Magic may be a tremendous force, but applied blindly it is little better than hitting something with a rock. It is knowledge and imagination that will be your lever and fulcrum, multiplying your power beyond reing.- Thaldorien Stormshaper [The Inscrutable], Elven King of Dal’mohra.
Aliandra Ali stood otlements gazing down from behind the prote of her barrier. There was a chill to the breeze that stirred in the early m air, and as the sun began to rise, the distant shapes on the ground below began to resolve into the haphazard sprawling chaos that was the encamped Goblin horde.
So, this is a dungeon-break.
She ed her arms around her chest, rubbing her sleeves in a futile attempt tainst the cold as she stared, her mind struggling to grasp the sheer scale of the Goblin siege.
When she and Mato had taken the courier wagon via the south road, this entire area betweeown walls and the southern forest had been sprawling farmnd, rich with crops. Now it was simply Goblins, everything of value stripped aen, or turned into crude wooden palisades sprouting what looked like rickety trebuchets that had little to no ce of actually w. Still, what they cked in teology they made up in sheer numbers – and, sheer stench. A light breeze helpfully wafted that right into her extremely ungrateful nostrils.
As she surveyed the monstrous forces, an arrow cracked against her barrier, shattering into splinters and falling down outside of the wall. Ali jerked her head back behind the cover of the heavy stone merlon. While the Goblins were building all kinds of siege traptions by stripping the forest, it was the elite Goblins – the archers, the lightning-wielding shamans, and the Fire Mages that were the real danger. Lurking behind the rickety palisades, they spent the day taking potshots at the defenders on the walls with uny accuracy.
Ali peeked her head back around to observe the Goblins through the el. She did not have the head for strategy that and Malika did, but she remembered the Guildmaster’s briefings. If the horde had simply been regur Goblins, there wouldn’t have been much trouble. But zing about among the green-skinned Goblins were sporadids of enormous e or brown furry Goblin Bugbears with their massive ons and spiked pauldrons that glinted wickedly in the m light. Damage dealers.
And if that weren’t enough, riding among the troops on the backs of enormous bck Timber Wolves, she could see the Hobgoblin anders. They stood out as a cut above the oblins – a little taller and heavier than a human, their red skin and higher quality armor and ons made them easy to pick out among the masses of unruly green monsters. It was these that the Guildmaster had been particurly worried about. Hobgoblins were highly intelligent, petent anders, driving even the ornery Bugbears into a sembnce of order. Typically above level forty, they were the biggest challenge fag the town. Like bosses. The dungeon analogy really works, she told herself, shivering again. How are we supposed to stop all that?
Myrin’s Keep did not have many bat csses capable of taking on Hobgoblins, but the Guildmaster had told them that any group they did assemble would be rapidly overwhelmed by the horde on the field. They were uo stand bad destroy the Goblin horde from the battlements with arrows and fire because of the potend accuracy of the Goblies, and the harsh barked ands from the Hobgoblin anders keeping the baying hordes back out e of the archers and mages otlements.
A standoff.
Ali wondered if their dilemma was the result of the Hobgoblins’ intelligent pnning, or if it was simply the result of natural Goblin ing and luck. To make matters worse, the respoo the Town cil’s call for aid from the capital, Southport, had been that they were too sed quelling an undead uprising in some outlying towns to send any support for at least a week.
Ali spent the entire walk back to the Adventurers Guild turning the problem over in her mind. Nobody could get to the elite Goblins because of the Bugbears and Hobgoblins on the field. They couldn’t take care of the hundreds of Goblins with archers and mages because they were all pinned down otlements. Raising one’s head above the parapet was clearly an uhy idea. The garrison couldn’t take the field because, without the prote of the walls, the horde of Goblins would easily overwhelm them by sheer force of numbers coupled with the power of their infamous horde bat buffs.
If only we could distract the elites. hten off the lower-level Goblins. Any ge that might break the lock the Goblins had oown’s defenses.
