Part 6: Chapter 4.2: From the War to the Wilds

Chapter 4.2: From the War to the Wilds



Despite all the celebrations and all the grand works spoken, werewolf youth did not immediately become the decisive factor in war against the Dremer. Though stationed in a forest – werewolves feel natural afinity for forests and surrounding swamps are hated by everyone – it was still thought by the most briliant military minds of the kingdom that they were too young and inexperienced to take on both the Warriors and Gates. So, the forest became a forward outpost, blocking the most dangerous path of attack that the alien warriors could take.

Meanwhile, arrows would continue to pour down from the sky because even with goblin aiming, a lot of sharp stakes falling from the heavens can do a lot of damage over time.

The young werewolf warriors spent their time gambling, shouting insults towards the Dremer, telling ribald tales and having concertina duels
.


The slow war was having some other effects, too. Ratmen, possessing cruel cunning and unwilling to let their children be boiled alive by flying magical blood clots, moved to Lichship Down and made a permanent settlement on the other side of the mountain.

There were many upsides to having ratmen settle nearby, no matter how this may sound. As a tribute to severs that birthed them through magical contamination, ratmen build their burrows to mimic them. And they functioned as actual severs, something that neither goblins, nor gnomes would ever build. Also, higher levels of ratmen severs contained a lot of seedy businesses that actually paid taxes. Gambling halls, rat theaters, rat “theaters”, rat opium dens, midget ratmen racing on giant cockroaches, knife fighting arenas, knife emporiums – every last one of those establishments, even sock shops that sold mismatched pairs of socks obtained by training rats to steal single sock from clotheslines in human cities, all paid coins to the king's coffers.
Also, hard tunnel life trained ratmen to the level where they could be hired to serve as scouts for a monarch's forces.



Of course, not everything went smoothly. For example, the Dremer finally set out to attack the were outpost in the forest. Claw met bone spear, teeth tore otherworldly flesh, havoc reigned through the night... Powerful creatures they might be, but Dremers were already weakened by the unending barrage of goblin arrows and magical attacks, plus they were going against werewolves in a forest.In the end, the Warrios left a few of their own dead while werewolves dragged several badly maimed friends back to their camp to sit and wait till their natural regeneration kicks in.



The last push came in shape in Snoop-Jim's finally arriving to attack the unnatural threat. He charged in with quips about “crackers” and “caps”, madly swinging his stock, biting left and right with righteous fury. The Warriors held for a moment and then broke, abandoning their postion at the Gate.
After this feat of arms, rat people started rumors about the prince being the fabled Ratsbane who's paws were said to be infused with the power of death itself.



With Warriors out of the way, the young weres were tasked with dismantling a gate. It was a decisively less mechanical process than the name would imply, as wolflings tore into structures of the Gate with tooth and claw. Such blood frenzy lasted until the obscene shrieking heads of the Gate were no more than ribbons of flesh and fine red mist that quickly dispersed in the air.



To add insult to the injury, the remaining Warriors were run down by goblin spearmen. Powerful and terrifying the aliens might have been, but they were badly battered, away from the defenses of the Gate and unholy nourishment from despoiled ground had been cut off in the first days of the invasion. The the bloody, arrow laden hulks turned to meet their new enemies, they were swept away in a see of green as spearmen crowded around easy pray, stabbing and slashing with malicious glee.

And so the first incursion into Ardania was over.

“There's no chance that this was all the threat that Dremers can muster, is there?”

“Not a chance in the world, m'lord. Many a goblin will perish before this is over”



This monumental event was marked by another occasion. King Rrat sent his envoys who, after witnessing the terrible might of both Dremer and King Lich, offered a most gracious pact of Non-Aggression. Of course, the sums of gold and mana had initially been bigger, but several barrels of mana exploded, taking out a huge part of a goblin shanty and most of the gold train.



A grand feast was thrown in the capital of Lichopolis. So grand was the feast that Khargem Smoky Trails managed to miss it totally and wandered of into the frozen wastes. Probably still under effect of Dremer blood clots, he hallucinated various things, such as goblins being competent and gnome warriors.

Eventually, after he came back, it was discovered that he had covered his arrows with a dangerous poison derived from the puss seeping from the many sores that a goblin has.



His return coincided with a visit by the merchant, who came to Lichopolis figuring that the roads were now safe. Unfortunately, his offer to sell The Baton of Marshal Frost was denien as the coffers were quite empty after all the war preparations.

In fact, King Lich was becoming quite suspicious about the merchant and his ability to uncover magical artifacts – after all, the lode left by the dead witch should have ran out. But by the time his majesty though of instructing the guards to seize the scoundrel, he was already off, no doubt to try his ploy elsewhere.





