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

by Matt Dinniman

  The west wall of my room had changed. Before, the wall was flat with a simple doorway that led to a pitch-black room. In that room was a round, stone globe. If I put my hand on it, I was transported to another, blank room. There I could have a conversation with the disembodied voice of Waldo.

  The door was gone, and the wall was now curved. I was filled with a terrible, sinking feeling.

  “Smallthunder suggested we add some new defenses to the castle,” Keta said. “I approved the construction. We had to remove your meditation closet in the process.”

  “My meditation closet?” I asked.

  “He has the artifact,” Yi said, coming into my room. She ran her hand across the soft sheets of the bed. She smiled. I’d had the stewards model my room after the state rooms on The Yeowang Bam. Despite having a pretty awful time during my first journey on her airship, I’d really liked the setup of the extravagant rooms.

  “The celestial tear,” Yi said. “He has it along with your map. He didn’t believe you’d ever return to the city, and he kept them for safekeeping. They are both yours. You just need to go get it back.”

  “How very thoughtful of him,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “Keta and Yi, tell me something,” I asked. “When Smallthunder was here, did he utilize my ‘meditation’ room? And if so, was he in there long?”

  “He went in the room, yes,” Keta said. She still sounded a little drunk when she talked. “But he was only there for a few moments, not hours like you usually are.”

  He has me, I thought. He knew that was my method of talking to the AI, and he took it. I would have to go get it back. Him taking my map was irritating, but not the end of the world. I could always make another one. But the globe thing. Yi had called it a celestial tear. Having it was absolutely necessary. Without it, everything was thrown into disarray.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll have to go without my meditation today. Everyone get to work.”

  I locked eyes with Keta, who—to her credit—refused to look away. “Can I trust you?”

  “Do you have a choice?”

  I sighed. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  * * *

  “King Jonah, we always welcome a member of the Hunters Guild, even in these dark times. I see you are level 36 and have 17 training tokens. You may choose a subclass if you wish for five tokens. I also see you have credit for a free spell. Would you like to learn it now?”

  I smiled at the grizzled guild master. While the city had been thrown into chaos, the guild remained the same. I’d been worried that I’d come here to find the guild empty. It was empty, unlike the last time I’d come here, but the guild master remained along with several of the instructors. They were either immune to being arrowed or they’d hidden themselves well.

  I hadn’t thought too much about subclasses, and I hadn’t come here for that. Still, I was curious. “What subclasses are available?”

  The guildmaster nodded sagely. “At level 35, you gained access to Beastmaster, Ranger, Sniper, Seeker, and Trapper. At levels 40 and 50, you gain access to further subclasses. Be wary, however. Once you make a choice, it is a permanent one. So choose wisely. Some of these choices require you to use a different guild hall.”

  “Really?” I said. “Which ones?”

  “The Beastmaster subclass would require you to use the Warden hall. The Sweep subclass, which you may choose at level 40 will require you to move to the Rogue hall. The Bowmaster Valiant is for Paladins, the Leviathan Rider must travel to Lihjamo and train at the Fishing Guild, and so forth.”

  “What is a Leviathan Rider?” I asked, intrigued. I now had two “leviathan” related skills, and I had no idea what it really meant. I had the ability to both summon and tame a leviathan, which I assumed to be a whale or something. It sounded pretty awesome, especially since I could also breathe underwater. I hadn’t really spent too much time exploring it because I hadn’t enough mystic points to cast it yet. The summon spell cost 51 mystic points, and I currently had a base of five in magic ability plus one from my watch and another when I was holding Triple Fang, giving me a seven in magic ability for a grand total of 35 mystic points.

  “It would be a good subclass for you, seeing how proficient at fishing you are,” the guild master said. “You may choose it at level 50. Leviathan Riders hunt the oceans on the backs of great beasts, taking down even larger prey.”

  I sighed. That sounded utterly badass and completely useless to what I needed to accomplish now. “I’ll save my choice for later. I’m also going to save my training tokens for now. I just want to cash in that free spell.”

