1.30 – Guild Quest II

On the way up, they ran across several groups of goblins. However, they were uniformly disorganized, and they fell into a panic the moment Rika hit them. The groups were mostly just foragers and skirmishers, with hardly any warriors among them. Since entering the caves, they were the first of such variety they’d encountered. None of the goblins they encountered were over level eight.

Rika made quick work of each group, with Erik having little to do but stand by and watch. Their disorganized attempts at a defense were a far cry from the deliberate ambushes they’d suffered on the way in. While she couldn’t truly know the minds of such creatures, all signs Rika could see pointed to a desperate flight. With the bulk of their fighting force smashed to pieces and their leaders all dead, they’d little cohesion left, and less reason to stay.

Even with their several brief encounters, the trip to the surface took far less time than the slog that had been their descent. When the entrance to the cave came into view, a spot of clear daylight against the black of the shadows and the mottled gray of the stone, Rika took a moment to let the relief seep into her bones. Had it not been for the weight of her fatigue and the ache in her arms and legs that deepened with every step, she’d have broken into a run at the mere sight.

As it was, she and Erik both continued their trudge up the sloping stone floor of the once-stronghold they’d left behind as a ruin. Rika didn’t let herself think how many bodies lay below, stinking the stale air as even now they bloated with rot. Chryson had said upward of two hundred, perhaps more, given the goblin shaman that had led the group. It didn’t matter. Death had been poised to take its due, and it mattered little who had been marked. If not the goblins and their leaders, it would have been her. Vilmos and Kriztan could attest to that much, from their new home beyond the grave.

When at long last they stepped into the fresh air of the Ironback Mountains once more, Rika could have kissed the dirt. Or the trees. Or anything, really, so long as it wasn’t stone. She turned her face up to the sky and let the setting sun warm her cheeks, chasing away the last of the chill from the cave below.

Taking a deep lungfull of sweet mountain air, she turned to Erik. “It’s late,” she said. “We’re not getting back to Canyon Falls before dark.”

They headed back to the rocky overhang they’d camped in before everything turned on its head. The sun soon dipped behind the peaks above, and they set to gathering wood while they still had what little light remained. Soon a fire crackled at the mouth of their tiny, most-certainly-not-a-cave. Rika warmed some trail rations on a couple of flat stones. Jerked meat and half-stale bread, with some hard cheese close at hand. Sustenance enough, but she was more than ready for a proper meal.

She stared into the leaping flames as she chewed. Eventually, Erik spoke up.

“You were right, you know. About the trap, and all the ambushes. I wonder how things would have turned out had Vilmos and Kriztan listened to you,” he said, a soft, somewhat melancholy undertone in his usual mutter.

Rika didn’t answer right away, careful to choose her words rather that come out with the first thing that sprang to mind. “A lot better would be my guess,” she said after a moment’s silence. “Probably they’d both be alive. Maybe we’d have turned back, maybe we would’ve all made it through. Hard to say.” She turned to Erik and searched his boyish, too-young features while he stared off into the darkness of the mountain night. “How did you end up with those two, anyway? Didn’t seem like there was much sense of camaraderie there.”

Erik picked up a twig, then tossed it into the fire with a sigh. “There wasn’t,” he admitted. “They really only took me on because nobody else would join up with them.”

That was more or less what she’d expected to hear. Sensing more was coming, she kept her silence and just listened.

“I came into town with a caravan just about a week before you did. Vilmos and Kriztan had already formed their party, but they couldn’t find anyone willing to join. The caravan I’d been with was large, so there was basically no risk of attack. At least the experience from the trip got me to level three.”

“You mean you got to level three without ever seeing combat?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Honestly, I was pretty surprised I got that much from the caravan. Pantelis said it was because the quest level was so high. Like I said, they took me on as charity. The caravan itself was big, and everyone was over level twenty.”

“Still doesn’t tell me why you joined up with Vilmos and Kriztan.”

“They didn’t want me at first either. But with no other Supports in town, Vilmos eventually asked me to join. I thought that once I joined, they’d find a fourth.”

Made sense. Support classes didn’t get any of the glory from what she’d seen. Anyone wanting to be a Bastion clearly had to be at least partially suicidal, her own experience down in the caves notwithstanding.

“Anyway,” Erik continued, “I signed up because I needed the experience, and I just wanted to help. I’d heard there had been more and more attacks on caravans and travelers, all of them coming from goblins. Pantelis said it was because of the quest not being accepted for so long.”

