RangerWickett
Legend
Intermission:
The Greatest Goblin Alliance Ever
Three hundred years ago, in the famous old country of Uragia, there formed the Goblin Greatest- Ever Evilest Battle Alliance (Goblin GEEBA). But there are many heroes of that era that no one ever hears about, heroes like:
Carl and Herman, Goblin brothers in arms, Goblin brothers. Herman wields a pouchful of vicious daggers which he hurls at anyone who gets in his way. His younger and slower brother Carl always carries his trusty, human-sized frying pan which serves alternately as a makeshift club, a makeshift drum, a makeshift shield, and, oh yeah, a makeshift frying pan.
Mia, priestess of Buggub, Goblin goddess of decay, and a keener wit you’ll never see in a Goblin (Mia thinks she’s smarter than her own goddess, actually). Subtle and canny, she prefers a well-aimed poisoned dart than a whole swarm of attacking warriors.
Shiithead (pronounced “Shih-THEED”, and it should be spelled with just one "i", but the filter on these boards wouldn't let you see his real name), proud and strong Troll warrior, though, like most of his companions, he’s a bit slow on the uptake. When bored, he likes to pick at his own skin and watch the patterns that form as the flesh regenerates. He’s big and ugly, with eyes that are a little buggy. His goal in life, at least for now, is to find a big sword that he can use.
Gook Moop, flunky. Everything is fun for Gook, and though he’s incompetent, he’s perhaps the most patriotic Goblin in the world, fiercely loyal to his goals and to his friends.
Laguna Varacay, human shadow mage and a student of Christoff Darkcross, the state mage of the nation of Uragia. After a years-long feud with his old master, Varacay finally decided that only a thorough destruction of his master and his home would suffice. He contacted Leriminsk, a black Dragon who had its sights set on Castle Uragia, and promised to deliver the castle to the Dragon. Leriminsk arranged for Varacay to lead a group of Goblins in the conquest of the countryside. Now, after weeks of sending waves of warriors to set the land into a panic, Varacay plans to personally supervise the final coup to capture Castle Uragia. The Goblin leaders, though fairly inept, have promised to send their best warriors and spies to sneak into the castle, with a few bodyguards for defense. But the night will not be over for Varacay until he finally can kill his old master.
Laguna’s just afraid that the Goblins don’t grasp the gravity of the situation. Most of them just think it’d be nice to live in the human castle.
Dramatis Personae
Herman—1st level Goblin Fighter
Carl—1st level Goblin Rogue
Mia—5th level Goblin Druidess
Shiithead—1st level Troll Barbarian
Gook Moop—1st level Goblin Rogue
Laguna Varacay—11th level Human Wizard (shadow mage)
Notable NPCs:
Leriminsk—Mature Adult Black Dragon
Archibald Mortret—king of Uragia, 15th level Human Fighter
Christoff Darkcross—Laguna Varacay’s old mentor, 13th level Human Wizard
Castle Uragia, sitting on a rugged cliffside, overlooks the Bay of Umbranesti to the south. To the north and west are heavy forests populated by Goblin tribes and various other monsters created over the centuries, but to the east is the city town of Castle Uragia, protected by high stone walls. Laguna’s plan will lead his group of Goblins through the woods toward the castle, to the cliff on the south wall, and then through the narrow caves in the crumbling cliff’s stone. These caves lead into the castle, where most of the guards, and the king himself, will currently be at High Mass in the Meliskan temple.
Laguna and his group set out just at sunset, with Shiithead staying close as his bodyguard. He also talks regularly with Mia, the only intelligent person out of the group, as they plan tactics for the attack. Mia’s bodyguards are Gook and Herman, since Carl is nowhere to be seen when it is time to leave.
They know scouts will be in the woods around the castle to prevent an attack just as the one they intend to make. Though Herman is pretty sure they can just walk around any of the big ugly human guards, they need to get rid of the scouts first so that the Goblin army can prepare their approach without being noticed. Shiithead smiles eagerly and goes trumbling through the woods like a gorilla, looking for humans to kill. Gook smiles inanely that Shiithead is having so much fun, but then frowns when he realizes he’ll miss out on the fun, so he scampers after the big troll, desperately fighting to keep from dropping his light crossbow (one of the most advanced weapons in the Goblin army). Herman runs after him, carrying the quiver of arrows Gook forgot.
For the first of many times this night, Laguna Varacay smacks himself on the forehead in embarrassment.
* * * * *
Gook scrambles up a tree, grinning wildly as Shiithead, still on the ground beneath him, waits to ambush an approaching rider. Gook poises to attack, laying his crossbow across his knee to aim, squinting both his eyes to aim.
The clip-clop of horse-hooves comes nearer, and Shiithead laughs deeply to himself. The rider is a human scout from the castle—well-trimmed beard, nice armor, pretty horse, shiny small sword, keenly looking around for ambushes. He spots Shiithead from ten feet away, then gasps in alarm as he wheels around to ride away. Shiithead shouts, “You ain’t ruinin’ my ambush,” and leaps forward, digging one hand’s worth of claws into the horse’s flank while grabbing the rider around the neck. He drags the struggling pair with him toward Gook’s tree, and yells for Gook to attack.
Gook smiles and lifts his crossbow over his head two-handed, then jumps dramatically off the tree, shouting his battlecry, “Hoody-hoo!” Landing on the horse’s back, Gook slams the crossbow down across the rider’s head, knocking him dizzy with a crack. Little gibbering Gook finishes his attack by hopping down to the ground.
Shiithead sighs at Gook’s worthlessness, then crouches slightly to get leverage on the horse. He grabs the two hinds legs of the horse, taking a few kicks to the face in the process, but then begins to spin, swinging the horse around him.
* * *
In the distance, Varacay and Mia hear the sound of a horse being bludgeoned to death echoing through the woods, accompanied by a man’s screams and the sounds of a tree being torn to pieces. They rush forward, arriving just as Shiithead chucks the limp bag of horseflesh into the boughs of a low tree. After blinking a few times, Laguna begins to smile, commenting, “My bodyguard is spectacular.”
Mia sees Gook and Herman trying to climb after the tree-bound horse so they can get some meat for Horse Jerky, and she quietly comments, “My bodyguards suck.”
More riders approach from the distance, galloping through the woods to come to the aid of their fallen companion. Mia fires a well-aimed poisoned dart with her blowgun, which flies fifty feet through the trees and strikes one of the riders in the neck. The man slumps off his horse and is trampled by the horses following behind him. The humans shout their battlecries in the name of Uragia and charge into attack.
Gook screams, “Hoody hoo!” again and rushes forward with his battered and shattered crossbow, and Herman begins hurling daggers at the riders and horses. Shiithead takes a more direct approach, pulling a fallen log off the ground and hurling it javelin-style at the face of one of the riders. His aim is a little low, and the log instead smacks into the horse’s face. The horse stops running, stands dazed for a second, then falls over on its side.
