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

by Matt Dinniman

  “He is already assigned,” I said. “He’s on a mission for your king.”

  I looked in the stables as I passed, and to my relief, Eli and Jenny remained. They only had one companion. At the far end of the stables, in the very last paddock was Keta’s equort. Even the stablemaster was gone. I paused, quickly grasped a pair of carrots off the table and fed one to each of the donkeys. Jenny nuzzled me. I put my head against hers. “Sorry, old girl,” I said. “I don’t think we’re getting out of this one.”

  “Bruce Bruce,” I said. “You have a very important job. These two donkeys are important to me. Keep them safe, okay?”

  Bruce Bruce looked afraid. But then he cleared his throat and stood straighter. “I am Strong Mount the Powerful. It is my honor to keep them safe.”

  I put my hand on Bruce Bruce’s head. “I’m counting on you,” I said, and I turned and headed into the castle.

  “Keta!” I roared.

  Jonah Note 21

  I found her where the captain said she’d be. She sat upon my throne, in the large, ornate, never-used throne room in the third ring of the castle. Besides a pair of white jacket guards who startled at my appearance, she was alone in the room. I dismissed the guards who snapped salutes and fled.

  Keta slouched, looking disheveled. She did not seem surprised at my appearance. I approached her purposely, my hand on the hilt of Triple Fang. I didn’t know if she’d fight. I suspected—and hoped—that she wouldn’t.

  As I approached, I could smell the vodka. She was drunk. The city was about to fall, and she was completely obliterated.

  “Did I ever tell you about my sister?” she asked as I approached.

  “Where’s my map?” I demanded, growling the words.

  She ignored me. “My parents named her Silverbrite. She was younger than me. So beautiful, so happy all the time, so curious about the world. She’d been cursed. When she was four years old, and I was six, I’d accidentally raised an evil gwishin. The ghost touched my sister and burned out her eyes, giving her the curse of Fatal Sight. My parents thought I was to be a harbinger. They sent me away.”

  “Keta,” I said, taking another step forward. “I don’t care. It’s not important right now.”

  Keta’s eyes glowed, and light appeared in her hands. Thwump! The entire room trembled, and I took a small amount of damage. Dust cascaded off the ceiling. On the minimap, Keta’s dot flashed red but turned back to white. I did not know what that meant.

  “It is important,” she raged, coming to her feet. An empty bottle of vodka flew from her lap and clanged against the floor. It did not break. “It’s the most important thing in this world right now, so do not say another word until I tell you about Silverbrite.” Tears gleamed in her eyes.

  “Okay, okay,” I said, holding up my hands. I did not want to fight her, even if she was drunk. I still had my ring that could cast up to three magic protection shells, but even with that, I had no illusions about my chances. “Tell me about your sister.”

  “Silverbrite. That’s her name.”

  What the hell was wrong with her? “Silverbrite,” I said. “Your sister’s name is Silverbrite. Please tell me why she’s important right now.”

  “I was sent away to Harmony to train with the harbingers. I was six years old. Not just because I showed promise, but to also keep my sister safe. It was a few years later they decided to send me to the earth mages.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying not to let my frustration show. Outside I heard another pair of explosions.

  “When I became an adept, I started to earn a wage. I was twelve years old. I hadn’t been home since I was six. I only received irregular messages from my father. Never my mother. He spoke of the daily agony of Silverbrite’s condition. I sent them money, pleading for them to bring her here to Harmony. I worked with the greatest healers in the world, and I knew someone would be able to help my poor sister. Still, my parents never brought her.”

  Keta stumbled a few steps and picked up the empty vodka bottle. She cursed and threw it across the room. It still did not break.

  “I became immersed in my work. I rose in the ranks, eventually becoming the king’s magic advisor. I still wrote to my parents, pleading for them to come to Harmony. They stopped answering. I did not know if my sister lived or died. So, when I saw your map, I thought… I thought I could go there to my sister and bring her back here. I could do this before the invasion.”

