Dialysis Book: Revision Chapter 32:  The bridge

Interlude: The Invasion of Dominus

The bells rang and the King did pause, looking up from the map where his few remaining able agents and he prepared to storm the System Lord’s tower.  Her machinations needed to be stopped, and even if it killed him this night, he would stop them.  

But the bells…

“Quay, what is happening,” said Rogen.  

“There appears to be a goblin incursion into the city, my King,” replied the spymaster cautiously.

“There is no time for such distractions, have the bridge pulled.  The army can handle them for a night,” said Rogen.

“The bridge will not retract,” replied Quay.  “Lady Sylanada is requesting additional forces.”

“My daughter is supposed to be here,” said the King, his golden eyes blazing.  “The System Lord has been a thorn in my side for too long.”

“The duty assed to her by you, my King, centuries ago was to protect the bridge and fortress,” said Quay seriously.  “They are being compromised.  Your kingdom is threatened.”

“By goblins,” said Rogen callously.  “No, my people can handle a few goblins without me.  I must deal with Domagal, once and for all.”

Quay inhaled, preparing to speak but he looked into the golden eyes of his ruler and the words failed him.  He instead nodded, whispering, “Yes, my King.”

Chapter 32:  The bridge

“No support,” mouthed Lady Sylanada as she looked onto the mass of goblins covering the entire bridge.  “Elves can handle a few goblins?”  She shook her head, there were warrens of goblins coming towards her measly defenders.  She had asked for mobile forces in case of issues with the bridge, in fact she had asked for more soldiers earlier today but was informed that everything was tight due to the troubles.

Her father’s stupid fight with mom.

Lady Sylanada tried to calm herself.  She’d put out a call for every able bodied elf to aid her, but she doubted that would be enough.  She might have the strength of the elves, but  needed a whole army, and that she didn’t have.  

***

“How long do you think the bridge is going to hold,” I pondered, needing the distraction.  

“Seriously,” yelled Gloria as she hit the curb, causing the entire wagon to shake before we darted down a footpath.  “I don’t know, as long as the King’s agents can hold it.”

“Most of them are injured,” I replied, holding out my glowing hands as we landed in the garden and kept on going.  Dozens of eyes shone with reflections of the light and started to follow the birdie.  

“That will complicate things,” yelled Gloria as she turned a corner and I looked over my shoulder.

“The injured agents or the lack of a path,” I asked.

“Both,” she replied, gunning her bird to higher speed as we leapt over the gap in footpaths and landed on the other side with enough force that one of my feet came off the birdie.

That shouldn’t have been possible.

I examined my foot, then shook off the wooden panel and found another spot to stand.  The force of the impact plus my magical boots had caused a chunk of the wood paneling that surrounded the metal cage to come free.

“You are paying for that,” said Gloria.

“They are going to destroy your city and you can’t get out,” I said.

Gloria said nothing, but whipped her bird twice until we found another garden, “I’m still charging you.”

“I thought the guild was paying for this,” I said as we turned another corner, racing against the wall briefly before slamming down on another footpath.  I spotted an elegant stand of bonsai trees that had been carefully prepared over centuries into works of art.

Gloria smashed through all of them with her big bird, and if that didn’t kill them the herd behind us did.  

“This is not a sanctioned mission, and that means YOU are responsible for damages,” said Gloria.  

“That’s my alcohol money,” I grumbled as we leapt over a fountain and through another mass of brilliant blue flowers, that were promptly trampled to mulch.  

“You are looking at four gold right now, and it's going to get more expensive,” said Gloria.

“Oh no, whatever will I do.”

“You will pay me by the goddess’s perky rump,” growled Gloria.    

The elven city was built like the goddess’s rear end, meaning that it was not flat.  Curvy, perhaps.  Also spectacular.  The various gardens were all exposed to air, but they varied in height significantly though the closer to the river you got the lower they were in general.  We’d started in the highborn district, which was unsurprisingly among the highest parts of town.  We were now getting closer to the river, and not even drop off was even.

So when we left Valnaquas Garden, which had been a beautiful garden of various wild flowers before we’d arrived, the drop off to the Doitch Garden was significant.  In this case, significant was about thirty feet.  

Gloria landed her buggy on top of a produce stand.

“My cabbages!”

I picked the leaves off of my face as we ground through produce, “You figure he’d be closed now?”

“Spry for an old guy, didn’t think he’d make it,” said Gloria as the herd started leaping down.  The ostridges had very limited flight, but mainly were just solid enough to land a thirty foot drop.  The reindeer didn’t even care.  Gloria looked around and whipped us back up to speed.

“We need to hit a few more gardens,” I said as we continued.  I felt a slight wobble in the birdie.

“We have a problem,” yelled Gloria as the wagon wobbled.  

“I know,” I said looking over.  The right wheel was cracked, the metal ring that protected it having been torn free at some point.  “It will have to hold.”

Gloria found us a path to the road and we finally emerged into the dark, empty road for the first time since our garden exploits.  Behind us, I’d gathered up every off duty reindeer and ostrich I could find and used my light based powers to have them follow us.  

I just hoped it would work.

***

Lady Sylanada flung another double handful of essence daggers into the onrushing swarm of goblins.  Most died, but not all.  She was growing far too tired to keep this up much longer.  At least some had slipped through, the first wave had been terrible.

She’d stood with several of her old friends from the days with the adventuring guild.  They pulled back, injured worse than when the fight started.  Fighting as an agent had dulled her skills in fighting monsters, not much but she needed every edge here.