Laguna hangs back in the shadows, watching his warriors’ skills as they fight. They function fairly well as a team: the Goblins distract the warriors while the troll does all the hard work. Mia even manages to do a good job with her darts. The darkness remains undisturbed for the next few minutes as Laguna calmly watches the Goblins and Shiithead take on the steady flow of guards. Eventually, eight horses and twelve humans lie dead or unconscious in a ring around the group. Laguna comes out of hiding with a smirk on his face, watching Mia slit the throats of any human not yet quite dead.
Gook and Herman dance arm in arm in a circle, cheering Gook’s victory cry repeatedly (“Hoody-hoo! Hoody-hoo!”) for a few minutes, until they realized Varacay is just staring at them in disgust. Herman coughs and slinks away, while Gook holds out his hand, offering to dance.
“Time t’kill more stuff,” Shiithead says, trampling away eagerly toward the castle, and the rest of them follow close behind. They skirt the forest, starting at the north of the castle and slowly sweeping toward the woods on the west of the castle, then finally toward the Umbranesti cliffs. As they walk, Herman shares some strips of horse meat he managed to cut, and they eat and chatter quietly, most of their words being “geeba” (75% of the Goblin language is just the word ‘geeba’ said with different intonations).
When they get to the cliffs, Laguna cloaks himself in darkness and slids along the dark stones almost invisibly, looking for a suitable cave that will get them into the underbelly of the castle. Meanwhile, Shiithead rushes toward the southern auxiliary wall of the castle, bringing Herman and Gook with him so they can attack. The wall is several hundred feet long, fifteen feet tall, with three circular turrets that each have a few guards manning them. Mia reluctantly follows, scuttling from shadow to shadow to get a good aim at the guards on the nearest tower. She darts one, and then Gook and Herman begin climbing the stone wall toward them.
The two guards still conscious on this turret panic and draw their swords, but from below Shiithead hurls a skull-sized rock and cracks the head of one of the guards. Gook and Herman begin attacking the remaining guard, until eventually Gook shoves the man off the side of the turret. He falls with a scream and cracks his head against the cliffside. Gook cringes at the noise, but doesn’t have much time to consider what he’s doing. The next nearest tower’s guards have begun to run down the length of the wall toward Gook and Herman’s position.
Laguna, alerted by the sound of screaming, looks up from his cave searching to see their cover already being blown, so he snarls and casts a spell onto the length of wall between the two turrets. The guard furthest ahead suddenly flares with fire, a short pillar of fire forming around him. The two behind him scramble back toward their own tower. Gook and Herman give a hoot and chase after them, as Mia points at the second tower and shouts at Shiithead, “Take them down, you cur!”
The guard who was caught in the fire is still standing, barely, but a slash from Herman gets a critical hit and severs the man’s foot. He also screams, falling where he stands and groaning into unconsciousness. Herman snatches up the flaming foot and stabs his sword into it, using it as a torch as he charges toward the second turret.
Shiithead takes Mia’s orders literally and begins digging his claws into the stone wall of the second turret. Muttering something to himself that sounds slightly like, “Jenga Jenga Jenga,” Shiithead tears out stone after stone, tossing them backward down the cliffside. The guards overhead rain arrowfire down at him, but to no avail. Just as Herman and Gook are about to reach the second turret, the structure gives way from the damage Shiithead has inflicted. With a resounding rumble, the rest of the stones crack, and the tower falls toward the cliff. Shiithead steps back out of the way, and Laguna runs to make sure he’ll be out of the turret’s path as it begins a small landslide toward the bay below. Laguna watches the limp bodies of two guards tumble with the shattered stonework, then turns to head for the new gap in the wall.
The guards on the third tower ready arrows and run close enough to get good shots at the group, but Herman draws back his sword and pitches the flaming foot toward them. One critical hit later, the foot has stunned a man and set him on fire, which distracts the other two guards with him long enough for Gook, Herman, Shiithead, Mia, and Varacay to climb through the hole in the wall into cover. As they rush through, Shiithead complains that he isn’t having any time to eat tonight. All this regenerating is making him hungry.
The wall they have just breached surrounds a large training field, some small crops, and the royal garden. There are very few guards here, and most of them are running toward the chaos at the south wall. Varacay’s magic keeps the Goblins and Troll from being seen as they rush toward the garden gate that will lead into the main castle. Varacay remembers from his time at the castle that of the possible entrances to the castle, the royal garden is actually the least-well defended, and its door is small and weak.
As they approach the garden, cloaked in magical shadows, they hear an argument between two people in the human language, which only Mia and Laguna can understand, and one of the voices of which Laguna recognizes. The queen, apparently out for a stroll in her garden, is arguing with a guard trying to get her back inside, while the queen proudly insists on knowing what is going on before she heads back inside.
Laguna smiles darkly and drops the cloak of darkness, striding toward the argument. He politely greets her majesty, then raises his arm and waves two fingers toward the queen. Shiithead bursts from behind a hedge and grabs the guard trying to protect the queen. The guard cries out in panic as Shiithead lifts the man over his head and slams him down on top of the queen. The sound of several bones cracking fills the garden, and when Shiithead tosses away the guard, the queen lies dead, her neck twisted unnaturally.
Shiithead groans, complaining about how bad fabric tastes, when Gook sidles up and offers to take the queen’s dress, or at least part of it. It looks like nice, soft fabric, and he has decided he’d like a turban. Shiithead shrugs and rips off the queen’s long skirt and tosses it to Gook, then pulls off the rest of her clothes and begins to gnaw on her legs first. As Gook begins to wrap the skirt into a turban, he finds a large metal key, which he grins at, then tries to tuck into his pocket. Unfortunately the key is about a foot and a half long, so instead Gook tucks it into his belt like a weapon.
Meanwhile, Laguna and Mia begin to examine the door that will lead inside. It has beautiful carved designs of a gorgeous nymph dancing with a group of brownies, but unfortunately, it’s shut, and Laguna remembers it never having been closed before. Worse yet, he senses some form of magic guarding the door. He casts a cantrip to figure out that the enchantment is some form of transmutation magic, but he’s not sure what. About the time that Shiithead finishes eating the queen, they decide it’ll be best to just get inside instead of letting Shiithead get hungry again. Varacay orders Shiithead to open the door, but the troll shakes his head, saying he heard them talk about how the door is trapped.
Varacay scoffs at this, then in frustration tries to open the door himself. As soon as he touches the doorknob, though, he feels a pulse go through his arm, and suddenly his body begins to shrink, stopping at about two inches tall. Shiithead laughs loudly, and Gook and Herman go to see what the commotion is about. Mia plucks Laguna off the floor and is about to place him comfortably in her cleavage when the shadow mage shouts for her to stop. He refuses to go further into the castle, as the thought of his old master seeing him in this condition would be embarrassing. He uses an enlarging spell of his own to try to counter the curse, but it only slightly opposes the shrinking effect, leaving him at about three-feet tall, slightly smaller than the Goblins. He grimaces and orders them to open the door.
Mia shakes her head, pointing out that they need a key to get inside, because the door is probably locked anyway. This jars Gook’s memory enough to remind him he has a key, so he hands it over. Mia places the oversized key to the keyhole, and it shrinks slightly to fit into the keyhole properly. When Mia turns the key, the door opens, and Varacay orders them inside, saying he’ll catch up once he manages to dispel the curse. Their goal is to open the front gates to let the Goblin army invade.