  “Very well,” the guild master said. “What would you like to learn?”

  A long, long list of spells appeared floating in front of me. The ones I already knew, such as Bind Mount and Silence were greyed out. From what Gretchen had said, hunters had the shortest list of available spells of all the classes, less than even warriors and barbarians. I scrolled through until I found the one I wanted. Track Bipedal Prey. The spell seemed close, but not perfect. I read through a few with similar names until I found what I wanted.

  “That’s the one,” I said, pointing.

  Jonah Note 24

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Okay, guys. I’m going in the water now. Keep me updated.

  Gretchen: We’re about to drop Chief Musa off with this wark-ee queen. Hopefully she’ll kill him right away. There should be a system message when it happens.

  I grasped the Warmth potion and downed it. It tasted oddly like hot chocolate. It lasted for one hour, and it would keep me from freezing to death once I went in the water. I stood with Keta and Larus at the edge of the water, overlooking the freshwater Lake Aberdeen. Yi remained in town, but she’d taken to the skies, aiding the war effort by agreeing to drop rocks on the incoming boats.

  In the real world, this was a small peninsula that jutted out into the water on the eastern edge of Seattle. Just under a kilometer away, due east was Hiram Island. In the trees in the distance, thousands upon thousands of cookfires glowed. The sound of drunken singing rose into the night, despite the late hour.

  It was just past midnight. By all estimations, the hobgoblins would mount their raid at first light, which was in five and a half hours.

  Larissa: It is as we feared. The burning fleet has broken free, and they are now returning to the harbor. The airships and drakes are focusing on the siege boats, but there are so many. I fear the worst, your majesty. This undead horde is insatiable.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Hold them back as much as you can. Let me know the moment the city’s walls are breached.

  Larissa: I must again relate my disapproval of this plan of yours.

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: I appreciate your concern, Larissa. But kindly fuck off.

  I slipped my feet into the flippers and pulled the goggles down over my eyes. I’d read once long ago something about scuba divers and their ballast requirements and how more experienced divers used less weight on their bodies and how they could control how their body floated just by how they breathed.

  I wanted to obtain something slightly below neutral buoyancy when I was in the water. I didn’t want to sink like a brick, but I needed to make sure I wouldn’t pop up like a cork, either. I had no idea how to do that. I’d spent some time earlier talking with Gretchen about it, and she suggested I find and buy a pollywog harness, which was basically a vest that I could adjust as I swam. I pressed a button on the side, and it adjusted my weight either up or down.

  I found and located an abandoned shop that sold diving gear. Unlike the guild hall, this shop was abandoned. I broke down the door and took everything I needed, including goggles, a couple Warmth potions, flippers, and a head lamp. Gretchen actually had a spell that let her see underwater in the dark, but I didn’t.

  I’d received a temporary criminal brand for my theft, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sell the equipment I took, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. The guards at the castle
actually moved in like they were going to arrest me when they saw the brand, but I’d barked at them to stop, and they complied.

  Without any further fanfare, I stepped into the water and started walking.

  The water was bitingly cold, despite the Warmth potion. I knew without the potion, I’d probably be dead in a few minutes. I eyed the shore of Hiram Island as I quickly walked in over my head.

  I was transported to a new world.

  The moment I was submerged, I tested out my ability to breathe underwater. I took a breath, not sure what was going to happen. I felt my lungs fill with water, and the feeling was both terrifying and painful for a handful of seconds. I breathed out, and felt water rushing out of my neck. I reached up to feel a set of gills. Weird. After a few moments of breathing in and out like this, I became used to the feeling.

  The water angled down at a quick pace, going from two fathoms—twelve feet—to 18 fathoms before levelling out. I adjusted my harness until I floated about thirty feet down. I wanted to turn my magical head lantern on, but I didn’t want anyone on the surface to see it.

