Broken System Ch. 84-88 (Patreon)

Book 2 has now been removed, and is now available exclusively at Amazon. 

Ch. 86 - The Night Before

The next week was a frantic affair. Despite just returning, preparations were made in record time. Goods were gathered, men were assigned, and items were made. What drove Benjamin forward was his own sense of urgency and nothing else.

They were not yet running low on food or water, and each probing attack was repelled with enough force that the forces arrayed against them pulled back to lick their wounds. Benjamin knew that the other shoe was about to drop, though. He could feel it, and he wasn’t the only one.

Most nights, Benjamin found Matt up on the eastern battlement, pacing it like an expectant father, and tonight was no different. He wasn’t nervous or afraid exactly, just anxious. Benjamin understood that. The only difference between the two of them was that Matt wanted to crush them all here and now, and Benjamin wanted to flee to engage them on their own terms once more.

Sometimes, Emma was there with him, but more often, he was alone. Everyone agreed that was the right answer, but that didn’t stop Matt from standing ready for the final showdown in his nightly vigil. As Benjamin slowly climbed the stairs to the catwalk on the fourth level, he saw his friend standing there in the moonlight between the two stones of the battlement, looking out at the campfires of the forces that were neatly arrayed against them.

“You know more of them come every week,” Matt said without bothering to turn. “By next week or the week after, we’ll be outnumbered two to one.”

“That’s why we’ll get while the getting is good,” Benjamin said with a smile.

“Oh? Did you figure out a way to pry the skeleton key you’ve been looking for out of your ghost?” Matt asked as Benjamin walked over to him.

“There’s been no progress on that front, I’m afraid,” Benjamin said with a sigh.

While all of his other efforts had been going well, the Prince’s spirit had proved remarkably resilient to questioning. Despite borrowing the mana of thousands by linking to every system, user still in the city for the last few nights just to unlock the damn thing. He just had no leverage when he talked to the spirit, and Prince Agardian seemed to know that well. When Benjamin chatted with the disembodied ghost of the man, there was little he could do to affect him. He could only make threats, and so far, he hadn’t found anything that concerned the Prince.

Not even threatening to destroy the amulet had loosened the man’s tongue. The Prince had simply responded, “So I’ll lose the last few years. Big Deal. I didn’t much care for my time in this backwater anyway. There are still backups on the world island. I will still survive long after you are torn limb from bloody limb.”

The only thing that had borne fruit from those efforts was that decoding the Prince’s personal seal had unlocked many of Arden’s defenses that hadn’t been available until that point. Before Benjamin arrived, his friends had been forced to make do with what had already been unlocked the night they took over, which was mostly just alarms and magics that structurally strengthened the walls.

Now, though, they hand shields, cannons, and all sorts of deadly enchantments that could light the night on fire if they were unfurled. Matt was sure that would be enough to extend the stalemate for a long time, but in Benjamin’s mind, it just made the odds that the Rhulvinarians would bomb them into the Stone Ages if such a thing was possible, and he very intentionally turned his mind away from what that might look like and back to the conversation.

“I’ll figure something out,” Benjamin said, changing the subject, “it’s just a matter of time. For now, isn’t it enough that I found us a way out and a way of covering our tracks?”

“If both of them work, I’ll admit that miracles can happen,” Matt nodded. He was unconvinced, but he didn’t see a better outcome.

“It’s almost enough to make you wish for the good old days,” Benjamin said with a smile.

“What good old days?” Matt asked. “The month we spent slowly spent walking halfway across the continent while I was so angry I could barely see straight, or the winter we almost starved to death?”

They both laughed at that. “We didn’t get close to starving,” Benjamin said once the moment had passed. “We just… developed a healthy appreciation for not having to eat another acorn so long as we live.”

