Aliandra

  Ali’s friends did not pin in the slightest when she requested a trip to the undry. The slightly portly, frazzled-looking Gnomish man who rainy shop, tucked iween a bakery and a small grocery store, had been absolutely horrified with how foul she smelled and had lost no time casting his magic to dispel the muck that g to her like glue. He had still been spritzing the air in his shop as they left, muttering despairingly about how nice Fae girls should not possibly smell like a Goblin’s armpit, it just wasn’t right.

  Now, dry – and more importantly, – her body finally began to rex uhe warm caress of the sunshine falling on her skin. As the st of the tension eased, her traumatic experieh the underground river faded into a memory. Albeit a cautionary tale; an experiehat should remihat she o be much more careful iure.

  By the time they reached the Adventurers Guild, Ali was mostly ba her usual good spirits, and she approached the reception desk, and the elegantly dressed Mieriel, with a big smile on her face.

  “Hi Aliandra,” Mieriel greeted, returning her smile. “How I help you today?”

  This time, Ali ighe stepstool and instead created a small disk of barrier magic h a little above the ground and followed with a sed one a little higher. She stepped up her magical golden stairs, dismissing the first barrier, leaving herself standing upon a single glowing disk at the perfect height beside the reception desk.

  “Very impressive,” Mieriel approved.

  Grinning in delight at having her achievement reized – albeit with dry humor – Ali used Identify on the guild administrator.

  Spy – Sun Elf – level ?? (Mind)

  Ali’s smile froze as her casual use of Identify exposed Mieriel’s css and mana affinity.

  Mind magic?

  A chill ran down the back of her spine. Practitioners of mind magic were universally feared for their ability to the perceptions of those around them, and even trol the minds of people they didn’t like.

  What is she…

  Mieriel’s eyes narrowed briefly, and tiny wisps of mana flickered around her brows and temples. Ali’s body weaved with sudden disorientation as if the world had suddenly tipped sideways for an instant before everythiuro normal. She grabbed onto the receptioo steady her suddenly shaky legs.

  Analyst – Sun Elf – level 18

  What was I doing? Ali racked her brain trying to remember but, while it felt tantalizingly close, she couldn’t quite recall. She gnced back at the Sun Elf Analyst while she wrestled with her uncooperative memory, struck by a sudden, inexplicable sense of déjà vu and the unusual delicate fragrance of summer lilies.

  “Thank you for your tip the other day,” Mieriel said brightly, her voiterrupting Ali’s fusion, guiditention back to the reception desk and the guild hall.

  “What?”

  “Lydia’s Allure. It’s delightful, and Lydia is so talented,” Mieriel announced, getting up and turning around to show off her new powder blue business suit. “I love it!”

  “It’s very stylish,” Ali answered, the strange sense of déjà vu fading away.

  “Anyway, what I do for you today?” Mieriel said, bringing the versation back to the reason Ali was there.

  “Oh, I wao turn these in for the quest,” Ali answered, her fideurning as she remembered why she had e. She slipped her attention into the proje of her ste entment in the back of her mind aed the carefully bundled arrows she had created. When she was done, fifty bundles of twenty arrows each y ly arranged on the reception desk – each carefully tied with a small length of string had provided. He’s definitely being the Rope Master! It had taken a little time to retrieve everything, but it was so much better than trying to retrieve a thousand loose arrows all at ond making a mess all over the floor.

  “Oh! ander Brand is going to be so happy!” Mieriel chimed, admiring the stack Ali had created. “Thank you for using them to fill the quest, I’m sure you already know you could probably have gotten more money selling them on the bck market. But this way they will go directly to the guard. Thank you for helping make Myrin’s Keep safer!”

  They’re just arrows, Ali thought, surprised at Mieriel’s choice of words. But the moment she thought about it, she realized the truth of what the Sun Elf had said. To her, it may have just been mana spent on a Grimoire imprint – a simple matter of a few hours of work – but the arrows really would be used to save lives and that realizatio a new weight of significe to her simple task. Ali hadn’t sidered that she might earn more by selling them to some shady dealer, but then they would probably have been hoarded instead of used to help anyone.

