Chapter 12: Raid

The next morning we had breakfast as if nothing had happened, except for the fact that Yume was alone in the tavern when we entered it with the Chosen One being nowhere in sight. She gave me a radiant smile when she saw me and, without prompting, told us:

“I am afraid my Master is feeling a bit under the weather this morning. It would appear he had a little too much to drink last night.”

I decided to play along and replied: “That truly is too bad. I hope to be able to drink with him again soon, though.”

She gave me a cheesy smile and we started to eat breakfast together.

Thankfully, at least that was fairly normal, an omelet filled with cheese and, you guessed it, more mushrooms. The eggs had a slightly weird color and flavor and I was almost certain they hadn't come from a chicken – or from any other bird for that matter – but decided not to say anything. It was still tasty after all.

**

It took a while longer for the Chosen One to shuffle downstairs into the tavern for his own breakfast. He looked half-dead, his complexion a little green, and he had dark bags under his eyes.

“How the fuck are you even alive right now?”, he asked me, his voice reedy as he slumped down into the chair next to Yume.

“Clean living”, I told him. It was easier than admitting the truth. In truth I'd drank less than him, had had a filling dinner alongside it and had Alisha cast her minor healing miracle on me to purge the alcohol from my system. Athena's bush, I loved that trick.

The Chosen One was about to reply when the ground began shaking violently and something huge roared. The shaking was apparently too much for him because he leaned to the side, thankfully the side Yume wasn't sitting on, and threw up all over the floor.

We all ran outside, the Chosen One dragging himself after us, and we saw what had made the sound.

The disc of rock that Shackled Hollow was built upon was roughly twenty feet thick and floated about thirty feet above the ground. Thus, we had a really great view of the forty foot tall giants pulling on the chains keeping the village shackled to the ground, trying to drag it down. From what we could see there was a giant on each of the chains and a swarm of goblins skittered around them, many riding wolf-sized spiders called Rotskull Spiders, named after the necrotic venom of their bites, which was potent enough to slough the flesh right off of bones.

As we stared at the full-scale attack another being stomped into view. It was even larger than the giants, easily fifty feet tall. At first I couldn't make sense of what I was looking at, but then it clicked. A Hecatoncheir, a hundred-handed giant. I'd never seen one and had always expected them to have multiple arms coming out of their shoulders, but the reality was far more disturbing.

It was humanoid, standing hunched over but clearly having two arms and legs. Except they were unlike any arms and legs I'd ever seen. The limbs began impossibly thick as they emerged from the torso but branched off like trees, again and again, until they ended in dozens and dozens of differently sized hands and feet, a forest of appendages. Its skin was pale and sallow and it wore nothing but a ratty beige loincloth that only barely hid something I had no desire to look at. Its head looked fairly normal at first glance, though normal for a giant was still freaky as the slit of its mouth was grotesquely wide, able to open up far wider than a human's. But even worse than that were the cancerous growths dotted around the head, each of which looked like a wizened human face. Even more bizarrely, it had a huge pulsing canker right over where its heart should have been, something I'd only ever seen of beings serving the Black Goat.

Were Hecatoncheires creations of Shub-Niggurath? And if so, why would a Dark Lord employ one? It made no sense. The whole point of Dark Lords was that they only existed to toughen us up so we were strong enough to fend off the Outsiders.

Then I noticed a goblin shaman standing on the huge beast's shoulder and he began casting some sort of magic. The Hecatoncheir was too far away yet for anybody to kill the little shit so he managed to finish his spell, summoning the ghostly outline of a face in the sky. The face smiled at us and spoke, its voice as loud as a thunderclap.

“Salutations, Shackled Hollow. I am Lord Amdusias, rightful ruler of this land. You have refused to bow to me thus far and my patience has run out. This is your final chance to surrender before my army crushes you. If you surrender, most of you will live. If you don't, most of you will die. Your men will be slaughtered, your women will become playthings for my goblins and your children will feed my beasts. Which one will it be? I give you ten minutes to decide.”