  “You didn’t have to steal my map,” I said. “If you’d simply asked me, of course I would have let you use it.”

  She ignored this.

  “I went to my village to find my sister and to see if my parents still lived. Do you know what I found?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “My parents were still there, but they did not know me. They were not any older than when I’d left so many years before. My sister was there, too, eyes burned out. She was still four years old, suffering every day. My parents spoke of their other daughter, but her name was not Keta. It was Annette. Six years old. She’d accidentally cast Wall Break, unknowingly opening a tomb. A small spell. An innocent mistake, common amongst children discovering their powers. She’d just done it a few days before. She did it every Friday morning. Her parents thought she summoned the gwishin herself, rending open the Marshlands to pull the ghost into the world. They didn’t realize the truth, that the ghost had been there the whole time, buried in a stone tomb.”

  Keta sat back down on the throne. “They did not know me,” she repeated. “But they spoke of how scared they were of their other daughter, this Annette.” Keta took a breath. “My mother, Annette’s mother, she asked me if I would destroy the girl for her.” She put her face into her hands and began to sob.

  Christ. What do I do? Before I could say anything, she continued.

  “Every Tuesday, you see, they’d do this thing. The townsfolk would come to our home, and they would throw a net on the girl, and they would drag her to the sea. They drowned her, terrified of the young harbinger. Only she wasn’t a harbinger, she was an earth mage. Not that it matters. She was just a little girl. A six-year-old girl, and they drowned her every week.”

  I remained silent as Keta wiped her eyes.

  “‘How can you do this?’ I said to my parents. ‘This is your own daughter!’ And they replied, ‘Do you see what she’s done? She will curse us all!’ So I agreed to take her back with me to Harmony. But when I went to this girl’s room, where her parents had kept to her locked up… I entered this room, to see this young version of myself, so young and so scared, and we just looked at each other for several moments. Then she blinked and disappeared. My mother and father disappeared. Silverbrite disappeared. Before my eyes, my family home flashed and turned decrepit, as if it’d been abandoned this whole time.”

  Holy shit, I thought. Keta had forced some sort of game paradox. The game had corrected, and she’d witnessed it and remembered.

  “I first thought this was some terrible spell. I went to the local tavern to see if anyone remembered me. I did not find any who knew me. They did not know my family. It was as if they never existed. But I did find this.”

  She pulled a book into the air, and she threw it accusingly on the ground in front of me.

  “My sister, my sister is not real. She never was real. The real Silverbrite, my not-sister still existed for a time. She suffered every day. She suffered every day for thousands of years until I visited her and banished her from this imaginary world. And now I have no family. No one. All of this work I remember doing, it was never done. I am a construct, an illusion, a plaything of the gods.” She looked at me. “You have done this. You have created me, given me these memories of love, of loss, of pain for your own entertainment.”

  I stared at the book. Holy shit. NPCs weren’t supposed to be able to read it. It wasn’t meant for them at all. What had I done?

  “Keta,” I said. “I am so sorry. If you’ve read the book, you know I am no god. I do not want to be here. I am tra
pped, and I want to get out.”

  “I cannot read all of this. Much is obscured, but I understand enough to know the truth about myself. How many of you are there? Do you not see what is happening to this city? Do you not see the death? Is this how you amuse yourself?”

  “Keta, again. This is not my doing. I do not wish to be here. I just want to go home.”

  “That is what he says, but I’m not certain I believe him. I believe you may be a celestial. You have created this illusion for your own entertainment. He says we must strive to understand your motivations before we are to decide if you’re to be destroyed.”

  My blood ran cold. “Who says that? Who is he?”

  “She speaks of Rector Smallthunder, of course,” a new voice said. She’d slinked into the room behind me, and I hadn’t noticed. She stood next to me now, a familiar moon auric.

  “Yi,” I said.

  “Your majesty,” Yi said, bowing. “Is it just you? Where is Gretchen and the small, angry one?”

