The Goblin Horde

by Ivan Kal

  Smart, too. Morgan scratched at his cheek as he thought. He glanced aside to Ves, who just gave him a reassuring smile that seemed to tell him, “Your decision.” Morgan turned to look back at Karissa.

  “Very well, I agree. Have your people start the preparations to leave. We have two more towns to visit, Karon and Heddos, and then we will return and travel to Skyreach together with you.”

  Karissa allowed some of her relief to show on her face, and she gave him a small grateful smile. Then she tilted her head and looked at him in askance. “You are going to visit Heddos? I do not think that they are going to be willing to join you.”

  Morgan nodded. “Yes, I know. I want to try and convince them in person.”

  Karissa didn’t comment, and the group then walked out of the town hall with Karissa following behind them. “You will not regret this, Guild Master. My people are hardworking and earnest.”

  “I have no doubt, Mayor Karissa,” Morgan said.

  Karissa smiled. “I guess it is just Karissa now.”

  Morgan returned her smile as they climbed up on their cart. As soon as they were on their way, he could hear Karissa calling out to the people who had been standing on the streets waiting. A rush of excitement and movement blossomed among the people of the town.

  And then as they rolled out of the town, Morgan noticed that he had a notification. He frowned and brought it up in front of his eyes.

  Congratulations! The town of Jarul no longer exists! Its territory is now under the control of Skyreach Guild.

  Skyreach Guild’s domain has increased! Skyreach Guild has gained influence!

  I guess that that works, too, Morgan thought. Then the deeper ramifications of the message seeped in. They didn’t need to convince non-ascended towns to join them—they could just wipe them out or even invade and take control forcibly, and the system would still count it as an increase in their domain.

  Morgan would of course never do such a thing, but it made sense. The system seemed to be just something that quantified and defined what happened in the World, and Morgan was more and more convinced that the powers ascended gained were not something special, but rather a natural occurrence. The system just streamlined their learning. It made sense; this was, after all, Oxy’s attempt at creating an army.

  He shook his head of the thoughts. There would be time to think on those things much later. For now, they needed to survive the Goblin King—then they could plan and look into the secrets of the World.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Morgan looked at his hand while using his Nature Sight. He could see the life energy inside of him, glowing faintly. Then he turned his head toward his stomach, looking and trying to see if he could see anything strange, but there was nothing—only the same unison glow of life energy that he could see on all living things. He grimaced at that.

  Ever since he raised his intellect and will above twenty, he had felt something different about his energy. At first, something like a sphere of energy had appeared in his gut, or at least that was what he felt like. Every time he used an ability or tried to draw on his energy, he could feel it leave this core inside of him and move through his body. But it was not really controlled by him; to him, it seemed somehow as if he was doing it subconsciously; or, as he had started to suspect recently, that Sabila was doing that for him. She was a part of him, the part that was supposed to enable all of his abilities.

  But it didn’t seem like this core was inside of his body, but rather somewhere else. Morgan was starting to think that it might be inside of his soul. Oxy had made some comments about souls, and Morgan knew first hand that they existed. He was sure that they were nothing like what his mother’s religion would say it was, but he knew that he had something more inside of his body. That that piece was what he truly was.

  He shook his head and dismissed his ability, before raising his head and scanning the surrounding forest. The others were asleep as he took the first watch. They were camped just off the road, a day after they left Jarul. He still couldn’t quite believe that an entire town wanted to join them, but he was thankful for the good luck for a change.

  As he watched the forest he kept his palm turned upward, trying to practice with his Energy Manipulation skill. He was using the insight he received from the Energy Blade ability to shape the energy from inside of himself. He had a ball of green life light floating above his palm, and he tried to keep it there. It took an effort of will for it not to disperse into the air, but Morgan was getting better at it. He wondered what he could do with it. Nature alignment meant that he could only use it in the domain of nature, but that was a broad thing. Already he had many different abilities, with varied effects. He knew that he could encourage life in plants, make them grow and follow his will to move according to his desires; and he knew that he could take that life away by encouraging decay, making things weaken and die. He didn’t really like the decay and death part of his abilities, but they were useful against living opponents, weakening them, and it had saved him against the undead.

  But he wanted to see what more he could do with the other side of the coin. And so he slowly turned his palm down, and while using his energy manipulation he pushed, widening his palm while he kept his hold on it. He had sent his energy away from his body before, but with his arrows it had been infused with the wood, and in other cases it was a simple sending or pulling in one direction. Now, he tried to control it. He manipulated the energy to the few seeds he could feel beneath the ground, about a dozen, and he put a strand into each one. Keeping control of several strands was difficult; he nearly lost his hold on the energy.

  But he managed it. Then he fed that energy to the seeds, encouraging growth. The strands of grass burrowed upward from the ground and started stretching toward his palm, but he tried to control the energy inside with his mind. When he used his Arrows of Binding, the growth was wild and unpredictable. This was an attempt at finely tuning and controlling the growth. He had the strands of grass weave around his hand, then pull toward the ground. His energy coursed through the grass, making it stronger, and his hand slowly moved downward.

