I haven't been slacking. I need to take prednisone to treat my gout. The problem is that it affects my ADHD and makes me hyperactive, so I went to bed at 2 am and didn't get to sleep until 8 am. I woke up late in the afternoon, so I'm only halfway into my day.My aim is to finish the next chapter today so I can get back to my travels tomorrow. It will tie up the first arch of this sequence, before we go into the second.
Chapter 42
No Good Options.
With my strength, carrying Emily over one shoulder and Sasha over the other wasn't a burden. They didn't even slow me down, but it did mean Farentine needed to stay close, because I couldn't defend myself or them. The four of us raced through the streets without slowing, arriving back at the hotel in a few short minutes.
We passed the building the marksman had been protecting on the way back. The one I'd told a few people to go to for safety. The marksman wasn't on the roof, and the street was surrounded by people who had turned feral. I didn't have time to check if anyone had survived, and I honestly didn't want to.
I'd made my recommendation based on the limited knowledge that I had. At the time, I didn't know big groups became targets, and that there wasn't safety in numbers, so I didn't blame myself. If I hadn't intervened, those people wouldn't have survived long enough to reach the place where they likely died. It might have only been a few more minutes of life, but it was better than nothing.
At least that was what I was telling myself.
I dashed up the staircase, trying to keep my darker thoughts at bay and burst into the suite behind Farentine to find a crowd of people crouching in the sitting room, packed so tight they extended all the way to the hallway. People armed with crossbows stood at every window, taking potshots at the buildings across the street and the road below.
Ranic was holding back a man who'd been guarding the door with him, trying to convince him to look at Farentine's name, before he charged her with his sword. Jeric was calming everyone in the sitting room down. Quilly was absent, but I spotted Mara still passed out in the corner.
I lowered Emily and Sasha to their feet at the edge of the crowd and glanced back at the entrance as Ranic kicked the door closed.
Ranic turned to me as the man, whose name was Linus, finally checked Farentine's name and lowered his sword. "Don't enter any of the other rooms. Quilly has set traps everywhere."
"Where's my guitar?" I asked.
Everything else I owned could be easily replaced, except that.
"It's over by Mara."
I turned to where he had mentioned and saw a girl sitting on the case, and I winced. A part of me wanted me to tell her to get off, but a much bigger part of me realised there wasn't anywhere she could go. The sitting room was nearly overflowing with people.
Jeric paused his reassurance to look over, spotted Emily, smiled, and offered me a grateful nod. I returned the nod, not needing anymore recognition. We were friends. He didn't need to thank me for this. He had my back, and I had his. Jeric turned back to the crowd to keep them calm and prevent them from spreading out and closing the narrow paths they were maintaining for defence.
Emily spotted her father, smiled, and then turned to Ranic. "I need your weapon. I'll guard the door."
Farentine purchased a sword and shield from the system and tossed it to her, before purchasing another war pitchfork and throwing it to me.
I caught the weapon and raised an eyebrow. "I didn't get a chance to ask before, but why can you buy war pitchforks?"
They weren't exactly common.
Farentine didn't look over as she replied to too busy arming more of the newcomers. "You're the first person I've met who can use one more effectively than anything else, which made me realise I'd overlooked several situations I could prepare for. After your assessment, I went ahead and had blueprints made for all sorts of items that, while unlikely to help, could potentially change the outcome of a situation if they found their way in the right hands."
"Do you have a mithril crossbow by any chance?"
"I can't purchase enchanted weapons from the system, so a mithril crossbow is practically useless if I'm the one purchasing. This will work for now." Farentine held out her hand, and the most elegant crossbow I'd ever seen appeared in it. The only problem was that it was five feet long and looked like the sort of thing you used to hunt elephants. "This is a hunter's heavy crossbow. It's specially designed for large monsters, so you're going to struggle with the draw weight, but the actual weight shouldn't be a problem."
I took the massive crossbow from her, noticing that she was right about the weight. It was incredibly long, but its weight didn't bother me.
Farentine placed a quiver filled with bolts designed for a crossbow of its size on the ground next to me. "Go to the window and practice."
"We need to move?"
Farentine looked over and raised an eyebrow. "Where would we go?"
"Torvac doesn't live too far from here. His home is one of the safest places in the capital."
Farentine shook her head. "We could get there without trouble, but this group will be a walking target. You'll lose most of them, if not all of them, on the way."
"Staying doesn't seem much safer?"
"The fact that this place hasn't been targeted yet tells me the hobgoblins are weary of dealing with heavily armed groups. Our best option is to reinforce our position and wait for Salem to make his move. That means you should use this time to practice using that crossbow."
Every instinct I had told me to keep moving, but Farentine had more experience than I did. I wasn't foolish enough to ignore that. I scooped up the quiver of bolts and headed for the window in the middle of the wall. The elderly woman named Elanor, standing there with a crossbow, stepped aside the moment she noticed what I was carrying.
