I decided not to behave myself during my last two days in Florence, and now I'm bed-bound with a gout flare-up, which is great news for everyone here, because I have time to write. I'll be dropping Farmer chapters randomly over the next few days as I finish writing them, and then I'll go back to my holiday and explore Venice.
Sorry for the delays.
Chapter 40
The Farmer's Pitchfork
Farentine had handed me a war pitchfork and dagger while I was changing into my farming equipment and said she would meet me at Emily's before pushing past me to leap out my bedroom window, which is how I ended up with a goblin stuck on the end of a war pitchfork in a narrow side street of the capital. The leather armour it wore didn't have any form of protection for its throat, and while it was surprisingly fast and agile for a level 25 monster, it couldn't keep up with my attributes. I gave a violent flick of my wrist, sending the goblin flying down the street onto the main road, while the toddler I was holding screamed in my ear.
I'd found him alone on the last street. He was running from one of the red blobs. His mother had leapt on a goblin, strangling it with her dying breath, leaving the boy alive but utterly defenceless. The man I stood over, protecting from the goblin, was named Mort. Mort was in the process of tearing up his shirt to bind the wound on his forearm closed when I placed the distraught toddler beside him. The boy's legs crumbled beneath him as he screamed, screams filled with terror and heartache. The stench of burning flesh choked the air, and there was a burn mark on the nearby wall in the shape of a hobgoblin with its corpse burning beneath.
I needed to keep moving. Experience had already proven that there were more people out here who needed saving, and I couldn't get stuck carrying around a toddler. I snapped my fingers in front of Mort's face to get his attention. I didn't have time to be polite or gentle.
"Take the kid and find somewhere safe," I snapped. "His mother's dead. He needs you to protect him, Mort."
A fireball exploded one street over, causing the burning corpses around us to burn more brightly. Farentine was everywhere and nowhere. The only sign of her involvement was the burning corpses, and they were everywhere.
Mort looked up with tear-strained cheeks. He was dressed like he had money, but he looked like he'd lost everything. He glanced at the toddler, seeing something that mattered, and then his gaze hardened. He'd found a reason to keep going.
"Where do I go?"
His voice was stained by grief, but I didn't have time to ask what had happened.
I turned and pointed. "There's a building with a marksman on the roof on Candle Street. Follow the burning bodies and stay away from corpses like the one over there if you don't want to become a zombie. It's the clearest path you have to safety, but it won't stay open for long. The goblins and hobgoblins keep teleporting in."
Mort realised that he couldn't bind his forearm one-handed and held out his arm. I grabbed the torn material, binding up his wound as best as I could, hoping it slowed the bleeding, while scanning our surroundings.
The city was in chaos. There were goblins, hobgoblins, people who had gone feral, and zombies everywhere I turned. Farentine was taking care of the hobgoblins, moving around me in a fast, wide circle, so I hadn't encountered any yet, but that didn't mean my journey was quick. I couldn't travel down a street without someone needing help.
The fact that the soldiers hadn't arrived yet was concerning. Something much bigger than this chaos was in motion, and I didn't have a clue what it was.
I tied a knot as a feral soldier came tearing around the corner. Time slowed down as my agility kicked in, letting me bind Mort's wound and assess the situation together. Her attributes were obviously higher than average, making her a prime target for charming and turning feral, but not so high that she had the mental resistance mark. She was wearing armour, so this was going to be a problem.
I tied off the knot and picked up the toddler and put him in Mort's arms, before grabbing my war pitchfork. "Get out of here."
Mort leapt to his feet with the toddler, giving me a grateful nod. "Farmer Arnold, I owe you a drink if I survive this mess."
I didn't want anyone to know that I was a champion. I didn't have the right qualifications, so it would cause more trouble than it was worth. People also didn't like it when you didn't have a name right now, because it implied you had gone feral, and most didn't have eyesight as good as mine.
Mort raced off in the opposite direction, following my goblin corpse trail, making sure to stay away from the red blobs sitting on their chests.
I turned and charged the feral soldier, cursing my luck and the hobgoblin's sudden ability to reason. They were charming anyone with high physical attributes, having them kill those around them, turning them into a much more dangerous weapon than if they had targeted people randomly.
The feral woman's teeth had elongated into sharpened points, gaining a second row, and her fingernails had become claws. Her face was covered in bulging blue veins as her heart worked overtime, pushing those attributes to their limits. She was missing her left arm, but the stump was barely bleeding, suggesting she had invested heavily in blessings for her constitution.
The feral woman moved like someone with at least 200 strength, taking large, bounding steps. She wore a breastplate and a chainmail shirt that reached her knees, with a hood that covered her face. She'd likely had a helmet at some point, but had lost it.
Up ahead, a screaming woman threw open the door to a building between us and came dashing out.
"Watch-" I shouted, before seeing the goblin only two steps behind her.
Its blade was covered in fresh blood, and it was in the process of evolving into a hobgoblin, which meant it had already killed someone. Its body glowed with a soft yellow light as it grew taller and stronger.
