by Aleron Kong
“I hear them. I hear them,” Richter said, his own heart sickened by what was happening. “I promise, we will make them pay.”
“Will you save them?” Oreet asked. He sounded like a man falling to his death asking god for a parachute. They both knew that his family was never coming back, but he couldn’t face the truth.
Richter’s face froze for a moment, but then he said, “Of course. I’m here to save you all.” He had never actually hated himself before that moment.
Oreet looked at him with an inscrutable gaze, before nodding and saying, “Thank you.”
Richter gave him a nod and stood helping the man to his feet. He motioned Oreet towards the cliff face. Some of the sprites were tying those too weak to climb to the ropes and then lowering them over the side. He turned back to ask Oreet to help and saw that the human was gone. Whipping his head back and forth, he couldn’t see him. Richter checked his map, and cursed silently when he saw a yellow square moving north at a run. The square was moving directly towards the goblins that were raping his wife and son.
The chaos seed made a split-second decision. He might be able to reach Oreet before the goblins noticed him, but he’d have to kill the man to stop him quietly. Whatever stains his soul would have by the end of the night, that wasn’t something he was prepared to do. Instead, Richter ran to Yoshi.
The sprite was conversing in hand speak with Damien. Richter took out his Traveler’s Map and pointed. Yoshi took in the situation in a glance. The adept could guess who was running towards the goblins and why. His eyes hardened, and he looked back up. He spoke aloud, knowing there were only seconds left.
“We need more time to get the captives free. Someone will need to draw them away from the river bed.”
“I’ll do it,” Richter said immediately.
“You won’t do it alone,” Yoshi responded. He called out to Damien and five other members of the strike them. Their orders were simple: delay the goblins that were just north of them and then lead the entire enemy army through the valley. “You must keep their attention away from the riverbed,” the adept repeated to Richter.
“I’ll do it,” the chaos seed repeated grimly. He started casting buffs as quickly as he could. Weak Haste, Weak Barkskin and Weak Life Armor. It wasn’t much. His armor only increased by +3 and his speed by 10%, but he would take it.
“Yes, we will,” Sion said, loosening his bow.
The screams north of them grew louder and over fifty goblins’ voices rose in anger. A single human voice yelled back.
Richter looked at his friend with steel in his gaze, “Ready to kill some more bad guys?”
Sion looked back wild-eyed, with a savage grin on his face, “Oh yes, brother! That’s what we do!”
CHAPTER 32 – Day 141 – Kuborn 31, 15,386 EBG
The yelling crescendoed. All of the women began to scream as well, and Richter thought he even heard a child’s voice join in. The screams cut off abruptly, one after another. It was quiet for a moment, then the sound of fell horns filled the air. The squealing calls rang out from the goblins just north of the cages. Soon there were answering calls from all across the goblin encampment. Through Alma’s eyes, Richter could see the camp roil like a kicked anthill and Richter’s stomach dropped as the number of red triangles exploded on his map. More enemies were coming out from cover. A lot more.
The chaos seed pushed his fear aside. There was a more immediate concern. The goblins had finished slaughtering Oreet and their rape victims. Now they were coming fast towards Richter and the other sprites. They left bodies of their victims behind and flowed between the buildings to reach the cage area.
Richter quickly reached into his bag and pulled out something he had been hoping to save until later in the battle. He handed them out to each of the sprites. Sion asked, “What is it?”
“It goes boom! Throw it at the goblins when you see them and don’t look directly at it when it happens! Fuck! There they are! Throw it! Throw it now!”
Richter and the six sprites each threw the Crystallized Red Foxfire as the first of the goblins boiled out of the gaps between the buildings. The goblins were approaching in three distinct lines, funneled by the wooden buildings. Two crystals flew to each gap, and Richter arched his throw a bit higher to fall farther back in the middle line. The red gems flew forward and cracked on impact. The unstable alchemy released, and the goblins burned. They BURNED.
