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

by Matt Dinniman

  “The large hobgoblin prince is through this door,” Bingo said. “We attempted to enter, but the magic within won’t let us pass. It appears to be a guild hall.”

  “If it’s the artistry guild you were talking about earlier, then I can get in,” I said, striding forward.

  Gretchen put out a hand. “I don’t like this,” she said. “It feels like a trap.”

  “Of course it’s a trap,” I said, unfurling Triple Fang. “But we’re still stuck on wave one, remember? It can’t be that bad.”

  “Famous last words, my friend,” Popper said, eyeing the door uneasily.

  I grimaced, striding forward and marching through the door.

  Jonah Note 9

  Entering the Artisan Guild.

  This is a hidden guild hall!

  You are a level 3 artisan. Welcome fledgling artisan!

  Warning! This is a corrupt guild!

  Achievement unlocked! Discover a corrupt guild!

  Confused, I read over the announcement a second time. My artistry skill was level ten, not three. Looking at the menu, I saw the difference. The artisan skill was different than the artistry skill. I knew artistry raised when I worked on maps. I vaguely remembered leveling my artisan skill for doing the same thing, but it usually happened when I was concentrating on my map, and I hadn’t noticed the difference. That seemed to happen a lot in this game. If a skill was somewhat related to what you were doing, one could still level up in that skill, albeit much more slowly.

  But what was the difference?

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: I’m in. First off, it’s the artisan, not artistry guild. I’m only level three. Also, it says it’s a corrupt guild. What does that mean?

  Poppy: Sorry, I was going off of memory. It’s been a few years, you know. If it’s a corrupt guild, it means the guildmaster is dead and nobody has taken his place. There’s usually good loot laying around, but there might be mobs inside, so be extra careful.

  Gretchen: At the first sign of trouble, run. I don’t want you fighting.

  Poppy: Jesus, Gretchen. Let the boy spread his wings.

  I looked about the empty room. A long table dominated this main room, and a pair of cracked stained-glass windows to my right looked over the middle entrance court to the castle. A door led to a deeper room. Against the other wall, a hearth stood, piled high with black coals. Above the hearth an oil portrait of a humanoid, hook-beaked creature glared down at me. It reminded me of those portraits of plague doctors from the 17th century.

  Dozens of items filled the room, either hanging on the wall or standing on pedestals. Multiple small statues filled a glass case, a glass and ceramic bowl sat on the table, and an intricately-woven tapestry hung above the door in front of me.

  I listened, scanning the area for any indication of movement or sounds. I didn’t hear anything, but that sense I was being watched did not go away.

  I crept to the large, carved wood door. It wasn’t fully closed. I pushed it open with my foot, warily peering inside.

  This room was more of the same, but several desks sat in a row, facing a podium. Various art pieces were displayed around the room.

  Upon a small bench in front of a round, glass window sat Prince Kankan of the Hobgoblin Riot. He sat with his back to me. A massive poleax sat leaned up against the chair. He could grab it and turn easily.

  The hobgoblin had peeled off the top half of his extensive, golden plate. His green back was bald in several places, indicating old, angry scars.

  The window looked west, out toward the Gardens where the tower battle had taken place. From this spot I could see all three towers, right in a row, about the same height we were now. The green garden spread below, the statues all back in their place. The red fountain bubbled merrily in the distance. There was no indication that several hundred hobgoblins had been slaughtered down there just hours before. The chamber imps had cleaned it well.

  “I do not envy you,” Prince Kankan said without turning. “This is a wretched place to inherit. I have never known such beauty, all left to rot.”

  I looked around cautiously for signs of attack or ambush. I tentatively took a step into the room.

  Kankan sighed. “My brother will attempt to take this place back. It is a foolish thing, I think. If I were war chief, I’d take my people, and we would return to our native lands. Your old king had chased us away, in his attempt to ‘unify’ us. But there is no unification now. Do you think this new king of yours would let us live in peace in our old land?”

