Chapter 7
The road to Vellhorn cut through rolling hills dotted with farms and the occasional shrine, though no shrine had any symbols of faith.
Unlike the mountain paths they’d traveled before, this was a proper road, wide enough for two carts to pass, with packed earth that showed signs of regular maintenance.
Luna hummed beside him, a tune he didn’t recognize. She’d been in good spirits since leaving Ambervale, probably because she’d spent every copper she had on jewelry for her hair.
“How far to the Lass?” she asked. “I’m mightily curious about it.”
Alsen consulted the map. “About a day’s walk. The Oak Library should be roughly another day further, assuming we don’t get lost at the Lass.”
“Didn’t Corwin’s wife say it takes him a day?” Luna snorted. “She’s like sixty, so he’s probably like seventy. We aren’t slower than a seventy-year-old archivist, are we?”
Alsen frowned. That indeed didn’t make sense. And the obvious explanation was that his grand, detailed map wasn’t terribly accurate. It looked perfect though.
The morning passed without incident. They crossed a stone bridge over a stream, passed a merchant heading the opposite direction who gave them a polite nod, and stopped briefly to refill their waterskins at a roadside well.
About five hours into their journey, Luna stopped mid-stride. “See that?”
Alsen looked around. No. He pushed out a series of scans, both for life and for magic. Still no. “I don’t.”
“Over there.” She delved into the bushes, not humming anymore.
Alsen followed her. The road vanished behind them, only tall oak trees and thick forest grass around. He saw it now, too, a broken cart wheel by a tree, a part of the cart sticking out from behind it.
They approached carefully. The scene unfolded before them like a painting of disaster. A cart lay on its side. Books and scrolls were scattered across the forest bed, most trampled into it. A leather satchel hung open from the cart’s frame, its contents spilled.
No sign of the animal that pulled the cart, nor the driver.
Luna ducked down at a spot, pointing at dark grass. “Blood marks.”
Could he scan that? Most likely. Alsen focused, stretching out a scan, analyzing the blood’s composition. “This is most likely animal blood.”
Luna stood up. “I’ll track them.” She headed into the forest, pushing into the underbrush. “They dragged something heavy.”
Alsen paid a silent second of respect to the trampled scrolls and books and rushed to follow her. He could return for them.
“A bunch of smaller people or creatures with shoes,” Luna called back as she followed the tracks. “About a day old.”
The forest swallowed them within minutes. The canopy blocked most of the sunlight, leaving them in a perpetual green twilight. Luna moved ahead, occasionally crouching to examine a broken branch or disturbed patch of earth.
“So,” she said after perhaps twenty minutes of tracking. “What small races do you think this world has?”
His only frame of reference for that was Earthen video games. They hadn’t seen anyone non-human in Ambervale. He shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“We’ll find out soon.” She pointed at the thicker foliage of trees ahead. “There’s a watch behind that.”
He squinted his eyes. Nope. “I can’t see anything.”
“Me neither. But I smell them. They don’t wash much.”
Neither did they, but he left that be. Alsen pushed out a life scan. “Five beings. All smaller-sized.”
“I’ll go first, and if you hear screaming, it’s a fight.” She crept ahead.
Good that she gave him a chance to reply.
He readied himself, realizing he didn’t have a small-scale attack spell.
The lance put too much strain on his body, and against smaller creatures, that would have been a waste.
Not to mention the unnecessary collateral damage to the forest and the risk of hitting Luna.
All right, smaller. Smaller fragments of power. And indirect, so they didn’t hit Luna. He ran through his memory of spells. There were a few, each of which had a different property he sought.
Luna vanished in the bush.
An inhuman shriek echoed from behind the bush. Alsen sent out the scan again. A gurgling of blood followed, another scream, and a thud. Four of the life presences vanished from the scan, the fifth one running away.
“Leave him!” He shouted and aimed the spell he had improvised.
Indirect missile.
A jolt of power flew from him in a bent arc. It accelerated, avoiding a tree, hitting the target in the back. A soft explosion echoed through the forest. The life form vanished.
Alsen rushed towards the bush. He found Luna cleaning her dagger’s blade in the grass.
Four corpses lay scattered around. Goblins.
Small, twisted creatures with greenish skin, short and sinewy.
“We called these goblins in my world,” he said, leaving out the part that they didn’t actually exist in there.