In the past, before her Fathers quest to kill the System Lord became all consuming, Mark, Gulwing and her had been a fine team, storming warrens and keeping goblins out of Dominus.  Then she’d become an agent, fighting for her father.  It was the logical kind of promotion that she’d been seeking out for a while, but she missed the old days.  

A dozen bugbears slammed into the front line of the army, pushing it back in a chaotic mass of green energy.  One of her soldiers vomited so harshly that she was positive his stomach had fallen out, not that it mattered.  A hobgoblin decapitated the youth, who couldn’t have been older than a century.  

For a few painful minutes she thought the entire line would collapse, but the bugbears were pushed back at great cost.  At least she thought they were pushed back, she had too many other targets to deal with.  

They weren’t even on the bridge anymore, having been pushed back into the ancient plaza where the guard was to be sent.  She had called for additional forces and received a large group of drunken hooligans.  When the goblins broke through here, they would have full access to the city and there was nothing she could do to stop them.  Already the goblins were slipping through at the edges.  

Only a handful here and there, but it would be enough.  There would be a warren in the city by next week if they were not careful.  All the might of the elves focused to this point was not enough and despair clawed at her.  Every bit of elven traditionalism in her clashing with the knowledge that the city was lost despite everything elves could manage.  

Suddenly bolts of lighting smashed into the advancing goblins and a familiar presence was at her side.  

“Certainly, my old friend isn’t giving up already,” said a strong voice.

Sylanada glanced over, Gulwing stood with his twin swords at the ready.  Behind him was the entire adventuring guild, each standing tall.  The elves she expected, but there were dwarves, halfings, gnomes and a strange looking cat girl that didn’t look cute at all.

“Talk about wrecking your illusions,” grumbled Sylanada.

“I brought the whole guild with me,” said Mark, the Wizard.  

“But you aren’t all elves,” she said plaintively.  

A dwarf looked at her and spit, “We live here too.  We aren’t going to let the city fall without a fight.”

Qualus stared at the horde of monsters, “My friend Max told me to get everyone who was willing to fight, so I asked everyone.”

A halfling, several identical halflings actually all said in unison, “And fighting monsters is what we do.”

Behind the adventurers were dozens of non-elves bolstering the line.  There were two centaurs armed with longbows and spears.  Dozens of gnomes, orcs, halfings, dwarves and humans all ready to back up her line.  An army of elves and non-elves fighting together.  

Lady Sylanada saluted each of them.  If the city held it would not be through the strength of elves alone, it would be through the strength of the city.  

***

I was moving slowly due to a combination of 2 factors.  The first was that I was being careful to ensure my herd was following and also because Gloria’s wagon couldn’t go more than five miles an hour anymore.

“You owe me so much gold,” said the gnome to me standing on top of the slowly moving buggy.  She didn’t have to yell anymore, we weren’t going that fast.    

“It's not that bad,” I offered.

“The axle is bent,” she replied.  “I’m going to have to get a new one turned.  Do you know how expensive a heavy axel is?”  

“Like five gold?”

“More like 10,” replied the gnome.  I did not have a good idea of how money worked here as an adventurer.  I had several hundred gold pieces on me that I considered my beer money.  I did know I could pay her for the cart, and that was the important thing.

Assuming we lived.  

We stopped at the top of the rise that led down to the bridge.  It was just a slightly elevated roadway, and looking down you could see the desperate battle in the square.  I could see the difference between the adventurers and the army fighting instantly.

The army fought in a line, swords and shield prepared and were using a shield wall and their blades to slowly push the army back with the handful of kings agents they still had in the fight cutting in for powerful attacks.  It was effective, but the goblins were working to minimize the threat.  

Arrows from every nearby building were firing into the mass, but elven arrows were works of art and there were countless goblins.  Most archers only carried a hundred arrows at most, and those supplies were rapidly running out.  

The goblins attacked them in loose waves, accepting horrific casualties to occasionally bring an elf down.  Once one of the agents, exhausted and wounded, slipped and was set upon by goblins before he could get back behind the line.  Despite everything, the army was unable to get to him before it was too late.  

Each moment of battle pushed the army back ever so slightly, and they were at terrible risk of being flanked save for the formations of adventures on either side of the line.  The adventures gathered up in five man parties built for monster hunting and smashed everything that got close.  

Goblins overran adventurer formations, but it didn’t matter.  They didn’t have a flank, or a rear.  They just had different angles of attack and they were killing goblins by the score.  Madox just stood there, swinging around his burning two handed sword and killing any goblin that came remotely close to him.  I watched Misel use him as a wall, forcing the goblins to run around him to reach the army while she attacked them relentlessly with Fizzy’s help.

The only time I saw Madox move is when the army was pushed back, and that was only to square up with their line and possibly move away from the piles of corpses around him.

Likewise, Quatax was using his own sword to cleave waves of goblins apart as Hurkle and a second elf stood back filling goblins with arrows from their inexhaustible quivers while Farkle and Zorg cast spells to support their champion.  

Not that it mattered.  They must have killed a thousand goblins, and still more were coming.  The entire bridge was full of the rampaging mass of goblin flesh, enough to burn and destroy the whole city a dozen times over.  

And all I was up here doing was bringing in traffic.  This was a dumb plan, and I’d been stupid for trying it.  People were dying down there, and I was up here gathering useless.

