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Hrunt tapped at his pale-skinned, thin wrist, his clawed, wrinkled flinger grazing over a bracelet of thin, darkened bone.
The bone, fashioned from one of the lord's personally evolved hobgoblin, spoke to him, letting him sense where its owner was in this accursed forest of darkness and giant bugs.
His staff of bone and wood hovered beside him, emanating a frosty blue light to keep bugs away. At least there were no big spiders in this part of the forest.
"Hrm. Weak signal. And they aren't moving. Strange." Hrunt tapped at the bone bracelet several times, trying to smack it back to function, but nothing.
It seemed to work fine, meaning the party of evolved hobgoblins the lord had sent out to investigate the surge of magical energy had simply stopped moving.
"Relax. Maybe they're just napping."
Hrunt turned to his companion.
Ongus, the goblin champion he had called from the realm of Foraoise. It truly was strange how much the green-skinned goblins had changed since they had started to live in Foraoise.
Ongus was tall, a full head taller than Hrunt, but unlike the champions of Fjall where muscle and might reigned supreme, Ongus was lanky. A pot belly jutted from his stomach as he scratched it with long, lanky arms that almost dragged on the forest floor.
Shaggy brown fur coated most of Ongus's body, and his deep sunken in green eyes seemingly had little to no energy in them.
"It's so cold here," said Ongus with a yawn. "I ought to get some sleep too."
"We are at the eve of war!" said Hrunt. "This surge of magical power, I have felt it, and none like it has ever passed through me.
That sorcerer, that accursed human, he has made a move against us, I know it! And with a surge like this, more humans, their adventurers, are sure to come."
"Wonder why the lord doesn't just run. He seems in over his head if he thinks this whole war thing is going to work," said Ongus.
"It will. It must. I have spent the past day working myself to the bone, channeling the dungeon portal so that all of us, we who have been oppressed and scattered across the realms, may unite." Hrunt bared a chipped fang at Ongus. "And yet all who answer my call are ungrateful goblins like you."
"I dunno. It's been what, five hundred years or something of a big time like that? Since the last time goblins from other realms met?
My kind barely remembers yours. Look at how different we are. Y'know, just seems pointless." Ongus shrugged, his thin shoulders and large arms making exaggerated up and down motions.
"We might as well all be completely different at this point. I have no idea how your kind live, and you and your frosty ice boys have no idea how we live.
The old man's gone nuts, that's for sure. Thinks it's still like a thousand years ago or something when there were lots of us all together.
Well, can't blame him, I guess, he did wake up from that era. Must be real jarring to see how much has changed."
"You would dare to question the lord's grand purpose?" Hrunt shook his head, his vision blurring as his anger flared up. He was too tired from channeling the dungeon portal without sleep or food or rest just as the lord had commanded.
He sighed. "You do not know. But as a thrall, I have listened to stories of how the goblin kingdom, a kingdom, not a bunch of scattered tribes struggling to live, spread across all the realms with a king that commanded even the respect of the gods."
Ongus shrugged again. "Then the gods got tired or something and blasted our old king into little bits. Figure the same will happen here."
"Why did you even answer my call if you are to be like this?" said Hrunt.
"Dunno. Faeries and Elves control all the warp temples, and the world will end before they ever let us get near them. So I never get the chance to leave the realm," said Ongus. "Thought it would be fun, though.
Hey, at least I brought a couple of my friends. You needed numbers, right? Your boys from the north wouldn't even answer your call, but I did.
That must mean something, right?"
Hrunt entered into a state of disgruntled quiet. Ongus was strong, that much was evident from the amount of mana surging from him.
As strong as Juzo.
But Ongus brought with him only five hobgoblins.
Hrunt had tried calling the entire rest of the Frostskull tribe, a tribe numbering a hundred strong, but only those loyal to him, a pithy twenty, had further come. The remainder did not wish to lose more and stayed with the other half of the tribe led under their own Champion.
Then, Hrunt tried calling for more goblins from Xin.
None would come, believing the loss of a champion too great a risk for them. Even the remainder of Juzo's tribe wished to leave, their desire quelled only by the lord's domineering presence.
The lord himself had raised twenty evolved, likely the maximum of his ability, and that meant in total, there were almost sixty hobgoblins and two hundred goblins in their camp.
A force easily powerful enough to take the human village to the south, but then what?
Adventurers would arrive. No, strong ones were probably already on the way, lured in by the surge of magic.
What would they do then?
Hrunt shook his head. No retreat, that was the lord had said. Fight or die trying to resurrect the old ways. All these new goblins, these green-skinned ones and red-skinned ones, all of them had forgotten the old ways.
But not Hrunt. He would stay true to the fight and the lord to the end, because as a thrall, he understood the importance of tradition.
Tradition was the only thing that remained when there was nothing but bones left of a generation.
The only thing that mattered enough to get passed down.
Even now, Hrunt worried.
At the lord's command, he had trekked westwards for two hours with Ongus by now, following slightly behind the evolved hobgoblin party sent by the lord himself.
But even leaving the main camp, the dungeon, so defenseless worried Hrunt. Other than the lord, he alone possessed the means to connect with the dungeon and move its defenses and resources.
If adventurers attacked now-
No, Hrunt had to focus on his current mission, for that was the lord's will, and the lord was mighty enough to handle himself.