Ali dismissed the problem from her thoughts as she ehe guild hall. Hopefully, the Guildmaster or the Town cil would e up with some smart strategy to save the town.
Getting into line in front of Mieriel’s reception desk, she immediately reized the novice adventurers in front of her as the ones who had been down in the sewer fighting her slimes. Teagan, I think? They were still muddy, the warrior covered in slime, and they stank of sewage. Aah yes, Myrin’s Keep’s fi effluent. Gross!
“gratutions on your first quest,” Mieriel told them, clearly trying her best not to wrinkle her oo obviously. “May this be the first of many.”
As the happy group walked off with their earnings chattiedly amongst themselves, Ali identified them again.
Level four now, she noted. She was still a touch miffed by the extra work they had caused her, but it was hard to be mad when they were so clearly excited to have been useful. Higher-level adventurers would make the guild stronger – Ali recalled just how big of a differehere had beeween level three and four when she had been that low.
Ali stepped forward, climbing up onto her barriers and unloading the arrows she had made on the desk for Mieriel to store.
As she cluded her quest with Mieriel and stored her s, a bright, clear voice rang out from behind her, putting a smile on her fa an instant.
“Hi, Ali!”
“Hi Serendipity,” she said, turning to greet the Gnome mage. “Are you turning in a job, too?”
“I am! And you call me Seri, you know!”
Somehow Seri’s cheerful voice always made her grin. The little Gnome always seemed to be overflowing with excitement and energy, a ray of sunshine on legs.
“Ok, Seri it is. What job did you do?”
“I’m a wall washer,” she answered, perf a small pirouette, and spreading her hands wide in a flourish.
“A what?”
“The Goblin scouts tried to scale the walls st night. I washed them off with my water. It’s hard work. I’m not really suited to shooting water bolts from the battlements. My skills are much better suited to maniputiing water, that’s why I normally take mert jobs.”
“That sounds pretty helpful, though,” Ali answered, w why someoh skills like hers had joihe guild. Having personally seen what havoc even a single Goblin scout or sger could do ihe town, though, she could appreciate just how important the ‘wall washing’ – as she had colorfully described it – really was.
“If only the river was closer,” Seri tinued. “Then I would be devastating! I’d just wash them all away.”
Seri struck a pose that involved flexing her less-than-stalwart biceps, and Ali chuckled at the image.
Ali left her perch at Mieriel’s desk so that the cheerful Seri could finish her business with the guild and joined Malika and Mato in the lounge area while they waited for to return from his shift shooting Goblins from the battlements.
Wash them away…
Something about the way Seri had said it caught her imagination, and she tur over a few times trying to figure out what it was.
“Ali…”
“Uh, sorry,” she answered, realizing with a flush that Malika had been trying to get her attention for a few moments already.
“What are you woolgathering about?”
“Oh, nothing,” she answered. Quickly, she ged the subject to the Goblin horde and the siege, and they tialking while they waited, discussing potential jobs. Initially, Ali hadn’t been sure about the Adventurers Guild, but she had to admit it was o earn money, even though the situation was rather dire. More importantly, she felt good about making a positive tribution to the defense efforts.
Given they were discussing jobs, Ali decided to check the board in case anything had been posted since she st checked. She made a step for herself with her barriers and searched through the quest s for anything she hadn’t seen. While there were a few hings, Ali was most ied in the herbalist colle job – it had been updated to now include her three mushroom varieties, along with prices.
I guess the Glo mushroom is valuable, Ali thought, as she pared the various prices on offer.
“That’s a rick,” said, indig her barrier ptform as he walked over to join them.
Ali smiled at him. She was still a little embarrassed about her ability to split her barrier magic, given that she had subjected herself to an explosion of water to discover it. She still got anxious when she remembered being flung through the air amidst a torrent of water and boulders, and the utter devastation to the area the ke burst through, washing all the bone piles off into the southern edge of the cavern and the new ke.
Wash them away… Oh!