  Not a good option.

  “Here you go. Your first quest reward, gratutions! The garrison is one gold piece for this many arrows. Your share is eighty silver pieces after I deduct the twenty pert and apply it to the cost of y.” Mieriel said, ting out several silver pieces of different sizes and pg them into a small leather pouch that she hao Ali.

  “Thank you,” Ali said, feeling the surprisingly f weight of the small pou her hand before she stored it in her ring. No longer would she o be reliant on or Mato to buy her everything she needed. I even pay them back! Both of them had bought her all sorts of ies with their own meager funds, and she didn’t want to feel like she was a tinual drain on her friends.

  After I pay them back, maybe I’ll have enough left over to buy some books…

  Ali returo the lounge area he quest board where most of the guild members were gathered, waiting for the Guildmaster to make her appearance. She returned Serendipity’s excited wave with a smile before her attention was drawn from the friendly Gnome by Vivian Ross entering the room.

  “I want to thank you all for taking various jobs and quests so far,” she began. “We’re making some great progress. The guard, and our scouts, have firmed that the outrunners and advanced scouts of the Goblin horde have reached the town walls. The south gate is closed and barricaded, and the Town cil is implementing a curfew to get everyoo stay off the streets at night. The Goblins have already begun to pilge the outlying farms.”

  Ali’s smile faded. The Guildmaster’s delivery ractical and uional, but the implications for the town were s. Without farms, they would soon run out of food, and if the gates were closed, presumably most of the trade with the outside world would be suddenly cut off.

  There was, of course, the teleportation locus in the Novaspark Academy, but giveeep cost in gold and mana, it would be incredibly impractical, if not impossible, to use it to feed a popution as rge as Myrin’s Keep.

  Ali had never experienced something like this personally, but she had eudying history at school. Large dungeon-breaks typically wiped out towns like theirs instantly. If the defenses were adequate, the town might hold out for a while, but then the spiraling costs and the restri of food and supplies would typically cause the town to colpse rather quickly. The best hope for them was that the Goblins passed them by on the way to a different target. But that’s just kig the down the road.

  “gest right now is burgry and arson withiown,” Vivian tinued.

  Ali sighed. Of course, as if the Goblins weren’t enough of a problem.

  “There have been numerous reports that criminals are stealing expensive ables and food, and the Town Watch doesn’t seem to be able to keep it under trol. The Town cil has asked us to step in and help – so you will find a ‘patrol’ job on the quest board. This is a bronze-ranked bat quest. For those of you who have an appropriate css and have reached at least level ten, please choose aimeslot for your patrol duty. You will o pair up using the buddy system, and it requires patrolling areas of town in and around the guild hall after curfew, preventing any nefarious activities and proteg the townsfolk from harm. The mayor has authorized a det bonus for several hours of extra patrols eaight.”

  Ah, yes, and crime, Ali thought. Especially in a town like Myrin’s Keep, she should have expected crime to be a problem – perhaps even worse than the Goblins themselves.

  “That is all for today, keep up the good work,” Vivian said, pleting her annous.

  Ali had to wait for the hubbub and bustle to calm down before she could reach the quest board.

  “How do you want to split this?” she asked.

  “How about Mato and Malika take this one, and you and I will take this distriext to it?” suggested, pointing to the map orol job posting. “This way both groups have strong scouting and perception skills.”

  “Sounds good,” Malika said.

  It made seo Ali too – ’s eyes were phenomenal, and Mato had trag skills in his Wolf Form. She and Malika would take on a support role in each group, but it seemed like an effective approach. At least the area around the guild hall didn’t seem nearly as dangerous as most of the town she had walked through so far.

  “What should we do for the rest of the day?” Ali asked. Their patrol job was for ter that evening, and she had nothing to do till then.

  “I want to take a scouting quest out in the forest,” answered, pointing at a part pio the board with the official-looking stamp of the garrison. “It suits my skills, and it should help me finish paying off my new bow.”

