Satisfied they got so many answers from the goblins, the Prince, El, and the rest of the gang lighted another campfire nearby and drank wine and ale with honey, feeling pretty good about themselves. Alice could see it in their relaxed faces, how they now all embraced each other as if they were brothers their whole lives. She refused alcohol not knowing how that would affect her, but she drank some herbal tea with a lot of honey in it. And ate smoked meat with dry bread from the soldiers’ food stockpile.
She was going to tell them all how they should not drink or glow so much about their victory, because not only is the dungeon they know almost nothing about still out there, but because they mostly got lucky.
But then, rubbing it in on them might just drive them away again, so she said to herself, I guess this is how males bond. So let them.
Yet, she could not just let it all go, so tactically she said, “The dungeon made a lot of mistakes today. For one, when the creatures attacked, it did not synchronize the attack correctly. If they came all at once, we might not be standing here.”
“Yes. That was fortunate,” Trim said, suddenly swinging on his feet and thinking if he should just sit down, his wife putting her hands on his shoulder to make sure he did just that.
“Thanks to you,” El said and raised his cup to her. “ Thanks to you no luck was needed. You told me to hurry warning the soldiers. It was you who said we should not wait. You made them attack us before goblins were even close to the camp.”
“I got lucky there. I could not have known.”
“So, it was you then who -,” the Prince started to speak, the words coming out blurred as the wine was already taking a toll on him.
“No,” Alice interrupted him swiftly. “El sent the signal as lighted up the tree. But you got lucky. You came from the hill before the goblins were even there.”
“Yeah, we did not even see them.”
“It’s because there is a ridge up there. It goes up and down.”
“Yeah, so, we did get lucky. A few minutes later you let your majestic, if I may say so, horse charge, and you would not even be able to run back into the camp. You’d end up fighting the goblins up in the hill.” The words did sour the mood a bit, but it made Elma smile at least. “But then,” Alice said, “I guess, your timing was perfect. I guess, you knew exactly when you should have returned and helped us.”
“Exactly,” the Prince said and poured another cup of wine inside himself.
“Also... Are these goblins normally armored so poorly? I expected them to be... with at least some metal around them.”
“Yes. The ones we fought before had a good mail around them. Maybe not to stop a blade, but a weak arrow would bounce off.”
“So, it means, this army of goblins were not ready yet for a combat.”
“That's why they did not come to the village. Came out only now when the dungeon felt threatened. We forced its hand.”
“True. That was a really good strategy on your part, El. But, also... You made them retreat somehow. What was that about?” Alice asked El, staring at him, not ready to wait for him to sober up and then talk.
Now is the time. With a loosened tongue, I bet he’ll say more than he wants to.
“They will not fall for it again,” El said, shaking his head.
“Can you explain?” Alice pressed him on, folding her hands in front of her, suddenly not understanding his desire to withhold information from her.
“From what I've seen, this dungeon went all the wrong ways about constructing its army. First, it invested all these resources in building those four-legged creatures. Then, it hurried to build this goblin army,” El said and then sat down on a nearby tree trunk again, drank another cup of ale, and explained his trick to them, thinking that probably they would not understand it anyway.
“You activated that stone to communicate with it?” Alice asked him, surprising him.
“I reasoned the four-legged beasts who attacked us were driven mad to do so with the use of the stone. As I told you before, the stone can transmit the intention of its owner. But the goblins, the goblins were not driven mad. You could see right away how they needed one person to drive them, that two-horn monster I killed. So, that made it all clear what I needed to do.”
“But why waste that precious stone on those four-legged beasts if the stone is so precious?” Alice asked, not understanding it.
El shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe the dungeon did not think it was wasting it. Maybe it was just testing it. It could always call the beasts back to the dungeon, slaughter them, recuperate the stone, and reuse them to compose something else.”
‘Yes, that is another thing it did wrong,” Alice agreed.
“It’s a young dungeon, for what we know. If given a chance, it will learn. Let’s hope, not too fast,” Scarface said as he pulled out his sword and started to sharpen it again, the wine he drank obviously having no pull on him.
“Do you think we’ll be safe for tonight?” Elma said.