Several separate memories cascaded in her mind, colliding in a chaotic swirl of mana-like colors, and produg the beginnings of an idea so crazy that Ali wasn’t certain she should really be thinking it at all. She remembered tellihat they were right above the ke when she was looking out of the sewer outflow over the area now occupied by the Goblins. She remembered the devastation of the water in the underground cavern. And Seri’s ent.
If we wash away some of the Goblins, or fuse or split up that horde, maybe we fight them?
“Hey, Seri!” Ali called. “Do you want to help me with something?”
***
Ali waited on the bank of the ke, looking out over the roiling, swirling water. It was murky and pletely opaque, and the stirring in the depths was almost certainly because it was still filled with Toxic Slimes.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“I think you’re crazy to want to try that again,” Malika said.
“I think it work, it’s in the perfect position, the only question is if you do it,” added.
“I love it!” Seri excimed, her eyes sparkling in the dim light of Ali’s mushrooms while she gazed at the expanse of deep water. “I want to do it! we? Please?”
Ali grinned. It was certainly a crazy idea, but nobody seemed to think it wouldn’t work. “I just need some way to get to the rock wall so I destrue of it.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Seri said brightly. Her arm reached forward, and a surge of cobalt-blue maed from it, entering the water of the ke, and spreading out through it rapidly. Slowly, the surface of the ke he rock wall began to lower, as if a giant invisible hand were pressing down on it. In a few mihere was a deep trough ier as if it were being held back by an invisible dam.
Ali stepped forward, about to ehe gap a her pn in motion, when stopped her.
“Wait.”
“What? Why?”
“This will be vastly more effective if we coordih the garrison and the guild,” he said. “Strategically, we will want to be prepared to take advantage of the distra while it’s still a surprise for the Goblins.”
“Aww, boo,” Seri said, with a pout.
Ali could see the wisdom in ’s suggestion, but she also resorongly with Seri’s disappoi. She had been ready aed to see if her idea would actually work, and now she’d have to wait.
Malika Malika crowded in with the rest of the adventurers in the makeshift forward aer – a former warehouse andeered by ander Brand for the defense of the town. Everybody was here, and she could scarcely believe it. Ali’s idea was legitimately crazy, a somehow the Guildmaster believed it could work. Furthermore, she had vinced everyone else.
stood beside her, and Mato was off to the side talking with a beautiful Druid woman and a monstrous t beast of a man who ruffled Mato’s hair as if he was a small child.
His parents, Malika guessed. The resembnce was clear enough, even though his father seemed to be the very definition of the term ‘monster race’ and towered above him – he towered above everyone, eveallest Elves and Humans.
“Ok, listen up!” Vivian Ross’s voied out in the warehouse, causing the hubbub to slowly fade.
“We will start in a few minutes. Aliandra and Serendipity are in charge of creating a water distra that should hit the eastern fnk of the Goblins. The two teams of bronze adventurers are assigo that fnk. Yoal is to create as much chaos as possible and draw off as many of the regur Goblins as you . Watch out fbears and if you enter Hobgoblins, you are to disengage areat immediately.”
“Theia and Bjorn,” she said, turning to address Mato’s parents. “If you two could take care of the western fnk? There are dangerously many Bugbears over that side.”
Mato’s monstrous father looked up and simply answered, “Got it.” His voice rumbled powerfully over the crowd, sileng the remainder of any versation.
“Everyone else, please remember Bjorn is a silver-rank Berserker. You are to avoid the western fnk at all costs.” Her caution was met with an outbreak of murmuring ents and gasps.
“The main thrust of our attack will target the Hobgoblins in the ter with hest-level group, led by ander Brand.”
She indicated the wiry gray-haired man standing at the front, now dressed in heavy pte armor with a shortsword strapped to his waist, and a shield slung across his back that seemed to be half a foot thick of pure bureel with the garriso embzoned on the front. He the crowd, sing them with a grim twist of his lips that kept the murmuring to cowed whispers.
“Joining him will be me, Donel Novaspark of the Novaspark Academy of Magic, Roderik Ice from the Town Watch, and Lamyndra Duskwind from the Temple of Lunaré.”
