The Land: Founding (Chaos Seeds Book 1)

CHAPTER 7

They left just before dawn, stalking silently through the forest. Richter found far fewer animals startled due to his presence since donning the Wood Sprite armor. Though he still made far more noise than Sion, he felt that he moved like a ghost through the trees. They had decided to follow the path he had taken to find the goblin scout, reasoning that this was probably the best place to start for finding the rest of the green skinned creatures. Looking around, Sion found the trail again. Motioning for Richter to proceed slowly, Sion climbed into the trees, and moved along in the same direction.

The air smelled clean with the scent of pine needles and the brief rain that had fallen the night before. As Richter moved forward, his nose was filled with the comforting smells of nature. The sounds of the forest waking helped to calm his nerves, which had been on edge as they stalked a potentially deadly opponent. He made his way through the forest, trusting his small companion to stop him before running into anything dangerous. As he did, he noticed several plants catching his eyes. By this point he knew it meant they would be useful in some way. He had to pass them by regrettably, the need for speed was all important at the current moment. His appreciation for his new Herb Lore skill increased, however.

Slowly stalking through the forest for thirty to forty minutes, he came to a halt when Sion slowly dropped down beside him. “There are four of them up ahead, all scouts,” the sprite said softly.

Moving to the left, they circled around the area Sion had indicated. When they crossed a rocky outcropping, Sion indicated the goblins were on the other side. Looking around the corner of a small boulder, Richter got his first sight of goblins. Three and a half to four feet tall, each was clad in rags and ratty furs. They were green with greasy black or grey hair that sprouted in wisps plastered to their heads. Fangs protruded in either an overbite or underbite. They each had a rusty dagger or small club. They were sitting around a fire roasting what appeared to be a large rat, bickering with each other.

Sion looked at Richter, “Give me a count to fifty while I move to the other side of them. Then power your arrow and hit the ugly one with the club.”

“I haven’t Imbued successfully yet,” Richter replied in a soft hiss.

“It’s time to man up then,” Sion said. “One day you might be good enough to sprite up,” he added with a smirk.

“Fine, let’s do this! But which one is the ugly one?”

“Exactly,” the Sprite said maintaining his expression, and then blended into the woods.

Clearing his mind, he waited patiently. After the required time had elapsed, Richter knocked an arrow, and extended his aura. Counting his heart beats, he tried to let his mana flow into the arrow and a golden hue began to surround his arrow flickering in and out of intensity. Taking aim at the goblin whose back was to him, he let his arrow fly. His mana had not successfully filled the arrow! The gold glow went as soon as the arrow left the string, but luckily it struck the goblin in the back, the surprise nature of the attack magnifying the damage. The goblin fell to the ground shrieking. The other goblins jumped to their feet, and began to move toward him.

A split second later, a blue streak struck the middle goblin in its now turned back with explosive force. Its chest exploded outward, and blood spattered on the ground in front of Richter. The blast momentarily disoriented the remaining two. A second arrow from Richter struck a goblin in the leg, while another blue streak ended the life of the last standing goblin. Sion rushed toward the remaining goblin with his sword drawn prepared to end its life.

“Wait!” Richter shouted.

With a sneer on his face, Sion asked “Why?”

“We need to know why they are here and how many there are. I can understand what it is saying. We just need to get it to talk.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Sion said with a grim voice.

After the interrogation, they finally silenced the goblin, they looked at each other, daunted by the task in front of them. These four they had killed were simply the tip of the spear. A large company of goblins had made their way into the Forest of Nadria led by a goblin chieftain that the scout had only called “Big Red.” Richter’s comment that cinnamon was always troublesome was met by only a confused glance from Sion. He shook his head. The ignorance of the sprite was causing him to miss out on comedic genius!

Sion had been surprised that the goblins had banded together. Apparently, the green skinned humanoids were naturally combative. Usually, they could not be held together in groups larger than eight or twelve before they fell to infighting. Occasionally however, a leader strong enough or vicious enough, rose to power and forced the minor tribes to band together. Apparently this Big Red had forced several smaller bands to serve him. The exact number they didn’t know. Not for lack of trying or unwillingness of the scout to “cooperate”, but large numbers were simply beyond the intellect of the goblin. His counting system was limited to one, two, lots and then “lots and lots.” Apparently the goblin chief had gathered “lots,” and was in the Forest searching a dungeon for an item of power so that he could then be strong enough to garner even more support.

The mystery of the rabid wolves was still just that, a mystery, but the goblin did reveal that there was a magic user that worked closely with the chief. The scout hadn’t been able to describe what type of magic he could employ, but Sion told Richter that goblin mages were often involved with death or dark magic.

Richter looked at Sion, “Do you have any idea where this dungeon could be?” The goblin scout had just indicated it was somewhere north of their location.

Shaking his head the sprite replied, “We are getting closer to the boundaries of the forest. The human Kingdom Yves lies several weeks’ journey to the west, the Serrated Mountains are a week’s journey north, the Azergoth Swamp is a slightly farther journey to the northeast, and the Fire Tip Mountains are to the southeast. My people do not come this far north normally. We prefer the deep forest. The goblin indicated it came from somewhere to the North and East, however. Let’s just start moving in that direction. If the band is as big as it says, I will find traces of them.”

Searching the bodies, they left the knives and clubs as useless. They did find 3 silver and 7 copper coins in various pouches however. Sion had no interest in coinage, and motioned for Richter to keep them. Tying one of the pouches to his waist, it somehow felt good to have money in his proverbial “pocket” again. Even if he did have to shake bits of goblin off of the pouch. This Georgia boy just might turn into a cut throat capitalist, literally.