  “I want to take a few errands in town, and then I might help with his job,” Mato said.

  “I don’t have anything to do till ter, I might train a little,” Malika said.

  “I want to pnt some trees in the cavern,” Ali announced, deg that it would be a waste to not take advantage of the broad swathe of cleared space down below to expand her domain – and she had aire day with nothier to do.

  “I’ll e with you,” Malika said. “I don’t o train in town. And maybe I keep you out of trouble.”

  Ali’s face fell at the reminder of her embarrassing experience earlier, putting herself ireme danger.

  But Malika’s eyes were smiling even as she tried to hold a deadpan face. “Don’t be so hard on yourself Ali, it was a mistake. I’m just teasing.”

  “The buddy system is good anyway,” pointed out.

  “Perhaps you make some more Kobolds?” Mato suggested. “You’ll probably hem for the slimes and the patrol ter.”

  “That’s a good idea. See you guys ter,” Ali said and headed toward the doors with Malika.

  As soon as had left the south road, the signs of the Goblin incursion became immediately apparent everywhere he went. s were pulled down from trees, their tents plundered. Every kind of edible pnt had been ripped up from the ground. Discarded trash littered the forest and the remains of meals and poorly trolled campfires could be found everywhere if one simply looked.

  He ran silently through a retly deserted camp, flitting from shadow to shadow, wrinkling his the characteristic Goblin stench emanating from the remains. He barely o slow down as the bination of his Explorer skill and Eyes of the Ar allowed him to easily make out the Goblin tracks at a distance.

  They ’t have gone far. He veered off down a game trail following the tracks and keeping a sharp eye out for any movement in the distance. Mato wasn’t too far away; he could occasionally see brief glimpses of the rge shaggy wolf prowling among the trees.

  It hadn’t even been fifteen minutes of sprinting before he caught sight of the first Goblin Sger rooting about in the dirt. Quickly, he sed the area fns of moblins, but if there were any they were out of sight.

  Here goes, thought, nog an arrow, and carefully taking aim at the small green monster who ecutively stuffing dirt in his mouth before spitting it out in disgust. He had been practig his new skill trol every opportunity he had, but there was a world of differeween an inanimate target and fag a real monster in the wild. The Sger hunched over cheg a crude-looking trap. With the utmost care and focus, he trickled some mana into Arrows of Brilliance, carefully holding it ba the brink of pletion. Within his mind, the magic vibrated, pulling against his i, as if eager to release. He breathed out softly ahere in silent stillness, acutely aware of the steady thump of his heartbeat while he waited for the perfeent.

  He released the b. The fletgs buzzed as the arrow left his bow, flyiweerees on a dead-straight path to the unsuspeg Goblin. He held his magitil the st possible moment, and then suddenly released it. Light magic surged, appearing as a brilliant fsh that wreathed his arrow, suddenly illuminating the surrounding trees and undergrowth at the instant it buried itself in the Goblin Sger’s chest.

  His chime sounded, and at the same moment, his Eclipse skill failed, releasing him from his stealth.

  You have defeated Sger – Goblin – level 1.

  Level one. ly a challenge. With nobody him, immediately vanished into the shadows, reactivating Eclipse before anything noticed his presence. Carefully, he crept over to examihe Goblin corpse, noting that the quest tracker on his guild ring had already updated to record the kill.

  A howl tore through the trees, and ’s head snapped up. That’s Mato! he thought, reizing the pre-arranged signal. He’s found the rest of the Goblin scouting group.

  As he sprinted off in the dire of the sound, he wondered how Mato was managing the foul odor of Goblins with his sensitive wolf nose.

  Aliandra

  Ali stood at the edge of her moss looking south, enjoying the soft, subtle caress of her domain mana on her arms and face. Most of the mud and water had already drained into the rge ke to the far south of the cavern, leaving only the slowly dryiation behind. Boulders dotted the ndscape amid murky pools of draining floodwater and rge piles of accumuted bones or wood that had been washed up into drifts against the massive a, bed tree trunks.

