Blood of Liscor: Book 8, page 66
part #8 of Wandering Inn Series
“Redfang! Fight! A Goblin’s pride! A warrior’s right! Redfang! Redfang!”
He stomped. His hand slapped the guitar’s broken base.
“Goblin!”
Rabbiteater swung the shortsword. The two Raskghar battered him. The Goblin shouted the same word.
“Goblin!”
The word vibrated through Headscratcher’s body. He tried to rise. The fury in his veins grew. Numbtongue received a clubbing blow on his arm and screamed. Never again. Headscratcher heard the word.
“Redfang!”
His mind flickered. It went out—and Headscratcher heard the voice from above.
[Warrior Level 20!]
[Conditions Met: Warrior → Berserker Class!]
[Skill – Fury Strength obtained!]
[Skill – Overpowering Blow obtained!]
Numbtongue fell back, the Raskghar grabbing his arms. It bit at his neck. He spat at it, biting back. The Raskghar bit for his throat. Hands dragged its neck back at the last moment.
Again. Never again. Never, never, nevernevernevernever—
A howl emerged. Not from the Raskghar, but from the Goblin who had risen to his feet. Headscratcher grabbed the Raskghar. It grunted in surprise as its feet left the ground. Headscratcher lifted it up.
Never again!
He screamed, and the air shook with his fury and grief. Headscratcher seized the not-Gnoll monster and lifted it. It grunted in surprise as he lifted it over his head and threw the huge beast across the room. It crashed into a wall. The other not-Gnolls looked at Headscratcher. He turned, the veins in his neck and arms bulging. A crazed red light shone from his eyes. He raised his sword and charged the Raskghar, screaming. There was no sanity in him, no thought of self-preservation. Only rage. Only fury and grief. So the world had named him. So he was.
A berserker.
Headscratcher’s sword swung down. One of the Raskghar raised a crude shield. Too weak! Headscratcher’s blow cleaved the shield. His sword cut through a crude hide shield and then bone and skin. Headscratcher whirled and grabbed a mace as it swung towards his head. He threw both weapon and attacker onto the ground and then kicked them across the floor.
The Raskghar snarled and caught Headscratcher’s sword arm, clawing at him as he kept the quivering blade from his throat. Headscratcher forced his sword down, ignoring the claws that pierced his side, the flesh the Raskghar bit from his arm. He battered the Raskghar with his other fist, hitting it again, and again, and again—he hacked down, and the Raskghar screamed. Headscratcher raised his sword and slashed repeatedly, screaming fury.
The third Raskghar scrambled to his feet. He roared at Headscratcher, but before he could move, Rabbiteater charged. The Hob leapt on the back of the Raskghar, and a veil of water descended over the beast’s head. The Raskghar howled and then choked as it inhaled a mouthful of water. It flailed, but the cloak was wrapped around its head, and however much the Raskghar moved, it couldn’t unfasten the liquid cloth. The not-Gnoll jerked as its lungs filled with water and then fell back limply.
“We got one!”
The Horns shouted as a fourth Raskghar fell, wounded by Ksmvr’s sword and pierced with countless shards of ice. The remaining two Raskghar looked around, realized they’d lost, and howled. They pointed, and the four Cave Goblins screamed desperately and attacked the Horns as the two Raskghar fled for the doors. The Horns cut the Cave Goblins down and pursued the Raskghar, but the not-Gnolls disappeared into the water.
“Everyone okay?”
Ceria leaned on an overturned table, gasping with exertion. She saw Yvlon panting, her shield arm bent. Ksmvr was sitting, bleeding from multiple wounds on his body. Pisces was unharmed, but he was covered in sweat. Erin rushed out of the kitchen at last.
“Numbtongue!”
The Hob croaked and waved a hand weakly as she opened a healing potion. He was clutching at his chest, and Rabbiteater had decided to lie down with his hands on his stomach. Erin rushed to both and then saw a shape bending and hacking at a mutilated corpse.
“Headscratcher! Enough! It’s over!”
Headscratcher turned, his eyes wide and wild. He stared at Erin, his bloody sword raised. Then, slowly, the light of fury receded from his eyes. He blinked, stumbled, and only then noticed he was bleeding. Part of his arm was missing. Erin scrambled to pour healing potion on his wounds.