When The Land had just been a game, one copper had been the equivalent of one US dollar. A silver was worth ten dollars and a gold coin was a cool C-note. It meant he had just killed four people for thirty seven dollars. Richter wasn’t sure that his mom would be proud!

Sion took the lead again, and they walked back into the forest. They kept the river in sight, but stayed to the deeper woods, reasoning that they could be running into more bands of goblins if they were moving in the right direction. While they had dealt with that band of scouts with little difficulty, Sion assured him that those would be the weakest of the opponents they would face.

As they walked, Richter continued focusing his aura around the arrow, but not trying to actually invest mana. He was extremely wary of Sion’s warning of exploding his own arrows. The act of extending his aura was easier than the day before, but it still remained to be seen if he could perform under pressure. He wished for a moment, that he had more of the blue forest berries to help his concentration. After a moment of introspection and pride however, he decided he did not want to rely on anything small and blue to help his performance, at least not yet.

Throughout the day, they encountered a few more wolves which they quickly dispatched. Sion also detected a band of six goblins, thankfully before the creatures saw them. They decided to bypass this group, and stayed concealed in the underbrush while they walked by. Four of the goblins looked like the typical scouts, but there were two slightly larger goblins in the group with rusty cutlasses and leather breast plates. Sion identified these as goblin warriors. Apparently they were stronger, meaner and slightly smarter. The two companions waited about ten minutes after the patrol passed before continuing on. Even though it was a small delay, they were both heartened by the proof that they were moving in the right direction. They made camp for the night at the base of a large tree, deciding to forgo a fire. The low lying shrubs combined with the natural concealment of their armor made detection extremely unlikely, and the night passed without incident.

Sion continued to lead the way for the next three days. Over that time, they noticed goblin patrols with increased regularity, always between four and seven strong. They stayed hidden in the trees each time until the goblins passed. It was slow work, but it did let him increase his stealth skill to level 3. It seemed strange to him that Sion did not have a stealth skill, but he assumed it must be because the sprite had a concealment Ability.

Early in the third day, Sion came back from ranging ahead and told Richter that he had found the main encampment. It was in a ruin about fifteen minutes ahead. Moving slowly now that they were so close, they creeped closer until activity could be clearly heard. Climbing into a tall tree to the south of the ruin, they were rewarded with a clear view. The remains of white stone walls could be seen ringing a compound the size of a large town. Dilapidated dwellings made of the same stone could be seen scattered about with grass growing up unchecked. It was clear that whomever had lived here had been gone for decades if not centuries.

The village sat on a small plateau halfway up a large hill. Mountains rose high above the village to the north. Before the mountains, a waterfall fell down a cliff face creating a lake in the hills beyond the village. That lake in turn spilled down along its southern edge, creating a second waterfall that formed a small river. A second tributary came from the base of the hill. This small waterway extended back into the cliff face through a large crack in the stone. The two ribbons of water joined, and then traced their way back into the forest. Presumably the small river rejoined the larger one they had been following for the past several days.

Near the back of the compound rose an isolated and large shelf of stone. A rise in the land created an easy slope up to the stone ending in a large cave face. Arrayed at the bottom of this slope was where they found the goblin camp. Dozens of goblins huddled around campfires arguing, fighting, defecating and fornicating wherever they wish. Richter was no cryptozoologist, but it didn’t seem like there were any girl goblins down there. Well, he thought, as long as they were making love on each other, they weren’t making war on him so… play on playa!

What was truly offensive was the smell. Even at a distance, the odor was staggering. It was like a pig farm and a frat bathroom had a baby, and then that baby ate expired Velveeta. Choking back nausea, he and Sion backed away into the forest again. They walked for several minutes, until finding a stand of close growing trees that easily hid them from view.

“How do we do this,” Richter asked once they were safely away.

“There is no way we can fight that many at once. We must slowly whittle them down.”

“How? Their patrols are already too strong. With the element of surprise, we can maybe destroy one or two patrols before they become wary, but that would still leave dozens of goblins.”

“Do you want to quit,” Sion asked.

“No! I have already told you I am committed to finishing this, but we need a good plan.”

Sion looked frustrated, but did not offer an argument. They sat there thinking as the sun passed over head. No solution presented itself for long hours. Evening was approaching and Richter was getting up to relieve himself when, looking around the trees which hid them, several plants caught his attention. It reminded him of the Dark Moss.

“How much poison can you make, and how potent is it,” Richter asked.

Sion thought for a moment, “All we have with us is the Dark Moss. It causes weakness and dazes creatures when struck with an arrow coated with its extract. Even if we could shoot every goblin though, the poison would only kill the weakest among them hours later, and by that time the rest would be hunting us.”

“What if we got them to eat it? They had that massive pot cooking in the middle of their camp. If we could poison their food, it might give us the edge we need.”

Sion scratched his face thoughtfully, “Perhaps. But to make a truly potent poison I would need a few other ingredients. Let me search the forest. Stay here.”

After the sprite had disappeared into the greenery, Richter looked around and spent some time picking the few plants that caught his attention. He was ultimately able to pick three Arrowroot Flowers and two Forest Sage, which gave him feeling of stamina and health respectively. Afterwards he sat and focused upon his aura manipulation, trusting in his camouflage to protect him. A few patrols came close enough for him the hear them, but no one came close to his hiding place. Several hours passed as he meditated, awaiting his companion’s return.

When Sion did come back to the copse of trees, night had fallen. The now familiar vicious grin was back on the sprite’s face.

“I assume you found what you were looking for?”

“And so much more. Nightshade, deathflower AND shadowbane. We will melt those foul smelling interlopers from the inside out.” With that pleasant image, Sion immediately took out his mortar and pestle to begin preparing the poison. Richter wasn’t sure at first, but the bloodthirsty Disneyland reject was actually humming!