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

by Matt Dinniman

  We had less than an hour before the start of the fifth and final wave. The host of Orochi creatures currently stretched from the Defender’s Door in Quibou to the entrance at the Arch of Conquest. The vast majority of the army were kappa warriors followed by the large oni giants. Other monsters started to appear in the last hours leading up to the opening of the gate. A battalion of the fast-moving chickens with their riders had appeared. We’d anticipated that and were ready this time.

  Akkorokamui had just emerged a few moments ago. Raj screamed the description into the chat.

  Raj: It is her! The lady! She don’t look so scary. She is on a big litter, like they have at home. Her face is funny. I guess she is scary when Raj looks at her face! Her litter is carried by six black monsters! They are like the chicken riders with the wobbly necks, but these monsters are all black like ink. Their robes are black. Their tongues are black! Only their eyes are red!

  We’d have to worry about that later. I waited anxiously for a Jonah update. He’d been radio silent for a bit now, and I was starting to get even more worried than I already was. I didn’t want to interrupt him, not at this crucial moment. The fate of everything, including everybody on The Hibiscus weighed on the next few hours. If we didn’t get to Sandra, Jonah was dead.

  The queen and her consort hopped out of the castle. Gone were the ragged purple robes. She’d somehow come up with flowing, brand-new purple robes that looked brand-new. A jeweled crown sat on her crow head. Her elderly wark-ee companion also had a brand-new, albeit much simpler robe. She approached.

  “It is time for me to fulfill my half of the bargain.”

  I sighed with relief. I was worried she’d refuse because Gretchen wasn’t here.

  “From how far away can you cast this spell?” I nervously asked. With the movement of the army from Quibou to the gates, it made it impossible for us to creep into the city without alerting the invaders. Everyone currently inside the city was here for the length of the wave.

  I had a hit squad of soldiers waiting outside the city gates, including Gretchen, ready to descend upon the location indicated by the wark-ee queen.

  But since we wouldn’t be able to leave the city, I feared we were already too late. If the queen couldn’t cast the spell from far away, I didn’t know what we were going to do.

  “Fear not, little one,” the queen said. “I think I already know where the magic is coming from. Lead me to the edge of the city, and I will know for certain. Once this polecat casts another portal, I will have her location.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “She’s kicked up her portal-opening to every ten minutes or so.”

  Thankfully these new portals were only open for about a minute, as if she was running out of steam, but the number of beasts filling Quibou was terrifying.

  I’d brought a cart dragged by a pair of fast-moving zebras, and I invited the queen and her companion to ride.

  She shook her head.

  “On this day, I shall fly,” she said. “It has been so long since I have freely flown over my city.” From the back of her robe, a massive pair of grey-feathered wings burst forth, and she rose into the air. The other bird dutifully jumped into the air after her. She hovered about ten feet off the ground. “Follow,” she said, and she head west toward the Arch of Conquest.

  Alice and I followed.

  Raj: Raj is scared! The city is too full! They are going into the buildings! Some monsters are in the hotel!

  Gretchen: Stay on the roof, honey. You got your spear?

  Raj had found a weapon earlier when they were re-searching the hotel. We’d convinced him to hold onto it and to practice with it every chance he had.

  Poppy: You’re a scout now, remember? You can turn invisible. If they come onto the roof, I want you to go invisible.

  Raj: Raj can’t make all of us invisible! I am a protector!

  Poppy: Buddy, I don’t care about everyone else. I only care about you.

  Raj: No, Raj has to keep them safe! Raj’s mom will come back if he keeps them safe!

  What? What was he talking about? As I tried to form a response, Jonah finally checked in.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: I need that gate. I need it now. I don’t know how much longer we can keep this up.

  I looked up at the queen. “Go,” I said. “Go fast. Make certain then come back to tell me. I’m right behind. We’re running out of time.”

  The queen didn’t answer. She took off, disappearing into the rising darkness.

