Part 7: Chapter 4.3: Damned Wilderness

Chapter 4.3: Damned Wilderness



While most units were getting frozen, beaten or eaten in the Near West, magic research continued in the tower of Lichopolis. The newest spell to be re-learned by King Lich V was the basic dispel (didn't even have a fancy name), very popular with kings who had the habit of not inviting witches to their daughters' birth feasts and thus invoking their ire and curses. All in all, a good tool when some valuable servants come under unwanted magical attentions and probably never used on goblins.



No sooner than the left spell testgoblin had been put out, a somewhat dusty and dented all over elf envoy arrived. After catching his breath (and refusing a mug of goblin ale, which is something even the dying of thirst are known to do), he announced that his lord would like to offer an alliance. To sweeten the deal and maybe gloss over some previous alliance breaking, the spell of Greater Lands Raising had been added. The best use for it, so far, has been raising islands to build towers to hold wayward princeses and through the process of questing and drowning, controlling the population of questing knights.

King Lich V, of course, agreed.



The young werewolves, gifted with both regeneration and mostly weak enemies, soon came to love the smell and taste of blood (well, more than werewolves usually do). Also, in response to their more proactive use of jaws in offensive maneuvers, their teeth started growing larger and sharper.

This caused some discussion this would affect making out with were-dames back home.



"Fire Elementals are beings of living plasma, creatures from the elemental plane who have traveled to Ardania for unknown purposes. They often guard Holy Grounds." - From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor


Of course, not everything was sunshine and effortlessly ripping an enemies jugular with your own teeth. A temple ground – a land blessed by divine influences and thus perfect for temples – was nearby and, as always, guarded by a Greater Fire Elemental. Now, these critters were very tough and bad news for everyone. As to why they guarded temple grounds, especially since those weren't dedicated to no god of fire, was a mystery that even the very drunk couldn't tackle. Still, eventually the monster would have to be defeated. For now, it only harassed the werewolves.



The odds were stacked against the forces in the north. Werewolves, the most capable of tackling such threat, could have attacked, but there was little hope that they would survive the retaliation. As such, they bid their time, hid behind trees, played dice poker and waited.



And attacks did come, from a distance, from far away, where werewolves couldn't reach. Huge fireballs would land in their midst, burning fur, boiling flesh, breaking bone, exploding the latrine. Smoking bodies would be left laying in the field... and would start to twitch, move and stand up again. Werewolves were a hardy bunch and it would take more thank simple fireballs to kill them, but this did prevent their attacks.



Meanwhile, the „Golddale Duck“ was coasting along the coast, with various horid monsters seen through the spyglass... and this peace was shattered by flying serpents and their fireballs.

„Sir, do you really think canon will hit them?“
„It bloody has to, because we don't have any other weapons. Fire the broadside!“

And so did the canon balls fly and rip a large number of serpents to shreds, upon which feasted fish and all other monsters of the sea.



"Demons are a stronger and more abominable version of their impish kinsmen. They have little interest in mere mischief, but rather prefer genuine terror and total mayhem." - From the collected works of His Majesty's Advisor

Demons were a godsend to all manner of preachers and priests of Ardania. Demons, as in the sense that they were dark spirits who would subtly convince men to wrong their brethren, were hard to explain to farmers who spent most their time contemplating dirt and would sometimes „mistake“ their priced hog for their wife and thus be sometimes cough in compromising positions. Demon-demons were very real, very mean and a very easy to point a finger at. They wanted nothing more than terror and destruction, and thus were a good example of someone evil, someone more angry than a farmer's wife who'd take a pig being „mistaken“ for her at best as an ilsult to her beauty.

Luckily, they were easy target for the archers to perforate. After all, red does stand out in snowy wastes!



And, with a big fiery exception, things weren't going that bad, especially considering that most monsters left were simple beasts, no match before the semi-organised goblin military and almost heroic heroes. Their plundered dens would provide funds for future campaigns and some more bells and whistles for the troops.



Then again, luck barely ever holds in the military. Just one fireball and what used to be column of goblin archers became a crater of thawing ground and burnt meat. A whole unit wiped out, in a single attack! And even if the death of goblin veterans merited retribution (it's something a King must do, even if unwilling), that would have to wait, for the werewolves were attacked, forced to retreat and then entangled in the webs by none other than monstrous spiders! Truly these were the dark days of the northern expedition.




In order to alleviate the pressure in the north, the first batch of pumpkin medallions reached the werewolves. As they hung them around their necks, they felt their innate powers of restoration strengthen and burn fur regrow faster. It led to some complaints about „the feeling of wines spreading under our skin“, but those were mostly ignored as Kind Lich V was happy to make his actually valuable troops more durable.



Another blessing came in the form of granting the certificate of being “Tested by the Labyrinth”. Since the weres were nowhere near any of the minotaur labyrinths, some of the bullheaded creatures had tome come to the wastes, pull some string between the trees to simulate the labyrinth and whack some werewolves over the head as they walked it in the night. Somehow, that mad ethem better troops – or at least that's what minotaurs told the King.



They actually bid their time to sell their services well because the King was in the process of dismissing the merchant who brought the Kortana blade. It was too expensive for the treasury and it also had a spirit in shape of a naked blue human female who spoke gibberish and constantly pointed at the inscription on the handle that said “MSTVR CHF”.



The merchant barely had time to get out before the news came the the Elven king had destroyed another settlement. This was puzzling, considering the fact that elves were losing cities to monsters and probably didn't have the leeway to so.



On the other hand, the hotspot in the north wasn't moving – literally. The spiders used their webs to make werewolves immobile. They didn't mid much, though – they had killed the spiders anyways, the enchanted renewal powers kept them in good shape (if a bit singed) and silk was useful to dress wounds or to send back home to be made into lingerie.



The part of expedition that wasn't entangled, however, were making good gains in scouting and claiming treasures. Numerous monster dens were pillaged, their inhabitants slain, their fortunes stolen! Sloop-Jim was making a beeline for a rumored treasure chest while Khargem made way a bit to the south, with other, less skilled goblin archers in tow.




In a bit less frozen frontied, that captain of the “Golddale Duck” had just finished turning flying serpents into floating giblets. And the he noticed them.

Giant spiders.

Everybody hated giant spiders; those who didn't were burnt at the stake or drowned in town's cesspit. Captain was no stranger to this hatered and ordered all canons to open fire on the beasts.

Quite unexpectedly, this served to improve the gunners' accuracy since neither flying serpents, nor spiders were that easy a target.



And while canon shot was tearing spiders apart, the Elves kept losing cities to the monsters. This was both absurd and absurdly funny and nobles in the court in Lichopolis laughed heartily, even if they felt that the King's laughter made their souls feel chilly.



Meanwhile Snoop-Jims made it to the treasure chest and, after defeating the snow orphans guarding it, opened the chest and grabbed whatever was inside.

It just so turned out to be a Combat Broom.



“Hey, da fuck is happenin?” screamed Rrat Prince as the broom lifted him through the air “Dat shit ain't natural, yo. Ain't no rat homie gotta fly, man!”

Back in Lichopolis, it was determined that yes, flying rodent princes weren't a good thing, especially when the rapid mode of transportation could be more useful to other, more important, female shaped people.



After some rigorious calculations that involved most of the rogue scribes and soothsayers, and copious amounts of magic, a solution was established. Snoop-Jims was to land, take the broom and throw it at a send angle and heading, thus directing the broom's magic powers to take it back to the capital.

He succeeded, even if the broom impaled three goblins upon arrival.



Meanwhile, the goblin archers spotted a very enticing vein of adamantium..