“Max, your essence is low,” said Spivy.

I grabbed a potion and drank it.  I was not used to keeping my light active this long and it was starting to become draining like holding your arm straight out for twenty minutes.  

“I upgraded my light spell,” I said, generating a point of light several feet over my head.

“Light charm, a spell would be more versatile,” said Spivy.  “Good call, it is a bit more essence intensive obviously.”  

“Thanks Coach.  Are you in position,” I said looking around.  I could sense that Shade was close, but I couldn’t see him.  

“We are here Chum, I am drinking my good boy potions and keeping the wagon hidden like you said,” replied Shade.  I looked over where his voice was coming from and spotted an odd shadow.  It wasn’t quite invisible like Shade normally was, but it was much harder to see than normal and with the sun down the wagon was close enough to invisible as to not matter.

“Get ready,” said Spivy.  “That line isn’t going to hold for much longer.”

I looked down at Gloria, “I need to borrow your bird.”

“There is no way I’m going to lend you Pecker,” said Gloria.  “I’d feel useless without him.”

“Well, I need to ride your Pecker into the field of battle to stop that horde of goblins,” I said thoughfully,  “But I guess we could ride in the wagon.”

She tossed up the reins and used a grappling contraption to lift herself to a nearby bridge.  “Good luck.  I’ll miss you.”

“Thanks,” I yelled.

“I was talking about my Pecker!”

I sighed.

“Here, take some meth,” said Gloria, tossing down several pills.

“For me, or Pecker,” I asked.

“I usually do both,” said Gloria before she saluted and ran off the bridge.  

I patted Pecker on the side, he made an odd noise akin to a jet engine with turbine problems.  I swallowed.  

“You are always worried about your pecker,” said Spivy.

“Not as much as Shade,” I offered.

“I need to keep it clean,” replied my dog.  

I heard licking and Spivy groaned, “Not now.”

“No, Now,” I said as I hopped onto the methed out ostrich’s back and the elven line finally broke.  The adventures began rapidly pulling back, with an impressive magical display blocking the goblins from overrunning the remaining elf defenders.  

I kicked Pecker’s flanks, which caused him to snort and try to throw me off.  He was not trained to be ridden but I had a better idea.  I flashed a giant blue light onto the tip of his beak.

That was enough, and Pecker instantly dashed down the hill towards the teeming masses of goblins with all of the reindeer I could find behind him.  Unbidden, I felt a song.  

You know Dasher, and Smasher, and Crusher, and Rip’s them, 

You know Kill’em, and Tear’em, and Dommer and Blitzed out,

But do you recall, the most methed out ostrich of all?

Pecker, the blue beaked ostridge, had some very bloody feet.

And if you ever saw them, your last words would be ‘that’s neat’

All of the other reindeer, used to tell him he was mad,

But when he wasn’t methed out, he would just get really sad.

Then one sorry Convergence night, Heywood came to say,

Pecker with your veins so red, let's go and kill those goblins dead.

Oh how the goblins hated him,

As he smashed their heads with glee

Pecker, the methed out ostrich,

Please get help, to you from me!  

***

The line broke, shattered really, and Sylanada threw everything into one last attack desperate to get any of her people out.  Not just her people, everyone  One of her daggers carved through a mass of goblins that were going to kill several elves, but another slammed into the skull of a goblin that was standing over a fallen gnome.  

Her father would have complained about the wasted dagger, but she was beyond that.  

The city had rallied everything it had on short notice, but the goblins were masters of attrition based combat.  You could not break them.  Just when she thought they’d be forced to rout, a relief force composed entirely of non-elves had run in lead by a pair of centaurs.  That had bought them a few more precious moments, but it still wasn’t enough.  

She needed an army, and none had materialized.  Quatax was convinced Max, the sprig, would sent her whatever he could and Quatax told her with certainty that he would be here when they needed him, but Max didn’t show up.  She had pinned her hopes on that human for no reason other than she needed someone to pin her hopes to, but still she looked at the endless wave of goblins.  

What she really needed was that alchemical tanker of stamina potion and some means to get it over the main spar of the bridge.  

There were so many goblins that the ground was shaking like rush hour before a holiday as everyone ran home, a place she’d never see again.  Then Lady Slyanada saw a blue beaked Ostrich as it ran past her towards the mass of goblins with Max on his back with a bright blue light signaling go glowing over his head.  The goblins, who had been marching forward heedless of casualties started to scream.  Ones nearest to the edge of the bridge simply jumped off.

Her forces had nearly escaped the square, but a few of them started glowing yellow, the color of avoidance?  The adventures were likewise formed up but they too glowed a faint yellow, until she saw Mark, the Wizard, waving around his hands and every survivor including herself was suddenly glowing bright yellow.

And not a moment too soon.  

Sylanada realized she was in the middle of rush hour.  She was too exhausted to teleport that instant, not that it mattered.  With the yellow light, the well trained reindeer and ostridges ran right past her, not even slowing a little.

The goblins were not so colored, and their little spears were not well suited to stopping a massed charge.  They had no expectation of a charge.  Elves famously didn’t use cavalry, so why would they?  The reindeer, bloody minded to a … deer, hammered through their front ranks and just kept right on running.  Occasionally, a reindeer would go down but those were rare.  They simply trampled every goblin on the bridge in their genocidal desire to get somewhere on time.  