“We might have to, though, you know,” Matt cautioned him. “Lately, we’ve had it easy, sacking a new place every few days and eating their food, but we take thousands of people into the country, and we’ll be stripping the landscape bare like a swarm of locusts. A few weeks from now, we might be eating bugs.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Benjamin agreed. “But I’d rather starve out there than try to wait them out in here. Besides, we’ve probably knocked out dozens of other plantations while all this has been going on. There’s probably more than a little starvation going on in their own cities at this point.”

“Yeah, among the slaves,” Matt said with a sigh. “We’ve barely scratched the surface with these assholes. They might have hundreds of plantations in the east, but there are plenty in the south and north, too. We’ve freed thousands, but only at the cost of making tens of thousands more go hungry when their gruel ration gets cut or some shit like that.”

“Yeah,” Benjamin nodded, not sure what else to say.

“And those assholes won’t even riot about it, Benji, you know?” Matt said, gripping the walls tighter as his anger flared up. “Any other despot would have to deal with the flames of revolution. It would be one more weapon in our arsenal, but here? They’ll just keep slaving away until they drop dead. How’s that any different than killing them ourselves?”

Benjamin didn’t have a good answer for that. The humane thing… the thing that would happen if this was a movie was he’d whip up some genius magical computer virus, and with a single cataclysmic spell, he would free everyone from the mental chains of their systems simultaneously.

Sadly, that was nothing but fiction. Though he was certainly preparing a few big spells, he had no way of reaching further than line of sight, and until he figured out a new way through the barriers that the Rhulvinar erected around the minds of their men, his old tricks with data leak were at an end.

He didn’t bother Matt with any of that, though. It was too cerebral, and his friend wouldn’t care. Instead, he said, “There will be a lot of killing soon. Until I figure out a way to get their army to switch sides, we’ll have to kill everyone, and that’s going to be bloody on both sides.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Matt volunteered, trying to comfort him, but his voice lacked any real confidence, which was just about right for Benjamin’s frame of mind.

They chatter a while longer. Benjamin told him a little bit about his recovery, even though he left out the good parts, and the whole time they spoke, they both watched the field of man-made stars that stood the best part of a mile distant, and the occasional rift opened somewhere beyond that.

The Summoner Lords were definitely building up to something, and Benjamin aimed to be gone before they decided they had overwhelming enough numbers to accomplish their goals. He didn’t plan on waiting around long enough to find out.

Eventually, he convinced Matt that there was no imminent attack and that they’d be best served sleeping, and they both returned to their rooms. Benjamin found no sleep in his bed, though. Instead, he lay there, staring up at the ceiling while he alternated between flipping through his codex and glancing through his character sheet.

There were so many projects that were just barely started or part way done. He hadn’t finalized their escape plan, but the enchanted arrowheads and the ensorcelled blades he wanted to try were coming along nicely. Once he had those finalized, it would just be a matter of teaching others how to make them to help him with a sort of primitive mass production. That part probably wouldn’t be easy either.

Benjamin had resolved most of the errors except for his class. That one at least didn’t seem to cause too many problems, except for when it came time to choose spells. Then, it seemed almost like it had randomized the list.

NAME: Benjamin Newsome

RACE: Human

CLASS: Mage(Error)

LVL: 7

EXP: 15,113/16,000

BPs: 7

Mind

INTELLECT

16

WILL

11

MANIPULATE

8

Body

AGILITY

6

STRENGTH

11

APPEARANCE

9

Soul

ANIMA

7

SPIRIT

12

CHARM

8

RESOLVE:  77/77

HEALTH: 77/77

MANA: 11/11

STATUS EFFECTS:

Soul Scar (crippling): -10 to all actions,-75% mana, No natural recovery of health or mana.

Nature’s Gift: +5 to all actions,

SKILLS

Knowledge (academics): 35

Craft (programming): 60

Knowledge (internet): 25

Magic (Runic): 75

Dodge: 25

Team Work: 40

Diplomacy 60

Leadership: 10

Awareness: 35

Resist (Social): 35

Survival: 20

Athletics: 15

Craft (primitive): 10

ABILITIES

Obstinate: +20% resistance to social attacks and charm magics

Blood Mage: Reduce Mana by half. Mana may be freely refilled at the cost of one health per mana. Immunity to life drain effects.