Each of them aowledged their names as she spoke. Donel Novaspark stood with an air of absolute power and fidence, projeg a presence much rger thainy Gnomish stature. She was famous in Myrin’s Keep for her prestigious Novaspark Academy of Magid for being a powerful lightning mage, but Malika knew her only by her reputation. The academy had always been far too well guarded for the kind of petty thievery she had been forced to do, and without a css, she had never had any way to avoid their security.
Lamyndra Duskwind stood quietly behind the others. Her beautiful, long hair of pure white cascaded down past her shoulders, trasting powerfully against skin of such a deep purple it seemed almost bck, and her violet eyes veyed deep passion. Malika was very familiar with the Night Elf priestess, having needed so many trips to her temple after Adrik and Edrik’s visits. She had always treated Malika with resped dignity despite her low status, title, and suspiciously frequent injuries. How they had vinced someone so itted to peace to join this fight was something Malika couldn’t fathom. Perhaps she had decided this was the way to save the most people?
But it was Roderik Ice that got her boiling inside. With his blond hair, blue eyes, handsome radiant smile, and noble birth, he was everything Malika was not. A she khat, behind those pretty looks and eloquent speech, beat the heart of a true sadist. ected as he was to the noble circles, he was the reasoown Watjoyed so much autonomy in Myrin’s Keep. It was Roderik who had advocated for more freedom to act; he who was buddy-buddy with Jax Hawkhurst and the secret spiderweb tendrils of the Hawkhurst Trading pany’s hidden criminal syndicate core that fihe Watch. It e among the on people of the slums that this monster liked hunting to keep his skills sharp – hunting in the poor districts of the town. He enjoyed watg his victims suffer, bleeding out while he tauhem. He occasionally participated iown Watch training exercises with Kieran Mori, and the only time Malika had experiehat, she had beeo the temple with airely unnecessary ice puhrough her shoulder. She schooled the disgust out of her expression with a powerful effort of will, hoping that she was far enough beh his notice that he wouldn’t reize the ur pickpocket he had so ungly shot. He was undoubtedly the most powerful ice mage iown, and Malika was nowhere near strong enough to survive a csh with him.
One day, she vowed silently inside. One day, Roderik…
“As soon as we get started, the groups of the garrison will move forward to defend the gate, and the novice adventurers will form up behind them to take care of any stragglers. The Temple of Lunaré will set up a field hospital here in this building.” Vivian indicated four robed and hooded Night Elves who were standing silently to one side. A soft murmur of voices thanks for their services rippled through the crowd.
“Why isn’t Mori here?” ander Brand asked. He seemed to be suppressing an undercurrent of annoyan his carefully trolled voice.
“He said he was too busy with watch duties. He sent Roderik in his pce,” Vivian answered.
ander Brand’s face showed he didn’t really believe the excuse, but he ged the subject. “This is a harebrained scheme, even for you, Vivian.”
Malika had to agree with the ander. If it hadn’t been Ali who had proposed it, she would have had a hard time believing it could work. But she had seen the devastation that had burst forth from the wall when Ali had cracked it open, and if she could repeat that feat…
Vivian sighed and then looked across the crowd directly at her. “Malika, we’re ready. Get it started.”
Malika nodded arieved a critical piece of their pn, a small scrap of part with intricate runic symbols inscribed upon it.
Sending – level 3Mana: Send a short telepathic message to a familiar target within one mile. Charges: 1/1.Quality: MagicValue: 65 silver.Created by Donel Novaspark.Scroll
Following the instrus she had been provided, she pushed a little of her mana into the scroll and formed a clear message in her mind.
“Ali, you’re up!”
She had a sense of the message eg in a long chamber and an aowledgment that felt like the brief fluttering of golden butterfly wings, clearly Ali’s mind, and then the scroll in her hand quickly crumbled into dust, drifting away to the floor.
Several tense minutes passed until eventually the ander broke the silence.
“Is this going to work?”
