The Hobgoblin Riot: Dominion of Blades Book 2: A LitRPG Adventure

by Matt Dinniman

  Arrows flew as Granger pumped shafts at the demon. The arrows did not hit. They acted as if the demon stood much further away than she really did. The arrows fell to the floor as if they’d run out of steam, disappearing when they hit the ground.

  “Lug and Jax,” I yelled. “Attack the demon!”

  A turtle zombie head, still snarling despite being decapitated, flew across the room, having been dislodged by Bingo. It smashed against the wall and exploded.

  Another turtle—this one wasn’t a zombie, I realized—shouted and rushed at me. I swung my axe, hitting it in the armored thigh just below the shell. It cried and fell, its claws raking centimeters away from my throat. Water spilled out of the turtle’s concave head as it stumbled. I sunk my axe into its neck. The creature shuddered and died.

  Experience earned!

  Montu is pleased with your sacrifice.

  Achievement unlocked! Complete your daily sacrifice!

  Shit, I’d forgotten about that.

  More notifications started to fly.

  The red dots on the map seemed to be increasing. With horror, I realized monsters spilled into the room from someplace just past the large table. There had to be a trap door.

  “Bingo, get that trap door closed or blocked!” I called.

  NPC Jax (Level 52, Warrior, Half-ogre) has died!

  I looked up in time to see the other half-ogre, Lug, explode as he was ripped into multiple pieces by a group of octopus tentacles. The tentacles had come from the robe of the demon, who appeared to not have arms at all. Holy fuck, what the hell is that thing?

  NPC Lug (Level 55, Warrior, Half-ogre) has died!

  Alice: We’re coming down! Things are happening up here. We have to run!

  A loud crash quaked the entire building. A chunk of ceiling fell and exploded on top of undead Flaky’s head. Winston took the opportunity to slam his former friend hard to the table.

  Spritz: I was forced to erase the front door. It caused structural damage to the building. We’re coming.

  Bingo picked up the undead gorcupine as if he weighed nothing and slammed the zombie onto the ground. The large, dead-again gorilla disappeared from view. I realized he’d tossed Flaky through the hidden trap door. From below, shouts and hissing rose.

  Bingo grunted, and Winston, who appeared to be gravely injured in his fight with Flaky, rushed to Bingo’s side. The two groaned as they grasped onto the massive table and pulled, heaving it over the trap door. The stone table squealed and protested as it raked across the floor.

  As they released the heavy table, two turtles launched themselves at Bingo, only to impale themselves in his spikes.

  Winston glowed as Tiatha healed him.

  At the end of the room, the three-eyed necromancer once against started to chant. The sounds weren’t words, but an odd clicking noise that seemed to emanate from within her seaweed robes.

  I didn’t have time to think. I raised my axe, and I charged. With all my power, I jumped and swung at the demon.

  The moment my axe touched the demon’s midriff, the world froze.

  Everything in the room froze. The sounds of battle instantly stopped. Both of my feet remained off the ground. I couldn’t move anything except my head. I looked around with surprise. What the hell? I craned my neck behind me to see Alice emerging through the front door, frozen in place. A dead turtle hung in midair after being tossed off Bingo’s back. Tiatha looked to be in mid-cast. Vern was attempting to rise off the floor, two dead turtles on top of him. An arrow hovered, aimed directly at yet another turtle who was in mid-launch at Winston’s back.

  My eyes met the demon’s, and even she seemed frozen in time.

  “Hello?” I said. I could talk. “Can anyone hear me?”

  Nobody answered.

  Had the game crashed? I pulled up chat.

  Poppy: Hello? Are you there? Gretchen! Jonah! Alice? Can you see this? Bingo?

  Gretchen: I’m here. What’s going on? What did Spritz mean when he said he was erasing the door?

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Are you okay?

  The fact they weren’t frozen was even more confounding. Was I going sinkhole? That didn’t make sense. Usually when you timed out of the game, everything still moved around you, but you could no longer interact with it. This was different.

  Poppy: No, I’m not okay. Something weird is happening. Everything is frozen. I can’t move. Everyone around me is frozen. They’re not answering on the chat. We’re fighting a boss, and the world went crazy the moment my axe touched her.