“Erin! Are you okay? Is it safe?”
Lyonette appeared at the head of the stairs, clutching Mrsha. She stared wide-eyed at the bodies. Erin turned.
“It’s okay! But what about Bird? Badarrow? Shorthilt?”
“They’re okay! The Raskghar all ran!”
Lyonette walked downstairs, Mrsha in her arms. She looked around.
“Oh no. Is everyone—?”
“We made it. Somehow. If the Horns and the Redfangs hadn’t run downstairs, I would have been dead.”
Erin helped Headscratcher sit at a table. The Goblin was pale, but he was awake. His head still spun, but now the battle had ended he felt…different. He looked at Rabbiteater, and the other Goblin stared at him. Headscratcher stared at his hands.
The fury. The despair. It all made sense now. He stared around the inn, forever changed. Gone was Headscratcher the Redfang [Warrior]. In his place sat a Goblin [Berserker], full of rage and grief. Stronger. Different. The rage burned in Headscratcher. The helpless fury over losing his friends. But now it was strength. Strength. Headscratcher clenched his fist.
It had been that which saved him. That which saved Rabbiteater. His fury. The emotions he had despaired at. But not just that. He remembered the voice, the sound that had brought him to his feet. Headscratcher looked up.
Numbtongue was clutching at his ribs. The Hob looked tired, wounded, but he was still fussing over something on the ground. The broken guitar.
Numbtongue picked up the base of the guitar and inspected it critically.
“Oh. Your guitar.”
Erin stared at the pieces. Numbtongue offered it to her, and Erin shook her head sadly.
“I’m sorry, Numbtongue. I think it’s broken. We can get a new one.”
The Hobgoblin paused. He looked at the guitar and held the broken handle in place. Two strings had been torn out and the others were slack, but he adjusted the strings and plucked. The guitar sang. Numbtongue played a riff. Erin stared. Headscratcher stared. The Redfang Goblins and the Horns of Hammerad stared. Numbtongue turned and looked around. He smiled.
“Music.”
And Headscratcher laughed. He sat back in the chair, feeling his healing injuries complain at last. But he didn’t care. The pain was nothing. He was alive. Erin was alive. The other Goblins were alive. It was the best of all days. So he sat and Rabbiteater lay down and Numbtongue played on.
One was a [Warrior] with a magic cloak. He had yet to become, yet to evolve. But he would. The other was a [Berserker]. The third was a [Bard].
A Goblin [Bard].
5.35 H
Ceria sat on the floor of The Wandering Inn. The wood beneath her bottom was slick with melted ice water and blood, but she didn’t care. Her arms and both hands, living and skeletal, shook. She was bleeding from a gash down one arm where a Goblin blade had cut her, but she was alright.
The other Horns of Hammerad sat around her. Ceria felt the adrenaline leaving her body slowly. She could still hear horns blaring in the distance from Liscor’s walls. Now that the roar of blood had faded in her ears, she could also make out the pouring of rain overhead, the sounds of Erin tending to the Goblins, Lyonette telling Mrsha to stay put with Apista while she went to help Erin out—
Normal sounds, for a normal life. It stood in contrast to the moments before, where Ceria had stabbed a Cave Goblin through the chest with a dagger and watched it bleed onto her hands. She stared at a motionless body in front of her. A Raskghar lay with its eyes still wide open. Its face was mutilated by a melting [Ice Spike]—Ksmvr’s shortsword had pierced its stomach in three places, and Yvlon’s sword had cut through its right arm. It had still taken far too long to die.
Two Raskghar of the six had escaped. The Cave Goblins were all dead. In contrast, no one in the inn was dead. Not Bird or the Redfang Warriors or the Horns of Hammerad, Erin, Lyonette, Mrsha, or Apista. Ceria wished she could have been proud of that fact, but she wasn’t. She stared at the lone Raskghar her team had felled during the fighting and then looked at the three that had fallen to Numbtongue, Rabbiteater, and Headscratcher. She shook her head and felt the world grey out a bit around her.
“Rot, I’m getting too old for this.”
One of her teammates looked up. Yvlon’s blonde hair was bloodied and damp with sweat.