"The Caravel is the logical development of the ideas embodied in the Cog's construction. Unlike its predecessor, the Caravel is significantly larger, has two masts and, most importantly, a special cannon deck. These cannons are the Dwarven blacksmiths' most recent invention." (From "The Overall Description of Everything" by Master Alfus Bumblegate)

The humans of Golddale had built their first seafaring ship for what was surely destined to become a great and powerful fleet of Lich King V's domain.

After great deliberation and rejecting such names as “To Be Lost To Sea Serpents”, “Currently Not Sinking” and “Warspite”, the ship was christened “Golddale Duck”. A pot of moonshine was smashed at it side, thus prompting the only fatality of the festivities as the town drunk tried to lick the liquor off the side of the boat and drowned.

It only took three days of celebrations and two days of hangovers to finally get it afloat and on its mission to boldly go where serf has gone before and hopefully kill something.



With the noble-wide celebrations over, the troops were re-tasked for more serious state building business. After the elves built their colony way up north and going east was mostly sea, expansion would have to be made towards the north west.

The rat scout killing north west, full of mauling bears, rending werewolves, bashing ogres and at least one pissed off greater fire elemental. This did not bode well for the goblins.
But at least they were improving – after all, when you're at the very bottom, the only way is up! For example, some of the archers discovered, that it's not enough just to keep your eyes open while firing arrows. As hunting for animals (a deer sneaked into the camp one night and ate all the moss MRE's) tough them, concentrating on the target and then aiming really helped to kill stuff. And not starving to death.



Back in Lichopolis, the inevitable had happened. Some of goblins went and ate remains of the Dremer gate. Those weren't a healthy food to begin with and had even gotten some rot in the meantime. Never the less, the goblins ate it and began experiencing vivid hallucinations, visions and hearing voices. Mostly about divine will requesting that they bathe less and eat more. They proclaimed themselves to be shamans and built their hut near the “inspirational” forest patch.

“Melchior, is this some plot by the Dremer to infiltrate my kingdom?”

“I'm afraid not, my liege. Their feverish ramblings match what most educated scriptures say about the matter of goblin religion. Without a proper temple to Grum-Gog, goblins revert to some degenerate form of shamanism where they start to worship eating as it's the only thing they're good at. As the humble master Alfsdorf of Mel...”

“I don't really want to know more about the goblin culture. Every time I hear about it, I feel the urge to take off my skull and clean the inside with lye. Did that to my eye sockets once”

“Rest assured, m'lord, as with everything that goblins do, this is stupid, but harmless. And shamans seem to hold at least some form of real power, so we might find use for them yet!”



The efforts to expand north-west were bolstered by the forces of more competent troops in the shape of both heroes that the kingdom had and the company of werewolves who saw this as an opportunity to sharpen their skills.



While men (and probably some rebelous wereladies hiding their breasts under tight wraps of cloth) slowly trudged through the North, King Lich received troubling reports. It seemed that Mealburn's citizens, instead of building a pumpkin farm, started some unholy cult instead. This required his majesty's personal attention.

And so did the lich king go to the place near Mealburn where instead of goblins doing backbreaking labor under the hot sun, they danced around a pile of carved pumpkins. It was a terrible dance to behold, even more horrifying than regular goblin dancing. Wretched figures pranced around the pumpkin altar, their moves unnatural and broken. Sometimes one of them would fall on the ground and pumpkin seeds would issue forth from various orifices. Some were wearing cawed pumpkin masks. Something was afoot.

Especially when one of the dancing goblins slipped, fell and rolled down some mean rocks. As his broken body lay there, life hurriedly shuffling off a stinking mortal coil, horrible, unnatural spasms overtook it. A faint green glow appeared and pumpkin wines sprang from the goblin's wounds before exploding and leaving behind new skin. The goblin stood up and went back to dancing.

Just then a new figure separated from the altar. A fusion of goblin and pumpkin, it shambled towards King Lich's group. It stopped a few feet in front of the undead monarch.

“Well, what devious entity you might be? Identify!” the king challenged pumpink-goblin.

“I am Hill o'Win, unliving one” the answer plopped out of goblin's misshapen lips.

“Never heard of that name in my many years. What are you doing with my goblins?”

“Goblins are Grum-Gog's people. I have hatred of Grum-Gog that pierces the heavens and transcends time itself! Goblins are the only way to get to him”

“Wait, Grum-Gog?” asked King Lich V, puzzled “He almost a non-entity as far as gods go. Only goblins and the horribly disturbed fetishists pray to him. And both are met with fire in most civilized places. What do you have against him and what do you plan on doing?”

“My hate is difficult to explain to mortals – or even those having a post death existence. Suffice to say that Grum-Gogs choice of domain offends me. And what I'm planning to do with goblins... well, it's even harder to explain, but rest asured, this will not harm your precious little world”.

“Well, I probably have to take your word for it. Krypta knows, I don't have time nor resources to deal with both you and the Dremer. But I still want compensation for my loss in goblinpower!”