A villager right next to us whimpered: “Oh gods, what do we do?”

A member of the guard right next to him barked: “Our lord will fix this. Somebody go and get him!”

Just then I felt the unmistakable and eerie sensation of space warping and a man with a neat gray beard wearing wizard robes stepped out of a spatial disturbance next to us. Just from his magic alone I knew who the spire in the middle of town belonged to and who was responsible for all the marvelous spatial enchantments of the village.

“No need. I am here.”

“Lord Isaac”, the guard said. “Thank you for coming.”

“Not like I could sit this one out”, the lord said. “They've gone too far this time.” Then he looked over to our group. “Are you perchance a Chosen One?”, he asked the man in question, who still looked green around the gills.

“He is”, I answered for him. “But he's got a bit of a hangover.”

“Ah”, the lord said. “And you fine young people are his companions?”

“Correct”, I said. “If you allow us to help, we will. This Dark Lord is the one we're after.”

“Appreciated”, Lord Isaac said. “Will somebody get this man something for his hangover?”, he asked in the direction of the guards but Alisha groaned and cast her minor healing miracle on him. The color quickly returned to his cheeks and he stared at her.

“You could have done this the entire time?”, he asked in accusation.

“It's taxing”, Alisha told him. “So be grateful.”

He growled at her but Lord Isaac spoke up before an argument could ensue.

“So, Chosen One, companions, any ideas?”

I began before the Chosen One could open his mouth. “Can I assume that you can take one of the giants on by yourself?”, I asked Lord Isaac.

He nodded.

“Good. Then my suggestion is that we take on the four giants first. Once they're down, the guards can ride down there on striders and engage the goblin horde. While the battle is going on we”, I indicated our little group of five, “can take down the Hecatoncheir and the shaman.”

The lord nodded and asked: “And how do you intend to take the four giants down? I can take one, but what about the rest?”

“I would suggest your apprentices take on a second, the Chosen One and the rest of our team take on the third and I take on the fourth.”

“You want to go slay a giant all by yourself?”, the Chosen One asked incredulously. “Did you hit your head and go mad when you fell down the canyon?”

To everyone's surprise it was Yume who said: “I have taken his measure while we were lost. He can handle it.”

I allowed myself a small smile. Yume had realized that I wanted to use my new Qi techniques without any distractions.

“I won't let you go it alone again”, Alisha said.

“Cast an Enhancement miracle on me, then”, I told her. “Trust me, the three of them will need you more. I won't die, I promise.”

“Ugh, fine”, she said. “But don't think...”

I finished for her: “You won't kick my ass if I do something dumb, yes.”

She smiled at me and began casting her miracle, strengthening me. Then I looked at Selene, who looked into my eyes for a second before nodding.

Then I turned back to Lord Isaac. I'd heard him talking but hadn't realized who he'd been talking to. From the shimmer of colorless space magic around him, he'd been talking to his guards, because the whole guard force was suddenly converging around us.

“Are you ready to begin, Lord Isaac?”, I asked.

“Just one more thing”, he said. “What should I call you?”

I smirked. “Call me the Godsforsaken.”

**

Lord Isaac hadn't just informed his troops of the plan, he had also split them up into four groups to go down the chains once the respective giants were dead, so I ended up with twenty men in armor following after me. The men led ten striders along by the odd reins they used on the large spiders. The groups were obviously organized for such strategies. Ten of the men wore light armor and had composite bows strapped to their backs while the other ten wore heavy armor, spears and cavalry sabers. Striders were large enough to seat two humans and strong enough to carry them even if both of them were fully armed and armored, so the setup of an archer and a spear wielder was a smart choice. Between the bow, the spear and the strider's venom, each of the ten mounts would pack an enormous amount of punch. They were vastly outnumbered by the goblin spider riders but when fighting goblins you were always outnumbered. Thankfully, by the same token, while fighting goblins you were never outclassed.