  “The Kampong?” I asked, meaning the island of Borneo here in the game. In the real world, the island was divided amongst three different countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, though that whole area had gone “dark” after an earthquake and tsunami about two years previous to our departure from Earth. Isabella had told me that Malaysia had annexed what was left of the entire island, but none of that had been in the news. Either way, here in the game the entire island was its own country, called the Kampong. Keta had told me a bit about its history. The whole country was once the domain of the hobgoblins, before the brutal wars of the unification, all of which happened 150 years prior to the start of the game.

  In reality, this NPC was pining for a kingdom that never existed.

  “Yes, the Kampong,” Kankan said, nodding. He still hadn’t looked back. “It is good you know a little of our history. You are not the brash girl I spoke with earlier.”

  “No,” I said. “I am the king you are wondering about. And my answer is yes, I would let you live in peace in that place. I would ally with you as well.”

  That did garner a reaction. The obese hobgoblin turned to look upon me. I was stricken at how sad he appeared. The hobgoblin was nothing like how they had been described.

  “If only…” he said, turning back. I was not sure what that meant.

  “I thought if I could get in here, it would turn the tide for my people,” he continued. “This old guild hall has sat here abandoned since we put the city to the sword. The old guildmaster had people hidden in here, and they lasted for some time. One was supposed to remain, but they are gone now, it seems. My father and brother believe I left the city to gain glory for myself. I did not. It was to learn a skill, to gain access to this place. I thought if I could just get my hands on the artificer… We would never be hungry again.”

  I had no idea what he was talking about, but it seemed this was important. Gretchen and Popper both kept asking me for updates, but I told them to give me some time.

  “You left the city to train in an art?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Kankan said. “We only know war, my people. That’s not how it used to be. My grandfather, Ichichi, he had a book with great drawings of tapestries in them. I remembered that book, but my father burned it after we took this city.”

  “Is that what you wanted to learn? Tapestry art?” I asked.

  He ignored my question. “When the Dominion heroes stopped raiding the spiral, our food supplies dwindled. We starved. My brother felt taking your crown was the best course of action for our people. He is marching on your city at this moment. Yet you are here, in this place with me.” He laughed, but it sounded hollow, sad.

  “I knew about the artificer, right here, just out of my reach. With it I could guarantee we’d never be hungry again. But the magic of this place…” He held up his hands. “It is the same magic that kept your kind from entering and seeing what we wrought upon your great Castellane. I could not get in unless I gained a skill.”

  He paused for a long moment. “Not tapestry. Pottery. A useful skill. My mother was a potter. My father beat her to death for attempting to teach me. I took my retinue of soldiers south to the sea. Not to raid, but to gather food. And while they did this, I found a guild that would teach me enough skills that the magic here would let me in.”

  Sitting on a desk just behind his position, I noticed a large, clay bowl. It was in two pieces. Simple, utilitarian, but I knew—I just knew—it had been made with great care. I
t had a perfectly symmetrical shape and was fired in a red glaze, so vivid it caught a glint of sunlight coming from the window. I wondered when the bowl had broken.

  “But me leaving, it was a terrible mistake. My father’s health wanes. His honor guard… I do not know what happened. There were fifty of them, but they disappeared with him, I think. I think it was the polecat. My father kept her with him, you know. She was always hanging on him, whispering in his ear. People say we kidnapped her, but that is not true. I think she betrayed us. Opening the portal to Orochi was her idea. With me and my soldiers gone, the demons escaped, and they called more of their kind here, including this Akkorokamui. Your small companion said this was my fault. She is correct, as much as it shames me to say this. It is my fault.”

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Holy shit guys. You’re not going to believe what this dude is telling me.

  Kankan looked at his hands. “I enjoyed it, making the pottery. Strange things happened to me when I took those first few steps, when my hands sunk into that wet clay. The world changed, became much bigger. My mind seemed to open up, and things I never thought possible suddenly were. I wish I could have stayed. But there is duty, and my people starve. I come home to find you here, occupying my city. Perhaps it is for the best. But I beg of you, feed my people, those who remain. My father is somewhere in the city. He is a terrible, evil man. But he is still my father. That malice has fled, as has his mind. Do not trust the polecat.”