She could use that.  It would give her a few minutes at most to come up with a plan, but it would still take a miracle for Dominus to survive when Sylanada heard a doat howl.  He was standing on top of an object covered in shadow.  As it got to the yellow light, the shadows burned away revealing the tanker of alchemical potions to free the bridge.

And it was being driven by the Magical Squirbit.  

***

I lost my Pecker, sometime between the initial charge and when I’d ran over a bugbear.  Pecker was fine, but he’d decided to race around stabbing wounded goblins with his beak while I laid there in a rapidly draining pile of blood and gore.  

Then Shade was next to me, and he bit my arm.

We teleported back to the wagon which was racing through the piles of gore towards the center of the bridge.  Racing was a strong term.  We were advancing forward through terrible road conditions as fast as Spivy could manage which was not as fast as anyone could have hoped.

Further, the goblins were not totally out of the picture.  Sure the wave of reindeer I’d sent charging headlong down the bridge had done wonders in thinning out their numbers, but even if they got 99% of the goblins the 1% was a problem.

The 1% was always a problem.

Thankfully the front of the wagon was safe, the goblins wanted nothing to do with the reindeer and the wheels were too sturdy to seriously damage in the short term.  Unfortunately, that left the goblins with only a few targets and I was one of them.

I extended my spear and started stabbing down while trying to keep my side of the wagon protected with light shields.  Given that I had to keep them close to my spear, that wasn’t very effective but still it was something.

Shade’s powers were basically hiding, and that didn’t work here so when the goblins realized they couldn’t get on the wagon, they found his side to be an easy target.  Shade tried, teleporting down to deal with goblins on more than one occasion but it was not enough.  Sprays of potion shot out of several deep gouges covering the pooch.  

“Trade sides,” yelled Shade

We tried, we really did.  We were most of the way there but at this rate there wouldn’t be enough potion left to do the job.  I used a light barrier to staunch the biggest hole on Shade’s side, but that wasn’t enough to fully stop it.

Suddenly the entire outside of the wagon got very cold.  

“Well, Max, it seems you’ve been busy,” said Mark, the Wizard.

“You can teleport,” I asked.

“No, she can,” said Mark, pointing down at Lady Sylanada who was sprawled on her back on top of the wagon giving me a thumbs up.  “So what’s the plan?”

“We are going to park the wagon on top of the central pile and drop the load all over the pitch holding it in place,” I said.

“That would take a whole… tanker of potion,” said Mark, tapping his heel down.  “Explains why all the essence potions got pulled from every shop earlier tonight.”

“Sorry, didn’t know we were going to get invaded,” said Sylanada.

Mark gestured causing the nearby blood to form up into sheets and run to either side of the wagon.  They weren’t enough to fully protect it, but combined with the frozen armor it was enough.

“Sylanada, can you do anything,” I asked.

“Sorry, I’m out of essence potion,” she said.

“Shade sit on her,” I replied to the elf’s horror.  Shade teleported on top of her and the elf gagged, then sniffed.  

“Namiestay, forgive me,” said Sylanada as she started sucking on the dog's fur.

“This is gross,” said Shade, who tolerated the elf slurping at his back miserably.

“I suggest whatever you want to do, you hurry,” said Mark, the Wizard as four glowing orbs appeared over his head.  A ball of burning fire, an orb of dripping acid, a bubbling sphere of poison, and a small tornado in a ball.  He gestured and all four raced down the bridge, smashing into the reforming ranks of goblins.

Sylanada flung a dagger at a goblin sneaking up on Mark.  The dagger slammed into the creature’s skull and suddenly she was holding the hilt in her hand having teleported next to Mark.  She yanked the blade free and produced a second, holding the twin glowing knives in her hands.  “This is just like that buda quest all over again!”

“You and I remember buda quest quite differently,” said Mark as a massive hawk’s eye appeared behind him, sending out a spray of thin white needles, pinning dozens of goblin’s shadows in place, leaving their bodies immobilized.  Sylanada flung both daggers which flew off in different directions and the daggers flew through the pinned goblins, burning and killing.  

“They got this,” I said looking back at the wagon.  Now that we were in position, the wagon wasn’t leaking nearly enough for my tastes.  Mark’s freezing magic was enough to stem most of the flow, and the goblins looked angry.

I swung my spear at it, but even with light thrust activated I could only carve out little chips.  The ice was at least an inch or two thick.  It would take longer than I had to carve a useful sized hole.  

“How do we get in,” asked Shade, glancing down to where the elves were fighting.  

“We don’t have any heat to melt it,” I said unhappily.  

“It's not ice, it is mana and essence,” said Spivy as she hopped onto my shoulder.  It wasn’t real ice, it didn’t need heat to melt it.  

“Shade, hit it with your shadow ball,” I said.  

A moment later an orb of shadow energy hit the ice, and the ice cracked.  I activated Light Thrust and drove my spear into the ice, taking out a large flake.  It went from being extremely hard magical ice, to just hard ice.  

“We can manage this,’ I said, “Shade keep hitting it with your balls.”

“I will get my balls all over this thing,” said Shade. 

Spivy sighed, “Rub them everywhere, I want you to dip your balls in this!”

“I’m afraid my balls will get too cold,” yelled Shade.

“Please just stop,” yelled Spivy.  

“She’s no fun,” snorted Shade as he continued ball blasting the wagon.  He was low on essence, but charms were easy to cast so he could keep it up at that pace for a short while.  I didn’t want either of us to run out of essence on this bridge.  

