Watcher's Test

by Sean Oswald

  That turned out to be all the reprieve that Dave needed, and two back-to-back critical hits ended the lives of two more horned drey hounds and gave him enough room to spring out and lash at one after another of the dogs which had been struck by the spinning ice daggers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Emily lunge at one of the hounds, stabbing it with her magical dagger. Seeing her motivated him with the joy of watching his wife and partner in life fighting alongside him and at the same time served to motivate him with fear for her safety. Even as the seconds on his buff ticked down, he began swinging with as much might as he had, trying to cut down any hound within reach, but it seemed that the pack had decided that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. Of course, the fact that Mira had charmed their alpha had in and of itself taken away a good measure of their organization and will to hunt. So it was that Dave stood panting next to Emily who stared in a sort of mute surprise at the blood dripping from the twelve-inch dagger in her hand as the surviving eight horned drey hounds made good their escape.

  Again, even if he could have kept up, he didn’t have the energy to do so and fell to his knees, which brought him much closer to his original six feet and made it easier for Emily to run and embrace him, dropping her dagger on the way. He put his arms around her and let his sword fall to the ground too. They shared that odd embrace where she seemed impossibly small in his arms until the last few seconds of his enlarge spell passed and he shrunk down to his regular size. Now looking up into his wife’s eyes he mouthed a simple, thank you. Emily leaned in toward Dave, and he half expected her to cry or kiss him, but instead, she made his eyes pop wide open by whispering into his ear, “Does that spell make all of you grow that big?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Puzzles, games for children, right? Wrong. Puzzles are training for life. A way to learn to think about how the pieces fit together, how the whole only works when each piece is doing its part. The trick is that sometimes the pieces don’t fit the way that we want them too, or worse the puzzle is so grand, so beyond our understanding that we don’t even know what it is supposed to look like. In that moment we realize that we are naught but children stumbling in our learning, seeking to find two pieces that match together and most especially for how our piece fits into the puzzle.” —Excerpts from a speech given by Won Chil-In upon the announcement of the Exile, exact date unknown.

  Captain Radick looked on grimly as wave after wave of goblins threw themselves against the all-too-fragile walls separating his troops from the enemy. This wall, like many before it, had been thrown up in the span of a few hours as a stalling effort. The last two days had not gone well for General Eikhorn’s army or the nation of Albia in general. A few roughly shaped timbers nailed to supporting cross beams at the top and the bottom with only two feet of their ten-foot length sunken into the hard ground was not the sort of wall that built confidence into the men defending it. Nor were the crudely cut poles which were put at a forty-five-degree angle behind the wall to brace them against the weight of the goblins who would quite literally throw themselves at the wall. It was really more of a fence than a wall, but few of the nobles with their political games so far from the border would understand the difference. This close to the mountains, the ground was too rocky and hard to enable the army to quickly dig deep enough for a proper wall, and since it had been less than a day since they had to pull back from their last wall, there had been little time to build anything sturdier. Sometimes the mages could help, but with so little time in between the waves, they needed their rest. The only thing worse than not have any mages to support his men would be having overly tired mages whose spells went awry, causing more harm than good.

  Thinking of his men, he was proud of them. Man for man, they were far more than a match for any of the goblins, even the new hobgoblins that had made their first appearance a day ago. He would honestly pit any of his border barony veterans against ten of the normal goblins and expect his man to come out unscathed. The king had sent a total of two hundred men and each of the dukes had sent one hundred men, but the fresh recruits from the capital and Duke Holstein’s men were completely inexperienced and largely untrained. Adding that to the nearly fifteen hundred men remaining who already made up the army under the command of General Eikhorn and they had a fairly impressive force. It probably represented ten to twelve percent of the total men-at-arms in the kingdom, not including mercenaries. His lord, Baron Eikhorn didn’t like using mercenaries and that was a common viewpoint among the border baronies where loyalty was valued above all else.

  None of their superior gear, skills, or organization seemed to be saving them from the huge numbers of goblins that were being thrown at them. The average level for the veterans had risen to between 7 and 9 due to the past two years of on-again, off-again combat, but the newbies were all in the 4 to 5 range. The goblins that came at them were around that level for the most part but then the hobgoblins had started to appear, and they were all tier two, albeit low-level tier two, mostly level 11 to 13. When each wave was comprised of a few hundred goblins with fifty or more hobgoblins, it required a large part of the defending army to hold the entire fence line. Worse though was the fact that the goblin shamans all seemed to have taken a large stride forward in power. The army only had thirty casters, of which half were tier two and half still in the mid to upper tier one, but all thirty of them couldn’t be up and active at the same time. They had to take turns resting and allowing their mana to restore. Even when it wasn’t about simple mana regeneration, it was often about mental fatigue, which was bad enough for a swordsman or archer but was deadly for a mage. Yet, those mages were his only effective counter again the nearly fifty shamans that seemed to be active during each wave.