As the rest of the group files through the door (Shiithead has to squeeze through uncomfortably), Laguna waits impatiently, hearing the distant sounds of guards investigating the south wall. They’ll reach him far too soon, so he casts an illusion to make himself seem his normal size, then slowly follows the Goblins. As he walks through the door, he hears a cat meow from the garden behind him, and shudders to think what would’ve happened if he had been alone and shrunk to a bite-size.
Knowing that Mia will be going toward the Goblin’s objective, Laguna eagerly makes his way in another direction, toward his old master’s study.
* * *
The south end of the main castle is one solid building, with wide rooms and hallways containing many vital areas. From Laguna’s information, Mia leads them toward the cannon-powder silo, where she intends to remove the human’s ability to use cannons against their invading force. They run into guards outside the powder silo, and a fight breaks out. Shiithead makes quick work of the soldiers, but one manages to stab Herman in the chest before he goes down. Suddenly, Herman’s younger brother Carl runs onto the scene, apparently having followed them from a distance.
Carl falls on his knees next to his brother’s body, and tilts his head to the sky, screaming, “Herman, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Mia, unfazed, has Carl take his brother’s place in the mission. Upon actually reaching the silo, she hits upon an idea, to use the cannon-powder to blow down the main doors. Judging the time that has passed, Mia guesses they have not much longer left until the temple services let out, so they have to make a quick run across the castle courtyard toward the northern gates, instead of sneaking along the tops of the walls as they had planned. Luckily for them, the powder silo itself has a door that opens directly onto the courtyard, through which they can see the northern wall, only about two thousand feet away.
Before they can leave, though, Carl gives his brother a burial, covering Herman in a pile of black cannon-powder. He also makes sure to pound the human who killed Herman repeatedly with a heavy frying pan, Carl’s favored weapon.
Gook and Carl pick up large kegs of cannon-powder, and Shiithead grabs two under each arm, and then they begin to run across the main courtyard. All around the courtyard, from windows, in front of doors, on the walls, or just roaming for walks, dozens of guards spot them, sounding the alarm. One runs for the temple, to alert them in case they had not yet heard, and Shiithead sprints after him, hurling the heavy barrels of powder at him. Shiithead crushes the man, but then the alarm bells begin to ring from within the temple, and the whole castle suddenly seems to buzz with noise.
Mia orders Gook and Carl to run for the north gate, and for Shiithead to provide protection for them. She herself sprints towards the side of the temple, clambering up the stone wall to a shadowy hiding spot, from which she can snipe. Eventually she climbs her way to the very top of the roof, hiding behind decorative stonework, waiting for the people in the temple to expose themselves.
Arrows begin to rain upon Carl and Gook, but Shiithead uses his body as a shield, catching enough arrows to turn him into a pin cushion. He is actually beginning to sag from the injuries when a piercing shout comes from the top of a nearby building in the courtyard. Laguna stands high, raising his hands to the night sky, and suddenly a shadow covers the stars and the moon, plunging the castle into near blackness. Varacay snarls and calls for his old master, Christoff, to come and face him, while all around the castle shouts go out to light torches.
The temple’s doors then open, light spilling out from the holy building to flood some of the courtyard. Though it gives the humans hopes in their defense, it also makes the soldiers who rush from the building easy targets for Mia’s sniping darts. She takes out a handful as they try to rush to their positions, when suddenly she spies two prominent figures running out of the temple. The first immediately leaps into the air, crackling with dark light as he flies toward Laguna, while the other, a balding warrior with a retinue of bodyguards, rushes toward the nearest door into the main castle walls. Mia nods, recognizing the king as the focus of so much protection. She pulls out one of her few darts that has lethal poison, and loads it into her blowgun.
Carefully taking aim, Mia spits, and the dart flies toward its target, but one of the bodyguards hears the noise of her shot over the din, and his eyes open wide with shock. He leaps in front of the king, shouting (in a British accent), “My Lord, no!”, and the dart instead sinks into the bodyguard’s torso. As the main gasps and dies, the king shouts something to his other men and points at the top of the temple, identifying Mia’s position. Cursing, she ducks for cover and begins to enchant her darts with a rusting dweomer.
(all gamers at the table here pause to do our own rendition: Mime leaping sideways, arms outstretched dramatically, shouting “My Lord, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”)
Meanwhile, through the darkness, arrows begin to fly again, now flaming to light the courtyard as the archers aim for the Goblins and the Troll. Shiithead, seeing the sudden flames, shakes his head (“I ain’t takin’ this ****”) and breaks off from the Goblins so he won’t draw fire anymore. Carl also panics, dropping his keg and running after Shiithead, who can protect him.
Gook keeps running on blindly, though, grinning as he tries to dodge the arrows. Then he feels a thud in his back, and he turns to see a flaming arrow stuck in the keg he’s carrying. Whimpering, he briefly considers dumping the keg before it explodes, but then he shakes off his fear, steeling himself to die for his people. Screaming victoriously, “Hoody-hoo!”, he sprints toward the north wall, not even bothering to aim for the doors, which are too heavily guarded. Just before he’d reach the wall, the hurls his keg at the wall, then twirls to run. The keg bounces across the wall, then explodes just as it lands against the wall. The blast hurls Gook through the air gleefully, and cracks the inside of the castle wall.
Gook lands and turns to see the cracks in the foundation run up the side of the wall, and then the wall begins to tumble to the ground. A length at least twenty feet of castle wall across topples downward, creating a hill of rubbles. In the distances beyond the wall, a Goblin war cry echoes through the night, and Gook can hear the shouts of “Geeba” as the Goblin army marches on Castle Uragia.
Simultaneously, screams fill the air as a huge black shape seems to detach itself from the shadows in the sky, flapping down toward the courtyard. Leriminsk, Varacay’s draconic ally, has arrived to claim his castle. It lands at the south end of the courtyard, near the powder silo, blocking the king before he can reach safety. Its roars fill the air, mixing with cries of battle and of pain. Unhesitantly, King Mortret grabs a sword from one of his bodyguards and charges Leriminsk.
* * *
Laguna stands stoically at the edge of the building, holding his spell at the ready for when Christoff reaches him. The elder mage flies amid a wave of crackling energy, approaching swiftly. Christoff’s first spell flies forward, blasting into Laguna painlessly. Instead, Laguna recognizes with pleasure, it is a dispelling attack, meant to remove his defenses. Instead, it simply manages to dispel a few minor wards, plus his illusionary shield. But most importantly it cancels the curse lain upon him from the door’s ward.
However, it does not cancel the enlarging charm Laguna cast on himself. With the shrink effect no longer active, Laguna instead grows to more than ten feet tall, towering over his master, who gasps.
Laguna cackles maniacally, conjuring humming claws of blackness that stretch from his fingers, and he leaps forward, off the roof. Sorcerous black wings hold him aloft as he swoops toward Christoff, slashing with his claws. He gashes his master’s chest, but the old man retaliates with a blast of fire that tears through the shadowy wisps of wings and sears Laguna’s face. Before he can fall, Laguna latches his claws onto Christoff’s shoulders, pulling them both down with the extra weight. They collapse to the ground, and all the soldiers nearby flee to give them room.
