by Ivan Kal
“Oh thank the Great Lord!” a voice yelled out as Morgan started walking toward the manticore. “Quick, kill the beast! It has been keeping us here for two days!”
Morgan approached Rann, his eyes looking at what looked to be three people sitting with their backs against the wall and their weapons extended in front of them. Two were human men—one of them somehow looked familiar—and the last one was an orc woman. Morgan glared at them as he put his hand on Rann and started scratching his chin. “Good boy.”
The three looked at him in shock, their eyes going from Rann to Morgan and back.
“Now, want to tell me what you are doing in my Guild Hold? And why are my walls scorched?” Morgan asked angrily.
Before they had the chance to answer, however, Ves and the others approached. “Titus?” Ves asked. Morgan remembered why the man was so familiar—he was the one who had left the twins when Morgan had just arrived to the World.
“Ves?” Titus asked, his shock giving way to hope. “Help, please!”
Ves put her hands on her hips. “It’s all right, you can move. Rann won’t do anything now.”
Morgan debated telling the guardian to eat them. The three stood up, looking warily at Rann, who growled faintly.
They immediately froze.
“Morgan?” Ves said. “It’s all right, you can let Rann step back.”
He debated doing that, but he was too busy staring at the orc woman with narrowed eyes. She was short, with shoulder-length black hair, and she was wearing a strange outfit—below the waist she had a skirt that came down to her calves, and her upper body was covered only with two straps which crossed over her breasts, leaving the rest of her toned body clearly visible.
When Morgan and Ran didn’t move, Ves took a step closer and noticed who he was staring at. The orc woman looked a bit scared of Morgan’s attention.
“Uh, honey?” Ves started. “You do realize that she is not the same as…the enemy?”
Morgan wasn’t so sure. “Hm…” he hummed.
“Morgan, her skin is green, and she is shorter than you,” Ves said patiently.
“It could be a trick.” Morgan narrowed his eyes.
The orc woman actually straightened and looked at him defiantly. Her eyes were brown, and she had a green-tinted skin. She was nothing like the adversary, but Morgan wasn’t so sure.
“Morgan,” Ves said firmly.
“Fine,” Morgan said. He was probably being paranoid. Not like I have hundreds of movies’ and video games’ worth of experience with illusions and shit. He patted Rann on the neck and the manticore stood up, eliciting a whimpering noise from Titus. Rann then turned around and walked out of the Grand Hall.
“Great Lord.” Titus released a long breath. “I thought that we were going to die here.”
“What are you doing here, Titus?” Vall asked as he stepped forward. “And who are your companions?”
Titus shook himself, and then looked at Morgan and his friends. “I… Ah, of course. This is Odren Jost, and this is Clara of the Forest Tribe.”
Morgan blinked slowly, still staring at the orc woman. “Your name is Clara?”
She returned his look. “And what of it?” she said in a deep, raspy voice which did not sound anything like what Morgan thought a Clara should sound like.
“Morgan…” Ves warned.
“What? Does no one see what is wrong with that?” he asked his friends, who just gave him a look that he was all too familiar with. “I mean, she’s a badass orc chick, and her name is Clara. What the hell is up with that?” Goddamn fantasy world and its idiotic naming! Why are the orcs the only ones with normal human names?
Clara perked up when he called her “badass,” and the others just closed their eyes in frustration.
“Ves? Come on! You get it, right?” Morgan pleaded with her.
Ves sighed and turned to look at Clara. “I apologize for him. He is a chosen, and he doesn’t understand much about the World.”
When they heard that, Clara and her companions looked at Morgan with interest. And Clara nodded slowly. “I see. It is all right.”
Morgan threw his hands in the air and turned around. “Ugh!” No one gets me!
“So,” Ves started again, “what are you doing here?”
Morgan turned back around. “Yes, and why is my Grand Hall wrecked?”
Titus looked between Ves and Morgan, a bit confused, but it was Clara who started speaking. “We were traveling toward Terbon from my tribe up north. I am the only ascended in my tribe, and so I was sent to warn the other settlements about the goblin threat.”
Titus nodded. “Right. Odren and I had been traveling north for a few weeks now, fighting monsters and leveling up. We ended up in Clara’s village just before the goblins started raiding in force. And then when we heard about them getting united, we decided to accompany Clara south to warn the people, give them the chance to prepare, you know.”
Vall narrowed his eyes on Titus. “Didn’t you say that you did not want to go out and hunt monsters anymore, Titus?”
Titus turned a bit uncomfortable. “I… Yes, I must apologize for the way I acted the last time we saw each other. I did not handle that battle well.”
“Pff,” Morgan said. “That’s an understatement, you were screaming like a little girl.”
“What? No I didn’t! Wait,” Titus said as he looked at Morgan, closer now. “You are the stranger that helped us!”
“Yup,” Morgan told him. “And as far as all this goblin threat is concerned, it no longer exists. We took care of the goblin army.”
“What do you mean you’ve taken care of the goblin army?” Clara asked.