Optimized Mage: All spells cost 1 less mana

Elemental Attunement: +10% effect to all elemental spells

When he’d first been brought down to level 1, his spell list had been wide open, but the more he’d chosen, the narrower the focus had gotten. Something about either the system or what it did to the soul enforced specialization to a greater and greater degree as one progressed forward. Matt only had spells and abilities that focused on healing or killing now, and Emma’s list was full of nothing but stealth and murder.

It wasn’t so much that they could choose what they wanted, as that they could customize their respective classes to a limited degree. Benjamin would have been frustrated by that if he hadn’t been so busy dealing with other frustrations.

All that mattered to him now was victory. The idea that someday he could fix his broken soul and tune this cursed system and grant himself some sort of reset was simply out of reach to bother with anymore. The same thing was true for trying to get home. It was a nice dream, but they all knew it was a dream. They were here for something greater now.

They had a world to save and slaves to free, and even if some part of him wasn’t head over heels for a certain mortal incarnation of a nature goddess, Benjamin would still be here to fight the good fight. He simply didn’t see another way. These monsters were a scourge, and they had to be stopped.

So, reluctantly, he finally closed all the open, glowing windows that danced in front of his vision and forced himself to sleep. It would be dawn soon, and the next day or two, depending on how everything played out, he would need all the rest he could get.

Ch. 87 - Go Time

It turned out that they only had three days left before it was time to go. Benjamin spent much of that time focused on all the objects that needed to be made, but he still found some time to talk to the Prince, who only belittled him. That’s where he was when Raja came to let him know what was happening.

“If you were wise, you would have killed yourself already,” the man responded when Benjamin asked the translucent, manifested ghost why he was so fearless in the face of death. “Because if they take you alive, I’ll spend the next century torturing you before I grow tired of it. I’ll do it publicly, every evening after dinner.”

“Aren’t you the one that’s spent so much time telling me that I can do nothing to harm you and losen your tongue?” Benjamin said with a smile.

“That’s only because you lack the will and the understanding,” Prince Agadrian assured him. “I would be happy to reincarnate you into the body of some slave day after day if need be, but you? You’re so soft you find the idea morally repugnant.”

“I don’t find it morally repugnant,” Benjamin corrected him. “It is morally repugnant. Torture aside, you’d be murdering all those souls just to play your sick games.”

Raja nodded at that, standing by the door as he watched the exchange and as the Prince opened his mouth to dispute it with the same arrogance as he always did, but Benjamin banished him back into his amulet before he could. Unlike Kitsune Miku, he had no independent existence without Benjamin’s mana, and as soon as he withdrew that, he collapsed back into his storage device to wait for the day of his eventual resurrection.

If Benjamin had his way, though, that would never happen; that monster would rot in his gilded grave for all time. The only reason that Benjamin had kept him alive this long was to try to find out things he couldn’t discover on his own and that well might have already run dry.

“Is that dude always like that?” Raja asked.

“Pretty much,” Benjamin agreed as he got up and stretched.

“Real charmer, then. Literally,” he said as he laughed at his own joke. “Only way that guy gets laid is with magic roofies and shit.”

“Well, I’m sure his immense wealth and power probably worked pretty well, too,” Benjamin shrugged, “but I guess. None of that tells me what you need, though?”

“Oh, right,” his friend smiled. “Matt wanted me to let you know that it’s time. They’re coming.”

Benjamin sighed at that. Some small part of him missed the quiet version of his friend who sent quick messages that explained what he needed in a couple words, thanks to the limitations of the interface. Now that Raja could speak again, he seemed to be twice as talkative as before, and though Benjamin could hardly blame him for that, he could see it becoming a problem in important moments like this.