  This had been her favorite spot to sit and read beside the Grove. The much greater flow of water released by her dangerous excavation had indeed recreated a smaller ke just where she remembered.

  It stinks. Ali wrinkled her nose. While it was in the right pce, the ke was nothing like her happy memories. It was brown and green, and the stagnant water reeked. Within the murky depths, things stirred, leaving the surface feeling strangely alive – swirling and ing occasionally with no apparent rhyme or reason. She was certain it was full of those nasty-looking slime creatures, but the opaque water didn’t let her actually see anything – even her mana sight failed to reveal much more than swirling muddled colors.

  More importantly, for now, the entire southern expanse of the cavern seemed to have bee clear, with none of the dungeon mana filling the area with its oppressive darkness. Bones were still strewn everywhere, but it seemed that the water had disrupted everything suffitly to carve out a sizeable clear area.

  Easy for me to cim. Ali had no idea if the dungeon would try and recim the area, but she had to assume it ossible. Presumably, it had to somehow acquire the area in the first pce. Does it use those crazy bone creatures? Ali wondered, recalling the enormous monsters of bone she and Mato had seehe library, spraying liquid boo everything in sight. Or did it create the bone piles by making untable skeletons and sending them up here into the cavern? Now, if we could just get into the library…

  “I’m going to practice over here,” Malika said, breaking the silence. “Don’t do anything too crazy.”

  Ali grinned back at her. “I’m not about to uake any new excavations. I think I’ll make some Kobolds to guard me first,” she said, earning an approving nod before Malika began to dance. Ali knew Malika was doing martial arts exercises, but her movement was so graceful that Ali would have happily watched her as if it were a performance.

  Ali pulled out her Grimoire and began to summon Kobolds. With a few quick calcutions in her head, she decided how much mana she was willing to reserve for the minions she would use to guard herself. And for the patrol job. Not really knowing what she would be fag, she decided to be quite generous. She already had two Kobues – the ohat had run all the way home and the one she had made to demonstrate her Grimoire for the Guildmaster. But her friends were right, more minions would make her more powerful and more effective on her patrol duty ter. Her mana flowed, and her Grimoire sho as a powerful bea of light in the dark cavern as Kobold after Kobold materialized before her.

  Rogue – Kobold – level 8-11 x4Warrior – Kobold – level 9-10 x2

  Your reserved mana has increased by +234.

  Ali paused her summoning when she had six Kobolds standing before her. Her Grimoire and its randomness had seen fit to give her two of the green-scaled warriors and two more of her stealthy rogues. While the mana reservation for the four new Kobolds was shogly rge, it was still below the amount she had budgeted for to remain effective with her other spells.

  One more should do it.

  She eled her mana into the Grimoire imprint, fog her mind on the image of a bck-scaled rogue. She had no idea if she could influehe choice, but the rogue’s stealth skill would make the patrol job up in town easier.

  Soon enough, a Kobold materialized in front of her, but this time, something was very obviously different. She froze, heart thumping loudly in her ears as she stared into the glowiilian eyes set in the red-scaled face. A face that reminded her of the st of brimstone and the deafening cussion of fire magi tiny spaces.

  Mage – Kobold – level 15 (Fire)

  Grimoire of Summoning has reached level 11.

  Your reserved mana has increased by +113.

  “How may I serve, A Mistress?”

  His voice sounded raspy and rough, like that of a voice damaged by decades of too much pipe smoking without suffit healing.

  Ali gathered herself with a shake of her head, reminding herself that this was her minion and that he was not about to bst her with fire.

  “You will all guard me while I grow my domain,” Ali said, speaking in Draid turo the borious job of creating armor and ons for her new minions. By the time she was done, she had a small pile of discarded crude daggers, uattered robes, and a worthless pte pauldron sized for a Bugbear that her Grimoire had decided on a whim to make instead of the items she needed. But Ali didn’t mind much – she had a fully equipped Kobold guard, and she was really excited – and even a little nervous – to see what the Fire Mage would be capable of.