Lucius was the one to answer her. “We fought a battle against their army at Terbon, two weeks ago.”
“But that’s impossible,” Clara said. “We started traveling south a week ago, and the goblins had just gotten a king. It would take time for the new goblin king to unite all the tribes.”
“Say what again?” Morgan asked. Oh, I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
“How large was this army you fought?” Titus asked.
“Around five hundred strong,” Vall said.
Clara grimaced. “That’s not their army. It must’ve been a grouping of several raiding parties. The goblins haven’t had a king in centuries, and once this new one establishes his place, he will start sending true armies down south—thousands of warriors and hundreds of chieftains. Almost every goblin tribe under the mountains will be united under his banner by that time. And he is even negotiating with the ogres. It is why my tribe sent me to give out a warning, and to see if we could find a Guild representative who would be willing to send a call for their forces from beyond the pass to help us. It’s why we came here, actually.”
Titus nodded. “Yes, we noticed this building halfway up the mountain, and decided to investigate. It was obviously a Guild Hold, but I didn’t know that there was a Guild in these parts. And then when we got here, that beast attacked us.”
“Well, Rann is Skyreach Guild’s guardian,” Vall said.
“So you know whose Guild this is?” Titus asked.
Wow, some people are really slow. “You could say that,” Morgan said.
Titus and his group frowned, and Vall then took pity on them. “This is our Guild.”
“Your Guild?” Titus asked. “But how? Just a few weeks ago you had barely survived a goblin scouting force, and now you have a Guild?”
“It’s been a long few weeks for us, Titus,” Vall told him.
“Who is your Guild Master?” Clara asked.
“That would be me,” Morgan said. “Guild Master Morgan, at your service.” He gave them an elaborate bow, and then straightened only to have the three of them staring at him as if he were crazy.
Titus glanced at Vall, and the half-elf nodded in resignation. “I know. Trust me, he might be…strange…but he knows what he is doing.”
“Hey!”
Ves stepped forward. “You said that
Rann kept you here for two days? Let’s get you taken care of, and we’ll speak more later.”
A few hours later, after they had unloaded the wagons, set up sleeping cots in the Grand Hold for the people that came with them from Terbon, and cleaned up the mess that Rann and the intruders had made, they settled down for dinner. Titus and his group explained to them all about this new goblin threat. If Morgan had understood right, there were hundreds of goblin tribes, all living in the mountains in the north. They rarely ventured forth from there; usually they sent just a few raiding parties into the valley, but every so often a single goblin among them would unite them, and then they would start raiding the human settlements in true force. According to Clara, a new goblin had moved in, coming from a tribe outside of the valley, and had started uniting the goblins under his rule, becoming the first king that these goblins had had in centuries. He was even negotiating with ogres, which according to her no other goblin has ever attempted. This meant that inevitably, once he united them completely, the goblins would spill from their dens under the mountains.
That made the situation very dire. The settlements in the valley had been dwindling for a long time.
“How long do we have?” Lucius asked.
“A year at most,” Clara said. “But as soon as they march, they will sweep right through this area on their way south.”
Morgan grimaced. From the maps and the talks he’d had with in town, Morgan knew that there were about a dozen villages south of Terbon, and another half a dozen towns about the same size as it. But those were all non-ascended—there might be a few ascended among them, but if what Lucius told him few had levels higher than five? Those that got that far usually moved on over the mountains to join a Guild.
“Damn,” Morgan said. “Well, that accelerates our timeline significantly.”
“We are not ready to face this, Morgan,” Vall said. “Reach is directly in their path. If they start south, they will hit us first, and we have almost no defenses.”
“We will need to get them. I already planned on raising the walls around the plateau. It would be death for any army to try and fight its way up that road,” Morgan said.
“There are a lot of them. They might be able to make an effective siege,” Clara said.
“Are goblins smart enough to do that?” Ves wondered.
Clara grimaced. “They might not be on average, but this new goblin king… He is smart, uncannily so for a goblin. And he has a lot of hobgoblins in his armies.”
“Uh, hobgoblins?” Morgan asked.
Clara looked uncomfortable for a moment. “They... goblins raid orc tribes often, they rarely do much damage of course. An orc is much stronger than a goblin, only the largest of goblin raiding parties are a threat. But sometimes goblins do manage to collect such numbers. When they do, they kill everyone in a orc tribe, except the women. They... they take them back to their mountains, and–”
“I get the idea,” Morgan interjected, feeling sick. Fucking monsters.
Lucius coughed uncomfortably. “So what is the plan?” he asked, looking at Morgan.
“The same as it was, only accelerated. We go out to the other villages and towns and offer them protection in return for service. We recruit for the ascended from their populations and train them up.”
“Will we manage it in time?” Ves asked.
“There are ways of fighting such large numbers while nullifying their advantage. We will plan and we will adapt,” Morgan said. His team nodded.
Titus shifted uncomfortably. “I think that we might want to reach out to the Guilds over the mountains.”