Even as he thought about that, though, he got ready. Benjamin didn’t have much to pack, and everything that he did quickly went into his bag before they rushed out the door and toward the great all of the spire, where he was sure everyone was meeting up.

They never got that far, though. Instead, part way there, he found that most everyone was already starting to form up in the main square, and Benjamin immediately went to join them. Taking a quick look around, he didn’t find Matt, but he did find Emma, so Benjamin walked over to her instead.

“Where’s your man?” he asked, taking some small joy in the face she made at that, even after all this time.

“Where do you think?” She nodded toward the wall as she spoke. “He says to get things started on the exit, and he’ll stay with the defenders until it's time to follow.”

Benjamin shook his head at that. That’s not the plan, he told himself.

He didn’t say anything out loud, though. There wasn’t a point. Part of him had known that Matt would do this since the beginning. Instead, he started barking orders, telling the warriors that had been matched up to get ready as he walked toward the river gate, flanked by his friends.

Arden had been their domain for months now. It had served them well, but now every land route from the city was blocked by the encamped army, and a smaller unit stood on the far side of the river to make life difficult in that direction as well. The second army was only a couple hundred men, and it was meant to intercept any efforts to resupply more than anything.

He doubted very much that the Summoner Lords expected them to try to escape, let alone to try to escape in that direction, but that was exactly what they were about to do.

Benjamin walked out the river gate and pulled the heavy bronze rod from his bag, and when he reached the end of the longest pier, he tossed it in the water and activated the enchantment. Then he stood there and waited as men began to crowd around him.

“Is that it?” Emma asked as several pounds of engraved bronze disappeared without much more than a small splash.

Benjamin ignored her, though, as he stared anxiously at the water. He knew it would work, but part of him worried that it wouldn't despite that certainty.

It wasn’t because they needed to escape this way, either. If worse came to worst, he was sure the walled city could support their burgeoning army of several thousand for a few more weeks before their stores were exhausted. It was because if this didn’t work, he had no idea how he was going to pull his own weight.

Despite being level 7, he had as much mana as a first-level mage. He was basically one-eighth of the caster he should have been without the crippling levels of soul damage, and compared to that, all the other symptoms of his recovery, like his headache, were nothing. His only real shot to bridge that gap was to program items that could cast spells much bigger than he’d ever be able to with his crippled abilities.

That was why he watched the interface with bated breath, waiting for it to show a draw. Even when it showed, the object under the water began to pull three, then five mana a second. He stood there with a blank expression on his face. It was only when the first chunk of ice bobbed to the surface that he finally allowed himself to breathe.

“Still doesn’t look like much,” she said, leaning over the water.

Benjamin shrugged. “It’s a grower, not a shower.”

Only Raja laughed at that, but Benjamin never took his eyes off the small patch of spreading ice. The key reaction was based off the chains of ice spell that he’d gotten early but rarely used. It was only the scale that was much bigger. In this case, it was exponential. At first, it was just a few ice cubes, but as it greedily sucked down a couple mana a piece from the hundreds of people that were networked to it through him, the effect doubled and doubled again.

Soon there was a thin shit of ice spreading across the surface near him, though each small wave in the large river chipped away at it. Seconds later, the ice was thicker, though. Now, it was racing away from him toward the opposite bank, and though he wanted to give it another minute before he trusted the weight of hundreds on his impromptu path, it was moving quickly now.

It’s going to work, he told himself, as long as the rod doesn’t short out.

That, of course, was a very real possibility. It was channeling 10 mana a second now. That was why he chose such a large piece of metal and why he chose to do his first experiment in a body of very cold water. He was hopeful that would keep the whole reaction below some critical point, but he didn’t know for sure. The Summoner Lords might have a book about how all of this stuff was supposed to work. Hell, they might even teach classes on it, but all he could do was collect data.

Less than two minutes later, he judged the ice to be thick enough and cut power to the rod as he yelled out, “Alright, people, let's move!” before he climbed down onto the ice.