When the first crystalline red sphere shattered, it released an explosive field of pure force. The skin on the closest goblin’s face rippled as if pushed back by a strong wind. A split second later, the fire came. It was the birth of a tiny sun, and flame washed out in all directions. As the explosion expanded outward, the blaze flowed like water. Throats were seared as the goblins’ yells turned to screams. Those closest to the explosion just saw a bright flash. Then the fluid in their eyes superheated, causing the soft globes to burst. White, ocular fluid started to flow down their face, but the heat continued to cook the liquefied remains and charred it on their cheeks.
Then the second sphere shattered, and it all started again. The buildings burned, but they also funneled some of the flames. Even past the ten foot AoE of the foxfire, some of the flames still reached further back into a column of goblins. Those who did not die outright from the release of the alchemy caught fire. Their bodies went up like living torches and their screeches added to the chaos and confusion. What had been a force of nearly seventy bloodthirsty goblins, turned into barely over fifty green skinned cowards in mere moments. Almost all of the survivors were partially blinded by the explosion of light and red fire.
The living goblins either screamed if they were on fire or roared in pain if they were blinded. The entire enemy advance ground to a halt for a few seconds. That wasn’t time that Richter and his allies were going to waste.
As soon as the initial explosions finished, Richter started running, and the sprites began imbuing arrows. The chaos seed ran to the middle of the building right in front of him. He didn’t slow when he got close but instead jumped towards the wall. One foot planted on the wooden planks, and he used it to gain extra altitude. His hands reached up and grabbed the roof, pulling himself up, and he kept running. He barely missed a beat.
Richter ran forward on top of the building while fire ate at the walls on either side. He kept one mental eye on the video feed Alma supplied while he ran. It was going to provide an absolutely spectacular view of the deaths he was about to cause.
The goblins recovered from their partial blindness and blinked, wondering why there were still six points of light that were brighter than the other afterimages in their vision. One or two of the smarter goblins even wondered why the light was blue rather than the red of the fire they had just survived. The shrewdest one had time to think “Oh shit” just before the sprites released their imbued arrows. Richter wondered if the goblins that were still burning were actually thankful when death claimed them.
Two imbued arrows shot down each of the three corridors between the buildings. Not too much charge had been built in the shots over the past five seconds, but it was enough to cause a large boom. Each arrow struck a different goblin. The sprites had chosen targets that were already wounded, and the exploding arrows caved in chests and sheared away the goblins’ faces. Six more goblins died without even coming close to their killers.
It wasn’t only the initial targets that suffered. Four of the sprites were meidons. Dark and Air magic augmented their imbued arrows, causing secondary damage to any enemies nearby. The concussive force released also damaged the surrounding goblins. It was not sufficient to kill the rest, or even maim them, but it was enough to send the goblins reeling again. That was all that Richter needed.
The blasts from the arrows had worsened the structural integrity of the buildings even further, and the roof Richter was running on began to buckle. It didn’t matter, though. He had reached the end of the building. The goblins that hadn’t entered the corridors between the buildings
were clustered, fear and uncertainty on their faces. The chaos seed could see fear on their fire-illuminated faces. They were close to breaking, and some were even turning to run away.
Oh no, Richter thought. The time for that has passed. Some of the goblins looked up as he leaped from the roof. Though they did not know it, they were witnessing the unleashed wrath of a chaos seed, for the first and last time.
Richter extended his hand and released the dual casted spell he had stored in his Ring of Spell Storage. It had almost completely depleted his mana pool, but it was worth it. A green disc appeared in the air and a level twenty-two chokespore arachnid jumped through, right into the center of a group of goblins. Three went down under its weight while the others raised weapons to attack, but the spider immediately used its special attack! A cloud of spores appeared in the air, and nine more goblins fell to the ground, struggling to breathe.