  Twinkling lights surrounded me. All manner of fish lazily drifted about in the water, all around me in every direction. I kept a wary eye out for red dots, but so far I didn’t see anything. Keta warned that human sized crawfish lived in the depths but were only dangerous if one walked on the lake floor. A race of hostile kelpie also lived in the lake, but they lived a bit further north.

  To be safe, I unfurled Triple Fang and held it curled in my hands. The Enflame enchantment did not work underwater. I made a few test thrusts to see if I could still fight with my sword in this place.

  The blades were sluggish and unresponsive, but with a lot of strength, I managed to spin them up, creating a mini whirlpool all around me.

  What is this coldness?

  Why are we submerged?

  We fear these depths. Remove us now.

  “Shut up,” I said to my sword as I kicked my legs to propel me forward. The words came out naturally, like I wasn’t talking underwater, though they sounded hollow and distant to my ears. It took some time to get the movement right. I found a frog kick propelled me forward in quick bursts, but a simple up and down swimming motion allowed me to glide smoothly along.

  About halfway through, I started receiving messages that the burning fleet had recommenced bombarding the city wall. The notification that Chief Musa was dead came shortly thereafter. Good. Right on time.

  Fish darted all around me. Each fish had its name, value, weight, and length floating over its head. The shining letters helped me orient myself in the blackness of the lake.

  I saw the red dot moving in on my map before I sensed it. I twirled around, looking for the threat. There. It coiled through the water, picking off fish one by one. It moved too fast for me to see what it was, but it was long and furry, like a tiger-sized otter. It didn’t have any information over its head, indicating it wasn’t any sort of fish. It darted away, just as quickly as it came.

  I debated switching off my light. I knew I was a target with it on, but without it I couldn’t see a thing down here. I quickly kicked away, hoping it wouldn’t follow.

  I approached the shore, and I did finally click off my light as the water’s depth decreased. I kicked off the flippers and removed the goggles, peering off into the dark.

  In the short time I’d been underwater, the singing and reverie of the hobgoblins had stopped. The fires still burned, dotting the forest beyond the beach like an endless army of fireflies. The exact number of hobgoblins was something like 410,000. Earlier, the number had been almost 470,000, but a larger contingent of hobgoblins had left, using their boats to travel west and to the mainland. We’d worried they were flanking, but the flying scouts said the hobgoblins swarmed back over the eastern wall and fled into the mountains. The scouts also stated a few hobgoblin arrows flew at them as they fled, so it appeared to be some sort of internal conflict. Or a trick. Either way, it didn’t matter. Whether it was 410,000 or 470,000, the remaining number was impossibly huge. As long as the defectors kept going east, we could worry about them later.

  The bulk of the Riot would be spread over the entirety of the island. Sunrise would be in five hours. I had until then to find Chief Maghan in all of this.

  Nothing moved on the rocky beach. I scanned for any signs of life, utilizing my hunter’s skill. I had the sense that something would be watching. No military commander would leave this beach unwatched.

  I had five Invisibility potions. Each one lasted 10 minutes. According to Keta, I had to wait at least five minutes between using each one. I could drink it before that, but the spell wouldn’t last as long. If I drank a third potion without waiting the five minutes, I’d get a “Potion Sickness” debuff which weakened me greatly.

  There. A furtive movement in the trees just north of where I waited. I should have known. The hobgoblins were excellent climbers, and the tall, red trees of this island were perfect for them to move about in.

  I didn’t have a good ranged attack, so I had to rely on stealth. I hated having to waste an Invisibility potion, but I didn’t have a choice. I pulled the potion from underneath my pollywog harness and downed it. The 10-minute timer commenced. I also cast Silence, which allowed me to move silently without impeding my ability to cast further spells. I moved to the shore, wary for additional sentries. I had to be careful not to slip on the rocks. They wouldn’t make any noise in a two-meter circumference around me, but the movement could still catch an eye. I scurried into the woods, angling away from the largest cluster of fires.