“You sure this will hold us?” Raja asked, right behind him.

“Of course,” Benjamin said, feigning confidence. He was sure enough to go first, but he was far from certain. They’d find out soon, one way or the other.

The forces on the far bank were starting to mobilize, but they were still confused about what exactly it was that was occurring. The last thing they’d been expecting was a water-walking excursion to bring the fight to them, and by the time their commanding officer emerged from his large tent, there were already warriors on his side of the river charging forward to engage.

The battle was practically lost before it was started, and Benjamin watched the man try and fail to open a rift and escape before Raja, or someone with a similar skill, took the man’s head off with an exploding arrow.

Benjamin stood there in the mud, turning back and forth between the men and animals that were streaming from the city and the short but bloody fight that was already unraveling in front of him. It had taken almost 300 mana to build this bridge, and in the heat of the day, it would be gone within an hour.

That should be enough time, he told himself, as long as Matt doesn’t dawdle.

On that, there was no guarantee. Benjamin watched shields flare to life on the north and east walls several times over the next few minutes that, indicated a burst of heavy fighting, and the large purple beam that could be used as a form of magical artillery swept the battlefield several times, but it was hard to say what they were fighting, or if it was decisive.

Five minutes after the final trickle of stragglers, just when Benjamin was concerned that they might have to go back and drag their friend from the fighting, Matt and the dozen men who’d stayed with him to keep the semblance of defenders in place until the final moments came running across the river as quickly as they could.

Unlike the group that Benjamin had crossed with that had moved purposefully but cautiously, Matt’s team ran as fast as they could. As a result, all of them slipped on more than one occasion, but by the time they were halfway across the river, it became clear why.

The front gates had been breached, and enemy soldiers were in hot pursuit. Only a few of them got out of the river gate, and even fewer of them made it to the ice before the city exploded in a series of violent, eye-searing green explosions and began to implode on itself.

Benjamin had known this was the plan from the start: leave the city out the back door, lure their enemy inside, and detonate the vast gemstone mana batteries that powered its arcane defenses. However, it was one thing to know that it was going to happen and another to watch with his own eyes as the spire began to lean, and debris clouds spewed into the air as explosion after explosion ripped through the fortified city.

From where they were standing, they couldn’t see how many had died, but since the green fire was powerful enough to make even the stones burn, Benjamin doubted there would be very many. His only hope was that there had been a Summoner Lord or two in there.

“Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?” he asked Matt as he stumbled to shore amidst the fracturing ice.

He looked back at the smoldering rubble and then turned to Benjamin and smiled. “Nah. We had all the time in the world.”

“Maybe we did, but there’s no way the beacon is still working under all that,” Benjamin said as he rolled his eyes. “So we need to disappear like now.”

Ch. 88 - Alone at Last

It was hard to be truly alone when surrounded by thousands, but as they made their way further into the sea of grass, it became easier to pretend, especially once night fell. Somewhere ahead of them, scouts probed in all directions with carved whistles that sounded loud, shrill notes, and behind them, columns of men, women, and horses stretched for miles.

Here, though, with the waving stalks of grass to dampen the sound, it was easy to imagine that it was just the four of them again. It was a nice thought, even if he realized they would probably never have that luxury again.

They certainly didn’t have the luxury of camping tonight, at least not according to Matt, even if walking for the last twelve hours seemed a little bit like overkill to Benjamin. Not that he blamed the guy. With everything that had just happened and a trail so wide that a herd of blind elephants could follow it, they needed to move and continue to put as much distance between themselves and whatever retribution it was that the Summoner Lords had planned. Sleep could come sometime tomorrow, hopefully.

“It feels weird to be going somewhere without a destination in mind,” Benjamin said finally, just to break the silence.

“We do know where we’re going through,” Matt shot back. “West - toward the inner sea.”