  Poppy: I’m working on it.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Dude. Work faster. We are at the portal pavilion. We are surrounded. We got maybe ten minutes.

  Alice and I galloped through the streets toward the edge of the city. A moment later, Raj announced the appearance of yet another portal. More oni came through. Only a handful this time, but these oni were bigger than normal, armed with massive, flaming whips.

  A few moments later the queen returned. She hovered above me on the street.

  “It is as I suspected,” she said. “The magic user you seek is opening the portals from the most obvious place.”

  When she told me where, I was momentarily excited, but then a terrible realization crashed over me.

  I felt cold. Holy fucking shit I hated this game. I took a breath and opened up chat.

  Poppy: Raj, how you doing, bud?

  Raj: Raj is scared, Popper. Raj is so very scared. A red demon came up the stairs, and he almost ate us. He almost killed my friends. I used the spear, and I stuck him with it. He died. Raj has never hurt anyone like that before.

  I fought the urge to sob. What could I do? This was the only way.

  Poppy: Raj. How many other polecats are up there with you? Are any of them women?

  Raj: Yes. One is a woman. She’s a very old lady! Sandy. She is from Toptas. It’s a nice town she says. It’s not far from Valisa. She says she might know Raj’s mother. She is a nice lady.

  Sandy. Jesus Christ. She’d been there the whole time. She’d been at the hotel the whole damn time.

  Gretchen: Oh. Oh, no.

  Poppy: Raj, do you still have your spear? Is it in your hands right now?

  Jonah Note 20

  Minutes after being pushed into Harmony, I raced across the empty streets toward my castle. The clock ticked over to 9:57. I wasn’t going to make it. Bruce Bruce galloped by my side.

  Maybe the curse won’t trigger.

  I prayed. Father Roosevelt would’ve been proud. Please, please, please.

  The skull flashed in my vision. My curse had triggered.

  “Fuck!” I cried out loud. I looked at the minimap, trying to discern if my Detect Undead skill could see any around me. There was nothing, but my curse was on day 75, which meant everything within seven and a half kilometers would be summoned. I eyed the seawall, about a mile and a half away. Just beyond that, the burning fleet had entered the harbor. How many of them were there now? Last time when I was on Yi’s airship, I’d only summoned a small portion of them. My circle of influence now had to encompass the entire fleet. A fleet that had been growing exponentially in size over the past two months as it looted its way across the coastlines of the world.

  Boooonggg. I cringed at the terrible sound.

  You have summoned 694,022 undead to your location.

  You are being stalked by 694,023.

  “Holy shit,” I said, re-reading the notification. I fought the urge to vomit. Goddamn you, Popper!

  I had to get to the castle. There were no undead in the castle. Most of those would be from the burning fleet, and they were already trying to get into the city. The rest were scattered around town. I knew, thanks to my pendant, that multiple undead existed in the city from hundreds of locations. Thankfully most of the city ones were low level, easy-to-kill skeletons and ghosts. At least I hoped they were. The whole of Harmony was filled with quests for new players. There was bound to be a powerful lich down there somewhere.

  I grimaced.

  Despite my in
itial impression that the city was abandoned, I did sense life around me as I ran. The elderly and children peered at me from behind boarded-up windows, their gaunt and scared faces lit by candlelight.

  “He’s back,” I heard someone whisper as I ran past. “We are saved. I knew he hadn’t abandoned us.”

  I pulled up the War Events menu to get a better sense of the tactical situation. Things were even more grim than I thought. This menu looked different than the one for the Castellane fight, though much of the information was the same. Why was that?

  It looked as if Keta had immediately ordered a mass arrowing of the remaining citizens. Chaos and rioting ensued, something I’d tried to avoid. But with the extra workers, the wall project had moved more quickly.

  Actually, no, I realized now, looking at the menu and sorting through the defenders. Five astound rock singers were listed there. Had we told Keta about the rock singers?