I stepped up to the window and froze.
The city was burning. I'd known that while I was out there, but I hadn't realised how extensive the damage was. There was thick black smoke in all directions, making it difficult to see anything in the distance. The barrier was still in place, making escape impossible and causing a choking cloud to form above the city.
We were little more than fish in a barrel.
If nothing changed, we would all suffocate.
In the distance, I spotted people fleeing goblins, feral people, and zombies and decided to get to work.
I tried to draw the string with one hand, expecting my strength to be enough, but failed to make it reach halfway. The string bit into my skin, not cutting it, but leaving a red mark that warned me I was messing with something I shouldn't. My skin and flesh had hardened like thick leather after my strength increased, so the ugly red mark was a good reminder that I wasn't invincible.
"There's a knack to it," Elenor whispered. "My grandfather used to have one of those. He said you needed to pull it back fast and steady. Show it a moment of hesitation, and it will make you regret picking it up." She held out her crossbow, removed the bolt, and then lowered it to the ground, placing her foot into the foot stirrup. Then she wrapped all four fingers and her thumb around the string with both hands. "Hold it like this and use your entire body." She leaned back, lifting with her legs and pulling with her back at the same time.
Her crossbow clicked as the string locked into place.
I slide my foot into the foot stirrup, copied her grip, and handholds, and then pulled with everything I had. The sting fought me the entire way, but I heard a click.
I turned and nodded. "Thanks for the advice."
Elenor smiled back, losing years from her weathered features. "My grandfather was a hunter. He managed to become a merchant, but his passion was always for his original class. He taught me everything he knew despite knowing I wouldn't follow in his footsteps."
"I bet you're grateful."
She gave a slightly manic chuckle. "I am today."
I loaded a crossbow bolt, lifted the crossbow to my shoulder and looked outside. Farentine was dashing out of a building as several people chased after her. She went one way, and the rest ran towards our building.
I hadn't noticed she'd left.
I scanned the windows across the street and spotted a hobgoblin step up to a window and stare down at the crowd. I shifted my aim, checked what surrounded it, and pulled the trigger. The crossbow kicked like a mull knocking me back a step, causing a whump so loud it made everyone jump, and one of the other crossbow wielders pulled their trigger prematurely.
I didn't hear the window shatter across the street, but I saw the hobgoblin's head vanish in a pink explosion, as the barrier it had summoned failed to mitigate the force it had been hit with.
"I've been watching that window since I took this position, and I would have sworn it was empty," Elenor said. "Do you think it was waiting for the right target?"
My perception had accelerated the moment the hobgoblin appeared, so I'd reloaded and fired three more times by the time Elenor had finished asking her question. Hobgoblins were appearing in other windows, thankfully I wasn't the only one watching. Crossbow bolts fired from the surrounding windows as everyone did what they could to kill or distract the hobgoblins.
Farentine heard my rapid fire, raced back towards us, saw the threat in the windows, and disappeared into the second building to clear the threats she'd missed. I kept firing until my quiver only had a single bolt left, but after the fifth shot, the hobgoblins were using stronger barriers.
The building across the street suddenly exploded, going up in flames and rattling the windows. Farentine was nowhere near the building, which was useful information, because the explosion occurred right as one of the hobgoblins took a crossbow bolt to the eye.
I tried to figure out what was different about the hobgoblin as I stepped back and let Elenor take my place. I realised that the difference was that it wasn't wearing leather armour. It hadn't evolved like the others. It had arrived in the capital as a hobgoblin.
Was this why there had been so many goblin attacks on villages over the years? Was the demon lord building an army of hobgoblin wizards? Was that why only goblins were running through the streets? Were they trying to evolve for some larger plan? Was that why so many of the hobgoblins were fortifying buildings?
Elenor caught my wrist as I tried to leave and handed me her crossbow. "You can do more with this than I can."
I hesitated, but she was right.
I put my crossbow down, accepted hers, and got to work, trying to figure out what was going on.
***
Over the next fifteen minutes, I managed to piece together some of what was going on based on what I saw and what Salem mentioned. The goblins were definitely killing people to evolve into hobgoblins, which likely explained why so many villages had been massacred over the past few years. The parasites that controlled the goblins were just as intelligent and capable as the ones controlling the hobgoblin, but they lacked a physical form, which allowed them to manipulate and wield mana, making the evolutions necessary. These evolutions made them far more dangerous to the average citizen, but also less of an immediate threat.
Killing a human ensured a goblin evolved into a hobgoblin, so they couldn't slaughter everyone without preventing their brethren from evolving. The first waves of attacks seemed to have been designed purely to sow chaos and stop groups like ours from forming. Groups that did form were then targeted by the hobgoblins to fuel the chaos and scatter our defence to allow the goblins more of a chance to evolve.