“Kinda broad, don’t you think?” Raja laughed. “That’s like saying we’re heading to the Pacific, specifically. Don’t you think we could narrow that down to a state or maybe a city? We could—”

“We can burn down every city on our way there until you find one you like,” Matt answered.

They weren’t heading toward any of the cities right now, though. This deep in the grasslands, those were all along the river. They weren’t even really heading toward the populated part of the inner sea. They were just moving to get lost and make their enemies wonder what it was they were up to. Benjamin had no idea how far they would have to travel away from the Rhulvinarian forces for the fae to reach out to them once more, but he was sure it wouldn’t be too far.

That turned out to be almost laughably wrong. The following day, some terrible weapon only missed their campsite by a few miles, and Benjamin was woken by a pillar of fire stretching to the sky on the horizon.

It faded almost as quickly as it appeared, but after a moment, it lit up the night with a sickly green night and washed out the stars. The light and the shockwave were enough to wave everyone up.

“They just tried to nuke us,” Benjamin said to Raja when his friend woke up looking for someone to shoot.

“Did they?” Matt asked. “How do you know that was a weapon and not a portal to bring in a weapon?”

For a moment, images of a giant lizard attacking Tokyo washed across his mind, but he pushed them down. Not only could he not remember what they were about, but they were too terrible to contemplate.

“I mean, that’s possible,” he said, “not totally sure, but I think we should get moving either way. We don’t know if that was the only one.”

For the next few hours, they talked excitedly about what was and why it might have been missed so completely, but there were no answers. Was it a weapon or a portal? Were there more? Was there some sort of magical radiation that, even now, might be sickening them?

No one had any idea, but Benjamin kept a close eye on his party interface, and Matt used a couple diagnostic spells, and neither of them saw anything concerning. Despite that, the very fact that it had happened raised the tension several degrees and made one thing very clear: their enemies were no longer trying to take prisoners to learn who it was that was attacking them, and they were no longer trying to rescue their prince. The only thing that the Summoner Lords wanted now was to murder every last one of them.

It was a sobering thought. It hounded him almost as much as the phantom armies that either were or were not chasing them across the claustrophobic grass jungle.

It took three days of walking before they were met by centaurs led by a stallion named Gwarn. Many of the centaurs looked and smelled so similar that it was only his demeanor that set him apart from Thorga. The centaurs tossed them skins of blood wine and demanded that they drink up to celebrate their mighty victories.

Benjamin and everyone else he passed the skin to managed to choke some of the wine down, but it was as powerful as it was bigger, and it left him with watering eyes before he handed off the bloated wine skin to Raja.

“To your victories!” They roared, in cheer after cheer, discussing the demolition of Arden like it was one of the greatest battles of their age. Maybe it was. Benjamin wasn’t sure. All he knew was that it felt good to be cheered on rather than talked down to as the centaurs led them to some secret camp of the Throne.

Along the way, they talked about how some of the other smaller armies that the herds accompanied were doing, but the results there were mixed. Some managed to sack two dozen plantations before their horns stopped working, but others were less successful.

“Only one of your slave armies has been eradicated, though,” Gwarn said, smiling like it was the best news he’d heard all day. “I expected much worse from you manthings. You have acquitted yourself well.”

They all tried to ask more detailed questions about those battles, among other things. Matt peppered them with questions about how the Rhulvinarian tactics had changed, and they even answered a few of those, but most questions were simply shrugged as their guides told them, “This is a matter for the storyteller, not for us.”

Even questions about the tower of green flame that had stretched all the way to the sky were pushed aside. “That is for us to worry about, not you little man things. You have more important tasks ahead of you.”

Benjamin raised an eyebrow at that, but he didn’t force the issue. At this point, he was tired. They’d gotten 2 nights of sleep in the last four, and in all that time, they’d walked 100 miles deeper into the middle of nowhere.