  Maybe I use them to help up some of this mess?

  Your proficy with the Draiguage has improved.

  It was a lot of mana reserved – at level fifteen, her Fire Mage had ore than she had anticipated – but, by her calcutions, she should still be able to summon any of her trees with the remainder, and she could always destruct debris to recharge her mana pool. Finally ready, she gave her Kobolds free rein to kill any mohey found and began to grow her domain across the stream, pnting trees and patches of moss and mushrooms fanning out quickly from her small outpost around the shrio the freshly cleared space. Every time she created one of the Deathanita mushrooms, she destructed it ave it to one of her rogues, so that their mana wouldn’t impede the growth of her domain.

  Her domaiended easily across the rushing stream, carried by the huge range of her trees. As it grew, toxic slimes began emerging from the water in twos and threes, presumably drawn by the dense mana she was emitting into the area. Ali ighem, tinuing her bor with her Grimoire to the backdrop of detonations and fshes of fire magid the chirping calls of her Kobolds on the hunt. Soon the air filled with a smoky haze and the acrid stench of sulfur.

  As a result, Ali seldom o search for suitable material to destruct. Instead, she simply destructed the steady stream of slime corpses that her Kobolds left for her and any piles of bone or wood in her way. While the level-one monster corpses didn’t provide a substantial amount of mana, there were more than enough to keep her w tinuously.

  Imprint: Toxic Slime pleted.

  Great, now I just slime the Goblins all around town. Ali quickly itted the imprint to her empty chapter and tinued pnting, hoping to reach the far ke shore by the evening.

  ***

  “Wow, you’ve been busy!”

  Ali looked up at the sound of Mato’s curiosity to find all three of her friends standing nearby surveying her work. She was close enough to the ke that her domain was beginning to draw slimes from there, too. Would that help restore the water? She hoped so.

  “It’s time to head up,” said. “Our patrol job is soon.”

  “Ok,” Ali answered, hiding the rising disappoihat she hadn’t quite reached her goal. I’ll finish it ter. Is it really evening already?

  “You guys stay here and guard my trees and moss,” Ali told her warriors. “The rest of you e with me.”

  “You don’t want t them all?” asked curiously.

  “I ’t hide the warriors in town,” Ali answered, pursing her lips. “The townsfolk are probably already scared of Goblins, right? I’m guessing a horde of armed Kobolds won’t be very wele.”

  “That’s probably true…” said.

  “Wait, is that a Fire Mage?” Mato excimed.

  “Yes!” Ali answered. “My Grimoire just made it at random.” It had only ever produced one so far, so she couldn’t tell if it was rare because she had only destructed a few, or if it was due to the far higher level. Or maybe the css itself is unon or rare?

  “You should bring the Fire Mage on patrol,” Malika said firmly. “It will be safer for you.”

  “I agree. You probably get away with it by telling anyone you meet that it’s a minion,” suggested. “And it’s not that scary-looking.”

  “Ok,” Ali said. She would have to trust her friends on this one. She tried, but for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what the deadly Kobold might look like to someone who had never seen it flingiating Fireballs around a dungeon.

  They checked in at the guild before splitting up into their assigned areas. Ali and set off to walk through a quiet se of the town to the west of the guildhall that included a few main streets and a lot of twisting alleyways. There were quite a few mert shops in their area, but everyone seemed to be off the streets now that it was dark, hiding behind barred and locked doors.

  I probably look lost, Ali thought as she turned down a side street in the darkness of the night. Or like bait. The moon poked out from behind some clouds, bathing the street in a little tentative moonlight. For anyone them, they would see Ali and her robed mage walking through the alleys by themselves to the soft clig of the Kobold’s talons. But , with his uny vision and stealth, trailed her along the rooftops in and out of the shadows. She knew he had her back. And she had four Kobues hidden from sight nearby. Even in the dark of the notorious streets of Myrin’s Keep, she felt safe.

  timewalk