"I am close enough for my Farsight," said Hrunt. He grabbed his bone staff and punched it into the yielding soil. The human skull capping the staff glowed, the sockets infusing with pale blue light.
Swirls of flaky ice began to form above the skull, building up into a clear ball.
"That's pretty interesting," said Ongus as he narrowed his squinty green eyes, staring at images beginning to flash from the ball of ice.
"And your tribe would know the ancient art of bone binding should you have kept up with the old ways," said Hrunt. He shook his head, his skull helmet shaking from side to side. "I am not the mightiest among the thralls but look even what I may do.
We are a nearly three hundred meters away, but with this skull, the skull of a mighty human shaman, I may usurp the very spells he once wielded against us.
Look-," said Hrunt as he proudly pointed at the images formed in the ice ball. His expression twisted in surprise and his boasting ended abruptly. "What…is that?"
A monster of a kind Hrunt had never seen before stood atop the corpse of the lord's evolved hobgoblin. This monster…it was dangerous.
Dangerous beyond measure, he could tell, even through the simple image.
Ongus, too, sensed this, and whistled. "Wow, look at that. You get a lot of these kinda monsters here? Looks kinda like a daemon. Thought they were basically extinct or something."
"No…I know not what this is, but it must be dealt with," said Hrunt. "We must go back and inform the lord. Obtain reinforcements. It may be a monstrosity crafted by the sorcerer to the west.
This time, I can tell that it is sensitive to magic. Better."
"Relax, relax," said Ongus as he cracked his neck and looked around. He picked up a decently sized rock, palming it in his wide hand. "Yes, this ought to do. Y'know, one of the reasons I came here was cause' I was kinda curious.
I've blown off a lotta faerie and elf heads with my throws. Pretty proud of my throwing arm myself.
Always wanted to know: how do Terran creatures stack up?"
Ongus cupped the rock in both of his furred hands and then drew it far back, his long, lanky arms stretching almost impossibly far behind him as he drove a foot forwards into the dirt.
"No, do not alert it until we have more forces!" said Hrunt, but it was too late.
Green light surged into the rock, and then Ongus threw it. A sonic crack boomed from the throw, driving back a cloud of dirt and loose foliage.
Hrunt squinted his eyes as the stone sailed far into the forest, pinging off several tree trunks until-
Hrunt looked at the ice ball.
The stone smashed against the monster, but it remained largely unharmed, only taking a mere chip of damage to its horn.
Then, the monster moved. Fast. Towards their general location.
"Wow," said Ongus with another whistle. He picked up another rock, infusing it once more with magical energy that shone green. "I ought to wind up for this one."
He rotated his throwing arm, and each time it rotated, a surge of green energy crackled around him, intensifying with each rotation.
After five rotations, he stopped, cupping the rock in his hands. His eyes were glued to the ice ball, looking at the speeding form of the monster as it slithered through the forest at impossibly fast speeds, snaking past tree trunks, angling its body so it used them as cover.
"Hmm. This thing's real fast. Trying to dodge me, too. But I'm too good for that. In Foraoise, the forests are so overgrown that we get a kind of sixth sense in em', let's us see through the trunks and kinda feel for things.
And with the right bit of spin-," Ongus directed the flow of magical energy surging in the rock, the aura of green started to whirl around the stone.
Then, Ongus threw the rock once more, and this time, the force of the throw was massive enough to blow apart the dirt around his feet in a tiny explosion.
Hrunt shielded his eyes from debris as he kept watching the ice ball.
Once more, the glowing green rock shattered against the monster, this time on its arm. An explosion of shattered rock and released magical energy crackled from the point of impact, cracking the monster's white shell.
"And bullseye. But wow, that thing has really, really hard skin," said Ongus. "Thought with five wind ups, I would blow through its arm completely."
"Look, you fool, it is coming to us again!" said Hrunt as he pointed at the creature's speeding form. It had only paused for a mere second after being hit. "It is nearly upon us!"
"Oh, relax. Here, this ought to do it. I'll go for its head again." Ongus picked up another rock, cupped it, then wound it up ten times, charging up a bit less than double the power he had inputted in the last throw. "Goodbye, monster. You were pretty fun to play around with."
Ongus threw the stone, and this time, the blowback of the throw was enough to knock him straight off his feet. He landed on his butt and rubbed his arm. "Whew, haven't had to throw that hard in a long, long time.
So?"
Ongus stared up at the ice ball and even his squinty eyes widened.
The monster had stopped the speeding rock in midair, right before it could impact his head. An aura of purple energy outlined the creature, and that aura extended to the rock, holding it in place.
The monster clicked its mandibles as it analyzed the rock.
Green magical energy from Ongus still lay infused in the rock, spinning in complex angles that let them bounce off from tree trunks and swerve to hit the beast.
The rock floated into the monster's own hands, and it cupped it. A flash of purple energy burst from its hands, infusing into the stone.
"It…it's gonna throw it?" whispered Ongus.
"Take cover!" shouted Hrunt. "I cannot cast more than one spell at a time. We must move!"
"No, no, relax," said Ongus as he stood up. Though his voice seemed ever calm, his steps drew him towards the ice ball, his eyes utterly glued to the image projected on it. "There's no way, right? That thing's still what, a hundred meters away?
Plenty of trees left in his way.
He doesn't have my senses. He doesn't know how to use my Spin. He hasn't practiced like me.
Come on, there's no way he's going to hit us."
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