Morgan shrugged. “You are free to try. I personally want nothing to do with them, and I doubt that they will agree to help.”
Titus looked at Vall in confusion, while Vall shifted in his seat. “We tried to join one of the Guilds. They betrayed us and left us to die in the Mountain’s Heart dungeon.”
“What?” Titus asked. “But why would they do that?”
“Because,” Morgan said hotly, “the heart of a traitor is painted black.”
“What?” Clara asked.
Seriously?
“One of the commanders of the Glitter Force Guild,” Ves answered her. “She left us to starve or be killed by a boss.”
“Let me guess, she was an orc,” Clara said with a pointed look at Morgan.
“Yes,” Ves said.
“You know,” Clara said, getting in Morgan’s face, “not all orcs are the same, just like not all humans are the same!”
“What? I know that,” Morgan said incredulously.
Clara nodded firmly as if that was that. Morgan frowned at the tiny orc. She came up to his shoulders, but she was feisty.
“So,” Titus started, interrupting Morgan’s study of the woman, “we talked it over earlier, and we would like to ask to join your Guild.”
Morgan scowled. “Don’t you want to join a better, more established Guild? We can’t offer you much.”
“That would be preferable, but… This is a chance to get into a Guild at the start. We would have much higher standings here than we would in any other Guild,” Titus said.
Morgan thought it over, and it did make sense to him. But then again, he had never been all that much interested in joining the other Guilds. “What are your levels and classes?” Morgan could’ve used his Inspect skill on them, but he knew now that it was considered rude to use that on people.
“I am a level 5 Wizard/Mage,” Titus said.
Odren leaned forward. “I am a level 4 Soldier.”
“And I,” Clara said, “am a level 6 Wizard/Knight.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow at that; she didn’t carry any armor, nor any weapon aside from a staff. “What kind of a build are you using?”
“I am going into the healing and support arts. The Knight class is a prerequisite for what I want to upgrade to, and the Wizard class gives me access to spells which can be used to heal. My tribe usually produces a single ascended every generation, and those who survive and move on send back items to help the tribe, from time to time.” She reached into a pocket on her skirt and pulled out a small pouch. She untied it and showed him what was inside.
“A class stone?” Ves asked.
Clara nodded. “It is for a rare healer class.”
Morgan used Inspect on it.
CLASS
REQUIREMENT
Aegis
Wizard/Knight (Discipline)
“What can the class do?” Morgan asked. Already he had a plan. Their little group had a good balance, but adding a healer would make it perfect.
“I will be able to fortify my allies’ armor to absorb damage, and heal, of course.”
“That sounds very interesting,” Morgan said. “Very well, you may join.”
He didn’t really care for Titus and Odren, but they needed to grow. They spent another few minutes talking, and then the three of them approached the hearthstone and placed their hands on it, joining the Guild. Just then, Morgan remembered that he hadn’t checked the stone’s screen since they got back, so he put his hand on it as well.
Skyreach hearthstone — Hall of Myths Hold LVL 2 — Tier 1 Guild
The bar for the Hall’s level was about a third of the way up toward level 3, and they were maybe a quarter of the way toward being a tier-2 Guild. There was also a notification.
Congratulations! Your Guild Hold has reached LVL 2, and you have been rewarded one free add-on. Choose wisely!
Huh. Well, that’s cool. It looked like adding a town to their domain and the new recruits had given them enough points to level up the Guild Hold.
Then he noticed something else down below—he brought his attention to that screen and realized that it was a map. He took a look at it and saw that it showed Hall of Myths on Reach at its center. Some way away was Terbon. The area between them was marked with borders, and Morgan realized that he was looking at the domain of his Guild. On the side was a table that showed him the raw resources that his domain
contained.
RAW RESOURCE
AMOUNT
Wood
6800
Stone
8250
Iron ore
5300
Copper ore
4700
Silver ore
2500
Coal
10000
Morgan had no idea what the numbers meant, precisely, but he could see the raw materials highlighted on the map. This will be very useful. With the people that would soon be coming from Terbon they would be able to start on harvesting some of those resources. Terbon didn’t have any miners, but Vall had told him that there was a town a bit further south which survived on it. I guess that mining is a priority, then.
Morgan blinked the screens away and stepped back from the hearthstone. They had a lot of work to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The next day the original group gathered up and decided which add-on they would take. Vall was arguing for stone walls, Lucius for the dormitory to house the newcomers, and Ves was all for the training grounds. Morgan wasn’t sure which way he leaned. He could see merit in all of them, but he knew that they needed to grow, and so in the end he decided to agree with Lucius, and they went with the dormitory. The black smoke flowed out of the hearthstone and then through the window of the Great Hall, going outside to the area that they had chosen and started building a large two-story wooden building.
It finished in just under an hour, and then they moved the few militiamen and the new ascended into the dormitory. Most of the day they spent training the militia, but also clearing an area for the training grounds. They didn’t need to buy every add-on, of course; they could just as well build them themselves. Sure, it would take more work, but it could be done.