I transferred my war pitchfork to my right hand and threw in one smooth motion. A few years back, I'd spent a significant amount of time practicing throwing a war pitchfork to prepare for baiting the giant. I'd trained so I could annoy it into chasing me into my giant pitfall trap, but in the end, all the training was for nothing.
Today, I was finding a use for that time I thought I'd wasted. The improvements to my attributes were also turning those months of practise into something that was seriously deadly.
My war pitchfork flew with the speed of an arrow, thrown by someone with over 300 strengths, which meant I could deadlift a sedan. The pitchfork slammed into the goblin's ribs, sending it flying off its feet like a bad guy in a Tarantino film. The woman didn't notice a thing in her mad dash to safety, or as I raced past and grabbed my war pitchfork without slowing.
The goblin's body was firmly embedded on the end of the pitchfork, so I stumbled a step with the sudden weight, pulling the live goblin along with me, before finding a new rhythm. I lifted the war pitchfork with two hands as I jogged into the feral soldier's path and swung as she came closer, using my pitchfork as a goblin hammer.
Strength seemed to have been her main attribute, because despite the weight at the end of my weapon, I was still just as fast as she was. I wasn't as skilled, though. She ducked under my swing, getting hit in the head by the goblin's legs, which knocked her slightly off target as she tackled me.
I let go of the war pitchfork, seeing everything that was happening as if it was in slow motion and planted my feet to take the tackle. High agility was intuitive. It sped you up when you needed it and slowed you down when you didn't. Training with it outside of combat was apparently a real pain, but in combat, it came to you naturally.
As her tackle pushed me backwards, I moved my feet with the force, skipping backwards down the road. My left hand went to her forehead as my right darted down and slid the dagger strapped across the back of my belt free. My left hand yanked her head back with raw strength, exposing her unprotected face, and my right hand brought the dagger up, around, and into her eye, while her claws tore into my left kidney. The tip of the blade punched through the back of her skull, and I gave the dagger a violent twist, hearing bones crack and flesh squelch.
We came to a stop five steps later with her body slumped to the ground, dead. I pushed on her forehead to yank the dagger free, before removing her claws from my kidney.
With my constitution and the health regeneration from my Crown's Champion mark, it was a minor wound. My body barely registered any pain as I wiped the dagger on her trousers and sheathed it. I ran for my war pitchfork, seeing the goblin squirming on the ground as it finished its transform into a hobgoblin. Its beady little eyes glared at me with recognisable hate as it raised its hand towards me.
A bolt of lightning exploded from its fingertip, surprising me completely. The bolt slammed into my chest before I could react, dropping me to my knees and causing a crack like thunder. I blinked away blotted shadows from the flash as my hand moved to my dagger once again. I sent it flying towards the goblin's head as I leapt to my feet a second time, patting out the flames across my chest, and smelling burnt hair and fabric.
The flat of the blade had slammed into its face, stunning it long enough for me to reach its side, grab my war pitchfork, and swing the entire goblin over my head to drive it into the ground headfirst. There was a loud thump and several dull cracks as the hobgoblin's skull and neck broke. I lifted the war pitchfork and smacked it against the ground four more times.
It would have been more, but the hobgoblin's body went flying during my sixth swing. I ran over and shoved the war pitchfork through its skull before racing back to retrieve my dagger, thinking about what had just happened.
The goblin had evolved into a hobgoblin and immediately been able to throw a lightning bolt. That shouldn't have been possible. Hobgoblins didn't have the natural ability to hurl lightning, so they could only do so through spells. They didn't learn how to cast spells by evolving, which meant that the goblin had known how to cast the spell before becoming a hobgoblin.
What the hell was going on?
The woman who had run out of the building was staring at me, breath coming just a little too fast from panic. "You have to help me!"
I scooped up my dagger and pointed the way I'd come. "Follow the dead goblins to Candle Street, but stay on the other side of the road from the bodies and look for the building with the marksman on the roof. Good luck."
I sheathed my dagger, turned, and ran.
Emily was in danger, and Jeric needed me to save her.
***
Farentine appeared in front of the entrance to Emily's mansion as I threw open the gate. She was covered in scorch marks and breathing heavily, which wasn't a good sign. The only drawback to having high strength and agility was that they put more demands on your endurance when you went all out, and Farentine had clearly been going all out. If Farentine had been going all out, then I'd only seen a fraction of what she'd been doing.
Farentine waved her hand before the front doors, and they swung open, revealing an entrance piled with furniture that created a makeshift wall.
Young men and women stood behind the barricade, holding random heavy objects and lining the staircase to provide additional support. They were even on the second floor with larger objects. Sasha and another young woman stood in front of the wall holding the battle axes that normally hung above the dining room's mantel, ready to meet any threat that came inside.
The sounds of fighting could be heard on the upper levels as Farentine disappeared inside, not quite becoming a blur. My agility was now high enough to track her movements. I couldn't keep up, but I could see them. She sidestepped Sasha and the other young women, leapt to the second floor to deal with the enemy within the mansion.