One of the goblins looked outright annoyed with me as he tried to gather up more of his brethren and make a play for the wagon.  After several moments he realized that they were all stuck behind a wall of ice and there was nothing to be done about it.  I relaxed, having a moment to think until he leapt over the wall of ice blocking his friends.

“He’s coming right for us,” said Shade.  

In an eyeblink he drew a dagger and flung it at me.  It impacted my light shield, slowed and clattered to the ground.  The fact that my shield stopped the dagger just an inch away from my left eye was not lost on me.  

“Pity,” said the goblin.  “It would have been cleaner.”

“Spivy, wagon,” I hissed.  

I held my spear towards the goblin, allowing the shields to flick towards the end of it giving them more reach to stop the ranged attacks as I walked closer, the wagon forgotten.   

“Hi, I’m Max, how can I help you?” I said, letting my light shields change color slightly.  The goblin stared at me.

“Greeting Max, I am Chort, chosen of Gol’Nik,” said the goblin warily.  Despite my efforts to steal all his attention, he was still looking around for other attackers hidden on the bridge.  “I need you to stop doing whatever it is you are doing with that wagon.”

“Wagon,” I said as I stepped closer to the goblin.  I was all alone, at least as far as Chort could tell.  The elves might have been busy dealing with a full dozen goblins but Shade went invisible nearby and  Spivy was working on the wagon.  I didn’t need to win this fight, I just needed the wagon to spill.  

“Pretty,” hissed the goblin who looked back at me, “But no, I think this will be much more fun.”  He flung two daggers at me and my light shields blocked both.  The goblin frowned.  

He was almost as accurate as Sylanada with those daggers, and she was terrifyingly so.  That made him only slightly horrifying.  Then again, they were daggers.  That’s basically the same weapon I had, except mine was attached to a stick.  

“Surprised you haven’t tried to kill the elves yet,” I said, trying to buy Spivy more time.

Chort snorted, “I don’t know what your plan is, but I know you’ve figured out that the bridge is stuck down.”

“Really, I hadn’t guessed,” I said, stepping further away from the wagon.  Now Chort’s eyeline couldn’t include both simultaneously.  He knew I was delaying him, but he didn’t have a good solution to the wagon.  He needed the wagon left alone, which meant he needed me away from the wagon.  

He pulled out three steel daggers and threw them all at once as I continued walking towards him.  I only had two shields, and those each blocked a dagger while I tried to swat away the third.  I was partially successful, tapping the dagger slightly and causing it to spin wildly.  The first two daggers stopped, the third smacked into my shoulder and went flying.  

That was a glancing blow, and in your typical rpg it would have done some damage.  Here I was wearing armor, and I could barely feel the dagger bounce off.  

“Two is your limit then,” said the goblin as I got within thirty feet.  

“Try and find out,” I replied, readying myself.  

“Okay, my daggers will come after you until they find a target,” he announced, pulling out four glowing green daggers that looked nothing like the conventional steel daggers he was using before.  Had he started with those, I’d have stayed by the wagon  They looked vicious and vaguely smelled of acid.

As his hand jerked back to throw I activated the flash spell I’d prepared at the end of my spear and charged.  The fundamental difference between a mortal tier and a heroic tier core is what saved Chort.  

Against a mortal tier core, my flash spell absolutely blinded you for several moments.  Enough time for you to miss your attacks while I closed.  Against his stronger heroic core the spell only blinded him for an eyeblink, and after that he could still see though at a reduced capacity.

The four daggers whipped towards me at the same time, two per hand.  Chort was wise enough to throw them in a spread so that my smaller light shields weren’t big enough to stop more than one and the daggers were also curving in the air impossibly as they flew.

In responde, I pulled a Captain America and leapt up trying to get as much of myself behind my shields as possible.  The results were mixed.

My light shields blocked two of the daggers, though instead of arresting them entirely they broke through but were slowed enough to not be an issue.  As both shield shattered they flashed brightly.  The other two daggers were confused by the flashes and one veered off wildly.  The final dagger curved around and slashed into my side carving through my steel armor like it wasn’t there.  

Still, I had essence and I landed on my feet with my fully extended spear between me and the goblin.  I activated laser thrust and Chort dodge blindingly fast, far faster than I’d expected.  I activated quick laser thrust and continued thrusting as I blocked Chort from reaching the wagon.    

With my heroic quickness aspect engaged I could just keep up with the goblin, thrusting several times as he continued darting backwards.  By now, Chort had two more daggers ready and he slashed against my spear shaft with one.  The acid hissed and popped, but did nothing to the heartwood spear shaft.  

A heartbeat later he flung a dagger at my eye causing my shield to block it.  The impact of the dagger rendered the shield opaque for an eyeblink and the goblin was already inside my spear range with his dagger in hand.  My second shield imposed itself even as he drove the second dagger into my thigh.

Pain flared in my leg as the dagger sunk entirely too deeply into my leg.  A moment later the shaft of my spear connected and the smaller goblin went flying.  He flipped in the air and landed on his feet, sneering at me.  

I glanced at my leg.  His heroic strike was more than my shield could fully stop, and the dagger had carved a hole right through and into my leg.  I stumbled back towards the wagon, trying to get enough essence into my leg for it to work.  

Chort grinned, “This was fun, but you have to realize you don’t stand a chance by yourself.”

“I’m just distracting you,” I said as the wagon glugged loudly.  

