4999/2500
Liam has leveled up! Rolling (1d6-1)/2 additional hit points… Liam has gained 1 hit point!
STR
7
Class
Mage/thief
Saves
+2 vs acid
DEX
16
Level
1/3
Death
13
CON
5
THAC0
20
Wand
11
INT
17
XP (mage)
2347/2500
Polymorph
12
WIS
9
XP (thief)
4999/5000
Breath Weapon
15
CHA
13
Max hp:
3
Spell
12
Updated status (Liam):
Hit points:
3/3
Armor class:
8
Spells memorized:
None
XP (mage):
2347/2500
XP (thief):
4999/2500
Donna has gained 675 bonus bard XP for defeating 135 hit dice of enemies. Donna has also gained 10148 bonus rogue XP for recovering 10148 silver pennies' worth of treasure from the hobgoblins.
Status (Donna):
Hit points:
6/15
Armor class:
2
Spells memorized:
None
XP:
14582/5000
ERROR
Illegal experience total for (LEVEL 1 BARD). Resetting overflow. Filing bug report… bug report filed. Prior bug report linked! Filing escalation report… two additional party members identified with overflow errors! Filing additional escalation report… Reloading status.
Status (Donna):
Hit points:
6/15
Armor class:
2
Spells memorized:
Color spray
XP:
9999/5000
FILE NOTE:
Flagged for review
Donna has leveled up! Rolling 1d6 additional hit points… Donna has gained 3 hit points!
STR
12
Class
Bard
Saves
Normal
DEX
17
Level
4
Death
13
CON
7
THAC0
19
Wand
14
INT
14
XP
2499
Polymorph
12
WIS
11
Next level
5000
Breath Weapon
16
CHA
16
Max hp
18
Spell
15
Updated status (Donna):
Hit points:
9/18
Armor class:
2
Spells memorized:
Color spray
XP:
9999/5000
FILE NOTE:
Flagged for review
----------------------------------------
Is Donna cheating somehow?