  At first, the waves had come only near second sunset and then in the wee hours before the first sunrise. Now, the waves were coming every three hours or so from when second sun was a couple hours from setting to a couple hours after first sunrise. This meant that each evening to morning, they had to fend off four or five waves. The army might be better, but they were being bled to death in a war of attrition. The goblins didn’t seem to care that each wave literally left more than a hundred dead goblins. If it weren’t for the dozen priests of Mishpat who had offered to help provide healing and support services for the border army in their “holy war to exterminate the goblinkind,” then they would undoubtedly have lost half their number or more. The healing of the priests was nothing short of miraculous, and whenever a wave got really bad, a couple of the priests who specialized in more combat type magic would jump in and dispel the worst of the enemy’s magic.

  The current wave was nothing special, but for Radick and his men, who were used to scouting duties, this was outside of their comfort zone. It wasn’t that they weren’t used to danger, quite the opposite. They were used to working alone or in pairs far behind enemy lines and without any backup. That was the real problem. They were not used to working as part of a line meant to hold an enemy back. They were used to quick sneak attacks or hit-and-run operations. Yet since they were some of the highest leveled soldiers in the army, they could hardly be spared from a rotation to the line. Each body being needed to make sure that everyone got some rest. There was a part of Radick that really wanted to leap into the heat of conflict rather than standing back and directing. What was the good of being one of the few tier three-class holders if he wasn’t going to use it? His ranger class might not be ideal for toe-to-toe fighting, but his superior skill and levels made up for that. For now, he had to content himself with launching the occasional arrow at a hobgoblin or shaman trying to headshot. Even with that, the general would rebuke him saying that his job wasn’t to fight but to lead. He had been reminded time and time again that the four-tier three-class holders were leaders and models in the army, but that no matter how individually strong they might be, they weren’t able to stop an army by themselves. It was probably a measure of General Eikhorn’s frustration that he continued to tolerate Radick’s occasiona
l forays into battle with only a verbal rebuke rather than more stringent methods.

  Radick was pulled from his musings by a sudden sharp snapping sound. A portion of the wall being held by some of the king’s new recruits with only loose support from his men had collapsed inward. Some tremendous force must have been necessary to do so, and then it became all too apparent what that tremendous force was as a pale white ogre lumbered through. Standing a full eight-and-a-half feet tall and at least four feet wide, covered in necklaces and trinkets of bone with tattoos worked into his pale skin in bright reds and oranges showing the markings of his tribe. Some thought ogres were mere beasts, but in actuality they tended to have the potential for intelligence far beyond that of most goblins. It was only their tendency to go berserk in battle and the fact that they lived in very small, matriarchal tribes usually far from any real civilization that sprouted all the false rumors about them. In fact, those who knew the Halcon Mountains well dreaded nothing more than the idea of ogres getting too established, too organized. Goblins were annoying, orcs deadly, but the ogres in any sort of large numbers would be the end of the kingdom. There didn’t appear to be more than one ogre, and he was clearly enraged by the many cuts which were freely bleeding on his skin. Each swing of his seven-foot-long club crushed one of the fresh recruits who were too new to know what to do in case of an ogre. The more seasoned scouts knew though and started grabbing the newbies around them, leading them to form a half-circle perimeter thirty feet back from the breach. The only good thing about the ogre was at least the goblins weren’t pouring into the gap in the wall because he would have been as likely to kill them as the humans when in a rage like this.

  Running forward, Radick knew what he had to do and leapt into the air, clearing over the heads of his men as he landed fifteen feet in front of the ogre, pulling both of his scimitars free from their place upon his back in one smooth motion. One of the scouts sent up a red signal arrow so that all up and down the line it would be known that there was a breach in this location, and another sent up a white flaring arrow which signaled that there was an ogre at this same spot. Radick had no illusions about his ability to stand up against the blows of the ogre so he rushed forward at a forty-five-degree angle dipping low and slashing in rapid succession with both blades against the ogre’s side. His move was intended to bring him in under the broad swing of the ogre’s club banded in jet black metal and marked in runes just as his body was marked in tattoos. So far, his movement had worked as he had indeed gone under the ogre’s outstretched arms as they swung the club horizontally, trying to take his head off, and his blades had equally accomplished their mission, opening large furrows in the ogre’s skin. Ogre’s didn’t regenerate like trolls, but they were smarter and still incredibly tough cusses so Radick both knew that those wounds, which would have dropped most any man would not be enough and that the ogre wasn’t likely to fall for the same attack again. As the ogre completed his swing with a cry of agony from the sharp slashing attacks that split his side open, he spun amazingly quickly for something so large and thrust out with a kick intended to catch Radick in his midsection as he reset himself following his attack. Had he been even one split second slower, that foot shod with a strange metal sandal would have struck him, but instead he activated his Parry skill and spun in such a way as to deflect the attack with a blade rather than taking it straight on. This opened another cut in the ogre’s ankle but again it barely seemed to notice it. What it did notice was the off-hand weapon sweeping up in a quick slash against its right forearm.