  After he touched the ground, he stopped, and the grass remained still, losing its rigidity. He pulled his hand up easily and removed the strands of grass from his fingers. I wonder if I could do that with roots—maybe make them attack instead of just snare, Morgan wondered. The downside from his ability was that it worked only as long as he had the nature readily available to him. Inside a forest, he had all the ammunition he needed—but outside of that, it became a bit more problematic. Sure, he could use his arrows, but they couldn’t grow indefinitely, and his energy couldn’t expand and make them grow too much—they were mostly dead. But a seed, or a root from a tree? That was another story entirely.

  He noticed a notification in the corner of his eye and looked at it, seeing that his Energy Manipulation had jumped to level IV. Emboldened by that, he continued practicing.

  It took them two days to reach the town of Heddos, and it was completely unlike Orsa and Jarul, or even Terbon. They had farms surrounding the walls, and watchtowers on set distances around the wooden Palisades which were reinforced by stone to about half-way the walls height. Their guards wore clean armor and stood on the wall at attention. But they did not get to see more than that, because before they could even approach the town they were stopped by a single man standing on the road.

  Immediately Morgan could tell that this man was not ordinary, that he was ascended—and he felt powerful. He appeared to be in his twenties, but ascended didn’t age much, so that didn’t necessarily imply anything about his true age. His hair was silver, and his eyes shone with an emerald light. His features looked vaguely human, but there was something off about him that Morgan just couldn’t put his finger on. Seeing as he wasn’t moving, it was clear that he was here to meet them.

  “I guess we have a welcoming committee,” Morgan whispered.

  Ves gripped her mace tighter. “Morgan, he is strong. He fee
ls like…my parents did.”

  Morgan raised an eyebrow at that. He knew that his parents had been higher level, but he didn’t know what level they used to be. This man felt like he was stronger than the orc Emily. Damn traitor! Morgan did not forget about being left for dead by her. Getting revenge was very much on his to do list.

  “Are we going around him or what?” Clara asked.

  Morgan shook his head. “I’ll go and talk to him.”

  Before he could move, Ves put a hand on his arm. “Are you sure that is wise?”

  “I’m not going to start a fight with the man, I am just going to go and talk with him.”

  Both Clara and Ves looked at him strangely without speaking.

  Morgan frowned. “What? I do not go around starting fights with random people! Especially not with people I can tell are stronger than me.”

  Clara looked unconvinced, but Ves nodded. “Want us to come with you?”

  “I have a feeling that this is a more sizing me up kind of a thing, so it is better if I go alone,” Morgan said. He jumped from the cart and walked a few steps forward to stand in front of the man.

  “Greetings,” Morgan said. “I am—”

  “I know who you are,” the man broke in.

  Morgan’s open mouth closed slowly. Right, then, Morgan thought to himself. “I am here—”

  “And I know why you are here.”

  “Okay, I am sorry that the middle of my sentence interrupted the beginning of yours, but that is just rude,” Morgan snapped at the man.

  The man’s eye twitched, and he crossed his arms across his chest. “You are not welcome here.”

  “Look, man, there is a Goblin King. He is uniting the tribes, and soon enough his army will spill into the valley. We need all the help we can get to defeat them. I am sure that an ascended like you would be a great asset—”

  The man snorted. “Where is your Guild Master, boy? I was told that he was coming here to try and convince my people to accept the rule of his Guild.”

  “Uh, I am the Guild Master of Skyreach,” Morgan said, and gave the man a wave of his hand.

  The man blinked once, slowly. “You are the Guild Master?”

  “Yes,” Morgan said.

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “Who are you, boy? Who sent you here?”

  “Well, if we are being technical I was sent by Oxy—the Great Lord.”

  The man’s frown deepened. “Are you making fun of me, boy?”

  “No. What I mean by that is that I am a chosen. I arrived to this world just recently, and through some circumstances I ended up forming a Guild with my friends. Then the goblins came, and well, here we are,” Morgan said quickly.

  The man looked at him in disbelief. “You are telling me that you are chosen? There haven’t been any chosen in generations. And then you also want me to believe that you somehow got your hands on a hearthstone? Probably one of the rarest items in the world?”

  “It is the truth. We found it in the Mountain’s Heart dungeon,” Morgan said.

  The man didn’t speak for a long minute. Instead, he studied Morgan. “So, you are not with anyone from beyond the pass?”

  “No, I am not. I’ve never even left the valley.”

  “And do you have anyone from beyond the pass in your Guild?”

  Lucius technically was from beyond the wall, but Morgan didn’t think that he counted. “No, I only recruited people from this valley. I had a bad encounter with people from the other Guilds, so I…”

  The man snorted. “Of course you did, They are all opportunistic greedy assholes.”

  “So, do you think that there is a chance of us talking about your town serving our Guild?”

  The man hummed to himself and looked at Morgan thoughtfully. “A new Guild… This is a rare thing, and you haven’t yet been corrupted by the others… Perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

  “I am open to anything,” Morgan said.

  The man smiled. “Anything?”

  “Yes,” Morgan nodded.

  “Well, then how about a short spar? I want to see what you are made of,” the man said.