  “They are not here,” I said. “Where is Smallthunder? Is he here?”

  “He is not,” Yi said. “He was, but I just returned him to Grandeur. He is off to find some old friends, and soon he will return to prepare his army for the march north to take this city back from whomever will win this conflict. I just arrived myself to take the mayor to safety, at Smallthunder’s request.”

  “Keta,” I said, ignoring Yi for the moment. “I wish you no harm. I still don’t understand what you did. But I’m not angry. You’ve done a much better job preparing the city defenses than I ever would have. I kind of wish we’d had you in Castellane.”

  “Castellane?” Yi asked, putting her hand on my arm. Her grip was iron. “Is that where Gretchen is? There is a terrible demon besieging that city. Rector Smallthunder said all the defenders will be destroyed, that they have no idea the power they face. He says we are to go there after we take back this city. He’d contemplated going there now, but he said even he wasn’t powerful enough to face down this Akkorokamui. He said she’d devoured most of the other demon lords of Orochi and had taken it for herself. She is the Empress of the Orochi.”

  Factions update! The status of the Orochi Dynasty has changed from Uncontacted to War.

  Wonderful. Just wonderful.

  Yi opened her mouth to say something else, but Keta interrupted her.

  “I’d like to say I did it for the map,” she said. “I’d like to say I did it for my sister. I knew I’d be better at protecting this city than you. I’d like to say I did it because of that. But that is all a lie. I saw the opportunity, and I took it.” She brushed her hand across the throne. “But it seems this imaginary world of yours won’t allow me to be queen.”

  “Keta, where is my map?” I asked again.

  “I gave it to him. Smallthunder. He was quite taken with it,” she said.

  Godamnit.

  “You can have it back,” Yi said. “Come with us to Grandeur. There is no saving this city. He wishes to speak with you.”

  A surprising notification popped up.

  You have received a reward! 25,000 jacks have been added to your account. You have received three training tokens!

  You have received a bonus reward! You may choose a class-based spell for free. You may choose this spell at any Hunter Guild.

  Godamnit Popper, I thought again. It appeared we’d won the wave after all, and that I’d still received the reward for fighting during the wave, despite leaving before it was done. Did that mean I would’ve received the penalty also? Either way, had I been banished for nothing?

  I sighed. I looked between the two. An idea started to form. But first I needed to know where I stood with these two women. “Keta,” I said. “Are you planning on killing me tonight?”

  She waved her hand drunkenly. “If I wanted you dead, I would not have pushed you through the portal. I do not wish harm upon you, King Jonah. I like you very much.”

  “I’ll take that as a no,” I said. “Yi, are you planning on bonking me over the head and dragging me to Grandeur?”

  A slight smile curled her lips. “As I said before, Rector Smallthunder does not force others to come to him. All must come on their own volition. He seems to believe you will come to him soon if you do not die. And die you will if you stay here. We flew in over the burning fleet. It has grown quite a bit since the last time we saw it. Between them and these deceived who are pounding their way into your city on the other side, you will not likely last the night.”

  A guard burst into the room.

  “Your majesty,” he called. “We have been forced to close the drawbridge. All the undead in the city are marching on the castle. It is the end of days!”

  “It’s not the end of days, not yet,” I said. “Where is Larus and Larissa?”

  “Colonel Larus is leading the eastern front against the hobgoblins,” the soldier said. “Larissa is upon the wall facing the burning fleet.”

  Colonel Larus? I tried to imagine the seagull creature as a war leader. The idea was ridiculous.

  Yi’s eyes had grown huge. “Did your curse just trigger? With the fleet right outside?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And I need your help. I need to borrow your ship for a bit.”

  Yi frowned. “The Yeowang Bam is already hired.” She indicated Keta, who was drifting on her chair. “Smallthunder has requested I save her. She I will bonk on the head if I must to get to safety.”

  “I am not leaving,” Keta said, startling herself awake. “This is my city, and I will not abandon her people!”