Laguna rolls to his feet, grabbing Christoff around the neck and lifting him off the ground. The old mage struggles in the cutting grasp of the shadowy claws, trying to pry Laguna’s hands away. Holding his old master easily in one hand, Laguna slashes across the man’s abdomen, and gouts of blood spill out. Christoff screams in agony, and Laguna begins to rant about how he was never accorded the power or position he deserved in this kingdom, how his master always underestimated him and held him back.
Sneering, Laguna throws Christoff to the ground, and the shadow of Christoff’s own body suddenly hardens into spikes of blackness, piercing his arms and legs. The old mage curses at Laguna, conjuring a hail of ice and sleet to whip his apprentice, tearing Laguna’s flesh and covering him in a frigid layer of ice.
Laguna falls back under the power of the hail, but then he pounces forward, planting a clawed hand on his master’s chest. With his spare hand, he digs his claws through the open wound on Christoff’s belly, and the old mage groans, curling fetally.
Rising triumphantly, Laguna bursts into laughter, spreading his arms to the air, and from the shadows of the air materialize hundreds of shards of shadow, like a sphere of black daggers, all pointed toward Christoff. He stares down to meet his mentor’s gaze, smiling farewell, when he notices the man muttering an incantation. Glancing at Christoff’s hands, he sees that the man’s fetal curl had been a feint, allowing him to reach his spell components.
“No!” Laguna shouts, jabbing his hands toward Christoff to send the final attack, just as Christoff thrusts out his palms, flames spiraling up his arms into a flaring seed of fire. The daggerblack shards lash upon Christoff like a vice of blades, but simultaneously Christoff’s fireball bursts forward, catching Laguna in the chest. The explosion sears outward, a swirl of crimson flames and dancing shadows, consuming both mages in a roar that echoes through the castle.
* * *
Goblins begin to pour through the hole in the castle wall, with Gook cheering them on as he jumps up and down giddily. Many Goblins ride wolves, and they begin to hack at the guards who man the northern wall. Gook, however, looks to see where Carl is.
At the southern edge of the courtyard, Shiithead is trying to get in the thick of battle so people will stop firing flaming arrows at him. In the darkness from Varacay’s spell it is nearly impossible to make out specifically where everyone is, but he is pretty sure he hears the Dragon, their ally, so he rushes toward the sound of roars, flapping wings, and scalding acid breath. Carl rushes after him, holding his frying pan in front of him like a shield. Gook, curious to meet up with his friends, runs after, them, but is several hundred feet behind.
Mia has hopped from rooftop to rooftop, using her touch of decay to carve handholds so she can climb easily up formerly pristine stone. With only two allies (Carl and Shiithead) in a crowd of dozens of humans, she cares little for her aim, and so she wildly spits her darts toward anyone who looks like a soldier. The impact of the dart is too light to damage, but their enchantment rusts armor, making it worthless. The weakened armor makes them easy prey for Shiithead as he plows through the crowd toward the Dragon.
Leriminsk and the king are still dueling, but as Shiithead runs up he shouts, “Hey, Mis’er Dragun! Jes’ kill du king and get yer scaly ass o’er ‘ere.”
The Dragon snarls at his impudence and turns upon him briefly, pounding Shiithead to the ground with one claw, then biting him around the waist, then spraying his belly with acid spit. With the troll’s torso pinned firmly to the ground, the Dragon pulls sideways, ripping Shiithead in half at the waist, then spitting out the lower half of the body. Shiithead grunts in surprise, then falls limp. But the Dragon is distracted, and the king leaps forward, plunging his sword upward into Leriminsk’s chest. The Dragon roars and curls its neck to bite the king, while nearby Carl falls onto his knees next to Shiithead’s torso, and tilts his head to the sky, screaming, “Shiithead, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Gook hears this cry and sees that the dear Mr. Dragon, their supposed ally, has killed his friend Shiithead. Shivering with anger, Gook wants nothing more now than to fight the Dragon, but he is too far away.
Then he remembers, pulling up his damaged but still functional crossbow. He spies the open door to the powder silo, just near the dueling Dragon and king, and he has an idea. Just then a flaming arrow digs into the ground at his feet, like a sign from the heavens, and Gook’s face splits in a grin. Pulling the arrow out of the ground, he nocks it in the crossbow, takes aim, and fires. The air goes horribly off-course from the damaged crossbow, but Gook’s aim sucked to begin with, so the arrow arcs cleanly through the air, through the door, and into the powder silo.
Gook ducks, pulling his turban down over his head for defense.
The explosion rocks the entire castle, shaking the cliff the building sits upon. The entire powder silo bursts outward, sending flames and stone shrapnel hurtling through the air. Even louder than the roar that killed Laguna and Christoff, this blast sears the king to death, and shears the Dragon’s head off with a chuck of flying rock. The entire southern cliff begins to sag downward, falling into the sea.
By this moment, the Goblins have mostly finished off the bulk of the human defenders, and they approach the site of the explosion in a daze. They see the severed lower and upper bits of a troll who has been torn in half, they see the charred corpses of a king and his bodyguards, and they see Carl the Goblin, standing up from where the Dragon’s body had shielded him from the blast. The Dragon’s body is still twitching despite its lack of a head, and Carl is desperately smacking at the stump to make it stop, beating it with his huge frying pan. Finally, it stops moving, and Carl sags weakly against it, looking around at the destruction.
Many of the Goblins blink, confused. The human wizard had been leading them in the battle, but now he’s dead, and the Dragon was going to be their leader and keep the castle for himself, but now, Carl has killed the Dragon, chopped its head off with his frying pan, claiming the castle for the Goblin people.
Gibbering with glee, the Goblin army bursts into cheers, and a group swoops Carl off his feet and over them in triumph. Across the crowd, the Goblins begin to proclaim, “Hail to King Carl! The Dragonsquisher! Geeb, geeb, GEEBA!” (said to the tune of “hip hip hooray”)
Gook pulls his turban off his head, realizing he’s not dead, and it takes him a while to figure out what’s going on, but then he hears the cheers, and rushes forward to congratulate Carl. In his high-pitched voice, Gook gabs on about how he’s known Carl forever, how their great friends, and how he is amazed that Carl killed the Dragon, but impressed. As the crowd carries off Carl to be crowned, Gook sighs, a little disappointed that his arrow didn’t actually set off the powder silo and blow up the castle. Then he could’ve been king. But at least Carl did it.
Gook begins to trot after the war crowd, looking forward to the pillaged dinner. As he walks, he sees a few Goblins using dull knives to scrape off the acid-burned parts on Shiithead’s lower torso and upper waist (two different halves of the body). He wonders if the two troll pieces might grow into two whole trolls, the part of the head and the part of the bottom. Head and bottom. Gook smiles at the thought, and even though Mia is cursing for some reason, promising to kill Carl or something, it doesn’t faze Gook. He pulls out some of his remaining horse meat, and nibbles on it as he goes to find the feast, a smile of victory splitting his face widely.
See the Tides of Homeland storyhour for more stories in the same world, but sadly not with these same heroic characters.
