Chapter 30: Isekai Life & Stairway Battle

Of course, before any of my plans could be executed, I had something to do.

I took Yua gently by the elbow and pulled her aside where where she was standing guard at the stairs. She appeared confused, but despite that had a stern expression.

“Do you require something, my lord?” she asked with a certain chill in her voice.

I frowned. Why did she seem upset suddenly? “Okay, so, we have a new plan,” I said, “We’re going to try and bait the goblins into attacking us so we can try to take out the enemies that have a chance of running us all down if we try to escape. Haseth and the elves are going to capture the floor below us, and drive the goblins further downstairs.” Hopefully they’d be able to do that, in their hungry and weakened state. “Now, us, Voss and Raszil are going upstairs to clear the rest of tower,” I finished explaining, “After which we’ll be getting rest for the siege.”

“Understood,” was all she said, before turning back to her post.

I sighed to myself, and reached out to grab her elbow again. “Why are you upset?” I asked directly.

“I have no right to be upset, my lord,” she replied.

“But I can tell, you’re acting all terse.”

“Forgive me, my lord, I must go back to my position.”

My brow furrowed. Were we really doing this? “Alright, you know what? You can help Haseth and the Ravenwatch take the floor below us, then.”

To be totally honest, it was something I thought of. Her paladin’s aura would be of the most use when fighting a big horde of enemies, especially considering that the Ravenwatch seemed to use chainmail and shields exclusively for armour. The only problem was directing her when there was a language barrier ... but I was also upset at her sudden attitude. I wanted to punish her, even though it was completely childish for me to do. But ... at least I wasn’t the only one being childish.

Her face twisted in a variety of expressions- an angry glare, and bitter frown, but she eventually snapped to attention and offered me a deep bow. “It will be as your say, my lord,” she replied, and by the time she straightened from her bow she had schooled her face to a stoic grimace.

I sighed again. I had no time for this. There was so much to do before night fell. I wasn’t absolutely certain that a bunch of goblins riding worgs would be able to travel as far as we did on the river, but this world was based on AD&D, where that kind of dramatic convenience was common.

I headed back into the slave pen area and found Haseth, just wrapping up a discussion with the rest of the Ravenwatch, and got his attention.

“Yua will go with you on the attack on the floor below,” I told him.

He gave me a surprised look. “I thought she would be going with you? You two hardly seem to ever separate.”

I shrugged. “She projects a holy aura that can protect you from evil creatures. Your Ravenwatch are doughty fighters, I’m sure, but in this situation I’d rather you have the additional protection.”

Haseth nodded. “Very well, I will not aside additional assistance.”

By this time, the ex-slaves started circulating around with bowls of a hot, thick soup, crowded with vegetables. Without having to feed a few extra hundred goblins, they had plenty of vegetables and broth prepared, though I noted that the soup was conspicuously without meat despite the presence of something unidentifiable on a spit in the kitchen. I didn’t want to ask questions, these people had gone through enough hardship without being asked to relive it just to satisfy my curiosity, and I’m not going to judge them on what they had to do in order to survive.

Hoping that the hot meal would make a difference, I took my bowl from the farm wife handing them out, and went to find Voss. Surprisingly, my knight was surrounded by a crowd of the older “children”- old enough to be on the cusp of adulthood, young enough not to be entirely entrusted on their own ... yet. Included among them was the bushy-haired girl who had first spotted me earlier that day.

“ ... And then the hobgoblins brought them in- a pair of giant, killer man-eating apes.” As Voss paused for effect, a low “ooh” chorused from his audience. “I had to face one alone while it took all my allies to defeat the other. It was a vicious beast, but all beasts fear steel. Or, at least, they do after you poke them a few times.”

That wasn’t exactly how I remembered it, but it was okay for Voss to puff himself up a little bit. It might even help morale.

Not wanting to interrupt storytime, I instead moved on to find Raszil. The gnome was sitting with his back to a wall, away from everyone else, already digging into his soup. I sat down by him, before finally helping myself to a sip of the soup itself. It wasn’t much, but after so much bread and simple rations, tasted amazing.

Raszil didn’t make any dinner conversation. He was definitely the oddest of my companions, except for the relatively unique Yua. For someone who was so vulgar, when we first met, he seemed more given to being quiet and unobtrusive in crowds. I supposed that was usual for a priest of the God of Secrets, however.

When I finished up my soup, he reached out a hand, offering to take my bowl. “We should get going soon,” he said, pushing himself on to his feet, “How did speaking to Yua go?”

I didn’t really want to get into that, so I avoided the question. “I’ve changed my mind,” I replied, “She’s going to help Haseth downstairs. It’s just you, me and Voss going up.”

Raszil nodded thoughtfully for a moment, then looked back to me. “Are you out of your damn mind?”

“We can handle it,” I retorted, “They’re just goblins, even if there are some tougher ones up there.”

I had been trying to figure out just what the deal was with that pack of goblins from earlier, and my working theory is that the goblin leaders and bodyguards lived way up the tower. Which mean that we had to deal with ... twenty-ish more goblins? All of whom would be at the beefy end for goblins, with minimum 7 hp, but they didn’t get at better at hitting things and with his magical shield, Voss’ Armor Class was verging on “dragonlike”. With Raszil to scout and me to provide ranged support with my darts, we should be okay ... provided the goblins didn’t all come in one big pack and didn’t start rolling 20s like crazy.

Raszil sighed and shook his head. “You’re asking a lot of your man, you realize.”

“I know.” I’d have to make sure to reward him, somehow, later.

Of course, if you speak of the Devil, he will appear before you, so it was around that time that Voss, having finished his story (and soup) came over to us, glancing around. “Where’s Yua?” he asked, “In the little dragons’ room?”

It always surprised me how the people in this world knew what bathroom activities were, even though they never had to go. “She’s not coming,” Raszil stated flatly, “Apparently Theodore thinks you can take on all the goblins yourself.”

“Maybe, well, probably, though I would have liked the help,” Voss said with a confident smile, but when he looked at me his expression changed to concern. “Is something wrong, Theodore? You seem...”

“Come on, let’s go,” I said, levering myself up from the ground, “Let’s try to get this done so I can have a decent amount of rest before tonight.”

My two companions shared a glance, but said nothing, falling into line as I led the way to the landing.

We began our slow, methodical journey up the tower. Raszil would wait on the landing, keeping a lookout, while Voss and I first searched all the storage rooms, and then did another pass over the rooms on the floor where I recovered Kythaela. The goblin corpses we left on that level were starting to stink, and I made a mental note of detailing someone to come up here and toss them into the sea.

The next floor was largely empty, except for another kind of communal barracks-room and another private room for some other VIG (very important goblin). This was also the level upon which was access to the third battlement. So Raszil and I took a quick stroll around the tower while Voss had a bit of break on the landing.

“Hey, see those?” Raszil said, pointing towards land.

I squinted, and shaded my eyes against the setting sun. The strip of field dividing the coastline from the trees immediately around the tower was dotted with little black objects that certainly weren’t there before.