Everything hurt. As she floated in the place between dream and waking, each small pain could be ignored for another moment, even relished. She had nowhere to be. No duties or obligations. Her grandchildren had children of their own. She could hear at least two of her great grandchildren out there with their own beloved granny.
Aching, burning, numbness, tightness, splintery…
She sighed, which eased some pains but emphasized others. Even when Eugenia was reclining on her own bed, barely awake, trying to decide if her bladder would let her sleep another bell… Even then, everything hurt.
She sighed again, since the last one had at least felt different if not better than not sighing. She spent an indulgent moment envisioning a funnel she could sew out of oilcloth that she could wear at night with the skinny end in her chamber pot. Not that her fingers would hold a needle anymore.
She chuckled as she sat up, cackled. When had her chuckle become a cackle? Sometime after her Hubert died and before Cecily, their youngest had moved her into the ground floor room that used to be the cook’s room before Cecily and Bobert took over the tavern’s master suite.
Hmm… just before Cecily had her second mewling brat. He’d had more colic than any other ten babies of Eugenia’s experience.
Business taken care of, Eugenia slid the pot back under her bed where Tim would come to empty it. Tim was the apprentice stable hand who tended the animals and the proprietor’s old granny.
If Eugenia had been selfish she could have sold the tavern when Hubert died instead of letting her daughter’s husband talk her into signing it over to them. She could have afforded an Eye Opening Elixir with the gold the tavern would have brought.
Her children had all been grown, independent. She could have had a whole second life already.
This was not a new train of thought. All her life she’d wanted to try the Elixir that assigned a class to anyone who lived through the process of drinking it. It had been a pie in the sky dream ever since her great uncle had tried to convince her parents to let him buy her one.
Her parents wouldn’t hear of it seventy odd years ago. Children had a three out of five chance of dying trying to get a class.
Thirty years ago, when she could have had enough gold for it, the one in four chance that the Elixir would have killed her had still made the alchemical preparation a bad idea, now she’d take those odds over the pain.
Eugenia sat on her narrow cot and began her daily exercise routine. Hubert used to tease her that all dancers were masochists.
She still embodied that remark. Every stretch and flex was agony. She could barely close her fists, but she could touch her toes several ways. She did all her exercises seated now. There was too much threat of another fall.
Her body was little more than skin stretched across knobby bones. She stood in front of the mage made mirror Hubert had bought for her upstairs studio before they had needed a nursery.
She might get a whole gold selling the mirror. She didn’t have anything else worth as much. Five gold for an Elixir. Twenty for a good one. Another six or seven for the youth and beauty of a Longevity Serum.
She posed, her bleary eyesight allowing her imagination to provide the perfect grace of the beauty she once possessed.
She lowered her arms when her diminished strength made holding them up impossible.
Eugenia moved slowly, washing herself at the basin of room temperature water before she pulled on her clothes. All her clothes were loose now. She couldn’t tie the strings or thread the buckles for common fashion.
She sat on her bed again and sighed. Every moment was another reason to sigh. Her next daily activity was to walk to the rocking chair next to the taproom hearth where she could sit in relative comfort while she ate.
It would be a lot closer to ask to sit in the kitchen, but Cecily was always in the kitchen and Cecily was entirely too cheerful for a grumpy day.
Cecily strained the bowl of brown for her- the stew commonly served in taverns across the empire. She passed it through a sieve, to eliminate any lumps. Then she soaked the crumb of several slices of bread in the thin soup. That was what Eugenia ate, two meals a day of that, and not one tooth required.
Sometimes Eugenia wondered if anyone would notice if she stopped eating it. Not like she could waste away much more. Then she got hungry and ate the sloppy abominable mess after all.
She was not looking forward to the long walk. She would just sit a while longer.
Cecily was singing in the kitchen. Her grandchildren, Farris and Evelyn, sang the responses, almost all of which were educational.
Eugenia heard Bobert come in, the song stopped when he sang a line in his deep baritone and the children squealed and laughed. As much as Eugenia disliked her son in law, he’d always been good with children.
Eugenia smiled. She wouldn’t want to have missed seeing her youngest raise up her children or miss having little ones underfoot for the third generation. Sometimes though… sometimes.
Eugenia heard the children run out to the courtyard.
She couldn’t hear what Cecily and Bobert were saying. They seemed to be whispering angrily.
There was a quiet moment, Cecily’s soft slippers scraped on the stone floor just before she knocked on the door. “Mama?”
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“I’m up.” Eugenia offered querulously. She didn’t mean it angrily, her voice did that all by itself when she put enough air behind it. She kicked until she found both slippers and slid them on.
“Mama, come into the kitchen. Bobert brought news.”
Eugenia grunted. She shuffled to the door and pushed it open. Cecily pulled it out of her hand. Eugenia wished she wouldn’t do that. The door was heavy, but the door moving when she was already pushing on it almost made her fall over.
They couldn’t afford another Healing Pill if she broke her hip again. She snatched her cane up from its place just outside her door. She didn’t need it in her room where there was always a wall to lean on.
“Here. They were posting these in the square!” Bobert said triumphantly. He waved the poster in her face. Eugenia brushed it away.
“I can’t see to read anymore.” Eugenia complained, walking between the two and settling heavily on a chair.
The kitchen chairs bruised her legs. They were not comfortable and they were too heavy for her to move now.
“It’s a draft poster, mama.” Cecily sounded excited, worried and nervous all at the same time. She brushed her hair over her shoulder, a nervous gesture she’d had since childhood. “The Empire is drafting every elder and granny. Every resident of Cauldira over the age of sixty two is ordered to report to the square today.”
Eugenia blinked at her daughter, “How old are you now?”
Cecily rolled her eyes, made a face and sighed. “Fifty two, mama. I’m talking about you.”