“We called them extinct.” She smirked. “I never met one myself. But James told me stories of how he led the genocide that wiped them out to the last. By the way…” she pointed at the corpse blown up by his spell. “You didn’t see that one before you killed him, did you?”
“I saw him through a scan.”
“Can your spell tell apart a goblin from a child?” she asked, her smile suddenly full of teeth.
He paused. No. “I trusted your judgment.” Did she just test him? Yes, she did.
She smirked in the absolutely smug way that wasn’t trying to hide anything. “Good.” She continued ahead.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ENEMIES DEFEATED – GOBLIN SCOUTS (5)]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 75]
[LEVEL UP!]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 3]
Nice. A smile spread over his face. These were worth quite a bit of XP, actually. The priestess seemed to be far more dangerous in comparison.
Then again, what might have made the goblins valuable was their ability to hide and ambush. Luna negated that, so the fight itself turned out to be easier than it could have been.
They continued tracking the goblins.
The forest grew denser. Roots crawled across the ground like frozen snakes, and more than once, Alsen had to catch himself from tripping. Luna moved through it all without apparent effort, clearly fully comfortable in her new body.
She held up a hand.
Alsen stopped.
Ahead, through a gap in the trees, he saw movement. Small shapes, green-skinned, carrying crude spears. Three of them clustered around what looked like a dead rabbit.
“Patrol,” Luna breathed. “They haven’t seen us.”
Alsen sent out the scan. Indeed, three smaller life forms, all consistent with the goblins from earlier. He focused for a split second.
Indirect missile. Times three.
Three bolts of power flew from him. They curved through the air, each hitting a goblin. All three lifeforms faded in the nearly simultaneous explosion.
Luna wheezed. “The new spell works well.”
Indeed. He had to write that down in his spellbook later.
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: ENEMIES DEFEATED – GOBLIN SCOUTS (3)]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 45]
[CURRENT LEVEL: 3]
“Did you get experience just now?” he asked.
“Yep.”
Good. So, they counted as a party, sharing their experience even when only one of them fought. No need to kill steal then.
A ringing of a bell echoed from a bit further ahead.
Right. There were apparently more goblins. He sent out a quick scan. An entire village of goblins, easily fifty of them, flashed into his mind. Shit. “There are a lot of them ahead.”
Luna stepped to a nearby tree, hiding mostly behind it. She motioned him to do the same behind another tree.
Good idea. He walked there, and as he did, he sent out another scan, this one for magic.
No major magical signature. But, he detected a small, violet mark on each goblin, one which looked precisely like the magic he detected on the void-animated priestess.
He also detected magic on the necklace of one of the goblins and on two of the gems interwoven into Luna’s hair.
He still couldn’t detect the invisible bag, though. He hid behind a tree, waiting.
Every few seconds, he sent out a scan for life. Only a single goblin ran towards them.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he shouted when he got closer.
Luna moved her finger over her lips. “Why wouldn’t we?” she shouted.
“We don’t want to fight. We can talk! Come with me. Chief talk to you. We settle things peacefully.”
A flash of guilt shot through Alsen. He hadn’t thought of the possibility of them being intelligent enough to speak.
Luna said nothing, only readying her dagger.
“Sure,” Alsen shouted, stepping from behind the tree. He still readied the shield spell, just in case. “Let’s talk then.”
Luna rolled her eyes, tucking her dagger behind her belt. She also walked out from behind the tree.
“Good! Good!” the goblin shouted. “Come! Talk with chief.” He motioned them to follow.
They did, walking for barely a few hundred yards before the goblin village spread before them. Alsen still fired one sneaky scan after another, making sure they weren’t walking into a trap.
The village looked more like a junkyard. Structures resembling buildings were scattered among thinner trees and stumps. Goblins moved between them. Most with weapons, smaller ones that might have been females or young, a few larger specimens present, who stood head and shoulders above the rest.
The goblins were mostly silent, gathering in smaller groups, all watching the entrance.
The smell hit even Alsen’s nose now. A mixture of smoke, dirt, and too many unwashed bodies clumped all too close together.
“Come! Come!” The goblin led them towards the entrance, if it could even be called such.
Alsen counted at least forty goblins. Maybe more in the huts.
A wooden cage sat near the edge of the camp. Inside, a gray-haired man in stained robes sat with his head in his hands.
“There’s Corwin,” Luna whispered.
“And there’s the chief.” Alsen gestured at the camp.
A group of three goblins, a gray-bearded one in the center with two larger ones by his sides, walked towards them.