The chaos seed had scanned the crowd before he jumped, and his eyes fixed on a particularly large goblin in the back. It wasn’t the goblin’s size that had caught his gaze or the fact that he was one of the grinder station. It was the fact that the green skinned fucker was holding onto the naked body of the dead boy. The child’s jaw hung loose because one cheek had been ripped away. The grinder was holding the boy’s remains the same way a child might hold the leg of a teddy bear as he dragged it through the house. Seeing such a callous disregard for the remains of the murdered boy made the edges of Richter’s vision turn red.
The goblin was too far away to kill immediately, but Richter promised himself that he would find a special end for that particular black-hearted bastard. At the moment, though, there were others within his reach. Sighting on a goblin that stood just in front of where he would land, he screamed bloody murder. Both of his hands were clenched around the hilt of his elementum short sword. The look of horror on the goblin’s face brought a wild joy to Richter’s heart. It felt even better when he swung his green blade down, and the scout was literally split in two. Black blood drenched Richter from his hair to his knees. Only the white of his eyes shone in the firelight while he chose his next victim.
Bare seconds had passed since he had launched off the roof, but it had felt like time stretched as he fell, keeping him in those moments for a frozen eternity. All that had mattered was his will and those who would die because of it. When he landed, though, everything sped back up. For those moments that he fell, even sound seemed to have faded away, but he clearly heard the squealing roars of the goblins around him as he landed. The two halves of his first victim fell to either side and the battle continued!
A fighter to his left rushed forward screaming and swung a mace. If the blow had landed, it would have brained him, but the goblin overreached. Belying the fact that he was a full two feet taller, Richter still ducked under the swing and brought his short sword to bear against his attacker’s leg. The clear green blade swept through the goblin’s knee, freeing limb from body.
The goblin screamed again, this time in disbelief and agony. It dropped to the ground grabbing its own severed limb like a mother would hold her child, but Richter was already moving past. He spun to the left, staying low, and reached out one hand. As his fingers, contorted in a spell form, a green glow appeared. Richter spoke a word of Power.
A dark circle appeared under the feet of a group of goblins running toward him. A moment later, they all collapsed. They each cursed and yelled at one another, blaming their fellows for the fall. One screamed, however, due to his comrade’s sword having cut him by accident.
Richter raised his sword arm and deflected a spear strike. Standing quickly, he deflected the goblin’s next attack, while curses continued to emanate from the ground behind him. Before the scout could attack a third time, a gold light appeared behind him followed immediately by a bolt of lightning. Richter grinned at his familiar as she swooped past.
She unleashed her Psi Blast against a knot of enemies, who all fell to the ground twitching. Richter walked towards the scout that Alma had downed. The goblin’s limbs twitched in a seizure. While he moved, his free hand developed a red glow, and he spoke another word of Power. Without looking back, he pointed that hand at the dark circle that had tripped the cursing goblins. Fire shot forth igniting the grease, and the goblins started screeching.
Richter smiled even bigger. He heard one burning fighter call for his mother in goblin-speak. The chaos seed took a sick pleasure in it. It was always satisfying to burn enemies caught in his Grease spell. He had started to think of it as his signature move, and lighting them up while not even looking… well, that was just all types of cool! A small piece of himself cried out that he shouldn’t revel in the death and agony of others. A larger piece of him didn’t even bother replying. It just asked for more blood. Richter was happy to oblige.
His sword fell once and then again on the downed scout. The damage from his blade was magnified by the critical strikes to the goblin’s face, not that there was even a face left when he was done. Turning quickly, Richter blocked a mace strike with his short sword, the elementum blade scoring deeply against the iron cudgel. The Disarm enchantment on the blade triggered, and the mace flew out of the fighter’s grasp.
Richter threw a gauntleted punch into the goblin’s face and found that he enjoyed the sensation. There was a slight “give” that was unique to teeth being forced down an opponent’s throat. The goblin took two steps back, moaning through its ruin of a mouth, and the chaos seed followed. Putting all of his strength into his swing, the elementum blade entered the goblin’s neck, kept traveling and exited the other side. A black fount of blood shot up from the severed neck and the fighter’s head raced his body to reach the ground first.