“Bobert, how old are you now?” Eugenia demanded, although she knew he was seven years older than Cecily. That was one reason she’d disliked the match. They had met as apprentices in the same household when Cecily was only twelve.
He grunted. “Fifty nine, mother in law.” He actually rarely spoke to her. They’d butted heads too many times over the years.
“Pity.” Eugenia sniffed.
“Mama!” Cecily scolded.
“What? It’s not like the tavern would leave the family. So. Read me the handbill. Am I supposed to bring anything?”
Cecily sighed heavily and took the paper.
“By order of his Imperial Majesty Cereborn the Second, a draft and a levy of the citizenry is required for Protection of the Realm.
“All persons, male and female, human, halfling and dwarf, over 62 years of age (and elves over 750) living in the Empire are to report immediately to a designated drafting site. Life Mages will be deployed to ensure compliance.
“All draftees shall be issued either a Longevity Serum or an Eye Opening Elixir at induction, depending on availability, compatibility and choice. Those who survive will be marched to the training grounds in Hartmont before being deployed to the Eastern Border. Previous training and previous service prioritized with additional resources.
“Bah.” Eugenia scoffed. “Availability means they’ll use the cheapest Longevity Serums possible and Physique Teas and Herb Baths.”
Getting her hopes up was begging the gods to dash her back down. She was going, of course, even a Longevity Serum should make her young and strong again. Strong enough to pull a bow or thrust a spear.
“But it’s mandatory.” Bobert protested.
“That’s how I know they’ll cut corners. Eastern Border?” Eugenia mused. “Have we heard any rumors about the Fellcrag Mountains? When I was a child it was always the orcs, but…”
Everyone knew that the empire had driven the orcs across the seas, those who were still alive after the fighting that is. For generations the orcs had been a menace to the fertile farmland and pastures west of the crags.
The war of extermination had followed a concerted campaign by the orcs, when they had stopped their infighting long enough to choose a warlord.
Cecily scrabbled at the pile of broadsheets she only collected because they came wrapped around foodstuffs she picked up in the market. She and Bobert both scanned the headlines.
“Goblins.” Cecily frowned. “Really?” She looked up at her husband. “How much trouble could a few goblins be?”
Bobert shrugged. “Maybe there’s a dungeon in perpetual overflow?”
----------------------------------------
Far to the east, in a new fort built in the shadow of the Fellcrag Mountains, an unclassed clerk sat, furiously scribbling notes based on the books and excerpts she was studying. The new General had requisitioned a copy of anything any library or manor in the empire had on goblins and it was Carrie’s job to search through the myths and suppositions to find the truth of their current enemies.
Every few days another shipment of papers, mostly copied out of older books and scrolls, arrived. Then Carrie had to organize her notes again.
“So?”
Carrie looked up from her work at General Patrioc. “You asked me to be thorough.” She lifted the long lock of grey hair that had worked its way half out of her messy bun. “I just got these yesterday.” The wayward hair slipped over her ear and back into her face.
“You have had more than a month. What do we know?” The general was an austere, youthful looking noblewoman who had abdicated a duchy in favor of her granddaughter to take up command of the Empire’s forces in this goblin war. This ridiculous war which had dragged on almost two years before anyone realized there was a war.
Carrie sighed. “There are two prevailing theories about the origins of goblins. One says they are all escaped dungeon spawns with no ability to procreate. The other is the Bog Goblin strain or theory or…” she shrugged. “myth?”
“Every other live dungeon spawn has a natural source, a blueprint copy made from something living or formerly living.” The general said in a clipped tone that dared her clerk to contradict common sense wisdom. The general had a classical academy education, after all. She wasn’t some uneducated rube.
Carrie nodded, but couldn’t stop herself from contradicting common sense anyway. “Unless they came through the Multiversal Dungeon, back at the dawn of time when our realm was linked to a sprawling endless dungeon between worlds. Including realms with different rules of magic and physics.”
“Another myth.” The general barked. “Tell me more about the Bog Goblin thing.”
“Right.” Carrie shuffled a stack of papers and slid a crude drawing at the general. “There is a persistent folk legend that claims goblins are born from pods or eggs that float in shallow, still or slowly flowing water. Bogs, river deltas, swamps, but not deep ponds, swift streams or salt water. They are supposed to emerge from their little soft shells or pods as grindylows, semi aquatic baby sized monsters with a three tails, arms with webbed claws and-“
“I know what a grindylow is, Carrie.”
“Right. But the persistent folk legend, taken in aggregate, suggests grindylows are the tadpoles of the goblin life cycle.” Carrie finished triumphantly. This was her own breakthrough theory, after all.
“I thought grindylows were smaller grindymares.” The general showed off her education again. She not only had excellent marks in Beasts and Monsters, she’d spent decades of her youth leveling her class in dungeons.
“Yes… well…” Carrie frantically searched her papers again. She pulled out a drawing of a grindymare with a shockingly hobgoblin like face. “If I am going to be asked to guess, based on what I’ve read, the reason we never see hobgoblins higher than level 50 is the same reason nobody has ever seen a grindymare under level 55. Life cycle metamorphosis.”
The last three words came out with a scholarly glee she could not hide if she tried. As soon as she had a report she would also have a doctorate worthy dissertation.
“That… huh.” The general looked around, and finding no surface uncluttered she then pulled a stool from her storage ring and sat down. “So. What we’re thinking is that by exterminating the orcs, who…” the general pulled a book from her storage and flipped to a recipe. “Were known for farming grindylows for their unripe pods and their tender meat…” she looked up, horror and regret in her face.
“We actually caused this goblin invasion by eliminating their natural predators. I- yes.” Carrie winced. “If I am asked for my opinion. Yes. That’s exactly what happened.”
“Well crap.”