The Greatest Goblin Alliance Ever
Three hundred years ago, in the famous old country of Uragia, there formed the Goblin Greatest- Ever Evilest Battle Alliance (Goblin GEEBA). But there are many heroes of that era that no one ever hears about, heroes like:
Carl and Herman, Goblin brothers in arms, Goblin brothers. Herman wields a pouchful of vicious daggers which he hurls at anyone who gets in his way. His younger and slower brother Carl always carries his trusty, human-sized frying pan which serves alternately as a makeshift club, a makeshift drum, a makeshift shield, and, oh yeah, a makeshift frying pan.
Mia, priestess of Buggub, Goblin goddess of decay, and a keener wit you’ll never see in a Goblin (Mia thinks she’s smarter than her own goddess, actually). Subtle and canny, she prefers a well-aimed poisoned dart than a whole swarm of attacking warriors.
Shiithead (pronounced “Shih-THEED”, and it should be spelled with just one "i", but the filter on these boards wouldn't let you see his real name), proud and strong Troll warrior, though, like most of his companions, he’s a bit slow on the uptake. When bored, he likes to pick at his own skin and watch the patterns that form as the flesh regenerates. He’s big and ugly, with eyes that are a little buggy. His goal in life, at least for now, is to find a big sword that he can use.
Gook Moop, flunky. Everything is fun for Gook, and though he’s incompetent, he’s perhaps the most patriotic Goblin in the world, fiercely loyal to his goals and to his friends.
Laguna Varacay, human shadow mage and a student of Christoff Darkcross, the state mage of the nation of Uragia. After a years-long feud with his old master, Varacay finally decided that only a thorough destruction of his master and his home would suffice. He contacted Leriminsk, a black Dragon who had its sights set on Castle Uragia, and promised to deliver the castle to the Dragon. Leriminsk arranged for Varacay to lead a group of Goblins in the conquest of the countryside. Now, after weeks of sending waves of warriors to set the land into a panic, Varacay plans to personally supervise the final coup to capture Castle Uragia. The Goblin leaders, though fairly inept, have promised to send their best warriors and spies to sneak into the castle, with a few bodyguards for defense. But the night will not be over for Varacay until he finally can kill his old master.
Laguna’s just afraid that the Goblins don’t grasp the gravity of the situation. Most of them just think it’d be nice to live in the human castle.
Dramatis Personae
Herman—1st level Goblin Fighter
Carl—1st level Goblin Rogue
Mia—5th level Goblin Druidess
Shiithead—1st level Troll Barbarian
Gook Moop—1st level Goblin Rogue
Laguna Varacay—11th level Human Wizard (shadow mage)
Notable NPCs:
Leriminsk—Mature Adult Black Dragon
Archibald Mortret—king of Uragia, 15th level Human Fighter
Christoff Darkcross—Laguna Varacay’s old mentor, 13th level Human Wizard
Castle Uragia, sitting on a rugged cliffside, overlooks the Bay of Umbranesti to the south. To the north and west are heavy forests populated by Goblin tribes and various other monsters created over the centuries, but to the east is the city town of Castle Uragia, protected by high stone walls. Laguna’s plan will lead his group of Goblins through the woods toward the castle, to the cliff on the south wall, and then through the narrow caves in the crumbling cliff’s stone. These caves lead into the castle, where most of the guards, and the king himself, will currently be at High Mass in the Meliskan temple.
Laguna and his group set out just at sunset, with Shiithead staying close as his bodyguard. He also talks regularly with Mia, the only intelligent person out of the group, as they plan tactics for the attack. Mia’s bodyguards are Gook and Herman, since Carl is nowhere to be seen when it is time to leave.
They know scouts will be in the woods around the castle to prevent an attack just as the one they intend to make. Though Herman is pretty sure they can just walk around any of the big ugly human guards, they need to get rid of the scouts first so that the Goblin army can prepare their approach without being noticed. Shiithead smiles eagerly and goes trumbling through the woods like a gorilla, looking for humans to kill. Gook smiles inanely that Shiithead is having so much fun, but then frowns when he realizes he’ll miss out on the fun, so he scampers after the big troll, desperately fighting to keep from dropping his light crossbow (one of the most advanced weapons in the Goblin army). Herman runs after him, carrying the quiver of arrows Gook forgot.
For the first of many times this night, Laguna Varacay smacks himself on the forehead in embarrassment.
* * * * *
Gook scrambles up a tree, grinning wildly as Shiithead, still on the ground beneath him, waits to ambush an approaching rider. Gook poises to attack, laying his crossbow across his knee to aim, squinting both his eyes to aim.
The clip-clop of horse-hooves comes nearer, and Shiithead laughs deeply to himself. The rider is a human scout from the castle—well-trimmed beard, nice armor, pretty horse, shiny small sword, keenly looking around for ambushes. He spots Shiithead from ten feet away, then gasps in alarm as he wheels around to ride away. Shiithead shouts, “You ain’t ruinin’ my ambush,” and leaps forward, digging one hand’s worth of claws into the horse’s flank while grabbing the rider around the neck. He drags the struggling pair with him toward Gook’s tree, and yells for Gook to attack.
Gook smiles and lifts his crossbow over his head two-handed, then jumps dramatically off the tree, shouting his battlecry, “Hoody-hoo!” Landing on the horse’s back, Gook slams the crossbow down across the rider’s head, knocking him dizzy with a crack. Little gibbering Gook finishes his attack by hopping down to the ground.
Shiithead sighs at Gook’s worthlessness, then crouches slightly to get leverage on the horse. He grabs the two hinds legs of the horse, taking a few kicks to the face in the process, but then begins to spin, swinging the horse around him.
* * *
In the distance, Varacay and Mia hear the sound of a horse being bludgeoned to death echoing through the woods, accompanied by a man’s screams and the sounds of a tree being torn to pieces. They rush forward, arriving just as Shiithead chucks the limp bag of horseflesh into the boughs of a low tree. After blinking a few times, Laguna begins to smile, commenting, “My bodyguard is spectacular.”
Mia sees Gook and Herman trying to climb after the tree-bound horse so they can get some meat for Horse Jerky, and she quietly comments, “My bodyguards suck.”
More riders approach from the distance, galloping through the woods to come to the aid of their fallen companion. Mia fires a well-aimed poisoned dart with her blowgun, which flies fifty feet through the trees and strikes one of the riders in the neck. The man slumps off his horse and is trampled by the horses following behind him. The humans shout their battlecries in the name of Uragia and charge into attack.
Gook screams, “Hoody hoo!” again and rushes forward with his battered and shattered crossbow, and Herman begins hurling daggers at the riders and horses. Shiithead takes a more direct approach, pulling a fallen log off the ground and hurling it javelin-style at the face of one of the riders. His aim is a little low, and the log instead smacks into the horse’s face. The horse stops running, stands dazed for a second, then falls over on its side.