  Morgan scowled. “Uh, I don’t think that that is necessary. I am sure that you are much stronger than me.”

  The man laughed loudly. “Of that, boy, there is no doubt. But what you are asking is for me to risk my life, and those of my people, for yours. I want to measure your mettle.”

  Morgan was tempted to tell him that the Goblin King would eventually reach this town if they didn’t stop him—but something told him that this man wasn’t really concerned with that. Could he be so strong that he could fight off an entire army by himself? Morgan wondered. He knew that with preparation and resources he himself could take out many, and with his party they had defended a town from hundreds—and that was when they had been lower levels. They were all stronger now, and the goblins weren’t as high of levels as them. Morgan glanced at the walls, seeing the guards standing at attention, the watchtowers and the reinforcements. This town has been fortified to fight monsters, probably trained by this man, Morgan said to himself. Perhaps he could repel an army.

  Morgan glanced back to the cart full of his people, and then he turned back to look at the man. “All right, let’s do this.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Morgan stood next to their cart, looking embarrassedly at his party.

  “So,” Clara said. “What happened with you not starting a fight?”

  Morgan grimaced. “It isn’t a fight, it is just a little spar. And if I am being honest, I don’t think that he would’ve allowed me to refuse.”

  “We don’t need this, Morgan,” Ves said as Morgan grabbed his bow from the cart and put on his quiver with the belt.

  “You can tell that he is strong, right? I am sure that he could help us, even teach us a lot,” Morgan said.

  “And you think that fighting with him will make him change his mind?” Ves asked doubtfully.

  “I don’t know… I can tell that he doesn’t like Guilds. Perhaps I just get my ass handed to me for nothing, and perhaps he finds whatever it is he is looking for and we get an ally.”

  “You’re right,” Clara said. “You will get thrashed. You barely survived a skeleton that was the same level as you.”

  “Okay, we really need to have a talk about this besties thing,” Morgan told Clara disapprovingly. “You are supposed to have my back no matter what.” He turned to look at Ves and shook his finger at her. “You, too. I know that you think that I’m doing something stupid.”

  “Morgan, love, almost everything you do can be considered stupid by the standards of this world,” Ves told him.

  Morgan looked at her crushed. “What?”

  “But don’t worry,” Ves said. “It is a good tactic. People can’t defend against what they consider an insane course of action.”

  Morgan was just about to respond, when he noticed the twinkle in her eyes. “Really, Ves? You too?”

  She shrugged. “I must admit that teasing you is fun.”

  Clara burst out laughing and slapped Ves on the shoulder, acting as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Morgan scowled in disgust at them before turning around and walking toward the clearing next to the road where the man was waiting for him.

  “Trouble with your subordinates?” the man asked.

  “They think that fighting you is stupid,” Morgan said as he stood about four meters away from the man.

  “It is,” the man said.

  Morgan frowned. “I want your town to join my Guild. If I need to prove myself to you, then so be it.”

  The man chuckled and shook his head. “That will not happen even if you could win this fight. I came here for a reason—to get away from the Guilds and their politics. I do not want to join a Guild again, and nor do my people wish to be ascended. They live simple lives, but safe ones, with me here to protect them.”

  “Why the hell am I fighting you, then?” Morgan asked, annoyed.

  “Heddos will no
t join your Guild, boy, but that does not mean that we cannot provide you with some kind of aid. Impress me, and we shall see,” the man said.

  Damn, should I even be doing this? Morgan wondered. I guess this is a good opportunity for me to test myself against a real Guild-grown ascended from beyond the pass. Eventually we will expand beyond the valley—provided we survive the goblins, of course.

  Morgan narrowed his eyes and used his Inspect skill. He knew that using it against people was considered rude, but he wondered if he could at least see the man’s level. Instead, he got nothing. It wasn’t like what usually happened when he couldn’t gain info from the skill; it was almost as if he had been blocked.

  The man’s lips twitched in a half-smile but he didn’t say anything.

  Great, he can even block my skills. He knew this was a bad idea, that the girls were right, but something had changed in Morgan ever since they’d left the skeleton dungeon. That last fight, he had been hurt, and had nearly died, but he’d felt something: an exhilaration at the realization that he had survived and his opponent hadn’t. He remembered his talk with Oxy, or his hallucination of him at least. With every day since that moment when Clara had saved his life, Morgan had felt that need inside of him growing, the need to fight stronger opponents and to win. The drive that Oxylus spoke to him about was starting to make sense, and Morgan realized that this wasn’t about the Guild, about getting help against the goblins. He had accepted the fight because of himself: because he wanted to fight.

  He couldn’t help but inwardly chuckle at this realization. He had never been the type of guy to go and seek out fights. His taking up martial arts classes on Earth had been about trying to be busy, about filling his time so that he couldn’t think on the things that he felt inside. But now he could feel his blood boil at the thought of seeing what this man could do—of fighting him.

  Morgan had never considered himself a coward. He had chosen a ranged class because it had been the one that gave him the greatest chance at survival. But now, his survival meant something else. It was no longer about just staying alive. It was about protecting the people that now served him; about staying with Ves and the others who were his friends. He needed strength for that, and he would get it by any means necessary.