“You? Too old? Aren’t you sixty years old, Ceria? That makes you twenty in Human years.”
“Something like that. I guess. Sixty’s still old, you know! I’ve been adventuring for nearly a decade. It’s not like I don’t experience each day. Hell, sixty years…if I was an adventurer for that long, I’d probably be retired. Sixty years of anything is way too long. Except if it’s in a half-Elven village.”
The armored Human woman eyed Ceria.
“What makes that different?”
“It’s easier to pass years away there. That’s why you get snotty half-Elf brats who’re forty years old and behave worse than Human teens. I spent forty years of my life in a village. Feels like I only started living once I left.”
“…Huh.”
“Yeah.”
Intelligent conversation was not one of Ceria’s strong suits in the best of times. She rubbed her face, realized she was wiping blood into her skin, and stopped.
“Everyone okay? Anyone hurt?”
“I’m good.”
Yvlon reflexively checked herself and nodded. By her side, Pisces raised his head. The [Necromancer] was unharmed but covered in sweat from casting a dozen spells in the course of minutes.
“I am unharmed. I would like a mana potion, though.”
“Suck it up. Ksmvr?”
“I am bleeding from eight wounds. However, my injuries are mostly superficial. I calculate that I will be able to fight with little impairment to my combat ability for twenty more minutes before blood loss—”
“Healing potion.”
“Yes, Captain Ceria.”
The Antinium rummaged around at his belt and lifted a healing potion. He began to apply it to his wounds, using only a drop of healing potion for each spot. Yvlon sighed.
“Ksmvr, pour it onto your wounds. We can afford more.”
“But rationing it—”
“You are worth more to us than a single healing potion. Pour it.”
“Yes, Yvlon.”
In the silence, the Horns of Hammerad watched Erin at work. She had no compunctions about literally dumping half a healing potion onto Rabbiteater’s wounds before making the Goblin drink the rest. Pisces sat up, pale-faced, and Ceria almost relented and told him to take a mana potion. But those were expensive, and if they weren’t fighting, it did make sense for him to hold back. Pisces seemed to think so, because he didn’t keep complaining. Instead, he looked at the dead bodies and sniffed.
“So. Those were Raskghar. I quite object to their characterization by Gemhammer and The Pride of Kelia. Those were not moderate threats.”
“No kidding.”
Ceria stared at the Raskghar. She glanced at the three the Redfangs had killed.
“How many did Gemhammer say they got?”
“Two dozen?”
“Tree shit they did. Six of them nearly took out our team and three Hobs. We outnumbered them and they nearly tore us to ribbons!”
“In point of fact, they outnumbered us if you count the little Goblins.”
“They don’t count, Ksmvr.”
“Ah.”
“Didn’t I hear that the Raskghar get stronger at weird times? Like during the full moon?”
All the Horns of Hammerad looked towards the windows. Ceria craned her head, peering through the rain splattering against the glass.
“It’s a cloudy night. Who the heck could tell if one of the moons is full or not?”
Pisces wiped his sweaty forehead on his pristine white robes.
“I would surmise that at least one moon is full. Possibly both, although that is a rare occasion. Perhaps the effect of these full moons would be amplified or doubled on such a day?”
“Don’t even joke about that, Pisces.”
“Who said I was?”
The Horns sat, contemplating that thought. It wasn’t nurturing by any means. They were too tired to move—they watched Erin tend to the Redfang Warriors with Lyonette, then rush upstairs. After a moment, one of the healed Redfang Warriors sat up. Headscratcher looked muzzy. He might have had a concussion, but he still wobbled upright and lurched past the Horns. They stared at him as he and the other two Goblins practically dragged themselves to the door.
“What’re they doing?”
“I think they’re…guarding?”
The Redfang Hobs stationed themselves at the door. Headscratcher pointed, and Rabbiteater and Numbtongue heaved a table in front of it. The Horns stared at them and then looked at each other.
“Damnit.”
“We should do that.”
No one wanted to move, but suddenly the aftermath of battle felt a lot less safe. Ceria cursed inwardly at her own stupidity as she forced herself to her feet. The Raskghar could come back! With reinforcements! Was she a Bronze-rank adventurer or a veteran? The Goblins had clearly remembered. The Horns lurched over.