The goblin’s eyes opened and he looked over at the wagon where Spivy had managed to get the rear plug removed and a thick stream of potion was spilling out.  It was something, but I could tell instantly through alchemy that it wasn’t going to be enough.  Chort didn’t have an Alchemy core though and he reacted poorly.  

“You bastard,” hissed the goblin, summinging up six steel daggers which each flared green with acid.  

“Oh, they were just steel daggers infused with a charm,” I said.

“You are learning,” yelled Spivy as she stabbed the wagon repeatedly with her tiny blade.  Each hole was so small only a spray of potion leaked out.  “If you figure out the other trick and live through the next thirty seconds I’m buying you a cake!”

Other trick?

Then he threw them.  As they whistled towards me,  I realized I could block two, maybe three and my armor was not going to withstand any of them.  I was rightly doomed and the goblin’s attention turned to Spivy.

Which was a problem for him when I appeared behind him, spear already in mid thrust.  Chort realized I teleported the instant it happened, and was already reacting to defend himself versus my thrust.

He didn’t expect Shade, who bit down hard on his leg holding him in position.  I poured as much essence as I could still manage into laser thrust and drove it into his chest.  My laser tipped spear flashed as it drilled into the goblin’s metal chest piece, and had the goblin been armed with a higher tier metal that would have stopped it.

But it was just steel, and my spear drove six full inches into the tiny goblin’s chest.  That was a mortal wound, I got him.  

Then the goblin's hand reached out and grabbed my spear shaft as a look of pure murder came over his face.  Heroics had more essence, and more essence meant that unsurvivable wounds for a mortal adventurer were only difficult for them to survive.  Further, I didn’t have heroic strength, even bonfiring my essence I couldn’t manage anything like the strength the goblin was using as he pushed me back even as Shade gnawed on his leg.  

“I'm going to enjoy this,” hissed Chort tearing my spear from my hand and tossing it aside.  “You don’t have any weapons that can really hurt me.”

I kept moving back until I was pressed up against the wagon.  

“You are right, we don’t,” I agreed as the whistling got louder.  

I realized the trick and nodded at Shade.  Activating my Flash charm, I blasted out the largest, brightest pulse of light I could manage.  The daggers were momentarily blinded, their seeking aspect required some form of magical sight to see me and my spell flash caused blindness.

In that small window I rolled away, leaving the daggers on their final death runs towards the wagon.  They could penetrate straight through, of course that left Chort alive.  I’d die a hero, and that was going to have to be enough.

Except Chort and Shade appeared where I had been pressed up against the wagon.  There was no time to dodge, and Chort looked on in horror as his own daggers found the only targets they could.  All six daggers slammed through Shade, then the goblin.  The dissolving essence potion shot out, reacting with the acid to destroy Chort’s body and a pair of wearable reindeer horns.  

Spivy gasped.  Looking to where Shade had been, a look of profound loss and sadness crossing her face for a moment before she frowned.  I reached up and scratched Shade on his head.

“Poop Ninja Substitution,” said Shade, a little raggedly.  

“Those poor reindeer horns,” I said, "they didn't deserve that.”  

I slumped down, my leg useless.

“Are we resting now, I am very tired,” said Shade, his essence burned out.  

“Good boy,” I said.

“I am the best boy,” said Shade as he stuck out his tongue and panted.  

“Are we going to crash,” I said, pulling essence out of everything else I could manage and shoving it into my leg while I pulled out my last healing potion.  I upended it and the pain in my leg lessened, somewhat.

“You’ll live, might be a little worse for wear but you’ll survive,” said Spivy, wiping a tear from under her eye.  

“Were you going to help,” I asked.

“You didn’t need me,” replied Spivy.  “I’m a helper fairy, not a do everything for you fairy and I knew you could manage it.”  Coach was right.  

“We get the loot,” I asked.

Shade nodded, “And whatever he had on him.  But I think it is time we leave now.”

He was right.  The wagon was leaking monstrously now.  The contents of the potions spilled down, flowing so hard that they were washing away some of the pitch as it made even more of it semi solid.

“Got it,” I yelled, turning to see Mark and Sylanada were surrounded and low on essence.  They had blocked every goblin from reaching us but Chort, and I hated to imagine what we’d done if more had reached us.  Dozens of dead goblins surrounded the pair, and Shade was totally drained.  I snorted.

“What,” asked Spivy, looking around as more goblins started moving towards us.  

“Well, this is the part of the story where we do the thing but they don't know about it back at base so no one knows what to do,” I said.

Spivy glanced over at the pair of elves who were in last stand mode holding off a half dozen bugbears.  “But not you?”

I held up my hand and a massive green ball flickered into existence, the largest I could manage with my remaining essence.  I shot it straight into the air.  “I think they’ll figure it out.”  

Less than a second later the bridge started to stir as the druid tried once again to get the massive vine to retract.  For a terrible, popping second, nothing happened.  I could feel the branch like vine straining, but try as it might the branch could not move.

Then the pitch snapped.  It didn’t go in fits and starts.  One moment the tremendous power of the vine was insufficient and the next the entire thing began to curl up like a fire hose in reverse.    

Which would have been great except I was on the bridge.  The end literally rolled towards me the moment the pitch broke.  There was a brief flash of color next to me and I looked over at Sylanada, trying to teleport to me.  Her essence was too low and the image faded.  We were lifted high into the air as the bridge shifted mightily and the wagon shattered in the coils of wood.   My last view of Mark was as he saluted us sadly before both elves leapt off the side of the bridge.  