  Yes, I remembered. Popper had found Spritz, and I’d asked Keta about them. Gretchen had gone out to look for some, but we’d all had to gather back up when Popper triggered the Siege of Castellane world event. Keta must have later found them and used them to quickly build defenses around the city.

  Keta was still only the rank of colonel in the war event, just like Larissa. The menus were odd, and I couldn’t grasp why. I wasn’t listed as General, though I still had full control over the entirety of the menu. I wasn’t arrowed, not like how Popper and Gretchen were. Was it because I was king? Was it because both the armies weren’t tied to a specific locale? With the Castellane defense, everything was centered there. With this fight, both armies had cut a scar across the world.

  I then realized what the difference was. I was in the War Events section on the Dominion tab, not the Harmony tab. Before, I hadn’t had access to the city tab of the thousands of cities within the Dominion. I could only access Harmony and the Dominion. The Dominion tab didn’t even have a War Events menu. Now, even the Harmony tab was grayed out. But, a new tab had appeared.

  I almost stopped dead in the street. I went back to my notifications, and I used the search tab to search for all the missed messages related to Keta. There were multiple, panicked messages from both Larus and Larissa about how Keta had grown crazy and was acting as king, and they didn’t know what to do. But the very first one, having appeared less than an hour after I’d been exiled to Libri was what put it all together.

  Your City of Harmony has suffered a coup! Mistress Keta of the Dominion has seized power over the city. You have lost access to the Harmony tab. If Despot Mistress Keta is not deposed within thirty days, you will permanently lose access to your city, and Harmony will revert to city-state status.

  Note: Harmony is the capital city of the Dominion. If Harmony gains independence, the seat of Dominion power will move to the selected backup city. Current selection: Port Royal of the former Flounder empire.

  Note: a coup of a metropolis-level city (population 1,000,000+) must be dealt with personally.

  Keta had taken over the city. She’d probably intended to take over the entire Dominion, but that’s not what happened. There had to be some checks and balances left in the code, even though it didn’t feel that way. Not just any NPC could be allowed to take over the entire kingdom. Though still… I wondered what would happen if I just gave my dragon helmet to Keta. Or the cook for that matter. Would that work? Would the game crash?

  Looking at the Royal Factions menu, it seemed I had the ability to just secede Harmony to Keta with the press of a button. I grunted. Well that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

  I wondered what would happen if I just abdicated, not giving my crown to anyone. There was a button that allowed me to give up my crown.

  I pulled up the sparse help section. It held a single sentence on abdication:

  Should a city-state or country-level leader abdicate without choosing a successor, the highest-ranking player currently within the country will be granted the crown.

  It seemed the system had generated a new Dominion-wide War Events menu for me, which is why it looked different. In addition to the burning fleet and the Hobgoblin Riot currently besieging Harmony, there was a long, long list of armies and war events around the world. The fighting in Castellane was not listed.

  The status of our current situation was grim. The entirety of the royal fleet was decimated, having all been sunk or turned. Keta had managed to build multiple rock islands in the sound, and they were currently engaging the 5,000 plus ships that continued to crowd the deep waters outside the city. These were defensive towers, I realized. Just like in Castellane. They appeared to be the equivalent of level three rock chuckers, upgraded to something called boulder bashers, tossing rock after rock. It seemed like it was too little, too late. Massive siege boats threw rocks of their own at the newly-repaired walls. Archers and mages dotted the tops of the walls and airships dropped bombs on the boats, but they were already on fire, and additional fire didn’t appear to be working.

  The undead occupants of these boats simply swam toward shore or climbed upon another boat when theirs was sunk. Thousands of undead, on-fire soldiers gathered at the base of the city wall, waiting for a breach. When that breach came, they would flood into the city. All would be lost.

  The giant, blue ship of the three primordials appeared to be hanging back, waiting for the battle to be won.

  And that was just on the western coast.