  Raj: Hobgoblins come! They are all over the city! They are burning down the buildings! Raj is scared!

  I felt a chill. Why could others still move, but not anybody in this room? It wasn’t a spell, at least not a normal one. If it was, I’d have gotten a notification.

  Poppy: Raj, listen carefully. Is the Donut Boater gone?

  Raj: I think so. That street is all on fire. I am hiding at the other hotel, the Luxuriant. There are hundreds of hobgoblins, maybe thousands. Big portal appeared, and they came. There is fighting at the mercenary market. Hobgoblins are surrounding the white jacket building where you are, but there is no door anymore. They are coming into my building. Raj doesn’t know what to do!

  Gretchen: Raj, I want you to go to the roof and hide. They probably won’t look there. That hotel is stone, and it won’t burn easily. Sit tight for me, okay kiddo?

  Poppy: Fuck, Gretchen. I don’t know what to do. I think my regen spot has been compromised.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: I’m summoning Keta. We’re going to open a portal and get you out of there.

  Poppy: Okay.

  Fuck! Why was I frozen?

  On my minimap, a golden dot suddenly appeared just next to me. I still couldn’t move, but the glowing, armored human strolled into the room through an invisible portal.

  A game guide!

  His name appeared above his head, but it wasn’t necessary for me to know who he was. I recognized him immediately. This was Warpriest General Rochus. He stood watch at the Arch of Conquest. He was in charge of opening the spiral every four hours for parties to run the riot. He gave the same speech every time, and he’d choose the most powerful player in the group to be the war party leader. This was a famous game guide. He’d been a character in that old, dumb-ass Dominion of Blades movie they’d made years ago. His avatar still looked like that actor guy who turned out to be a wife beater.

  Raj: Raj did as you said. He is on the roof with a few hotel workers and hotel guests. Something is happening on the streets. A big hobgoblin comes! He’s going to your castle. Hobgoblins hit the walls with their pickaxes. They’re trying to break in!

  Rochus’s white, gold-tinged armor glowed brightly, filling the room. He usually wore a helmet, but he didn’t now. His long, gray hair looked perfectly combed, like he’d just shot a television commercial for some expensive, old-guy shampoo. He clutched a mace in his left hand, and the powerful weapon crackled with blue electricity. The old, chiseled man leaned forward to inspect me, a look of surprise on his face. He smelled odd, like of burning plastic.

  “You’re a little girl,” he said.

  “And you need a fucking breath mint,” I said. “What the hell is going on? Why can’t I move? Why is everything frozen?”

  He shook his head. “We do not have much time. I am not really here with you. I am bound in a spell, captured by Akkorokamui. By striking a blow against the demon, you have given me this opening. I am dying. I have used the last of my power to cast this projection and to bind the demon and those around you. She is already fighting against the spell and will be free soon.”

  I glanced back up at the demon, and I gasped to now see life in the three, bulbous eyes. They glowed with absolute rage and hatred.

  “In a few moments,” Rochus continued, “You and your party will be freed. My projection will lead you below to the tunnels that the demon and her kappa warriors used to invade this castle. You need to follow me. I will explain the r
est along the way.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I do not have time to explain,” Rochus said. “After I free you, you will only have a few moments before Akkorokamui will attack again. This projection is barely physical and can’t fight for you. You cannot win this fight. You must flee. Are you ready? Here we go!”

  “No, wait…”

  I felt my axe slam into the side of the still-frozen demon, and it shattered in my hands as if it’d been made of glass. I slammed hard to the floor. Around me, the party members continued to fight as if they hadn’t noticed they’d been frozen, but they all stopped, surprised that the monsters were no longer fighting back.

  “My axe!” I said in dismay.

  Alice roared into the room. “Hobgoblins!” she cried.

  “Somebody move this table!” Rochus cried. “Hurry!”

  Everyone looked at the glowing game guide.

  “Where the bloody hell did he come from?” Granger asked, lowering his bow. “What is happening?”

  “Do as he says!” I said. “Bingo, Winston, move the table back!”

