Part 12: Anchored To The End of the World

Sorry, lads, can't say when the next one would be - hopefully, I'll have my laptop fixed by then (only need to translate the instructions how to submit it!). I know that once-a-month updates are suboptimal, but that's just how I (sadly and slowly) roll. Enjoy!

Chapter 6: Anchored To The End of the World



King Lich V was deeply troubled. The Dremer threatened to destroy the world, killing him in the process. And avoiding death was one of the major, if not THE motivation to become a lich in the first place. The truth of the matter was that King Lich V had to destroy all Dremer forever, untold goblin casualties be damned.
He was in the middle of such musings when a polite cough interrupted his train of thought (how does one cross goblins and fireballs, anyways?).

„Lucius? How did you get up my floating tower top?“

„I jumped. Being a werewolf has other perks than just being attractive to the ladies, m‘lord. My liege, your presents is requested downstairs. We have a visitor“.

„A visitor“ was short selling in. In the throne room stood a pile of writhing pumpkin vines, with few intact pumpkin heads and a mostly overgrown goblin up top. Another one was gnawing on a wine while two werewolf guards tried to pry him off, saying something action unbefitting to a palace guard.

„Hill o'Winn, I presume“ said King Lich, placing his cloth covered bone sternum on the throne (or „sitting down“, to use layman terms). „What happened to this subject of mine“

The goblin‘s mouth moved a voice came out, chilling everyone present to the bone (which was basically all that King had)

„He‘s very faithful. And clumsy. Once we set out for the trip to the capital, he tripped on a rock. And just kept tumbling down, into rocks and whatnot, sometimes even at incline. It‘s a mystery, one that I have never encountered in all the countless eons of my life, but I did what I could to heal him. At one point, it became apparent that this“ goblin‘s hands gestured at the mass of vines „was the only way to bring him here alive“.

„So, what made you come here in the first place“

„The Anchors, of course. You need a way to defeat the Dremer, do you not?“

„And do you have a suggestion how to do that?“

„Simple. Well, not really“ the goblin‘s smile, even with vines and baleful eldritch energies doing the best they can to make it look like on, was still very reminiscent of a puckered asshole „You have to destroy a number of these Anchors. Then you‘ll be able to correct certain key stones and, by their magical vibrations, determine where there Dremers come from and send a force there“.

As the envoy left, the King motioned the werewolf guards to let go of the goblin. The replacement wouldn‘t be hard to find anyways.




And so, while the great ruler pondered the destruction of the Anchors (Goblin catapults?), life continued on in the south east end of the continent.
Khargem finally found the ogre hut and looted it, taking anything of value he could find, half-heartedly shitting in the pillow (as a hero, he felt such actions, customary as they be, were beneath him) and the whole place ablaze. The Bow of Ash quietly hummed and waited for new victims, because magical weapons seemed to be single minded like that.
The smoke of the burning hut slowly rose over the mountain, but the now-homeless ogres didn‘t see. They had other things in mind, like werewolves. Unlike most smaller things that they met, the weres dodged quite a lot of their hits, and even the ones they bashed didn‘t stay flat for long, which was a grave insult to what ogres perceived to be immutable laws of the world: ogre meet thing, ogre smash, thing remain flat.

The wolves, however, were having a great time, dancing around the gargantuan creatures, slipping a claw here, a bite there.

„Say, Hindrich, this is quite the sport! This is also my most favorite kind of buffet – it‘s so fresh, it‘s moving!“

„I know what you Beowuf. I imagine we could have quite a feast if they had the power to regrow flesh like we do!“

„Ogres? Regrowing flesh? Preposterous! What other fancy powers could they have? Burning up on death?“

„Or maybe very specific – oh, had to dodge one here – spots on their back that we would need to kill them?“

„Hah, surely you jest! That would make as much sense as them eating humans for fun“

„Beowuf, your endless mirth is bad for my shape! I almost got squished there!“

„Aye, but Heimlich did!“

„Guffaw!“



Up in the north, scryings, divinations and would be settlers shouting „Isn‘t that pillar of blood rising to the sky“ indicated, that the location of the first Dremer anchor had been uncovered. Unfortunately, that didn‘t give much information besides „remote“, „ugly“ and „taking place of a future city“. Some recon in force was in order.



And nothing is as expendable and easy to transport as summonable imps. Locking onto the emissions of a group of wild donkeys, King Lich V opened a group of micro rifts that discharged a number of imps. Their eyes were put to good use and the King got the information he wanted.



"The Evil Sorcerers Society (not to be confused with the Order of Black Mages) was founded soon after the creation of the Great Council to: Maintain the balance of forces, and create evil in an effort to reduce entropy."
(From "The Overall Description of Everything" by Master Alfus Bumblegate)

„What is the matter with these fools?“ King Lich threw his hands up in confusion „Evil? Entropy? What does evil have to do with anything?“

„Sire, they might be potent mages, but they are pretty stupid“ suggested Melchior „Ancient scrolls said that among the wizards there was a group that liked to brood, listen to grim minstrel songs, write dreadful poetry and claim that none of the conclaves invited them because „they couldn‘t understand their deep pain“. In the end, they declared that their evil was done for the good of the world and that they are the unsung heroes of Ardania“

„Any truth to that claim?“

„None whatsoever, m‘lord“.