  Keta had built a giant wall surrounding the city and had destroyed all but one of the bridges that connected East Harmony with the rest of the city. That brand-new eastern wall was already breached, and the defenders had fallen back past lake Aberdeen, having lost the outer neighborhoods of Harmony—basically the cities of Bellevue and Kirkland in the real world.

  The majority of the hobgoblin horde was now contained on Hiram Island, what was Mercer Island in the real world, the same place where Sandra the Learnt had been taken and where her family currently lived. The white jacket and citizen defenders held the long, wide bridge that led to the rest of the city, but it appeared the Riot was constructing thousands of small boats in preparation of their next push. In just a day or two they’d have enough boats to swell over Lake Aberdeen and get to the main part of the city.

  As things currently stood, it was a pointless effort. In their race to see who would be first to kill all the citizens of Harmony, the hobgoblins had taken an early lead, but the burning fleet currently had the upper hand. The hobgoblins would be here in a day or two. The burning undead would be upon us in hours, if not sooner.

  I wondered idly what the hobgoblins would do when that happened. Would they continue, choosing to fight the undead? Or would they turn around and maybe head south toward Grandeur? That city was also on the coast. Would the burning fleet head that way after they sacked Harmony?

  I had so many questions. Both of these armies set out to take over Harmony because it was the Dominion capital. While Keta didn’t have the—power? User access? I didn’t know the right word—to take over the Dominion, I suspected both the primordials and Prince Maghan did. So if they broke into the castle, things would be different. I remembered the passage from the help section in the royal factions tab:

  Factions may be defeated either by the surrender of their forces, the taking of their capital, or the defeat of their liege in direct combat.

  So whichever army won today, regardless if Keta was in charge or not, would win the Dominion.

  A red dot appeared on my map, then a mass of several more. Undead, coming up from a sewer grate. These were zoms. Shamblers. They glowed green, indicating they were poisonous.

  Venomous, Gretchen’s voice said in my head.

  I felt very alone all of a sudden.

  I pulled Triple Fang and spun her up. I cut the undead down as they emerged, one after another. It was like cutting through paper. These were level three or four monsters. I could sneeze on them, and they’d be dead.

  These are not worthy foes.

  But we sme
ll war in the air.

  Yes, bring us to battle. We yearn for open warfare.

  I ignored my sword as we approached the castle. Bruce Bruce quivered with excitement. Multiple red dots had appeared on the outskirts of my map, most of them individual undead converging on me. I’d be safe from them in the castle. For a time, at least.

  The first drawbridge was still down, but an entire garrison of white jackets stood upon the ramparts, waiting to pull it up at a moment’s notice. I noticed two new towers had been built on the sides of the castle.

  Keta is better at this than I am, I thought. And she’s still going to lose.

  “King Jonah!” cried a white jacket with the twin bars of a captain’s insignia floating over his head. The older, grizzled human carried a spear, and the white tabard on his armor was stained with fresh blood. “You have returned!”

  “And Bruce Bruce has returned as well!” Bruce Bruce announced, striding past the soldiers and heading for the stables.

  “The hobgoblins,” I said. “How did they get here so quickly?”

  The captain’s eyes went glossy for a flash. “Nobody knows for certain, your majesty. We believe it was the sleds. The king’s road transport system. After the sack of Arcanum, you had said they will likely march upon Temple next, but that is not what they did. Information is scarce, but we believe they took control of the sled system and traveled straight here. Mayor Keta said it was because you abandoned us, and they knew you were gone. But I never believed it, your majesty. I saw you fight the old king in the arena. I know the type of man you are.”

  “And where is Mayor Keta right now?” I demanded.

  “She is in the throne room,” the captain said, pointing.

  “Where are all my friends!” Bruce Bruce yelled, coming out of the stables, which appeared to be almost empty.

  “We are at war,” the captain said. “They are on the field where they are needed. If you are not assigned, then I will take you myself.”