“Sir Erik’s Oracle is correct,” Chryson chimed in her thoughts. “Quests such as this one, especially in independent regions, will grow in difficulty over time. As a means of enticing capable individuals to deal with them.”

“So you mean the level change was because we took too long to deal with it?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Once accepted, the level should have remained the same, despite the attacks continuing.”

She tucked that little piece of trivia away as Erik, unaware of the brief exchange she’d just had, continued.

“I became a Healer because I wanted to help people,” Erik said, a bit of that too-rare confidence rising as he spoke. “I thought that if I could just be useful, people would want me around. And that I could, you know, help.”

“Yeah,” Rika said. “Makes sense.”

Silence fell over their camp, and Rika was more the glad for it. The idea of being useful, of being wanted, had hit her in ways she hadn’t expected it to. Her father—Maximilian, she reminded herself yet again—had always made it absolutely clear she was a burden. A charity case, more than anything else. A mistake, the consequences of which were to be tolerated, but never truly a daughter. Never mind the idea of someone to be cherished and loved.

Then, of course, there was her half-sister. Ariadne. She’d heard, mostly from the servants or the soldiers she overheard while exercising, that siblings would care for one another. Play together as children, or support one another as they grew. Her older sister had been nothing but a bully and a menace. Never had she missed an opportunity to make known just how much she resented Rika simply for existing. As if their father’s dalliances were something Rika could control.

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And last was her mother. Or rather, the gaping sense of absence where a mother should have been. Rika had never met her, at least not that she could recall. Didn’t know her name, or even if she lived. A distant presence that Rika only knew existed at one point because someone had to birth her. She couldn’t say whether her mother had wanted her. Couldn’t say if she’d viewed Rika the same way her father did—something to be shoved to the side, forgotten, and sometimes tolerated.

Hell, outside of training or, more recently, fighting for her life, she could hardly recall the last time she’d even been touched. Let alone held. She swallowed down the tightness in her throat that rose unbidden. Yeah, she could understand Erik wanting a place for himself.

For a long time, Rika stared into the flames, keenly and uncomfortably aware of the empty ache in her chest.

Eventually, she roused herself from her thoughts. No use in feeling sorry about the past. She looked to where Erik had curled up, softly breathing where he slept. She propped her head up on her pack, using it as a shitty pillow, and traded the fire for the rocky overhang above. At some point, she must have closed her eyes, because the next thing she knew, it was morning and Erik was gently shaking her awake.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, working out a knot in her neck that had tensed up while she slept.

“It’s fine,” Erik said. He gave her a sheepish smile before he continued. “We didn’t die, and morning came safely enough. You didn’t look like you wanted to talk after you got quiet, and after the stronghold, I guess I was more tired than I thought. I had meant to stay up.”

“Death misses its chance with us once again,” she said, trying to lighten the mood. From Erik’s expression, he didn’t see the humor. “Anyway, let’s get on the road. It’s a good way back to Canyon Falls, and I’d like a hot meal and a warm bed before I get into another fight.”

From their little overhang of a shelter, it was only a short distance to the path that would take them to the road, and from there less than a day’s walk back to Canyon Falls. Before long, Rika realized they were making far better time than they had on the way to the goblin encampment. Chryson helpfully explained that was because of their increased stats, although out of all his physical stats, only Erik’s Resilience had increased. Rika slowed their pace just a bit, and while he never said anything, it was plain that Erik appreciated the gesture.

As they walked along the mountain road, trees slowly passing by on either side and the sun climbing higher by the hour, they chatted idly with one another. Well, Erik was the one to do most of the chatting. Rika soon realized that she had hardly anything to say. What little she did have was wholly focused on hitting things with sharper things, or on subjects she didn’t feel comfortable bringing up. Erik, by contrast, seemed more than happy to talk about his life.

Turned out he was from a small-ish town on the other side of the Ironbacks from the Chillwind Coast. When he was a child, a fever had taken hold of his home. As he’d been one of the first to fall ill, and thus one of the first to recover, he’d been expected to help care first for his parents, then for others in the town. To hear him tell it, that’s how he’d found his calling.

Rika found she was more than happy to listen to his story. It distracted her from thoughts she’d rather not have. As they walked and mostly Erik talked, he eventually brought things back around to the goblins they’d just dealt with.

“I don’t understand how the goblins could have gotten hold of a staff like that. Or the gem.”

“I’d bet whatever coin I’ve got someone gave it to them,” Rika said. She didn’t really see any other explanation.

“I’m worried about others,” Erik said.