  I moved into the tree line. On my minimap, red dots appeared all around me. This is insanity. I needed to find a place to hide and to prepare to hunt down Maghan.

  I passed several homes, and they were all burned-out husks. Skeletons lay scattered and forgotten in the wreckage. A small, two-family polecat warren had been dug up, the family rooted out. A polecat skeleton lay on the ground, still clutching a knife. I thought of Raj, alone and scared on the roof of that hotel.

  The sound of quiet talking came to me through the trees. I sneaked forward to see a group of three hobgoblin guards sitting by a small tent. They stood watch over a pile of several hundred long, crude boats that had been fashioned out of tree trunks. They were nothing more than felled trees with the center hollowed out. Each one could probably carry five or six hobgoblins.

  There were also several larger boats ready to go. These were rafts for their mounts and equipment, I realized.

  “After we take the city, I hope we stay,” one of the guards was saying. “I like this island. I like these trees. It is much more a home than that cursed city. I will build my hut on this tree here.”

  “When we take the city,” another said, “We will all be given an island of our own. Prince Maghan says there are a never-ending chain of islands north of here, enough for us all.”

  The San Juan archipelago comprised of just over 100 inhabitable islands, hardly enough to give over 400,000 troops each their own island, though I wasn’t about to argue with the hobgoblin warrior.

  My Invisibility would run out in three minutes, and I had a minute left for Silence. I spun up Triple Fang and rushed into the circle, shredding all three hobgoblins before they could alert the others. The fight lasted less than five seconds.

  I tried to pull the corpses out of the firelight, but each hobgoblin weighed about 350 pounds. Instead, I rolled them to their sides and pulled their field blankets over each one, making it look like they were asleep.

  I looted all three corpses. Each had a surprising amount of jacks on them, just about 1,000 each. I crawled into the empty tent, pausing at the entrance. A pile of recently-dead polecats sat stacked like firewood in the tent. I felt sick to my stomach. The one at the top of the pile was missing the bottom half of his body. They’re using them as food. Christ.

  I took a deep breath and sat on the ground of the tent. Both Silence and Invisibility had run out. I waited for my mystic points to r
egenerate and for the five minutes to pass. I first pulled out Triple Fang, grasping it in my right hand, which raised my mystic points pool to 35. I pulled the long, black arrow with the red tip out of my pack with my left. By all reports, only Chief Maghan used these arrows. This one had been plucked from a corpse near the eastern wall. I’d requested the scouts find me one of these distinctive arrows, giving them strict instructions to touch them only using gloves. They’d brought me several.

  I grasped one of the arrows now, and I cast Locate Foul Prey. The spell required something the specific prey had touched within the past week, and the prey had to be within five miles with no major waterways between me and it. It was an expensive spell, costing 31 mystic points, one more than I naturally had, so I had to hold Triple Fang.

  Your Prey has been located. It is 2.1 kilometers away. Happy hunting.

  Shit. He was further away than I would’ve liked. A purple waypoint appeared on my map, pointing northeast. According to the spell info, the waypoint would persist to the location of the prey when the spell was cast, so if he moved, I’d lose him. Hopefully he was currently asleep in his tent.

  I’d lost all my mystic points again, so I downed a Mystic Points Regen potion and once again cast Silence and Invisibility.

  As I creeped out of the tent with the corpses, I received a panicked message from Larissa.

  Larissa: We have a wall breach. The undead are pouring into the city! We are falling back!

  His Royal Majesty Jonah: Millicent. You guys are up.

  Millicent: My healers are swooping in.

  One of the cool things about healing spells was that they were super effective against the undead. Casting Heal on any of the undead class was the same as applying direct damage on it. Approximately half of Millicent’s fairy squadron were dedicated healers. They swooped in, ready to plug the hole. As long as the breaches were contained to three or four locations, they’d hold. I couldn’t take too long. Larissa’s front would soon be overwhelmed. I had to get this done, and fast.