“We can guard too. We’ll take that side.”
Ceria pointed, and the Hobs nodded. The adventurers and Goblins went to the glass windows. Ceria wanted to stand, but in the end, she found a chair and sat so she could stare out a window with the others. They heard Erin banging around upstairs before she shouted down.
“Bird’s okay! So are Badarrow and Shorthilt! Lyonette, can you get me more arrows from Bird’s room? Then open the door to Octavia’s shop! Grab more potions and some of those exploding bottles if she has any!”
“Got it!”
The Horns listened to Lyonette hurry up the stairs. Yvlon, sitting and rubbing her face with her right hand, looked around.
“Where’s Mrsha…?”
“Over there.”
Mrsha was sitting on a table, sniffing the Raskghar with wide eyes. Ceria whistled, and the Gnoll’s head turned.
“Come over here, Mrsha. Don’t get near the dead bodies.”
The Gnoll came over, and Ceria heard a buzzing sound in her right ear. Reflexively, she ducked, and Yvlon leaned back as Apista flew past them like a bee straight out of hell. The Ashfire Bee’s stinger was bloody. She circled once and then flew away from Ksmvr who was looking hungrily at her. Mrsha sat by the Horns, and Apista landed on her head. The Gnoll looked at the adventurers. She wasn’t petrified with fear, but she looked nervous. Ceria tried to smile reassuringly.
“Don’t worry, the bad monsters are gone, Mrsha. If they come back, we’ll chase them away.”
The Gnoll nodded dutifully in a way that said that she didn’t believe Ceria one bit. She had something in her paw. Pisces’ wand. She waved it in the air.
“You’re going to protect us? That’s very brave. But maybe leave the fighting to us, okay? That is a nice wand. Better you have it than Pisces.”
“A hurtful sentiment.”
Yvlon sighed.
“You should take it back. You’d be a better [Mage] with it.”
Pisces shrugged.
“I am used to unarmed spellcasting. Besides which, it is harder to aim a wand in combat. Especially when one attempts to fence with the other hand.”
“Really?”
“Oh, indeed. Why do you think Springwalker shoots [Ice Spikes] with her skeletal hand even though she has a wand?”
“Huh. I never knew that.”
“I never knew that. My master taught me to cast magic with my hands. I thought she was just being strict about it.”
“Fingers are flexible. Wands are not. One can reliably aim spells from the tips of one’s fingers in much more rapid fashion than you would by maneuvering a wand into position each time.”
“So says the self-proclaimed dueling expert of Wistram.”
“If you have any objections or addendums to my theory, Springwalker…”
Ceria did not. The Horns sat in silence for a while. Mrsha edged up to Ceria, and the half-Elf began to scratch her head behind the ears. Apista crawled onto Ceria’s arm and was flung off with a shout of panic. After a while, Pisces spoke.
“That was a magical cloak I saw one of the Hobs using, was it not? A cloak made entirely of water? Only, it now appears to be made of blood. Did anyone else notice that during the battle?”
The Horns looked over. Rabbiteater raised his head, and the blood cloak swirled around his shoulders. Ceria stared at it.
“Huh. It is a magic cloak. From the dungeon?”
“How the hell did the Goblins figure out how it worked?”
“They put it on, duh.”
“Would that not be dangerous? Comrade Pisces assured me that would be dangerous.”
“Oh, highly. They might have discovered the nature of the cloak…or unleashed a possibly dangerous curse spell or other effect. We are fortunate that the inn was not swallowed by a void spell and dragged into a dark netherworld hell, in which we would be tortured endlessly until our demise.”
“Is that so? I will consider myself fortunate, then.”
The Hobs nodded. They seemed to be listening in. Ceria eyed them and then looked at Pisces.
“But we’re not dead. And the cloak’s magical. It’s…some kind of liquid cloak? That changes depending on what it touches?”
“Apparently.”
She stared at him. Yvlon and Ksmvr looked at Pisces too. He raised his head, still looking pale from mana exhaustion.
“What?”
Ceria coughed.
“Don’t you have a big theory on what it does? Some kind of annoying lecture for us?”
“No. Would you like me to come up with one?”