Laguna hangs back in the shadows, watching his warriors’ skills as they fight. They function fairly well as a team: the Goblins distract the warriors while the troll does all the hard work. Mia even manages to do a good job with her darts. The darkness remains undisturbed for the next few minutes as Laguna calmly watches the Goblins and Shiithead take on the steady flow of guards. Eventually, eight horses and twelve humans lie dead or unconscious in a ring around the group. Laguna comes out of hiding with a smirk on his face, watching Mia slit the throats of any human not yet quite dead.
Gook and Herman dance arm in arm in a circle, cheering Gook’s victory cry repeatedly (“Hoody-hoo! Hoody-hoo!”) for a few minutes, until they realized Varacay is just staring at them in disgust. Herman coughs and slinks away, while Gook holds out his hand, offering to dance.
“Time t’kill more stuff,” Shiithead says, trampling away eagerly toward the castle, and the rest of them follow close behind. They skirt the forest, starting at the north of the castle and slowly sweeping toward the woods on the west of the castle, then finally toward the Umbranesti cliffs. As they walk, Herman shares some strips of horse meat he managed to cut, and they eat and chatter quietly, most of their words being “geeba” (75% of the Goblin language is just the word ‘geeba’ said with different intonations).
When they get to the cliffs, Laguna cloaks himself in darkness and slids along the dark stones almost invisibly, looking for a suitable cave that will get them into the underbelly of the castle. Meanwhile, Shiithead rushes toward the southern auxiliary wall of the castle, bringing Herman and Gook with him so they can attack. The wall is several hundred feet long, fifteen feet tall, with three circular turrets that each have a few guards manning them. Mia reluctantly follows, scuttling from shadow to shadow to get a good aim at the guards on the nearest tower. She darts one, and then Gook and Herman begin climbing the stone wall toward them.
The two guards still conscious on this turret panic and draw their swords, but from below Shiithead hurls a skull-sized rock and cracks the head of one of the guards. Gook and Herman begin attacking the remaining guard, until eventually Gook shoves the man off the side of the turret. He falls with a scream and cracks his head against the cliffside. Gook cringes at the noise, but doesn’t have much time to consider what he’s doing. The next nearest tower’s guards have begun to run down the length of the wall toward Gook and Herman’s position.
Laguna, alerted by the sound of screaming, looks up from his cave searching to see their cover already being blown, so he snarls and casts a spell onto the length of wall between the two turrets. The guard furthest ahead suddenly flares with fire, a short pillar of fire forming around him. The two behind him scramble back toward their own tower. Gook and Herman give a hoot and chase after them, as Mia points at the second tower and shouts at Shiithead, “Take them down, you cur!”
The guard who was caught in the fire is still standing, barely, but a slash from Herman gets a critical hit and severs the man’s foot. He also screams, falling where he stands and groaning into unconsciousness. Herman snatches up the flaming foot and stabs his sword into it, using it as a torch as he charges toward the second turret.
Shiithead takes Mia’s orders literally and begins digging his claws into the stone wall of the second turret. Muttering something to himself that sounds slightly like, “Jenga Jenga Jenga,” Shiithead tears out stone after stone, tossing them backward down the cliffside. The guards overhead rain arrowfire down at him, but to no avail. Just as Herman and Gook are about to reach the second turret, the structure gives way from the damage Shiithead has inflicted. With a resounding rumble, the rest of the stones crack, and the tower falls toward the cliff. Shiithead steps back out of the way, and Laguna runs to make sure he’ll be out of the turret’s path as it begins a small landslide toward the bay below. Laguna watches the limp bodies of two guards tumble with the shattered stonework, then turns to head for the new gap in the wall.
The guards on the third tower ready arrows and run close enough to get good shots at the group, but Herman draws back his sword and pitches the flaming foot toward them. One critical hit later, the foot has stunned a man and set him on fire, which distracts the other two guards with him long enough for Gook, Herman, Shiithead, Mia, and Varacay to climb through the hole in the wall into cover. As they rush through, Shiithead complains that he isn’t having any time to eat tonight. All this regenerating is making him hungry.
The wall they have just breached surrounds a large training field, some small crops, and the royal garden. There are very few guards here, and most of them are running toward the chaos at the south wall. Varacay’s magic keeps the Goblins and Troll from being seen as they rush toward the garden gate that will lead into the main castle. Varacay remembers from his time at the castle that of the possible entrances to the castle, the royal garden is actually the least-well defended, and its door is small and weak.
As they approach the garden, cloaked in magical shadows, they hear an argument between two people in the human language, which only Mia and Laguna can understand, and one of the voices of which Laguna recognizes. The queen, apparently out for a stroll in her garden, is arguing with a guard trying to get her back inside, while the queen proudly insists on knowing what is going on before she heads back inside.
Laguna smiles darkly and drops the cloak of darkness, striding toward the argument. He politely greets her majesty, then raises his arm and waves two fingers toward the queen. Shiithead bursts from behind a hedge and grabs the guard trying to protect the queen. The guard cries out in panic as Shiithead lifts the man over his head and slams him down on top of the queen. The sound of several bones cracking fills the garden, and when Shiithead tosses away the guard, the queen lies dead, her neck twisted unnaturally.
Shiithead groans, complaining about how bad fabric tastes, when Gook sidles up and offers to take the queen’s dress, or at least part of it. It looks like nice, soft fabric, and he has decided he’d like a turban. Shiithead shrugs and rips off the queen’s long skirt and tosses it to Gook, then pulls off the rest of her clothes and begins to gnaw on her legs first. As Gook begins to wrap the skirt into a turban, he finds a large metal key, which he grins at, then tries to tuck into his pocket. Unfortunately the key is about a foot and a half long, so instead Gook tucks it into his belt like a weapon.
Meanwhile, Laguna and Mia begin to examine the door that will lead inside. It has beautiful carved designs of a gorgeous nymph dancing with a group of brownies, but unfortunately, it’s shut, and Laguna remembers it never having been closed before. Worse yet, he senses some form of magic guarding the door. He casts a cantrip to figure out that the enchantment is some form of transmutation magic, but he’s not sure what. About the time that Shiithead finishes eating the queen, they decide it’ll be best to just get inside instead of letting Shiithead get hungry again. Varacay orders Shiithead to open the door, but the troll shakes his head, saying he heard them talk about how the door is trapped.
Varacay scoffs at this, then in frustration tries to open the door himself. As soon as he touches the doorknob, though, he feels a pulse go through his arm, and suddenly his body begins to shrink, stopping at about two inches tall. Shiithead laughs loudly, and Gook and Herman go to see what the commotion is about. Mia plucks Laguna off the floor and is about to place him comfortably in her cleavage when the shadow mage shouts for her to stop. He refuses to go further into the castle, as the thought of his old master seeing him in this condition would be embarrassing. He uses an enlarging spell of his own to try to counter the curse, but it only slightly opposes the shrinking effect, leaving him at about three-feet tall, slightly smaller than the Goblins. He grimaces and orders them to open the door.
Mia shakes her head, pointing out that they need a key to get inside, because the door is probably locked anyway. This jars Gook’s memory enough to remind him he has a key, so he hands it over. Mia places the oversized key to the keyhole, and it shrinks slightly to fit into the keyhole properly. When Mia turns the key, the door opens, and Varacay orders them inside, saying he’ll catch up once he manages to dispel the curse. Their goal is to open the front gates to let the Goblin army invade.
