This guy was apparently starving for human connection, because it was a good half hour before his story finally ended. He couldn’t say he blamed the man. Being turned into a monster, and being forced to live with monsters would be hard on anyone. Unfortunately being a human before didn’t mean that the goblin lord wasn’t his enemy, and his story did little to reveal his current motivations. “How about you? How did you find yourself like this?”
That was a tough question to answer. Technically He was born a monster, or at least half one, well arguably 100% considering his father was more of a monster than his mom could ever be. He didn’t think that would be a good answer though, he needed it clear that he turned into a monster after he had lived as a human for a while. He glanced at Jackson in hopes of maybe finding some inspiration. He looked bored. Apparently the long story had been enough to kill off his interest in the human turned goblin lord. Luckily though, he did still find his inspiration. “I think it was always part of me, but I didn’t transform until after I entered the pool of rebirth.”
Technically he transformed after he left the pool, but that was still after he got in, so not a lie. Still he had the feeling he was walking the tightrope of death now, and one mistake would put him and Jackson in a very bad situation. “Interesting, I’d never heard of the pool changing someone into a monster, but then again I’ve never heard of anyone turning into a monster before at all, so we’re 2 of a kind. I’m kind of surprised though, if you were turned that recently, it’s odd you were willing to betray your teammate like that.”
He had been pegged, but that was fine. He had been expecting the goblin to catch that as soon as he had found out that the goblin had been human at one point. “He attacked me. He decided the pool turned me into a monster, because I was one on the inside, and he tried to kill me.” Jackson glared at him. At least the man was paying attention now.
“Ah yes, I suppose that is a fair reaction given the circumstances. Very well, I have a proposition for the 2 of you then.” That was mildly concerning. They still didn’t really know what the goblins' goal was. “Now before that I feel it’s about time I properly introduced myself. My name is Victor Obsidian. I was a noble who operated in Lake Spire, and I have a grudge there I’d like to settle.”
That wasn’t great. Previous human or not, it sounds like Victor’s plan was exactly what he feared it was. The only saving grace was that it seemed like there was only one person in Lake spire that the goblin was really after. “What kind of grudge, and what’s your definition of settling it?” If the person had it coming, and the punishment seemed fair then perhaps he and Jackson could handle it, instead of an all out attack on the city just to buy time to deal with one noble.
“It’s a man named Cornelius Pearl.” Victor growled in rage as the name left his lips. “He’s an absolute scumbag, you can bet just about every illegal operation in Lake Spire goes through him at some point.I tried to prove it, so he’d be arrested, but he caught on to me. If he had just gone after me, then I wouldn’t have such a problem, but he didn’t. In fact he didn’t go after me at all, he went for my family. He didn’t kill them, but I wish he had. It would have been far better from the broken mess that he left in his wake.” He saw Victor's hands clench and blood seep down his fingers. “He tortured them, and pushed them far past their breaking point. By the time I saw them again, they couldn’t even speak coherent words anymore. As for settling it, my grudge won’t be settled until Cornelius is more broken than what he left of my family.”
It had been a while since he had seen the cold rage of a noble, but it was safe to say that Victor’s rage was well justified, and that the goblin was telling the truth. Moreover it seemed Victor was a reasonable man, even if he wasn’t human anymore. So perhaps negotiation wasn’t off the table yet. Azura steeled himself. “Perhaps we can offer an alternate solution to raiding the town then.”
“That brings me to that proposition I mentioned. I wasn’t particularly fond of the plan to raid the city either, but I lacked help competent enough to do a stealth mission. So my proposition is that you help me sneak in and destroy Cornelias, and then I’ll make sure the monsters don’t attack Lake Spire.” He hadn’t expected Victor to admit to planning to raid the town so easily, but if the goblin was willing to take a less destructive approach, then he had no problem helping him.
“So if you’re looking to sneak into the human town, do you mind untying me, I’m kind of your best bet there.” He rolled his eyes. It was a decent move, pretending that at least half of their lie was true. Given the knot was so loose Jackson could just move his arms and it would come off.
“You attacked your friend here the second he changed shape, what possible reason would we have to trust you?” Victor’s eyes narrowed at Jackson. He suppressed a chuckle. It was obvious Jackson’s assistance was his goal from the beginning. No other reason to speak human tongue at the beginning like that. At this point Victor was digging for leverage, and Jackson was doing an admirable job of keeping it away.
“I’d say his town not being attacked would be sufficient motivation to help us. Besides, anyone would probably attack if their ally suddenly changed into a monster without any prior warning.” He mused about whether he should shift back to his normal shape. Even with his new found draconic instincts it still felt odd to be a dragonkin, or rather in the shape of one.