[img]]http://lpix.org/1616421/2014-01-10_00039.jpg[/img]

Angst ridden or not, they were powerful and destroyed the imps easily. Luckily, nobody ever worried about imps dying, so that wasn‘t a big loss. Mana never stopped flowing, even if it meant that goblin children born near mana collectors were born with severe, painful deformities.



Yet there were other citizens than the highly expendable goblins. Humans, for one thing, showed to have some more uses that producing martyrs that would never be forgotten by the Navy of the Lich Kingdom. A Halberdier encampment near the newly liberated (from the shackles of free will and voter franchise) Bearling was transformed into a war university. The need for such institution was apparent after the Halberdiers sent a letter to the king detailing the myriad shortcomings of the goblin forces (small surprise, they were trained by goblins). The letter was so long, they had to flay five sheep to write and it took flock of pigeons to carry it. The King gave his approval to build the university and so it was established.

Veteran halberdiers tough classes on slicing, piercing, crushing, collecting payment, looting, pillaging, whenching (the old king was very much against raping), looking good in a cuirasse, looking down on regular spearmen and beard grooming. Books upon books and treatises about killing people (and goblins) were written. Countless gallons of bear were drunk by the freshhalberdiers. A score of sorority girls had been bedded, oblivious to the fact that university doesn‘t really offer classes to women, and so setting the tone of knowing very little about your alma matter to countless sororities that would later spring up in Ardania.

The early result of it all was a huge manual called „Stick it with the pointy end: Masters of War Upon the Finer Points Of Disembowelment, Decapitation and Maiming“, usually just called „Masters of War“.



Another, much different, but no less bloodthirsty institution sprang up in in the frozen wastes to the north. A bank was opened in Lichship Down and was run by the fattest of gnomes and grew rich on fourth hand mortgages on goblin housing (goblins understood the value of money only very dimly).

The bank was created by the fishing magnate Angus Jaw, master metal trinket peddler Hieronymus Rust and mine owner Sheimus Lime. While the plaque in front of the immense building proclaimed „Jaw, Rust, Lime: Merchants and Bankers“, most goblins were really bad at pronunciation and called the place „Jawruslame“.

This was not the only injustice that they brought on the poor goblins: soon, the clerks of the bank were known by their black clothing (it was white before they started doing rounds in dirty goblin settlements), hooked noses (goblins are stupid, violent creatures, prone to both attacking strangers and throwing random things and offspring through windows, breaking few noses) that grew meaty (from all the pollutants), curled hair in the front (the stank inside goblin huts could do that to anyone, that‘s why werewolves never visited poor neighborhoods) and bald spots that they tried to cover by close fitting hats (harder for goblins to steal and use as a night pot). Yet they persisted, dreaming of one day themselves becoming the masters of „Jawruslame“.



Imps, of course, never cared for such things. After repairing a beached ship, they left the elven realm to explore the seas, where they spotted a volcanic land that showed traces of Dremer infestation.



Snoop Jim-s was, unfortunately, a lot closer to the damned invaders.
A magical attack by the evil sorcerers left quite a few of his number dead.

„Yo, yo jive turkeys think you can mess wid me? I show ya who ya fukkin wid!“ howled the rrat prince while holding the lifeless paw of a favored hoodrrat.



Yet while death reigned in the north, life sprang forth in the south. A new settlement was built in the plain between an elven village (full of elven women) and minotaur caves (full of minotaur). An uneasy peace settled as the King promised to keep the elven women safe from possible depredations of minotaurs and the minotaurs safe from roaming bands of elven feminists.

„M‘lord, might I inquire why did you elect to call it Dremo?“ asked Melchior.

„Why, to mark our inevitable victory against the alien invaders!“



And Dremo‘s position was relatively safe at the time. The ogres had been whittled down to such level where King Lich saw it fit to relocate the werewolves to the anchor and left goblin archers to mop up. The last ogre tried to run into elven territory and maybe star a life of a revolutionary, much like his brothers before him.



Meanwhile, the Imps finally discovered the lands of Sol de Torvega.

„Nice to finally see architecture that doesn‘t make my head hurt“ remarked the King.



Speaking about peoples with non-Euclidean outhouses... another arrow flew into the great hall in the capital and pierced another goblin. On it was the declaration that Amberon, the Elven king, had broken their Non-Aggression pact.

Lucius had a suggestion as to why.

„You see, m‘lord, having failed to court them themselves, elves are very angry when someone comes to friendly terms with elven women“.


Luckily, most other rules were far more reasonable!