“I think he believes you are about to die,” said Spivy as she ran onto my shoulder.  The sides of the bridge lifted first and we were about to be crushed into pulp, so it was a good guess on Mark’s part.  

If Shade had even a bit of essence, we’d have been okay, however my semi-concious dog lay on the ground next to me.  I patted his head and watched the coil approach, knowing that with my leg there was no way to make it to the edge and I was tired.  

We’d won.  We’d saved everyone who could be saved.  She’d have been proud of us.  

Then Shade bit me and suddenly we were at the edge of the bridge looking far down to the water below.  One more teleport and we’d be in the clear, in more ways than one.  Except no teleport came.

I looked down at Shade and scooped him up.  He was trembling, but more importantly than that his formerly depleted essence was partially recovered.   

“Help,” yelled my dog, terrified.

Shade did not like heights, neither did I but I liked being crushed by a vine less so I hugged my dog tight and leapt off with moments to spare.  That just meant I needed to land without splattering myself to bits on the water, while holding my dog.  

“You understand at this height, you are going to splatter, right,” said Spivy.

“You are not helping,” I groaned.  

We were well over two hundred feet up, but I was nominally sure that my light shields would be enough.  Probably.  Maybe.  I wasn’t sure at all, and I had a lot of time to think about it.  We’d been falling for about six seconds now, and I was pretty sure that would have been long enough to hit, but we were only about half way down, and going slower.

I looked at my arm, and realized it was hazy, covered in shadow.  

“Tell me before we die,” whined Shade.  “You are my best friend, I don’t want to splatter like Spivy said.”

I glanced over at Spivy, “Okay, you are being helpful.”

She nodded blearily, then collapsed backwards into my hood.      

I prepared to tell Shade but thought better of it as my feet touched the surface of the water.  Under the effects of Shade’s shadow core, my weight was reduced to about a fifth of what it normally was, and I was 70% water to begin with.  In other words, at 20% of my original mass, I was very buoyant.  I was literally walking on water buoyant.  

We headed towards the shore of the elven city, “Keep your eyes closed and shadows on.”

“Do you think that will help,” asked Shade.  “I am getting tired again.”

“Yes it will, and I know you can do it, you are a strong doggo!” I said as my feet started sinking into the water.  Positive encouragement wasn’t working, so I tried another tactic.   “Oh no, the vacuum cleaner!”

We were instantly fully hidden again.  Shade moaned, “How, the curresed machine has followed us across worlds Chum.  It is a demon.  We are doomed!”

“I know,” I said, hurrying towards the shore now.  “Must run from the monster.”

“You are so brave,” said Shade.

“You are brave too,” I began and my feet began to sink, “But not right now, I think it may be right around the corner!”

“NOOOOO!!!”

I’d have felt bad about all this, but I really didn’t want to swim in the river full of goblin guts.  I’d imagine that an animal that liked goblin guts would probably call it soup, but I wasn’t a big enough dum dum to get into that water.  

The walk to the shore took longer than you’d expect, mainly because the actual mechanics of walking on water was not nearly as easy as anime had you believe.  It was like walking on jello, that got squishy when your dog stopped being worried.  

My one effort to try to explain that we’d landed, left me knee deep and so were escaping the evil vacuum most of the way back.  When I finally reached the shore, I was never going to be able to watch Naruto the same way ever again.  

There were piles of dead goblins here too.  Most had been burned, or exploded, or just plain stabbed to death but there were so many.  Shade sniffed several times as we walked, and I kept my guard up.  A lone goblin, or bugbear, still alive might try to sneak up on me but there were very few bugbears among the corpses.

Alarmingly few.  

Killing goblins was important, but they were fodder for their bugbear masters.  I doubted the warrens would even notice this many deaths in a year.  Still, many goblins were dead.  If the adventurer's guild got brave, they could send out parties to find the goblin warrens and eliminate them.  

When I left the shore of the river and got to the square I expected a celebration, but I was wrong.  People were happy to be alive, but there were far too many dead here to celebrate and that discounted the wounded.  I didn’t recognize any of the dead elves at first, but they were all laid out in neat rows.  I spotted the one long eared elf from the bar, a dozen dagger wounds on his chest being carried on a stretcher.  

“He said to put him there, with the heroes that died fighting for the city,” I heard an elf say as I walked past.  I wondered what he meant until I got past the army’s dead.  That was organized per a field manual.  

The remaining dead were intermixed.  I saw several halflings next to a dead gnome.  I didn’t know any of them so it didn’t really hit me until I saw Patch, the centaur.  Goblins had overrun the flank and the impromptu militia had went down fighting.  

The adventurers had protected each other to the best of their ability, and of the fourty that came to this field, 2 had outright perished.  They were both laying next to each other.  I recognized the face of the human woman I’d struck out with.  She’d gotten flanked and stabbed repeatedly.  

Forenth lay quietly, his eyes closed.  Zorg was sitting next to him, sobbing.  The magical elf looked around blearily as I approached but said nothing; he was so lost in his grief.  I put my hand on his shoulder, challenging while holding Shade but I had practice.  

“I promise, I’ll be a better elf,” said Zorg, staring up into the sky.  “Thank you, and may Namiestay protect you.”

I stepped back, and continued towards the center of the square.  I walked past the medical tents where people were still getting treated.  There were a number of serious injuries, and severed body parts.  I found several more adventurers around a cot.    