  Without a word, the two gorcupines rushed forward and moved the table away. I pulled my secondary weapon, Dolly Trauma and held the enchanted knife ready. There had been more of those turtle monsters—Rochus had called them kappas—below. I didn’t know if they’d be frozen or not.

  Raj: They’ve broken through. They’re coming into your building!

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: I have Keta here. She’s going to cast a Portal spell.

  Poppy: Hang on. Game stuff is happening. Don’t let her cast where she did before. The whole area is crawling with hobgoblins, and they’ll pour into Harmony. Let me get through this, and I’ll tell her where we are.

  Gretchen: What do you mean “game stuff?”

  The table moved to reveal a large set of stone stairs. I was relieved to see they were just wide enough for Alice. I peered below, and the area appeared to be lit by a series of torches. Several dozen of the kappas stood below, but they were also frozen. The dead-again body of Flaky lay at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Go,” Rochus said. “Go, go, go!”

  “Come on guys,” I said to my party. “I don’t have time to explain. Follow him.”

  Popper Note 8

  Despite the urgency, I suspected the demon and the kappas would remain frozen for as long as it would take for us to get going. This was setup for a game event, this world’s version of a cutscene. For all intents and purposes we were now on rails. We’d stumbled onto the next part of the quest, which was exactly what I’d come here to do. I wasn’t sure what would happen with the hobgoblins pouring into the castle above, and I didn’t know if they would fight against or were working with the demon, but I knew this was all engineered to get us to the next part of the quest. I had triggered it by striking a blow against the demon. I’d have to follow it along and see where we ended up. As soon as I was free, I’d have Keta open up a portal so we could go home. With my regen spot destroyed, it had gotten much too dangerous. If I died now, I’d end up with Daniels, frozen for the rest of time at the sanatorium in Harmony.

  Entering the Caverns of the Fallen Dwarf Blaine, Level 1

  Achievement Unlocked! Discover a previously-unexplored game area.

  System Message> New game area—The Caverns of the Fallen Dwarf Blaine—has been discovered by Player Poppy (Level 21, Barbarian, Human) in Libri.

  Gretchen: What’s happening? Where are you?

  Poppy: Jesus, you’re worse than my mother. Give me a minute already. I’m on rails. We’re being led somewhere by a game guide.

  I looked at my level. All I had done was kill a single kappa, and I had gone up a level. Looking closer, I saw I’d also received a large chunk of experience for triggering the next part of the quest. Alice had gone up to level 21 also. She had a pool of experience that’d auto-level her with me whether she gained new experience or not, at least for a while.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I hopped up onto Alice and grabbed a torch off the wall in my left hand. “You can turn your light off,” I said to Nale. The yellow light switched away.

  We stood in a wide, underground cavern. This was an old place, dwarfish in style. Multiple pools of bubbling water filled the room. Tire-sized mushrooms dotted the floor. In addition to the torches, the mushrooms also glowed.

  Great, another cave, I thought. I shuddered. I hated being underground.

  “Come on, before they wake up,” Rochus said. He padded down a damp corridor. We followed.

  “Don’t leave me again,” Alice said as we followed. “I was scared.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s hard when we’re inside buildings because you’re so big.”

  “Bingo and Spritz are both bigger than me,” she sniffed.

  Bingo was also on two legs and could turn himself sideways if he had to, but I didn’t mention it.

  “These corridors pre-date the building of Quibou and Castellane by a thousand years,” Rochus was saying. “Not many know about them. The white jackets kept them free of vermin. It’s always good to have a path to escape.”

  “Where do they lead?” I asked, maneuvering Alice around a pool of bubbling water. At least I hoped it was water.

  “We will be near the shores of the Cassagnac,” the Rochus avatar said.

  The Cassagnac was the river that separated Quibou from Castellane. It was only about a half mile or so from where we were now.

  “So what’s the deal?” I asked as we walked. “What’s going on?”