The Mist Village lord turned around, seeking another enemy and promptly took two arrows to the chest. His armor stopped the worst of the damage, but he was still flung backwards. He fell onto his back with a crash and a soft wumpf escaped his lungs. Instinctually, Richter rolled to the side. Right after, another arrow struck the ground only inches from his body. Goblins rushed at him, shouting.
Richter rolled twice more until he spun fast enough to use the momentum to get to his feet. As he stood, he saw three goblin archers taking aim on him again. That was right before arrows illuminated with blue magic struck all three. His boys had gotten back in the fight!
One goblin took an arrow to the face, and the explosion savaged his features. The goblin screamed, clutching at his face. The other three arrows struck the goblins in the chest and extremities. They weren’t dead, but they would be down for at least a few seconds.
Richter assessed the situation. Only thirty or so goblins were still on their feet. More were alive, but they were either screaming in pain, disabled, or both. Five of the sprites were engaging a group of goblins in hand to hand combat while Sion shot arrows as quickly as he could. The goblins were too close to the other sprites to use imbued shots, but they should still be able to win the day. That just left the nine goblins running towards him, screaming for his blood.
Richter used Analyze on all of them in quick succession. As always, he didn’t even need to read the information that was now available to him, he just knew. Because of that, he understood that he was facing three scouts, four fighters, and two grinders. More than that, he recognized one of the grinders as the one that was holding the body of the boy. The chaos seed’s lips pulled back in a snarl, and he readied his attack.
With a flick of his wrist, his elementum short sword left his hand and entered the earth, hilt sticking up. Richter downed a blue mana potion and started a dual cast. Green light surrounded his hands once again. Words of Power fell from his lips as the goblins got closer and closer. It was clear to all of them that he was casting a spell. The goblins all shared the same thought. The one thought melee fighters always had when facing a mage. They needed to kill him before he finished.
They were too slow.
The three second cast time elapsed and Richter’s mouth opened wide of its own volition. Invis
ible rings of sonic force shot from his mouth and quickly expanded. They flowed over the fighter that had only been eight feet away from him, and the goblin dropped as if he had been shot in the head. He fell to his knees holding his ears, mouth open in a scream that was silent compared to the mind-numbing screech of Richter’s sonic attack.
The chaos seed’s mana pool dropped by one hundred and three points. Every goblin within twenty feet and inside of a thirty-degree arc of his voice suffered from the attack, and many were deafened. Not all fell to their knees like the first fighter, but it still stalled their attack, as they blinked in pain. That was all Richter needed.
He closed his mouth and was about to start forward when a heavy dagger flew towards him and struck him in the shoulder. Richter knew which goblin had thrown it, but it didn’t matter because he blamed them all. The blade penetrated part of the way through his armor and stuck out of the meat of his deltoid, but he didn’t go down. Instead, making eye contact with the nine goblins before him, and with only feet of space between them, he pulled the dagger from his shoulder and cast it dismissively to the ground.
Blood continued to pour from the wound, decreasing his health by two points per second, but he barely noticed. Alma flew up to hover behind him, a golden glow suffusing her body. As Richter withdrew his elementum short sword from the ground and drew its moonstone mate from the sheath on his back, a golden disc appeared in the air, and a glowing fox jumped through. The chaos seed smiled at the now uncertain goblins with a wild gleam in his eyes. He pointed his elementum blade at the dagger thrower, and in clear goblin speak he said, “You’ll pay for that, my son!”
“Who in the hells are you?” one of the grinders shouted in guttural tones.
Richter just cocked his head crazily and said, “You can call me daddy.”
The goblins roared in anger and surged forward. The chaos seed ran forward as well, and hell came with him.