“What will you desire? The realm and wishes of mortals are unclear and not interesting to me”.

“Just... hold here a minute” said the king and ordered a little discussion with his advisors.

After a few moments and the few plans to ask for exploding pumpkins, or pumpkin giants, or unholy exploding pumpkin giants rejected, King Lich V once again stood before the goblin-pumpkin.
“These healing powers you demonstrated, could you somehow grant them to our troops? Of course, without any mind control or other suspicious business”.

Abominations answered almost instantly: “Yes, it is possible, but on lesser scale. You'll have to make certain carved amulets for them. But they come at price...”

“Yes, what would that be?”

“They'd have to be made...from bones of goblins! Living goblins”

The king chuckled, his dead teeth clattering in his skull “And here I thought it would be something bad. No worries, I'll send some gnomes to get the specifics”

“And your people would deem me a monster...”

“I'd sooner start wishing I was still alive than I'd start caring about what goblins think”.



Back in the capital, a pumpkin fest was thrown, but the festivities were interrupted by an unexpected visitor – a human healer!

“What would a person like you do in a kingdom of monsters run by a skeleton?” asked King Lich, his amusement not reflecting in his face since he had neither skin nor muscle.

“Us healers” spoke Emerah the Savior, for that was the healer's name “go where the suffering is thickest, for there we can do most good”.

“That is commendable, m'lady, but a bit foolish, considering that most of my subjects are still of the goblin kind, “touched with the emerald brush” some would say. Also, your fee sheds some... doubt on the selfless generosity of your activities”.

“The money goes to maintain my healthy status, as well maintaining our charities, such as “Pants for gnome orphans”.

“Well, yes, those orphans do seem like they're in desperate need of pants. And you're in lack – our north-west expedition has more suffering than any other place in my kingdom. Welcome to my court!”



As if the universe was rushing to prove the king's word (or just flat out hated goblins), the goblin spearmen were ambushed by a pack of wild werewolves. The disheveled, gnarling, dirty, stinking creatures, horrible fusion of Lycanthropy and poverty, tore into the goblins. Wild and powerful, took down quite a few before running away.

“So you see” continued fon Volfhenze “even if we tamed these wild weres, they should never have their voice heard in the running of the state. They're just common rabble!”



Much like the commonest of the common rabble running the ex-elven city of Galarkarn, which was, in all probability, taken over by ogres, who would now don the several sizes too small clothes of the mayor, kill nobles for minor infractions and pass various frivolous edicts detailing the ogre's farts, the comeliness of pigs and giving peasant lack back to the people that work it.

At least that's what the werewolf noble was afraid of.



Especially since Golddale was seeing the rise, as one panicked noble put it, of merchant middle class (as opposed to the current merchant class of well off vagrants): minotaurs from a nearby minotaur palace, built a labyrinth.

They claimed it was to put their part into the kingdom's defense, as the labyrinth could be used for navigation and close quarters training.

Men of Golddale said it was just a ploy to get their women, as they were supposedly sneaking away to the labyrinth at night, and that cries of “where the human women at?” could be heard.

The court's opinion was that this was all just a ploy to avoid being drafted to fight Dremer, bears, ogres and other horrible things.



Although the situation was improving, just a little. For example, Khargem managed to use other goblins as cover and shoot some werewolves dead – not an easy job when the enemy can regenerate and is a giant wolf man.



"Some say that these tree spirits have existed in Ardania long before the men. Others believe that demonwoods are the creation of Andrevus the Dark Mage. But the one point upon which all are agreed: demonwoods, no matter their history, harbor ferocious hatred towards all other creatures."
- From "The Overall Description of Everything" by Master Alfus Bumblegate

“M'lord, you could either spare some of your magical power to burn the walking demonic trees or throw goblins at it until werewolves get it”.

“How do these trees sneak up on them, anyways?”

“Well, the face would be a giveaway, even if they close their eyes. The thing about the north is that the local villages are full of giant trees with faces, some of which seem to bleed”

“Is that some... cult of Fervus?”

“I don't think they pray to any of our gods. Kind of explains why they don't have a kingdom. Or why the goblins over run their villages some easily. Would you believe that one of the settlement was just one old fart and forty women who were both his daughters and wives?”

“I've seen a lot of peasants both in my life and unlife, Melchior. Nothing about them amazes me anymore”.



“I've seen all kings of farms in my life, but this still baffles me” said captain John Grain of the “Golddale Duck” while examining an Elven settlement through his spyglass.

“What's this city called, sir? I need to note it on the map” asked the cartographer eagerly, his eyes bright with anticipation and his nose black with ink.

“Well, there is a sign board that says 'Rilti' but I can't read the rest of it, some arsewipe propped a shield against it. Just note the damn elf city and let's sail onward”.



Yet not all news were good. For example, the troops in the North-West just walked into a frozen forest full of pain...