  Rochus paused for a moment, longer than NPCs usually did when they were thinking. “I will tell you a story now. You may have learned some of this already. The hobgoblin warlord Musa is very old. He is the eldest, and only surviving, son of Chief Ichichi of the Riot. Musa killed his father and took control soon after the unification, and it was he, Musa, who built the spiral defenses. Musa is now dying, and control of the Riot is being wrested for by his two children, Maghan and Kankan. Prince Maghan leads the army that now marches on Harmony. Prince Kankan was supposed to remain in Castellane and guard the city, as well as take care of his ailing father.”

  “Was supposed to?” I asked, “What happened?”

  “I do not know for certain,” Rochus said, “but I believe Kankan grew bored sitting in the city day in and out while his brother, already favored by Musa, collected victories over the ocean. He left Castellane with his host of remaining soldiers, presumably to raid up and down the western shores. It is he who is laying waste to Quibou right now. They are upset they can’t get back into Castellane.”

  I sighed. There was obviously a lot I needed to learn. “Okay, start at the beginning. Tell me why they kidnapped Sandra the Learnt.”

  Rochus pointed at Bingo. “It was your gorcupine companion’s doing, actually.”

  “What?” I said, looking back and forth between the two.

  Bingo said nothing but raised an eyebrow.

  “I recognize your companion from the Menagerie. It was many years ago when the white jackets had returned from a successful raid with him, not in chains, but walking amongst the soldiers as an equal. He, along with many other beasts from the spiral, were sent to Harmony to fight in the coliseum.”

  I nodded. I knew all of this already.

  “Chief Musa knew that the spiral needed stronger defenses. If the white jackets could fight their way to the Menagerie and convince some of the warriors there to join them, then the current group of monsters guarding the area were of no use. He tasked his two sons, Maghan and Kankan to find the strongest, most fearsome beasts in the world to bolster the spiral’s defenses.”

  Bingo loped forward to walk alongside us. “What did Musa do with the remaining warriors? My clanmates?”

  Rochus shook his head. “My son, I fear I do not know.”

  Bingo growled, an odd sound, not his usual menacing snarl.

  Rochus continued. “Prince Kankan proceeded to the deep parts of this world, hunting for
beasts of great strength, but he returned empty-handed and wounded, much to his own and his father’s shame. Prince Maghan, however, returned with but a single creature. A polecat from the Dominion court.”

  “Sandra the Learnt,” I said.

  “Yes,” Rochus said. “Prince Maghan knew that the most fearsome beasts in this world may be found on the islands of Orochi. Maghan is a powerful mage, but Orochi is protected with a potent containment spell. He knew only a master mapmaker had the skill to open a portal to the place and bring the beasts out. That is why he kidnapped the polecat. In only a matter of days after her kidnapping, the spiral was stocked with great monstrosities plucked from the terrible shores of Orochi.”

  “Well, damn,” I said. “So they kidnapped her to bring those turtle monsters here?”

  “Yes, those and many others.” Rochus paused again, his eyes going glossy. “Warriors should have come to rescue the royal cartographer, but they never did. Such a shame that is, or none of this would have happened.”

  “What happened?” I asked. We entered what appeared to be a brick tunnel, leading upwards. Spritz and Bingo had to duck to keep moving.

  “When the Dominion’s power started to weaken, and when the old rulers reappeared and re-claimed their kingdoms, that is when Chief Musa sent his favored son, Prince Maghan across the ocean to raid. At this very moment, Maghan marches on Harmony with his host of half a million hobgoblin soldiers. Soon after Maghan left was when Prince Kankan, the younger of the two sons, grew bored of waiting and wandered from the city. After Kankan left the city defenseless, a terrible thing took place. The monsters of Orochi took advantage of the prince’s absence.”

  I was starting to see where this was going. I had been correct in my original assessment. These were two different world events that ended up accidentally intertwining. As a result, the AI running the game was forced to combine them, giving birth to a twisted and deformed baby of a world event.

  I mentally put together what happened. From reading between the lines, I figured the Missing Maps world event was never meant to get this out of hand. The game’s top players would’ve had to come together and worked through an extra-tough session of the spiral to get to the end. Sandra would’ve been saved, the Orochi monsters would’ve been killed, and everything would’ve gone back to normal.