  The club came back, this time at an angle cutting from above the ogre’s left shoulder and aiming down and sideways in an effort to sweep through any space that the quick ranger might move into. A brief glance from the corner of his eye told Radick that the goblins must have felt that the ogre was sufficiently occupied, for they were moving in through the hole in the wall and starting to engage with his men while leaving a circle around him and the ogre clear. That distraction, as brief as it was, allowed the ogre to close the gap between them and drive its shoulder into Radick, sending him sprawling to the edge of the cleared space where he only barely avoiding being speared by a charging goblin. Rolling forward, Radick tried to make his movements seem erratic and played up how hurt he actually was, hoping that the ogre would give him a brief instant to activate his skills. He had rarely had to go all out like this in the past couple of years even with steady combat, but he couldn’t risk this ogre getting loose among the camp, and the hole in the wall had to be plugged. Activating three skills at one time was going to be very mana intensive.

  The ogre crossed the space between them in two strides and was starting to whirl his club in a figure-8 pattern. In any other fighter, such a tactic would have been contemptuous since it makes the motion of the weapon entirely predictable and the momentum makes it difficult if not impossible to change directions. With the ogre, he didn’t care if you could predict his movements; he was more like the lawnmower daring the grassblade to try and block him. Nonetheless, as quickly as the ogre was moving, Radick was quicker. He had already activated his skills, paying their mana costs and was ready to go at it. His Opportunist skill was the first. It cost him 40 mana to activate it, but the next four rounds he would get an extra attack against any missed attack by an enemy. Next, his Arcane Blade skill would add an extra 200% damage to his blades’ attacks and an extra 20% of landing a critical blow all for the mere cost of 20 mana/tick. Finally, his Bleeding Attack skill would make each of the wounds that he caused for the duration to add an extra 20 bleed damage per tick, and again, it would only cost him 20 mana per round. He would only have about 18 seconds to finish this fight before these skills ran out, but they were a deadly combination, especially when factored with his high dual-wielding skill and his 15% chance to evade any otherwise successful attack. As he rose to meet the incoming ogre, he had one last surprise for the beast. As the pommel of his off-hand weapon struck the large gem stuck in the middle of his belt, an instant buff was activated giving him the strength of a frost giant, but only for 30 seconds.

  Now when the ogre’s spinning club came down it was greeted by Radick’s swords in an X-shape. He didn’t fully understand how his body could channel the full strength of a giant through his frame, but there it was. Not only was he as strong as the ogre but for these few seconds, he was stronger than the ogre, and significantly so. The magical strength worked to not only increase the amount of weight that he could lift but to also make the world around him respond to him as though he had the mass of a frost giant to match the strength of one. The ogre clearly had not expected his blow to be stopped, and so he stumbled when his momentum didn’t carry through as he had expected. That opening was all that the empowered ranger needed. His tremendous strength carried him forward in a blink where he slashed into the side of the opponent first with one blade and then the second a split second later. Each blow empowered by his giant-like brawn and then magnified by his Arcane Blade skill sliced not only through the tough skin but also through muscle and even the stone-hard bone beneath them. The two blows added up to well over three hundred damage and tore a huge chunk of flesh out of the ogre’s side, but Radick wasn’t done as he also took the extra attack which the Opportunist skill allowed him for the ogre’s attack he had stopped. The power of the skill seemed to make an opening in the ogre’s defense obvious, and so he lashed out with quick driving attacks at the back of the muscled legs once and then with his dual wield skill a second time. The power of the blows was such that more than another third of the beast’s health was sheared off along with his leg, resulting in him falling flat on his face.

  His opponent was sprawled out before him, bleeding out at a rate of eighty health per tick and would be dead in a few seconds even if he did nothing more, but a wounded beast could be the most dangerous foe as they had nothing left to lose. Radick’s momentum from his attacks had taken him to the backside of the ogre and moving away so that once the pale monster fell forward, there
was several feet between them, but that was nothing to him in his empowered state. He leapt up, coming down with his blades straight into the back of his facedown foe. The two blades driven by magically enhanced strength pushed easily through the thick skin and severed the spinal cord in two places, finally ending the ogre. The adrenaline of victory rushed through the scout captain, but he knew he only had very limited time for his giant strength buff and wanted to make the most of it. He dropped his Bleeding Wounds skill so as to be able to make his mana last longer to keep up his Arcane Blade skill.

  He quickly scanned the battlefield to see that one of their mages had managed to put up a wall of ice to plug the gap in their wooden guard fence, but such walls only lasted a short time and there were still over one hundred goblins inside their perimeter already. Without further review or considering his role as a commander, Radick leapt into the midst of the most tightly clustered goblins. He moved as a whirlwind of death. Each strike powerful enough to kill its target and extra attacks adding up, his speed pushed impossibly fast by the triggering of his Opportunist skill. As the goblins around him fell, the other goblins initially reacted the way that he had hoped. Goblins love to dogpile upon an otherwise stronger foe, and seeing him surrounded by nearly twenty goblins, many of the other goblins surged toward the spot where he was fighting. Soon he was surrounded by more than half of the goblins inside the fence, and it was unavoidable that he would take some wounds, but he would have to count on his superior level and health to get him through it because this is what he wanted. Surrounded by a throng of goblins all wanting their chance at attacking him, he couldn’t move his blades six inches without sinking into the flesh of another goblin. Combining his magical strength and the speed of his attacks from his skills, he was killing goblins at a rate of more than one per second.