As the rest of the group files through the door (Shiithead has to squeeze through uncomfortably), Laguna waits impatiently, hearing the distant sounds of guards investigating the south wall. They’ll reach him far too soon, so he casts an illusion to make himself seem his normal size, then slowly follows the Goblins. As he walks through the door, he hears a cat meow from the garden behind him, and shudders to think what would’ve happened if he had been alone and shrunk to a bite-size.
Knowing that Mia will be going toward the Goblin’s objective, Laguna eagerly makes his way in another direction, toward his old master’s study.
* * *
The south end of the main castle is one solid building, with wide rooms and hallways containing many vital areas. From Laguna’s information, Mia leads them toward the cannon-powder silo, where she intends to remove the human’s ability to use cannons against their invading force. They run into guards outside the powder silo, and a fight breaks out. Shiithead makes quick work of the soldiers, but one manages to stab Herman in the chest before he goes down. Suddenly, Herman’s younger brother Carl runs onto the scene, apparently having followed them from a distance.
Carl falls on his knees next to his brother’s body, and tilts his head to the sky, screaming, “Herman, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Mia, unfazed, has Carl take his brother’s place in the mission. Upon actually reaching the silo, she hits upon an idea, to use the cannon-powder to blow down the main doors. Judging the time that has passed, Mia guesses they have not much longer left until the temple services let out, so they have to make a quick run across the castle courtyard toward the northern gates, instead of sneaking along the tops of the walls as they had planned. Luckily for them, the powder silo itself has a door that opens directly onto the courtyard, through which they can see the northern wall, only about two thousand feet away.
Before they can leave, though, Carl gives his brother a burial, covering Herman in a pile of black cannon-powder. He also makes sure to pound the human who killed Herman repeatedly with a heavy frying pan, Carl’s favored weapon.
Gook and Carl pick up large kegs of cannon-powder, and Shiithead grabs two under each arm, and then they begin to run across the main courtyard. All around the courtyard, from windows, in front of doors, on the walls, or just roaming for walks, dozens of guards spot them, sounding the alarm. One runs for the temple, to alert them in case they had not yet heard, and Shiithead sprints after him, hurling the heavy barrels of powder at him. Shiithead crushes the man, but then the alarm bells begin to ring from within the temple, and the whole castle suddenly seems to buzz with noise.
Mia orders Gook and Carl to run for the north gate, and for Shiithead to provide protection for them. She herself sprints towards the side of the temple, clambering up the stone wall to a shadowy hiding spot, from which she can snipe. Eventually she climbs her way to the very top of the roof, hiding behind decorative stonework, waiting for the people in the temple to expose themselves.
Arrows begin to rain upon Carl and Gook, but Shiithead uses his body as a shield, catching enough arrows to turn him into a pin cushion. He is actually beginning to sag from the injuries when a piercing shout comes from the top of a nearby building in the courtyard. Laguna stands high, raising his hands to the night sky, and suddenly a shadow covers the stars and the moon, plunging the castle into near blackness. Varacay snarls and calls for his old master, Christoff, to come and face him, while all around the castle shouts go out to light torches.
The temple’s doors then open, light spilling out from the holy building to flood some of the courtyard. Though it gives the humans hopes in their defense, it also makes the soldiers who rush from the building easy targets for Mia’s sniping darts. She takes out a handful as they try to rush to their positions, when suddenly she spies two prominent figures running out of the temple. The first immediately leaps into the air, crackling with dark light as he flies toward Laguna, while the other, a balding warrior with a retinue of bodyguards, rushes toward the nearest door into the main castle walls. Mia nods, recognizing the king as the focus of so much protection. She pulls out one of her few darts that has lethal poison, and loads it into her blowgun.
Carefully taking aim, Mia spits, and the dart flies toward its target, but one of the bodyguards hears the noise of her shot over the din, and his eyes open wide with shock. He leaps in front of the king, shouting (in a British accent), “My Lord, no!”, and the dart instead sinks into the bodyguard’s torso. As the main gasps and dies, the king shouts something to his other men and points at the top of the temple, identifying Mia’s position. Cursing, she ducks for cover and begins to enchant her darts with a rusting dweomer.
(all gamers at the table here pause to do our own rendition: Mime leaping sideways, arms outstretched dramatically, shouting “My Lord, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”)
Meanwhile, through the darkness, arrows begin to fly again, now flaming to light the courtyard as the archers aim for the Goblins and the Troll. Shiithead, seeing the sudden flames, shakes his head (“I ain’t takin’ this ****”) and breaks off from the Goblins so he won’t draw fire anymore. Carl also panics, dropping his keg and running after Shiithead, who can protect him.
Gook keeps running on blindly, though, grinning as he tries to dodge the arrows. Then he feels a thud in his back, and he turns to see a flaming arrow stuck in the keg he’s carrying. Whimpering, he briefly considers dumping the keg before it explodes, but then he shakes off his fear, steeling himself to die for his people. Screaming victoriously, “Hoody-hoo!”, he sprints toward the north wall, not even bothering to aim for the doors, which are too heavily guarded. Just before he’d reach the wall, the hurls his keg at the wall, then twirls to run. The keg bounces across the wall, then explodes just as it lands against the wall. The blast hurls Gook through the air gleefully, and cracks the inside of the castle wall.
Gook lands and turns to see the cracks in the foundation run up the side of the wall, and then the wall begins to tumble to the ground. A length at least twenty feet of castle wall across topples downward, creating a hill of rubbles. In the distances beyond the wall, a Goblin war cry echoes through the night, and Gook can hear the shouts of “Geeba” as the Goblin army marches on Castle Uragia.
Simultaneously, screams fill the air as a huge black shape seems to detach itself from the shadows in the sky, flapping down toward the courtyard. Leriminsk, Varacay’s draconic ally, has arrived to claim his castle. It lands at the south end of the courtyard, near the powder silo, blocking the king before he can reach safety. Its roars fill the air, mixing with cries of battle and of pain. Unhesitantly, King Mortret grabs a sword from one of his bodyguards and charges Leriminsk.
* * *
Laguna stands stoically at the edge of the building, holding his spell at the ready for when Christoff reaches him. The elder mage flies amid a wave of crackling energy, approaching swiftly. Christoff’s first spell flies forward, blasting into Laguna painlessly. Instead, Laguna recognizes with pleasure, it is a dispelling attack, meant to remove his defenses. Instead, it simply manages to dispel a few minor wards, plus his illusionary shield. But most importantly it cancels the curse lain upon him from the door’s ward.
However, it does not cancel the enlarging charm Laguna cast on himself. With the shrink effect no longer active, Laguna instead grows to more than ten feet tall, towering over his master, who gasps.
Laguna cackles maniacally, conjuring humming claws of blackness that stretch from his fingers, and he leaps forward, off the roof. Sorcerous black wings hold him aloft as he swoops toward Christoff, slashing with his claws. He gashes his master’s chest, but the old man retaliates with a blast of fire that tears through the shadowy wisps of wings and sears Laguna’s face. Before he can fall, Laguna latches his claws onto Christoff’s shoulders, pulling them both down with the extra weight. They collapse to the ground, and all the soldiers nearby flee to give them room.