A muffled crack silehe talking as a deep tremor shook the ground. A few moments ter, aremor rocked the room and sporadiervous versatioed throughout the waiting crowd. Just as she thought it might be over, an enormous explosion ripped through the air, causing the stoh her feet to buck violently, throwing several people to the ground. Iermath, she could hear shouts and otion ing from outside.
“Holy shit,” Donel grunted. She stood before a jured illusion projected from her outstretched palm that showed the entire Goblin horde that was arrayed against them as if viewed from high above the ground. The Goblins were scrambling like ants in a disturbed . From the base of the cliffs in front of the eastern fnk, an enormous, grayish geyser gushed out across the field, raining boulders and sludge down upon the unwitting Goblins. Goblins, palisades, crude siege ons, in fact, everything was smashed and in disarray, dragged along by the powerful torrent of water.
She did it! Malika didn’t want to admit how worried she had been, but Ali had pulled it off with spectacur results.
“ander, we’re ready,” Vivian announced, her voice steady as if such sights were an everyday occurrence.
“Move out!” ander Brand barked with the crisp and in his voice that came from years of experience.
Everyone moved.
Aliandra Ali reached out a hand and destructed the giant sb of stone in front of her, while her feet sloshed in the mud at the bottom of the ke. The discerting, sheer wall of water at her baed high above, spiking her sense of ay. She could evehe slimes bumping up against it, trying to get through, but Seri’s magic held fast, and the suspended wall of water persistently failed to crash down upon her.
She destructed another boulder, dodging back to avoid falling debris. It was tricky work. She could hardly fet that the st time she had dohis she had caused the entire wall to explode in her face. This time there should be no water pressure – at least until Seri released the pent-up flood – but if she destructed the wrong boulder, she could all too easily drop tons of rock down upon her head.
She destructed a few more, summoning barriers to protect herself from dust and falling pebbles.
“You don’t have to go all the way through,” Seri called out from the retive safety of the shore. “We let the water finish the job.”
It’d be nice if Destru had that kind e, Ali thought, gng warily again at the t wall of water before returning to her task. She could tell she was following an old el because the rocks at the bottom were worn from the flow of water. She guessed that at some point in the ages past, the el allowing the river to flow out of the cavern had simply colpsed.
One more. She was now totally ihe rock wall in a self-made tunnel, destrug more rock that was hopefully not the st support for the tons of stone and boulders above her head.
I really hope I’m not being stupid again.
Ali backed out of the tunnel she had created and sigo Seri as soon as she was out of the way. Suddenly, the walls of supp cobalt mana holding back the entire ke vanished, and tons of water crashed down into the gap Seri had been holding with her magic. Ali’s tunnel vanished, submerged beh the entire depth of the ke. The surface of the ke roiled violently as bubbles of air welled up from below through the surging waters, but it rapidly quietened down.
She waited. And then waited some more.
“Nothing is happening. Should I clear more rock?” Ali asked.
“Let me try something,” Seri said, her face wrinkling into a frown of tration.
Ali watched her manipute the water with her pretty cobalt-blue mana. Uhe influence of her magic, the ke began to drift and flow toward the edge of the cavern, as if a giant hand had simply tipped the entire cavern causing the water to collect against the rock wall right above her tunnel. Higher and higher it piled.
“What are you doing?”
“Increasing the pressure,” Seri said, gasping her words as if she were struggling to lift something incredibly heavy.
Perhaps she is? More water piled up, f an unnatural mound as the banks of the ke receded. Soon, the ground trembled, as a mild but visible shockwave rippled across the surface of the water. A sed, more palpable shock threw up small wavelets, and then suddenly, Ali was knocked off her feet as an enormous explosion shook the cavern, sending water spraying high into the air. She summoned a barrier above her even before she hit the dirt. As the fountain cascaded back to the surface of the ke, a tremendous sug sound rose as a huge whirlpool formed.
Ali watched in awe as the entire ke began to drain through the tunnel and out into the world beyond.
timewalk