  “Chauncey says she was captured by the Orochi demons,” I said.

  Kankan nodded, contemplating. “Then my father is likely safe. He will have sought out a Night Temple of Kalika. Not the one on the island, but one of the lesser temples within the city.”

  Great, I thought.

  “Will you? Will you feed my people?”

  “I will do my best,” I said. If they don’t try to murder us first. “Do you guys eat fish?”

  He smiled, a genuine smile for the first time. “We are hobgoblin. If it is meat, we eat.”

  Prince Kankan leaped to his feet, snatching up his large poleax with both hands, rounding on me. The large man was surprisingly agile.

  I stepped back at the sudden movement, raising Triple Fang. He saluted me with the poleax. I realized, then, what was happening.

  “At least I shall fall to a king,” he said. He raised the massive weapon and roared.

  Jonah Note 10

  System Message> Prince Kankan of the Hobgoblin Riot, second son of Chief Musa, has fallen in battle to His Royal Majesty King Jonah of the Dominion.

  Wave 1 of 5 complete.

  You have received a reward! 500 jacks have been added to your account.

  War Party> Spiral systems deactivating.

  War Party> Spiral systems are now offline, and it is safe to traverse the spiral path. Chamber imps have been dispatched to reset the traps and to clear the corpses. Warning! You have traps that need to be reloaded. Warning! You have towers with no assigned defenders.

  I was about to whip Triple Fang back onto my waist when I heard a new noise behind me.

  I whirled, ready to strike. The withered form of an old, something, emerged in the main guild chamber behind me, slipping into the room from within the hearth. Was there a secret passage there? Or had it just been part of the coals? The creature, clad in black, stood up to regard me.

  Was it the guildmaster? No, it couldn’t be, I realized. This was a corrupt guild.

  The bird-like humanoid stood about five feet tall. Its thin, wiry arms were like the surface of a raisin, pitch black with hints of a deep purple in the crevices. One of the human-like hands clutched onto a long walking stick, also dusty and black. It wore round goggles on its beaked face. It was dressed in black, tattered rags. It appeared to be half crow, half human. Its feet were the three toes of a bird. If it had wings, they were folded on its back behind the rags. It cocked its head to the side in a distinctly avian movement. It did not say anything. The bird had an unsettling quality to it, like something was just off with it. It reminded me of something out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

  On the minimap, its dot was white. I relaxed slightly at that.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  It cocked its head the other way. It made an odd noise in its throat, like the coo of a pigeon.

  Okay, this thing is freaking me out.

  I took a step toward it, and it took two hops back, closer to the hearth from where it came.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Guys. After I killed the prince, this weird bird/human thing appeared in the room. It’s just looking at me, not saying anything. It’s wearing clothes, but I don’t think it’s intelligent.

  Gretchen: It’s probably a wark-ee. Is it short and stand on two legs? This used to be their city. They’re harmless. The hobgoblins killed and ate them by the millions when they invaded Castellane.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: It’s just standing there, looking at me like it expects me to say something.

  Poppy: Wait, I know this. There are two kinds. The women wark-ee are intelligent. The men just sit there and drool on themselves.

  Gretchen: Just like in real life.

  Poppy: Har-har. A joke from Gretchen? Is it a full moon or something? Anyway, it sounds like this one is a dude. You’re supposed to give them something shiny.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Okay. Then what happens?

  Poppy: I don’t know. That’s just what you’re supposed to do with those things. They give you something in return, I think.

  If these things were slaughtered by the hobgoblins, it was no wonder it had hidden himself when Prince Kankan had come into the place.

