The oath of a Denisian knight was one of honour & justice. An oath I had sworn to myself, and remembered every time I was reminded of the scar across my eye. I swore never to watch someone suffer if I could do something to help, unlike the hopeless encounter I had with Dash’s father. Today, Lady Darkrose took that oath alongside myself, Sir Spike Hellsing.
The altar in the 10th floor gathering area was engraved with strange symbols, but they were irrelevant to our vows. The room was simply used for convenience. I would have sketched down the unfamiliar shapes, but I did not have a writing implement with me.
After the ceremony, the tribunal members revealed our combat scores and awarded us combat classifications. I was labelled as a samurai, and Lady Darkrose was considered a battle-mage. We discussed the nature of the dungeon and our commander informed us that no living person has ever been beyond the 38th floor. Legendary heroes of old are said to have reached the 70’s, but the highest floor reached in modern times was actually by my original mentor Chance, who had reached the 47th floor.
I asked about the writings on the altar and was educated on the unknown nature of the draconic language present within the dungeon. Furthermore, I was told where I could locate etchings made from the altar on the 10th floor, as well as ones from the meeting rooms on the 20th, 30th, and 40th floors. When I finally found them in the library archives, I discovered that the rubbing from the 40th floor was made by Chance so I made some crude sketches for my growing collection of exotic literature.
At last, as official knights of the kingdom, we were permitted to accept the guild contract to stop the warlock occupying the area where we believed one of Lady Darkrose’s fragments had landed.
Conflicts caused by the growing orc hordes in the north had been constantly increasing. When Lady Darkrose and I requested transport to the Orc infested tundra, we ended up being dispatched in the neighbouring marshlands. The goblins had been considering swearing fealty to the kingdom and were now asking for help defending their lands from the orcs. The goblins in the marshlands made a good buffer between the human kingdom and the hordes of orcs in the tundra beyond.
https%3A%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2Fpw%2FAL9...authuser%3D0 [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AL9nZEWf_hvDQqSwklPJguLFwoPga6mAh2DRBH_HAPJki0YA5kj71PJc6VWqpVK4-qP1zCTPFf51nYu5QslZrCfviX2Iyl4yfPchLca6EUrkmKkvFg9tyNS_pWmo16Em0ezNmFc7jqN1rJjbZIRRJha4BqIZ=w969-h749-no?authuser=0]
((I plan to upload a better map later, I'm not even sure if this one will work yet.))
Knighthood came with many benefits, including salary, hazard pay, and free food & lodging in most towns and cities within the kingdom. The mission was optional, although it would be in bad form to refuse our first assignment; not to mention the pay cut and missed opportunities' for bonuses. So we would be sent abroad with a small contingent of other knights and their squires.
Before shipping off to far away lands, we gathered supplies: water, bedrolls, rope, torches, flint, tools, crafting/building materials, fire wood, books, clothes, and rations… A rather absurd quantity of rations. We stored most of it in my pocket dimension, so all we needed in order to replenish our supplies was an anvil. We considered acquiring some kind of a portable anvil, but it just felt unnecessary at the time.
We set sail for West Warf, the trading hub & port town in goblin's bay. My first trip only took about a week and I found life at sea to be rather relaxing. Once we made landfall, it took me days to shake my sea-legs.
We were met by a small group of friendly goblins who spoke only three or four words in the common tongue. Lady Darkrose informed them that she was able to understand uncommon, so I figured I would keep my ability a secret for now. Lady Darkrose told them that we had come on behalf of the human kingdom of Denisea and some of them immediately sprinted off toward the settlement. The squires were instructed to begin unloading the ship and the knights began spreading out throughout the area. The remaining goblins discussed among themselves; eavesdropping, I heard them saying how pleased they were that we were here to help. After a moment, the goblins who had ran away earlier returned and told Lady Darkrose that their leader would be along shortly. The knight commander was not prepared for this mission at all; it had to be the greenest platoon this side of the narrow sea. They were lucky to have me and Lady Darkrose along, because without us the language barrier would have been a pretty serious problem.
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We spent the next few days helping set up an encampment. The goblins were actually a lot more industrious then the kobolds, and were even capable of creating complicated clockwork machinery. A few squadrons were sent east to assist the goblins on the front line, and another squadron was sent to secure resources to the north. Upon locating a suitable anvil, I invited the local goblin leader into my personal workshop. My workspace it was now located on the sea side, and due to the nature of the goblin's workshop, the building was now outfitted with a much more impressive bellows system. After using the improved work area for a while, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen when I accessed this space from an inferior anvil again. Out of curiosity, Darkrose and I painted on some of the walls. Dash even got into the paints and made some artwork of his own. And in addition to our primary experiment, I also began to dig a hole. I removed some of the dirt from my pocket of space-time and it didn’t disappear, so I took that as a good sign.
Before the ship that had carried us to these undeveloped lands left dock, I had been speaking to the local leader about the kobold workshop I had established and how they had gained access to the Trader’s Guild. The goblin leader had the idea of sending one of his brightest engineers to Denisea, so I wrote two letters for him to bring with him: The first to the Merchant’s Guild quartermaster, and the second to Dipshit. These letters would ensure he would complete his journey safely. The brave little goblin entrepreneur took my letters and boarded the ship as it left for its trip back to the human kingdom.
Once things had been taken care of at the port, Lady Darkrose and I were sent east to the warfront. We spent several days trekking across the poorly constructed paths of the marshlands accompanied by a few other knights and their squires. Without horses or carriages, we were forced to carry any supplies that we wanted to bring with us. Considering the quality of the roads, a caravan would have been a nightmare but a tent probably would have been a good idea. The nights were cold, so me and Lady Darkrose would cuddle up with Dash in our sleeping bags, although considering dragonkin are reptilian, I don’t believe he actually provided us with any real body heat.
Upon reaching the frontlines, we were met with the laziest looking battlefield I had ever seen. There were active skirmishes taking place, but no triage and no formations. There was no sign of a siege, enemy reinforcements, or even any orcish banners flown (not that I could even identify one if I saw it). We were met by the commander’s squire who briefed us on the situation. Apparently, all of the orcs they have encountered were suffering from some form of retardation as they seemed to lack any sense of reason. The problem was not necessarily the orcs themselves, but more so their sheer numbers. There seemed to be a limitless stream of orcs trickling in from the tundra, but our allied troops had been able to form an adequate blockade by taking advantage of the natural bottleneck between the two continents.
We spent a few days supporting the front lines, but quickly grew tired of killing the mindless husks. Lady Darkrose and I decided to complete our guild contract involving the warlock located deep in our enemy’s territory. We were finally relieved of official duty, so we began our delve into the tundra.
We had planned to avoid getting the attention of any larger groups of orcs, but it seemed like they did not form any large groups. I never saw any settlements or campsites; after observing them over several weeks, it seemed clear that they did not even speak to one another.
As we travelled eastward, we did begin to encounter small hoards. Their numbers were lower to the south, so we followed the coastline to reach our destination in the far east. When we were noticed by stray orcs, dealing with them was trivial; Dash had actually been dealing with the majority of them. Eventually, we felt we were nearing our destination, so we headed inland.