Victor gave him an aggravated look. He shrugged, this hadn’t gone as he expected, but formerly human or not he still trusted Jackson more than the goblin in front of him. “I suppose, there’s no way he’d be able to take out both of us anyway.” He wasn’t so sure about that, even if he did side with the goblin he couldn’t really think of any decisive way to actually beat Jackson. The best he could probably do was keep the man contained for a while.
“Yeah yeah, enough with the veiled threats, let's get this show on the road. We get to beat up some cruel noble, and keep the town safe at the same time? Sounds like my kind of party.” He moved to ‘untie Jackson, and Victor let him do so without complaint. “Also sorry about attacking you earlier and all that, just thought a monster had taken over was all.” Credit where it was due Jackson was a much better actor then he had given the man credit for.
“It’s fine, like I said I’d have done the same if the situations were reversed. Though I’d rather not give up my regular life just because of this, dragons can shape shift, so maybe I can…” He took longer than he had to to change back. Hopefully that would sell this being his first time attempting to change form. He was relieved to be back to his normal form. Even though his body was formed by magic now, this form still felt the most natural.
“Wow what an amazing ability, I’m quite jealous. I searched for a way to change back for years and never found it, but you got turned into a monster that could change back that easily.” Victor sighed. He wondered if that was something he could help with, but didn’t bother to say anything. If he could help change the man back, it would take years of research, and probably enough blood samples to kill the man outright anyway.
“In exchange though you’ve gotten the ability to control monsters. If you could get a chance to talk to someone higher up, they would no doubt allow you to live as a human even like that. In exchange for using your ability to protect their interests of course.” The ability to control monsters would be quite handy to nobles, honorable ones would use it to limit monster attacks on their land, and shady ones would use it To stop anyone who came close to discovering their shady business. Or just people they didn’t like, depended on the noble really.
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“I am an Obsidian, I won’t bow my head to anyone but the king.” That checked out, most nobles went out of their way to not meet the king because they were too prideful to bend the knee. He honestly would have expected his father to be part of that group, but surprisingly the man had no problem bowing to their king, and had done so on many occasions. To the point that Azura respected the man he knew nothing about simply because his father seemed willing to serve.
“If you say so, just offering a suggestion.” Mostly because he couldn’t imagine actually being forced to spend the rest of his life as a monster. He wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone… well maybe on his father, but not anyone else. “Anyway, we’ve gotten a bit off topic. What exactly is your plan to try and get to this Cornelius guy?” Nobles were of course some of the most protected people in any given town or city, and the shady ones were even more so. If this guy went so far as to destroy another noble family, then he was just about at the top of the shady list.
“Right, well if I’m being honest, plan is a bit of a stretch. My plan was to use the monsters as a distraction and kill him myself, but I didn’t expect to actually get allies competent enough to actually do this a bit more quietly, so I hadn’t really made any plans for it. What I do have though, are all the details on where he lives, and what kind of security he’s got.” He smiled, he could definitely work with that.”
***
Azura had to admit, he was pretty proud of this plan. Sneaking into the nobles manor would be a piece of cake thanks to victor’s information, but getting into the city with a goblin lord in tow was a bit trickier. Thankfully he and Jackson were seen leaving, so their return was expected. All they needed to do was cause a bit of a distraction so victor could sneak in behind them. Of course a simple distraction wouldn’t be enough, they needed something suitably attention grabbing. Funny enough he happened to remember his entrance into the town the first time had seemed to grab everybody’s attention, so he decided that perhaps an encore with a twist would work.
As such he and Jackson were on Reign high above the city, as Victor hid near the gate so he could get in the second he had the chance. Once they were over the district of the town closest to the gate he looked at Jackson. “You ready to go?” He had a ton of different ways to land safely, Jackson however was relying on him not to go splat. Although even if the man did splat he’d probably regenerate.
“I know what you're thinking, and I will get vengeance if you let me hit the ground hard.” He laughed as the man glared at him. He wasn’t going to let the man splat, even if part of him thought it would make an excellent distraction, if perhaps a bit grotesque. His much flashier distraction would have to do. “But yeah, I’m ready to go.”
“Alright then, let’s get this done.” He jumped off Reign with Jackson attempting to follow behind. Reign vanished into the spirit world right before Jackson got a chance to dive. Jackson flailed for a minute before correcting his form into a proper dive. He held in a chuckle, he’d make fun of Jackson later. Right now he needed to focus. He couldn't afford to just teleport this time, he’d never tried teleporting anyone else, and while Kaiser had been able to go through one of his portals, he could hardly use that as a basis to assume they were safe. The heir Crimson could probably laugh off a full hit from the monster that cut Jackson in 2.