“Yes,” El answered right away. And then nodded to Trader Jack to pour him another cup.
“What is it that happened there on the hill, El? What did you see?”
“I saw where the Dungeon is. And…”
“And…?” Scarface said.
“We have not set up the camp right. Up on the ridge, we need to move tomorrow. Set up our defenses there.”
“Closer to the dungeon?” Scarface asked.
“Closer to the Dungeon,” El affirmed. “It will not attack us for a few days now, I think.”
“How do you reckon that?”
“Well, it was overconfident, so full of itself, thought it could just run through us, and kill us easily. Now, it lost a bunch of its troops and one of its top monsters. Now, it might go to other extreme.”
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“Become too cautious?” Alice said.
“Yes. And, we can explore that. Try to use it to our advantage,” El said, his gaze turning to the hill and getting lost there somewhere in the darkness.
The camp and surrounding area looked worse in the daylight than last night, the winter morning sun blistering off the snow and that carnage of the battle.
Dead goblins still lay all over the place and all over the hill, and Alice walked among them, examining them, when El exited his tent and joined her.
“At first I thought they were all different,” Alice told him.
“And they are not?” he asked, looking at three of them that lay dead next to the tree, one with an arrow sticking out of his eye socket, the other without a leg, while the third one had half of his throat torn out.
“No. I mean, these here three are all different. But, after I examined a bunch of them, I think I saw a pattern. So far I noticed only like less than a dozen or so different… ‘models’,” Alice said. “There are three different sizes. The small, medium, and big. Then, there are those who are missing an eye, nose, ears. And then, there are a few who are complete and have at least some kind of armor on them.”
“I see,” El said and examined them in greater detail, then walked to another group of dead goblins and did the same thing. “Yeah, I see what you mean. Like those two could could be twins.”
“Exactly.”
“And… what does that tell you?”
“It confirms what you said last night. The dungeon did this in a rush. But it only has these models to work with.”
El nodded his head. “It has limited resources.”
“Yes. I think you were right. We just need to press it.”
El exhaled a deep breath, looking up the hill. “Yeah, we need to move the camp up there.”
“You said that last night. But, there are so many wounded.”
“I know.”
“Let’s have a council, and then, let them get all on board and do what we have to.”
El nodded his head. “Right. Trim! Scarface! Let’s go and see the Prince,” El called them over, and together they headed to the Prince’s tent.
The Prince met them inside, interrupting the instructions he was giving his guards.
“So, what is the final tally?” Alice asked right away.
“Talked to the Healer,” Trim said slowly. “Nobody died, but there are ten warriors who should not be allowed to stand on their feet, six from your ranks, Prince. The rest are our folks from the village.”
“We should send them back to the village,” El said right away. “Load them on the sleigh and the wagon and they can go downhill and be there in a matter of few hours.”
Trim nodded his head. “I was thinking the same.”
“And where does this leave us?”
“Together with my personal guards, we have forty-seven soldiers, and, with ten people coming after the battle from the village with the Healer, your forces stand at thirty, including you.”
“Less than one hundred, to destroy a dungeon,” Trim said, his voice trailing off.
“You have to ask for help, we will need more soldiers,” Alice said bluntly.
“He can ask, my lady, but, he’ll most likely get none," Sergeant Rewin who stood by the Prince's side said. "The Prince was sent here to die. This is exactly what Lord Morgan, his uncle, intended for him here.”
“Nice uncle," Alice commented.
“Yeah. We’ll worry about his uncle later," El said. "Now, let’s see how we can defend ourselves. And live for another day.”
“All of you are right,” the Prince said. “I can only expect a dagger in my back, just like what you said yesterday about the goblins. But still, I need to inform the Castle of what is happening here. If I do not, and we fail, it will be all my fault. I have to give them a chance to show their true colors. Now, this is a message for Lord Marbal. And this one, you will give to Helfin, Steward of Arms.”
“How did you fight a dungeon the first time around?” Alice asked, turning her eyes to Trim. “I mean, how did you kill it?”
Trim was suddenly surprised at the question. Did not expect to be asked for advice in the presence of El and the Prince. “Well, the way King Forthman, Prince’s father, did was by sending charge after charge of soldiers at a time, attacking its front entrance and the forces that were guarding it. Most died. It took us six months of fighting. Then when all defenders were dead, we burned it down.”