However, groups that were too fortified were left alone
Whatever they had planned required magic.
A lot of magic.
And they couldn't waste those who could use it.
I still didn't know why the hobgoblins were gathering and reinforcing buildings, but I had figured out why buildings exploded when their hobgoblin leaders were killed. A hobgoblin could only reach level 50. Even with magic, they weren't an overwhelming threat to powerful enough warriors, so a dead man switch made sense. If you were all going to die anyway, you might as well take the other guy with you. This removed a threat from the board and strengthened their control over the city.
A goblin came racing out the front door of the building down the street and squeezed the trigger. I didn't notice the kick from the crossbow as the bolt left, or wait to see if I'd hit my target before reloading. There would be another threat. Another target to shoot. And I needed to be ready.
Salem's voice filled my head as I raised the crossbow. "I've figured out why the demon lord chose today to make its move."
"Based on your tone, I assume it's not because all the kings were in one place?"
"No. Having so many champions in one place puts it at a significant disadvantage under normal circumstances."
"Why aren't these circumstances normal?"
"Because the system just unlocked a very useful material."
Oh, shit. Was this my fault?
"You're talking about the gemstone from my quarry."
"I am."
"Why go through all of this because of a gemstone?"
"It has a spell stabilising effect."
"I don't know what that means."
"Spells lose integrity when you try to enlarge the area of effect or the number of targets. This causes the spell to cost significantly more mana to achieve the results you wish. The gemstone from your quarry stabilises this process. It allows you to cast spells that cover much larger areas or influence far more targets without needing to expend more mana. It's so effective at stabilising a larger area of effects that the mana cost for many regular spells is greatly reduced."
I glance up, seeing the barrier. "So, we need to find the gemstone to destroy the barrier."
"If only it were that simple. I've encountered five of these gemstones, each one identical to the others. The demon lord has already acquired the gemstone, sold it to the system, and purchased more. The hobgoblins are using them to create a confusion field around the palace to hold the army and champions in place. Any that enter the confusion field are targeted by charm spells."
I wasn't really getting what he was implying. "I'm not following. Why attack today? Why not wait until we have our forces divided?"
"This gemstone is more deadly in my possession than in any other being's possession on this planet. My enemy couldn't risk me getting my hands on it before it did, or not having an army powerful enough to throw at me if I did. It plans to charm humanity's champions and use them as a sword to remove me from this reality."
"Wait, all of this is just to take you down!"
"Yes, Arnold. And it will succeed if you don't help me."
I swallowed. "What do you need me to do?"
"I've enchanted four of the gemstones to act as keys. When the demon lord perishes, they will open four gaps in the barriers where the city's gates lie. These gaps will not close, and the barrier that covers the city will not disappear, and you don't want it to disappear."
"Why don't I want the barrier to disappear?"
"This city is a dungeon, and the monsters are not trapped here like they are in other dungeons. They can roam freely. The demon lord is manipulating the failsafe to bring in its forces, which is good, because if it hadn't, the city would already have fallen."
"Okay, four ways out. Each one needs to be guarded so the threats inside the city don't spread. What else do I need to know?"
"Its ability to bring in its forces is tied to its existence, so the moment it perishes, the natural function of the dungeon will take over."
Oh, shit. "So, the moment big bad goes down, there's going to be an entire city trapped in a dungeon spewing out monsters to protect itself."
"It's better than the alternative."
"What's the alternative?"
"The hobgoblins finish gathering the strength they need to charm all eleven kings, their champions, and their armies, and proceed to enslave humanity and the other races until they can take the next step."
"What's the next step?"
"The system won't allow me to tell you."
"Is there any good news?"
"The good news is I figured out their plan before they could complete it. The bad news is it won't stop this from being a disaster."
"Okay, so you kill the big bad. The gates open. Then everyone runs for it."
"No. Crown's Champion Arnold, under my authority as the deputy headmaster of the wizard's academy, I am calling you to serve Radian. You and Champion Farentine need to go to the gates. Radian's most powerful warriors are gathered outside, responding to the king's announcement. The two of you need to be ready to inform them of what's happening, so they know what they're charging into when they come in. Otherwise, even more people will perish."
The way he spoke my name and title triggered the influence it had over me. My shoulders stiffened, and I stepped back from the window, handing the crossbow to Elanor before retrieving mine and the last bolt.
"Champion Farentine and I will be ready to inform the reinforcements, Deputy Headmaster Alistrin. We will warn them about the hobgoblins and the dungeon, so they can come charging in here to free those trapped in the palace, to allow the survivors to escape."
"I'm sorry for doing this to you, Arnold. If there were any other way, I want you to know I would take it. Now, please inform Farentine of what I told you and then tell me when you're at the western gate."
"I'm on my way."