My group and I reached the chain we had been assigned to and I quickly went over the plan with them again before the Dark Lord's voice boomed out again.

“It seems you are not groveling as I demanded, so I am afraid I will have to demonstrate that I am serious. Giants, begin!”

As one, the giants grabbed hold of their respective links of chain and started to pull the village down and I got into position in front of the chain and waited for the giant to lean down.

Giants looked fairly human, around forty feet tall but stockily built, bald and with tufts of hair randomly covering their flabby and slightly grayish skin. The only thing that was distinctly inhuman about them was how far their lips stretched, allowing them to open their mouths grotesquely wide, from ear to ear, which came in handy while, say, swallowing an entire cow.

There was some debate as to where giants came from. I had learned that they had been created as a servant race by the Titans but according to Selene the giants were distantly related to the Aesir.

I wasn't sure which was true but I knew that giants came in different types. There were fire giants and ice giants, both of which were definitely related to the Aesir and then there was the other type, the one most commonly referred to as mountain giants. Mountain giants were slightly shorter than the other types but looked almost human, unlike the rime-crusted ice giants with their icicle-covered beards or the fire giants with their perpetually sunburned looking skin and flaming hair. The four attacking Shackled Hollow were all mountain giants and from the bits and pieces of cloth and armor they were wearing they had once served either a Titan or an Olympian. The one Lord Isaac had decided to take on even wore an oversized helmet in the style of the Spartan army.

I waited until the giant had leaned forward to wrap his huge arms around the chain and pull down and back. I pulled out my trusty longsword and felt for the well of Qi inside me, finding it even more potent than ever. I was surprised for a moment until I remembered Alisha's miracle coursing through my veins. Apparently the miracle did what it did by amplifying the life force running through my body. Very interesting and very much requiring further experimentation. Right then, though, I was just glad I had it and sent it down into my leg. At the perfect moment I kicked the ground, sending the energy of a Qi Burst out to push me off, into the air, straight at the giant.

As I flew I summoned the power forth again, this time channeling it into my sword. With all the momentum from the first Qi Burst behind me I thrust the sword forward, unleashing the second Qi Burst and burying the sword up to the guard in the giant's forehead.

I held onto the hilt for dear life as the giant thrashed. He was already dead, I'd skewered his brain, but his body hadn't gotten the message yet so he kept thrashing around, threatening to throw me off. I couldn't allow that as the forty foot fall into a mob of goblins would have killed me so I planted my feet on the giant's eyebrows and shoved as best I could, pushing him back and riding him all the way down to the ground. I wouldn't have managed that without Alisha's miracle making my muscles stronger and my bones harder and I once again thanked what few gods I could stand for my beautiful elf.

To my immense satisfaction his enormous body crushed a whole bunch of goblins and their spiders when he hit the ground.

I may have mentioned my dislike for goblins a few times. I might have called them names a few times, but I fear I never really explained my problem with them.

It wasn't just that they deliberately killed those they caught in the most painful ways their twisty little minds could think up, to the point where prisoners sometimes managed to escape because the goblins had been too busy finding torture implements to guard their prisoners.

It wasn't just that there were no female goblins and they reproduced exclusively by violating the women of other races. In fact, that was the reason why all the warriors behind me were male. There were female guards in Shackled Hollow but nobody in the village was enough of a bastard to send women down into the midst of a bunch of goblins.

It wasn't just that goblins tortured even the women that were so essential for their own survival.

No, all of that was bad but somehow it got even worse. Namely, there were the Rotskull Spiders to consider. Most spider species did not form social groups. They lived by themselves except when mating and even that usually ended with the death of the male.

Rotskull Spiders, meanwhile, lived in colonies like ants or bees and had a symbiotic relationship with goblins. They let the goblins ride them into battle but in exchange the goblins provided them with food and egg carriers.