  “If you do as I ask,” I said to Yi, “she will be safe for at least another day or two. No bonking required.”

  Jonah Note 22

  “She’s in love with you, you know,” Yi said as we rose into the sky. The familiar, hairless goblins rushed about the old airship, pouring water onto the moon gardens that flourished upon the ship’s deck. In the distance, the western horizon glowed red. Hundreds of gold and white airships floated above the sound. They’d given up on dropping firebombs and were now being used as floating archer and mage platforms.

  The drakes of the royal air guard zipped about the airships, drawing the attacks of the undead mages and archers.

  I’d ordered Larissa to send a few of the airships and drakes west to harry the building of the boats by the hobgoblin invaders. The hobgoblins had simply pulled back into the trees and started working on the boats under cover. Hiram Island was covered with dense forest, and they had plenty of supplies for the quick construction of their fleet. Larus had opted to focus on building defenses on the beach instead of counterattacking. Fighting hobgoblins in a forested region was considered outright suicide.

  “Who is in love with me?” I asked. I was assuming she meant Gretchen, which was both ridiculous and hilarious.

  “Keta,” Yi said. “She is quite taken. Rector Smallthunder also seems to be fascinated by you, though in a different way. He seems to think you’re important, but he does not yet know if you’re a savior or a destroyer. This book of yours. I can not read it, but Smallthunder says I am in it.”

  My mind reeled. Waldo had warned me against writing and publishing that damn book.

  “If Keta is in love with me, she has a funny way of showing it,” I said.

  Yi grunted. “That is the human half of her. Half-aurics tend to live conflicted lives.”

  The Yeowang Bam had been parked above the castle on one of the many airship platforms. After I explained to Yi my plan of pied-pipering the burning fleet away, she’d readily agreed to give it a try.

  Before all this bullshit happened, one of our working plans was for me to go outside, allow my curse to trigger, and then for me to get on an airship and lead the fleet away into a prearranged bay, where we’d have a trap of some sort set up that would sink and destroy the entirety of the fleet in one fell swoop. We’d been in the early stages of planning the trap part when we’d gotten sucked into the Castellane conflict.

  For now, the plan was to lea
d them away along the twisting paths of the Puget Sound into a deep but narrow inlet called Oakland Bay in the real world. After the majority of the ships passed into the neck of the 10-mile-long inlet, I’d have some of Keta’s new rock singers throw boulders into the neck of the inlet, trapping them.

  However, looking now it was obvious this plan wouldn’t work. Five thousand ships took up a lot of space. A lot more space than I anticipated. The burning fleet had always been huge, stretching to the horizon, but my mind hadn’t really parsed how many ships that was. This was over 600,000 undead. A literal sea of ships. The vast majority of them were the common three-masted galleons, each packed with about 200 or so warriors. The rest were an eclectic mishmash of ships ranging from small, single-masted merchant vessels to the enormous siege boats, each the size of a modern cargo ship with multiple trebuchets mounted atop. As I rose into the sky, I realized with horror that I could probably jump off the wall and hop from deck to deck of the burning ships and make it out of the sound and into the ocean without ever getting wet. I could barely see any water in that conflagration. An ocean of undead surged across the decks and had started to climb over themselves at the walls, all centered directly west of Castle Harmony. It was something out of a zombie-themed nightmare.

  “Maybe if we trap the blue ship,” I called over to Yi, indicating the massive, five-masted lead boat of the primordial’s army.

  “I don’t know if that’s possible,” Yi said. “These boats are so closely-packed that any disruption to their momentum will cause chaos. Your original plan will still work, but probably not as intended.”

  We drifted high, out of reach of the magic bolts and arrows, higher even than the white jacket airships who bobbed below us like clouds.

  “I hope you haven’t summoned any other flying undead,” Yi muttered, scanning the darkness. The last time we’d been over these waters, we’d attracted an angel horror, who’d ended up causing the death of both Yi and Larissa.