Finally, as the sun began to set the height of the grass receded to waist height, and he could see a rocky hill in the distance. They continued to walk toward that and eventually stumbled on another assortment of clay people who were both young and old, preparing an even grander feast around a series of bonfires.

It was like the last celebration they’d attended in every way, only ten times larger. That made sense, given the huge army they had compared to last time, but it still made Benjamin nervous as he recalled how out of his mind he’d gotten on their psychedelic punch last time.

Only water for me this time, he promised himself.

That was when they got their first surprise of the night. As soon as they got closer, they realized there were other people there. For a moment, he thought they were more beastkin, but they were, in fact, humans.

“So this is where she was keeping them,” Matt said. “I was wondering about that.”

Benjamin nodded as he looked around and recognized a few of the faces. This camp was packed with some of the men and women they’d rescued early on in their campaign. The Throne of the Sky Sea had vowed to take care of them, but that hadn’t stopped Benjamin from worrying about their fate.

They seemed to be well, though. In many cases, they seemed better than ever. Those who had been missing limbs had found replacements made out of clay, and all of them seemed to be in better spirits than when they’d been left behind.

The combination of the two groups resulted in a huge mass of people. It was like a rave or a music festival, and though Benjamin greeted everyone who crossed his path and shook as many hands as he could, he was drawn inexorably toward the large tortoise man by the central fire that had told them all so many stories last time.

“On behalf of the Throne, I greet you and offer you her congratulations on all of your efforts to date,” Brauchus told them in a deep voice.

“And we thank you for your hospitality as always,” Benjamin said with a smile.

As greetings were exchanged, and skewers of roasted meat were passed out by clay people, Benjamin couldn’t help but think about what a soft target this was and how easily the Rhulvinar could end the whole insurrection with a bomb dropped on this single spot. It worried him enough to bring it up, but his concerns were quickly dismissed.

“We are hundreds of miles away from their nearest settlement, and scouts of every sort have been scattered in all directions,” the tortoise man assured him, “Besides, what you saw that day was not a weapon; it was an infestation, and it is already being dealt with.”

“An infestation?” Raja asked. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It is not,” the Storyteller nodded, lifting a large wooden pipe and lighting the bowl with a flaming bit of straw. “But it is not the first time that those monsters have resorted to such measures, nor will it be the last.”

“What did they unleash?” Benjamin asked. “Do you need our help?”

The tortriseman’s only response was to spend several seconds inhaling from his long-stemmed pipe. Benjamin noted that the creature’s lungs were probably each bigger than a man. When he released the smoke from his lungs, though, Benjamin noticed something else: there were pictures in the smoke. Images were moving.

It was hazy and hard to make out the details, but it showed a part of the grass sea, like any other. There were figures moving, though it was hard to tell if they were human or something else. Then suddenly, there was a blinding light as fire leaped through the smoke, turning green as a yawning portal opened up to show the brief silhouette of a rocky, craggy peak. One second, there were just fields of wavering grass, and the next, there was a brushfire that illuminated rocky crags that were pockmarked with cliffs.

It was an ominous image, and there were figures moving at the edge of that light, but the smoke cleared before Benjamin could see what they were exactly. Then it faded out to dull grey smoke that drifted away on the night breeze.

“We can go back and purge whatever that is,” Benjamin declared, looking briefly at his friends as he made the offer. “We could—”

“There is no need,” Brauchus intoned. “These are not the first goblins that those sorcerers have summoned onto our lands. If they cannot have them, then they will aim to strip them bare so that no one can.”

“Despicable,” Emma spat, staring at the fire.

“Indeed,” the Storyteller agreed, “But you were not brought here to listen to such sad tales. You are here to share the songs of your victory so that we might all learn from it and grow stronger.”

Benjamin took another bit to give himself a few minutes to think. He knew that this was where the whole thing was leading, but still, he found himself a little on the spot, and he struggled to decide where to start. They had won some great victories, but even if they’d completely defeated the Rhulvinarian, he was pretty sure he’d still feel weird bragging about it.