You see, no mind survives unceasing torture and violation for long so eventually the women captured by goblins just give up, their minds fractured. As goblins are sadistic little shits they immediately lose interest when their victims stop reacting to their torture so once they manage to break a woman they hand her over to the Rotskull Spiders, who inject them with eggs. The eggs soon hatch and the little spiders eat their way out of their nursery, killing the women slowly and painfully. Apparently even the most broken women release a few final whimpers when this happens and the goblins savor that pain like a fine wine.

So yeah, unsurprisingly female adventurers all carried poison pills they could use to end their suffering in case they were taken alive by a group of goblins. In my travels I'd even heard of adventurers killing their female comrades as a mercy rather than let them get taken by the little green shits.

So you better bet I cheered louder than the guards when I heard some half-crushed goblins whimpering in pain underneath the giant's corpse.

The fallen giant also managed to scare the goblins off of me for a few crucial moments until the guards stopped cheering and got on their striders. The moment they were in motion the archers fired off a volley at the goblins closest to me, killing the ones that had gotten over the deaths of their comrades the fastest.

I took aim at the closest goblin spider rider and sent out a vertical slash backed by Qi Projection that cleaved both mount and rider in two and then dashed towards a cluster of goblins without spiders. I did not want to deal with Rotskull venom if I didn't have to.

Just as I reached the mob of goblins everyone buckled under the pressure of a horrible shriek. I turned around to see what had made the sound and saw the giant Lord Isaac had attacked, its body horribly mangled. A being that big shouldn't have been able to let out this high-pitched a shriek but whatever kind of space twisting the old wizard had pulled off it seemed to have done some tremendous damage. Then I saw another shimmer of colorless magic and the poor thing started to fold in on itself.

I used everyone being distracted as an opportunity to look around for my girls, or rather the giant they were fighting, and I saw it stumbling back under a barrage of fire and air lances. Luckily, the shortest path to reach them would be to cut through the group of goblins I'd approached so I pulled Qi into my blade and swung my sword in a horizontal arc, carving through half a dozen distracted goblins in the blink of an eye. I'd never really had problems fighting goblins in the past but with Yume's Qi techniques it was just laughably easy to mow through the little shits.

The slashes of my Qi Projection weren't even that strong, certainly not as strong as my Qi Bursts, but killing goblins didn't require strong attacks. The issue with goblins was never that they were tough, just that there were too many of them. But now, even without any magic potential whatsoever, I finally had a way to attack several of them at once.

The closest of the surviving goblins chattered at me and raised a cudgel and I let him and his buddies approach. I counted the seconds and when I hit three I turned around and swung down at the one that had sneaked up behind me, cleaving the goblin in two.

These little shits were so fucking predictable.

The moment the tip of my sword struck the ground I channeled Qi into it and twisted around, a Qi Projected horizontal slash cutting through the three that tried to jump me while they thought I was distracted.

As I said, fucking predictable.

The remaining five seemed to be worried and I took advantage of that. I held my arms out and slowly advanced towards them, a smile on my face. They weren't known for their bravery but sometimes fought like cornered rats if scared. In this case, one of them broke and tried to make a run for it but I pulled out my crossbow and hit him in the back of the head, then put the crossbow away so I had my hand free when the remaining four charged me. I twisted out of the way of the first, stabbed the second in the throat as he jumped me, swiped my right leg out to topple over the third and straight up grabbed the fourth by the face and slammed him into the ground so hard his skull broke.

The one I'd dodged struck me in the back but he had a blunt weapon and I had an Enhancement miracle pulsing through my veins so I barely felt anything and ignored him as I stabbed down at the one whose legs I'd kicked out. Then I turned back towards the one who had managed to hit me and his eyes bulged out as he looked at the horde of dead goblins around him. He raised his club to guard against my sword strike but I channeled Qi into the strike and it carved through both the club and the goblin without pause.

ChrisLensman

I would like to preemptively mention that I named the Dark Lord before I learned of Cult of the Lamb.