“That is just so… wasteful,” El said. “We cannot do that. There are better ways. This is a young dungeon. Its administrator does not with a lot of experience.
Otherwise, it would not sent its beasts in the village the way it did, and it would not attack us last night in the same manner. Still, we have to be very careful. A dungeon can always find a way to kill you if you step inside its premises. Just walking on its ground is deadly. It sucks life right out of you. It consumes you as you walk toward it to kill it.”
“Yes, that is true. You would feel weak, and after fighting for an hour, you would have no desire to even move your finger anymore.”
“So what do we do then?” Alice asked.
“We find a better way to kill it,” El answered.
The silence of the sobered and hangover minds was hard for Alice to take and she cleared her throat and started to speak, “El knows, the rest of you don’t, and, maybe I should not tell you, but what the hell? Maybe we all die today… For a long time, I was very sick. Stayed in bed, and sometimes could not even go to relieve myself. Throwing up all the time, just waiting to die. But… one thing I was able to do is read. And a lot of reading I did. One fascinating book was about this great general that thought in my land in one of the wars where millions have perished -”
“Millions…?” Trim asked, not believing his ears.
“Yes. But, that is beside the point. This general had this famous saying that stuck with me, and kind of reminded me of what El is trying to do here. The saying says something like, while amateurs talk about strategy, the professionals talk about logistics.”
They all stared at her, even El, knowing those words were supposed to be important and meant something special, but they just did not get it until Alice saw their faces and explained, “He refers to, those that do not know their job, they like to plan. Plan, and strategize. But those who know their job... they work on getting all the information they can. Then, with the right information, what they need to do is plain and simple to see.”
“So… what exactly are you saying is…?” the Prince asked.
“El is right. We have to find a better way. But now, let’s not worry about how we will beat this dungeon. Let’s worry about learning all we can about it. That’s why I think El's suggestion to move up and set our camp closer to the ridge was the right one. Not just because it will be easier to defend from the higher ground. No. Up there, we can constantly observe it, poke it if we must, test it, and see what it does. And once we know all we can about it, then we will also know what we need to do next.”
After that, it was hard not to see wisdom in her words. So, the orders were given to take the injured ones to the village while the Prince together with three dozen of his horsemen ran up the hill to secure it, running into no goblins whatsoever.
They decided to set up the camp a few dozen yards just below the ridge to prevent the dungeon from having a clear view of their camp as well as have a bit of protection from the cold wind that blew harder on the ridge's very top.
“Now, the first thing is, we need to think about defense,” the Prince said.
“I could not agree more,” El confirmed it. “We should fell all the trees on the other side of the hill, and use horses to bring the timber up. Make it clean.
“Yes, that’s what I would do too.”
“A good tree trunk can serve as a powerful weapon,” Scarface added. “Roll it down the hill and it will kill anything that it runs into.”
“They’d be stupid to come at us from this side.”
“Yes. We have to protect our back.”
“Cut those trees down as well. Maybe even before we go on the other side."
Alice was busy using her axe abilities to swiftly get some logs ready for building a decent shelter for everyone. When she got so tired that her system gave her a warning that she had only 2 units of Energy left, she exhaled a few deep breaths and decided to find El.
He was sitting on the ridge under a bear skin that Holgar decided to lend him, watching over the valley underneath and the dungeon that was somewhere on the southern side of the mountain.
“Where do you think it is?” Alice asked him.
“There, where the land is completely bare. Not even snow. Just white stone."
“How can the snow not fall there?”
“It fell. But it melted it. It uses all the resources it can. You know, the dungeons are like a living organism, it uses all that it can put its hands on, consumes it, and then uses the energy from that to… build its monsters and to grow bigger. Eventually, I bet it would grow so big that even this hill would become all barren. It would just continue to grow and get bigger and nastier.”
“I see.”
“That’s why we need to stop it. That’s why I think this is our first test, Alice,” he said as she pressed against him, looking for warmth and assurance that everything was going to be fine. Feeling the malice coming from the barren land, El was not so sure he could offer her both.