I ran through the open doors and kicked them closed behind me, looking around. At least thirty faces were staring back at me. They weren't the usual mix of young academy faces, and I spotted a few children hiding near the back. There was safety in numbers.
I turned to Sasha.
She was wearing a pair of tan riding trousers, a white blouse, a leather duelling jacket, and comfortable running boots. The woman beside her was looking to her for instructions. Sasha was motioning for her to stand down.
I scanned the crowd a second time but couldn't see Emily anywhere. I turned to Sasha. "Where's Emily?"
Sasha gave me a hard look. "She's out there rounding up our neighbours and defending the city, which is exactly where the two of you should be."
I moved two steps to the right, so I had a stone wall behind me instead of wooden doors. "If I didn't come to get her, Jeric would have. Now, why is she out there?"
Sasha looked at me like she couldn't understand the questions. "Didn't you see the announcement?"
I didn't understand why she would ask me something so obvious. "Why do you think I'm here?"
Sasha scowled and huffed out a breath. "Men."
Women have a tone which men instinctively understand. It's written into our DNA. This tone says, you need to shut up and apologies, because you're in trouble. My problem and most men's problem in this situation was that I didn't know what I'd done wrong.
I began checking my war pitchfork and dagger, making sure nothing had happened to them on the journey over. I still needed to find Emily. "What did I do?"
Her scowl deepened. "You came charging in here looking for a damsel in distress when you should have been worrying about everyone else. Emily is a level 99 noble who controls a village with more spare development points than most major cities have seen in the past century. The moment she saw the announcement, she purchased a Captain's mark for herself and went out there to do her duty, like you should be. She's one of the strongest people in this city, and you have the audacity to come in here to try to rescue her."
When Sasha put it like that, my actions did sound a little insulting. And I was pretty sure saying I hadn't even considered that was the wrong move.
The fact that my mouth had stayed shut long enough for me to realise that had to be because of my heightened wisdom and charisma. Under normal circumstances, I would have put my foot firmly in my mouth.
Farentine jumped from the balcony above, kicked off the wall, and landed beside me. "Like Arnold said. If he hadn't come, her father would have. And he would have got himself killed." Farentine began purchasing swords from the system and tossing them to people. "Do you know where Emily's gone?"
Sasha shook her head. "She's bringing people here from the surrounding buildings. I know which ones she's cleared, but not which one she's currently in."
Farentine grabbed me by the shoulder as I tried to leave. "You need to act wisely, not run off because your emotions are pushing you to act." Farentine turned to the others. "Listen up! Hiding as a group is the most dangerous thing you can do right now. Large groups like yours are being targeted by hobgoblins. The strongest are being charmed and made to kill the weaker to turn feral. I've seen more than a dozen groups like this one slaughtered on my way here. You need to arm yourselves and return to your homes in small groups, with no more than six or seven. Barricade yourself somewhere safe away from windows, stay quiet, and wait for the military to rescue you."
Farentine changed her privacy settings, finally displaying her champion title next to her name. The entire time she spoke, she never stopped tossing swords and shields to people. When people saw her champion title, they didn't question her instructions. Parents grabbed children, and neighbours sorted out who would be leaving together as those who didn't have weapons came forward to get one.
Sasha walked over to me without losing her glare. "You didn't come for me, did you?"
Women have a certain tone which tells men they are in trouble. This is a tone where your life hangs in the balance, and I'd heard it just a moment ago. Sasha's tone right now was apocalyptic.
"No," I said, very carefully. "But in my defence, you told me you were visiting your parents today."
Thank you charisma.
Her gaze didn't soften.
"I don't know where they live."
Her gaze still didn't soften.
"I had to get to Emily to find out where?"
My charisma was working overtime, because I'd completely forgotten about Sasha. In my defence, it had been a hectic fifteen minutes. And I was sure that Emily would have reminded me the moment I saw her.
Sasha's gaze began to soften.
Then Farentine hit her with the truth. "He didn't mention you once before we set out. That's a deal breaker for any long-term relationship."
Sasha's eyes hardened again.
I turned to Farentine. "What was that?"
Farentine had just broken every rule of the bro code. I mean, she wasn't a dude, so she was allowed to break it, but still. She was far too harsh. And honest.
Farentine turned to me. "That was a bit of wisdom from someone who's lived a lot longer than you two have. In times of trouble, people think about those they truly care about first, especially those undergoing an attribute high. This was a test, and you failed it. You two won't last."
"How long did it take him to remember Emily?" Sasha asked.
That was my cue to leave.
I turned for the door. "I'm going to clear the street so everyone can get home safely."
If Farentine was right, and I had little reason to doubt she was, then I had more important things to do right now than talk this out with Sasha. A breakup in the middle of a crisis was one movie cliché I wanted to avoid.
Farentine beat me to the door, opening for me, and muttered quietly. "You'll thank me later."
"Let's skip the drama. Thanks for pointing that out where my true feels lie."