Laguna rolls to his feet, grabbing Christoff around the neck and lifting him off the ground. The old mage struggles in the cutting grasp of the shadowy claws, trying to pry Laguna’s hands away. Holding his old master easily in one hand, Laguna slashes across the man’s abdomen, and gouts of blood spill out. Christoff screams in agony, and Laguna begins to rant about how he was never accorded the power or position he deserved in this kingdom, how his master always underestimated him and held him back.
Sneering, Laguna throws Christoff to the ground, and the shadow of Christoff’s own body suddenly hardens into spikes of blackness, piercing his arms and legs. The old mage curses at Laguna, conjuring a hail of ice and sleet to whip his apprentice, tearing Laguna’s flesh and covering him in a frigid layer of ice.
Laguna falls back under the power of the hail, but then he pounces forward, planting a clawed hand on his master’s chest. With his spare hand, he digs his claws through the open wound on Christoff’s belly, and the old mage groans, curling fetally.
Rising triumphantly, Laguna bursts into laughter, spreading his arms to the air, and from the shadows of the air materialize hundreds of shards of shadow, like a sphere of black daggers, all pointed toward Christoff. He stares down to meet his mentor’s gaze, smiling farewell, when he notices the man muttering an incantation. Glancing at Christoff’s hands, he sees that the man’s fetal curl had been a feint, allowing him to reach his spell components.
“No!” Laguna shouts, jabbing his hands toward Christoff to send the final attack, just as Christoff thrusts out his palms, flames spiraling up his arms into a flaring seed of fire. The daggerblack shards lash upon Christoff like a vice of blades, but simultaneously Christoff’s fireball bursts forward, catching Laguna in the chest. The explosion sears outward, a swirl of crimson flames and dancing shadows, consuming both mages in a roar that echoes through the castle.
* * *
Goblins begin to pour through the hole in the castle wall, with Gook cheering them on as he jumps up and down giddily. Many Goblins ride wolves, and they begin to hack at the guards who man the northern wall. Gook, however, looks to see where Carl is.
At the southern edge of the courtyard, Shiithead is trying to get in the thick of battle so people will stop firing flaming arrows at him. In the darkness from Varacay’s spell it is nearly impossible to make out specifically where everyone is, but he is pretty sure he hears the Dragon, their ally, so he rushes toward the sound of roars, flapping wings, and scalding acid breath. Carl rushes after him, holding his frying pan in front of him like a shield. Gook, curious to meet up with his friends, runs after, them, but is several hundred feet behind.
Mia has hopped from rooftop to rooftop, using her touch of decay to carve handholds so she can climb easily up formerly pristine stone. With only two allies (Carl and Shiithead) in a crowd of dozens of humans, she cares little for her aim, and so she wildly spits her darts toward anyone who looks like a soldier. The impact of the dart is too light to damage, but their enchantment rusts armor, making it worthless. The weakened armor makes them easy prey for Shiithead as he plows through the crowd toward the Dragon.
Leriminsk and the king are still dueling, but as Shiithead runs up he shouts, “Hey, Mis’er Dragun! Jes’ kill du king and get yer scaly ass o’er ‘ere.”
The Dragon snarls at his impudence and turns upon him briefly, pounding Shiithead to the ground with one claw, then biting him around the waist, then spraying his belly with acid spit. With the troll’s torso pinned firmly to the ground, the Dragon pulls sideways, ripping Shiithead in half at the waist, then spitting out the lower half of the body. Shiithead grunts in surprise, then falls limp. But the Dragon is distracted, and the king leaps forward, plunging his sword upward into Leriminsk’s chest. The Dragon roars and curls its neck to bite the king, while nearby Carl falls onto his knees next to Shiithead’s torso, and tilts his head to the sky, screaming, “Shiithead, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Gook hears this cry and sees that the dear Mr. Dragon, their supposed ally, has killed his friend Shiithead. Shivering with anger, Gook wants nothing more now than to fight the Dragon, but he is too far away.
Then he remembers, pulling up his damaged but still functional crossbow. He spies the open door to the powder silo, just near the dueling Dragon and king, and he has an idea. Just then a flaming arrow digs into the ground at his feet, like a sign from the heavens, and Gook’s face splits in a grin. Pulling the arrow out of the ground, he nocks it in the crossbow, takes aim, and fires. The air goes horribly off-course from the damaged crossbow, but Gook’s aim sucked to begin with, so the arrow arcs cleanly through the air, through the door, and into the powder silo.
Gook ducks, pulling his turban down over his head for defense.
The explosion rocks the entire castle, shaking the cliff the building sits upon. The entire powder silo bursts outward, sending flames and stone shrapnel hurtling through the air. Even louder than the roar that killed Laguna and Christoff, this blast sears the king to death, and shears the Dragon’s head off with a chuck of flying rock. The entire southern cliff begins to sag downward, falling into the sea.
By this moment, the Goblins have mostly finished off the bulk of the human defenders, and they approach the site of the explosion in a daze. They see the severed lower and upper bits of a troll who has been torn in half, they see the charred corpses of a king and his bodyguards, and they see Carl the Goblin, standing up from where the Dragon’s body had shielded him from the blast. The Dragon’s body is still twitching despite its lack of a head, and Carl is desperately smacking at the stump to make it stop, beating it with his huge frying pan. Finally, it stops moving, and Carl sags weakly against it, looking around at the destruction.
Many of the Goblins blink, confused. The human wizard had been leading them in the battle, but now he’s dead, and the Dragon was going to be their leader and keep the castle for himself, but now, Carl has killed the Dragon, chopped its head off with his frying pan, claiming the castle for the Goblin people.
Gibbering with glee, the Goblin army bursts into cheers, and a group swoops Carl off his feet and over them in triumph. Across the crowd, the Goblins begin to proclaim, “Hail to King Carl! The Dragonsquisher! Geeb, geeb, GEEBA!” (said to the tune of “hip hip hooray”)
Gook pulls his turban off his head, realizing he’s not dead, and it takes him a while to figure out what’s going on, but then he hears the cheers, and rushes forward to congratulate Carl. In his high-pitched voice, Gook gabs on about how he’s known Carl forever, how their great friends, and how he is amazed that Carl killed the Dragon, but impressed. As the crowd carries off Carl to be crowned, Gook sighs, a little disappointed that his arrow didn’t actually set off the powder silo and blow up the castle. Then he could’ve been king. But at least Carl did it.
Gook begins to trot after the war crowd, looking forward to the pillaged dinner. As he walks, he sees a few Goblins using dull knives to scrape off the acid-burned parts on Shiithead’s lower torso and upper waist (two different halves of the body). He wonders if the two troll pieces might grow into two whole trolls, the part of the head and the part of the bottom. Head and bottom. Gook smiles at the thought, and even though Mia is cursing for some reason, promising to kill Carl or something, it doesn’t faze Gook. He pulls out some of his remaining horse meat, and nibbles on it as he goes to find the feast, a smile of victory splitting his face widely.
See the Tides of Homeland storyhour for more stories in the same world, but sadly not with these same heroic characters.