  I looked around the room. The whole guild hall was filled with shiny things. But if this creature normally lived here, then all of this stuff was already his, wasn’t it? I eyed the broken bowl, still sitting on the desk behind me. A splattering of blood had gotten on one of the pieces. Was that why Prince Kankan had brought the bowl? Had he brought it as an offering for this creature?

  I whipped Triple Fang back onto my waist and picked up the broken half of the bowl that didn’t have blood on it. I stepped back into the main room and offered the piece to the bird.

  It moved closer, cooing more, turning its head back and forth. It moved its face right up to the broken crockery.

  I fully expected him to look at me and say “what is this bullshit?” at any moment.

  He reached forward, gently, with his beak and pulled the crockery out of my hand. He cooed a few more times, looked straight up, and swallowed it whole. It opened its mouth impossibly large, and the half bowl disappeared right into its throat.

  “All righty, then,” I said.

  It hopped back a few steps then dove into the fireplace, disappearing.

  “Hey!” I called.

  But I didn’t have to wait long. A few moments later, he returned holding a small, golden birdcage in his mouth. It was bigger than the wisp lighter Popper used to light his cigarettes, but it was still about the size of my hand. He reverently dropped the birdcage on the table, squawked once, and then disappeared back into the hearth.

  I hesitantly picked up the birdcage, peering inside. Within, two tiny fairies fluttered back and forth. One brass, one silver. No, wait. These were machines, little clockwork fairies. The creatures made an odd whirring noise as they clanked about in the air of the cage, their gossamer wings working furiously to keep them aloft. Each of the robot-like automatons was the length of my finger to the first knuckle. I had to squint to see the individual workings of the clockwork mechanisms.

  Arcane Artificer

  This item is enchanted.

  Warning! You may not use this item until you reach expert level with an unenhanced skill within the Artisan tree.

  When activated, the automatons within the artificer will create a 3D rendering of any 2D subject, as drawn or otherwise created by the wielder. Magical and special properties will not convey from artworks, nor may the artificer be used to create any living thing, nor gemstone, no
r jack. Please note, raw materials are required for all transformations.

  This is an Epic item.

  “Sweet,” I said, investigating the brass and silver pixies. They buzzed about in circles, seemingly oblivious of the world outside their cage. This must be the item Popper was talking about earlier, that people fought to get to. If I could draw a sword or a shield or a horse cart, I could have them make it for me, granted I had access to the metal and wood required to build the object. Prince Kankan said he wanted to use it to feed his people. I wondered how that would work, or if he hadn’t known the true nature of the device. While amazing—like having a 3D printer on steroids—it wasn’t an all-out miracle device.

  But first I’d have to train my artistry skill up to 11, the first expert level. I’d been stuck on level 10 for a while, so I knew I could probably get there without too much work. Apparently my earlier suspicion had been correct. The artisan skill was nothing more than an umbrella over multiple skills, like pottery and artistry, just like fishing was a base skill while fly-fishing and spearfishing were sub-skills.

  “Oh wow, an artificer,” Gretchen said as we walked back to the castle. “They’re worth a lot of jacks, and you can make some cool stuff with them.”

  “Eh, they’re not that great,” Popper said. “All the weapons and useful stuff you can make with them aren’t usually as good as the ones you can just buy. There’s a size limit, too. So you can’t just draw a giant castle. And even if you could, you’d have to gather all the crap to build it. It’s like having two little slaves in a cage. People usually used them to make giant stone dicks.”

  I put the birdcage in my pack. Hopefully I’d find a use for it eventually. I already had a few ideas.

  “So anyway,” Popper said. “First off, we need to sleep and set our regen. Then we have some things we need to do. I’m going to gather some folks up, and we’re going to explore Fort Bloodgasm.” Gretchen made a noise and shook her head again at the name. “Chauncey says there are some rats in the basement, and since I didn’t get to kill anything in that last castle, I need to make sure I get something today for my daily sacrifice. If I don’t find anything, I’ll have to get Granger to open up one of those traps he and the butt rocker chicks used. I don’t want to have to do that.”