With the easiest solution out of the way, and most of his other options limited by either not being distracting enough or not slowing them down enough to avoid injury, he was left with no choice, but to improvise a solution by mixing things together. On the bright side the wide array of different magic circles he’d be using would be incredibly distracting. Once they got close enough to the ground that he could start to make out the people on the ground he started his magic. The first spell was a series of light blue magic circles that slowed he and Jacksons Momentum. The effect of each one was almost negligible, but there were hundreds of them reaching all the way down to the ground.This was not a cheap solution in terms of mana, and yet even with the heavy mana cost it still wouldn’t slow them down enough to not hurt themselves when hitting the ground. Though it would at least guarantee that no fatal injuries happened.
Still it wasn’t like they would have time to get their injuries healed, so he moved onto the next step.He began making purple magic circles above them that pulled on them slowing their descent even more. He was especially proud of those, gravity magic was a difficult thing to use, even more so when you were falling at Almost 150 miles per hour, and had to perfectly control the amount of force exerted. He managed it though fluidly slowing their descent, as if they were going up instead of down. With all of this they’d probably hit the ground at around 30 mph. They’d be fine with only that, but they would probably damage the ground they landed on, and he didn’t want to pay for that,
A few green circles around the tunnel of circles they were falling through shot air at them from below slowing them even further. Even with his new magic core creating mana at a rate he’d have never thought possible only a few weeks ago he was going to find himself pretty near empty by the end of this, but it was flashy and eye-catching, which was exactly what he wanted right now. In the end they flipped over so their feet landed quietly on the ground, surrounded by onlookers. “See I told you it would be fine.” He was a little uncomfortable about the amount of mana he wasted on a task as simple as landing, but when needs must.
“Yeah yeah, now let's find our ‘friend’ before he gets into any trouble.” He nodded. Victor would be wearing a cloak and hood, which wasn’t super uncommon among adventurers around here, especially the younger ones. They just needed to get him past the gate, now that the goblin was in the city there shouldn’t be anyone looking to see under the hood. Still it would probably be best to escape the onlookers before meeting up with their unexpected teammate. Victor of course had taken the precaution of giving the monsters a battle plan should he not return, so they couldn’t betray him even if they wanted to.
The look on Jackson’s face told him he didn’t need to say anything. The 2 of them were on the same page, so they started heading for the adventurers guild. Most of the onlookers dispersed the second they started casually walking away, but not all of them. He sighed they’d probably have to cross a few districts before the more stubborn of the onlookers decided they were done doing interesting things for the day. At least now they were out of earshot of the onlookers. “How long do you think we’ll have to walk?” Jackson knew the town better than he did. So hopefully he’d have a solid estimate of how the townspeople would react.
“Almost everyone who lives here is either an active adventurer, or a retired one. So the vast majority of them will leave right away. It’s the few that aren’t that will keep watch for a while. Most of them came here to live vicariously through the adventurers. Not skilled or talented enough to do it themselves, but longing for a very romanticized idea of adventure.” That sounded about right. Adventuring definitely wasn’t as glamorous as most civilians seem to think it was. He wondered how they’d respond if he told them about the less cool parts of adventuring. Going to the bathroom in the woods, worrying that you didn’t bring enough food. Scavenging for food, and a whole lot of walking. It definitely wasn’t all slaying monsters and finding treasure like they seemed to think.
“Well that’s good at least, means we don’t have to go very far before we can just lose them the normal way. Adventurers might get a little suspicious, but civvies won’t think anything of us vanishing.” For the most part adventurers didn’t travel around town any differently from anyone else, but it wasn’t exactly illegal, just frowned upon. It was rare to see any do it, but it wasn’t like you wouldn’t see it happen every now and then.
“I’m not exactly worried about that honestly. I’m more concerned about the plan as a whole. Can we really trust that guy? I mean we have no reason to believe that any of his story was the real deal, and for all we know we could be helping him with his invasion right now.” Jackson had a solid point, but there was one flaw.
“Why bother? This plan puts him at a ton of risk, and isn’t even a guaranteed success. The invasion would work. Most of his monsters would die, but he would be fine, and his enemy would no doubt be dead. Whether the rest of his story is true or not I don’t know, but I’d say at the very least he genuinely doesn’t wasn’t the town destroyed.” That wasn’t to say he trusted Victor at all. Nobles were very well versed in selective story telling. Who knew what pieces of the picture he was missing.