Misel was slumped over with Madox patting her gently on the back.  Fizzy ran over to them holding several vials of healing potion.  

Madox apologized to Misel and then pulled hand away from her chest, where her bloody hand was half missing.  Fizzy looked at it and whistled.

“Looks like no card tricks for you for a few weeks,” she said and poured healing potion over the battered stump.  The wound sealed up and Misel stopped shaking, instead she looked at her hand and held it up to the gnome.

“You know what this means,” she asked.

“I’d be number one if you still had that finger,” said Fizzy before handing Misel another bottle.  “Good night, see you tomorrow.”

Misel examined the bottle carefully, pulling the cork with her teeth.  She sniffed at it and shuddered.  “This stuff tastes horrible.”

“And it puts you into a coma, but you want your hand to grow back,” said Fizzy in a motherly tone.  

“I’ll carry you back, love,” whispered Madox after he drank a healing potion, the back of his armor bloody from a dozen smaller wounds.   

“I’ve already contacted the guild hall, they have a room ready for you,” said Fizzy, with a bright smile planted on her face.  “But the faster you drink, the faster you recover.”

Misel put her lips on the bottle and threw it back like a champion, holding it about her face for much longer than necessary to empty it.  She lifted the bottle up and a few drops dripped out of the vial.  

The bottle fell to the ground and shattered as she collapsed bonelessly back into the bed.  If I didn’t have the alchemy skill, I’d have assumed she died.  Madox whispered something into her ear.  Then he picked up the halfling tenderly and started walking.  

“I think the guild has an ambulance,” said Fizzy, wiping back a tear.  

“I don’t trust her in one of those, and I think Max stole every reindeer in town,” said Madox.  

“He did good though,” said Fizzy sadly.

“Aye, he did,” replied Madox looking down tenderly at the unconscious halfling.  

Fizzy nodded, “She’ll be fine, it will just take her a few days to come to.  I bought the best potion I could find from my best supplier.  Least I could do.”

“How bad are your wounds,” asked Madox.

“I’ll live, if I drink another healing potion I think my core will crack and the goblins targeted Forenth and the other clerics,” said Fizzy.  “I don’t think he made it.”

“Shame, he was a good spades player,” said Madox gruffly.

Madox nodded.  “Could have been worse, I just wish he’d survived.”

With that they departed, carrying Misel towards the guild hall.  

I kept on walking, holding the exhausted Shade until I found Lady Sylanada and Mark, the Wizard.  They were standing in a large group at the center of the square, and as I approached she continued to speak.

“Many sacrifices were made, and eyes were opened,” said Lady Sylanada, causing a few of the more morbid adventurers to chuckle at her eyepatch.  She shook her head and continued, “This battle would have been lost without the help of the citizens of Dominus.  I will personally ensure that anyone who wishes to join the Castle Guard will be permitted to do so, traditions be damned.  I saw the mettle of the citizens of this great city, and I found non wanting for courage or ability.”

A slight cheer rose up from the people.  A tired cheer.  A ragged cheer, but a cheer nonetheless.  

“And let it be known forever more, that this square shall be named after someone who made the ultimate sacrifice to save this city.  This square will now be named, ‘Max Heywood Died Gloriously Memorial Square’”

Everyone around me looked sad, and I held up my hand realizing I was quite invisible at the moment.  I started shaking my hand trying to get out of the invisible shadow that surrounded me.  Shade’s face suddenly snapped into focus.  

“Max, are you dead?” said Shade.  “You should have told me!”

I concentrated, and my light skill burned through Shade’s shadow magic.  If he’d been contesting me, I wasn’t actually sure I could do that but he didn’t resist as I glowed brighter, appearing like some sort of mystical red shirt, right out of star trek.  

“Seriously,” said Gulwing, walking over to me and grabbing Shade.  “Turn it off you mutant doat.”

Shade swallowed and dropped his shadow cloak.  He became visible as well.  

“How, " asked Mark, the Wizard.

“Shade can teleport,” I offered.

“I checked on him, his essence was so low I was positive he couldn’t manage it,” said Mark.

“There was potion in my fur,” said Shade.

“There wasn’t that much, and I was pretty through,” said Sylanada, uncomfortably.

She had a point, Shade didn’t look that energetic when we’d made our escape and then he’d held his invisibility trick for a really extended period.  I wondered how for about one whole heartbeat, but Spivy snored so I had a good idea where he’d gotten his burst of energy.

I just couldn’t admit that.

“You were not in the right area,” I said, coughing.

“Trust me, I was very thorough,” she replied, indignant.  

I pointed, “Not everywhere.”  

The elf’s one good eye opened and she blushed.

Shade made good on where he’d gotten the extra potion by taking a good moment to clean his bits.  In the middle of a square, while being watched by everyone, because he was a dog and who wouldn’t do that if they could?  

I only didn’t because I wasn’t that limber. 

“You’re going to talk to your father,” said Mark, the Wizard.

“Yes, it is well beyond time we address the reality of the situation,” said Sylanada.  “I just hope he is wise enough to open his mind to the possibility.”

We all looked over to the glowing magical tower that floated over the city of Dominus, where the Elven System Lord and Elven Monarch were both fighting each other instead of tending to their city with a host of emotions.  

Some of the people were looking in fear, others hope.  Sylanada had determination on her face, she was going to talk to her father and change her world.  It was important and no matter how long it took, she was going to convince him that…

Then the tower exploded.